Post by devilinthedetails on Feb 21, 2018 10:04:08 GMT 10
Title: Daughters of Desire
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1348
Summary: Shinko wants sons; Roald daughters.
Warnings: References to child birth and courtesans.
Notes: I prefer the sound of Lian to Liano so I use that as a nickname for Lianokami.
Daughters of Desire
Lianokami
Shinko pressed her palms against the ever-expanding hope inside her, and, tipping her head so that it slid onto the slope of her husband’s shoulder, murmured, “Do you pray for a son?”
Every morning when she knelt in the small shrine to Yama that Roald had built for her, she implored the goddess to favor her with a son, believing because faith was all she had that the incense she burned before Yama’s statue would smell sweet as peonies to the goddess and would waft her prayers to the Divine Realms. When her husband, as dutiful in his religious devotions as he was in all else, bowed before Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess, she didn’t know what prayers he held in the silence of his heart when he only offered the rote ones aloud.
“I pray for a safe delivery and a healthy child.” Roald’s kiss on her hair was warm as the sunbeams shining onto the cushioned windowsill they were curled into like cats, but Shinko shivered. He must have felt her shaking because he laid a second kiss on her hair, adding almost apologetically, “I didn’t mean to scare you by saying that. The finest healers in Tortall will attend to you when it’s time for you to give birth, and the baby”—
“The baby will be healthy.” Shinko could feel the child kicking as though eager to escape the softness of her womb for the hardness of the world and guided Roald’s hand to rest over her bulging belly, where he touch the power of the life they had created together. “I can feel it.”
“She’s healthy.” Roald’s stroking palm lingered over Shinko’s stomach.
“She?” Shinko’s breath hitched as she fought the temptation to blink her astonishment that he would refer to their still unborn child as female.
“With a kick like that, she must be a girl.” Roald’s eyes twinkled like sunlight on a pond at her, and she knew he meant to assure her that he would be happy with a daughter, but the problem was she wouldn’t be.
The girl—born in the Yamani year of the horse—kicked like a mare when she was born in a bed of blood. As Shinko cradled Lianokami’s slight body against her breasts, Roald dangled a finger over their daughter, who instinctively snatched it with a fist that wasn’t even large enough to swallow it.
“She’s perfect.” Roald’s words were whispered into the spiral of Shinko’s ear. From her husband—always so measured in his compliments and condemnations—such lavish praise should have made her glow like a lantern lit and released in honor of ancestors but instead caused her to weep inside with the shame of having failed to give him a son. Roald was too kind to ever berate her for giving him a daughter not a son, but it might have been easier if he had since then she might have a reason to cry into her pillows at midnight.
Grateful that the heart broke so quietly nobody could hear, she cupped Lianokami’s tender skull. “She’s beautiful.”
Shinko imagined that all mothers—hoping for good marriages in their daughters’ futures—made similar statements when rocking a newborn girl, but that didn’t render it any less true of Lianokami, whose peach skin was emphasized by the dark pools of her eyes—colored like Shinko’s but shaped like Roald’s—and a swirling nimbus of ink black hair.
“She’ll be a queen after me.” Roald’s lips brushed across Shinko’s forehead, and she should’ve smiled at him but instead she had to bite back the urge to point out that queen wasn’t the same as king so Lianokami could never be his true heir.
Kalakami
Two years later, Shinko rested her head on Roald’s chest, hearing his heart beat in unison with the drum of the baby developing inside her. Trailing her fingers along the silk sleeve of his tunic, she asked, “Will you be honest with me if I pose an indelicate question?”
“I’m always honest with you”— Roald’s chest rose and fell steadily beneath her, a quiet testimony to his faithfulness—“and you’re never indelicate.”
“Do you want a son?” Shinko gazed up at him from beneath lowered lashes.
“A son would make me happy, but another daughter would bring me even more joy.” Roald combed through her loose hair with gentle fingers. “More than a son, I want another daughter who is sweet, smart, and beautiful just like her mother.”
“You flatter me.” Shinko shook her head, a veil of black hair covering her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see the lie written on her husband’s face. “I’m not fooled by your Conte charm.”
Months later, when their second daughter—named Kalakami as a reminder of the sister in Carthak Roald missed so much—was born under a full moon, Shinko howled like a wolf into her handkerchief and wished that she could be fooled by his charm.
“I’ve given you another daughter.” Shinko’s shoulders heaved with sobs, and she shouldn’t have shown him her tear-stained cheeks, but his touch was so ginger as he wiped the dampness from her face with his handkerchief.
