A/N: It's finally raining here! Hallelujah! My boyfriend was baptized a few weeks ago, but this week I say goodbye to him as he heads back to his college some two hours away. I will be moving back into the dorm as well. Oh, happy-ish days. I'll have a new roommate this semester because my last one backstabbed me, but she'll still be in the same hall and I couldn't hold a grudge. I'll see and enjoy her company again soon. But I hope that my new roommate, who seems to have a good family and some faith too, will work out much better.
Disclaimer: Nope don't own him
Last chapter: Yuki the priestess examined Rin and gave her a calming tea. She announced that Rin is in labor. Kagome tried to make up with Inuyasha, but he's just not ready to drop his resentment.
Labor
The rain continued to fall outside, drumming on the ground, pouring from the eaves. Yuki and the two maids stayed at Rin's bedside, waiting and tending her. The guard watched over them, oftentimes from just outside of the door. The contamination by blood, and by his own basic fear of such strongly female things, kept him from actively entering the room.
Into the nighttime Rin slept with little trouble. She was pale and sweating and her face creased periodically with pain, but the contractions were still few and far between, though they were gaining intensity as far as pain went. The tea worked well on her, she scarcely opened her eyes until the moon rose and the rain clouds scattered. The moon cast its thin, sickly light through the screens. When it fell on the bed, Rin began to waken at last.
She gasped weakly as her mind became conscious. The moonlight swamped her eyes, making Rin cringe and lift one hand feebly to shield them. Aside from the light, her world was dominated by the dull ache over her belly, radiating over and through her. She made a small sound and turned her face out of the light, one hand went searchingly out over her body, looking for the source of her pain but finding nothing.
The sharp smell of herbs made her cringe. A wet cloth was draped over her forehead, gentle touching hands moved over her body. As the pain faded slightly, she allowed herself to breathe normally again and to try speaking. "What…"
She stopped when she felt someone's cold hand on her thigh, spreading her legs apart. Before she could react to it, she felt the same cold fingers probing between her legs and tensed, reaching out to try and stop it while at the same time struggling to speak. None of it did any good as pain streaked through her, making Rin curl instinctually into a ball as her muscles clenched with agony. When the world floated back to her, Rin was aware of two things: her hoarse panting and a liquid warmth between her legs.
Memory came back to her in spurts. The blood on the tatami mats, the spilled ink on her palm, the whiteness of Sesshomaru's kimono sleeves as they enveloped her, the weightlessness and sickness that traveling in that white world had brought onto her.
It was June, the start of high summer, and Rin was certain that her daughter was premature, the bleeding was too soon. Sesshomaru had killed this baby, the oldest, strongest one she'd ever had…
The grief of such realizations was muted by pain and by the remnants of the calming tea. Rin closed her eyes, feeling tears in her eyes, their hotness as they spilled onto her cheeks, but not the grief that they belied. Her hands fisted in the sheets on the futon.
A priestess was before her, though Rin's vision was blurred, she could still make out the shape and colors. The miko had long, streaming black hair and long, delicate fingers. When she moved over Rin, adjusting the cold cloth over her forehead, Rin recognized the touch as belonging to the person that had spread her legs.
Rin caught the miko's hand in her own as she moved away. "Tell me what's…" she cut herself off, breathing hard, "…what's going on?"
The miko pulled her hand from Rin's stiffly. She was cold, businesslike. "You are in labor, my lady. Please, do as I say for the benefit of yourself and your child."
Rin might've spoken to the miko more, but she was distracted by what the priestess's hands had left on her fingertips. Blood. Rich, thick, and sticky. Rin knew it was her own. The redness was the same as Inuyasha's haori, and the same as Sesshomaru's eyes before he took on his true form.
Rin choked a little, feeling the first jolt of grief and fear. Women died in childbirth and miscarriage all the time. The blood and fluid loss, the pain and grief and stress…
She rubbed the sticky blood between her fingers, lucidly aware of its color and texture, and in that moment, her own mortality.
