The Demon Bride
By Crystal Arrow
Chapter 6: A Cursed Birth
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or the other characters from that story; they belong to someone else who actually has talent.
Several weeks had passed since Sesshoumaru had finally accepted his father's new wife as part of the family. He now paced worriedly outside of his mother's room behind his father. Inuyasha paced behind him, worried and scared by the painful screams he heard from his mother within her room. The three dog demons heard another painful scream. The human's labor had started a day ago, the child had yet to be born.
Sesshoumaru's father was deep in thought. This shouldn't be happening, not like this. He glanced up at the door as yet another painful cry reached his sensitive ears. That damn witch that cursed my family, I should have killed her all those years ago, now she is just too powerful… Still pacing, the three dog demons worried for the human that occupied their hearts.
You see, many years ago, Sesshoumaru's father left a witch that had caused trouble in his lands only half dead. Now, she had returned, and was very near invincible. While the lord of the lands was securing his boundaries several weeks ago, he'd come across that same witch. Before he could do anything to stop her, she cursed his entire family through him. The witch had cried out in fury at him, "Curse you, you filthy dog! For what you did to me, your family will suffer… your third child, which I've heard will be nothing but a stupid hanyou, will die like the scum it will be upon it's first breath of air. Curse you, for your child will die a death more painful than what you inflicted upon me you bastard!" The lord remembered the blinding light and insistent screeching coming from within the witch's cave as he ran out, however, he already knew, that curse was real, his third child will die.
Now, after many hours waiting for the arrival of this child doomed to die, all the pain seemed to be inflicted upon his wife, not the child. Suddenly, the demons heard an especially loud cry of pain, followed by a weak cry from an infant. Their ears perked up, the child was alive. The demon lord, followed by his two sons burst into the bed chambers to find their mother weak. A lady in waiting to her held the child within her arms, as she handed the child to the lord, you could it's mother whisper weakly, "Where's my baby? I want my baby…"
The demon lord removed the blankets from around his newest pup. Just as he was about to completely reveal the child before him, he recalled one of the specific things he had heard the witch mumbling about before she cursed him. 'The Bastard's expecting a child, is he?' the witch grumbled beneath her breath. 'We'll just have to see about that. Should he have a son, which I'm sure the bastard will, I'll kill the disgusting thing. But what if not?………oooohhhohoho, I have much more in store for a girl, oh so much more!' He remembered hearing the witch cackling something about having plans for whatever hanyou bitch he may produce, but he couldn't not understand her words. Does that mean she won't kill my pup if it's a girl? He thought.
He brushed the blanket aside, holding his breath in prayer. He looked down, and gasped. The pup he held had dog ears, as would be expected from a hanyou, but, it also had a tail, something a hanyou would never have, meaning the pup was more demon than human. The pup's scant fur was blackish gray, unlike his, and… she was alive. "My love," he heard his wife call from her bed, "please, how's my baby?"
The demon lord turned towards his wife, once again wrapping the pup up in the thickness of the blanket. He found his wife weak in bed, his elder son seated on a chair beside her, with his younger son perched on his lap. Inuyasha looked up at him worriedly, having heard about the curse foretelling the death of this pup. Sesshoumaru looked up at him, waiting. The lord looked down at his pup, something wasn't right, she didn't cry, she didn't open her eyes, her breathing was labored. Just as he was about to ask the maid to call the medicine man, his daughter opened her eyes and gazed at him. With strong golden eyes, she pierced his heart and soul. With a smile he turned to his family and answered his wife's question. "She is strong, but very tired, she is beautiful darling. She seems more demon than human, but she looks a lot like you, and my late…. Wife…"
He looked to Sesshoumaru. he didn't… then what? He was snapped from his thoughts at his wife's relieved laughter. She held her arms out for her baby. Quite confused, the lord placed the pup in the human's arms. The woman smiled down at the child. "My beautiful baby, you're gorgeous." She didn't notice as her mate left the room to summon the medicine man. She was too happy, for when the curse was placed she could feel something happen to her baby. She knew she was going to bear another son, and what she felt was the curse taking effect. However, she also knew why her child was alive. The curse had called for the daughter to survive. When Sesshoumaru had given her that rose, he had saved his sibling from death. For from that beautiful white rose, Sesshoumaru's mother's spirit came to her and changed the child within her to be partly her daughter as well. "she told me my son would not survive. She said, that if this spell would work, this would be her child as well. Thank you… thank you so much. In honor of your second mother," she said to her daughter, "I will name you Michera, my little demon girl."
Inuyasha was just plain confused, however Sesshoumaru understood. From the rose he had given her, his mother's spirit had visited this woman and added a bit of herself to the unborn child. His half sister, he realized, should have been another half brother, but his mother made her his three quarters sister. It was amazing. You wonder how he knows it was his mother? Michera was the name the lady of the western lands had told her son she would name her daughter, should she ever have one. Her daughter now lay before him. I want to see her, if she is my mother's daughter, as well as this woman's daughter, I want to see her!
As if to grant is wish, his new mother smiled at him just before she drifted to sleep with Michera in her arms. As her arms grew limp, allowing the pup to slip away from her, Sesshoumaru picked her up. Inuyasha peaked over Sesshoumaru's arm to see his new sister. What they gazed upon was a beautiful girl. Her little gray ears were adorable, and her gray tail, still wet, had started to puff up a bit from where is was wrapped about her tiny body. She gazed at each of her brothers in turn with those powerful golden eyes you would not expect to see on an infant. With a giggle, Inuyasha stated, "she's kinda cute."