“I can’t thank you enough for that, my love.” Roald’s lips on her cheeks washed away the salty memory of her tears. “I’ll treasure you, her, and Lian all the days of my life.”
Hanakami
Roald was as affectionate and dutiful a father as he was a husband, but when she conceived her third child, she still wondered if he asked the gods each night when he prayed why he had been sent a pair of daughters instead of a longed for firstborn son.
“If this child is another girl, you have my permission to seek out a courtesan.” Shinko forced her voice to remain flat though she was shaking in her skin. In the Yamani Islands, it was expected and even proper that a husband would take his pleasure in courtesans. After all, a well-bred lady wasn’t supposed to experience desire, but Shinko felt more than desire for her husband. She loved him and took a fierce pride in the fact that he had never been with another woman, but if she couldn’t give him a son, she owed it to him to encourage him to beget an heir in some strange woman’s womb.
“Don’t say such things, Shinko.” Roald’s eyes were cold fires that scorched Shinko as he clasped her wrists with a rare vehemence. “You’re my wife, and I’ll never seek out a courtesan.”
“You need an heir.” Shinko kept her tone calm as a cloudless summer sky despite his reproach. “If I give birth to another daughter, it’ll be obvious I’m incapable of providing you with one.”
“You’ve already given me one.” Roald’s grasp tightened insistently around her wrists. “Lian is my heir. You must remember and believe that always or else the realm won’t.”
“The realm wouldn’t need to remember that your heir was fit to rule after you if your heir were male.” Tears pricked Shinko’s eyes at having weakened her husband’s political position when she only wanted to support him.
“It’s good for the country to grow by accepting a queen’s authority to rule in her own right.” Roald released her wrists to pat her cheeks. “My legacy is strengthened by Lian following me, and if this next child is a girl, that will only solidify Lian’s inheritance. If we have a son, some could use him to undermine Lian’s claim to the throne by arguing that it is his. Another daughter is best for us and Lian, my dear.”
When Hanakami—named for the lady-in-waiting Shinko requested to serve as godsmother—was born, Shinko could give a weary smile as the baby was bundled in a blanket because she understood that she had done her duty by her husband, giving birth to the daughter he wanted and bolstering his legacy as the ideal Yamani wife should. She hadn’t failed Roald but provided him a third daughter of desire.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1348
Summary: Shinko wants sons; Roald daughters.
Warnings: References to child birth and courtesans.
Notes: I prefer the sound of Lian to Liano so I use that as a nickname for Lianokami.
Daughters of Desire
Lianokami
Shinko pressed her palms against the ever-expanding hope inside her, and, tipping her head so that it slid onto the slope of her husband’s shoulder, murmured, “Do you pray for a son?”
Every morning when she knelt in the small shrine to Yama that Roald had built for her, she implored the goddess to favor her with a son, believing because faith was all she had that the incense she burned before Yama’s statue would smell sweet as peonies to the goddess and would waft her prayers to the Divine Realms. When her husband, as dutiful in his religious devotions as he was in all else, bowed before Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess, she didn’t know what prayers he held in the silence of his heart when he only offered the rote ones aloud.
“I pray for a safe delivery and a healthy child.” Roald’s kiss on her hair was warm as the sunbeams shining onto the cushioned windowsill they were curled into like cats, but Shinko shivered. He must have felt her shaking because he laid a second kiss on her hair, adding almost apologetically, “I didn’t mean to scare you by saying that. The finest healers in Tortall will attend to you when it’s time for you to give birth, and the baby”—
“The baby will be healthy.” Shinko could feel the child kicking as though eager to escape the softness of her womb for the hardness of the world and guided Roald’s hand to rest over her bulging belly, where he touch the power of the life they had created together. “I can feel it.”
“She’s healthy.” Roald’s stroking palm lingered over Shinko’s stomach.
“She?” Shinko’s breath hitched as she fought the temptation to blink her astonishment that he would refer to their still unborn child as female.
“With a kick like that, she must be a girl.” Roald’s eyes twinkled like sunlight on a pond at her, and she knew he meant to assure her that he would be happy with a daughter, but the problem was she wouldn’t be.
The girl—born in the Yamani year of the horse—kicked like a mare when she was born in a bed of blood. As Shinko cradled Lianokami’s slight body against her breasts, Roald dangled a finger over their daughter, who instinctively snatched it with a fist that wasn’t even large enough to swallow it.
