Naruto and all the characters therein are the property of Kishimotto and Shonen Jump.
The first 3 chapters were initially posted on tumblr, please check out the posts as they have links to the fanart which inspired this fantasy version of team 8.
"Awww Sakura you can't blame for wanting to pet him, who knew a baby dragon could be so cute ?" the blonde thief's voice rang out in the forest.
"You're so immature Naruto, we wasted precious hours while you were playing with that thing and it ended with you getting a serious burn on your hands." the dwarf said while not turning back to face him, this kind of lecture demanded a scowl but in truth the dragon had been too cute and she couldn't find it in herself to give one.
"You played with it too … and that jerk Sasuke kept polishing his sword the entire time so it wasn't like I was the only one who wanted a break."
The aforementioned jerk was busy ignoring his erstwhile travel mates and focusing on the animals they were displacing with their movement in the forest, small birds, squirells and others were running from their noise and thus announcing the presence of their group to anyone who knew to read the land.
But there was something more the animals of this area, including more small spiders than he found normal, were allready startled as if a group had allready passed near here ahead of them.
As much as he liked to rely only on his keen eyes, this demanded more certainty and as a ranger of the elven realm he was trained in druidic magic, so he stopped and bent down on one knee putting his hand on the forest floor, closed his eyes and started whispering the incantation of the spell.
As he was deep in trance and started observing the group of three which was ahead of them to the north, only one of them the rider had a human aura the others were different one he almost wanted to peg as elvish the other almost human but more.
"Sasuke what do your elf eyes see?" the blue wizard Kakashi asked in a mocking tone.
They had a weird relationship, Sasuke and Kakashi, the only spellcasters of the group so alike in a lot of subtle and not so subtle ways, yet Sasuke preferred to use his superior elfish eyes combined with his archery to tackle a problem before falling back on his druidic magic while the blue wizard Kakashi first and foremost depended on his vast knowledge of arcane spells and then second on his skill with a sword.
That Sasuke needed to use his nature magic did not go unnoticed and provoked the comment from Kakashi.
"Kakashi, what does your wizard hat sense?" he quipped back.
"Shino the Green, he is with the other party probably advising them as I am doing with you."
Sasuke meant the reply as a "shut up" but now that Kakashi. probably through some wizard trick, had gotten more info on the others he was the one who shut up and allowed him to continue as to get all the strategic info.
"He was the apprentice of a friend of mine, Kurenai the Crimson, very wise for one so young yet strange in his manner."
"Hn" if this Shino was considered strange even among the wizards this was going to be interesting.
"I didn't know he had joined a group tough, so I can't say anything about his travelling companions."
"If this might be dangerous … a trap …" Sasuke began.
"I didn't say a trap."
"Regardless we're safer treating it as one, well we did hire a thief to clear those out of our way didn't we ?"
"Hmm Naruto does come off as the most non threatening and friendly of our little group." Kakashi noded as him and the elf looked on to where the rogue was walking alongside the dwarf all past arguments seemingly patched up between the two.
