Here's my first (published) fanfic! Never thought this day would come! And what's this? A multi-chapter story? Ohoho!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters.
Chapter 1: Beauteous, is she not?
I awoke to the whisper of the trees protesting against the lovely breeze that had gently brushed against their rich green leaves. A peaceful scene, if there had ever been one; much better than waking up to ear-splitting screams, or a chilly bucket of water, like I was accustomed to.
Resting my eyes for a few moments more, I filled my lungs full of pure forest air, half-heartedly determined to shake the weight from sleep off my chest. I actually had things to do today, people to see.
Cracking my eyes open, my optics slid to a familiar, weary old sundial that had resided here since before my time. I traced the ancient design carved into the stem of the structure that, even though worn beyond recognition, never failed to capture my interest, my curiosity.
Every time I looked at it, I felt as if I was staring at a window through time. I'd asked where it'd come from before, but no one alive in the kingdom knew, nor cared. In the end, I had to tell myself (a harder task than what I lead it on to be, might I add) to leave it be. To let it remain a lost piece of history.
Slowly I brought myself out of my ponderings, and dragged my gaze up to the dial's face to read the shadow's position...
Thirty-seven after five.
I cursed, pulling myself quickly off the heavenly grass to jog back towards the kingdom's gates.
Late yet again. Out of all the previous events I had been late to, this one would definitely take the cake. And that was an understatement.
I slowed my pace as the large wall surrounding the village came into view. Evening my breath, I quickly ran through all the possible excuses I could use in order to save myself from too severe of a beating, which would undoubtedly be delivered by the demon woman I have the pleasure to call my mother.
The wall's guards looked after me with amused smirks as neared the wall. I did my best to remain nonchalant, but their stifled laughter did nothing to help. They simply let me pass without a word; just glittering eyes and wide smiles. I held back a scowl, entering the town at exactly 134 excuses in.
Quickly, I set out on the path that would take the least time to get to my destination (something that is rather rare for me to do). The townsfolk and merchants that still littered the roads occasionally gave me congratulations and grateful nods as I passed.
Despite already being late, I paused for a moment. Had my work really been that fantastic that everyone in the kingdom knew of it, and were openly grateful?
"Oi! Shikamaru!" a friendly voice called out to me, "I've been looking all over for thee! We were about to send a search party,"
Pushing my thoughts back into the depths of my mind, I turned to find a familiar, taller, heavier man with brown hair neatly tied back into a braid for tonight's occasion. I shot my best friend an exasperated look, "Chouji, prithee, I'm already going to get an earful from my mother..."
He just grinned back down at me, "Well, ye should've thought of that before ye slept away the beginning of thy ceremony, huh?"
I groaned, not even bothering to ask how he knew I had overslept. The man just knew me. "Doth ye thinketh she'll figure it out?" I asked with a growing feeling of dread.
The larger man shrugged, not bothering to voice what I already knew.
"Troublesome," I muttered under my breath, earning a chuckle from my companion.
As we moved to walk again, I cast him a sideways glance, which he returned knowingly. But, just as he opened his mouth to speak—
"Good e'en, thy late-iest of ones!" A rather unwanted knight decided to grace us with his presence.
I frowned, turning to find a particularly sly looking Kiba prancing up to us. "Good eventide, sirrah." I returned his greeting in clear, sarcastic monotone.
"So I take it ye have caught word of thy special advancement in thy studies?" the dog-lover inquired, mischief dancing about in his eyes.
What was he getting at? Of course I knew I was getting a promotion of sorts, thanks to my master strategy to boost the kingdom's trade (which was incredibly simple really), and ultimately it's economy. That's what this whole ceremony, which I was still late to, was about. Something was up...
"Aye, Kiba." I said slowly, as if speaking to a child (and doing my best to ignore the feeling of oncoming dread), "That's where we be headed... The ceremony."
Kiba immediately brightened; probably proud of himself for knowing something Konoha's genius did not. "I see! I best not reveal the secret to ye now, but I'll go ahead and tell ye to have fun t'night!" he said with a wink, sporting an alarming grin.
Before I could question the "secret", the brute had already scampered off with that cheesy grin of his.
Chouji voiced my thoughts, "I wonder what that was about..."
We continued down our path not soon after, but in double the time. By the time we reached our destination, I had already heard the excited chatter of the guests and graceful melodies of the court musicians.
The castle, where my ceremony was being held, was one of the most beautiful sights of our kingdom, only coming in second to the great mountains that featured our kingdoms past rulers by face. Tonight, however, the castle's festive décor glowed with, dare I say, even more beauty than that of the mountains that bordered the kingdom to the east.
