A/N: This story is going to have up to 10 chapters (maximum), and 3 arcs: Childhood, Adolescence, and Present/Young Adulthood (where prologue takes place). I hope I see reviews and followers. Please let me know if you like this story! Egyptian AUs aren't really seen in the sasusaku tag, uk, so I thought I might as well write one.
Edit: (2018) Guys, ok, so I know I wrote one chapter and then left the story to rot for like years, and you have the right to unfollow and damn me to hell, but I'm back! I wasn't motivated for a really long time, but I always knew I would come back to this story one day. I just never expected it to be after such a long time. Can you blame me? I started this when I was like 14, ew. :(
Forgive me pls, k thanks. Also, I changed the title from "Thicker Than Sand" to "Sacred." Don't ask lol, I suck at titles.
Sacred
(1)
They are sitting on the steps of her parent's house—empty as they had left for work early.
Sakura eyes the small rock in her hand and throws it at the grey pavement, hoping it breaks into two equal parts—it doesn't, so she sighs and turns her attention to the boy next to her at the lack of things to do.
He looks at her, and smiles with a set of orderly white teeth that shine happiness; she smiles back. He tilts his head upwards, hand over his eyes to cover his vision, and gazes at the burning sun high above them.
Children are running on the streets.
She stares at his handsome, young profile—slightly pointy nose, plum lips, suave features, long eyelashes, swiftly tanned skin, sweaty complex.
She doesn't blame him, she's starting to perspire too, even if they sit under the shade of her front porch.
A sudden and unexpected surge of cool wind blows past them and shakes her greasy cotton hair while she keeps looking at him, gazing at the sky in peace. His spiky, unruly locks of brightly yellowed hair sway with the air—it leaves as soon as it comes. His sun-kissed hair is short—the tips don't get to grace his small shoulders, but they come close to.
"Naruto," she voices out, finally glancing to the empty, narrow streets in front of them, not meeting his baby blue eyes. Too wide and full of life. Too unique.
His attributes are weird. Too out of place in the city. As one of the only few people with that hair and eye colour, he stands out all the time. The vivid colours that adorn him are an aberration, and she's almost the only friend he has because of this. There's Sakura and maybe Lee, and him. Dark, friendly eyes jump in her mind almost immediately and she supresses her blush quickly.
The sky is clear of any clouds, a sign of less water to consume. She inwardly sighs, and hopes Ra, up on his mighty throne, observing and creating and ruling, doesn't see her.
Naruto waits for her to ellaborate, and she does so minutes later.
"Do you have a dream?" The question is thrown delicately over her shoulder; people passing by don't get to hear it, but he does. His golden eyebrows scrunch up together, the inquiry bothering his immature mind, and he makes a sound come out of his mouth reminiscent of a caged animal. "A dream?" He repeats, replaying the word inside his head simultaneously.
When her eyes finish roaming his profile, she looks at the narrow paths to her left, a mountain leading to the market of the city. "Yes, a dream." She thinks of any other explanation, and finds that a small smile has come to her lips without her knowledge. She lets it rest there.
"What do you wish to accomplish in this life?"
Knowing each other since the beginning of time, for their mothers had met way before them, he trusts her enough for any of his most personal secrets—as they're not adults yet, he has not many. Just one.
He smiles, and then inches closer to her, until his lips are a grain of rice away from her right ear; she holds her breath.
"I will become the next King," he whispers, so as to let her know (and only her) about his future devotion.
She gasps, turning quickly once he settles again next to her, eyeing him with so much astonishment first that he, for a second, regrets saying anything at all. However, her face morphs into a more serious one, one that holds affection in her bright, innocent eyes.
The King? A pharaoh is the absolute ruler of this short-lived life; a pharaoh is a King, an entity to respect and serve under the watchful eyes of the gods; a pharaoh is "commit a sin and you will die"; a pharaoh is not anybody, he is holy and chosen. A pharaoh can decide who dies and who lives; who gets to go into the next life. Naruto as King? She wants to say it's an atrocity, but that's not what would be best, she knows.
In only a minute later, she plants her right hand onto his tanner, left hand. She squeezes tight—reassuringly—and smiles.
His shining blue eyes and soft features and blond hair flash in her eyes as she stares at him for a long time, the setting light making everything seem a bit more orange. A King is someone special. Looking at Naruto, now, she knows what to say.
She has no doubt.
"You will be a great Pharaoh."
They quietly laugh on the steps of her house; the almost nonexistent percentage of chances of that happening is never really touched. Naruto turns to her with a smile of his own.
"Do you have a dream?"
The sun is almost disappearing behind the stone buildings in front of them; they're five and dreamy, apparently, and Sakura thinks.
Her mother smiles at her in her memory, healing hands on a battered body, mending a broken man with the touch of her skin and secret spells she never tells anyone about. Her father, on the other hand, a cheerful man with the strongest set of arms in the whole city; day and night building new homes for every person who needs it and has the necessary resources.
