Bastard of Jurai, Part 1

Disclaimer:
Tenchi Muyo characters belong to AIC and Pioneer, elements from the book
“The Woman Who Loved Reindeer” belong to Meredith Ann Pierce and Tor books,
and I’m not in this to make money.

Part 1

Ryoko snapped fully awake when the door-chime rang.

“Go away,” she suggested to whoever was at the door this early.

It rang again, and in fact twice more before she got up to answer it.
Ryo-Ohki squirmed and pawed at something in her sleep.

Ryoko put on her robe as the chime rang a fifth time, and went to the door.

It was the first time Ryoko had seen Aeka since the wedding a year and a
half before.  Aeka stood on Ryoko’s doorstep, holding two packages; one an
overnight bag that rattled when she set it down, and one a silk-wrapped
bundle.  Ryoko realized that the bundle Aeka cradled so carefully was a
child, lately come into the world.

“Ryoko,” Aeka said without preamble, “I need you to take this baby.”

“Whose baby is this?”

“My baby.”  Aeka’s eyes were swollen and her face was flushed, as if she had
wept for days.  Her kimono was stained on the front in two places from the
milk in her breasts.

“Why are you and Tenchi giving me your...”

“Not Tenchi.  Just...just me.”

It took Ryoko a moment to realize what this meant.  “It’s not his kid, is
it?”

Aeka swallowed hard.  “It isn’t his concern what I do with this child.”

Ryoko studied the child’s pale, soft features, so dissimilar to Tenchi’s.
She was numb with outrage.

“How old is this kid?”  Ryoko demanded.

“She was born two months ago,” Aeka said softly, another tear slipping down
her face.  “While Tenchi was away with the Royal Juraian army.  I kept her
as long as I could.  But I can’t hide her any longer, and I cannot keep
her.”  Aeka picked at the silk wrapping the infant.  The baby sighed but
didn’t wake.

Ryoko sighed.  “Did Tenchi know you were pregnant last spring before he
left?”

“No.  I don’t know.  I didn’t tell him.  If he guessed, I’ll tell him I lost
the child.”

“Who else knows about the baby?”

“Lady Funaho, and Sasami.  They are sworn to secrecy.  No one else knows,
not Washuu, and certainly not Mihoshi.  Not even my mother.”

“How did you manage that?”  Ryoko thought about Misaki, enveloping Aeka in
hugs and drowning her in tears, and beaming all over town with pride that
she was going to have a grandbaby.

“Sasami got her out of town when I started to show.  While they were gone, I
pretended a long illness.  Lady Funaho delivered the child, and helped me
hide her until now.”

Ryoko stood silent.  She was thinking of Aeka, defying her family to marry
Tenchi, risking everything for a man she said she loved more than her
throne.

And you dishonored him, Ryoko thought.  Within a year you screwed around on
him.  Ryoko could feel very little pity for either Aeka or her child.

“Why don’t you tell him the baby is his?” Ryoko said finally,
cold-bloodedly.

“He’d know.”

“He wouldn’t care.”  It was almost the truth.  But Ryoko knew Tenchi would
care.  Aeka’s faithlessness would cut him to the bone, but it would make no
difference in the end.  Ryoko closed her eyes and desperately wished Aeka’s
faithlessness could matter.

She pictured Tenchi leaving Aeka alone in the huge palace with the baby.
She couldn’t help the wish.  With Aeka out of the way, Tenchi could come
back to her and they could go to Earth together to live.

She opened her eyes and sighed.  Hoping was no use.  Tenchi loved Aeka, and
he’d never forsake her.  Ryoko angrily wished Aeka would go away so that she
could go back to bed.

“Show him the baby.  He’ll forgive you.”  Bitterly, she continued, “He’d
forgive you anything.”

Aeka gnawed on her lip.  “I’m afraid.”

Ryoko was surprised.  “Tenchi would never hurt you.”

“Not of Tenchi,” Aeka said slowly.  “Of the child’s father.”

“Who is the father?” said Ryoko sharply.

