InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Happy Ending Delayed: A Fairy Tale ❯ A curse and also a mistake ( Chapter 1 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Namiyo11 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Comedy | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.30.2008 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.3K | Visits: 226 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Comedy | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.30.2008 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.3K | Visits: 226 | Status: Completed
Happy ending delayed: A fairy tale
By Namiyo11
Chapter 1-A curse, and also a mistake
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or related characters, nor do I make money from same. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and her designees. This story and any original characters are mine.
Once Upon a Time, in a castle by the sea...
The woman in labor groaned.
Outside, a worried Lord sat waiting anxiously. It had gone on for some time, for far longer than the child’s brother’s birth. Was all well? His new Lady, such a delicate woman...
Shadows and scent made him look up. His eldest child, and an old woman. One who smelled...unwholesome.
“What manner of thing have you brought, Sesshomaru?” Inutaisho demanded.
“Merely a woman demanding audience, Lord Father. Tsubaki, Witch of the Waste,” the young Lord gestured to her, and she scuttled in to bow.
“I know the old hag. I’ve no time for her!”
“I can ensure your bride will survive her delivery, Lord.” He paused at that.
“My own powers will-”
“Tenseiga, though mighty,” another bow, “can only do so much. Would you have her be forced to endure death, only to return barren? Those saved can produce no new life, Lord. My lore has taught me this. Your unborn daughter will be all she may have, and the girl will likely be barren herself-if the child is indeed even born. With my powers, I can save them, and they will bring forth more children, Lord. Your bride need not suffer the pains of death in her childbed. Your daughter need never suffer the sorrow of empty arms and her husband’s reproach.”
It was true. Tenseiga did cause them to be unable to breed. Another groan echoed...and his heart twisted. Izayoi suffered now, and he could not aid her.
“What price?”
“A time of service for two lives, Lord. You must give me the child for a time,” Tsubaki answered. Even Sesshomaru was shocked.
Oh, no.
“WHAT?!” he roared, and a hand went for Souunga.
“Lord Father, listen to the woman. Stay your hand,” Sesshomaru was almost amused as his mind spun quickly around the possibilities. He was not fond of his new Mother, and this might prove amusing. “If she offers nothing, then slay her.”
“Speak quickly,” the powerful Lord growled.
“A curse hangs loosely, ready to strike. A prophesy must be fulfilled. Either give me the daughter the seers tell me resides within your Lady’s womb-a child born of a human and youkai, both of blood noble, or curse them both to death and emptiness. I promise no harm will come to the babe while in my care, but it must be done. Choose quickly, mighty Lord. They have but little time,” Tsubaki said knowingly.
The youkai stood still.
“Lord Father, it seems there is little choice, if you do not desire the Lady to suffer,” Sesshomaru said dryly.
Inutaisho looked furious-but he at last nodded.
“Should you lie, you will beg for death, witch.”
“I will suffer far worse then mere death. Your Lady and the child will be safe delivered within the hour. Then I shall collect, and take my leave. We have a pact, and now I go.”
Tsubaki was as good as her word.
But there was a slight problem.
It was most definitely not a girl child. Tsubaki was speechless as she held the infant. The seers had prophesied a female! Lying things, they would pay for this!
But a pact was a pact.
“Very well,” Tsubaki looked a bit lost, but she pronounced the doom nonetheless.
“Hear now the fate of the Princess-er-Prince. He will be kept in a tower, until the day his true love comes to free him, one of great power and er...might,” she looked pained, but continued. “A champion true, who shall have the wit and skill to defeat the youkai that shall lie in guardianship, evade the traps, and will free him. The Champion shall then have him to-husband.”
“It was that prophesy?” Inutaisho looked quite distressed. This happened about every three centuries or so. The beautiful Princess waited, a warrior freed her, and they lived happily ever after. The important point being that it was always a Princess. Always. A Prince in the picture as the damsel? That was new. Embarrassing and new. Even Izayoi looked pained, and not just for yielding up her boy, either. A daughter of a warrior Clan of repute, this was not the kind of future she had in mind for any son of hers.
Maybe being the quester. Not the damned quest!
