When the old mare plodded into the Hyuuga homestead, her rider dismounted in an angry huff before Juken even came to a stop. Her ankles throbbed violently as she landed, the pain only adding more fuel to the metaphorical fire building within her. She stalked off toward the moderate-sized main house, only just remembering she had to take care of Juken when the bay horse nudged her impatiently on the back.

"Neji-san? Anyone?" Hinata called, shielding her eyes against the setting sun with a hand and gazing around the deserted farmyard. She waited a few minutes, the silence only broken by the occasional swish of the mare's tail, before trying again. "I need help!"

After another few minutes' waiting, yielding the results of no one arriving at her beck and call, Hinata pursed her lips to keep back the scream that was threatening to tear out of her throat and turned her attention to Juken. Though she didn't want to take her anger out on the reliable old mare, Hinata couldn't help but be a bit rough as she unbuckled the girth strap and slipped the bridle off Juken's face. The mare stepped back, popping her jaw as she stretched her mouth. Her murky brown eyes stared at her handler for a moment before resting expectantly on the discarded tack that lay at her hooves.

"It's not going to get up and put itself away, no matter how hard you stare at it." Hinata told her. Juken glanced back at the girl and did the equine-equivalent of arching an eyebrow and snorted. The two stared at each other for a moment before Hinata stomped loudly over to the forlorn leather saddle and bridle and began dragging the mess of straps and metal over to the barn. Juken followed behind her, nudging the heap with her nose every few paces in a halfhearted attempt to help. Hinata kicked one of the doors open and left Juken's tack in a pile next to a litter of straw.

Hinata stood up, wincing as her spine cracked with the action, and wiped the sweat and grime off of her forehead with an equally sweaty and grimy arm. "I'm sure Neji-san will come by later to clean the tack and put it in its rightful place." she mused loudly. She had noticed Juken going for a bottle of oil and dirty rag, no doubt intent on getting Hinata to do a thorough job. The bay mare pinned her ears and snorted grouchily, but grudgingly sidled over to an open hay bale and fell upon her evening feed. Shaking her head, Hinata headed back to the main household.

Her mood had soured the moment she left the city's protective walls. The sun had decided to set slowly today, and made sure to stay in her eyes the entire way home. And nearly a quarter down the road, she was almost knocked from Juken's back when a messenger rider thundered past her, and then again when she was almost halfway home and he came charging back. Luckily, the mare wasn't spooky, and had had enough sense in her to dart quickly to the side when she heard the cacophony of hoof-beats. But none of those things could compare to the one thing that had really ticked the young girl off.

Hinata hadn't been able to daydream.

She had tried—oh, how she had tried!—the entire way. But just when she was about to drift away into one of her fantasies, something would happen (like the man on the horse, or the sun blinding her at that exact moment), and she would have to bite her lip to keep from screaming out in anguish. Without her dreams, she was forced to remain in the real world, a place she detested, because she couldn't be what she wanted to be.

Rich.

Nobility.

The crown prince's wife.

Hinata sighed and tapped the dust off of her boots on a nearby rock. Her dreams were all she had, and being without them for so long made her incredibly irritable. She ran her hands through her hair, tucking a few stray wisps that had escaped her bun made earlier in the day, and prayed she wouldn't murder whoever confronted her before she had a nice, hot bath.

She opened the back door and was greeted by an empty kitchen. Hinata arched an eyebrow and stared around the room. Ingredients littered the tables and counters, as they normally did during the large supper meal-time, but the food looked as though it had been hastily abandoned. Tomatoes oozed their juices on the cutting blocks, meat laid out beside the over-boiling pots on the fires began to smell, and the bread in the oven had baked to crumbling black loaves. But Hinata was far too irritated to investigate further. She could hear the bathtub upstairs calling her name, and nothing, not even the mysterious vanishing of her family and the half-made dinner could keep her from it.

The Hyuuga pushed through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the main living room and thought wryly that at least one of the phenomena was solved.

Her entire family (well, all that lived on the farm) was crowded into the normally spacious area. Cousins were seated on anything that was stable, aunts took up every chair and cushion, uncles stood warily behind their wives, and her father, the patriarch of their "clan", was squished between one of her heftier aunts and her little sister on the only sofa. Hyuuga Hiashi jumped to his feet the moment his eldest daughter entered the room. The atmosphere was grave, and though her family hadn't been speaking before she arrived, the room was now deathly silent. Hinata crossed her arms and glowered at her father, something that she would not have done even in her wildest dreams, and tapped an impatient foot.

"I've come back from market," she stated slowly and pulled out the bag of coins on her belt. "This is what I made today." she added, equally slow, and set them down on a nearby table. She didn't mind parting with it (she still had her own stash, hidden between her own 'money bags'), and knew that anyone who attempted to steal it right in front of her father was asking to be lynched on the spot.

But Hiashi didn't move to retrieve it. Didn't even flinch when the coins clattered out of the bag and rolled out onto the table. Hinata sighed and crouched to pick up the ones that had rolled onto the floor.

"A messenger came today." Hiashi broke the quiet so suddenly that she started and bumped her head on the table. Rubbing the sore spot, she quickly got to her feet and dropped the coins into the small pile that spilled out of the bag.

"Oh? That's nice." Hinata replied automatically while walking to the stairs.