Aeka hesitated.  “No one you know,” she said.

Ryoko sighed with relief.  “Did anyone see you and the father go off alone,
or anything?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t think so.”

“Why are you afraid of him?”

“I fear for the child.”

“What is that kid to him?”

“He said...that he would come back and take the child.”

Ryoko shifted on her feet impatiently.  “If the father wants the kid, why
not give him the kid?”

“You don’t understand, Ryoko...this child could have the Jurai power when
she grows up.  I don’t know what the father might do with her.  I don’t
trust him.  You, I trust, Ryoko.  You’ve been my sister all these years.”
Aeka’s tears were falling faster.

“How did this stranger know you’d get pregnant?”  Ryoko wanted to know.

“He said so, afterward,” Aeka said.

“Maybe he won’t come back,” Ryoko suggested.

“I saw him, Ryoko.  I saw him at Startika, the fourth day.  While I was
still pregnant.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No.  But our eyes met, and he knew.  And I knew he meant to come back and
take the child.”  Aeka held the baby out to Ryoko again.  “Please.  For
Tenchi’s sake.”

Ryoko’s patience broke finally.  “Why should I do you any favors?  How do I
explain when people ask where the kid came from?”

“You have nothing to lose, Ryoko!” Aeka sobbed.  “Everyone knows how you are
with men.  No one cares if you have a child without a husband.  Say the
child is yours, or that you adopted her.  But don’t say she came from me.”
Aeka held out the bundle.  “Please, Ryoko.”

As if I owe you something...for Tenchi’s sake! Ryoko fumed.  And now she
wants me to take this bastard and save Tenchi the shame of having been
betrayed.

“What would I do,” Ryoko said quietly, “with a baby?”

“Raise her, care for her.”

“For Tenchi’s sake?” Ryoko said.

Aeka fell silent.

“I hate you for this, Aeka.”

Aeka nodded.  “I thought you might.”

Ryoko reached out for the child, and cradled her in the nest of her arms.
“What’s her name?” Ryoko asked, almost gently.

“I have been calling her Sayuri.”

Ryoko nodded absently, looking into the child’s tiny face.  Sayuri was
awake, and she had golden, catlike eyes, just like Ryoko’s.  Ryoko looked
into those eyes for a long time.

When Ryoko looked up again, Aeka was gone.  So was her ship.  She had run
away as soon as Ryoko had given her a chance.  That was just like her.

With her free hand, Ryoko picked up the overnight bag that Aeka had left,
carried the baby into her house and shut the door behind her.  She snuggled
Sayuri next to her and Ryo-Ohki in bed and they all went back to sleep...it
was, after all, not even noon yet.

Ryoko worked out her story when she woke up later that day.  Aeka hadn’t
been exaggerating when she said Ryoko had been around with men...after
Tenchi had married, Ryoko had indulged many a tryst to alleviate her
depression.  It hadn’t worked; no one else was Tenchi.  She easily drove
servants out of the house with her impatience and her tendency to pop in and
out of rooms unexpectedly, so no one worked for her.  She had been a recluse
for the past year.

It would only be a matter of explaining; she would say she hadn’t started to
show her pregnancy until the last few months.  With her long angular body,
and the latest fashions being so bulky, that was possible.  Sayuri had been
born two months before.  Ryoko thought about where she had been in the past
couple of months.  Nowhere.  That was easy.  She had taken Ryo-Ohki out a
couple of times, cruising around space and reminiscing about her
space-pirating days, but not with anyone.  The delivery boy from the grocery
store came to the house every month, but he was paid with an automated
system, and he never even saw her.

The overnight bag Aeka had brought with her contained all Sayuri’s things;
bottles, powdered milk, blankets, tiny clothes with delicate embroidery of
flowers and animals on them, diapers, baby powder, wipes.  Ryoko was pretty
sure she remembered how to do this stuff from when she helped care for Taro.
  It turned out this baby was a lot easier to take care of.  And, as hard as
she tried to keep from doing so, Ryoko started to feel almost maternal
toward her.