Sesshomaru managed to excuse himself before the smile of amusement was uncontrollable. Both Inutaisho and Izayoi stared at one another. He would not be the first to react so. A great shame had been visited on them.
“Surely there is another way?” Izayoi asked, thinking perhaps they could find a way...there were so few female warriors, and fewer who would dare so much for a hanyou, even a Lord.
“Very well. In one century...he may leave of his own will,” the witch announced. A century? Even if...if he was not freed long before then...she would never see the child in this life. She was a human, with a human’s span of years.
“A mother’s boon is then added,” Izayoi said grimly. At Tsubaki’s start, the worn looking woman glared, “I know this tale! My boon is my right!”
“Speak quickly, then.”
“A gift I give. He shall meet his true love and they shall love and be happy together forever after! Someone will come for him!” she intoned, making Tsubaki’s eyes harden. Stubborn woman. She asked for the impossible, and they all knew it. But let her have her thread of hope.
So long as she, Tsubaki...had a babe to use. To take the curse that threatened to ensnare the witch herself.
Tsubaki soon left on a cloud, a newborn babe in her arms.
As for the Lord and his Lady, they died not long after. The Lady of an accident when her Lord was not to home to save her-and the Lord, they said, of a broken heart. Lord Sesshomaru, embarrassed, said nothing of his younger brother. Encouraged silence and disinformation, in fact.
The Prince was left to rot.
***
One hundred years later. A large, drafty, leaky room in a crumbling tower...
“Fish stew,” a bored voice demanded of the large, covered basket. The covering cloth glowed.
A large bowl appeared within, and he unveiled it and picked it up. Inuyasha sighed around him. Same old same old. His chambers high in the top of a tall tower, guarded by clever traps and a youkai. He glared up at a leaking roof and the pot that was set under it and sighed as he sat to eat, a rich, costly kimono draped around his slightly plump frame.
Same old pink and gold curtained bed, same old girly tapestries, same old magic basket that delivered food and small necessities, same old magic bath that filled with hot water and flower petals regularly. Same old magic firepit that produced a fire that needed no tending. Nothing changed, nothing aged, nothing grew worn. The curse saw to that.
Then there were the same old scroll shelves full of scrolls on everything from how to run a country estate to cookery to arranging flowers, same old table and mats, the same old loom, same old cradle, same old everything. Everything needed to make sure he was the perfect wife and mother.
Tsubaki had prepared well, but had been unable to change many things for the gender of her charge once she‘d invested so much magic in readying the Tower. Nor had she been overly inclined to bother. He was just lucky the kimonos he wore were for a man, not a woman.
So dull.
So very, very dull.
If he were a woman...he’d have been out of here years ago! But no warrior was going to ride up and save him. Even if they did-they’d have lost. That youkai was no joke. He took his guardianship seriously. He was careful to explain that to Inuyasha.
The shitheaded monster was the only company he had since he was ten, and the witch Tsubaki stopped sending Shikigami to attend to his needs. They didn't talk often, and when they did, it usually ended with the bastard telling him how stupid it was that he was stuck here guarding a hanyou until a challenger defeated him. There were no challengers. There would be none.
“Maybe the earth will shake the tower down! It’ll fall on us both and end our misery!” and a cruel laugh. That had been...been...last spring. Yes. The last time they talked had been in spring.
It hadn’t been all that great when he’d been cursed into living here, an abandoned little tower then...it was worse now. If it fell completely, it would kill him as he dropped five floors with a tower on top of him. That would also free the youkai.
Only the pact protected him from the bastard hastening it as years passed and impatience set in.
Like the hanyou didn’t already know this. He sighed and again read the book of history as he ate. The topic? Female samurai. Brave, lovely women warriors. Youkai slayers had warrior women. He could live with a tajiya bride. Or a samurai. Or any woman with a pulse at this point.
Hell, after years of having nothing to do but read up on how to be the perfect wife thanks to Tsubaki’s stupidity in readying this little nightmare lovenest...he figured he could charm any woman into mush. If that was how they acted-he then knew how they thought, how they felt, and how they would react. If not, he’d bed her senseless and make her fall for him! The romance tales all said that worked too, kinda.
