snowmelt4

In the end, it would be the bandits that gave Hina's son his name.


But only after he'd grown a bit.

Thankfully for him, he seemed to grow fast. Not in size- he and Yukina both remained stubbornly small- but in ability. At first, Hina had hardly even noticed, the change was so subtle, the way each time she held him, he burned a little less hot. It wasn't until, one day, as she was unwrapping him from his bonds on the bank of a creek, that Hina noticed she could touch his skin without immediately burning, even before putting him in the cool running water. Of course, she still burned if she touched too long, but that it wasn't immediate was a drastic change from before, and she found herself startled, letting her hand linger on her son's cheek until her hand was red and stinging.

She was unashamed to shed tears over it. To be able to touch her boy at all without immediate damage... it was miraculous, beautiful. She wept and she laughed and she knew he must have been working so, so hard for this, learning to control his youki so that his aura wouldn't hurt his mother and more. He still had a ways to go, he'd still need to be warded a while longer... but he'd taken such strides so quickly, Hina couldn't help but lavish him in praise.

The best part was that it hardly burned to pepper him in brief little kisses.


After that, her son's control over his aura grew by the day. Until, at last, Hina no longer felt the need to wrap him so tightly in wards. Until he hardly needed them at all. Until she could pet his cheek, linger her lips on his forehead, stroke his hair, hold his hand, to her heart's content. Until she could let her children finally, finally be together like they were meant to be, no longer held apart. Brother and sister allowed to rest together, play together, their curious, clumsy little hands finding each others arms, faces, hair, like siblings are meant to do.

Hina knew her baby boy's hard work wasn't only for her- it was for Yukina, too. She'd caught him so many times, looking longing at his sister, while she was allowed to freely wriggle around, touch things, separated from him, where he couldn't join her. It was almost like a second birthday for her children, the day they were finally allowed to just be, together. It was almost like they were meeting for the very first time, yet also having known each other since their souls had formed. After that, Hina had noticed they refused to sleep apart, needing to be close, Yukina's chill beside her brother's warmth, reaching balance between them. Hina was shedding a lot of tears lately.


***


The first smocks Hina's children wore was made from their swaddling. It was about time, she figured, right around when her boy was taking his first steps. With thread freed from fraying the edges of her kimono, a knife, and a needle made from bone, it was simple enough to cut and sew Yukina's blanket into a little frock. The boy's was a little more difficult, and requiring a lot more thread, as Hina stitched together the wrappings that once bound his youki into a single article. This time, she figured, it would be him that the wards would protect from. She hoped that now, he would be the one protected from outside hostile energies, wrapped comfortably in curse-warding cloth, without constricting his movement.

Hina's boy continued to grow at alarming speeds, and Hina wasn't the least bit surprised. The boy had been aware, could understand the world and words spoken around him, since the moment he was born- that he could continue to develop so quickly was almost expected. And yet Hina couldn't help but feel like he was pushing himself to move ever faster, and she wondered if it was that cruel responsibility she'd laid on his shoulders. Like he, only an infant, felt he needed to be able to defend his family better, faster.

By the time Yukina was just learning to crawl, her brother had long since learned to walk, and was taking stumbling steps towards running. Hina was almost tempted to tell her son to slow down, not to rush himself, but he seemed so determined, so proud. She couldn't deny him his accomplishments, his growth, when it was all his own. She barely had to teach him, only aid his balance here and there as he learned. Soon enough, she had a tiny tot zipping around their camp whenever he wasn't crashed for a nap, energy exhausted. Sometimes the latter followed the former so abruptly, the crash was very literal, sweet thing flopping over mid-dash to curl immediately to rest. It made her laugh, every time.

It made him so helpful, too, able to support his less able sister, and Hina wondered if he was trying to teach her to follow his literal footsteps, so she could join him in play. It was immensely sweet to watch.


It wasn't long, however, before his growing abilities were put to the test. Hina had hoped, a little too optimistically, after bribing that band of rogues, that she and her children would be left alone for some time. To their credit, it wasn't any member of that gang that wound up bothering her next- she could tell by the way the new assailant was dressed, when those organized bandits had preferred a sort of uniform. This man, however, was dressed completely differently, and held no recognition of her as he slunk deviously up to her camp.

She'd been in the middle of gutting a fish for dinner, and perhaps it was the smoke of the fire she had burning that had drawn attention to them. Yukina was laying on her belly nearby, propped up on her arms, looking confusedly up at the man stepping into the circle of firelight. The boy, meanwhile, had been sitting silently at Hina's side, watching her work with interest, though now he turned his sharp, narrowed eyes at the intruder.