Naruto notices she gives his hand a little squeeze, before retrieving hers slowly. She looks at the ground, fists the ends of her dusty clothing, a small smile gracing the corners of her pink lips, and finally finds a proper answer in her.
"I want to help," he looks at her, interest picking, "I want to give and offer; I want to fulfil this short life making the gods happy, making people happy." She finishes, glancing at him through her long bangs.
A set of wide, white teeth grin at her in the confidence of the almost dark street. "That's a good dream, Sakura-chan."
She has no doubt.
Sakura stands up, and offers him a hand to stand too. He has to leave to his house soon, now that the sky is a darker colour.
"Yeah."
Ino has been her friend since she has a memory. Ino is her friend whenever she looks at a flower and thinks of tan complexion and exotic beauty. Ino is her friend since she remembers.
The only other person with characteristics similar to Naruto's—blue eyes and blonde hair and soft edges and such an ethereal beauty that she thinks it's surreal sometimes—inhabiting the city.
Ino doesn't mind what anyone thinks. She paints around her eyes and on her eyelids in vivid colours and talks with boys that aren't her age. Sakura can never be like her, but they're six, and they're friends.
She's holding red to her lips, the brush moving along them slowly as if unsure, sitting on a chair while she looks in the reflection of a metallic mirror.
"What's that?" Sakura inspects her from up close, frowning at the elongated object in an elegant hand. She sits opposite to her friend.
"This," she flashes the deep red in front of Sakura's face, and smiles, "is to make your lips prettier."
Sakura sees how Ino turns to look at her, and her eyes widen at how beautiful she looks with red adorning her lips perfectly. It doesn't really contrast, but rather compliments the blonde as her skin is of a warm hue. She's seen painters enhancing a female's lips the same colour before, every time she takes walks with her parents around the local market, but she had never seen the object itself in person.
Ino stands up and walks toward her with the long brush still in hand, smile present.
"Would you like to try?"
Sakura wants to refuse, to tell her that she doesn't want to. Her mother wears a fair amount of makeup everyday, and she tells Sakura that lower class children don't need it as much. She almost denies Ino. But she really, really wants to see how she looks. A tiny part of her wants to be vain.
Later, as she's staring at her reflection in the Nile, she scrubs her hand against the paint, quickly taking it off and washing her hands with infuriating will. The image of her furious red lips stays in her brain for years. After seeing the contrasting difference between her rosy hair and the red stain on her mouth, she doesn't touch an object like that one for many more.
No, she'll never be like Ino. She is pretty, as she is told a decent amount of times, but the more makeup she puts on to accentuate her attributes, the worse it looks on her.
She'll never be like Ino, but now she knows to never try again.
She goes home with a lighter heart.
They look up at the immensity of The Palace, eyes wide and mouths open.
"Stop moving so much!"
"You're stepping on my hand!"
"Shh, they're going to find us if you don't stop fidgeting."
The royal palace is big, so much so that she doesn't think there's any other building larger than this one in the whole city of Konoha. Moving the small bushes aside, they see the backyard ahead of them—the gardens and the numerous plants making her eyes even wider at how Ino would love to get to see this—past the short fence that covers part of the view from where they stand. Behind them, there's something akin to a cliff of sand, so she tries not to move so much.
A closer look at it—a few seconds after her light eyes adjust to the rays cascading onto the earth under them—and Sakura is subtly pointing at a seemingly tall man behind a woman who seems to inspect the flowers under them, crouching beside a small pond on the ground. Naruto looks to where she's pointing, and his mouth closes when the man glances at him from the corner of his honey eyes, somehow bypassing the bushes where they are hiding. Sakura swallows.
The stare is gentle, but harsh, and it roams over the boy next to her before briefly looking her over, and blinking his eyes away disinterested. She feels unprotected hiding behind some bushes in front of the holy place, standing just a few feet away from the grand behemoth and King.
"The King," she whispers, finally gaining her voice back when said King looks at the flowers under his feet.
That day, she witnesses how the hands of the current, mighty Pharaoh travel from the back of the woman's neck down to her front, and end between her open legs. She sees her face; pleasure written all over it. A soft moan escapes her lips before she giggles softly.
The King keeps looking at Naruto, though, and she bites her lip and frowns a little—they're close, but not enough to be inside the palace's gardens. There's a fence and a few meters separating them from the greenest grass she has ever laid eyes on.
When she tugs on Naruto's arm to leave—the Pharaoh is right there, she keeps repeating to herself, such a holy entity she quickly averts her eyes from the intimate moment between the lord and his mistress—he finally stands with the woman and enters through large double doors into a bedroom. Sakura sighs in relief, in an alley, high on a mountain full of sand, in front of the palace Naruto had insisted on seeing for his seventh birthday.
Two guards order them to leave the perimeter of the palace grounds, and they slowly retrieve back to the banal, common-life streets, the intense stare from the king slowly leaving with them.