He really wished he knew how a woman felt.
“Naked women, basket!” he asked with a hopeful look.
Nope. Although it had delivered the scrolls on tantric sex, women’s cycles, and the intimate massage manual when he became a man. He read two of those...rather more than was strictly healthy. Also the childbirth scroll for the pictures. Inuyasha had memorized those, since he would take what he could get. Apparently the perfect bride was also supposed to be an animal in the bedroom.
Kami, he hoped she was. With long legs, perky tits, and a nice ass. They’d start with chapter one and work their way through the scrolls three times before he let her rest!
Bad thoughts. Well, he could spend time with the ladies seeking to expand their spiritual development through sex for a bit...he dropped the empty bowl into the basket and sighed. Nothing else to do. He’d mastered all the fucking womanly arts years ago, hated weaving and spinning, and found flower arranging more dull then watching water drip through his roof when it rained.
Jerking off to nude pictures, trading insults with the Guardian, and eating weren’t much, but they were all he had.
***
A month and a half later. Snowing outside, he could hear it slither along the sides of the tower through the shutters over the windows.
He heard...laughter. Screaming. Going to the window, he stared.
The ogre was jumping up and down in the snow? Dancing. He was pretty sure that was some sort of dance.
“Haha! FREEDOM!!” Seeing his so-called charge at the window, he pointed and bowed mockingly, “you are the saddest thing in the world! You ass! You lame, miserable joke! I am free! You are free! We are free!”
“What are you yelling about, creature?!” he bellowed.
“It’s the new year! One hundred years! The compact is ended! I can leave this sad place! You-you aren’t even worth eating, boy! No one came for you! No one cares! Rot up there as you wish, halfbreed!”
“There’s no challenger! You lie!”
“Hah! I got word today! I am free, and you are a sad, sad, idiot! Too pathetic to eat!! Hahahah!”
The shocked Prince watched as the creature went into the base of the tower, came back out with a huge bundle, opened the gate and...left.
Author’s Notes- I’m fond of fairy tales, always have been. Oddly, this came to me in a rush while I was working on the outline for my novel for NaNoWriMo last November. So here it is, jotted and posted for your reading pleasure. It’s completed. Enjoy!-Namiyo
By Namiyo11
Chapter 1-A curse, and also a mistake
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or related characters, nor do I make money from same. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and her designees. This story and any original characters are mine.
Once Upon a Time, in a castle by the sea...
The woman in labor groaned.
Outside, a worried Lord sat waiting anxiously. It had gone on for some time, for far longer than the child’s brother’s birth. Was all well? His new Lady, such a delicate woman...
Shadows and scent made him look up. His eldest child, and an old woman. One who smelled...unwholesome.
“What manner of thing have you brought, Sesshomaru?” Inutaisho demanded.
“Merely a woman demanding audience, Lord Father. Tsubaki, Witch of the Waste,” the young Lord gestured to her, and she scuttled in to bow.
“I know the old hag. I’ve no time for her!”
“I can ensure your bride will survive her delivery, Lord.” He paused at that.
“My own powers will-”
“Tenseiga, though mighty,” another bow, “can only do so much. Would you have her be forced to endure death, only to return barren? Those saved can produce no new life, Lord. My lore has taught me this. Your unborn daughter will be all she may have, and the girl will likely be barren herself-if the child is indeed even born. With my powers, I can save them, and they will bring forth more children, Lord. Your bride need not suffer the pains of death in her childbed. Your daughter need never suffer the sorrow of empty arms and her husband’s reproach.”
It was true. Tenseiga did cause them to be unable to breed. Another groan echoed...and his heart twisted. Izayoi suffered now, and he could not aid her.
“What price?”
“A time of service for two lives, Lord. You must give me the child for a time,” Tsubaki answered. Even Sesshomaru was shocked.
Oh, no.
“WHAT?!” he roared, and a hand went for Souunga.
“Lord Father, listen to the woman. Stay your hand,” Sesshomaru was almost amused as his mind spun quickly around the possibilities. He was not fond of his new Mother, and this might prove amusing. “If she offers nothing, then slay her.”
