InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Royal Birth: Sequel to His Little Girl ❯ Revelations ( Chapter 22 )

 

 

“Miroku…” Sango said yawning as she sat up in their bed and looked to her mate, his silver hair hiding his face from her view as his bent head looked at his cursed hand in wonder. “What is it?” she asked gently.

 

“My wind tunnel…I felt it last night…it felt like…like it was - shrinking,” he said in wonder as he looked up at her his golden eyes full of shocked wonder as he looked upon his mate. “I just came back from the gardens. I opened it on the stones…it's grown smaller Sango. It won't disappear completely I know that much for certain but it's…it appears to be holding steady. Somehow I know, because of this,” he said as he motioned a hand over his form and hers. “Because we are now inu youkai and will remain as such, the youkai blood, it holds my wind tunnel steady. The void no longer has the chance of consuming me…Sango, I'm no longer…dying,” he said and watched as her midnight violet eyes sparkled with unshed tears.

 

“You mean…by mating, by turning inuyoukai and then mating in the youkai way and bearing a child that was full youkai that turned us back into full youkai, that it has saved your life?” she asked in wonder and sheer happiness unmatched by any she had felt before.

 

“Yes,” he breathed out, sighing in wonder and pleasure. “Our pup, our choice on how to be together, it has saved me, and in turn saved you from a life of loneliness.”

 

Sango's breath hitched and she released a choked sob before flinging herself into her mate's arms and hugging him and holding to her as tightly as she could. No words could describe how she felt at that moment as she cried her tears of love and turbulent joy onto his shoulder. No one could understand just what this meant to her, no one save Miroku perhaps.

 

Miroku sat there in the bed holding onto his mate and was gladder then he ever thought he would be that he was a youkai. He could smell his mate, every emotion and in being able to, knew for what she cried her tears. He could smell her lust and arousal when she wished to mate with him, her anger when she was upset and knew to leave her be, her sadness when she thought of her brother and knew to hold her simply in silence. His arms tightened around the female in his arms and he kissed her, scraping his fangs against his mark on her neck making her gasp as he did so.

 

He was laving his tongue over his mark when he felt Sango pull away from him and make him stop. He frowned and pouted at her, she was not going to be sick from her pregnancy so why was she pulling away from him?

 

“Sango?” he asked and was hushed by her as she put a hand over his mouth to silence him.

 

“Do you hear that?” she asked softly and it was then that he heard the light scuffling outside their door and smelt the nervousness coming through the wood.

 

“Yes,” he said as he removed her hand from his mouth and moved to the door pulling his violet robes over him so that he would be covered. “Rin?” he asked in surprise at seeing the tiny hanyou standing outside their room shifting from foot to foot and biting her bottom lip, her fangs peeking out at him in her nervousness.

 

“What is it Rin?” he asked as he lifted the little girl into his arms and carried her back to the bed, seeing that his mate had covered herself with her sleeping kimono.

 

“Rin sweetie, what's wrong?” Sango asked the quiet child and smelt the tears in her eyes.

 

“Why is mamma so sad?” the hanyou pup asked her voice a sad whisper. “Why won't pappa let her out of her room? Did mamma do something wrong?” she asked as she looked to both for an answer they could not give.

 

“Lady Kagome has been confined to her room?” Miroku asked softly in confusion.

 

“Mmhmm,” Rin nodded sadly. “Shippou said that when he snuck in to see her yesterday that she was crying. Why won't they let us see mamma?” she asked as a few tears slipped down her pale cheeks and she sniffled.

 

“I don't know sweetie,” Sango said her striped face a mask of worry and confusion as she stood and donned her robe. “Come on Rin,” Sango said and opened her arms to the pup that willingly jumped into them. “Let's go see your mamma.”

 

“Can uncle come too?” she asked as she yawned and curled her fist in Sango's robe.

 

Sango looked back at Miroku and lifted a delicate black brow to him. She watched over her shoulder as the monk stood and dressed quickly. He followed them out of the room and down the dark torch lit hallways. It took them only minutes to reach Kagome's door with the ease at which they set their pace and soon stood outside of it.

 

“I don't smell Sesshoumaru,” Sango said hesitantly still unused to her heightened senses. “At least I don't think I do.”

 

“No, he's not in there Sango…but Inuyasha is,” he said in puzzlement.

 

Miroku quietly and slowly slid open the unlocked door and the three, Sango carrying Rin, entered into the room. There upon the bed lay Kagome and Inuyasha. The girl that was their closest and dearest friend lay on her side, her body curled up into Inuyasha's looking as thought the two had fallen asleep hugging or cuddling. But the question still remained, why would Inuyasha be here and his brother not?

