#beast-witch

[theformerwitch]

Inosuke comes back from hunting with his little Aoba, he had taught him a lot today, and he even brought food for today's dinner, carrying it on his back proudly to show his mother.

When the house comes into view, the boar king catches the Love Witch on the roof, placing some colorful things he had never seen before.

"Hey, what are ya doin'?"

— au x-mas inosuke.💙🎅🏽

" Hm?" The Love Witch turned around and clasped her hands as she saw her two boys. The love witch is dressed in Reindeer pelts with horns on her head for the season.

" My loves!"

She nearly slips off the icy roof trying to get down but manages to do it successfully by falling into Inosuke's arms.

" It's christmas decorations! It's a family holiday celebrating the Solstice!" She kisses his cheek and moves out of his arms to congratulate the little Aoba on his catch.

As she's leaned over and fawning over her little boy, who is doing poses with the rather large fish, Ino's notices a tail on her pelt right over her butt. Attached to the pelt tail is a bell and it's ringing with every slight movement.

[theformerwitch]

Inosuke can't process anything; all he can think of is the child in his arms. Aoba, Inosuke's spitting image.

The child brings him a feeling that's deep inside his core, suppressed for years, but resembling to one he's known way too well.

When he was a child. That's the memory. Unbeknownst to him, it's as if a part of his mother still lived in him. A part of his mother's love, divided into two: one part in him, the other one in his little child.

Tears slowly fall from the boar king's eyes. He's a simple man, a man whose bravery and fierceness had been reduced to the sweetness and innocence of the small creature he holds.

When he meets Alexandra's gaze, his voice is breathy and cracked.

"...my son..."

— inosuke hashibira.

Alexandra stook her head as she gently reached up to cradle the handsome man's face in between her rough fingertips.

Rough with burning herbs, milling spices and writing spells for years to keep her son and herself comfortable.

She always wrote love and prosperity spells for those in the village while she could never get that love back.

The witch pulls the ribbon out of Inosuke's hair that holds his tresses in a respectable top knot. His locks fall down his neck and shoulders. The ends a dark blue similar to his sleeping son's.

" Not yours....ours..." The witch confirms as she pulls him down to press the bridge of her nose to his.

She breathed in his scent, reminiscing their nights alone with themselves and their bodies.

Along with the memories, she breathed in relief, sleeplessness, emptiness.

Gently and slowly, she slips behind him and snakes her hands in between his arms. Her own wrap around his chest, right in between their son's sleeping form and his muscular one.

" I can sense the exhaustion, my king. Sleep. Sleep with me and our son." Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes until they fell onto the skin of his wide back.

[theformerwitch]

At the sight of the sleeping child, Inosuke couldn't help but to feel a wave of emotions washing over him.

The child was still sleeping when Alexandra took him into her arms. He looked so peaceful, so far away in the land of dreaming.

It was so obvious the way Inosuke's gaze was fixed on the boy. How it didn't move from there. How a feeling resembling to a tightening, drowning feeling was starting to creep its way up to his chest.

"You can hold him if you'd like..." Alexandra's suggestion resounds in his ears. Before he can say no, protect himself from this overwhelming sensation, the child is resting soundly in his arms.

Inosuke's breath hitches in his throat when Aoba, his little mini me, smiles in his sleep and snuggles into his chest.

"I'm a..." He starts, but his words are stuck in his throat, which is slowly becoming tight.

"Yes, Inosuke..." He can't pay any mind to Alexandra resting her hand on his arm, squeezing it gently, but her words reach to him, "...He's your son. Our son."

Green irises become blurry with his heart's content: a heart that has suffered every single day since that night, wishing that he could go back to the witch that had been, undoubtedly, love at first sight. Love at first fuck, if you may.

But, in the end, it was love. To him, it was. And there was nothing that could compare itself to that —not even to Aoi who, heartbroken, stared at the scene before her. A sight that she refused to believe, a sight that she wished she was part of, instead of that damned witch that had stolen her man.

"Ino..." When said man, meets her gaze with humid, deeply moved green orbs, she is obligated to confront the fact that, the man before her, is someone she can't have.

A fact that she would refuse and deny with every single fiber of her being, and would do anything to make it cease to exist. Because she can't accept the fact that Inosuke is not, and will never be hers.

— inosuke hashibira.