With a soft snort, Sesshoumaru shoved his little brother off of him, "What do you mean, she's not kind of cute," Inuyasha frowned, thinking his brother was going to call the infant ugly, however, he was surprised as his elder brother then rubbed his head with his fist. "She's very cute." With a giggle, Inuyasha pushed his brother's hand away only to be met with a swat of his brother's fluffy tail. "Now go to bed, it's late."
"Aaww, but Set-chan, I want to stay with the baby." Inuyasha complained.
"Well isn't that too bad. It's late, go to bed." With a whip of his tail, Sesshoumaru sent Inuyasha tumbling out of the room.
Inuyasha's mother giggled, "You were always so kind to your little brother."
"I thought you were asleep"
"I was, but I woke up… isn't she beautiful Set-chan?"
Sesshoumaru nodded in agreement as he gave his finger to the baby, who in turn grasped it with her tiny fingers from which extended human nails. As Sesshoumaru was about to see if she had any claws at all, she extended tiny razor sharp claws into his hand like a cat would do. With a yowl of shock and pain, Sesshoumaru tried to pull his finger away from her only to find she had an incredibly strong grip for a newborn pup. Giggling again, pup's human mother held out her hands for her baby into which Sesshoumaru gladly deposited his newborn sister. As her mother took hold of her, Michera let go of her prickly grasp on her elder siblings poor finger. Sesshoumaru looked at it, to find five little puncture marks with a bead of blood forming in each.
With a pout, Sesshoumaru licked away the blood, while her mother giggled. He looked down at her from his perch on the chair next to her only to quickly look away as the pup's mother opened up the top of her loose bed kimono to feed the pup. Instead he listened as she quietly talked to the infant, telling her how she should be careful of her strength, and how she was doing so good not to bite while she fed as Inuyasha had done so often. Sesshoumaru stayed by his stepmother's side for the entire night as she dozed to sleep, in which he would take the sleeping pup from her mother's arms to rock her gently and whisper to her tales of strength and courage that he remembered from his birth mother.
That was where the demon lord found his son the following morning, seated next to his mate with his newest pup in his arms. He couldn't help but smile as he saw Michera chewing on the edge of Sesshoumaru's kimono sleeve. Gently removing his pup from his son's grasp, and he sent him off to bed as the first ray's of sunlight lit the chambers.
Sesshoumaru slept for the first part of the day, until noon, at which time he visited his mother and new sibling. After lunch, he somehow managed to entertain his brother for the rest of the day as their parents fussed over the new pup. Things were so peaceful for the following days, however, three weeks after the pup's birth, she became deathly ill. All of the best doctors from throughout the western lands came, but found no cure for the pup's illness. Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru spent much or their time alone, as Michera drew closer and closer to death. At four months old, Michera was scarcely ever awake, and constantly lingering between life and death. Inuyasha was sent away to his father's cousins to be cared for, and the demon lord himself left to find a cure for his pup's illness. Sesshoumaru stayed constantly by his step mother's side as she took care of her dying child.
Sesshoumaru, the emotionless demon lord of the west, once fretted over his dying sister. His most prominent memories, he recalls, were of times with his step mother, brother and sister. Sometimes, Inuyasha would be recalled from his relative's homes to stay by his mother's side. It was these times, while his step mother sat in a chair before a roaring fireplace with Michera wrapped warmly in her arms, Inuyasha asleep in Sesshoumaru's arms where Sesshoumaru sat on the floor beside his stepmother's chair. Sesshoumaru would lean his head against her side and listen as Inuyasha breathing softly in his sleep, his chest slowly rising and falling in his peaceful slumber. He would feel the steady heartbeat of his mother and the child so close to him, the mother's strong, and the child's weak and faltering. But most of all he remembers the songs the woman would sing in her sorrow. They were so sorrowful, and peaceful. His heart wretched every time he saw her cry as she sang softly to the child in her arms, the warm light of the fire lighting and shadowing her beautiful face and the orange glow of the sunset painting her hair brilliant shades of orange and red as her tears fell upon her child sparkling like gold in the firelight.
However, nothing broke his heart more, than when he was alone with her, Inuyasha gone to be taken care of by other family. She would stop crying, and though he could sense so much sorrow within her, she seemed unable to cry any longer. One of her songs, so sad it was, remains imprinted in his memories, a beautiful sorrowful song, Michera never heard.
It's been so long since I stopped crying,
Over the thought of losing you.
My lovely angel, this song you'll never hear
You hear me not as I sing for you.
It's been so long since I stopped crying,
For my all tears have long been shed.
So now I only dream of the times we could have shared
If only you were alive my dear.
It's been so long since I stopped crying,
For I know your happier far from here.
In fields of roses under bright blue skies of dreams,
From lands of heaven from which you came.
It's been so long since I stopped crying,
Over the thought of losing you,
The only sadness that I will ever feel ,
Is that
You will never
Hear this song,
Of my love for you…
Author's note:
Took me a while to finish this chapter, it's one of my more depressing chapters. Please tell me what you think of the song (which I wrote, thank you), called 'Crying'. I'll be getting another chapter of 'Lone Wolf' out before I get another chapter of this one, so be patient, it may be very quick. Please Review!!
~Crystal Arrow
