AN: This is an aside for my Blade in the Dark universe, set a while after Sakura has made friends with the Uzumaki Clan but before Naruto is proposed as her suitor. I love this AU a lot!
(I'm back from my holidays so I'll be resuming updates of all my AUs every few days)
"Sasuke," Sakura says, the morning of the day she turns seventeen. "Teach me how to ride a horse."
Her shadow pauses in sharpening his weapons, throwing her the blank look he's perfected for when she asks for the moon.
"Why?" he asks evenly, and the question - not outright refusal - throws her off.
"I want to," Sakura replies, shrugging, though the thick layers of her kimono muffle the movement.
He looks unimpressed. It's an emotion she's only recently been able to read from him, caught as he is in the throws of servitude. She will never tell, but there's a ghost of a pout when he looks like this and it makes her almost, almost give in.
"We can go to town, if you want," Sasuke offers instead. "I'll ask my mother and Tsunade-sama for use of the carriage."
"I don't…"
She hates the carriage. The curtains are too thick and the seat surprisingly hard, a narrow, airless box with oppressive wooden slats and horses so old she feels they should be retired. A space where Sasuke is now too big to sit next her and sneak her sweets. No: Sakura does not want to ride in the accursed vehicle. She tells Sasuke this, and is rewarded with his folded arms and the tilt of his head that means rare absolute refusal.
"Horses are dangerous," he chides.
"You're dangerous," Sakura fires back, and is amused at the way his eyes widen and then settle back into black tranquility. Though he's proved his danger well over, he looks anything but threatening as they sit in the garden; she's been decorating his lap with folded paper cranes for the last hour, in preparation for the thousand she'll release to her subjects in celebration of her birth.
"Yes, but I wouldn't-," Sasuke snaps his mouth shut, but the pink-haired princess knows what he was about to say, the unspoken truth of his dedication.
"Show me how to ride," she entreats. "Please."
And orders don't often work on him, but requests do, and Sasuke stands lithely, scattering colourful cranes at his feet. He holds out a wordless hand to her, grip tightening around her smooth touch as he pulls her to stand next to him. There's a breathless moment where Sakura thinks ah, I'm too close, or he is, before he steps back and frowns in grudging acceptance.
"Do not," he cautions as they move towards the back of the palace, "tell your mother."
He's still holding on to her hand, so Sakura simply squeezes it in silent acquiescence.
Eventually, the pair come to a halt in front of the stables. She's embarrassed to discover that her rich, formal kimono (though only suitable for morning wear) is entirely unsuited for what they've come to do, but Sasuke simply leads Sakura to see the horses, shooing out the workers who stop to gawk at their young princess.
"First," he says quietly, coming up to stand at her shoulder as she pats the nose of a docile-looking roan, "we'll have you ride in front of me, to get used to the movement."
With her back to him, Sakura blinks, confused. Then she understands what he means: not on a different beast, but sharing the same animal. His arms come around her to demonstrate, strong fingers splayed against the wood of the stall door; a closeness so static and sudden that her breath stalls in her chest.
"It'll be a little cramped," she says with a lightness she doesn't feel.
"Hn," he agrees, moving around her to slip into the enclosure.
The Senju princess pictures them together, hazy recollection of a book of poems she'd stolen from Shizune-san aiding her imagination. Though he's held her while she slept and she'd held him while he bled, this feels different, a boundary so murky it's barely there stretching between the offer and the reality.
"Ah," she mumbles, all awkward angles and stuttered expression. "Maybe I'll just watch you ride, instead."
Sasuke straightens from where he'd been stroking the horse's long forelocks. She sees, with a start, the way the young man is smirking at her from the shadows of the stable, a look that ignites his deep black eyes with insolent warmth. It makes her feel… before she can examine the fire in her belly, Sasuke opens his mouth and speaks, voice rich with rare amusement.
"Anything you wish, my lady," he says with a short bow, before turning around to murmur in the horse's ear. Sakura feels abruptly jealous of the absent affection; almost requests the same before her princess' intuition halts her tongue.
It's then, all at once, that Sakura realises she would take anything, everything Sasuke offered, but only if he gave it to her freely.
Watching as he smiles a smile not meant for the horse, the Senju princess thinks that maybe, one day, her blade just might.
AN: Oh I just love this universe. I think I'll expand it after I finish one of my WIPs.