Alexandra continued to look over Inosuke.

The love witch gently cradled his jaw with her left hand as the right one rested on his bicep. She gently encouraged him to sit down on the small plush rocking chair with the little boy in his arms.

" I'll be right back...my love. I'm never leaving you again." The witch whispers in his ear. She presses a tender and caste kiss to his cheek.

Leaving him there, she strides towards Aoi. The girl is now defensive as tears run down her face. " Stay back! Stay back you...you fucking witch!"

"Now there's no need for that..."

" Yes there is!"

Alexandra is struck silent as her arms fold and she rests her cheek on a hand. Almost as if to hear her out.

" Inosuke is mine! He's my boyfriend! Has been for two whole years now! We were supposed to get married." The pigtailed girl is shaking in anger.

" I-I'm even pregnant!" At this, Inosuke lifts his head up from his actual child in front of him.

" What?"

" Yeah! I'm knocked up Ino! You have to stay with me!"

The raven haired love witch gently smiled.

" No you're not."

" Yes I am! How would you know!?"

The witch beckons her to look at the statue by the door. It is of a maternal figure with a large round stomach and heavy breasts. A single jewel is on her belly. " I use her to diagnose the local woman with child. That jewel glows when a pregnancy is around here. It's how I found out I was pregnant several hours after Inosuke left."

" Well...Inosuke told me you cheated on him with Zenitzu! How do we know that bastard isn't his?!"

At this, Alexandra began to laugh loudly. " Silly girl. I never laid with Zenitsu. I merely used him to get information on demons, the demon corps and more. I made him believe I liked him."

A long plant tendril then wrapped around Aoi and her neck.

" You can call me whatever you want. But you do not talk about my son like that. Ever again. "

Removing a cow tongue from her icebox, the witch stabs it with a nail before throwing it into the fire.

" Mine, my son's..." With softened eyes, she looks over at Inosuke. " And my lover's name will never be on your tongue."

With a flash of magick, the Aoi fell into a trance.

One last thing. A kiss to her forehead. " May you find another love."

Baneful she could be, at her core she still willed love.

She let her go and the girl immediately began to run out of her small cottage.

She then turns to Inosuke. " My love?"

[theformerwitch]

Inosuke watched as she left. His heart still throbbed, but he was a tough king of the mountain. A slayer. He couldn't just be weak around a woman.

Not even if that woman has him going mad.

Inosuke glared at her back as he followed behind her, until she came to a stop.

Arms crossed over his bare chest, the boar king awaits for the love witch's explanation; even if he thinks it's pointless, the woman in front of him made him want to stay, and he couldn't ignore his instinct.

-- inosuke hashibira.

Alexandra looks over her shoulder to see the Boar King to her side but she could still feel his gaze right though her.

She takes a jar of dried forget-me-nots and pours them into the cauldron.

A black mirror right behind the pot steams over and starts to morph into an image. She touches the mirror and it turns into an image of her, pregnant.

" This mirror is used to see memories. In that memory, I'm 4 months along with Aoba."

The image warps again and suddenly it is her with a newborn. She is smiling and bouncing the baby boy, who is swaddled in pelts.

The third image is now of a little boy with his own pelts tied around his neck trying to wobble around.

The love witch is looking at the mirror with a hand on her chest and mess around them before she starts to clean with pink tendrils.

Alexandra then waves away the immagine with two hands.

" There. Do you believe he is your son now?" She asks as she motions for him to follow him. She's not even touching him anymore.

" Follow me."

She brings him to Aoba again. The little boy is peacefully asleep, the wooden boar still tucked under his arm.

[theformerwitch]

Inosuke couldn't be more shocked now; Emerald orbs are widened, his fierceness disappears when she brings that shocking truth to him.

To be honest, the boar headed man doesn't know how to react.

"Ao...ba..?" Is all that leaves his lips. Almost no trace of his voice in his question. His heart is beating fast.

"Yes... He is just like you... Your son, Inosuke."

He feels his hand being squeezed gently by the witch, the one that, once, used to be his.

But then he remembers. The memory of that night in which the king has known betrayal flashes before his own eyes. That night in which he's known for the first time what it was like to have his heart broken for the first time by none other than his friend and the woman that made him feel weirdly amazing.