Sometimes, when she was playing with Sayuri, she wondered what she was
doing, why she was taking care of the child of her life’s most troublesome
rival, so that this rival could stay with the man she had loved for years.
But then Sayuri would look up at her with her huge amber eyes and the
adorable solemn expression only babies can manage, and her parentage didn’t
matter to Ryoko.

It wasn’t long before Sayuri started to outgrow her old clothes, and need
warmer clothes.  So Ryoko took her out to stores and tailors, and soon after
that the tabloids were full of gossip about Ryoko the former space pirate
and her surprise baby, full of men claiming to have fathered the baby and
doctors claiming to have delivered her in secret.  It was a commonly known
fact that some species could spontaneously bud children, but Ryoko’s
physique wasn’t like that; the men she had been with to assuage her feeling
of rejection a year before could vouch for that.  Ryoko was very
close-mouthed about it all; when reporters pestered her for interviews she
blew them off, saying that her family was none of the public’s business.

Ryoko took Sayuri with her to the Startika festival the next year.  Aeka,
pale and wan and unhappy-looking, was presiding over the festivities, and
Tenchi sat beside her, his hand in hers, an uncertain smile on his beautiful
face.  Ryoko could hardly take her eyes off them.  Especially Tenchi, always
Tenchi.

“Priddy,” Sayuri ventured.

“It is pretty, isn’t it, Sayuri?”  Ryoko hefted Sayuri on her hip.
“Look,
baby, that’s your uncle Tenchi.”

“Priddy?”

“Tenchi.  Tenchi.”

“Tensi.”

Ryoko smiled.  “Close enough.”

“Baba?”

“Oh yeah.  Here...” Ryoko rummaged and found Sayuri’s bottle and gave it to
her, then perched Ryo-Ohki on her shoulder and rose above the crowd to get a
better look at the king and queen.  Aeka spotted her and waved.  Ryoko waved
back.

Aeka kept waving, and Tenchi turned and waved, too.  Ryo-Ohki mewed next to
her ear.

Sayuri made a dissatisfied noise and began to struggle on Ryoko’s hip.
“Down.”

“Just a minute, honey, if I drop you from this high up, you’ll be hurt.”

Sayuri struggled harder and whined.  “Down!”  She dropped her bottle on the
shifting crowd below and pushed very hard against Ryoko’s hip and arms.

“Well, can’t you just wait a minute?”  Ryoko started to lower herself to the
ground below.  Aeka and Tenchi were still waving urgently to her.  What did
they want?

“Down!” Sayuri insisted, and struggled out of Ryoko’s arms.  Ryoko dove
after her with a shout, dropping the diaper bag from her other hip, and
caught Sayuri’s foot...too late.  Sayuri slipped through Ryoko’s fingers and
fell into the arms of a stranger below...a tall, pale fellow with
silver-white hair and yellowed eyes with red irises.  Kagato.

“Sayuri!”  Ryoko took off after Kagato, who flashed her a derisive smile and
then took to the air himself, flying off into the brightly-lit night.  Ryoko
gave chase, nearly dropping Ryo-Ohki in her haste.

Kagato looked over his shoulder a couple of times...perhaps he smiled, Ryoko
couldn’t tell.  Sayuri looked back at Ryoko, too, with a look in her golden
eyes that Ryoko didn’t understand.  It was something like sadness,
regret...a very adult expression, and one that worried Ryoko.  “I’m coming,
baby!  I’m coming, Sayuri!” she called, a little out of breath from flying
so hard.

A ship loomed into view.  Souja; Ryoko knew that ship all too well.  Kagato
dropped to his feet and ducked into the open entrance easily, shutting it
just as Ryoko slammed into the door hard enough to bloody her nose.  It was
protected; she couldn’t phase through it.

“Ryo-Ohki!” she screamed.

“Meowwwww...” Ryo-Ohki leapt into the air and changed into her ship form as
Souja took off.  Ryoko leapt into Ryo-Ohki and gave the order to chase
Souja, ignoring even the blood streaming down her face.

end pt 1