Nanaji smiles softly as she pulls a soft purple flower from the ground, brushing her stubby fingers over the roots that came out of the earth. A grasshopper bounces away from it's perch on another flower close by, and jumps on a sleeping boy's nose. This was the best time of the day- despite being so near the end of the day, that the sun has begun setting- because she could spend time with Shikamaru, without an ever present armed Anbu watching their every move. Nanaji dearly treasures these moments, because she could pretend she was a normal child, spending time with her friend, and she didn't have to worry about the future, nor the responsibilities she would one day hold.
It was nice, having a friend, who let her feel like just another normal person and not the Fire Daimyo daughter. Not to mention, the girl found Shikamaru to be a nice and calming presence to be around. Shikamaru also always see her as a person, which is something she thinks her own father forgets about at time.
An annoyed huff drew Nanaji eyes from her newest flower, a Kikyo also known as a Bluebell, to Shikamaru's squinting forehead where the small grasshopper crouches. Of course, the boy was too lazy open his eyes and swat the bug away. Instead, he just sat with a look of annoyance on his face and waited for the bug to move on it's own.
Greatly amused boy the lazy boy's indifference to the bug Nanaji laughs, and not the dainty polite laugh that her tutor had taught her but a full belly laugh that left her sides hurting for a proper breath.
"Troublesome Princess." Shikamaru mutters softly with no real annoyance in his voice but instead a hint of pride, because he is one of the few to make Nanaji laugh so openly.
Grinning prettily the blonde hit the Nara's forehead with the palm of her hand softly. "You shouldn't call people troublesome, it is very rude."
The boy only shrugs, lifting his head enough to be placed on Nanaji's outstretched legs so she could play with his dark locks. Relaxing into the gentle touch, Shikamaru thought about his newest -and kind of only- friend.
Nanaji was very open with her feelings and wore her heart on her sleeve, not afraid to tell you what she thought but not opposed to hearing your own feelings. The 'Troublesome Princess' was also very intelligent maybe not in the logical/scholarly way many of the Nara clan men valued, but instead she was intelligent in the way of people's emotions and thought.
That is part of the reason Shikamaru decided to keep his friendship with Nanaji a secret from his family. He was worried introducing her to his family would somehow taint their friendship, or worse the ninjalifestyle that his clan practiced would taint Nanaji and jade her. The other reason he decided to keep his friendship with Nanaji a secret was to see if his family cared enough to find out who he spent so much of his time with.
So far no one had questioned where Shikamaru went most day...and that was disheartening.
"Do you ever wonder-" The girl cut off her own sentence as she laid her hands on either side of the ground next to Shikamaru's head. "It's not normal or right to treat him the way they do. All of the other orphans are treated -well not great- but they are treated with some level of basic human respect. Him. They treat him...it's not normal and in your own words ...troublesome. I don't like it."
"Who do you mean?" Though, Shikamaru had a good idea of who they were talking about he had to make sure. As far as he was aware there is no way for Nanaji, an actual princess, to come into contact with Naruto Uzumaki, an actual street urchin.
"You know him...Naruto."
"But, the real question, is how do you know him."
A thoughtful look covers Nanaji's face, "We share Anbu guard rotations, which also doesn't make sense, because why does he a 'no named orphan' need security on pare with the 'Fire Daimyo's' daughter. The Hokage's himself doesn't share security as tight as ours."
Shikamaru nods, filing all this information away for the future, "I asked my father about it once, he wouldn't give me a straight answer."
"I haven't been able to get a straight answer either."
"Troublesome."
Nanaji finally understood Shikamaru's use of the word 'troublesome', because not being able to make sense of Naruto's treatment, well it wasn't 'troublesome' because that's too rude for a Princess to say but…"What an annoyance"- at least sounded more polite.
~~Line break
All of Nanaji's politeness was gone and shot five ways to hell, so saying troublesome was very much within her own right, and she doubts she could ever seriously scald Shikamaru for the use it again without twitching.
No one would give her answers.
She'd asked everyone who worked in her home (and those numbers reached into the triple digits-dammit), written more family than she was even aware of having, pleaded with her father for information, and has even gone as far as to ask all six of her brother's personally if they knew anything about 'Uzumaki Naruto'.
While, she has been able to gather that there's is in fact some sort of secret surrounding the orange loving boy, she was no closure to finding out what that secret could be.
Not that Shikamaru was faring better, while overall less tight lipped then the politicians that Nanaji is accustomed to dealing with, Ninjas aren't exactly forthcoming with information of any kind much less information that seemed to be a national secret.
Two weeks and neither of them had anything that pacified their curiosity in the slightest.
"Do you know my manner has a 'utensil inspector', because I sure didn't. I tried to ask him a question and he quite." Nanaji hissed sourly to her friend, pouting in annoyance as she pulled a new book down from one of the shelves surrounding them in the library. "His job was to look a silverware- sure it sound really boring, but why would you quit it because the owners daughter is suddenly asking questions about an no name orphan!"
Shikamaru snorted into the scroll he was reading, "I tried asking this one woman about Naruto, I just happened to see her when I was walking past a Dango stand, and she slapped me with an octopus. I have no idea where she got this octopus from and now I'm stuck taking care of an it, I decided to name it Takoyaki ."
Nanaji shock her head in amusement. "Of course you did."
"Something is wrong."
"I know."
Both friends sat in silence for a minute, trying to see if their was something they had missed that would explain the mystery of Uzumaki Naruto.
"I wish we could-Owe!" Shikamaru rubbed his head, a large red spot already forming from where a book had come flying at his head.
Curious the girl picked up the book that had obviously been thrown at her friend's head with intent. Fleetingly she wondered where her Anbu guards were at but let that thought pass quickly when she saw the title cover of the book she help. "Children of truth, fire of intelligence, and soul of Metal: A hand book. Read at your own risk, but know that opening this book will forever bind you. Read in private *not in front of your Anbu guards (this part was scratched into the leather binding and obviously directed at Nanaji). Enemies of the Bark Beware."
"This is...This is Troublesome." Shikamaru yawned, lazily feeling the bump that knotted in his forehead and blackened. "Do you want to open it."
"I think I do."
"We've got nothing to lose, why don't you open it."