Roses in Winter: a Fairytale Revisited - A Rurouni Kenshin Fanfiction
Chapter Three: A Family Matter
Kaoru stretched her arms as she gave what most would consider an unfeminine yawn. She stared at the ceiling of her room, her eyes adjusting to the brightness as the sun's rays burst through her windows. There was something odd about the whole thing. Why was the sun so bright at this time? And why were those birds so noisy already?
The smell of cooked breakfast started to waft in the air.
With a startled jerk, she pulled herself up and sat down abruptly. The sudden movement caused her head to spin for awhile, and she groaned. She had overslept. Megumi was going to be so mad that the morning chores were not done yet and—
Father, she thought.
She slapped her hand to her forehead. How could she have forgotten? Stupid Kaoru, stupid! As fast as she could, she donned her usual gi and hakama, muttering unintelligible words under her breath. Sometimes she would swear that she was as young as Misao. Quickly giving herself a once over to make sure everything that should be tight was tight, she made a dash for her father's room.
The sight that greeted her would warm her heart for days to come. There was her father sitting comfortably down in his cot. Misao must have crept there during the night for she was now leaning against their father while he cradled her in his arms.
Kaoru grinned as she noticed the slight drool dripping from Misao's mouth. Her eyes twinkled as she met her father's gaze.
"You're late," she said as sternly as she could while her voice trembled.
"I know," he replied softly. "I'm sorry."
Without hesitation, she flung herself against her father, wrapping her arms around him and Misao. "Just don't do it again," she mumbled against him, comforted by the familiar scent that was her father.
"What do you think you two are doing?" came Megumi's voice from behind, her angry gaze directed at her and Misao. "Can't you see that this man is recuperating?" she berated.
Looking back at her, Kaoru gave a sheepish grin as she extricated herself from her father's embrace. "Sorry," she said through the smile in her mouth.
"Quiet!" called out Misao from her position. "Father's trying to sleep here."
Kaoru shared a laugh with Megumi as both of them kneeled before their father, hands held together.
"How do you feel?" Megumi asked him gently.
"Great," he replied. He looked intently at their faces. "I'm sorry I scared you," he continued as his hand patted Megumi's cheek.
"Just make sure you don't do it again," she replied in mock anger. She gestured outside. "I've made breakfast. I thought that if you feel up to it, we could all eat here with you instead."
"That's a great idea, Megumi," Kaoru enthused. She looked at her father in concern. "That is, as she said, if you feel up to it."
Her father gave her a small nod and she jumped to her feet. "I'll get it," she announced as she headed out the room. "Thanks for doing the chores this morning, Megumi," she acknowledged her sister.
Megumi gave her a nod before going back to questioning her father. Giving her family one last look, Kaoru headed out to prepare the breakfast trays.
She made appreciative sounds as she neared the kitchen. Megumi was the best cook out of all of them. It must come from being good at preparing all those medicines for Dr. Genzai. She seemed to have an innate sense on how much to add whether she's making spices or poultices. Only Megumi could make rice balls into a culinary delight. She sighed. She did envy her sister her gift. Everything she touched in the kitchen seemed to turn out bland, and that was when it was edible. She shrugged. Oh well. They all had their talents. Sometimes, she just wished that hers was as showy or girly as Megumi's.
Shaking her thoughts from her head, she started putting together a tray of food when, at the corner of her eye, she noticed that horse grazing outside by the window. Was he, she took a closer look. She watched as the horse pawed the ground and continually kicked some of the trash to one side. What was he doing? If she didn't know any better, she would have said that the horse was cleaning up their yard. She really had to give Misao a talk about leaving things in the yard. She gave herself a mental shake. What was she thinking? Maybe she did need more sleep. She growled.
Besides the very real possibility that Megumi might just contemplate on the possibility of her sister's insanity, why hasn't she told anyone about that darn horse? Did she dream last night? Did she really have a conversation with a horse? She didn't remember being feverish.
I am here for you, he had said.
What did that mean? There was something foreboding about the way the words flowed in her head. It almost sounded like a threat? a warning? She shook her head and let out another sigh.
