Light and Shadow

“Goodbye, darling! Make sure to return home at noon for lunch. There is rice in the pot, and the fish is still simmering.”

Diana called out to her husband, Satoru, as she made way out of their humble thatched roof hut. Little Tohru, merely 7 years old, followed after her mother.

Tohru shot a giddy smile to her father and her elder brother, Kaito.

“Bye papa, bye big brother! Tohru will be back with mama at dusk.”

Her sweet, childish voice was always like a cool balm to Satoru and Diana’s heart.

“Bye, sweetheart.”

Satoru smiled back at the duo who were on their way to the local lord’s house.

His wife worked as a maid for the lord, and his daughter went along with her to work because of the free lunch she got.

“Come on, son. Let’s go before the sun rises too high. We don’t want to burn because your mama wouldn’t like that.” Satoru commanded Kaito with a fatherly pat on the boy’s back as his wife and daughter walked further and further away from their humble abode.

Their house was a small single-story wooden hut with a thatched roof. The walls were made of woven bamboo plastered with a mixture of clay and straw. The inside wasn’t particularly lavish either. There were two rooms, one for them, and one for the children, separated by a shoji door. The floor was packed by old tatami mats since they didn’t have the money to get newer mats, but Satoru was determined to earn enough for a new set from this year’s harvest.

Their house was small, but it was theirs. Once it had belonged to Satoru’s adoptive father, and now it was his.

The roof had been freshly fixed this morning because of yesterday’s rain that had forced the family to huddle together in a corner for the night. And dear God, it had been awful listening to Diana complain and say ‘See! I told you to fix it when the first hole appeared’ His children’s whines hadn’t been any less annoying either, what with their ‘Let us sleep between you’. It had been made especially annoying when the two siblings had started an argument in the middle of the night over who would get to place their head on their mother’s soft, cushiony breasts. They had only fallen asleep after Diana had twisted their ears and threatened them with having to sleep with their faces near his feet.

Now, Satoru’s feet weren’t stinky by any means; thank you very much. However, he had been so tired that he had plopped down on his futon without bothering to wash his feet with water. That had been another reason why Diana hadn’t stopped elbowing him last night. It was also why she hadn’t allowed him to wrap his arms around her last night.

A soft lovesick sigh escaped his lips as he caught sight of his wife’s face again as she glanced at him from over her shoulder with a grin.

“Tenugui, princess”, he called out before she could leave with Tohru.

“Ah!”

Diana paused in her tracks and realised that her long, wavy blonde hair was uncovered. It was done up in a simple bun, but it was visible. Well, that wouldn’t do.

“Here, mama”, Kaito quickly ran back inside their house and came back out with a white tenugui.

“Thank you, Kai”, Diana smiled as she accepted the offering, and quickly tied it around her head, effectively covering her hair.

The sight of his wife’s hair being mostly covered elicited an agreeing nod from Satoru.

The villagers were...well, they were not very accepting even if Diana had lived there for almost 14 years. Heck, they didn’t even accept him, someone who had been in this village for almost all his life.

“We’ll be going then. See you at dusk, darling”, Diana gave him a final goodbye and turned to leave, only to backtrack after walking 10 steps.

“Forgot something, minx?“, Satoru smirked, knowing exactly what made Diana return. She did that every morning.

Tohru and Kaito crouched down on the ground and started to boredly watch an ant make it’s way back to it’s hill. Their parents were going to waste some time doing yucky adults things, and they didn’t want to see that.

“Why, yes~” Diana purred, sashaying her way to Satoru with a sultry sway of her hips. “I think I forgot-”

Then before Satoru could react, she grabbed his wrist and bit his arm, near his elbow. It caused Satoru’s flirty grin to drop into a deadpan expression. Typical minx wife.

“I think I forgot something too”, he huffed and attacked Diana, going for her lips. A happy squeal escaped Diana’s lips before she melted into the kiss.

“Kai-Kai, bring me back bird feathers if you find some.”

“Okay, Tohru. I think I can find a crow’s feathers.”

“Nooo, Tohru wants pretty bird’s feathers!”

The children conversed, not paying attention to the flirty sounds behind them. It was an everyday occurence that they were used to.

‘Like the sun rose in the morning and moon came out at night; mama and papa always kissed and made out with all their might’, Kaito couldn’t help but mentally commend himself on his poetry.

Soon all Satoru could see was the molten gold of Diana’s hair, mostly hidden by the tenugui she wore. Just like her, Tohru’s white hair was also a shining beacon among the brown and green of the fields.

“Let’s go, papa. It’s starting to get hot”, Kaito tugged on Satoru’s hand, pulling his attention away from the horizon where his gaze was still fixed on his wife.

The sight of the boy’s face, a copy of his own, with his mother’s beauty sprinkled in- it filled Satoru’s heart with love and pride.

He ruffled the boy’s white hair, eliciting a giggle from the blue eyed boy.

And with that the father-son duo set a quick pace towards their field. It must have quite a sight- two white haired, pale men marching towards paddy fields.

“Good morning, Misae”, Diana greeted the older woman when she stepped inside the servant quarters of the lord’s house.