Another pain gripped her and she bit back a cry, half-holding her breath as it intensified. The priestess appeared at her side, shouting something. Rin was unable to make it out, nor did she care to until the pain subsided. As the wave of it crashed over her and at last faded, she found herself panting and covered with sweat. Her muscles trembled already with exhaustion.
The priestess hadn't left her side, and she was still calling to Rin incessantly. "You must breathe, my lady. You must breathe when the contractions come. Soon you must push as well…"
"Push." Rin repeated, like a parrot. She had closed her eyes, seemingly falling unconscious, but in reality her mind was awake and aware. Her fingers rubbed the blood, now clotting grittily, between them.
In a near-dream state, Rin saw a flash of pink jet across her closed eyelids. Her mind picked this color out and painted a cherry tree in full blossom, the petals from its flowers fluttered in the wind. It dripped them to the ground or to a small stream, rocky and babbling. The leaves quivered in the breeze, as her own muscles did now.
In the dream she was a child, digging her hands into the chilled waters of the river, startling little minnows and tadpoles out of her way. Jaken called behind her, welcoming Sesshomaru back to them. The sunlight reflecting from the water was blinding…
She snapped out of the waking dream—or was it memory?—to hear the miko murmuring instructions to the maids in a low, darkened voice. "Get more cloth for the blood. Tell the guard to bring word to Lord Sesshomaru that the child will come before dawn."
"Yes, ma'am."
Part of Rin wanted to reach out and grab the maid and the priestess together and order them not to tell Sesshomaru anything. He only wants my daughter to die. He has no need of her, or of me. He only keeps me with him now as punishment because I tried to escape him.
Yet, as her voice croaked, trying to get the priestess's attention, Rin stopped, recalling the dream and the blood. If she died before dawn…
Her small sound had been enough after all to attract the priestess. She knelt at Rin's bedside, touching her forehead and asking if she needed anything. Rin ignored the question and clawed at the miko's robes, grabbing her by the collar.
"Tell Sesshomaru…" she rasped between breaths, "That he must…come to me."
The priestess's mouth fell open, gaping. She shook her head. "I can't do that, my lady…"
Weakly, Rin pulled on her robe, trying to shake the other woman. "He must come…" she choked.
Another pain swarmed over her and Rin's hands squeezed frantically on the miko's collar. When it at last passed, she fell limp, drenched in fresh sweat and breathing hard. The miko disappeared, leaving her bedside and heading for the door.
Yuki found herself standing before the doorway to the audience room where Sesshomaru was inside, waiting. He hadn't moved for hours the maids had told her. They believed him to be anxious and in waiting, but they were new to him, new to his service, and couldn't read him well. Yuki wouldn't have any better luck, but she did know that his behavior reminded her of many loyal husbands, distraught at the thought of their wives in pain and bleeding from labor. It would be so easy for them to lose everything in the struggle, and be left alone. They had no power in it at all…
Youkai didn't like things that robbed them of power, not at all.
But it was highly unusual for a man to go to his wife while she was laboring. It wasn't a clean time and by custom it was almost forbidden. Yuki had taken long, nervous minutes in washing her hands, arms, her feet, her face and neck…everything she could without taking a proper bath. Normal men would've only been mildly perturbed by her leaving the laboring wife to deliver such a strange, preposterous message to them, but Sesshomaru was an inuyoukai. He would smell Rin on Yuki still, and he would know that things were potentially very grim.
Even Rin's request seemed very dark to Yuki. She knew that Rin blamed Sesshomaru for the early labor, for the inevitable death of her child. Did Sesshomaru know that? Was it true? Why had Rin seemingly lost her mind and demanded that Sesshomaru join her while she labored?
