"The very purpose of a knight is to fight on behalf of a lady" - Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur
AN: This is a medieval AU, something very dear to my heart as my literature thesis was on medieval literature! I love knights so much. I also love Sasuke as a knight, so here we are.
"My lady Sakura," says Lee, her most loyal friend in the town, "my lady, will you give me a favour for the tournament?"
She looks at him from behind her rare silk fan, watching as his squire adjusts the thin chainmail over his bright green jerkin.
"Lee," Sakura sighs, but it's with a smile, "I will give you a favour if you'll ride out to joust with nothing but the armour of your amour."
He doesn't get it, although her lady in waiting does, and Ino's gleeful laughter paints the confusion clear across the black-haired knight's face. "I…" he begins, then sees the way that Hinata, and Tenten, and the other ladies smile behind long sleeves. "One day I'll get a favour from you, Sakura!"
And with that, he leaves, her aunt Tsunade rolling her eyes to the heavens as he trots off to his tent, pages in tow. "I've told him a hundred times…" she laments, stroking a possessive hand over her niece's pale pink hair. Only the best for Sakura. Only the most worthy.
"Does any other knight wish to make a claim, or can we finally start?" Tsunade queries imperiously, and the force of her annoyance quails a few men who'd looked ready to approach the ladies' stand. All but the oldest Uzumaki boy, a summer-skinned knight no older than twenty.
He's taken with Hinata, Sakura knows, and it's mutual affection, the finest example of courtly love she's heard since the tragic tale of her aunt and her pauper lover. But Hinata is not the princess here, and it would be unspeakably rude to request a token not from the main lady, but from the main lady's friend.
Sakura hopes he will do it anyway, just for the minstrel's telling of the tale. Sure enough there's silence around the jousting grounds as he steps forward, walking confidently to where her raven-haired friend sits in blushing anticipation. People start to whisper, Hinata's face starts to enflame and her aunt begins to look truly ferocious when Naruto gestures over his shoulder, beckoning a second knight through from the crowd.
Instantly, Sakura knows, hopes this knight has come to speak to her. He is the antithesis to her spring, dressed in dark leather with chainmail as black as his hair, his face a prince's ransom were it not for the bored cast to his features. Beside her, Ino sighs, and Sakura knows this nameless knight will be the subject of not a few commissions from her ladies.
"Sakura!" Naruto calls, and waves with none of the propriety they've been taught. "I've come to make an exchange - a friend for a friend!"
It's surprisingly clever. By centring the request around herself Naruto has avoided any insult he would have caused in passing her over, yet at the same time the pink-haired princess notes his friend looks reluctant to seal the deal.
"I see," she says, and watches as the crowds strain to catch the words falling from behind rose lips. "Your friend looks displeased to be used thus."
Sakura fixes this unknown knight with a green-eyed stare, her best impression of her impassive aunt's frown stretched across her delicate features. He looks straight back.
"What is a knight," he starts, and his voice is melodious enough that Ino's nails dig fearfully into the skin of her forearm, "but to fight on behalf of a lady?"
Announcement made, he shrugs into a half kind-of bow, low enough to be proper but courting at arrogance.
"A poor one who does so by force," Sakura muses, lower, but he picks it up all the same. "What is your name?"
"Sasuke." he acknowledges her rebuke with a tilt of his head, and Sakura misses the way Tsunade's eyes narrow with suspicion.
"Well then, Sasuke," Sakura pronounces, and the masses hold their breath as she gives judgement, "you may fight on my behalf."
"No favour?" he asks, and it's just rude enough that even Naruto widens his eyes in shock. The horses, led out to exercise in the run-up to the main event, are the only noise in the whole arena. Sakura waits to see if he will squirm under his words, but this mysterious dark knight simply stands and watches her with the deepest eyes she has ever seen.
"I told my friend Lee," Sakura says slowly, "that I would give him a favour if he fought in nothing but the armour of his amour."
She puts a hand to her chin. "But I think there is no love lost here, and so I fear it wouldn't be much protection at all."
Sasuke nods, then with a movement so sudden Tsunade's guards heft their poleaxes he grasps the bottom of his mail overcoat and pulls it over his head. Even with his hair mussed and his jerkin misaligned, Sasuke looks sinfully good, and when he inclines his head to her again Sakura cannot help the smattering of pink across her cheeks.
"We'll see," he challenges, and even Tsunade snorts in amusement at the way he leaves his armour on the ground. Then he wins the first match, and then the second, and by the fifth Sakura is contemplating whether or not she's been led a merry dance, tricked into accepting the regard of some mythical creature come to her kingdom.
It's at the end of the tournament, when Sasuke stretches out his hand to receive his prize and grasps her wrist instead of her proffered handkerchief that Sakura thinks maybe, just maybe, he and Naruto had planned it all along.
Thoughts? This time period fascinates me.