No Longer Alone

After Sesshoumaru left, Rin spent the day in her room. She cleansed herself and then pretended to become familiar with the luxurious space, arranging the sparse décor to her liking; but winding around her newly found happiness, that she had a place – an honored place – in his home, writhed a small tendril of seeping sadness that weighed on her thoughts. She unpacked her few things and carefully placed them in the ancient mahogany chest. Running her fingers lightly over the carvings on its facade, chiseled with such care into deeply stained wood and then smoothed with the oil of daily use, she wondered about the people now gone who had felt its grooves and appreciated its lovely, curving designs.

After meditative consideration, she decided to leave a beautiful scroll hanging where it was and stood admiring the multitude of tiny brushstrokes carefully placed by the artist, some so small they could only be seen up close. One image, of a small child playing happily with a puppy under the watchful gaze of a woman near a quiet mountain stream, appeared formed by a single hair on the tip of the brush, so thin and delicate were the ink trails as they traced boundaries around small blushes of color. The child was so joyful, the pup so energetic… she stepped back away from them… those tiny little wisps of ink brought the entire piece to life, made the leaves on the little ink trees shimmer and the puppy dance, toying with her eye until she allowed herself a delighted little clap into the silence, playing along with the still life before her. The scroll made her happy and she resolved to look at it each time she felt the sadness encroach.

Had he left her these wondrous things because he wanted them to keep her company? Did he appreciate such elegance or were they merely added to his household by a servant with discerning taste? She decided to believe he had left it here for her, because he had known it would make her happy. Believing so made her feel less alone, as though he were still there with her in spirit if not in flesh.

She placed the small tea table “just so” with respect to the open screen to the garden – his garden – and then she arranged it “just so” again. And again.

Finally, she sat down and looked out at the small trees and flowers that had only days to live in the cooling weather. Her eyes roamed the many shades of green, plum and umber but her gaze was drawn to the flares of bright red and yellow-orange where the late afternoon sun brought a few moments of life to the dying foliage of autumn. She reflected on the dimming life before her and then placed a hand on the hard little mound of her belly, over the budding life within her. She recognized her gesture as a futile effort to hold that little life still, to arrest its growth - however briefly - as it followed the inevitable path she herself journeyed, moving steadily towards the same end that awaited the wilting greenery.

She took ironic comfort in the garden. Fleshy stalks and solid bark resisting the early winter chill to stand tall above once-vibrant flowers already bowing their darkened petals to the ground. But the flowers would come back… twinned images of their previous glory, yet not quite the same. Are next summer’s flowers resurrections, or are they perhaps the children?

What did he think about when he studied this garden? Fighting strategies? Conquest? The twisted intricacies of clan innerworkings that too often resulted in tragedy? Or did he let the garden wash these things from him, cleansing him and refreshing him with the encapsulation of life’s mysteries?

She could not ask him; he was gone.

She probed the solid flesh around her womb with her fingers, wishing to feel those little movements inside her like tiny bubbles rising to burst within her… barely there, but strong… alive. Her friend Sayuri had told her before she had gone into labor, the labor from which she’d only rested in death, that All women bear their children alone. Rin was ready for this trial; she’d been ready to risk herself to fate’s random whims when she first met him in the forest, because risk of death at his side gave her reason to live. And so she accepted the inevitability of this uncertainty. But now she was responsible for another; and she realized with a slight speed of her heartbeat that she had only begun to understand what worry might truly mean, for it was no longer only her own life at play in her dance with fortune.

If he were here, it would be easier. Though they would not speak of these things his great strength would calm her even though it could not chase the fear away. He was a friend to death and to life, meting both out with skill that only he could wield. Should death be growing in her womb, he would know how to greet it when it arrived and she would take comfort, knowing that whatever life remained when her ordeal was complete, it would be in his care. Not all women were so lucky as to have such a father for their child. If he were here, perhaps she would not be alone… but then, they had always been alone, even when they were together. It was part of what made her strong, her ability to be alone and content, and it was that strength that drew him to her.

To be with Sesshoumaru was to be alone.

A small commotion of noise broke out from beyond the garden and she glanced up.  The screen to his rooms snapped open, framing his tall form as he stepped purposefully into the little sanctuary, trailing his robes and pelt as they brushed softly against the leaves in his path. He was dressed in armor, with his sword strapped securely to his hip, always at the ready to deliver death or life as the necessity or opportunity came upon him. He did not see her sitting quietly at her little table when he bent to pick a bravely standing flower, a higanbana flower, carefully pinching its stem between lethal claws so that it came cleanly into his palm. Lifting it, he inhaled its scent and her heart opened with happiness to see a small relaxation come over his features. That flower had been her favorite as a child… was he was taking it with him, to remember her while they were apart?

As she watched him retreat to the beginning of his journey, he noticed her scent. She saw his face rise with a barely perceptible tilt to follow a wafting breeze, turning to look at her over the tops of the garden plants. A fan of white branches, already starkly absent of their leaves, spread out behind him and screened the late day sun as it sent his shadow to the steps just below her vantage point. He did not move, but looked at her, his habitual expression of judgment and reserve shifting to mild surprise as he accepted her gaze in return.

They did not speak, having already parted, but merely looked upon one another; he, standing among the dying and she sitting with the living. His thoughts were a mystery but hers rested upon the singular realization that all life lived with them in that single moment; all things hung in the balance between them; all happiness and horror; all time that had led them to this place and all time that would follow; it was theirs; it was here with them now as it would never be again, and they shared it together, not alone.

An expression of wonder briefly crossed his features, as though he too were capturing that same sensation of everything possible, memorizing it until they would experience it together again. His eyes fell to where her hands rested protectively over the symbol of their union and then rose again to capture hers, a hint of longing in them. He blinked slowly, once again bidding her farewell and acknowledging her strength, the strength in which he entrusted the care of their child, here in their home. Turning, he moved slowly and steadily back to the road before him, taking with him his miracles of life and death and leaving her with her own – alone.

As the sun touched the horizon, leaving the sky to follow his path into the night, Rin rose and returned to pace the room, lighting an oil lamp and then stopping to consider the scroll once more. She was tired, her body working constantly to nourish the life within her, and she wished to sit again. But her eyes were drawn irresistibly to the little child under its mother’s watchful gaze and she leaned in feeling as though she entered a private sphere, a ghost of artist’s memory flickering in the waning lamp light, playing tricks with her eyes. In the shadows of evening it was not the merry pair at the waterside which called her attention, but the tilt of the woman’s head beyond them, bowing beneath the weight she bore, the weariness. And yet… a tiny smile formed by the slightest lift of the brushstroke graced her face, hinting at a gentle acceptance of her burdens, the price of the moment of joy before her.

Rin stood, captivated by the tiny figure, and an image of another woman swam hazily before her eyes. She had had a mother once, too, before memory… The wisp of remembrance smiled at her, a small curve of its mouth breaking through the solitude within her and she had the strangest feeling of being held… Was this the power of a mother… that she could hold her child so comfortingly from the grave?

Rin gave herself to the warmth growing in her and sent a blessing of thanks to the mysterious mother she could not remember. Gathering the love pouring into her heart along with the skirts of her robes, she sat once more by the darkened garden, tenderly placed her hands on the little curve above her lap.

As the moon rose, lighting his path far away and bathing their garden in shimmering silver dew before her, she held their child, no longer alone.

Finis