She sees him as she bites into an apple, the juice traveling past her jaw at the sight. It is rare, he has so many duties—even as a child, seven years and all—that she barely sees him at all. While she stays at home learning how to read and looking over her mother's manuscripts, he stays at home learning a fourth language and knowing every law and every stance needed to fight. She goes out to buy necessary food and he goes out to assist his father on political matters. Last time she could look at him on the streets, she was five.
She sees him while eating a forgotten apple, and he sees her back.
The red of the apple doesn't compare to the one on her cheeks.
But then he averts his gaze, and she finds it in herself to avert hers too, out of respect—for a moment, only, because then she hears his voice from far down the street, below the hill where she sits, and she thinks her face lights up even more—before turning her eyes toward him once again.
The sky is at its bluest and the climate is at its most humid, but she's used to it all and she looks upon him like she's never seen him before.
He's playing ball with Naruto. She wants to trek down the sand and play with them too, but her parents would disapprove and girls don't really play ball. She inwardly sighs.
Standing up, she looks at Sasuke before walking away and inside her house. The apple lies on the sand, rolls down the hill, and lands next to his feet.
He looks up to where she had been a few seconds ago, but she's not there.
Ino touches her arm. She's looking at boys playing in a camp of dry grass. Away from the city and more toward the outskirts. She touches her arm, but Sakura doesn't pay attention.
"Who do you like, Sakura?"
Who does she like? It's obvious. A familiar face and a name come to her faster than she had expected. However, she does not voice those thoughts out loud.
She looks over tan faces and dirty clothes, and even though some faces are attractive enough, they don't compare to him. She can't help but feel nothing when she looks at the strangers playing.
"Boys don't interest me, Ino."
Ino gasps, and Sakura realises her mistake too late. "The priests are against girls liking girls, Sakura."
"No!" She shakes her hands in front of her, cringing at the cacophony that comes out of her lips. She almost implores her to forget about even mentioning that, and quickly arbiters the situation. "I am not inclined toward such likes, Ino."
Ino buys it, it seems, because she only shrugs and quickly prods her with another question. "Then? Do you not like any boy?"
Sakura turns her head to look at her and notices the soft ting of pink on her cheeks. She understands where she's coming from all of a sudden, and asks her the same question.
"Do you?"
"Sakura, what an absurd assumption," Ino exclaims, returning her stare and frowning at the little smile. "You do know I always like at least one boy."
"Really? Who is it this time, then?" She asks, crossing her lithe arms across her chest.
Ino hums as if in deep thought, looking up at the sky before looking back at her with a sheepish smile.
"Kiba's pretty cute, don't you think? But..." She drifts off, her smile turning almost sinful. "Sasuke is so handsome. It would have to be him. Can you imagine? Me, Ino, wife of the future Pharaoh."
Sakura's taken aback, but she pretends the news don't affect her, and looks as Ino makes a rather ridiculous pose under the burning sun.
They stare at each other for a few seconds against the cheers of the boys a few metres in front of them, and then she can't help but to laugh with her at her antics.
Sakura walks back to her house alone, thinking of their conversation over and over in her head. The sand against her bare, austere feet seems rough instead of the usual softness she's used to feeling. The sky is bereft of any clouds, as usual.
Sakura thinks of Sasuke. And when she's home and her mother gives her food and she's staring at the sole window in the kitchen, she knows her answer.
Yes, she likes a boy. He's smart and he's handsome and he's out of reach. She never really tells Ino—at least, not verbally, lest she starts a fight with no end in sight.
"Mother," Sakura prods, her light feet coming in her line of vision from under the papers she's holding. She's reading over a letter from The Palace, and she shouldn't be bothered, but then again, Sakura is no burden. Her mother calmly leaves the manuscripts on the table to look at Sakura.
"Yes?"
Word on the streets has reached her small, attentive ears. She has been eager, almost, to know its truthfulness.
"What happened to the Uchiha family?"
It is a personal question to her, but she tries to make it as nonchalant as possible, even if she knows she's doing a terrible job.
Her mother outwardly flinches, and that's how she knows that she knows the answer to all the questions she has swimming through her head—rumours were only gossip amongst the townspeople, but Sakura wants to know with certainty. What little she has heard may be true, but it just as well may not be.
As a doctor, Sakura knows her mother had been the first one to assist in case of an emergency.
Her mother sighs, stands up, and walks past her. Unhurriedly and listlessly, with a soft whisper upon her light locks of hair, she leans down and places a gentle kiss on the top of Sakura's head, earning a frown from her daughter.
"You shall know," she quietly says, "but not yet."
Sakura stares at her back and bites her lip.
Naruto, the boy she has spent all of her childhood with, is taken to the royal palace with no prior notice when she turns eight, and she spends three days inside her house with no ray of light to shine upon her. Her parents, knowing her and knowing him, don't object once.
When she does come out, though, it is because of Sasuke.