"Hand over all your valuables, lady, or you and the rugrats get it," he said, brandishing a chipped sword at her. But he'd barely made it two more steps towards them, before Hina's son became a blur, and she found her hand, previously holding a small hunting knife, suddenly empty. The blur rushed the would-be robber, and the next second, blood was blooming from the man's stomach like an unfurling flower. It made an awful mess, splattering all over the ground, on his hands as he dropped his sword and clutched at his split-open belly while he howled in pain, raining down on Hina's little boy as he stood menacingly below the man with the knife held tight with an awkward grip in his tiny little hand.

Screaming in pain, the man fled back into the trees, perhaps to go bleed out somewhere other than here, where an infant who wasn't even tall enough to meet his knees was clearly eager to disembowel him before he could even react. Hina hadn't even known her boy could move so fast, could run at a man and jump so high and swing a knife hard enough to cause such damage. Her eyes were wide, her body still, as she stared at her boy, who was staring at the edge of the camp- making sure the interloper wasn't coming back.

Then, he turned to her, drenched in the other demon's blood, oh, it was all over his face, soaked into his hair and frock, a gruesome sight... Hina's breath caught. Her boy's eyes were so sharp and cold, colder than Hyouga's chilled air, until they met hers, and they softened. His tiny brow furrowed, and Hina realized very suddenly that he was.. worried. He stood as still as her, waiting for her to react- was he afraid she'd become afraid of him?

No, no, she could never, never her little boy, her precious child, her sweet treasure... "My little hero," she cooed as she relaxed, and held her arms out for him. At once, he unfroze, running back to Hina, dropping the knife in the grass as he fell into her waiting arms. Hina held him close, not caring that the blood covering him was staining her kimono. "Is that why you've been pushing yourself so hard, darling? So you could protect us?"

She still felt rotten, having asked that of him. But that was now two and a half robberies he'd stopped, and she had a feeling their family would continue to need him. As it was, her boy's fingers curled tighter in her kimono, and she didn't care how sticky with blood his hair was as she ran her fingers through it. "You're such a good boy, my darling..." she cooed, lavishing him in the praise he'd earned, relishing in the purr that answered her, "you're getting so strong."


***


The one thing the boy seemed to be lagging behind in, was learning to talk. Compared to the rest of his abilities, the way he was already able to run and jump and mercilessly gut a grown man while still not yet a year old, the fact that Hina's son still hadn't learned to talk was notable. But she hadn't yet written it off as something he was actually struggling in- she wasn't sure if he wasn't learning, or if he was simply choosing to stay quiet.

He was so clever, she'd somewhat expected that speech would come quickly to him. But while Yukina was happy to babble nonsense to her heart's content as she learned how to move her mouth and tongue, her brother was content to keep his mouth shut and stay quiet most of the time, not even bothering with baby gibberish. Hina knew he wasn't mute- he'd laugh, and make little noises if something surprised him, but he never bothered trying to speak. She was fairly certain her boy was just on the quiet side. She didn't mind, but... privately, she hoped to hear him speak sometime soon.

Soon wound up coming... well, soon, and rather unexpectedly. Hina hadn't been paying attention, busy trying to scrub their cooking pot in a creek of the residue of the stew she'd made last night. She was counting on her son to keep an eye on his sister, to let her know if they needed her, and he took to that responsibility dutifully- including trying to get her attention when it was needed. "Mama," a small, quiet voice suddenly said, and Hina almost hadn't heard it, and she'd only barely recognized the voice- she thought, for a moment, that it might've been her imagination. When she stopped scrubbing, eyes widened, but didn't yet turn around, she heard it again, a little more impatiently this time, "mama."

Hina turned, and there was her boy, with Yukina half in his lap, fresh sick on her face, down her front, and on even splattered on her brother's legs. She'd made a mess, and burbled innocently without a care, while her brother looked expectantly up at their mother. It wasn't his job to clean it up, after all. Hina registered all this, but it still took her a moment to wrap her mind around it- around her son speaking for the first time, and so easily calling her *mama*. Suddenly, she felt as though she were the one with the fiery youki, with how warmth swelled in her chest with pride and joy. The pot was dropped on the bank, and Hina swept her children into her arms, not caring if she shed a few tears.

"My clever boy!" She called, and though her son's face tried to stay impatient and annoyed that he was still splattered with his sister's lunch, she could hear the way purrs started to rumble up from his throat. "Don't worry, darling, mama will get you both cleaned up..."


***


Hina's son had gone a full year without a name, celebrating his and his sister's first birthday and still seeming to not mind that his mother had yet to find the right name for him. In this, he was endlessly patient, confident that the perfect name was waiting for him sometime in the future. Hina, meanwhile, felt awful, letting her boy go so long with no name of his own. 'Darling' wasn't a proper name, after all, even if it was perfectly apt. But His and Yukina's birthday came and went, and still her boy grew, helping his sister in learning to walk and run, finally able to join him in proper ambulatory play, babbling at him all the time. He spoke more to Yukina than he did to their mother, even if it was still short, small, quiet words. But she didn't mind. It warmed her, to see the special bond her twin children shared.

