The warmth there was nice, a reminder of everything she could never have, and Sakura sorely wished it were anyone bar her soulmate carrying her into an elven realm. Maybe then she would have been able to make them drop her so she could vanish. Maybe down that ravine she'd spotted a few hours back. She choked on her laughter, wincing as pain throbbed through her ribs yet again. Part of her missed her own healing abilities, diminished and destroyed as they were in that world. It was only to be expected – she was a monster of ruin and destruction. Hands which destroyed life could hardly heal it so. She doubted anyone could really heal her in that place. Her soul itself was twisted, warped into something she hated and loved for some strange reason. Indeed, she had probably become far too used to the nature of her unnatural self. Though it was that same unnaturalness which meant she would be abandoned by her wonderful, perfectly good soulmate. The same soulmate who was carrying her so carefully into a place of healing and hope.
Sakura was under no delusions though. He only felt so connected to her due to the connection sparked between them of which he had no knowledge of. If he knew of the truth she would undoubtedly be abandoned quicker than she could blink. A fate she no doubt deserved. Still, she didn't want the modicum of wretched happiness and hope she had found to be snuffed out just yet. It was so terribly selfish of her. Glorfindel deserved so much better. But she was a selfish monster, and she always wanted what she couldn't have. What she didn't deserve to have.
Her eyes cracked open just a fraction, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she basked in the odd contentedness from being near her soulmate. She wondered if he felt the same. But if he did, then that would mean he'd worked it out… Sakura was under no illusions that her soulmate hated her thanks to her past actions. She was terrible. She was horrible.
And her soulmate would eventually figure that much out.
Her heart ached at the thought, and she despised her nature as she shifted her weight on his back, far too aware of those golden locks barely a millimetre away. Never before had she wanted to nuzzle into something like that before. Stupid soulmates and the unwitting attractions they had to each other. She wanted to leech off that warmth and comfort, like the parasite she was, but she couldn't. Not without inadvertently revealing things.
His footsteps stopped then, rather abruptly too, and Sakura could only blink and lift her head as best she could in order to get a glimpse of why Glorfindel had stopped walking. Silently, she prayed it was no dragon which had stopped them in their tracks.
Surprisingly enough, it wasn't, and rather than the sight of one of her kin, she was met with a view of the valley which housed the elven settlement. Which meant she should have already been within the protections of the elven realm. Those always extended past the boundaries of the built up settlement. There should have been protections pushing at her evil, a prickle upon her skin as she fought to gain access. Sakura didn't understand why they weren't. Unless they were faulty or down for maintenance – if that indeed ever happened. Those were the only explanations for why she couldn't feel the scorn of the elves upon her and her kin.
Her head settled on Glorfindel's shoulder, eyes fixed on their destination which was now well within sight, heart thudding violently in her chest as she felt herself being dragged closer and closer towards her inevitable doom. She didn't want to venture any further into the elven realm which was quickly beginning not to make sense.
All too soon though, she found herself in the courtyard, the main entry point for guests of the elven realm of Imladris or so Sakura presumed as she clung to her soulmate's back and fervently wished to be anywhere but there. No one listened to those prayers of hers though, and she could only stiffen as figures emerged from within the home.
The first was distinctly male, long, dark hair spilling down well past his shoulders, beauty and age-old wisdom evident on his face – such was the way of elves – but it was his eyes which unnerved Sakura so. Because they were familiar to her in a way she couldn't quite place. She had seen eyes like those before, and she couldn't mistake them, because—
Sakura wasn't too sure why that was so. Frowning, she allowed herself to continue leaning against her soulmate's shoulder, concealing the wince as her ribs and literally the entirety of her body ached and twinged with pain. She felt as though she were one big bruise. Yet she doubted she would heal at anything bar a slow pace, what with elven healing methods unlikely to reach that twisted soul of hers and encourage its healing. She doubted that even this Elrond fellow whom Glorfindel held in high regard would be able to encourage her body to heal. Her skin changed, and that meant her body was different, and she had little doubts that meant it would be that much harder to heal. She was unnatural. A monster, that snide voice reminded, and Sakura closed her eyes.
Languidly, she blinked, gaze then flickering over to the other three figures who had joined the first. His wife and two sons, or so she presumed. The two sons were just as dark-haired as their presumed father, both having inherited his colouring and eyes going from the looks of things. But the softness and the roundedness of some of their features – those were things she could see reflected in the elleth's face.
Silvery hair spilled out, braids lovingly woven with those silver locks, a fresh white flower tucked behind her ear. She was lovely. Sakura could admit that much, and her heart burned with jealousy – because those were soulmates standing before her, united and so very in love with each other. It was something she would never have. And of course she would be jealous, like the evil, spiteful creature of horror and flame she was. Those emotions suited her. They had to. Because she was a monster.