With shaking hands, Yuki reached for the door and slid it open. The inside of the audience room was dark. It was without windows and there were no lights to brighten it. Yuki fell to her knees in a bow the moment she set both feet inside the audience room. The matting was sour to her nose, she stifled a sneeze and wondered how an inuyoukai could stand being inside the Insen in its state of disgrace, trapped unmoving inside an audience room that drove her weak human nose mad.
There was a long, tense moment of silence. There was a guard in the room, he shifted uneasily. Yuki heard the sound of his armor shifting. From straight ahead of her, where Sesshomaru sat, there came no sound at all.
The guard broke the silence, querying hesitantly, "Lord Sesshomaru?"
There was a small sniffing sound, just once, and then Sesshomaru spoke, as if he were waking from some sort of dozing nap. "Miko?"
Yuki sat up, taking that as her cue immediately. "Lord Sesshomaru—your lady has asked to see you."
The shadowy shape ahead of her didn't move and didn't reply. The guard did it for him, growling angrily, "And why aren't you with her?"
This was a different guard than the one posted outside Rin's room. This man was a suck-up, interested in impressing Sesshomaru. Yuki doubted that he was foolish enough to try and make small talk with the demon lord, but his behavior screamed his intentions loud enough. Sesshomaru was fully capable of speaking if he wished, but since he made no move to reply it was silence apparently that he wanted; he didn't want or need a pesky guard to act as his voice.
Yuki's suspicion proved correct as Sesshomaru's form moved, turning slowly to regard the man. Foolishly the man was staring at Yuki, trying to intimidate her.
"I am delivering her message to Lord Sesshomaru. She insisted—"
Sesshomaru lifted his hand in a sharp motion, silencing her. "Do not answer him."
Yuki closed her mouth and bowed, murmuring apologies. The guard shifted uncomfortably. They waited until Sesshomaru spoke again, breaking the silence.
"The child will come before dawn." He was repeating the news that Yuki had sent to him through the maid. There was a note of darkness inside his voice, a slight pause that made Yuki suspect that the inuyoukai was fighting some strong emotion, but just what she couldn't be certain of. "This is true?"
Yuki swallowed nervously and tried to control the shaking of her voice. "Her labor has progressed swiftly, my lord. Yes, I believe it is true." She stopped, looking between him and the guard uncertainly, trying to read their faces, though it was impossible in the dark. "She has called for you, Lord Sesshomaru. She asks that you come to her."
She expected him to say no, or perhaps to dismiss her without a final word, but instead Sesshomaru shifted in his seat, as if uncomfortable. Yuki saw the flash of his long, streaming white hair, like snow from winter that would never melt away. He asked, "She is delirious?"
Yuki blinked. "I…I am not sure, my lord."
"Tell me the circumstances." Sesshomaru ordered. His words had become bland, almost gentle with patience, encouraging her to follow the order in depth.
"My lady…she pulled me to her and asked that I summon Lord Sesshomaru to see her. I told my lady that I could not do such a thing, but my lady insisted that I bring Lord Sesshomaru to her." Yuki wrung her hands together and stared at the floor.
"You told her you could not?" the sharp tone was unmistakable, and though she might've imagined it, Yuki thought she heard an intake of air, the kind that might be done when rage or fury boils the blood.
"My lord, the tradition…" she shook her head helplessly, wondering if perhaps she had guessed completely wrong when it came to inuyoukai, "It is labor. It is unclean…"
"You are all unclean." The sneer in his voice was clear, though Yuki couldn't see his face. The disgust was obvious. She bowed low, muttering an immediate apology. The guard shifted again uncomfortably. Shockingly, Sesshomaru wasn't finished; he spoke again, adding, "It is life."
They both muttered apologies now, though they couldn't understand Sesshomaru completely. As Yuki prostrated herself anew, Sesshomaru rose to his feet and, weightless and soundless, slipped past her toward the door.
Shocked, with her mouth hanging open, Yuki jumped to her feet and hurried after him, leaving the guard alone in the darkness of the audience room.
