"Mommaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
The twenty-six year old woman blinked, running a hand through her long blonde hair, which was streaked with pale blue. She cocked an eyebrow at the two year-old sitting on the bed. "I do believe that was your sister calling, Cyrus."
The toddler blinked at his mother, hazel eyes peering at her, disgruntled. "Daney loud."
A snicker escaped her lips as she scooped her youngest child up, and carried him from the cave that made up hers and Joren's 'room', pushing aside the curtain on her way out.
Another, much larger cavern lay before them, various furniture placed about, and a few modern appliances from before the bombs dropped had been salvaged for use. A simple carpet with barely any singes upon it had been placed upon the cavern floor. It had been done by the Ronins as a gift for her marriage to Joren.
Sprawled on a sofa was a boy of about five. If one had been observing him from a distance, he would have looked like any other boy. But up close, he had an odd, unusual appearance. His bright blonde hair was streaked in brilliant blue, and here and there, lovely golden scales could be seen on his skin. Golden slit pupiled eyes were narrowed in concentration. A worn, tattered book was in his hands, and he was reading intently.
However, he was not the object of her attention, nor the older boy sitting in front of the tv, playing some type of video game. She was focusing on the little red haired girl with purple streaks and gold scales, her eyes the same as the boy's. The girl, Delaney, seemed quite perturbed, and her little face was scrunched into a pout.
"What's wrong, kiddo?" Sharra asked, as she tried to disentangle Cyrus' little hands from her mass of hair. The child grinned what almost seemed to be evilly as he pulled. She yelped.
"Fish-chan is GONE, Momma!"
Fish-chan was Delaney's stuffed fish. A worn, tattered thing that had been one of Chadih's first and only sewing attempts. All the stitches were crooked, and one fin was smaller than the other, while the shape was more like that of a banana with fins. But Delaney loved him, and never went anywhere without him. Which explained why she was so distressed.
"Ack--leggo, Cyrus!" Sharra gasped.
"No!" the child cried gleefully, almost seeming to smirk.
In front of the television, Sayoshi snickered, glancing at his mother from the corner of his eye. She glared at him.
"MOMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I WANT FISH-CHAAAAAN!!"
"Leave Momma alone, 'Laney." Keisuke glanced up from his book, frowning at his twin sister.
"Shut up, stupid," she snapped unhappily.
"Momma! She called me stupid!"
Another snicker from Sayoshi. "You are stupid, stupid."
"Sayoshi, leave your little brother alone--ittai! Cyrus!"
"I WANT FISH-CHAN!!"
Sharra opened her mouth to speak, when suddenly, said plaid fish came sailing through the air and hit her on the head. It bounced off, and Cyrus shrieked with laughter. "All right, who threw tha--"
"Hi, Sharra-san!" the cheerful voice called. A boy of about eight bounced into the room. For a moment, to look at him made her heart hurt. Date Seiji looked so much like his father...
Seiji's head swiveled around and he huffed, "C'MON, Shin!"
Reluctantly, Mouri Shin stepped out to where she could see him, twitching his tail. His pointed ears could be seen sticking out from his blonde hair, and his talons gleamed in the light. "Hi, Sharra-san," he mumbled.
While Seiji was cheerful and had many friends, Shin tended to stay removed from social situations. He felt ostracized, and sometimes was, because of his mutations. By the same people that resented Sharra and her family for their relation to the snake gods. Bigots.
"Hey," she smiled a little. "I take it you found Fish-chan?"
Shin nodded the affirmative. "It's all wet though, it's snowing above ground."
"HE! Fish-chan is a boy!" Delaney snapped.
"He, she, it, whatever." Seiji made a face at her, pulling his lower lid down with one finger and sticking his tongue out.
Delaney gasped in outrage. "Momma, make him QUIT!"
Shin frowned. "Be nice to her."
"Swow?" Cyrus asked, puzzled.
"The white stuff that comes down through the armor shield," Keisuke mumbled from on the couch. "That's snow."
"SWOWWWWW!!" the child shrieked right in his mother's ear. Sharra winced.
"What did I tell you about yelling in Momma's ear?" she sighed.
"SWOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!"
"Gahh!"
"We were gonna go play in it, when we found the stuffed banana... wanna come?" Seiji asked.
"FISH!" Delaney snarled.
She just then realized they were bundled up in coats, hats, gloves, boots, and the like. Though the armor shield prevented the cold air from permeating the armor shield, the snow still had the same temperature, and thus some warm clothing was required.