"Hey Kaoru!" she heard Misao's voice.
She smiled. She guessed Misao was more awake by now. "I'm coming!" she yelled back. She would think about the horse later. Right now, she needed to be with her family.
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Koshijiro savored the feeling of harmony that comes from having his family around him. He enjoyed the endless chatter, the loving looks, the caring touches, and gentle smiles that his family gave one another. For all their differences in temperament or even in interests, there was a deep abiding love that simmers just below the surface. And for that, he had their mother to thank. He had to admit that in the beginning, he did not have much to do with raising his daughters. He was much too focused in his art and his wife took care of all the details regarding child-rearing. He smiled in remembrance of the foolish man that he once was. It took the love of a good woman and three persistent children for him to fully understand the goal of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. To protect those you love.
His eyes clouded.
Your daughter will take your place, the Battousai had said, his voice haunting his thoughts ever since he'd woken up that morning.
Could he protect his daughters from this thing? For what may be the hundredth time, he silently berated his own stupidity. What had he been thinking? Oh, wait. That's right. He wasn't thinking. He was just reacting to the manslayer with a sword against his neck.
It filled him with shame whenever he thought of those last few moments.
Would you do anything to live? that voice taunted in his ear.
And foolish, foolish man that he was, he had answered affirmatively. Never for one moment imagining what the consequences would be. Never for one moment thinking that his daughter would bear the brunt of his foolish actions.
But she won't! he told himself. He would never send his daughter to that monster. Damn the consequences!
"Father, are you alright?" Kaoru's voice interrupted his reverie. Her concerned face looked at him intently. "You look troubled. Are we tiring you?"
He looked up to see all three daughters look at him with worry. He gave them a wry grin. "I'm fine," he assured them. "Just thinking about all of you."
They smiled at him hesitantly, giving each other uneasy looks.
"I'm fine," he said again. Mother hens that's what his daughters all turned out to be.
"Oh, father!" Misao said suddenly. "Kaoru and I put the packages you had in the living room. There were too many people here in your bedroom last night. Would you like me to bring it to you now?"
"Packages?" he queried. "What packages?"
"You know," said Kaoru, "all the stuff you had with you. I assumed it was the purchases you made in your trip."
Huh? He remembered making purchases, but those purchases were long gone with those dratted bandits.
"Father," teased Misao, "don't tell us you don't remember buying those."
"Umm..." he thought of something to say. What packages?
"Here, I'll bring it over," Misao volunteered, skipping happily outside.
Once Misao was out of earshot, Megumi took his hand and held it. "Father," she gave him a look of trepidation. "Do you remember what happened to you?"
He started to give her a flip reply. Something light-hearted. A lie.
"What I'd like to know is where these came from?" Kaoru interrupted, pointing at his throat.
"There were also bruises in your temple," Megumi added carefully. "I didn't want to say anything to alarm Misao, but...Father, what happened?"
Could he? Could he lie to his daughters?
"Hey, everybody!" Misao called from outside.
And coward that he was, he was grateful for the interruption.
"Did you know that we have a donkey outside?" she yelled back again.
A donkey? Koshijiro frowned. It couldn't be. Could it?
"A donkey?" repeated Megumi and Kaoru simultaneously, getting up at their feet.
He started to get up too, only to have Megumi give him a fulminating glare. "You stay there," she ordered. "You're not to get up for awhile."
He gave her a protesting look. "How many times do I have to say that I'm fine?" he asked her, but she was already on her way out. He thought about disobeying her; he really did. She was, after all, his daughter. But disagreeing with Megumi when she was in her physician mode might not bode well for him. He stared at the empty room. Well, not much he could do right now but wait.
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Kaoru looked in askance at the emaciated looking animal in their front yard. "How did it get in here?" she asked no one in particular. She watched as Misao approached the sorry-loking animal to pet it.
"Oh no," Megumi said under her breath, "we're going to be keeping this donkey."
Kaoru glanced at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"Can't you see it?" she said, pointing at Misao. "She's in love with the thing."