"You're lying," Inosuke's hand escapes the witch's gentle grip and it's harsh, "It's fuckin' bullshit."

"How do I know yer not pulling any kind of weird ass trick and lie to me, huh?"

After all, it wouldn't surprise him if she did. She had already stabbed him once.

— inosuke hashibira.

The witch's lips flipped into a frown.

She began to lift part of her blouse.

" Hey! Whatdya doin? You can't temp-"

" Shut up."

Inosuke felt his eye twitch as rage filled him.

Once the love witch had her top just below her now larger breasts, she showed him her stretch marks. Before they were light due to just maturation but now they were deep and welted, due to pregnancy.

" I know you know I didn't have these back when you conquered me."

She let go of the cloth. " Besides, love witch I may be but I know how to control myself."

She scoffed and flips her hair in his direction as she strides back to the cauldron over the hearth.

" Come here and look. I can also show you what happened after..." She drifted off as she tried hard not to remember what happened.

She looked over to see him still staring at her and not doing anything.

" Hello? Come on. As if him not looking exactly like you already doesn't help. I love him because he is my son but goodness..."

[theformerwitch]

Unfazed by Aoi's reaction, the handsome man just quirked an eyebrow in confusion.

"Ha? What the hell d'ya mean?"

Aoi's demands to know were suppressed, it was only the witch and him.

He watched Alexandra leave, his gaze was lingering on her. Old wounds seemed to open in his heart, to that painful last night in which betrayal had been a feeling he never expected to feel.

Not from his love witch. His love at first sight.

The feeling wasn't the same with Aoi.

"Ino? Ino, let's go. Ino?" The girl continued to tug at his arm, but the only one who could make him listen was the one of his witch.

"Come in, let's talk."

— inosuke hashibira.

" I don't think so. Ino come ON!" She pig-tailed girl clenches his arm even more. " Thank you for inviting us in, but I rather not go into a witch's layer."

Alexandra had just put down her little Aoba for his nap. In his little firsts were a wooden figure of a boar. Akin to his father as always.

A vein nearly popped out of the witch's forehead at the rudeness of the blue eyed girl's comment.

The love witch gathered herself up and entered her atrium once more. The beaded curtain behind her rippled some as she felt the energy leave her body and manifest in the room.

Walking up to the pair, she sweetly smiles at Aoi before keeping her gaze locked with Inosuke.

" I think you should leave and come back in a while. The adults are talking, little one." Alexandra snaps her head to Aoi. A flash of pink and the girl goes rigid. She robotically leaves into the forest.

Watching her go, Alexandra slowly traces a hand up Inosuke's arm and bicep.

The man, also watching supposed girlfriend leave him, stops her hand and merely holds it. It wasn't rough, yet it also wasn't gentle.

" Don't touch me."

"My king..." The love witch is saddened by his tone.

" I've...I've waited for you for so long. I..." She takes a deep breath.

" I didn't know if you would come back to me. You left that child here. You bred me and left me with child. I decided to have him."

She takes her other hand and gathers the hand holding hers. She presses kisses to the top and fingertips. Lowering his hand, she gently reaches out and holds his chin. Turning his face towards her.

" He is your child. His name is Aoba."

[theformerwitch]

The boar man takes off the mask, revealing the very same eyes that had captivated the love witch when she first saw him.

However, those eyes held the same hurt ever since he's left. He'd searched for his love witch in the bodies of many other women, tried to feel her taste in many other lips, but none of them ever worked.

The child appears, runs around his mother only to stop at the intimidating man. The little boy stares curiously with very familiar green orbs, innocent and kind; At the intimidation, he gets shy, getting behind his mother but peeking from her thigh to steal a glance at the large man.

Out of nowhere, a woman entangled her arms around his buffy muscular one, holding onto him ever so protectively. She wasn't nowhere near as beautiful as Alexandra was. Nowhere near a good fuck like her.

"Ino? Who's this?"

Inosuke's gaze was always on Alexandra.

— inosuke hashibira

(omg)

Aoi smiles up at Inosuke before looking over at Alexandra.

The love witch smiles at her, a wistful look is in her hazel eyes.

" I'm Alexandra. The love witch. What brings you two lovers to my humble abode?"

She bows, her dress parting some. As she leaned over, her little one, named Aoba, grabbed at her long sleeves and asked to be picked up.