“Speak quickly,” the powerful Lord growled.
“A curse hangs loosely, ready to strike. A prophesy must be fulfilled. Either give me the daughter the seers tell me resides within your Lady’s womb-a child born of a human and youkai, both of blood noble, or curse them both to death and emptiness. I promise no harm will come to the babe while in my care, but it must be done. Choose quickly, mighty Lord. They have but little time,” Tsubaki said knowingly.
The youkai stood still.
“Lord Father, it seems there is little choice, if you do not desire the Lady to suffer,” Sesshomaru said dryly.
Inutaisho looked furious-but he at last nodded.
“Should you lie, you will beg for death, witch.”
“I will suffer far worse then mere death. Your Lady and the child will be safe delivered within the hour. Then I shall collect, and take my leave. We have a pact, and now I go.”
Tsubaki was as good as her word.
But there was a slight problem.
It was most definitely not a girl child. Tsubaki was speechless as she held the infant. The seers had prophesied a female! Lying things, they would pay for this!
But a pact was a pact.
“Very well,” Tsubaki looked a bit lost, but she pronounced the doom nonetheless.
“Hear now the fate of the Princess-er-Prince. He will be kept in a tower, until the day his true love comes to free him, one of great power and er...might,” she looked pained, but continued. “A champion true, who shall have the wit and skill to defeat the youkai that shall lie in guardianship, evade the traps, and will free him. The Champion shall then have him to-husband.”
“It was that prophesy?” Inutaisho looked quite distressed. This happened about every three centuries or so. The beautiful Princess waited, a warrior freed her, and they lived happily ever after. The important point being that it was always a Princess. Always. A Prince in the picture as the damsel? That was new. Embarrassing and new. Even Izayoi looked pained, and not just for yielding up her boy, either. A daughter of a warrior Clan of repute, this was not the kind of future she had in mind for any son of hers.
Maybe being the quester. Not the damned quest!
Sesshomaru managed to excuse himself before the smile of amusement was uncontrollable. Both Inutaisho and Izayoi stared at one another. He would not be the first to react so. A great shame had been visited on them.
“Surely there is another way?” Izayoi asked, thinking perhaps they could find a way...there were so few female warriors, and fewer who would dare so much for a hanyou, even a Lord.
“Very well. In one century...he may leave of his own will,” the witch announced. A century? Even if...if he was not freed long before then...she would never see the child in this life. She was a human, with a human’s span of years.
“A mother’s boon is then added,” Izayoi said grimly. At Tsubaki’s start, the worn looking woman glared, “I know this tale! My boon is my right!”
“Speak quickly, then.”
“A gift I give. He shall meet his true love and they shall love and be happy together forever after! Someone will come for him!” she intoned, making Tsubaki’s eyes harden. Stubborn woman. She asked for the impossible, and they all knew it. But let her have her thread of hope.
So long as she, Tsubaki...had a babe to use. To take the curse that threatened to ensnare the witch herself.
Tsubaki soon left on a cloud, a newborn babe in her arms.
As for the Lord and his Lady, they died not long after. The Lady of an accident when her Lord was not to home to save her-and the Lord, they said, of a broken heart. Lord Sesshomaru, embarrassed, said nothing of his younger brother. Encouraged silence and disinformation, in fact.
The Prince was left to rot.
***
One hundred years later. A large, drafty, leaky room in a crumbling tower...
“Fish stew,” a bored voice demanded of the large, covered basket. The covering cloth glowed.
A large bowl appeared within, and he unveiled it and picked it up. Inuyasha sighed around him. Same old same old. His chambers high in the top of a tall tower, guarded by clever traps and a youkai. He glared up at a leaking roof and the pot that was set under it and sighed as he sat to eat, a rich, costly kimono draped around his slightly plump frame.
Same old pink and gold curtained bed, same old girly tapestries, same old magic basket that delivered food and small necessities, same old magic bath that filled with hot water and flower petals regularly. Same old magic firepit that produced a fire that needed no tending. Nothing changed, nothing aged, nothing grew worn. The curse saw to that.
