This came as a request in my inbox while I was taking story suggestions. It's actually kind of a combination of them, with one idea setting the context. I hope you like it, even though I find my writing kind of sh*tty today. I don't think I've ever touched on at Itachi and Deidara pairing before, but I guess due to their conflict in The Bakery somebody wanted to see them together:)

The Two Worlds

"Don't be stupid,"

Itachi took one last look at the gardens below him before turning to face his chief advisor, Danzo. Itachi wasn't too thrilled with having him in his chambers, but there was probably nothing he could do.

"You must attend the ceremony tonight," Danzo said again, firmly, with an edge of impatience creeping into his gravelly voice. "You must,"

The old man moved forward a few steps, even though Itachi's edginess was almost suffocating in the room. He would've reached Itachi's side if it wasn't for the warning glance that Itachi rewarded him when he was within three feet. Danzo stopped and clasped his hands together. "Even Sasuke has agreed to go," he added austerely.

Itachi closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. A crow fluttered to the sill of the window Itachi had just been peering out of and called out a few times. His throat felt tight and dry and his heart heavy. He even had a slight migraine coming on, but that was the last of his complaints.

Then let Sasuke entertain our guests, Itachi thought childishly. Of course, he didn't say it aloud – that wasn't his style. Besides, as the older brother, it would be the insult of insults if he, the man of the castle, didn't show up merely because he didn't feel up to it. His mouth a thin line, he gave Danzo one last withering look before flicking his hand at him, dismissing him, and saying "I'll go,". Danzo bowed stiffly from the hip and backed away out of the door, closing it gently behind him.

Itachi's shoulders slumped and he realized he'd been tense. He turned to face the crow, which stared at him for a beat before spreading its wings and launching itself off the sill and into the open air. Itachi watched it go.

That was the problem with royal blood. Even if you only had an ounce of it in you, or somehow appeared to have it, you would be considered regal and above so-called "ordinary" people.

You're placed in a castle, you're expected to run affairs you are in no way related to, and when you finally make your decision you are criticized and poked at by your table of advisors, Itachi thought. To use a strange analogy, if he was a fish, the amount of royal blood in him would be the size of a scale, but it was apparently enough to make him some sort of a Duke – it was all because the monarch at some point had divided the entire kingdom into too many plots of land and obnoxiously declared that only those of royal descent could control them. If it wasn't for that, Itachi always thought that he wouldn't be in a situation like this.

Tonight, Itachi had somehow attracted a visit from the Vice-Admiral of Konoha and his family, which consisted of two daughters and the Vice-Admiral's wife. Sasuke had blandly commented at breakfast that they probably had nothing better to do, and Itachi had to agree. The land he was apparently watching over was by no way significant, but that was not to say it was disposable. He wondered briefly if the visit had anything to do with a planned skirmish that he had been uninformed about, but then thought nothing of it. If he had not heard about it, Danzo undoubtedly would have. And so, it might have either been the out-of-boredom option or, to Itachi's exasperation, the maybe-you'd-be-interested-in-their-daughters option. For some reason, whenever he was told he had to dress smarter to impress a lady or ladies, he was overcome with a feeling of tiredness and disinterest. He knew it was rude and decidedly immature of him—he was nearing the age of twenty, after all, which was apparently past the prime age for marriage. This Itachi scoffed at – he often made the dry remark that Danzo was at least fifty and he had no wife. To this, Danzo had curtly replied that his presence at Itachi's side was paramount. In any case, Itachi had never been in the mood to court girls and he didn't know when he'd be ready – he reassured his table of advisors that he would be soon just so that they would shut up for at least five minutes, even though he knew this was pure bullshit. His heart wasn't opening up just yet, and he knew that it wasn't going to any time soon.

There was a knock at the door and Itachi rolled his eyes immediately, a gesture that nobody would ever witness but the confinements of his chambers, straightened his back, adjusted his collar and said "yes?" with as little vexation as he could muster.