When the miko had come to him, sheepishly telling him that Rin had summoned him, Sesshomaru had assumed the worst, and not incorrectly so. The miko had brought the stink of Rin's blood to him freshly. Bits of it hid in her clothes, as did the reek of Rin's sweat. Before, sitting in the audience room waiting, he had scented it through the halls and even through the walls only dimly. The mustiness of the Insen had partially obscured his olfactory sense.
News of their daughter's impending birth set him on edge, though exactly why he wasn't certain of. Sesshomaru generally abided by culture—as it was dictated by humans—when it came to "unclean" things, such as labor. Yet, as a youkai, he had taken life more times than he'd probably blinked, certainly more than he cared to count. Why should the creation of life be any different? It was so much rarer, and yet just as traumatic and messy. It was unclean, just as revenge, murder, assassination, and death were.
That the miko would hesitate to tell him of Rin's request—and it did appear that it was a request, not a delirious plea for his presence or aid—infuriated him.
He found himself before the closed door to Rin's room, smelling her blood and sweat so acutely now that his skin crawled. The guard here had stepped aside wordlessly, a wise move. Sesshomaru's sharp ears could pick up the sound of the miko hurrying after him, rounding the corner. As she came around it and could see him, she slowed her approach, trying to muster dignity and to avoid insulting him.
She'd do better to follow the guard's actions, to turn away, to let him do as he rightly wished.
Sesshomaru found that his muscles were tense; the joints of his arm were slow to respond, as if they were reluctant to enter Rin's room. It wasn't the carnage that he feared, the blood or the sweat, but it was what all of that would mean. Was Rin dying? He couldn't bring her back from the netherworlds any longer; already she had cheated death far too many times. There were things that even Sesshomaru couldn't do.
What would he do? If Rin died and the child along with her…or somehow worse still, what would he do if Rin died but the child survived? He had lost his father when Inuyasha, a hanyou, was born. Would he lose his mate to that same curse? How could he look at their daughter, her daughter, his daughter, knowing that she had killed Rin?
Yet the same could be said of him…I transported her here. I knew it sickened her…
Sesshomaru slid the door open and paused, staring into it.
The stench of blood tackled him, strong and overpowering. The mats around the futon were stained with red-brown marks, Rin's blood. A pool of black ink also marred the mats, smeared around. In one place he saw a clear handprint. The two maids were positioned around Rin's futon, their faces tight with fear.
Rin, lying on her futon, drew his eyes lastly, as if the sight took effort and courage to get to, like running up a hill. A sheet covered her legs, but Sesshomaru could see the bloodied rags lying around her and poking out from underneath the blankets. There was blood around her head, smeared by fingers and the touch of the maids and the miko. Rin's face was shiny with sweat and with tears. She was still wearing a robe from the daytime hours, not a night robe. No one had bothered to change it with the swiftness of her oncoming labor. Her hair was a wild, uncombed black mess spread over the pillows.
As a child he had rescued her, dirt-stained, rail-thin, and barely speaking. The woman before him, bleeding and broken, gripped him just as the tiny girl's corpse—maimed and eaten by wolves—had years ago. In that different time, in those lost days of innocence, he had knelt and helped her to her feet himself with his single arm and the stump of the other still smarting from the blow delivered by his brother.
History had a funny, twisted way of repeating itself.
Pushing open the door as wide as it would allow, Sesshomaru strode into the room. The maids scattered before him, whimpering with fear and dismay. Sesshomaru ignored them as he knelt at Rin's bedside and reached out to her face, touching her moist, hot cheek.
"Rin." His voice was gruff and deep, reminding him of his father's on the night they had last spoken. Inutaisho's wounds had weighed on him, and so had Sesshomaru's cruel heart. They hadn't exchanged a proper farewell, and now they never would.
On the futon she opened her eyes gradually, flutteringly. Her brown eyes were deep and dark; they appeared black like the spilled ink on her tatami matting. Yet when she saw Sesshomaru her mouth opened wide and her hands lifted with surprising strength from the sheets, reaching hungrily for him. Her eyes grew moist, clouding at once with tears.