Kaoru looked back at Misao, who was busy cooing at the donkey. She started to laugh. Misao did love taking home awful-looking strays. "She got it from you, you know," Kaoru reminded Megumi. "I remember the things you used to take home and play doctor to."
Megumi shook her head. "I took home cute, tiny animals," she defended herself. "Nothing that may eat us out of house and home!"
"Same difference," Kaoru replied, as they stared at their sister. "Well, we might as well feed it," she said after a long pause. "It looks like it is starving."
"Hmm, better yet," said Megumi, "let Misao do it. It'll give her something to do while we ask Father what happened." She made a move towards their father's room. "I'll bring the packages in too," she added.
Kaoru nodded. "I'll be there in a second." She walked towards Misao. "Hey Misao," she called, touching her sister's shoulder. "Why don't you feed the horse and the donkey? There should be something in the storage for them."
Misao gave a delighted laugh as she nodded and bounded up and down towards the storage unit.
Kaoru shook her head and made her way back to the house.
We need to leave soon, the voice in her head prompted.
She stopped and looked back. The black stallion was there standing behind her. She gave a yelp of surprise. She didn't even hear him move up behind her.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
He gave what could only be an equivalent of a shrug.
Soon, the voice said again. He grows impatient. With that, he trotted over to follow where Misao left.
Confused, Kaoru could only watch before turning her back and returning inside. Her father had some explaining to do.
When she entered her father's room, she was surprised to find an explosion of items.
"What's going on here?" she demanded, looking back and forth from Megumi and her father.
Megumi made a gesture towards the mess. "We opened some of the parcels," she explained. She gave an impatient look to her father. "Those packages are full of very expensive stuff. We have bolts of silk and precious gems among other things. I don't think we can afford any of this." She looked back at her father. "And you don't remember purchasing these?" she asked.
Kaoru kneeled down in front of some of the parcels. She noticed that some were wrapped in tiny packets. She smelled them, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
"Hey Megumi," she said, "did you ask for one of these?"
Megumi approached her and smelled the packets. "Yes," she replied. She looked back at her father. "You must have bought these. Why else would they be in here?"
Their father looked at them helplessly. But behind the helpless look, Kaoru noticed a...hesitation. "Father," she said gently. "I believe you know more about this than you would have us believe. Please, tell us what is going on?"
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Koshijiro looked at his daughter's imploring eyes. How could he tell her? How did one tell one's daughter that in a moment of foolishness, he had exchanged his dreadful fate for theirs?
"Hey, Kaoru" Megumi called. "Look at this. You asked father to give you a rose, didn't you?"
Koshijiro looked up at his eldest. He gasped. In her hands, she was holding what looked like a perfectly preserved rose inside a crystallized container. It was amazing, really. The rose looked suspended in both air and time, forever perfect in every way.
It was magical, he thought. The same way that winter garden had been magical. His fists clenched. Gods, what was he going to do? In that rose, he saw the culmination of his shameful act of cowardice.
He watched as Kaoru stood up in awe as she reverently took the crystal container from her sister. She looked back at him. "Father, did you get this for me?" she asked, her eyes lit up like candles. "It's beautiful!" she exclaimed. "Wherever did you get it?"
"Don't touch it," he whispered hoarsely, harshly. He made a move to grab it from her, but his weak body betrayed him and he felt his legs collapse from beneath him.
"Father!" both women exclaimed as they dove to catch him.
Since Kaoru was closer, she got to him first. With her arms around him, she stared at his eyes and almost willed him to look at her. "Father," she said softly, gently cradling him as she helped him in his cot. "Father," she said again, brushing away his hair from his eyes. "What's wrong?"
He looked at the rose gently rolling in the floor where Kaoru had dropped it. The sparkle from the crystal seemed to wink at him, taunt him. His breathing became labored. He felt, more than saw, Kaoru gesture to Megumi for help.
"Father, please," Megumi's voice came to him gently. "Do not over-exert yourself." Her hand felt his forehead as Kaoru leaned back away and stared at him with those curious eyes.