"Swow! Play in swow!" Cyrus waved his pudgy arms about frantically.
Delaney held Fish-chan up to her ear, nodding and whispering back to the misshapen animal before telling Sharra, "Momma, Fish-chan wants to go back in the snow, too."
"Playing in the snow's for little kids," Sayoshi said, pressing the buttons on his video game controller frantically.
Sharra frowned. "I LIKE playing in the snow."
"I rest my case, Mom."
Snickers from all around.
With a glower at Sayoshi, she turned to the two children of the Ronin Warriors and said, "That'd be fun. But give us a sec, gotta bundle up my offspring."
Knowing Sayoshi wouldn't want to go, she gestured to Delaney and Keisuke. Delaney grinned in her cheerful manner and raced off to the cave she shared with her brother, while Keisuke reluctantly set his book down and plodded after his twin.
Sharra in turn headed back to her room, carrying Cyrus, who kept yelling, "SWOW! SWOW! SWOW!"
Rubbing her ears, she plopped him down on the worn bed. "When did you start to become so... loud?"
Cyrus stopped squealing and shouting, and frowned, giving her one of his father's strong and silent looks. She couldn't restrain a smile as she shook her head. "You're gonna look just like your daddy when you get older."
The child grinned at her, in one of his ever-present moodswings. She could feel that smile on her even as she turned around and began to remove various articles of warm clothing from the dresser. Cyrus' grin faded as he peered at the pile of clothes his mother threw on the bed that was quickly accumulating to gargantuan proportions.
When she had him bundled up to her satisfaction, she began to search for clothing of her own. She didn't go do things like this every day, as there were too many responsibilities around Haven.
Sharra settled on a pair of old sweatpants Yulie had left over a few years back, a worn sweater and jacket, earmuffs, and gloves. She then found a pair of Joren's thick leather boots to protect her feet from the snow. They were almost the same shoe size, despite the fact that they were of separate species.
She pirouetted before her son, asking in a peppy valley girl voice, "Like, how do I look, and stuff?"
Cyrus blew her a raspberry.
"Gee, thanks," she told him as she picked him up and headed out of the room. Five pairs of eyes rested upon the two as she reentered the main chamber, and she raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"Mom..." Sayoshi finally said. "W--what did you do to him?"
She glanced down at Cyrus, who almost seemed to sigh. He looked like a huge, puffed up ball of clothing, and out of his whole body, only part of his nose, his red bangs, and hazel eyes were visible. "What?" Sharra scowled. "That snow is cold!"
"He must be melting in there," Seiji exclaimed, his pale brown eyes huge.
"I'll say," Shin murmured.
"Melt," Cyrus stated sadly.
"Oh, hush," she told the three.
Keisuke looked down at himself. He had elected to wear only an old pair of sweats, snowboots, and gloves, with an old windbreaker underneath. He snuck a glance over at his sister, who was dressed much the same, then at the two boys, whose guardians had dressed them all only a bit warmer.
Sharra surveyed her twins, then the Ronins' sons. "All right, you are definitely not warm enough." She pointed to the twins' room. "In there, now."
Shin stared at her. "Wha'? I'm warm."
"Go."
"Really, we are," his companion insisted.
"Now."
Every child in the room, including Cyrus and Sayoshi, flinched at that tone of voice. That was the Mom Means Business tone. The four children obediently shuffled into the adjoining cave. By the time Sharra was satisfied that the children were sufficiently bundled up, all four looked like larger versions of Cyrus, and were even more annoyed.
Sharra stepped back to examine her work. She nodded in satisfaction. "There. Much better."
"Dude," Seiji said in disbelief, "and I thought Yayoi-mama was bad."
"You said it," Shin echoed. "At least Aunt Sayoko--"
"Shut up," Keisuke said unhappily, bopping each on the head in turn. They rubbed their heads and scowled, even though it hadn't hurt too much due to their well-padded heads.
*****
"Swow!" Cyrus' cry was muffled beneath the thick scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face.
His mother smiled as she gazed up at the sky. Every few moments or so, she could see a flash of green as the invisible armor shield purified the snow that passed through it. Up ahead, the children were laughing and enjoying themselves in the crisp white snow, sending up flurries of the white powder. Thank you for giving us this place, Ryo, Rowen... Sage, Cye, and Kento. I promise I'll do my best to take care of Haven.
She started laughing as Seiji flew above her and flashed the victory sign. Then she plopped down on her rear end in the snow and placed Cyrus on her lap.