"Sesshomaru…" she croaked his name out in a rasping voice. Her hands closed over his collar tightly. Sesshomaru could smell the blood and sweat on them. His kimono was red and blue at the top, but there were a few places where it was white. It was a rich silk, befitting an immortal lord poised to go into a massive war, but though it might stain, Sesshomaru gave it no thought at all. If a kimono was to be sacrificed for Rin, then it would be a tiny price to pay indeed.
He didn't take his eyes from Rin's face as he commanded, "Leave."
The maids, half crying, did as they were told, exiting the room at once. The guard reached to close the door after them, but the miko stopped him, slipping inside and prostrating herself. "Lord Sesshomaru…"
Now he turned away from Rin, openly frowning. "Get out."
The miko bowed again, muttering apologies. The glimpses that Sesshomaru got of her face expressed shock and terror. Clearly she believed that if she didn't leave he would kill her. She left the room and closed the door herself, but she didn't go very far away, perhaps believing that soon Sesshomaru would excuse himself and leave the woman's work to the women once again.
She was going to be surprised.
"Sesshomaru." Rin called, pulling on his collar with one hand. When he looked at her, meeting her frankly in the eye, she touched his cheek. Sesshomaru felt the grit of her clotted blood left behind by her fingertips. "I'm…" she hiccupped and the tears began to flow without ceasing. "…sorry…"
He blinked at her once, startled, and found that he couldn't find a thing to say, nothing…
"I love you." she whispered, sobbingly. "I love you."
Sesshomaru stared at her, almost unseeingly. Her behavior baffled him; he fought the desire to frown at her, but knew she would see it—if she was thinking clearly. Why would she call him for this?
Rin's gaze was searching his face, reading his expression in her usual, knowing way, but the tears continued to flow, and the raw twist of emotion—despair—in her face remained unchanging. If anything it intensified. "I want…" but her words were cut off as she squeezed her eyes closed tightly and gritted her teeth. Her hands on the collar of his kimono clenched, her entire body trembled.
The answer came to Sesshomaru with a jolt as he watched her body quivering, heard her heart hammering wildly, smelled the richness of her tears, her grief, her sweat, and her blood. She believes she will not survive this…
No…no…
He gripped her arm with his hand and tried to pull her closer or to pull her upright. He succeeded only in pulling her closer. The contraction had not yet passed, and Rin's body had snapped taut, every muscle strained as the pain tore through her. Sesshomaru watched her shaking body with an expression he had likely not worn since childhood. His golden eyes were widened, his lips slightly parted. For that moment, alone and with Rin not observing him as she suffered, he was helpless and afraid.
The contraction passed and Rin's body slumped. Her breaths came easily again and her eyes drifted open wearily. By that time Sesshomaru had recovered, his jaw had tightened down; his eyes had narrowed to a more normal position. He let go of her arm and touched her hair instead, feeling the stickiness of sweat even through the thick wiry strands of it. "You will not die."
She acted as if she didn't hear him, just kept breathing, trying to recover her strength.
He repeated himself, more firmly this time. "You will not die."
Rin made a small sound, half-whimper, half-sob. "Why won't you…answer me?"
Sesshomaru paused, taken aback. "Answer you?"
She let go of his collar and instead fumbled for his hand on her hair, grabbing it with both of her own. "I wanted you to know…" her sentence was drawn out because of her panted breaths, "I love you. I always loved you." she choked a little and a few fresh tears oozed out of her eyes. "You hurt me…"
Sesshomaru pulled away from her slightly, glancing swiftly from her, as if she had suddenly become repulsive. "Do not speak of it. You must be calm."
Rin squeezed his hand fiercely and made a face, gritting and baring her teeth toward him like a dog. "It's too late!" she pulled on his hand, trying to force him to look at her again. "She's already gone…it's too soon." Rin shook her head, beginning to sob in earnest.