Sasuke opened the door wide and stepped through, dressed in midnight blue. He eyed Itachi up and down. "They'll be here in an hour," he said.

Itachi's mouth twitched very slightly. Sasuke noticed this.

"I overheard what it's going to be about," he continued. "From the servants,"

"Out with it, then,"

"It's about the daughters,"

Itachi sighed straightaway. Sasuke shrugged.

"The visits from the girls are becoming commonplace here," the younger brother mused. "I think you'd do well to at least pretend you have some interest in at least one of them,"

"If I do, they'll have an engagement ring on my finger within an intake of my breath,"

Sasuke smirked. Itachi ran a hand through his loose, raven-black hair. He looked out of the window again. It was a fine day. It was a shame he wasn't outside. "I think I'll take a bath," he said finally, the look in his eyes cloudy and faraway.

Deidara fell heavily into the ground. Clots of mud flew up and some fell back down to slap him squarely in the face. He felt the icky dampness of the shit seep into his skin and clothes and instinctively spat onto the ground as he got himself up. Laughs rang out from the other end of the field and Deidara gave them the finger, smiling simultaneously.

"Fuck you, Hidan,"

Hidan shrugged and walked over, dragging his mace along the ground, ripping the grass apart with an ugly, dirty gash. The other boys lagged behind. "Maybe next time, eh, Deidara?"

"Next time will be after I get a good, stiff drink. Then you're in trouble, un, I guarantee you,"

"I thought you weren't very good at drinking, though, shitface,"

"I'm not," Deidara said, ignoring the insult. Words like those were as ordinary in Hidan's speech as the words "the" and "today" were in the average person's speech. And as such, you weren't really meant to take offence in Hidan's overly frequent swearing, no matter how uncouth they prima facie seemed. "That's the point though, yeah?"

"Sure, sure," Hidan tossed the mace to the side and cracked his knuckles, turning back and barking an order at the other boys. The mace was never his weapon-of-choice and therefore he was a little hindered in his combat using it, but somehow, he still managed to own Deidara's ass. Figuratively of course. It shamed Deidara how crap he was at melees, but he knew when it came down to archery and the like, he would regain glory. He clapped Hidan's hand in a sort of good-sportsmanship gesture before trudging wearily towards the stables. His muscles ached and on the fall to the mud he had fell onto his right arm and now it was pulsating with soreness. He rubbed it, heading straight for the water trough and splashed some not-very-clear liquid onto his face, grabbing a nearby cloth and wiping it across his features. He looked at himself in the ripples of the water before slapping the wet cloth back down where it came from before exiting the stables, wrinkling his nose slightly at the stench of horse dung. He probably looked like he was covered in the stuff anyway. He looked down at himself, then at the position of the sun in the sky, before hurrying back to the cottage he and the other stable-hands shared west from the stable. He needed to change and clean the rest of himself up before the Vice-Admiral came. He would only see him for a moment when he handed him the reins of his horse, but appearances were everything when you worked for someone who was even remotely royal. Besides, Deidara heard the man had daughters, and Deidara certainly wasn't going to be seen by girls in that state. He opened the door slowly – it creaked on its hinges – before rushing to his room, grabbing the folded set of clothes at the end of his bed in one corner of the room, and rushing back out, heading towards the nearby stream. He untied his hair as he walked and shook the blonde strands out. Loads of twigs, grass, hay and other forms of vegetation had somehow lodged themselves in his locks, and he expertly peeled some of it out while stripping off his now brown shirt at the same time. He left his hair alone for a moment to take off his pants, set his clean set of clothes on the bank, and slid into the water. He moaned slightly because of the contact of cool water with his sore muscles as he settled onto the familiar, well-placed rock near the bank and began rubbing himself beneath the water, watching as the mud was pushed off and left to drift aimlessly in the river. Sure enough, beneath the mud, his right arm was red and it was so tender he didn't have to touch it for it to hurt. Deidara sighed a little to himself before bending over slightly to get rid of the mud between his toes.