Then there were the same old scroll shelves full of scrolls on everything from how to run a country estate to cookery to arranging flowers, same old table and mats, the same old loom, same old cradle, same old everything. Everything needed to make sure he was the perfect wife and mother.
Tsubaki had prepared well, but had been unable to change many things for the gender of her charge once she‘d invested so much magic in readying the Tower. Nor had she been overly inclined to bother. He was just lucky the kimonos he wore were for a man, not a woman.
So dull.
So very, very dull.
If he were a woman...he’d have been out of here years ago! But no warrior was going to ride up and save him. Even if they did-they’d have lost. That youkai was no joke. He took his guardianship seriously. He was careful to explain that to Inuyasha.
The shitheaded monster was the only company he had since he was ten, and the witch Tsubaki stopped sending Shikigami to attend to his needs. They didn't talk often, and when they did, it usually ended with the bastard telling him how stupid it was that he was stuck here guarding a hanyou until a challenger defeated him. There were no challengers. There would be none.
“Maybe the earth will shake the tower down! It’ll fall on us both and end our misery!” and a cruel laugh. That had been...been...last spring. Yes. The last time they talked had been in spring.
It hadn’t been all that great when he’d been cursed into living here, an abandoned little tower then...it was worse now. If it fell completely, it would kill him as he dropped five floors with a tower on top of him. That would also free the youkai.
Only the pact protected him from the bastard hastening it as years passed and impatience set in.
Like the hanyou didn’t already know this. He sighed and again read the book of history as he ate. The topic? Female samurai. Brave, lovely women warriors. Youkai slayers had warrior women. He could live with a tajiya bride. Or a samurai. Or any woman with a pulse at this point.
Hell, after years of having nothing to do but read up on how to be the perfect wife thanks to Tsubaki’s stupidity in readying this little nightmare lovenest...he figured he could charm any woman into mush. If that was how they acted-he then knew how they thought, how they felt, and how they would react. If not, he’d bed her senseless and make her fall for him! The romance tales all said that worked too, kinda.
He really wished he knew how a woman felt.
“Naked women, basket!” he asked with a hopeful look.
Nope. Although it had delivered the scrolls on tantric sex, women’s cycles, and the intimate massage manual when he became a man. He read two of those...rather more than was strictly healthy. Also the childbirth scroll for the pictures. Inuyasha had memorized those, since he would take what he could get. Apparently the perfect bride was also supposed to be an animal in the bedroom.
Kami, he hoped she was. With long legs, perky tits, and a nice ass. They’d start with chapter one and work their way through the scrolls three times before he let her rest!
Bad thoughts. Well, he could spend time with the ladies seeking to expand their spiritual development through sex for a bit...he dropped the empty bowl into the basket and sighed. Nothing else to do. He’d mastered all the fucking womanly arts years ago, hated weaving and spinning, and found flower arranging more dull then watching water drip through his roof when it rained.
Jerking off to nude pictures, trading insults with the Guardian, and eating weren’t much, but they were all he had.
***
A month and a half later. Snowing outside, he could hear it slither along the sides of the tower through the shutters over the windows.
He heard...laughter. Screaming. Going to the window, he stared.
The ogre was jumping up and down in the snow? Dancing. He was pretty sure that was some sort of dance.
“Haha! FREEDOM!!” Seeing his so-called charge at the window, he pointed and bowed mockingly, “you are the saddest thing in the world! You ass! You lame, miserable joke! I am free! You are free! We are free!”
“What are you yelling about, creature?!” he bellowed.
“It’s the new year! One hundred years! The compact is ended! I can leave this sad place! You-you aren’t even worth eating, boy! No one came for you! No one cares! Rot up there as you wish, halfbreed!”
“There’s no challenger! You lie!”
“Hah! I got word today! I am free, and you are a sad, sad, idiot! Too pathetic to eat!! Hahahah!”
The shocked Prince watched as the creature went into the base of the tower, came back out with a huge bundle, opened the gate and...left.
Author’s Notes- I’m fond of fairy tales, always have been. Oddly, this came to me in a rush while I was working on the outline for my novel for NaNoWriMo last November. So here it is, jotted and posted for your reading pleasure. It’s completed. Enjoy!-Namiyo