Colorful paper lanterns hung from streamers above our heads, illuminating the growing darkness as the sun set in brilliant shades of pink and orange, and vibrant arrays of Konohian flowers were gathered in everyplace imaginable. This I thought with a smirk. Another one of my good friends, Ino (flower enthusiast, or florist, she gave herself the silly title of), surely had something to do with this.
My brain was already beginning to get a bit dizzy from excitement (a rather new experience for me), and I hadn't even been inside yet.
Swiftly, I marched towards a side entrance of the castle, finding myself being attracted to the radiating warmth of inside like a moth to light. But, I was destined to be stopped short again.
"Shikamaru," a woman to my left hissed. The very sound of her voice made my heart dive into the acidy bath of my stomach. "Where hath thou been?"
I gulped, deciding to tell my mother the truth. The woman had it out for me, whether I was her son or not. I was only lucky that we were in public (where she had to act like a proper woman: obedient), or I'd already have braved a beating. Konoha, fortunately for me (at times...), was a strictly patriarchal society. While women were to be respected, they had absolutely no say against the will of men. Unless, of course, their father or husband backed them up...
And my father was whipped.
"Mom, It twas not anything to worry about," I answered a bit too quickly, "I had just accidentally fallen asleep in the woods, that is all."
Her eyes seemed to catch fire, like a book of old tales had described a witch's doing after Holy Water had been splashed up in them. "Thou fellst victim to slumber on the woods, Shikamaru?" she whispered venomously.
I cringed, trembling like a young girl on the inside. Her yelling was no where near as terrifying as this.
"They calt thou a genius," she continued, with twice as much malice, "And thou hast risked thy health for a nap, in the woods, Shikamaru." I really wished she'd stop using my name. "What was going through thy head? Thou could have been robbed! Or worse! What would thou have done if a band of pudh Sunarians came along to scalp thee?! Thou knowest of their wickedness!"
I had broken out into a sweat by now. Yes, I knew the dangers of being outside the kingdom walls, and I had blatantly ignored them. My throat already drying up, I opened my mouth to... well, I wasn't quite sure. But before I was given the time of day (or night, as it was now), a jolly figure strolled up to us and took me by the arm.
"There y'are, lad!" the king of Konoha boomed, "Ye've been holding up the party!" He then seemed to notice my mother, before surprising me with, "If thou doth not mind, ma'am," (A normal man would have simply excused the one(s) in which a woman was speaking to, not ask for their permission. The king should be one least of all to care about such things.)
My mother gave him a stiff, jerky nod, forcing a smile, "Not at all, your majesty."
With that as our parting words, the ivory-haired man pulled me off into the castle, his home, in order to move on with the ceremony, looking especially pleased with himself.
As we made our way through the crowd, the ceremony, I concluded, wasn't truly a ceremony, but a party. I was far from shocked. Knowing the kings tastes, god bless him, as being almost solely women (namely curvy ones, ages 18 and up...), I should have almost expected to find the castle's own private brothel hosting the whole circus.
I, on the other hand, actually had little interest in women. Sure, their pale skin, as white as the moon, some would say, was pretty. Their hair was exceptionally soft, at times. But, really, they were nothing to obsess over.
However, my lack of enthusiasm towards the opposite sex did not go unnoticed. I don't think I'll ever live down the day when my father asked if I was queer. 'It's a sin!' my mother had ranted, ignoring my protests. 'Mom, I promise, I am not interested in men!' I hadn't even bothered arguing with her religious views, as pointing out the fact that I saw nothing in The Bible (her choice of holy book) that stated homosexuality was wrong would only further convince her that I was gay.
Right now, though, I could care less about women. Eventually, I planned, I would find a nice, quiet, and obedient woman (the opposite of my mother, down to the last detail), who would bore me two children: first a girl, and then a boy. And the rest would be history.
The rapping of an expensive silver spoon against a bronze goblet pulled me away from my thoughts.
"With great pleasure, I, King Jiraiya the First, will announce the reason I hath brought ye all here today." Jiraiya announced, hushing the crowd almost instantly. "I'm sure thou alt knoweth of this man's good doings," he motioned towards me, his eyes sparkling with pride. "And of how he hath increased our kingdom's trade by tenfold-" Exactly 13.23 times the original amount, I stopped myself from correcting him, "And ultimately led our fair Kingdom of Konoha into a prosperous, celebratory state."
A few, evidentially premature, cheers echoed about the palace walls.
