My Darling Daughter [Mom]

While fate tends to play tricks, intersecting bonds in its wake, no one knows what may come from it.

...

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"

"Ah, she's okay."

That was all I could say at that moment. As color returned to my world, my breath finally came back to me, as if it had traveled all over the universe in this short while. But that is just to be expected. What kind of mom could act normal in a situation where they don't even know if their baby is going to die or not? Well, that is certainly not me.

Even if I think about myself as strong, I have never been able to protect anything I cared about. Whether I decided to go against the river flow, or with it, it never ended the way I wanted it to. Long ago, I learned that this was how things must go, it's my fate.

Still, If it is fate's will to take this child from me, then I don't feel like just standing on the backline. Even though we just met, somehow, I can't help but think of this child as the most precious thing in my world. Like it has already become part of my identity, my soul. It's weird, isn't it? Is this what they call a mother's instinct? No, this must be...

Wait, that can't be, between the baby's... It's missing....

The fact that she is alive is already a miracle given by the heavens, but the fact that she was born female too... It can only be that, right?

I remember one of my few fond memories with my own father. He told me that luck is the one thing that our house was cursed to never hold. Looking at our family's history, and sadly my own, I can't help but agree, forced to face the ugly truth. Yet, he also told me one more thing that time.

(Born under a lucky star, a child with the body of their preceded and soul made from a miracle, goes forth with luck in its wake)

I don't know where that saying came from. Still, in our family, it's treated as a prophecy. Though I guess it would be more correct to call it "following a desperate hope".

Even then, for generations, they have been met with disappointment. All children born from our house have never had a gender different from our parents whose last name we inherit.

Might this be the promise that was made, the prophecy left unfulfilled? If so... so what?

A child of prophecy is never going to be happy in our house, no matter how much luck they have. In fact, that luck might make life worse for them. A child born under a lucky star is nothing but an asset to our house, though an invaluable one. The child themselves will never have their own freedom. What's worse, our family has a lot of enemies... Few children ever reach adulthood. Then what about a child of prophecy? A shiver runs down my spine just thinking about it. This is a real pinch I've found myself in, isn't it?

Ah, I almost forgot! The baby hasn't stopped crying all this while, it seems. I'll have to calm her down.

"Relax baby, shh shh, mommy is here."

"wa wa wa..."

As her breathe roes into a calm, a calm also lands on my own face. Seems like the baby is falling asleep. Honestly, I should be the one fainting right now. I have been through way too much today. Thinking about the future makes it even worse. Still, the way she is relaxing when I hold her to my chest, the way her little body is spreading warmth into my own... Is this feeling, no it can't be... Family?

An indescribable feeling, that blows all my swirling emotions away in its wake. I never thought I would experience this feeling again... Well, it does not matter, she is alive and with me right now, that is the only thing that counts.

Still, I can't help but worry about her future. There is so much to teach her, yet so little time...

Guess I'll have to put out all the stops on this one. I'll have to set her on a path that doesn't go parallel to mine, or even worse. I must make sure that she will be able to stand on her own.

Seems like there will be a lot of troubled times ahead, heh? Still, I don't feel anything but happiness and anticipation when I think about that.

Strange. Might it be because of that smile? It is like an illusion that grips my chest tight. No, that's not right. It might be more correct to say that it makes it lighter. Like a balloon gliding slowly through the skies and kissing the nearby clouds.

"Little one, you are going to give me a lot of trouble, aren't you?"

As I say this, I feel her warmth. I feel it seeping through my body, in tact with her breathing. While it feels strange and alien to me, my body seems to react to it. When the flow of heat envelopes my body whole, I feel a small, the tiniest of all thumps, beat my breast. Strange, everything seems so strange, yet that is not a bad thing.

"Nighty night, dear, mommy will be sure to protect you in your dreams, always."

...

While fate tends to play tricks, intersecting bonds in its wake, no one knows what may come from it. Yet, that matters little to the woman standing here. While she might not notice it, her smile says more than she would be able to admit.