Aoi smiles some and hugs Inosuke's arm even tighter.

" Well we were just in the forest foraging and we came across a little boy by himself running around in the woods. You know, my husband.."

" What's a husband?"

" Well it's someone who's married and we want to get married, right Ino?

With a gentle smile, Alexandra picks up her son and holds him in her arms as she continues to talk to the known strangers.

The king of the mountain continues to look at the woman and the child in her arms.

"Why does he look like me?"

Aoi starts laughing loudly and holding her stomach. " No he doesn't!"

The gentle smile falls from the witch's lips and she presses a kiss to her son's forehead. " Sleep my darling." The babe continues to look over to his father before his wide green eyes start to droop.

" Well. I think he does. It could be pure coincidence. Or it could be that you left him here, Inosuke."

Aoi's eyes widened.

" Ino. How does she know your name? You said you never had a relationship with another woman." The pigtailed girl demanded to know.

[theformerwitch]

Inosuke couldn't believe what he was hearing. That fucking Monitsu? With his witch?

Red is all he can see the moment he launches himself directly onto the blonde.

"She's fuckin' mine." His growl is animalistic, primal.

"You damn pig, what the hell are you talking about?!"

"Inosuke, Zenitsu, stop it!" Tanjiro tries to reason but with no avail.

"A beautiful woman like my Alexandra-chan could never be with an animal like you!"

And that had been the straw that broke the camel's back. Inosuke starts beating the shit out of Zenitsu, and not even Tanjiro could stop them from fighting, Zenitsu fighting back.

There certainly was no way to stop them.

Until Inosuke sees how the blonde is practically snatched from him by what he recognized as the witch's power.

Before he could retrieve the blonde to keep on pummeling him, Tanjiro gets a hold of him.

"Calm down!" His headbutt knocked him out, but the last thing he saw was his witch, side by side with fucking Monitsu.

-------------------------------------

Inosuke eventually wakes up, blinking himself to reality as he feels his head aching with the pain of Gonpachiro's blow.

"Inosuke! You're awake, my king—"

Before the witch could place her hands on him, he slapped them away. Getting up and gathering his boar head, as well as his swords. Tanjiro follows him with the gaze, about to scold him for being so rude, but words don't come out of hhis mouth as Inosuke pays one last glance to her from over his shoulder.

For the first time, the usually loud boar masked is quiet; No words are uttered, yet his emerald gaze said it all. The betrayal, he wasn't expecting it.

— inosuke hashibira.

Alexandra tries to console him, hold his hand.

Tears are falling from her hazel eyes as he continues to leave. Finally he throws her hands away from him.

This is the final stone and she stops trying to go after him.

Tanjiro, in his sweetness, bows to her and whispers an apology before running to join his teammates.

Zenitsu even gives her a sadden look before he turns to touch the box on Tanjiro's back, as if needing comfort.

The love witch stays on the ground for what seems like hours.

Eventually she stands up and continues her home life. Weeks pass and eventually she is sick in bed. With a simple spell, she discovers she is with child. It's not Zenitsu's, it is Inosuke's.

This leads her into crying fits as she will have to raise the child alone. Easily, she could get rid of the pregnancy but she is all alone.

Deciding to go through with in, the decides to take better care of herself.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Nine long months pass by and eventually she holds her child in her hands. It is a little boy who looks exactly like his father but with hazel eyes.

He makes her smile and she is reminded that Inosuke did not have any family. She wishes him to be doing good but misses him immensely. Her king of the Mountain.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Years pass by and eventually her little one is up and around. A little wild child himself, his mother loves to send him off to go find her flowers, berries and anything else she might need for her spells.

Matching his father, his mother crafted a boar head for him as well.

One day, he runs into a tall man with long blue/black hair and a boar headed pelt on his shoulder. Never having seen a man, he is stuck in fear. He does not know if to fight or take flight. Turning into a boar, courtesy of his mother, he scampers back to his mother's cottage. Turning back into the boy he is, he runs into his house.

" MAM! MOM!"

The witch's concentration is broken at the sound of her 4 year old's voice.

" Coming darling! What is the matter?" She asks him as she gently takes off his mask.

A sound comes from the patio and Alexandra arms herself with a long, grecian dagger.

Suddenly it clatters on the floor.

" Ino...Inosuke?"