“She’s perfect.” Roald’s words were whispered into the spiral of Shinko’s ear. From her husband—always so measured in his compliments and condemnations—such lavish praise should have made her glow like a lantern lit and released in honor of ancestors but instead caused her to weep inside with the shame of having failed to give him a son. Roald was too kind to ever berate her for giving him a daughter not a son, but it might have been easier if he had since then she might have a reason to cry into her pillows at midnight.
Grateful that the heart broke so quietly nobody could hear, she cupped Lianokami’s tender skull. “She’s beautiful.”
Shinko imagined that all mothers—hoping for good marriages in their daughters’ futures—made similar statements when rocking a newborn girl, but that didn’t render it any less true of Lianokami, whose peach skin was emphasized by the dark pools of her eyes—colored like Shinko’s but shaped like Roald’s—and a swirling nimbus of ink black hair.
“She’ll be a queen after me.” Roald’s lips brushed across Shinko’s forehead, and she should’ve smiled at him but instead she had to bite back the urge to point out that queen wasn’t the same as king so Lianokami could never be his true heir.
Kalakami
Two years later, Shinko rested her head on Roald’s chest, hearing his heart beat in unison with the drum of the baby developing inside her. Trailing her fingers along the silk sleeve of his tunic, she asked, “Will you be honest with me if I pose an indelicate question?”
“I’m always honest with you”— Roald’s chest rose and fell steadily beneath her, a quiet testimony to his faithfulness—“and you’re never indelicate.”
“Do you want a son?” Shinko gazed up at him from beneath lowered lashes.
“A son would make me happy, but another daughter would bring me even more joy.” Roald combed through her loose hair with gentle fingers. “More than a son, I want another daughter who is sweet, smart, and beautiful just like her mother.”
“You flatter me.” Shinko shook her head, a veil of black hair covering her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see the lie written on her husband’s face. “I’m not fooled by your Conte charm.”
Months later, when their second daughter—named Kalakami as a reminder of the sister in Carthak Roald missed so much—was born under a full moon, Shinko howled like a wolf into her handkerchief and wished that she could be fooled by his charm.
“I’ve given you another daughter.” Shinko’s shoulders heaved with sobs, and she shouldn’t have shown him her tear-stained cheeks, but his touch was so ginger as he wiped the dampness from her face with his handkerchief.
“I can’t thank you enough for that, my love.” Roald’s lips on her cheeks washed away the salty memory of her tears. “I’ll treasure you, her, and Lian all the days of my life.”
Hanakami
Roald was as affectionate and dutiful a father as he was a husband, but when she conceived her third child, she still wondered if he asked the gods each night when he prayed why he had been sent a pair of daughters instead of a longed for firstborn son.
“If this child is another girl, you have my permission to seek out a courtesan.” Shinko forced her voice to remain flat though she was shaking in her skin. In the Yamani Islands, it was expected and even proper that a husband would take his pleasure in courtesans. After all, a well-bred lady wasn’t supposed to experience desire, but Shinko felt more than desire for her husband. She loved him and took a fierce pride in the fact that he had never been with another woman, but if she couldn’t give him a son, she owed it to him to encourage him to beget an heir in some strange woman’s womb.
“Don’t say such things, Shinko.” Roald’s eyes were cold fires that scorched Shinko as he clasped her wrists with a rare vehemence. “You’re my wife, and I’ll never seek out a courtesan.”
“You need an heir.” Shinko kept her tone calm as a cloudless summer sky despite his reproach. “If I give birth to another daughter, it’ll be obvious I’m incapable of providing you with one.”
“You’ve already given me one.” Roald’s grasp tightened insistently around her wrists. “Lian is my heir. You must remember and believe that always or else the realm won’t.”
“The realm wouldn’t need to remember that your heir was fit to rule after you if your heir were male.” Tears pricked Shinko’s eyes at having weakened her husband’s political position when she only wanted to support him.
“It’s good for the country to grow by accepting a queen’s authority to rule in her own right.” Roald released her wrists to pat her cheeks. “My legacy is strengthened by Lian following me, and if this next child is a girl, that will only solidify Lian’s inheritance. If we have a son, some could use him to undermine Lian’s claim to the throne by arguing that it is his. Another daughter is best for us and Lian, my dear.”
When Hanakami—named for the lady-in-waiting Shinko requested to serve as godsmother—was born, Shinko could give a weary smile as the baby was bundled in a blanket because she understood that she had done her duty by her husband, giving birth to the daughter he wanted and bolstering his legacy as the ideal Yamani wife should. She hadn’t failed Roald but provided him a third daughter of desire.