"He informed us our farm is in danger." Hinata hesitated, her hand on the rickety old railing and one foot already on the bottom step.

"How horrible." she sighed and tried to look aggrieved by the news, but only managed to look as exasperated as she felt. She had heard him, sure, but at the moment, not getting to soak in tepid water was a much bigger problem than their impending homelessness.

"The Dragon is going to burn all our land to the ground."

Hinata paused again. She had heard tales of the Dragon, most of them from the puppeteer, Kankuro, who set up in the market on Sundays to entertain children, but still, seeing the stories acted out by cute little marionettes didn't make them any less frightening. He was rumored to be terrifying (no one had seen it and lived), and as heartless as the plague that had swept the countryside years before and killed off more than half of the population. Hinata weighed this new revelation against her main problem, and still decided that a bath was more important. She started climbing the stairs.

"And the only way to save our livelihood is to sacrifice you."

This made Hinata stop completely. It was fine with her if they were forced to move-in with some far-off relative, or wait out the beast's siege, but the way he worded it sounded as though her family had already decided to... to...

"So, you're going to kill me?" she mused, the bath now long forgotten. "You'll kill me to save yourselves?" Hinata didn't mention that she would have likely done the same thing in their situation. But, she figured if she was going out, she was going to make them feel as miserable as possible.

"Of course not! What would the Dragon want with a dead girl?" one of her uncles exclaimed.

"What would the Dragon want a girl to begin with?" she retorted and rolled her eyes.

"He steals them!" a young cousin quipped.

"Dragons only steal princesses. And Hinata-nee isn't pretty enough to be one." another corrected matter-of-factly, and received a sharp cuff on the back of his head as a reward.

Hinata's cheeks blushed out of indignation, and she felt her control on her temper beginning to wane. "Well, obviously, I am pretty enough for our Dragon, or else he wouldn't have requested me specifically," she nodded, as if that settled the matter. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wash." And with that, she bolted up the stairs.

Hinata wasted no time in drawing the hot water (one of the good things about living in the middle of no where were the underground hot springs) and sliding into the porcelain tub, one of the few luxuries her family owned. She closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the bath, willing herself into a light slumber.

A knock roused her just as she was about to drift off, and she had to clench her fists to keep from throwing the back scrubber at the door. Hinata clenched her teeth and glared daggers at the innocent piece of wood.

"Yes?" she called tersely, hoping that whoever it was had decided from her tone that it wasn't worth it, and would leave.

"It's me." her father's voice was slightly muffled, but still carried an air of authority that made Hinata immediately regret snapping at him.

"Yes?" she repeated, meekly this time.

"I am truly sorry about this, Hinata. But it's either give you up or all of us die," she heard him sigh , and a soft thunk told her he had rested his head against the cool wood. "If your mother was still around, maybe... maybe things would be different." Hinata stared down at the cloudy water she was sitting in, trying to ignore how her father's voice cracked at the mention of his wife. She had passed away almost fifteen years ago, while she had been in labor with Hanabi.

"I'm going to appeal to Queen Tsunade in the morning. We've served her family loyally for generations; surely, she will take pity on us and send her grandson to save you..." Hiashi trailed off into a mumble, making his last sentence a bit garbled, but still legible enough for Hinata to discern.

"C-C-Crown Prince Naruto will save me?" she asked, unable to keep herself from stuttering. If he saved her from the Dragon (which was, truth be told, one of her favorite fantasies), he might fall in love with her. Which meant she would live with him in his castle. As the Crown Princess. His wife.

"Well, yes, if I am able to convince her. But, perhaps there is another way. We Hyuuga have farmed this land for hundreds of years. It is our duty to defend it from all invaders, as our ancestors have before us. My own twin died protecting me. It's only right that I should honor his memory and stand tall." Hiashi's tone was firm again, seeming to gain strength the longer he spoke.

"Yes, thank you for making me realize this, Hina. I'll call the family together again and explain the new plan."

She was out of the tub and in her sleep-clothes in an instant, the door thrown open a second later, and her arms wrapped around her father in a tight embrace moments after. "N-No!" she pleaded and hugged him from behind "I'll do it. I don't want anyone dying for my sake."

Which was the truth. At least, half of it.

"You've all worked so hard to support us. It isn't right to have it destroyed just because of me."

Hiashi was shaking in her arms now, and Hinata gave an alarmed squeak as he turned around and captured her in a tight embrace.

"My beautiful, beautiful daughter." he breathed and squeezed her so tight, she thought her spine would snap. He let her go after she started making choking sounds, and she could see light trails of tears running down his face. He smiled softly and kissed her forehead. "I'll grovel on my hands and knees before the Prince himself, if that is what it takes for him to save you."

Hinata smiled brightly and gave him a light peck on the cheek.

"I'll go pack!"

A/N So, I probably should have done this in the first chapter, but whatever, I'll do it now before I forget; Hinata's gonna be a bit out of character. What I mean by that is, she will still act like her canon counter-part, only, her inner thoughts and feelings will be... different. Sort of like Sakura and Inner Sakura. Got it? Ok. Short chapter and pretty uneventful chapter, but next one should be better (I pumped this one out in an hour because I told myself I would update if I got twenty reviews, and lo and behold). Anyway, hope this was just as enjoyable, though, and please let me know what you thought!