Sort of got sidetracked by holidays followed by new job followed by wedding planning. Months later…. Still getting sidetracked by wedding planning. XD Playing around in a mind sandbox. Weee!
Disclaimer: See Part I
It was well and truly pink now, that's all she could make of her hair in the tiny hand mirror that she had brought with her. Not pink like a tongue, or pink like a blush, but pink like a wild flower. Maybe, she could make her need plain to the people in the camp and they could procure some red dyes. It almost seemed pointless, though, to maintain vanity when she looked so ragged. No cosmetics in any form were going to help this short hair, cut at an odd angle and growing out lopsided.
Finding a blade was easy enough, but in trying to twist herself around to locate a good position to even cut her hair while viewing herself in the propped up mirror she did nick herself a few times on the neck. Once, she got herself deeply enough that it certainly would have stained her robes had she been wearing white. All of Gaara's blades were impossibly sharp, partially thanks to her caring for them out of boredom. Sighing, she dabbed at the wound with a cloth and wondered how many years it would take to get her hair back to its glossy waist long glory.
Eventually, she sat down at the desk that lay near the entrance where light was more plentiful and continued to write to Ino:
…I await a reply to the letter I managed to get out to you detailing the circumstances of my arrival at this military installation. I hope that you can be a voice of reason as I continue to struggle with the thought of returning to an empty house and the pity of our friends while knowing I have duties to attend to in Rome …
Gaara, bursting into the tent with such force the papers she was working on went flying, stormed up to Sakura to regard her critically. Calloused hands, chapped and dirty, pinched her chin and thrust it from side to side as Sakura felt an indignant noise escape her lips. He drew a finger slowly across the long, shallow cut on her neck making it sting and seemed to grow very calm as the beginnings of a smile pricked at the corner of his lips. She slapped his hand away and stood up, noticing how while he didn't seem so very tall he managed to fill the whole tent with his presence.
Voices were approaching the tent and Sakura heard her name more than once as Gaara drew his sword and controlled his ragged breathing. It looked like rust or blood still clung to the tip and alarms sounded in her head as she put the pieces together.
"No one touched me, I promise y—" Her placating words were cut off as Gaara sprang out of the tent like a cat and the clash of metal soon followed.
Rushing out into blinding late morning light, Sakura joined dozens of people who were running towards the sounds of battle. Gaara and Kankuro were crossing blades and even though Kankuro had every advantage on strength, height, and age he appeared to be barely holding off the worst of the attack. Kankuro was yelling something at Gaara, who didn't bother to respond. The clatter of language all bearing a questioning and alarmed tone told Sakura that no one knew what this was about. The only person who didn't appear to be either surprised or alarmed was a striking woman with two thick blond braids, standing close enough to the fighting brothers she was getting dirt tossed on her from their scuffle.
While the fight was vicious, it was thankfully short. Gaara managed to trip Kankuro, sending him sprawling, and drew his blade swiftly down towards his prone sibling's head.
"No!" Sakura's scream sliced through everyone, and Gaara flinched.
The sword slowed its descent but it still drew a long bloody line on Kankuro's collarbone. It looked shallow but it was bleeding profusely. Sakura's trained eye knew it wasn't anywhere near fatal, but it easily could have been if he had used more force.
Gaara wandered over and stood in front of Sakura, glaring at her like she had been at fault for this, then turning his gaze on the other members of the camp who largely would not meet his pale green eyes without discomfort radiating from them.
Well, Sakura wasn't having any of it. She was afraid of him, that was for certain, but a deep stubborn streak in her didn't want to let him know.
"What was that about?" Her question seemed to shock him, and a murmur wove through the crowd before they silenced. Some people wandered over to Kankuro, ignoring Sakura and Gaara exchanging glares but more were entranced by their sudden interaction.
"Blood for blood. He knew his duty was to protect you. He failed." It probably made more sense in his native tongue, because this seemed silly to Sakura.
She pointed at her neck. "This was my mistake, a slip of the hand while cutting my hair! You're acting like, like, he tried to compromise my virtue!" A deep blush followed when she realized what she had said.
Gaara was having trouble tracking her words, she noticed, when she saw his brow stitch together at her last sentence. Smaller words, more direct, less references to her, uh, virtue.
"Your brother did protect me. I was the only danger to myself." She took his hand, the one not clutching a sword with white knuckles, and pleaded. "Believe me."