Never before had she wished as much to be anything else. What would she have given to have the form of a beautiful elf untainted by Melkor and his machinations… Maybe then she could have found the love she had been searching for in her last life. It wasn't to be though, and Sakura was stuck with the lot she had drawn. One which could only end in heartbreak and pain.
She was ready for that though. She had to be. Otherwise she didn't know what would become of her. Fear curled in her belly, thick and hot, and she screwed her eyes shut as the first elf both introduced himself and welcomed them to Imladris. Sakura kept her eyes shut, half of her simply wanting to spend the rest of her time in the elven realm in the bliss of unconsciousness. Maybe then she wouldn't feel the killing blow… Her teeth sunk into her lip and bit down, almost drawing blood when Glorfindel started walking once more. Towards the inevitable reveal of her true nature and the swift demise of herself which would follow.
Her heart felt as though it were beating loud enough to be audible to everyone as she found herself carried inside the cool building. It was a nice relief from the sticky heat of summer outside, but Sakura couldn't focus on too much past her certain fast-approaching doom. She didn't want to bee healed. The pain was deserved. A little penance to make up for her past sins, and so she deserved to languish in pain for a while yet.
"Lindion attempted to heal my companion here," Glorfindel spoke, and blearily, Sakura opened her eyes to find her soulmate walking alongside the Lord Elrond who had so recently been introduced to her. "Though it was soon learned that his attempts were not to succeed," her soulmate continued, and she barely hid the flinch when she met those grey eyes which stirred up something inside her. Ones which didn't cut her the way her soulmate's did, and yet…
"'m fine," she grumbled, not wishing for another attempt and failure at healing her battered body. Not wishing for there to be a chance of success and consequently a reveal of her dragonish nature before her very soulmate himself.
"I believe you ought to be able to succeed where he failed," Glorfindel continued smoothly as though she hadn't spoken at all. Her eyebrow twitched somewhat. "Lothien here has been most helpful on our venture."
"You call the feat of dragon slaying a mere venture?" Elrond murmured, snorting softly, a tired fondness to his voice as he spoke. "Though if your companion here has indeed helped in returning you home to us once more, then I will gladly see to injuries Lindion himself could not heal."
"I did not doubt you would," Glorfindel said, and Sakura knew he was smiling then. That soft smile which felt like it tore her heart in two, what with how it made her want something she could never ever have. Silence fell for but a moment, the air growing heavier with a tension Sakura couldn't quite place.
"You cannot keep up this reckless pursuit, Glorfindel." His words were harsher then, lined with authority, and Sakura could only blink slowly as her rather fried and frazzled brain tried to keep up with everything which was going on. "Do you not wish to find peace from the shadow your soulmate has cast upon you?"
Sakura shifted guiltily on her soulmate's back, raising an eyebrow then – one of the few things she could actually do without causing herself further pain. "I am finding peace," Glorfindel remarked, and Sakura screwed her eyes shut, all too aware that his next words would likely hurt. She deserved it though. "I cannot see any other reason to have been given such a soulmark if I were not meant to slay them so."
Her heart only ached that much more, a soft sigh escaping her as a door was pushed open, and she wondered why they had been talking about Glorfindel's soulmark so blatantly when the Lord Elrond fellow knew not of her knowledge of the name her soulmate carried upon his back. Her eyes cracked open once more, and she barely had time to take in the clean, neat, guest room before she was being set down so very gently on white sheets. Which would soon be ruined by how very dirty she was. That was always the case though, for those sheets and the rest of the world too. She dirtied things by simply existing.
"Please do stop trying to move about," Glorfindel said, grey eyes boring into her acrid green ones then as she made to sit up. His hand was there on her shoulder, pressing down ever so gently, mindful of her injuries, and yet so very unmovable. "You are here to be healed, not to make your injuries worsen, Lothien."
Sakura merely grunted, discontent and yet weirdly content with simply staying put as were his orders. It made very little sense, but then again he was her soulmate. There was so much about that which didn't make sense. "I'll be fine with some rest," she grumbled, wincing ever so slightly at the blatant scoff her soulmate let out.
"And horses can fly," Glorfindel said tartly, earning a raised eyebrow from her at the indignant tone there.
"Hey!" she hissed, wincing then as her chest throbbed then, and she squirmed at the pointed look he sent her way. Ripping her eyes away from where they were fixed on those grey ones like magnets, she turned her head to one side. "I've had worse and still survived," she muttered then, gritting her teeth at the memories of that sparking hand ripping through her chest, tearing her heart out. She had always survived that, even if it had resulted in her waking up in a new land. Which she had caused no small amount of grief.
His stare bore into her then, eyes feeling as though they were burning her like the flames from her mouth had once burnt those of his kin, and Sakura didn't dare to move about under that gaze. She could barely breathe. At least until she felt her shirt being undone to reveal the extent of the damage done. And her chest bindings had evidently been removed in one of her earlier attempts at treatment. Not that nudity particularly bothered her. Even if it was her soulmate. They were all either warriors or healers, meaning they had seen those kinds of things plenty of times.