“Good morning”, Tohru shyly greeted the older woman as well.

They hadn’t been working here for that long- only 3 months- so Tohru was still very shy. Well, that’s what happened when you belonged to the family of village freaks and you had overprotective parents who refused to let you out of sight. Not for a bad reason though, since some villagers still saw them as a curse. It was honestly still a miracle that Diana hadn’t been outright killed for being a foreigner.

“Morning”, Misae replied in her gruff voice. She was hitting her mid-forties and her patience for nonsense was quickly coming down. Still, she was a reasonable woman.

“Get to work, woman! We don’t pay you sit on your ass and gossip!”

The harsh words of the head servant caused Diana to flinch. Poor Tohru was so frightened that she hid behind her mother.

No matter how many insults and sleazy words Diana had listened to- she had never quite gotten used to them. She had been raised as a lady, as a-

“Hey! I’m talking to you!”

The head servant snapped his fingers in front of Diana’s face, jolting her out of her reverie.

“Yes, I’m sorry”, Diana quickly apologised. Her voice was so melodic and hypnotising that for a moment the head servant almost felt bad for snapping at the enchanting woman. Almost.

“Hurry”, He let out a huff of air through his mouth, not even bothering to look in Misae’s direction. If there was one thing he knew, it was that Misae was not lazy.

“Come, Tohru”, Diana whispered to her daughter, quickly ushering her to follow behind her to the main hall of the lord’s mansion.

A few hours passed as the two engaged in chores. They had already mopped the floor and dusted the furniture. Now they just needed to serve the food to the guests that had arrived at the lord’s mansion, and then they would be free to have their own lunch.

Diana didn’t know much about who had arrived at the lord’s mansion. She just knew that they had arrived late at night and were going to leave after having lunch.

Perhaps it could be some high ranking lord? She had definitely seen the army of men and horses resting near the stable.

Well, none of that mattered to Diana. Her world was small now. Only three people existed in it- Satoru, Tohru, and Kaito.

“Hurry up, wench!”

A male servant shouted at her on seeing her walking a little too slow to the main chamber.

“Yes!” Diana apologised again. It hadn’t been her fault. No, she was carrying a loaded tray of food in her hand, dropping which would lead to her getting a beating, and perhaps her salary.

Tohru watched the man shout at her mother. Even though she wanted to help, there was nothing she could do. Though she was small she already knew the immense difference there was in the way her father treated her mother, and the way everyone else treated her.

So Tohru remained standing near Misae who was cleaning the shoes of the army men.

The doors slammed shut behind her mother, sealing her warm and beautiful presence from Tohru’s pink eyes.

Diana quietly placed down the tray of food on the small raised table, in front of the guest. She didn’t say anything- it would have been a sin. A servant talking to a lord, especially a female servant talking to a lord- it would have been seen as either an insult to his dignity, or an attempt to seduce.

Diana’s eyes remained lowered to the floor as she backed away from the man to go stand near the servants, all of whom stood in a neat line along the wall.

“Hmm...“, A low humm escaped the high ranking lord, Nobunaga’s lips. It didn’t fail to catch Yoshio, the local lord’s, attention.

“Is something the matter, lord?“, Yoshio questioned him, fearful of having somehow offended the high ranking man.

Yoshio was the local lord of a small village while this man was directly under the emperor’s command. It would be way too easy for him to kill Yoshio in a fit of rage.

“No.” The stern reply from Nobunaga was enough to shut Yoshio’s mouth, but he remained alert, and then he saw what Nobunaga was looking at- or rather, who.

Diana.

Pretty Diana, beautiful Diana, oddly coloured Diana who had been almost killed for having been thought of as a Kitsune. Kind Diana who had married the village freaks with white hair.

“Her....who is that woman?“, Nobunaga questioned, gesturing towards the golden haired beauty who stood with her head lowered.

“Ah, her? Yes, my lord, she’s just a servant girl”, Yoshio chuckled nervously.

Yoshio was many things, but cruel he was not. He knew that Diana had a husband and two children. Husband and children who loved her very much. Just like the wife and children Yoshio once had.

“I’m taking her,” Nobunaga smirked, already thinking of the things he could do to her. He had been mesmerized by the beautiful woman.

He had frozen the moment he had caught the first glimpse of her. For a moment he had thought that he was looking at an exquisite porcelain doll. She had such striking beauty! He had never seen hair of that colour, though most of it wasn’t visible under her head covering. Her eyelashes were so long. He couldn’t see the colour of her eyes from that far away, but he was sure it must have been some odd colour too.

Make no mistake- he already had a wife and three concubines. What red blooded man at the ripe age of 34 didn’t? That, however, didn’t mean he couldn’t add more to his flower collection. Not to mention, this flower was the most beautiful one he had seen.

“....” Yoshio sucked his breath. He couldn’t argue against the man, and he couldn’t reason with him. He could only pray that Diana would accept quickly and not fight back. He didn’t want the fragile woman to get broken like a china plate.

The rest of the lunch was uneventful, except for the way Yoshio saw Nobunaga eyeing Diana.