"What are you not telling us?" she asked softly, her eyes never leaving his face. "What happened to you out there, Father?" Her voice was steady, but he could hear the thread of hurt underlying her words.
Koshijiro looked around blindly, anywhere but at his daughters' reproachful looks.
"Father," Megumi finally said, a determined edge on her voice as she lifted his face to look at her. "Kaoru and I are not children. Please do not make a mockery of our upbringing by some misguided sense."
Kaoru held his hands between hers and looked up at him. "We love you," she said simply. "Let us share this burden."
He closed his eyes, shame welling up in his being. He couldn't tell them. He couldn't! He had to think of something, anything, to tell them besides the truth. His mind raced and he barely noticed the wetness in his hands. And when he did notice, he saw Kaoru's silent tears as she stared at him in silence.
"Please," she said quietly.
And, in that moment of weakness, he told his daughters the truth.
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That night, Kaoru leaned against the wall of her bedroom, unable to sleep. She stared at the moon and the stars as they twinkled up beyond her window. Beside her window, the perfect rose sat innocently as moonbeams bounced off its crystal.
It really was a beautiful rose. It would have been perfect by itself without the crystal around it to protect it. But with the crystal, it looked like it would be perfect forever. She stepped closer to it. There was a shimmer around it, a sparkle. Such a beautiful, beautiful flower that hid an ugly past.
She took a deep breath. Her fault. All her fault. Whatever made her ask for a rose in the first place? Especially given the season? She pounded the back of her head silently against the wall.
The Hitokiri Battousai. She had thought of him as a legend. Something used by parents to scare naughty children into behaving. To think that such a creature actually existed. A shudder ran up her spine. He would come here. She knew that, deep in her bones. If she did not fulfill the trade he had demanded, he would come here. And at that point, who knew what he might do?
Again, she looked at the rose by her window sill. Without meaning to, her eyes wandered to her drawer full of clothes. They had their father back. That was what was important. The Battousai spared her father. And now she sighed now...
"You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?" Megumi's voice interrupted her thoughts. Her sister was at the other side of her door, within reach.
Kaoru bit her lip and slid down the floor as she leaned against the door. "Define stupid," she whispered, knowing Megumi could hear her in the other side.
"You are not seriously thinking of fulfilling the trade, are you?" Megumi hissed, her voice agitated.
Kaoru started to laugh, but it ended up a sob. "Honor demands," she began.
"What of honor?" Megumi demanded. "Father never agreed to this and you know it. He would have rather died there in that garden than have any of us take his place."
"But he didn't die, Megumi," she whispered. "We were given the gift of our father's life." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "And, had I been given the choice," she continued, "I would have gladly gone to his place."
"You are not..."
"Megumi," she interrupted. "Had it been your rose, what would you have done?"
"I would not go..."
"Don't lie," she whispered. "I know why you're here." Her eyes filled with tears. "You're not here to tell me to forget about the whole trade. Not really."
Megumi remained silent at that.
Gods, she knew her sister so well. "You're here to tell me that you will take my place," she declared steadily.
For one moment, she had considered it. Her fear of the unknown monster crept up full force. Would it be so bad to have someone else go to her place? And, in a moment of clarity, she knew she couldn't do it. Just as her father would not have bargained with their lives given the choice, she would not send someone else to her place.
"Kaoru," Megumi's voice broke. "Please. I will do this for you," she entreated. "I am the eldest and..."
"Megumi," she said softly. "Please take care of father and Misao."
"Don't..."
"Megumi," she said. "Please." She licked her lips. The weight in her chest felt heavier. "Please," she pleaded again, more for her own sake that Megumi's.
She could hear her sister's harsh breathing behind the wall. "Don't...don't leave just yet," her sister whispered. "Stay here with me for awhile."
She bit her lip to keep herself from saying that she will never leave, that she will stay with her forever. "Okay," she responded instead. "I'll stay for awhile." And for the next hour, she and Megumi leaned against each other, separated by the thin barrier that was her door.