Sesshomaru allowed himself to look back at her now. "She is not gone."
Although she heard him, Rin didn't respond except to keep crying and repeat, "It's too soon…"
"She is hanyou." Sesshomaru said calmly, "It is not too soon."
Rin searched Sesshomaru's face with a mixture of confusion and possibly the beginnings of hope. "How can you know?"
"I can hear her heartbeat. Her scent…" his voice trailed away and he swallowed thickly once, actually analyzing the scent again just to be certain. The labor had filled the room not only with Rin's scent and her suffering, but also the scent of the child's stress. Inside it Sesshomaru's acute sense of smell could pick out growth hormones. Their daughter was more advanced than she should've been. She would be small, but she was strong, a survivor.
"She's alive." Rin's grip on his hand loosened, going slack. "She'll live?" she continued searching his face, as if he knew everything, as if he had become some sort of god as she lied there, bleeding and perhaps dying.
"She may." Sesshomaru answered, trying to control his voice. It sounded too thick. There was too much saliva in his mouth. Sesshomaru swallowed, fighting a grimace. What if he lost them both? What if Rin died and left the child…? What if Rin survived and the child did not? How could Rin survive that loss…?
As if she could read his mind, Rin squeezed his hand tightly again and asked, "If I die—you'll take care of her?"
Sesshomaru pulled his hand from her and frowned, almost growling. "You will not die."
As if to contradict his words, Rin closed her eyes again and inhaled sharply as another contraction smashed into her. Her breathing was stilted by the pain, the world vanished from her. Sesshomaru watched her, his own inner demons battling inside him. When the incapacitating pain at last passed, Rin went limp, panting.
For the fourth time, Sesshomaru repeated himself, "You will not die."
Rin struggled to open her eyes and gaze up at him. The contraction had robbed her even of the strength to shed tears. She lifted one hand up toward his face, touching his chin and then one cheek. She ran her fingertips over the red-purple streaks there. "Why…" she started slowly, "…didn't you tell me…about your wife?"
Sesshomaru scowled, "She is of no importance now."
"And your heir?" Rin continued, her voice heavy with exhaustion. "A son?"
"It is unimportant." Sesshomaru replied, evasively though his face was still twisted with his scowl.
Rin's hand on his own tightened, mashing his fingers while in the same moment avoiding his claws. "Tell me." anger had begun to creep into her voice, into her expression.
Sesshomaru's lips pursed into a tight, white line. "I could not tell you because I did not wish to harm you."
She shook her head on the pillows, nostrils flaring. The movement sent Sesshomaru a fresh rush of smells, sweat, pain, fear… "That's not enough."
His eyes narrowed angrily. "You always knew I would marry to produce heirs. You accepted it. And you ran away from me—to Shimofuri, my enemy." He snarled.
"You should've told me!" Rin half-shouted, but her voice faded, leaving only a hoarse rasp. "You should've waited…"
"You should never have run!" Sesshomaru hissed harshly. "To Shimofuri, to Inuyasha…"
"You deserved it." she answered, stubbornly, now trying to pull away from him, pushing his hand away, and pulling into herself.
Sesshomaru took her hands by the wrists, forcing her to stay facing him. "I have done all I can. I have avenged you."
"Avenged me?" Rin repeated, blankly. Her eyes dipped shut briefly; her muscles slackened with exhaustion briefly before she shook it off, forcing herself awake again. She pulled against his grip, trying weakly to get free.
"The miscarriages were the result of sabotage. You were poisoned at Nejiro, Rin." His tone had become one of distance and authority, regaining his composure, "I have executed all of those involved." At her confused, speculative stare, he added, "When you were away."