He pulled his hand from hers, as if she had burned him, and stalked to his tent. The crowd parted for him, and closed again behind as if some invisible barrier protected him. Sakura hadn't realized so many people lived here, and they were almost all looking at her with some cross between fear, admiration, and distaste. She was probably some sort of street performance to these people. They flowed around her, careful not to touch her, but staring just the same as they moved back to what they had been engaged in before the fight. Out of place, not wanting to confront Gaara again just yet, Sakura stood with her face to the sky and pleaded to the gods silently for some guidance.
"Come." It was the blond woman with braids. She was taller than Sakura, older, more statuesque. Any sort of unease Sakura might have felt following a stranger was mitigated by the knowledge that if anything else happened to her Gaara would probably kill the person. Cold comfort.
As they walked Sakura finally saw properly that she lived in a bubble inside a bubble. The actual military camp, while laid out as every other they had passed through on their journey with the caravan, was quite small. The rectangular border's end was easily visible as she walked to the edge of the village. She had assumed it was all military buildings earlier, but the shallow ditch giving the nod to the border made her feel like she had officially stepped out of Roman territory into the unknown. It was as if a small encampment had been plopped alongside an existing village. She supposed that was in fact the reality.
Sakura felt exposed, foreign, and she tried to hold her head up as the lady led her to a large structure. The village was full of empty space, sprawling and massive, and nothing was orderly or laid out in straight lines. Perhaps if she had grown up here this would seem less random, but her mind couldn't create any sense of hierarchy other than some homes were larger than others.
The blond woman motioned that she should enter one of the largest homes she had seen yet on their walk and they sat down together, presumably to wait. It wasn't long until Kankuro practically collapsed into the door as he entered and made a grimacing face when he saw Sakura waiting inside.
"My sister is meddling." Kankuro gestured as the woman. "She thinks you'll doom us." His voice was airy but as he touched his collar he hissed in pain.
The blond woman said something to Kankuro who seemed to disagree, but the woman was insistent.
"Temari wants you to leave with the next trading caravan. She said she will offer you coin, food, and a travelling companion to Rome. You can be gone before the next full moon."
Sakura didn't like where this was going. Even if she wanted to leave she didn't like being asked to leave. "How can I be dooming you when I do nothing but sit in a tent all day? And why does she not tell me these things herself? She spoke to me before."
"Our father did not have time to teach us much of the language of your Empire. Gaara and I learned while travelling with your troops. Temari understands much, but she had no practice speaking."
He seemed to not want to address the other part of her question, and Sakura bristled. "Is this an option or an order?"
Kankuro and Temari consulted with one another, while Kankuro wandered about locating water and a rag to clean his wound. At first Sakura wanted to offer to help dress it, but since they were discussing whether she needed to be thrown out of the village like a criminal she suddenly felt less than charitable.
They seemed to come to a consensus. "If you don't look like you want to leave, Gaara may not let you. The monster may not let you leave even if you want to."
"You talk about him like he has no reason, no thoughts. Let me talk to him and make up my own mind." Sakura's brain flashed to today's sudden bloody battle and she wondered at the truth of her convictions about this man when these two people had known him their whole lives.
The siblings shrugged and Kankuro gestured towards the door as if talking to her was a lost cause. Sakura wished heartily that she could punch a hole in the door just to show him that she wasn't someone to be disrespected and dismissed so easily, but she held her temper. Temari said something and Kankuro laughed, even as Sakura had one foot out onto the sun shining on the packed dirt street.
"You might call him a monster, but you two are an insult to hospitality everywhere, and right now given the choice I prefer the monster!"
They burst out laughing after a pause of shock, which told Sakura her scathing comment had not had the intended effect. She stormed her way through their tacky village back to the familiarity of the Roman tents wondering what in the world this place was and if she really dreaded returning home so much she would continue to stay here.
Outside the tent, she paused. Sakura had never been nervous before upon entering so she scolded herself for losing nerve. She would talk with Gaara, (something she'd never actually done) and arrange a time she could return home (something she didn't want to do yet), as well as a tent of her own as soon as it could be constructed, (something she wasn't sure if she wanted).
Oh yes, armed with all that wobbly conviction she was bound to have fantastic results she thought to herself sarcastically. She rubbed her forehead absently as she tried to nail down something she was actually certain about.
Sakura jumped back a few paces, startled, as Gaara threw open the tent and pinned her to the ground with his glare.
"Inside." That was an order not an invitation.
"I'm, er, enjoying the sunshine." That was lame, Sakura, her inner voice chided. You're not kidding anyone. "I'll be in soon, and then I have some questions."
Gaara regarded her with a slow gaze that traveled around her face questioningly, unblinkingly, before nodding and retreating back into the tent.