Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke in any way.

To my readers/reviewers: Sorry I've been slacking for so long. San and Lady Eboshi have set aside their differences for the time being.

-.-.-.-.-

San and Ashitaka sat at the dinning room in the company of Lady Eboshi. They had just sat through a most uncomfortable dinner due to Ashitaka's bitter mood and San's stubborn unwillingness to speak to Ashitaka.

"So..." Lady Eboshi tried to get a conversation going. "How much longer until we welcome the little one to Tatara?"

"Well..." San started. "About..." Ashitaka interrupted. They both looked at each other and then turned away from each other, neither saying a word.

Lady Eboshi blinked. "All right then..." She poured them each a cup of hot tea, hoping that it would calm the couple's nerves. "I trust that you are going to go raise your child in the village, correct?"

"Actually-" San began, only to be interrupted once again by Ashitaka.

"Yes, we are," he said firmly. "We are going to raise him in the village and he is going to do things the human way."

San looked at her husband with a shocked expression. Who was he to talk? She was the one carrying the child!

Lady Eboshi could see that asking questions about the baby were only making matters worse, and she decided to drop the topic. She took a sip of her tea somewhat nerviously. "This sure is good tea, if I don't say so myself."

San drank her tea quickly, stood up and humbly thanked Lady Eboshi for her hospitality, but insisted that she had to go.

Once she had left the room, Lady Eboshi could help but ask, "Why the disagreement, Ashitaka?"

Ashitaka looked up from the tea cup that he was trying to hide behind. "Hm? Oh, San thinks that we are going to raise the baby as a wolf and let it live in the forest."

Lady Eboshi gasped. "Really? Isn't that dangerous?"

"Of course it is, but I can't seem to get her to change her mind," he said hopelessly.

Lady Eboshi nodded sympathetically. "Well, San did get along in the forest all her life and she's all right... for the most part."

Ashitaka shook his head. "That's not the point. I just want to protect our son- I mean child. We can't have it living out there in the forest. I won't have it."

No matter what she could think of to say, Lady Eboshi realized that this was one subject that she didn't have a say in.

-.-.-.-.-

Early the next morning, San awoke in the forest next to one of her wolf siblings. She had refused to go home and have to be around Ashitaka. If he wasn't going to agree with her then she didn't need to be around him. She had her mind set, and there was no way that she was going to change it. He would just have to come around and see things her way.

They hadn't even been married for a year yet and they were already having great difficulties agreeing on things. They had hardly been ready for marriage, let alone a child. What had they been thinking?

San wasn't sure, but she was starting to see that she should have listened to her siblings when they warned her about committing to a relationship with a human.

She sat up and put a hand gently on her belly. Too late to turn back now.

Her other wolf sibling appeared from the depths of the forest with a rabbit in it's mouth, and placed the limp animal down in front of San.

She held up her hand. "I'm not hungry."

The wolf snarled at the rejection of the food, knowing that San was lying.

San ignored the wolf and got up, preparing herself for when she would face Ashitaka again after not having come home all night, but really, she had gone home. The forest was her home; it was Ashitaka who failed to realize that.

-.-.-.-.-

Ashitaka awoke early and peeked out the window and into the forest every few minutes, anxiously waiting for San to return, hoping that she hadn't run away for good. It hadn't been the first time that she had left without telling him.

He poked his head out the window again to see San saying goodbye to her siblings. He rushed to the doorway and waited for her to come in.

San walked into the room, not even looking up at Ashitaka, or saying so much as a 'hello' or 'good morning' as she passed him.

"Where were you?" he asked her, even though he knew exactly where she had been.

"Home," she replied simply.

"That's not your home anymore, San. This is your home now, here in Tatara with me and all the other humans," he said, as if he were explaining it to her for the first time. "No matter how much you wish it away, you are a human too, San, and you cannot change what you, or the baby, are."

"Why not?" San asked stubbornly.

"Because... that's just the way it works," Ashitaka replied angrily.

San didn't have anything to say to that.

Ashitaka went up to San and put his arms around her. "Listen, I love you, but we have to agree on a way to raise our child."

San stayed silent and still, limp in Ashitaka's arms.

"Do you think that we can make an adult decision on this?" he asked, and waited patiently for her reply.

She slowly put her arms around Ashitaka. "We have no choice."

-.-.-.-.-

Four months passed, and San and Ashitaka had come much closer to agreeing on how to raise their child. Ashitaka agreed to let San teach him how to hunt in the forest as long as he didn't have to sleep in the forest every night, and San agreed to let Ashitaka educate her like a human so long as she wouldn't have to work in Tatara for a living.

With everything basically settled between the two, Ashitaka went about his daily business with San close by, as the baby was expected to be born any day, and the one thing that he absolutely would not stand for was the baby being born in the forest.

"So, Ashitaka..." Toki began. "What are you and San going to name the baby?"

"Well, San is so sure that he's going to be a girl that we agreed that if he is a girl, she will name him Tala."

"That's nice, how come?" asked Toki.

"It means 'wolf'," Ashitaka explained.

"Oh." Toki gave a knowing smile. "And if the baby's a boy?"

"Then I get to name him," said Ahitaka proudly.

"And what are you going to name him, Ashitaka?"

"Taro."

"Well, isn't that original?" asked Toki sarcastically.

Ashitaka smiled.

San moved closer to Toki and her husband. "Ashitaka!"

He moved to San's side quickly. "What is it?" he panicked. "What's wrong?"

"The baby's coming."

-.-.-.-.-

To be continued.

A/N: Taro means eldest son. Please leave reviews. Third and final part coming soon!