Samsara

Part VI

AN: Edits will happen when they happen. I'm having an iffy week this week, and my beta has adulty things to do so I don't want to bug her. Patience please!

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True to her word, Shachi spends the coming weeks visiting with her father-in-law. The first few days it is because Kanna is still ill. When Shachi asks to see her, Asura lightly shrugs it off.

"It's simply the weather. This time of year puts her in a sad humour," he tells her, but from the way his eyes shift, Shachi suspects he isn't being completely honest. "Besides, you should not exert yourself in your condition."

Right, because pregnancy means we've suddenly become incapable of doing anything...

"I'm with child, not carrying the plague," Shachi mutters as she walks away, and Sakura can't help feeling a little pleases that somewhere within the quiet, respectful woman there's some indication of spunk.

Asura was right when he said how dull it is around the estate in the winter. Shachi can only watch his disciples train so often before she grows bored. Some of them even talk to her now, but she thinks most are still afraid. Taizo makes a beeline in the opposite direction whenever he sees her, which is only right. Asura is more merciful than his brother; Indra would have had the man flayed alive.

On her loneliest, most unsatisfying days she can't decide whose method of justice she prefers.

It's how she finds herself sitting across from Lord Hagoromo, sipping tea and listening to him talk about everything and nothing. He talks of the weather, his students, of Asura's work with them, explains the concept of ninshu and sometimes recites old poems. Every now and then he will pause, look at her as if he wants to ask her something, and then simply continue talking.

In an effort to distract her from her homesickness, he begins to tell her a story. Before she realises it, she finds herself enraptured in the same tale that Indra once told her, but much more detailed. Her husband is a man of concise words and has little use for flowery imagery; Lord Hagoromo is a wordsmith.

Before she is aware of it, she is drawn into the story, an eager listener

Because neither she nor the old man can sit for long periods of time, he doesn't tell it to her in all one sitting. He draws out the tale across the weeks, and she returns to see him every day, even long after Kanna is well again. Sometimes her sister-in-law joins them, other times Asura does as well; sometimes it is just Ashura and Hagoromo.

She begins to suspect about her sister-in-law's mystery ailment; she has seen that expression too often on the wives of Indra's disciples. Especially those who have miscarried or given birth to stillborn babies. She has never been so unlucky, but she can sympathise. And understanding the pain Kanna has undergone somehow makes her seem more relatable.

The longer she is with them, in fact, Shachi learns that her in-laws are not horrible people. She had always suspected that he exaggerated his tale some, but it's difficult to reconcile the two different views.

Perhaps they sense her wavering in her sensibilities, because as the days become longer, her in-laws' conversations turn to Indra. Together, Asura and Hagoromo tell her of the circumstances leading to his departure, and also mention their hopes that reconciliation can be found in the future.

"Unfortunately, the situation is a complex one. There's no right way to go about fixing it," Asura sighs.

"You might start by considering it from your brother's point of view, instead of treating him like the unreasonable party," Shachi suggests, ever loyal.