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Silver Moonlight
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
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Pale, milky moonlight washed the hill down with silver. A small breeze blew night-darkened cherry blossoms to and fro, whispering secrets across the countryside.
The city was quiet; it was as though all the world were sleeping. Neji could live with that.
He wasn't normally given to excursions such as this, not so late at night; among the men of the court, he was one of the more grounded, one of the most practical, and one of the least romantic-minded.
All this he contemplated as he picked his way through dark pine trees, making his way to the place where the trees would break and he would instead hit sweet grasses instead of damp, musty undergrowth.
Tomorrow, he would marry. A marriage had been arranged between himself and his cousin against his will and hers, and somewhere, Neji knew, there was a fair-haired man, a good friend and an even better sparring partner, brooding just as much as he was over the whole matter.
All attempts to circumvent it were thwarted. All protestations, threats and pleas cut off. There was no resort left, nothing Neji could turn to as a way of preventing it any longer.
Tomorrow he would be married, but tonight there was something that had to be done.
No one was quite sure what Neji saw in Tenten.
She had come to court four years ago from a distant land far to the west, a loud-mouthed, overenthusiastic retainer in tow (said retainer was currently courting a minor noble's daughter like there was no tomorrow), begging asylum, and was granted it. In those four years she had made more friends among the men than the women.
She was a tall, rangy woman with thick, slightly frizzy brown hair and large eyes in the same color. She clung to the foreign fashions of her home land with a fervent stubbornness that raised eyebrows among the ladies of the court. She rode out into battle with the men, a slight, dusty she-warrior whom all those with any sense feared to face.
With her full-bodied, lively laugh and open, friendly manner she stood out in the court in a way no other woman ever could.
She was strange, foreign, different. And utterly captivating.
There was no one else, absolutely no one, who had ever been able to make his heart pound, who had been able to make him laugh, weep and wonder why with one small gesture. She was the only one who had ever haunted the lonely recesses of his dreams, who had refused to let him be. She was so much more real than any other woman Neji had ever met.
His shoes hit sweet spring grass. And there she was.
Tenten stood at the crest of the hill, straight-backed, staring at the moon. The silken fabric of her skirts swayed with the wind; her long bangs fluttered.
He caught his breath. As she was, she was utterly beautiful. Face made luminous by the rising moon, hair and eyes onyx dark. Silver upon silver clothing glittered in the night, silver tissue under heavier silver silk.
Heart throbbing, head spinning with nervousness, he quietly made his way up the hill, trying not to trip in his haste.
She turned and smiled slightly, that breathtaking smile subdued but not extinguished. "I've been waiting," she remarked lightly. "Did you get here alright?"
"Fine," Neji answered absently. He slipped an arm around her shoulders. "No trouble."
For them, it was a final time alone, a final precious moment, spent in silence and perfect understanding, before parting would come and with it the inevitable pain, resentment, and grief.
Everything would change tomorrow with the coming of the sun.
But that night under the silver moon, when all the world was nested in slumber, for two young lovers, things would not have to change.