The child promptly crawled off and began to dig his covered fingers into the snow, making himself a small mountain of it, which he patted and shaped. "Swow castle!" he crowed.
Something cold slammed down on the top of her head, and she gasped, looking back up. "Date Seiji!"
He only grinned at her once before soaring back into the air. "Destruction from above!"
She rolled her eyes at his antics and scanned the area before her. Keisuke and Delaney were trying unsuccessfully to hit the flying Seiji with snowballs, as well as avoid his own onslaught. Her youngest was busy with his pile of snow, and Shin was ambling over in her direction.
As he passed by her, for whatever reason he had, something suddenly occurred to her, and she blurted out, "Is your tail cold?"
He stopped, flushing. Reaching behind him, he grabbed his tail and wrapped his hands around it. "Yeah, Sharra-san. A little."
Realizing she had embarrassed him, she mumbled, "Sorry, I didn't mean to..."
Hoping this would make up for her stupid remark, she stood up and took off her jacket, then knelt down next to the boy and wrapped her jacket tightly around it, tying it wherever she could. When she was done, it formed a very odd looking type of glove for the child's tail. "It's not exactly Calvin Klein, but it should be warm..." she trailed off, mentally chiding herself for her big mouth. Shin was always a bit embarrassed by his mutations.
"T--thank you, Sharra-san," he whispered, actually looking a little shy. A moment later, a snowball hit the ground next to him, and he lifted his head. "KNOCK IT OFF, SEIJI!"
Seiji only made a face at him. When Shin looked back down, Sharra was laying in the snow, arms above her head and legs out, moving them side to side. "What're you doing?"
"You'll see," she replied. Sharra sat up, then stood, grinning and brushing snow off her back and legs.
Shin stared. "It's... an angel."
"Mm-hm."
"Show me how to do it, Sharra-san!" He smiled a rare smile, gazing at the pretty imprint in the snow.
His father's smile, she realized.
She found a clean patch of snow and flopped down on her back. Shin hesitantly did the same, glancing over at Sharra. "You put your arms above your head, and your legs straight out," she instructed.
"And you move your arms and legs like this?" he asked, scissoring his legs and arms back and forth.
"By George, I think you've got it!"
Shin stood to examine his angel, and he smiled again. "That's so neat, Sharra-san."
"Yeah, it is." She reached up and drew a halo around its head. He in turn drew a harp in the snow with his talons.
"Snow angels!" came Delaney's cry as she stopped trying to hit Seiji with snowballs and raced over to join them. The child dove into the snow next to them, and began moving her arms and legs frantically about, the fact that Fish-chan was in one of her hands making one of the angel's wings a bit odd looking.
Soon, Keisuke had joined in, and Seiji had stopped his divebombing long enough to make a few of his own angels. Even Cyrus was laying flat on his back, trying to emulate everyone else.
"Ashe'kei!"
"Eh?" Sharra sat up, shaking the snow out of her hair. Her husband was standing over by the building that housed the stairs that led back down into the underground part of Haven. She couldn't see his face, as he was wearing a long black cloak with an oval shaped ruby clasp. It flowed gracefully down to his feet, obscuring most of his snake god finery.
"Poppa!" Delaney shrieked, waving Fish-chan above her head like a flag.
She felt more than heard his quiet chuckle as he lifted his hand in greeting to his only daughter. "Ashe'kei, the meeting, you're going to be late!"
"Meeting..." she said slowly, before her hazel eyes widened. "Crap! The meeting in the main hall!" She turned to the children. "C'mon, we gotta go."
Cyrus was scooped up, and the twins pulled to their feet. Shin and Seiji reluctantly followed. They weren't supposed to be playing outside on their own, and Sharra knew this. That was one of the main reasons they had brought Fish-chan back--so they could get her to take them outside. Apparently the fun was over now, however.
One by one, each passed by the Ka'ei healer-warrior, sulking and pouting. Joren's lips twitched as he saw the same expression on his wife's flushed face. He looked over her shoulder to see what they had been doing, then blinked. "What is..."
A small laugh bubbled forth from Sharra's lips as she took Joren by the hand and led him through the doors. "What? Haven't you ever seen a snow angel before?"
Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed it! Dedication goes to Swiftgold, who gave me such a wonderful storyline to have fun with. You rock, Swiftplatinum! "Ragnarok" and the characters are copyright of the great Swiftgold herself, much as I wish I own em, I don't.
Sharra