Yoshio felt like his dead wife might have been cursing him from heaven. Here he was, allowing a woman under him to be leered at like this. He could practically feel the way Nobunaga was mentally undressing Diana. He could see the way the man’s gaze was fixed on the woman’s ample bosom.

He offered up a silent apology to his dead wife, hoping she would understand that though he didn’t like this, there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

“Well then, we’ll be on our way now”, Nobunaga rumbled out as he stood up from his seat.

He was swift as he got up, yet the elegance of polished noble etiquette still shone through in his moments.

“You, woman with the scarf!“, Nobunaga’s loud voice startled Diana out of her quiet musings. She hadn’t been paying attention to the men at all.

“Yes, lord?“, She questioned in a meek voice, awaiting an order. Perhaps he wanted her to take away the empty trays-

“I’ll be taking you with me.”

What.

Diana’s heart plummeted at the sentence that meant the end of her world, her little family.

“L-lord?“, She questioned again, this time in a trembling voice, unable to keep her gaze fixed on the wooden floor, hoping that she might have misheard.

A dark chuckle escaped Nobunaga’s lips as he stepped towards her. He roughly grabbed her chin and forced her pink eyes to meet his dark brown ones. The colour of her eyes were so mesmerizing that for a moment Nobunaga wasn’t able to get a word out of his mouth.

“I said I’ll be taking you with me. You will live as a maid in my estate, and if you’re lucky, you could even become my concubine”, Nobunaga smirked, enjoying the fear that glimmered in her eyes, in those pink gems, surrounded by golden lashes.

Yoshio turned his head away when Diana’s gaze turned to him.

She couldn’t refuse Nobunaga, but Yoshio could atleast tell the man that she was married and had two children.

“Come!” With a harsh tone, Nobunaga gripped Diana’s arm and started dragging her out of the main hall. Her light body was easily manhandled by the boar like man. She was being treated like a ragdoll.

“Lord, please! I have a husband and children!” Diana begged as she was being dragged out. Her eyes burned with unshed tears she was sure were going to slide down her cheeks any moment.

Tohru! Her Tohru was outside the hall, waiting with Misae. What would her precious Tohru do? She didn’t want to frighten her child.

“Quiet-!“, Nobunaga snapped at her. He hated the sight of crying women, not because he felt guilty, but because he found the sight pathetic.

“Ma-? Mama?!”

Diana’s head snapped towards the sound of the frightened voice.

“Mama, what’s happening?! Mama!“, Tohru raced after the two, watching in fear as the tall man, clad in expensive metal armour, dragged her mother by the arm.

Tohru came closer to them and reached her hand out to grab Diana’s robe, in an attempt to stop her from being taken.

It took Nobunaga only one look at the girl to realise that she was the maid’s child.

“Move your hand, you dirty thing!“, Nobunaga snapped at the child, kicking her square in her stomach when she pulled at Diana’s robe.

The effect was instant, Tohru fell on her back, almost a feet away from the two, with a sharp cry of pain. The kick was so hard that her little body couldn’t help but throw up the contents of her stomach.

A howl of shock and rage left Diana’s mouth at the sight of her daughter being treated like that.

“You monster! How dare you?!”

She used her free hand to hit Nobunaga’s face as hard as she could, but it simply wasn’t that effective with it being her left hand.

“Insolent wench!“, Nobunaga’s eyes narrowed in anger at what he felt was a slight to his status.

He grabbed Diana by her hair and slammed her head against the wall of the main hall.

Diana went down instantly. She was knocked out cold from the brutal hit to her head.

The servants stood silent in their place. They couldn’t help them even if they wanted to- they would be killed if they tried.

It was only after Nobunaga had left with Diana’s body that Misae rushed to Tohru’s aid. The poor girl had fainted from the intense hit.

It must have taken Misae almost an hour to bring the poor child to consciousness, and the first thing the girl did after waking up was to ask about her mother.

“Ma...my mama...w-where?”

Tohru’s voice, as weak as a little sparrow in a storm, made Misae’s heart tremble.

“She....she’s fine, Tohru. But are you alright?”

Misae didn’t want to lie, but she also couldn’t tell the truth to such a small child that she might never get to see her mother again.

She used a wet rag that she had brought over while Tohru was unconscious, and used it to wipe the girl’s face.

Tohru’s kimono, an old pale thing, was covered in her vomit, and the girl was still trembling from pain.

Seeing her not cry made Misae think of her as a particularly strong child. Most children would have been wailing from pain in this situation, but Tohru laid quietly, letting Misae tend to her.

“Misae”, came a voice so tired and defeated, that Misae almost didn’t recognise whose it was for a moment.

“Lord Yoshio”, Misae whispered and lowered her head in greeting.

Yoshio looked tired. He looked like he had aged 10 years in the span of a few hours.

“Send a servant to bring Satoru here. He needs to know. I will personally tell him”, Yoshio spoke in a soft voice with a solemn tone. And why wouldn’t his tone be solemn? He was going to tell the man that he was never to see his wife again.

“Yes, lord”, Misae nodded and gently lowered Tohru’s head back to the floor, from where it had been laying on her lap.

Yoshio turned away, refusing to look at Tohru, who was looking at him with a profound gaze. The gaze of a child who understood more than they should.