The Desert Queen by RangerBlack
It was history in action and Sasori refused to miss it, especially since it was in his own home village. The occasion? The 4th Kazekage, who was the son of the Third Kazekage, was expecting his own first-born.
"Like a family reunion," the hulking figure murmured sarcastically. "Isn't that right Grand Pa?" His dry drawl was made to a shaggy haired puppet. Its golden glass eyes stared blindly forward to the lean dark-haired criminal lounging in the desert's blistering sunlight pouring in through a large reinforced window. The puppet was still as dangerous with its preserved skin and inhuman weapons hidden inside its shell – more so even - as it had been breathing in his village's scalding summer air. The taunt at its once-life did nothing for the puppet, only the man basking before him could respond to its Master's musings.
Amber eyes slit open despite the sun's insistence to do otherwise. Orochimaru tilted his head slightly to view the late Kazekage's deadened glass eyes the same color as that of his once renowned Iron Sands.
"I can't seem to grasp the importance this issue has for you Sasorisan. Birth after all happens in even the most desolate of places, even here." Orochimaru's voice, silk compared to that of his partner's roughed growl, slid through the room's silence. Avian eyes peered coldly into that of the puppet's and ignored the refraction of light that made it seem as though the lifeless being pleaded for his voice through proxy.
"You know this is about more than the child," Sasori snapped as rudely as always. "It is always a good form of tactics to apprise for your self the strengths and weaknesses of others," he preached to the rouge responsible for the murder of hundreds of men, women, and children, all members of his own village.
Said killer unrolled a serpent-like tongue and turned the hauntingly unblinking face of the puppet to one side, an unnatural angle for that of the living. The appendage returned to his mouth Orochimaru smirked devilishly. "I'd have no problems disposing of this Kazekage, just as you had none with his predecessor."
Sasori lacking a response allowed the lackluster conversation to lapse back into the silence and nonstop hum of a central air conditioning.
Orochimaru peered half-lidded eyes down on the barren streets of Sunagakure. Three floors below him was the image of a pseudo-ghost town, nothing roamed within the sun's brutal heat-light. Only a lone tawny desert cat stalked from in the hazy shadows, prowling for a scorpion turned snack. Breaths passed without number into obscurity as the burning star high above it all moved with in an agonizingly slow creep. His daze crested over the flash of metal, his senses awakened he watched as the heat wave dissipated into the endless glare of golden quartz sands.
"You say we'll know about the birth; how so?"
Sasori started at the man's voice once again sliding without friction through the stillness of the room. A frown that could not be seen pulled at his features, his eyes - pinpoints of burgundy – narrowed further as the creak of wooden joints cracked the serenity of the moment.
"Shinobi of the Sand are under obligation to carry official news throughout the village. In turn we are expected to follow orders issued, or in this case, pay homage to the new heir," Sasori muttered darkly.
"Primitive," Orochimaru commented lightly. "And if the child is female?"
"She would be revered but not heir, and we would still be expected to give our blessings," the native replied blithely, the snap and pop of false joints becoming more frequent as he began to move once again. His beady eyes glared at the Konoha-born ninja as he slipped into a moment of unvoiced musings.
"And in a matter of months she'd be simply female, yes?" Orochimaru inquired, his voice taking on a lilt that spoke clearly his captured interest, something only few people knew as a dangerous thing to bare witness to.
Within Hiruko's depths Sasori smiled in satisfaction. His eyes bright he answered with smoothness uncommon to his speech patterns.
"No, we honor our royal women. They are invaluable as the mothers of future Kazekages. If a girl is born she will be trained as a warrior and groomed as though for Kageship. If no brother follows her she will rule through the marriage to a selected ninja of appropriate strengths." Unbeknownst to the puppeteer his own voice carried his love for his birth-village into the ears of a born and bred manipulator.
Cunning obvious on his marble face yet concealed by a fall of dusky black hair Orochimaru took the following heartbeats to execute the perfect pause. There was no rush here, and besides, it rasped on Sasori's nerves, an endeavor unique to the Snake Master Sannin considering it often resulted a lesser man's death.
(Continued in Part Two)