The man then looked directly towards me, clapping me on the shoulder, "For this, I, and Konoha, would like to thank him in some way more than just a pay raise..."
"With great honor, I would like to announce that, this man, Shikamaru Nara, hath now been placed as head captain of all things traded in this fair kingdom, and will personally be accompanying our caravans in the upcoming month to the richest city known to man, Kizoku!"
Now was the correct time for the crowd to celebrate. Corks from tightly sealed bottles of wine popped left and right, glasses clanked together excitedly, and an occasional hat was thrown up into the air. I was somewhat startled, albeit pleasantly. But, it didn't seem like Jiraiya was finished speaking quite yet.
"Considering all of his contributions to his kingdom," the king spoke again; hushing the crowd once more, "I felt that perhaps even a promotion wasn't quite enough..." he signaled to a few knights towards the back, whom, with a quick nod, scurried into another room of the castle. "So, in order to fully thank our lad, I have arranged for a special gift to be delivered this night..."
Slowly, the crowd turned around, their attention obtained by four knights, lightly armored (out of mockery, I found out later), dragging in a fiery, fighting, rope-bound figure with large bouts of laughter.
Upon closer inspection to the snarling, leashed creature, I nearly felt my heart stop all together.
Smooth bronze skin, shimmering with the sweat of fruitless efforts, molded to every muscle, every curve of the mesmerizing, definitely female, beast whom glared in righteous protest to the villagers who gaped at her in awe, or more from the women, disgust.
But I hardly noticed them.
I focused, instead, on the simple, but flowing, white silk dress that hid the rest of her sun-kissed body from me, which, by the redness of the tips of my ears, I found myself helplessly ogling. I imagined what the snowy, sorry excuse for clothing hid beneath its mischievous threads, what it would be like to easily brush the straps aside and let it slip to the floor... leaving her body bare; revealing all of her heavenly, yet undoubtedly sinful pleasures to me.
Only me, I thought possessively.
I immediately averted my eyes and turned to cough, ashamed with myself. While every other man in the kingdom probably wouldn't have bothered with a second thought (Jiraiya was giving me a woman. A drop-dead sexy woman. Why not take advantage of any carnal activities she had to offer? After all, she was of the weaker sex; her say in the matter would be ignored happily...) I, on the other hand, had never felt this much, ahem, stimulation when it came to the world of females.
I barely registered that Jiraiya was now booming with prideful laughter, jabbing me in the ribs playfully, and half-whispering, "She is most beauteous, is she not? Can I pick 'em, or can I pick 'em?"
I swallowed hard, smiling nervously, and carefully looking anywhere but her. I was afraid that if I did...
A particularly generous growl from her direction brought my optics back to her in a flash, finding that one of the knights had tugged a rope in such a way she was thrown violently to her knees.
I no longer could keep my eyes away, for the pain of tearing them was much greater than the pain of yearning to look. Tracing her golden, tousled hair (by the looks of it, may have been one time pulled up into a neat bun), slicked with sweat to the point where it stuck to her face, I found her eyes.
... I was a goner.
Two pools of liquid sapphires mixed a spontaneous explosion of emeralds glared directly up at me, with the intensity of one thousand wars, bright and full of intelligence, along with vehement fury... hate.
With every labored breath upon her chest, with every curl of her lip, I felt my heart leap further into my throat, as if it wanted to escape my cowardly body and rush to steal away her own.
"Alright, alright," to my displeasure, the king's voice faded in, "Go ahead and take the wench to this lad's chambers. We can't have him galloping off with her just yet,"
The knights did as they were told, plucking her from the ground by the back of her dress, and marching her out of the castle, and to, I figured, my 'chambers'. Never once, until she completely vanished from my sight, did she break her concentration in her death glare towards me.
I swallowed, trying to rid the lump from my throat.
'Hell hath nay fury like a woman scorned', I remembered one of the weaker men of the village telling me once.
Actually, I had most likely heard it from my father...
The rest of the night continued on with an amazing lack of speed, but jovial fun, nonetheless.
However, through the whole experience, predictably, only one thing was on my mind.
Unfortunately, my mind had left the usual shelter of my cranium to pay a long awaited visit to my nether regions.
Back-stabbing bastard...
Surprise! Konohians speak Old English! If you couldn't easily translate it yourself, just run a quick google search.
Chapter 2 should be up sometime soon. Also, don't get discouraged if I don't post for a long time. I promised myself I would never leave an unfinished story posted, as many of them littering this site bother me so...
Any kind of review is much appreciated.