Ascension of the Spirit
By Banana Rum: Kalliel
I do not own any Inuyasha. Original characters and story concept are mine.
Chapter 1: Coral Daughter
Sango
Taiji Village, Japan
Sengoku Jidai
The woman's entire body convulsed painfully, but she bit her lip to keep from crying out. She clamped her eyes shut, as if convinced that that alone would keep the hurt away.
"How goes the child-bearing, josanpu-san?" a broad shouldered man flitted around his wife nervously, destroying his aura of authority.
"'Tis a hard pregnancy. But they say the more difficult it is, the child is more lively!" The midwife shook her head tiredly and tried to smile up at the Master. "Kaiyou-sama is taking it as well as can be expected, for her." The midwife chortled. "But they say a beauty in life is a beauty in death, eh?"
"Damn you, Riie."
Kaiyou didn't hear either of the remarks of ill fortune. She clenched her fists and locked her jaw shut. Even then, she couldn't stifle the bleating whimper that whispered through the dank storeroom. This treacherous place...could it truly be where her first child would be born? Why not with the trees and the grasses and the flowers? She remembered vaguely asking her chichi-ue just such a question when her third sister, Sakae, was being born.
'We can't anger the kami with a sight of such ugliness.' Her father had replied tartly.
Am I really so ugly now, at this moment? That the gods cannot bear to gaze upon me? Kaiyou wondered feverishly. The pain was so great it was as if her soul was slowly separating from her body, sealing her off from the neglected childbirth. Had it really only been seven years since she had listened to her mother's screams as she did just the same thing?
Riie quickly slipped the damp brown paper tainted with blood and vaginal mucus from under Kaiyou and replaced it, steady, trained hands working swiftly and gently. There was no room for hesitation...mistakes. She had seen many children begin to live in this village, and half as many had seen their deaths moments later in her hands.
Looking back at Kaiyou, she saw the ugly, slimy, wet oblong head of a baby, thin, matted strands of whispy locks plastered to its head.
"It comes, Kaiyou-sama! It comes!" Riie shouted excitedly.
With a final resolute heave, the child slipped free of the womb that had been its home for so long. The baby opened its mouth, diminutive in comparison to the cries that erupted from it.
Riie grasped the child firmly in her arms, slicing the umbilical cord with her short ebony-handled dagger.
'Take this." The old woman plopped the sticky baby in its father's arms, still squirming in warm liquid. She expertly tended to Kaiyou and the unmentionable nuances of pregnancy.
Kaiyou's mate, the village leader Matsu, slowly, carefully stripped off the dirtiness on the child and gingerly inspected her. Her.
"It's a girl." Matsu announced in a state of shock, "A girl." The shouji he had half opened to the living air shut slowly in the faces of his villagers.
"Oi, Matsu-sama!"
"Is the child well? And the wife?"
"How goes-"he shut away the clamoring peasants, drowning in his joy and disappointment.
"A girl." He repeated, as if refusing to accept it.
"Yes. Now that we've established that fact, what is her name?" Riie waddled around grouchily. "An unnamed child falls easily into death."
"Sango..." Kaiyou breathed heavily, slurring the syllables to a nearly incoherent garble. "Sango, my coral daughter."
Riie glanced noncommittally at Matsu, gathering up all the putrid brown paper in her arms and dropping it into a pre-dug hole in the musty room. Then she untied her smock and threw it down as well.
"Sango." Matsu confirmed shakily.
A weak smile crossed Kaiyou's fatigued features before drifing into sleep. Matsu continued to stare at this ugly lump of flesh that was his first-born child.
...A girl?
-end chapter one
Well, I apologize horse-crazy-gurl. It's not very romantic yet. I'm not very good at writing romance stories, so bear with me. It will DEFINITELY be more romantic than this chapter. (I hope so, since Sango was only just born and we haven't even met the other character yet)
Maybe I should try one-shot romances first, ne?
Anyway, yes. 'josanpu' is the word for midwife in Japanese, the rest is pretty self-explanatory. See you in Chapter 2!
