• Winter

    The woman walked, no she seemed to glide, across the wooden floor her silk kimono layers hissing as she moved forward. Her vibrant green eyes looking down on the people around her, her small chin held high as her long silvery blonde hair swayed in the long ponytail behind her. She stopped for a moment her elegant brows knitting together in concentration. “My lady, are you alright?” she looked to one of her ladies in waiting and nodded not daring to speak against the pain in her abdomen.

    She looked to her right where the outside world was being ravaged by a torrent of snow that never seemed to end. She missed the sun shining through the trees, the flowers and grasses creeping up the walls of the palace, but most of all she missed the way things…lived. Winter was a killing frost that encompassed everything and covered life in white tempests of icy flakes.

    With that last thought she continued her trek down the hallway determined to make it to her chambers before the next wave of nausea hit her. Her fists clenched under the sleeves of her kimono as she tried to hurry the pace of her and the small group of women that clustered around her. The screen door was close in sight, just a few mere feet from where she was currently standing.

    Then suddenly the world lurched. She let out a small cry clutching at her stomach as she felt the bottom of her kimono grow wet with the fluid that protected her baby in the womb. She grit her fanged teeth to look to her ladies a slight perspiration beading her brow. “This baby…will come whether I want it or not…hurry!” One of the women nodded smartly knowing, for the most part, what was going on since she had children of her own. However the younger more inexperienced women looked in awe with wide frightened eyes.

    Their lady glared at them her pretty face contorting in anger and pain as another pain shot through her. The women hurried her to her room and laid her on her bed running around unsure of what to do until the knowledgeable servant came back with an aged demoness. Her hands were lithe and knowing as she walked over to her lady assessing the situation with quick dark eyes. Suddenly a banging echoed through the palace and a shout reverberated off of the walls. “Is it time?!” The great demon lord looked around with wild gold eyes his long braid trailing behind him as he ran down the halls towards his mate’s room. He almost slammed through the screen but was stopped by the deep thick voice of the midwife.

    “Stop, men are not permitted.” She hadn’t even come to the door but simply waited for him to come within inches. What went on behind that door was a secret of the female body that he would never discover, and he really didn’t think he wanted to, women hiding behind paper walls to try and ease the pains of childbirth. Mysteries of the flesh that his male mind would never be able to fathom due to the age in which he lived as women helped women through the shame of pushing a life from their womb.

    For a long time he simply paced in front of the door before he heard a loud yell from his mate telling him to stop. So in hopes of finding out more, due to his obscenely curious nature, he walked the home where they resided. He asked servants how long such a process took, he asked men about the women afterwards, and he asked both whether they thought it would be a boy or girl. Of course the wished for an heir to their lord’s empire, but a girl would be loved and lavished with affection no doubt.

    When he ran out of questions he walked outside into the cold wind that whipped his braid about his form coating his lashed in thick white flakes and soaking his white and purple garments. He took a deep breath and felt the tingle of cold against his strong senses.

    But he could stand it, the bitter cold simply bounced off of his demonic skin. Time passed as he watched the snow coat everything further, since by now everything was thoroughly coated a pure white, until he heard an earsplitting scream cut through the air.

    He ran into the house without another thought about the snow looking frantically from servant to servant questioning apparent in his eyes. Soon another scream filled the air, no less quiet, but softer less in pain then its predecessor. His feet led him to the room automatically as a new scent filled his nostrils. He slid the door open peeking in, almost timidly, and gaining a sly glance from the midwife who held a slimy blood covered bundle cleaning him off as best she could without water. On the bed his mate laid there her eyes half closed and her breathing growing fuller by the second as her cheeks regained color. The thin sheen of sweat that coated her shone in the light from the lanterns hanging on the walls. “A son…I have kept my end of this…arrangement.”