Only barely a toddler, but already Hina's son showed signs of the warrior he was growing to be. He handled the hunting for dinner, now, able to take down larger animals than even Hina could, so long as he had that hunting knife. He was fast, almost unnaturally so, and sometimes his sudden movements were too quick for the naked eye to follow. It was those skills that kept their family safe- that bandit that the boy had gutted not long after he learned to run had hardly been the last.

As the small family wandered aimlessly in the wide, wild world, it was inevitable they'd run into more unscrupulous demons, demanding valuables by force. They never expected that the tiny boy that trailed after his mother's steps would swoop at them before they could blink, and leave them bloodied, burnt, or both. And not all lived to flee. Hina supposed she should be alarmed that her baby boy already had a kill count... but she found hardly cared, far more concerned about his well being than that of dastardly demons that waylaid struggling little families.

Of those that did survive being ambushed and maimed by a child hardly out of infancy, word seemed to slowly spread, of the dread child with the sharp red eyes, who would slaughter those foolish enough to threaten what was his. But still, they tried, either out of ignorance, or belief that they could be the ones to nip that infamous brat in the bud, or even just not noticing him before it was too late. All fell or were driven away by the boy's ruthlessness and speed, even his growing infamy unable to take the element of surprise from him. No one ever expects just how deadly the tiny little boy could be.


Once, though, a group of men found them as they walked down an old forest road. The first jumped out of a thicket from the side, two swords held out, blocking the way forward with a sinister cackle. The other two emerged from behind, each with more nasty looking weapons and nastier laughs, blocking the way back. Hina, with Yukina in her arms, was trapped. The men didn't even notice the tiny child that had been at her heels vanishing out of sight. That was a fatal mistake.

The man in front didn't even know he'd been attacked before he died. The boy had darted up a tree, only to swoop down from above, blade piercing the top of the man's head, killing him instantly. As the boy stood on the man's clueless corpse, prying the hunting knife from his skull, the other two men shouted in alarm, balking at the sight as Hina glanced backwards at them.

"I-It's him!" One cried out, the both of them stepping back, "It's Hiei- he's real!"

"Hiei?! To hell with this," said the other, and the child snorted dismissively at his cowardice, "I'm not gonna get done in by a killer baby!"

"Wait for me!!" Screaming with self-preservation, the remaining two men ran away as the child rushed at them- and he would've caught them, easily, but stopped before he got more than a couple yards from his mother.

...What was that they'd called him? They'd called him by a name- Hiei. *Hiei*. Where had that come from? Hina mulled it over, while the boy flicked the fresh blood off his knife, watching the men disappear as if daring anyone else to challenge him. Hiei... *Hi ei*, it hit her, what they were calling her son, what they were saying. Her boy, in his infamy, had gained a title: Flying Shadow. A thing that haunted the nightmares of highwaymen, a shrouded figure that moved like a leaf in the wind, leaving death in his wake.

"Hiei," Hina found herself murmuring before she could think, her eyes widened, body frozen. Like that day her son had first sent his knife through another demon's belly.

The child turned, his own eyes widened slightly, and he sounded almost unsure when he replied, "mama?"

It really was just like that time, his apprehension, the furrow of his brow, the worry that he'd finally crossed a line, that his own mother would fear him. Fear this boy who already had a killer's reputation, even though it was a burden she'd asked of him (a burden he had already taken before she'd ever thought to ask). *Hiei*. Flying Shadow. It was suiting... more a title than a proper name, but it felt both smooth and sharp on her tongue, with an undeniable, deadly elegance. Just like her boy. And she found that she wanted to say it again, looking at her boy, who delivered blade and fire to his family's enemies like a dance.

"Hiei," she said, and it felt natural on her tongue, her voice almost a coo. She smiled, warm and adoring, and bent down, holding out her free arm. "That's you, isn't it, darling? My little Hiei."

"Mama!" Hiei answered, and there was so much open innocence in his little face as he rushed to her open arm, both his own curling around her neck, you'd think he hadn't earned his perfect name the way he had.

"Hiei," she said again, holding him to her, Yukina wrapping a tiny arm of her own around her brother. Hiei, Hiei, her baby boy, her darling, her protector, her Hiei. All at once, it felt like everything had come together, the final piece slotting into place. Hina, and her twins, Yukina and Hiei, full of love and warmth and they were all each other needed in this harsh world. She knew they would be okay, as long as they had each other. "My Hiei..."