 

“What do you two want?” the hanyou asked his voice gruff and quiet.

 

“Rin came to us Inuyasha, she is worried about her mother, and after explaining to us why, we too are concerned for Kagome,” Miroku said as he stood next to the bed at the hanyou's back and watched as his mate circled the bed to stand by the side behind Kagome. “Why is she kept away from everyone? Has she been offensive?”

 

“What?!” the hanyou nearly shouted but just barely kept himself from doing so. “You two think she's being punished?” he asked as he finally turned his golden eyes on Miroku and locked his golden orbs on the inuyoukai. “How the hell'd you change back?”

 

“The child inside of me,” Sango said her voice whispery soft, “is youkai. She was conceived during our - mating after the ceremony,” Sango said in a rush and the hanyou smirked at her shyness.

 

“You're mated to that leach and you're still all shy, that's cute,” Inuyasha said with a chuckle.

 

“Now tell us Inuyasha why Kagome is being kept away,” Miroku said and it was clear in his voice that he thought Kagome was being punished for something.

 

“She ain't bein' punished monk!” the hanyou snarled at them and realized his mistake in his raised voice when Kagome moaned and moved in his arms as she awoke. “Damnit,” he cursed as he saw Kagome blink her storm blue eyes open and look at first him and then the others in the room curiously.

 

“What's going on?” the drowsy miko mother asked as she rubbed her eyes with her fists.

 

“We've been worried about you mamma,” Rin said with a sniffle and looked down at her mother in the bed, her tiny black ears folded back against her head as she whimpered.

 

“Come here pup,” Inuyasha said and opened his arms catching Rin as she leapt into them from where she was held in Sango's arms.

 

Inuyasha tucked the hanyou pup into Kagome's arms and watched as the woman nuzzled her pup and held her tight. Rin whimpered out a soft `mamma' before clutching the woman's neck and hugging her tight.

 

“It's alright my baby,” Kagome said softly as she held the child in her arms. “Mamma's here.”

 

“Why wouldn't Pappa let me see you mamma?” Rin asked as she looked up at Kagome with wide eyes bright with unshed tears. “Were you bad Mamma?” Rin asked with the innocence only a child could have.

 

Kagome squeezed her eyes shut as she bit her lip to keep from saying what had been in her thoughts all day long. Yes, she had been bad. She had been a bad mother, a bad mate.

 

“No,” a voice said startling her from her thoughts and Kagome opened her eyes. “She has not been bad,” Sesshoumaru said as he stepped fully into the room and shut the door. “She has simply been exhausted.”

 

The taiyoukai watched as Kagome's eyes looked up at him guardedly. He knew that she was more upset than mad at him for telling the others that she was on bed rest and not to be disturbed. He came to the side of the bed that Sango sat on and looked at the taijiya inuyoukai.

 

“Sister, are you well?” he asked her softly.

 

“Yes I am thank you. It seems my,” she looked at Miroku standing off to the side of Inuyasha, “our pup was turning us back. Making us like she is, youkai. Inu youkai.”

 

“Hm,” was all the taiyoukai said with a curt nod. “I ask you and your mate to leave to allow my mate rest. Rin you may stay here with us,” he said when he looked at the hanyou pup and found her ears smashed against her head in her upset at the thought of leaving her mother.

 

Inuyasha watched as Rin's ears rose from her head cautiously, only half folded back as she looked from her father to her mother to her uncle. The pup feared that perhaps she had done something wrong in coming to her mother, but she so desperately needed to see her. Rin looked up when she felt Inuyasha start to scratch lightly at the base of her ears.

 

“It's alright pup,” he said gently and pulled the tiny girl closer to him.

 

Rin whimpered softly and rubbed her head under Inuyasha's chin as she gave a low whine in a show of remorse.

 

“Nothing for you to apologize for pup,” the hanyou said to the hanyou pup in his arms as he tucked her against his chest and kissed her head between her ears. “You ain't done nothing wrong.”

 

Kagome and Rin both gave big yawns at the same time and both Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru chuckled softly, both telling child and mother to return to sleep. Sesshoumaru informed Kagome that she would be spending the morning with her mother in the elder woman's chambers and Kagome nodded as she drifted off to sleep in her mate's arms.

 

 

 

 

“I'm so glad we could spend the day together sweetheart,” Kashu said to her daughter as she walked down the halls with Kagome as they made their way to the large indoor garden.

 

“I feel bad leaving the pups with Sesshoumaru all day,” Kagome admitted as she walked beside her mother, their pace slow and lazy.

 

“Don't be Kagome, he is their father after all, they're as much his responsibility as they are yours.”