    She gave him a smirk from her spot on the soft bedding which he jokingly returned. He knew there was no true love in this, they were a rare kind of noble blood and race there was nothing more. They both gave acquiescence to their life with each other and now surely it would come to a halt no longer bound by the lands need for an heir. “I would have wished…he were born in spring…not such a winter time.” He nodded solemnly, “Yes, he is life among the death of winter.” A small smirk rose on the woman’s lips, who still looked beautiful covered in sweat and the smell of birth. “Winter…natures killing perfection…”

    Spring

    The air was thick with the humidity that came along with the spring and the constant rain that assaulted the season. The sun beat down against the soft green grass that covered the entirety of the clearing. Shouting, the smell of flame, and then screams outshone all of the sounds of the forest. A small woman was pushed through the tree line by people holding farming tools and flaming torches threatening to burn the woman alive.

    “Whore! You bed a demon you wanton filth and try to birth its spawn here!” a bulky man glared at her looking at the torches in their hands in contemplation. Then he walked back towards his village voicing his thoughts that they should let her demon spawn kill her off instead of risking the forest to flame. She was kicked and hit as people passed by her, glares burning into the course cloth of her badly worn yukata. She pushed herself up on her shaky elbows and instantly slumped back to the ground clutching her burning side. Her once long luscious black hair now went to her shoulders in knotted thick clumps, of blood, dirt, and who knows what.

    They had done that as well, she was unworthy of such beautiful locks in their eyes, and even she believed that. Their hate, her guilt, was all caused by the growing bump that was her stomach. She put her hands against the large ‘thing’ looking at it with her gray blue eyes, the things that had actually put her in the predicament. The voice was back in her head, strong, dominant, whispering sweet nothings into her ear. “Your eyes…they are captivating…”

    she had heard it many times before, from many men, but he had been the first to push, and he had apparently been the last. She hunched over doubling in pain as she let out a scream. The pain raked through her body and shook her to the core. She was after all…human. She tried to crawl forward intent to hide her shame in the confines of the forest. But the gods or the baby had other plans. Her body fell to the ground on its own accord her eyes wide with terror as she groped at the now muddy ground. She hadn’t realized she had continued screaming until she felt the rawness of her throat as one of the contractions slightly subsided. But the feeling of normalcy was quickly replaced again with the pain.

    Had the deity’s truly hated her sex so much that the made females have to go through this and submission to the human race. Apparently the answer was a simple yes but she couldn’t think anymore on the matter, she couldn’t do anything but grit her teeth and digging her blunt nails into the palms of her hands leaving red indentions on the already bruised blackened skin. Time seemed skewed to her, her vision going in and out, blood seeping from some wound onto the ground, her head spun, her voice cracked. Then relief, a sudden emptiness after her body had seemed full to bursting with child only, was it hours ago? She shook her head feeling the tiredness in her muscles, the pain still throbbing in her body. Then a crying reached her ears. No matter how much she wanted to hate the child and leave it in the forest to die like the prostitutes did she reached for the slick body that had already, with its strange child intelligence, bitten away its cord detaching itself from its mother. She pulled the child to her and appraised it.

    “You’re beautiful.” Her eyes filled with tenderness that seemed to blossom from her chest in mere seconds. Even covered with mucus and blood the child was amazing. Eyes the same as hers to the very last fleck of ocean blue took up most of its small chubby face that was covered in thin navy blue hair. The baby let out another cry and by some knowledge imbedded deep into her genes she brought the baby to her breast and let it nurse. She could be content like this forever.

    She laid down against the grass listening to the contented suckling of her child as she looked into the sky. And then she stopped movement the baby still clutched in her arms. Blood had seeped from her body from wounds and beatings, but birth had taken the rest of her life just as the angry villagers predicted. The babe stopped and looked to its new mother running its small hands across her face. Then it cried once more until its little voice died off leaving it quiet in the cold embrace of a dead woman. Day turned to night, and heat turned to chill.

    The baby cried once more only to be picked up by a pair of strong muscle chorded arms. With wide eyes it looked towards the man who had grabbed her still crying due to the silence of its mother. “shh…do not worry...little Haru.”