Here's the tenth entry in The Language of Flowers. It again features Shizune. She's the first character to repeat, but she won't be the last.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Acacia stands for secret love.
The borderline desert blows hot winds through her hair and blows burning sands into her face, but she doesn't care.
The acacia tree Shizune is standing in the shade of is in full bloom. The tiny, sweet-scented yellow blossoms drift to the ground at her feet.
She is waiting, just waiting. She pulls her brown cloak closer about her face to keep clogging dust out of her mouth and nose, as the yellow blossoms slide through her wind-mussed hair.
Sweat dribbles down Shizune's forehead. When she raises a hand to wipe it away, she feels the penetrating heat of the sun as if for the first time on her white skin, and reaches for her canteen. It doesn't do to be out in the desert without a ready supply of water at hand; Shizune knows in perfect detail what a corpse dead from dehydration looks like after three days in the desert; she and Tsunade-sama spent many months in the Land of Wind, learning and traveling, and (in Tsunade-sama's case) drinking and gambling.
The med nin wonders if the person she's there to meet has been waylaid or gotten lost. He was supposed to be here nearly an hour ago! Where is he?
Her irritation quickly turns to worry. Her mind's going in a dozen different directions at once, all to destinations that fill her with dread and apprehension.
There are a dozen different things that could have happened to him on the way.
The desert can leech all the water out of a man's body within hours, killing him.
Sandstorms breed disorientation. Every avenue and road is blanketed in sand and wind, and those who are lost lose their way and perish out on the dunes.
There are many tribes of nomadic warriors who have wandered the desert since the dawn of time. They have never integrated with Sunagakure, though they are warriors. They are for the most part friendly, but some of the more desperate tribes take to waylaying lone travelers.
Of course, he may have just been caught.
It was a long trek for her, and even longer for him. Shizune knows him to be circumspect, but there are so many ways things could go wrong, and if he has been caught, than Shizune doesn't give one cold cent for his chances.
The wind blows distant voices to Shizune's ears. She winces and draws her cloak even closer to her slight-framed body, praying that it's no one she knows, watching the sun as it begins to sink. It's mid-afternoon and the sky is still clear and as pale as a redbreast's egg, but the sun begins to sink and Shizune knows that if she wants to be back to the border town without being missed she'll have to move soon.
Suddenly, a noise in the vicinity draws Shizune's attention. It sounds like the sound of a scroll being unrolled.
Picking her way carefully across the ground, Shizune makes her way up a shallow, roughly ten-foot hill.
She reaches the peak and looks down.
And there he is. He's sitting in the shade of another acacia tree, this one also in full bloom, on a rock, closely examining a drawn scroll.
A large, warm smile grows across Shizune's face; relief and joy wells up like a blooming flower in her heart. She raises her hand to brush her hair out of her face, and clears her throat softly. He looks up.
"You're late." Her voice is strangely husky in the abrasive winds of afternoon, her coarse cloak blowing around her. Her voice barely carries down the hill. Tiny yellow flowers flutter all around, casting shallow grooves in the sand.
"Hello, Shizune. It's been a while."
Ten points if you can guess who it is. I hope this wasn't out of character for Shizune.