She turned her face away, screwing it up as a contraction hit her. Her blunt fingers dug at Sesshomaru's hand and wrist fiercely as her body was seized up by the wave of pain. Sesshomaru scented fresh blood, heard Rin's heartbeat and labored, stilted breathing. He thought of the miko and glanced toward the screen. The moonlight had passed by, now only the gloom of night remained. The baby would come soon.
Sesshomaru let go of her hands and moved away from the futon slightly, looking down at the sheets covering Rin's body below the waist. Unless he called the miko, he would have to act as a midwife or a healer himself. The idea made Sesshomaru's skin crawl, and his stomach tense and clench up, but the miko would be flustered and she would expect him to leave.
Slowly, Sesshomaru rose to his feet and walked to the door, sliding it open. The air outside was fresh and sweet smelling in comparison to the stuffy, enclosed stink of blood, suffering, and sweat. The guard stood at attention, nodding his head to acknowledge Sesshomaru's appearance. The miko was getting to her feet across the hallway, moving stiffly, as if she'd aged ten years in the time since he'd seen her last. She bowed to him, murmuring something that Sesshomaru didn't bother trying to make out.
"You." he called to the miko, "Come inside."
She obeyed following him inside and heading to Rin's bedside as her contraction passed. Sesshomaru closed the door behind her and then moved to where Rin had set up the desk where she'd been writing before. He seated himself next to the pool of black ink and watched the miko with narrowed eyes.
Rin was breathing heavily, trying to open her eyes. She mumbled and moaned Sesshomaru's name, calling to him. Sesshomaru maintained his distance, waiting for the miko to make some sort of pronouncement.
When the miko moved to pull away the sheet over Rin's lower body, she paused and then turned to face Sesshomaru, dropping into a bow. "My lord…?"
"What is it?" he answered her with open impatience.
"I must examine your lady—it is not proper for…"
"Examine her. I will remain here."
The miko hesitated, making small sounds that might've been attempts to persuade him otherwise, but she eventually turned her back on him when Rin moved, whimpering as another contraction hit her. Sesshomaru watched the miko remove the sheet and set to work, mopping up the blood with rags that were already soaked through completely. She reached between Rin's legs and then withdrew, sitting stiffly and watching as Rin fought her way through the contraction.
When it had passed, the miko moved to Rin's head and called to her, getting her attention. "It's time for you to push, my lady. I will help you sit up…"
(A/N: I have no idea traditionally how the Japanese birth babies. Today in the hospital we do the stirrups, laying the woman horizontally, but in many other cultures, and in times past, it was completely normal for a woman to give birth standing up. Now it might sound weird, but actually that's the position that is best because then gravity helps the mother and makes her job a little bit easier. Our way is more for the doctor's convenience, not the mother's. I'm going to go with the squatting idea because it would make sense gravity-wise. Culture wise…well I searched briefly, but there was nothing about position.)
The miko brought Rin into a sitting position, moving behind her for support. She pulled blankets and pillows, bunching them up to act as back support for when she would be forced to leave to Rin's legs, to tend bleeding and, eventually, to help with the actual birth. She cast wary, uncertain glances at Sesshomaru every other minute or so. The maids would've been helpful, but she didn't ask Sesshomaru if she could call them in, just kept working.
"I need you to push, my lady."
Rin might've fought her, but a contraction swept over her, making her gasp quietly and tense up. The miko called out to her, telling her to push, that it should be an instinctual urge. Rin reached out blindly, gripping the miko and the sheets, straining.
When the pain passed, Rin fell limp, still holding onto the miko. She called Sesshomaru's name weakly, repeating it more as a prayer than actually calling to him. In his place beside the pool of black ink, Sesshomaru partly turned his eyes away even as his body stiffened, readying itself instinctually to go to her. This was the one thing he couldn't save her from…
He refused to consider beyond the possibility that she would die. He hadn't apologized to her—would he ever? Sesshomaru was proud and stubborn. He shared that stubbornness with Inuyasha certainly. It wasn't truly in his nature to admit wrongdoing, most of the time. Yet if Rin died before he could speak to her privately again, her soul would depart unhappily. In the past Sesshomaru might not have believed truly in ghosts, he was as most youkai were, concerned mainly with the concretes of life—that is, what he could see and touch and kill. Souls were incorporeal and untouchable, yet he knew that they existed because of Tenseiga. If Rin died, could he ever appease her soul? Could a human's spirit haunt a guilty inuyoukai?
