Komari cradled her full stomach. Joy, sadness, anger, fear. As someone who had lived for centuries in the grey, it was discomforting to feel emotions so vividly—especially all at once.
Komari sighed, her rounded belly sagging slightly with the exhale. It was never supposed to come to this. It had just been a foolish dalliance. The champion, husband to Kiyoko, desired her body. No one had desired to see such a sight since her husband. Most in the community were her descendants, and the rest had enough wits not to desire it in the first place.
It was morbid curiosity that led Komari to take the first plunge—a foolish embrace after more than a century of careful and diligent planning. A stupid action. Komari smirked. Yet the advances kept coming, despite her roughness, and Komari kept indulging. Keros had given strict instructions about drinking too deeply from the well, but Komari once again thought that particular dictate didn’t necessarily apply to her.
It was the same mistake as last time. Kitsunes make rules, Keros laughs. Keros makes rules, kitsunes obey. Komari gently rubbed the swell of her belly, luxuriating in the feeling. Her body shouldn’t have been able to sustain this. While her outer visage suggested the impossibility, it was the inner form that should have rendered it moot—her first punishment for her failure to Kiyoko all those years ago.
Despite her years, it appeared that Komari still had not learned that Keros does not forgive those who make games out of his rules and made the impossible, possible.
Komari smiled. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, the distant relationship to her kin made it difficult for her to connect with them. Granddaughters, while a blessing, were not as close as daughters and mothers, and so on and so forth down the line. Her heart beamed at the thought of experiencing it all again.
Her first steps, her first words, seeing her off to her husband. To be once again in color felt warm. It felt only proper that this child was by way of her liege’s sire, as it had been promised so long ago.
But.
But.
But what she hid from everyone made her pause. She never told anyone this, but the worst day of her life wasn’t when her liege and best friend Kiyoko was lost. It wasn’t when Keros handed down the punishment. It wasn’t even when her beloved husband, Ryunosuke, passed away. It was when she looked at her first daughter’s face and realized that her daughter was older than her.
This was the punishment. There was no escaping it. She tried. She tried. She tried everything to delay the inevitable—year by year, day by day—but the sands were inevitable, and they slipped from her grasp. All her sons and daughters, then grandsons and granddaughters. On and on it went.
Komari huddled around her belly, sheltering it from the outside.
She couldn’t do it again.
My little ball.
My little ball.
Komari sighed, her rounded belly sagging slightly with the exhale. It was never supposed to come to this. It had just been a foolish dalliance. The champion, husband to Kiyoko, desired her body. No one had desired to see such a sight since her husband. Most in the community were her descendants, and the rest had enough wits not to desire it in the first place.
It was morbid curiosity that led Komari to take the first plunge—a foolish embrace after more than a century of careful and diligent planning. A stupid action. Komari smirked. Yet the advances kept coming, despite her roughness, and Komari kept indulging. Keros had given strict instructions about drinking too deeply from the well, but Komari once again thought that particular dictate didn’t necessarily apply to her.
It was the same mistake as last time. Kitsunes make rules, Keros laughs. Keros makes rules, kitsunes obey. Komari gently rubbed the swell of her belly, luxuriating in the feeling. Her body shouldn’t have been able to sustain this. While her outer visage suggested the impossibility, it was the inner form that should have rendered it moot—her first punishment for her failure to Kiyoko all those years ago.
Despite her years, it appeared that Komari still had not learned that Keros does not forgive those who make games out of his rules and made the impossible, possible.
Komari smiled. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, the distant relationship to her kin made it difficult for her to connect with them. Granddaughters, while a blessing, were not as close as daughters and mothers, and so on and so forth down the line. Her heart beamed at the thought of experiencing it all again.
Her first steps, her first words, seeing her off to her husband. To be once again in color felt warm. It felt only proper that this child was by way of her liege’s sire, as it had been promised so long ago.
But.
But.
But what she hid from everyone made her pause. She never told anyone this, but the worst day of her life wasn’t when her liege and best friend Kiyoko was lost. It wasn’t when Keros handed down the punishment. It wasn’t even when her beloved husband, Ryunosuke, passed away. It was when she looked at her first daughter’s face and realized that her daughter was older than her.
This was the punishment. There was no escaping it. She tried. She tried. She tried everything to delay the inevitable—year by year, day by day—but the sands were inevitable, and they slipped from her grasp. All her sons and daughters, then grandsons and granddaughters. On and on it went.
Komari huddled around her belly, sheltering it from the outside.
She couldn’t do it again.
My little ball.
My little ball.