Her chest was a pattern of black and blue, parts of her skin looking purplish and sickly in places – the result of her kin's tail slamming into her. Though she had her chakra to soften the block, otherwise her ribs might have caved in. "I do not know whether carrying you made this worse or better," Glorfindel murmured, eyes fixed on her injuries, a frown and slight gasp cutting off whatever else he had to say. His hand seemed to move of its own volition, and Sakura realised what had stolen his attention even before his finger brushed against the old scar. He traced the fractal patterns around the sickly white jagged scar from where Sasuke's hand had sliced through her chest. Grey eyes met hers then, confusion, fear, and concern hidden in their depths.
Because it was a scar from an injury which no human could have survived. She hadn't survived as such, so much as died and been dragged into that world, and there and back once more after more deaths. She wondered what thoughts were running through that pretty head of his.
"Glorfindel!" Elrond spoke sharply, and Sakura was abruptly reminded that the scar in question was mostly focused over her heart and spread somewhat across the tiny things she called breasts. There was a matching scarring on her back she knew, which would have been only slightly more appropriate for her soulmate to be touching while having no sort of relationship with her, as he never would, because he could never know the truth about the soulmark on her arm.
He blinked then, and Sakura took the slightest amount of odd pleasure in seeing his cheeks turn a burnished shade of red, seemingly returning to his senses. His hand was pulled away then, wits finally gathered about him, pointed ears burning with colour, and he turned on his heel. "Forgive my curiosity, Lothien," he mumbled. "I will return later," he said, quickly excusing himself and exiting the room.
Sakura snorted, wincing in the next second as her chest twinged once more, pain throbbing through her. "Idiot," she muttered, hating how very fond she sounded in that instant. She wasn't meant to sound so very fond of her soulmate. He hated her real name, a blight upon his pale skin, the inky markings as black as her scales had been. Dark as the shadows she longed to hide herself away in.
"Wounds such as these," Elrond murmured, a frown marring his brow then, "grievous as they are, should not have been beyond Lindion's skill." Sakura could only smile humourlessly at his words. The fault lay not with the elf's skill, rather with her twisted body and soul. Though she was hardly going to admit to that – being wrong and unnatural, a being made of fire, sorcery, and a once-human soul who no longer had a claim to humanity. Sakura dimly wondered if shinobi could even be called human in the first place.
Closing her eyes, she sighed quietly, listening as the elf wove songs of healing about her, for all the good it did. Her true name was not Lothien in that world, rather it was merely a name she had taken herself rather than the one which had been given unto her in those lands. Those whispers not urging her body nor soul to heal. She doubted they could truly heal and revert from the changes Melkor had woven in her himself.
Dimly, part of her wished her true name was Lothien. It would have been so much more simple if that had truly been the name. She wouldn't have caused her soulmate half as much grief as she had. But Lothien was merely the name she took to conceal her old one. A name reminiscent of the one she had born in the Elemental Nations. She had a different name in different lands, and it was unchanging through her subsequent incarnations in either world.
Sakura sighed softly as she lay there, the songs fading away as Lord Elrond finally figured they were having no impact whatsoever. She was a dragon. The healing of the elves was not meant for her. Just as the protections of the elven dwelling were not for her. "Save your breath," she said then, staring up at the ceiling then, not wanting to meet those grey eyes which unnerved her so. So just. So righteous. Burning with a fire within, and not the sort she breathed out. "There will be those who need it more," she mumbled. There would be those who deserved healing that much more than her.
"It should be working," Elrond mumbled, his touch featherlight against one of her numerous bruises. She winced still, proof his songs of healing had done naught to convince her body to heal. "I cannot understand why you show not even the slightest signs of healing…"
She closed her eyes then, a sigh escaping her. "Your songs will not work on me," she said, wishing he would hurry up and leave her alone to brood and suffer as she ought to.
"You know," he said sharply, and Sakura's eyes snapped back open, wide as they met the grey ones which bore into her acrid green ones with a terrifying intensity. Familiar. Sakura barely resisted the urge to frown at that thought. What was it about the elf which set her on edge so? Because he was the one in the position most likely to discover her real nature? Her heart thudded in her chest like the beats of the wings of a hummingbird. "You know why you are not healing…"
Sakura cursed the perceptive nature of elves so, gritting her teeth together and clicking her tongue with a hiss. "It doesn't matter," she grumbled, turning her head away pointedly. "I will just have to heal via more mundane means."
Elrond closed his eyes, and Sakura was oh so grateful to escape those cutting grey eyes which bore into her in such a different way to her soulmate's own. "Then I will find some more mundane means to aid in your recovery," he spoke softly. So unlike how one was meant to speak to a dragon. But her heart felt lighter then, even as he vanished from the room to find a more appropriate measure for enabling her recovery.