 

“They're not a responsibility mamma,” Kagome said as she quickened her pace a little as tears bit at the back of her eyes.

 

She said the words to her mother, but how often had she thought of them as just that - a responsibility? The word seemed so ugly to her, so - dirty. As though in thinking of them as that she had somehow relegated them to nothing more than objects that had become burdens to her. But they weren't that were they, they weren't burdens? How could a mother - any mother - think of her child as a burden?

 

“Kagome,” her mother called as she quickened her own pace and grabbed her daughter's hand to stop the girl. “I didn't mean to upset you,” she said softly though Kagome wouldn't turn her face to look at her.

 

“They're not burdens,” Kagome said, her voice low as she tried to keep the tears from being heard.

 

“I never said they were,” Kashu said softly as she came around to stand in front of her quietly crying daughter, the tears simply slipping down the young woman's cheeks and dripping off her chin. “Oh sweetheart,” her mother moaned sadly and pulled Kagome into her arms.

 

“C'mon,” Kashu said after a moment and led her daughter into the large in door garden and sat with her on a bench that had been brushed clean of snow and had a pile of two folded blankets resting on it for anyone to use.

 

Kagome followed her mother in quietly. She didn't try to pull her hand from her mother's as she was led into the garden and brought to the stone bench to sit down. She couldn't stop the tears from falling down her cheeks and had long since gotten tired of trying to. She felt her mother's knee brush her leg as the woman sat down next to her and felt her hands grasp hers at the wrist pulling them gently away from where she had raised them to cover her tears stained face.

 

Once Kagome's hands were down and resting in her lap Kashu cupped her daughter's damp face in her hands and kissed her tear dampened cheeks, tasting the salt of her daughter's tears.

 

“Kagome,” she said softly and watched as her daughter opened sad helpless looking eyes and looked upon her. “I want you to listen to me, and listen well…You were a child - a child,” her mother reiterated strongly. “You were no older than Rin is now when your father died. You were strong for all of us when I couldn't be,” she said as she looked into her daughter's eyes. Her hands dropped from her daughter's face to hold the girl's hands. “I always said that you were only strong until jii-chan came back but that isn't true is it? He wasn't really any help, not in the way you needed him to be. I couldn't function after your father died, I've admitted to others that I don't really remember much of the first month but that isn't right either, it took me three months before I really came back to myself and started living again, started being a mother again.”

 

Kashu sighed sadly and looked away for a moment for the first time she truly began to understand how much that time had affected her precious little girl. Kagome had to take care of everyone when she couldn't, when her daughter was taking care of her and she hadn't truly understood what that had done to her child. Not until now that is.

 

“You cooked, you cleaned, you wrote the checks for the bills as neatly as you could, you stopped going to school, the school you had just barely started three weeks before your father died. As out of it as I was I can still remember the times you would run a bath and coax me into the water and wash me when I didn't have the will or energy to wash myself. You took care of your brother; you fed him, changed him, bathed him and rocked him to sleep. When your grandfather came home…he didn't help much did he? He saw that you had things under control, or as much control as you could manage and instead of taking over what you were doing and allowing you to grieve when you needed to he just simply let you continue doing what you were doing and tried to ignore that things were falling apart while acting as though everything was normal.”

 

Kagome looked away as she tried to silently deny her mother's claims. Yes she had taken care of the family, but they needed her to. If she hadn't…

 

“No, look at me and listen to me,” Kashu said as she gently turned her daughter's face back to hers. “You were seven years old Kagome - seven. You took on the responsibilities of a mother at that age, an age when you should have been coming to me and showing me the new picture you'd drawn or the butterfly you caught. You were never allowed to grieve for you father because you knew that if you had broken down, if you had shown any instance of not being able to handle what you were, that us, that your family would have fallen apart more than it already had. Once I came back to myself we never spoke of it, I never talked to you about what had happened, I never told you that you could grieve and I don't think you ever did. Oh my little girl,” she moaned sadly as the tears that had filled her own eyes spilled onto her cheeks and she pulled her daughter close for a hug.

 

“Kagome what happened then…when your father died, if you hadn't taken care of us we would've fallen apart. You didn't sleep or eat very well because you were busy taking care of everyone else. Kagome listen to me,” her mother said her voice a bit more forceful than it had been before. “What happened then is not the same as what is happening now. If you lay down, if you rest, if you ask for help, nothing bad will come of it. Your family will not fall apart if you cannot take care of them, if you need to rest. No one will die if you lay down and take a day off to sleep.”

 

“But mamma I'm-”

 

“No listen to me Kagome,” Kashu said as she took her daughter's face in her hands and looked at her. “You need rest, you cannot continue on as you have been doing Kagome. I know you're afraid to lay down, to rest, to let someone else take care of things but if you don't Kagome, if you don't the one who will be affected, the one who will be harmed is you.”

