When Hinata is young before she really understands life and daemons and the taboo of this, she asks what her mother's name is. No, not her mother's name, she knows that but her name, him.
Her mother is steel always and she doesn't flinch at her question. Her mother never flinches, even when she asks for more than she deserves and Hinata has always wanted more.
"Kahikina," her mother says. Her mother's robin - no, Kahikina - flutters down from her mother's shoulder and settles by her knee. Her lap is full of her own daemon, Perseo and her hands buried into his fur are the only things that stop her from reaching out to the dainty little daemon. You're supposed to hold tight to your soul but it's hard to think that when Kahikina brushes gently against her knee and that one touch is everything that she has always known her mother to be. Warm and loving and gentle and she only hopes that she and her mother's souls are made of the same thing.
Perseo's paw moves close to the other daemon and Kahikina hops straight onto it just as her mother brushes a strand of hair out of her face. "What does the name mean?" She asks and her mum, her mum, not Hiashi's wife or Hyuga-sama or her mother, gives her that smile. That one that is just for her, the one that tells her that she loves her with all of her heart. It makes her heart swell so much that she's certain that it's all just going to burst and years later this will be how she will always try to remember her mum. Surrounded by the flowers, mud smudged on her face and her daemon so close that she can feel his warmth. Years later she will try and remember that she was loved. She won't remember how her mother's eyes looked so sad, how scared she was. She won't remember how everything still hurt, even then.
"It means the coming, my father named me." Her mum speaks as if she's speaking some great secret that is only for the four of them. Her and Perseo lean forward because even though they do not yet know it, something in their bones says that this will be the last secret they ever get. Hinata will never find out that her mother's daemon settled when the ground disappeared under her feet and her stomach lurched when she discovered it would be the oldest of the Hyuga twin's that she would wed. Will never find out how her mother has a little vial of poison hidden away in her sleeve and that freedom tastes a little like blood and cyanide. All she will have is her half-written memories and the half-written person it leaves her with.
"And my name? What does it mean?" Her mother stiffens at the barrage of questions even though her voice is always always soft.
"It means great strength. Your father named you that." Her mother's voice is curt and hard and she bows under the weight of all the things she doesn't yet understand.
Hinata knows that she loves her sister with her entire heart. She knows it as easily as she knows that she has ten fingers and ten toes. Hanabi is only small but she is so easy to love. Even though her lungs are big enough to bring the whole compound down and do so many many times. She never cries when she's with her though. She only stares up at her with her big Hyuga eyes and she knows, she just knows that little Hanabi is trying to speak to her with them.
Hanabi is only a baby but she says more than most people. She asks about the flowers and the loud orange boy that she's taken to watching and mother all just with her eyes. She knows that she asks Perseo to settle into different shapes because she always seems to coo when she shifts into a butterfly and then laughs when he becomes a hummingbird, bright and fast in all the ways that she knows that she can't be. Perseo once shifts into a small brown mouse and settles on Hanabi's stomach because they know that she will find the feeling funny and they love her enough to do this for her.
The feeling of Perseo touching Hanabi is strange but Hinata has always been good at pushing past pain. She brushes her fingers through Hanabi's soft hair, presses a kiss to her forehead cause healing is just a kiss away.
"Hinata! You should be in bed." She spins around so fast that she nearly trips, catching herself on the crib. Perseo crawls out of the cot and scampers all the way up her arm until he's nestled into the crook of her shoulder. Hanabi gives a little cry of dismay but she turns slightly so she can brush fingertips over Hanabi's hand. Healing is only a kiss away she tries to tell Hanabi with just a touch. She thinks she must understand cause Hanabi is clever and she settles.
"Well?" Her mother's voice is harsh and impatient and tired. Nothing at all like the calm and gentle woman she loves, she thinks, frowning.
"Mama, I heard Hanabi crying." All the hard lines on her mother face soften until she's just soft curves. It's not quite her mother's usual face but in the shadows of her lines, she catches shades of the women that she loves.
"You shouldn't do that. Go to bed now." She nods reluctantly and pulls away from Hanabi.
"Night mama. Night Hanabi."She walks over to where her mother is, standing still and silent.
"Hinata wait," her mother calls out and she stops and turns. "You're a good sister but there may come a time where you may have to protect your sister over yourself. You don't deserve a cage and neither does your sister but you were mine first and I would ask that you choose yourself first. Promise me that you will. Promise me!" Her mother's words are half-stringed thoughts that don't make any sense. Kahikina is staring at her in a way that he has never done before as if there's not enough time in the world and nowhere to run. It is the first time that he has ever looked caged and Perseo's tiny claws dig sharply painfully into her shoulder. Hurting in a way that it isn't meant to with your daemon.
"Promise," she says and it is all lie cause she would never let Hanabi get hurt. Her mother just nods, perfunctory and sharp and turns away, closing all conversation. She goes back to her room confused and scared and Perseo scuttles off her shoulder and jumps onto the bed. By the time she's undressed, he's shifted into his usual cat form. She half-wonders if this is what he'll settle into when its time. It's a stupid thought, Hyuga's only settle into birds.
"She's silly if she thinks we'd ever let anything happen to Hanabi," Perseo says this slowly with all the soft force that she wishes came more easily to her. Her hands form into tight fists but she only shakes her head.
"Don't talk about mother like that," she says softly but Perseo only sniffs. She turns away from him because it's best that she doesn't acknowledge how strange their relationship is. She can't look back and think that maybe there's a chance that Perseo doesn't like her and she doesn't like him. She's young enough and strung up enough with enough dreams and hopes to not realise that won't be the worst thing about her
She sees everything but the actual death. She sees the straggle of people surrounding the river bank and her father in the river soaked to the bone as he tries to drag something out. She sees her mum, her mum laid out on the bank, this wonderful wonderful woman, who is every song that she knows and the first face she sees when she thinks of love and her heart, soaked and still and so pale. She sees Ko who holds her face between his hands and is shaking and desperate, "Don't look Hinata-sama. Don't look!" His voice is a harsh bark but she knows that he is scared. She wants to tell him not to be scared because this is the river that she and mother went swimming on the other day and she's going to get up. Just wait, her mother is going to get up. She wouldn't leave her. Not ever because she had promised between every kiss goodnight and her mother had never, would never break that.
No, she doesn't see her mother die. But she sees her daemon burst into gold dust. She hears a wail echo all through the compound as Ko drags her away. She feels something that is vital break inside her.
This in many many ways is much much worse.
She won't ever be able to scrub the memory of her mum's daemon bursting into a million particles of gold dust. Not for as long as she lives. She'll never ever forget. Not even if she grows old and blind.
Perseo's scream is terrifyingly human. It could be her own voice which is stupid because Perseo is her soul. He's her soul in the way that her mama will never have hers. It is that thought that makes her cry. It is that thought that makes her eyes burn something unbearable. It is that thought that allows her to see her father covering her mother with a cloak and makes Ko gasp. Ko's grey parrot shifts on his shoulder and she can see that too.
She can see everything, every unbearable ugly detail.
Her mother is gone.
And her mother is gone.
"Hinata-sama, your eyes." She lifts her hands to her eyes and feels engorged veins. Perseo who is twined around her arm tastes a tear. He spits the taste out quickly because tears taste awful and grief is even worse.
Much later, her father will come into her room, still soaked from the river and heavy from the weight of his wife's body. "You did well today activating your byakugan. You should be proud." Her father places a heavy hand on her shoulder and she will feel the weight of an entire clan through that touch alone. It would be the last time she would ever get a compliment from him. It would, however, not be the last time she would feel the weight of his expectations