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In the darkness, Megumi opened her eyes slowly. She touched her cheek, her eyes glistening at a phantom touch. With a certain dread, she knew that Kaoru had left. Her effervescent presence was no longer part of the dojo. Carefully, she stood up and staggered towards her room, her hands covering her mouth. There, she kneeled by her cot as quiet tears poured from her eyes. With only the sounds of her choked sobs to keep her company, she grieved for her sister as silently as she had for their mother.
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We will be there soon, that we will.
Kaoru leaned closely against the horse carrying her. She was so cold and...and sleepy. She rubbed her face against the black mane. They had ridden for hours and the cold seemed to just get worse by the minute.
Or perhaps it was just her soul that was cold.
She could feel the horse increase his gait at her lack of response.
Kaoru-dono.
She closed her eyes and tried to burrow herself more under the blankets and against her horse. At least he was warm.
Kaoru-dono, there was an urgency in that voice now.
She laid her cheek against the back of his neck as memories of the past few hours resurfaced.
--- FLASHBACK ---
The horse had been waiting for her, just outside the dojo. His sympathetic gaze followed her every move as she approached him silently. She stood in front of him for a moment, letting the numbness she felt permeate through her whole being. Her bag of clothes slipped through her frozen fingers and dropped on the ground in an audible thud.
"How did you know?" she whispered to him a question that had been on her mind ever since her father told his tale. "How did you know that the rose was meant for me?"
He neighed and pawed the ground impatiently.
I knew when I first saw you, he replied.
She shivered, both from the biting cold and the words that danced in her head.
I knew that the rose was for you, he continued. It could go to no other.
"That's hardly an answer," she bit back through her gritted teeth.
No, he agreed. That it is not.
She waited for him to elaborate, to elucidate. But as minutes passed by while she stood there, she knew that no more words of explanation will come forth. She turned away from him, unwilling to ask again. She looked back at the dojo, her home for the last seventeen years, and tried to engrave every last detail to memory.
This might very well be her last look of her home.
The horse nudged her as if to remind her of her purpose. His lavender eyes peered at her through the darkness, asking the unvoiced question. She gave him a resigned look. "I...we might as well be on our way," she stated in a low voice. Lingering might in this night might just kill her resolve not to let Megumi take on this burden.
She would not have been acceptable, no she would not.
She gave a start. "Why not?" she asked the horse curiously. Was her life this predetermined? Was she truly destined for this terrible fate?
The horse snorted.
You are being overly-dramatic, that you are. The rose was yours, so the burden of your father's life is yours.
This time she snorted. "Did it really matter?" she asked bitterly. "I don't know for what purpose this exchange serves, but I would think that one daughter would serve as well as the other."
The horse shook his head.
The rose was yours, so the burden of your father's life is yours, he repeated in her head.
She looked at him strangely. "My father's life is not a burden," she said instead. "And..." she looked around at the yard, and at the dojo behind her, "And, when all is said and done, I would rather have my father alive and well than dead in an unmarked grave."
The horse peered at her beneath his lashes, his purple eyes speculative. Even if it means this 'terrible fate?' he asked, the question swirling in her mind.
She gave him a soft smile. "Yes," she replied, before she lifted her body up and on the horse. "Let's go," she urged, her hand trembling at the reins.
---END FLASHBACK---
Her teeth chattered. Perhaps it was good that she had the cold to focus on; otherwise, her mind might drift over her family once more. She winced. She could do without the frozen tears. And the bouts of self-pity coupled with a healthy dose of strangling fear.
Gods, it's so cold! Where did this blizzard come from?
She started to cry again. My family...
Kaoru-dono.
Leave me alone, she answered bitterly. Just...just do your job.
Kaoru-dono, we have arrived.
Slowly, she gathered the remnants of her tattered courage and raised herself up from her slumped position. The iron gates that were the door to her prison seemed massive and imposing. The creaking sounds they made as they were opened by an unknown force were painful to hear. She cringed slight and watched as her horse slowly brought her over to the unknown.
To be continued.
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