 

“Mamma you don't understand,” Kagome said as she sniffed back more tears. “I have to take care of them.”

 

“Why?” Kashu asked as she looked at her daughter. “Tell me why it has to be you.”

 

“I'm their mother,” Kagome said and watched in confused silence as her mother shook her head.

 

“No it's more than that, tell me why Kagome. Tell me what it is you're afraid of. I'm your mother,” Kashu said to her and kissed her forehead as her thumbs brushed away her daughter's still falling tears.

 

“I'm their mother…if I can't take care of my own children what good of a mother am I?” she asked as she turned her eyes away and looked at her hands resting in her lap. “My mate is the ruler of the Western Lands, that's a huge domain mamma,” Kagome said as she hoped, wished she could make her mother understand. “If he can take care of all of that shouldn't I be able to at least take care of my children?”

 

“Honey I live here too,” Kashu said and looked into her daughter's confused eyes. “How often does your mate leave this castle to attend to his domain?”

 

Kagome shook her head in confusion as her mother grasped her hands. “What difference does that make?” the young mother asked as her eyes clenched shut as her morning sickness tired to rebel against her due to her crying.

 

“Shh,” her mother said knowing the look from her own personal experience with the ailment. “Just take a deep breath…there you go sweetie. As to why it matters, you are taking care of those children everyday; he is looking over papers-”

 

“That doesn't make what he does any less important,” Kagome said forcefully.

 

“No it doesn't and I'm not saying it does. All I'm saying is that it's different and more stressful for you. Kagome I've been there, and I'm there again. I have newborns, three in fact no thanks to your step father,” she grumbled and Kagome couldn't help but giggle. “But I know how tough it can be. After your father died I no longer had to worry about how I was going to juggle work and the two of you. You stopped being a child the day your father died; you never stopped being a second mother to your brother. You don't have what I did, you don't have one of your children taking care of all the others, and it's time for you to start asking for help when you need it.”

 

“Mamma-” Kagome said as she tried to deny what the woman said while turning her face away.

 

“No, Kagome,” Kashu said turning her child's face back to hers. “You have three infants, two toddlers, and you are pregnant again, I won't have this. You need to take care of yourself and if that means that you have to suck up your pride and ask for help then you're going to do it.”

 

“This isn't about pride!” Kagome shouted as she looked at her mother angrily.

 

“Isn't it?” her mother asked softly. “You want to show him that you can do all of this but baby girl no one - no one can do this all on their own. Not even Kagura can. Sweetheart, you're not weak when you ask for help, you're showing that you have the strength to.”

 

“What difference does it make now?” Kagome asked her voice defeated. “Everyone knows now,” she sighed as her voice trembled.

 

“Everyone knows what?” Kashu asked her daughter gently while tucking her hair behind her ears.

 

“Mamma…I've let him down, I've shamed him.”

 

“How have you done that?” the woman asked gently as she stroked her daughter's cheek with the back of her knuckles.

 

“I'm on bed rest and he's told everyone. A woman in this era who can't look after her own children isn't worth her weight in rice.”

 

“You have not shamed me,” a voice sounded from the doorway making Kagome gasp and spin around in her seat. “You have not shamed me,” Sesshoumaru repeated stiffly as he walked up to the seated women his eyes hard. “Do you hear me Kagome?” he asked coming to stand before her and looking down at his mate. “You. Have not. Shamed me. And I won't have you thinking that you did.”

 

“Sesshou-”

 

“No. It is time for you to listen to me.” The tall taiyoukai kneeled before his mate and took her hands in his as he stared into her nervous stormy blue orbs. “You are my mate, mine, and I am proud to have you. I will not have you thinking you shamed me because you have not. Kagome I love you, I understand where your fear of inadequacy comes from, but it is not a dishonor to ask for help.”

 

“You don't,” Kagome tried to reason as she looked at him and received a raised silver brow for her troubles.

 

“What would you call making a treaty between lords and lands?” he asked her monotonously.

 

“Politics?” she asked with a confused look.

 

“Yes, while that may be, it is also a resource for aide in war when I need it.” Sesshoumaru stood up and tugged on Kagome's hands signaling her to stand as well. “Would you like to rest?” he asked her as he nodded a thanks to her mother who smiled at him and returned the gesture.

 

“I'm ok,” Kagome said as her stomach grumbled. “A little hungry though I guess,” she said with a blush.

 

“Then I shall feed you. After that,” he said as they left the gardens, “would you like to meet the royals?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good. It shall be made so.”