The labor progressed, agonizingly. Rin's contractions became almost unceasing. She strained for long seconds at a time while the miko offered her encouragement, and then she would fall silent, her body still tense and wrought with pains, but it was enough relaxation that she would call for Sesshomaru again. The miko hushed her in a raspy whisper, telling her to save her breath for the contractions.
Sesshomaru ignored them both, withdrawn and almost brooding as he waited. The thickness of the stink in the room intensified, becoming barely breathable to him.
At last the miko changed positions, moving to prop Rin into an even more upright stance. Precariously, because she was working alone, she supported Rin with one arm and shoulder while she bent forward and tried to feel for the baby's progress with her other free arm. Rin stopped trying to speak at that point, unable to focus energy into forming words at all.
And then, all at once, the baby slipped from her mother's body, half falling and half-pulled by the miko. Sesshomaru came swiftly out of his brooding; watching tensely as Rin fell limp at last and the miko let her go. The infant was hidden from Sesshomaru's view by blankets, but his acute ears told him its heart was beating, though it had yet to breathe. Trepidation swamped him—what would the child look like? A hanyou daughter, but also Sesshomaru's first child. He didn't move to see the child or grab it up, but waited with what would appear like patience when in reality it was foreboding.
The miko lifted the infant in the blankets, cleaning her. She announced the gender as she did so, she couldn't have known it wasn't necessary. "It's a girl…"
The motions of cleaning the baby made her start crying in earnest. Her cries grew in a crescendo, climbing higher. The miko looked uncertainly between Rin's exhausted, panting form and Sesshomaru, dark and silent a short ways away, and hesitated. She held their daughter, but wasn't sure who to pass the child to first, its father or its mother.
Rin made a small sound then and that made up the miko's mind for her. She passed the bundle to Rin and moved away, trying feebly to clean up and examine Rin further. She spoke seemingly to the space around the room, warning the air that there was still afterbirth to pass, and then they would have to wait and rest until the bleeding stopped. "Nurse her quickly, my lady. It will help heal you."
Sesshomaru watched Rin avidly as she laid eyes on their daughter for the first time, as her fingers dug into the blankets and exposed the baby so that she could touch her. Her crying hadn't stopped or quieted at all. Impossibly tiny fingers and feet moved briefly in and out of Sesshomaru's line of sight. Rin's face interested him most of all, the puffiness and shine of exhaustion and sweat diminished as she stared down at her long awaited daughter. Her expression was softened, glowing, the way Sesshomaru remembered seeing her after lovemaking, or when she had been pregnant for the very first time. In that moment the marks of Rin's suffering vanished, and he could see only her joy.
To disturb her to see the baby…it was unthinkable…
A/N: okay, yes I know I am absolutely horrible for leaving you all there with nothing else, not even an initial description of their new baby…so cruel, yes.
I had an excellent suggestion for a name for this little girl, and I've decided to go with it. Saya—Sheath, as in the sheath of a sword. As it was suggested to me, and I loved this idea and it about set me on the name too, Ginrei's daughter will be named Hanone—Fang. Considering that Tetsuaiga was made from their father's fang, Saya made a lot of sense as being paired with Hanone.
That all being said, I wrote this chapter and got to the point where the baby is born and I thought oh crap, what does she look like? Originally I had always planned that genetically it'd make sense for their hanyou daughter to look a lot like Inuyasha, but with the addition of the crescent moon, or the marks on her cheeks. I'll probably still go with that, but I keep thinking…the dog ears are becoming overkill…I dunno. We'll see.