title Contralto (2/2)
summary Everything passes.
pairing itasaku

"Did you weed the garden?" her voice floated down the stairs.

"I did it yesterday," Itachi called back up.

"Do it today. Or I'll make you sleep outside." And though she didn't raise her voice, he knew that she wasn't joking. Sighing, Itachi got to his feet.

Back sore and fingernails crusted with dirt, he walked back into the house a couple hours later. The broom gave him a few irritable swats as he tracked dirt inside. But he had learned to ignore it. Sakura stood in the kitchen, one hand waving as she read a letter. Her hair was twisted up, her wand stabbed through it to keep it in place.

The spoon in the cauldron mimicked the stirring motion of her hand. But it kept going even when her hand stilled.

"What's that?" Itachi asked.

"A letter," she retorted. When he glared, she peered over the paper to smirk at him.

"It's an invitation from a local coven," she told him. She flicked her wrist. The paper sailed directly into the fireplace.

"As if I haven't turned them down a dozen times already."

"Why don't you have a coven? Aren't you supposed to be in one?" Itachi thought to ask.

It had been a couple years since she had stopped telling him to find somewhere else to live. And he had learned to ask questions. Because no matter how she rolled her eyes and snapped at him, she always had an answer for even the most aggravating queries.

She blinked several times. With a wave of her hand, she set the spell book down on the counter. She settled on her stool, rearranging her skirt around her legs. One of her spell books flew off the shelf above the fireplace and settled in her lap.

It was one of the few times he ever saw her hesitate before speaking.

"...It's not worth getting mixed up with other people," she stated.

"But I'm other people," Itachi pointed out.

The corners of her mouth pulled up as she flipped through the pages of her book. Her eyes flickered up to him. Just for a moment.

"No you're not," she told him.

The following morning, Sakura opened up a kitchen drawer. She noticed a fork that hadn't been there before. One made of silver with the handle shaped into an owl at the end. It was from the set that had gone missing when Itachi had first rifled through her kitchen and taken off. They hadn't been a particularly expensive set, but how was a child to know that? Shiny meant money in a little boy's eyes. Especially a poor one desperate to survive.

She had thought that Itachi had pawned them all off already, which was why she had never asked for them back.

She said nothing about it as she shut the drawer.

Sometimes, only rarely, there were clients that Sakura refused to serve.

The first time Itachi witnessed this, it was as he washed the windows on the outside of the house. He kept the windows cracked whenever she kicked him out like this. So that he could eavesdrop on the conversation inside.

The client this time was young. No older than 20. And he dropped a pouch stuffed with gold on the table between them before he spoke.

"I need a love potion."

"Impossible," Sakura replied as soon as he had finished speaking.

"But this is a year's salary!" he insisted, pushing the gold closer to her. Sakura barely glanced at it.

"I can reveal hidden emotions. I can make you more noticeable in her eyes. But I cannot create love where there is none," she explained.

"Then can you at least hypnotize her?"

"Get out," Sakura ordered. She lowered her cup into the matching saucer. When she looked up, the man was still sitting there, looking more bewildered than offended.

"You can't create love where there is none. And forcing someone to love you through hypnosis is rape. Now get out before I turn you into a toad," Sakura snapped. As she spoke, her magic wand rose from the table beside he, making slashing motions through the air. Red sparks sprayed from the tip of it.

The man scrambled to his feet, knocking his tea over as he hurried to the door with what little dignity he could muster. He toppled over when Sakura gave an impatient wave of her hand, sending his forgotten gold smashing into the back of his knee. He tumbled over the threshold, out the door.

Later as Itachi knelt mopping up the tea, he glanced up at Sakura. She hadn't moved from the sofa. She waved circles into the air, juggling several cubes of sugar in dizzying patterns.

"Could you?" he asked.

"Hm?"

"Could you hypnotize someone into falling in love?" Itachi questioned.

Her upper lip curled. "The human mind is a stubborn thing, boy. It can only be fooled for so long," Sakura replied. And then her expression softened. Until she looked almost sad.

"Besides, magic is meant to create wonder and beauty. It shouldn't be used for something so cruel," she added. When she looked down at him, he had stopped scrubbing the carpet.

"When you're done with that, go pick some wolfsbane," she then ordered in her normal voice. Bossy and brusque as usual.

The following morning, she opened up her kitchen drawer. There was a spoon there that hadn't been there before. Her eyes barely acknowledged it before she shut the drawer again.

Around the time of the full moon, the boy always grew irritable. He was particularly reluctant to go out and do anything outdoors. And while Sakura was maybe a touch more patient with him on these nights, she still kept him busy.

"You know," she began out one evening as they stood in a pumpkin patch. Well, he stood. She sat on her broom, hovering a few feet off the ground.

"I could break that half-baked spell. So you'd look like this all the time. You'd be normal," she informed him. She could guess what had happened. His terrified parents had paid someone to hide his true form. But suppressing even a drop of demon blood was tricky. It wasn't as simple as hiding a wonky nose or crooked teeth.

He stood upright, hands releasing the stubborn vine that refused to break in his grip. In the moonlight, his horns gleamed a ruddy, brown-red. His red eyes blinked hard at her.

"Normal?" he repeated. "You're crazy," he added in a mutter. He bent over again, seizing the vine in both his hands.

He had grown a little taller since she had first taken him in. There were thirteen rings to his horns instead of eight. They had begun to curve a little as they grew.

"Yes. Like a normal tiefling," she repeated, tilting her head to one side.

He inched his hand lower to the ground, yanking at the vine. His tail swished back and forth as he pulled. Heels digging into the ground.

"Damn this pumpkin!" he growled, releasing the vine. He rubbed his palms together.

"As far as tieflings go, you don't appear as monstrous as you think. You could almost pass for human if not for the horns," she observed.

Itachi whirled to face her, hands clenched into fists. "Stop talking about it! I already know that I'm a freak! You don't need to keep reminding me every damn time!" he snapped.

She stared at him. Watching his little shoulders tense as he turned his back to her again. When he went very quiet, she knew that he was crying. Which he only did alone in his little room at night, the door locked. But the tiny sniffs drifted up through the old floorboards. And sometimes she could hear him as she lay in her own bed.

Sakura flicked her wrist. The pumpkin vine snapped apart. She raised her palm and the pumpkin rose with it. Itachi wrapped his arms around it, still not looking at her.

She got off her broom, feet touching the damp ground. Shaking out her cloak, she started back in the direction of the house. Paused.

"Boy," she said, staring straight ahead. "I'm much older than I appear. The years have made me wiser, but they've also made it difficult for me to remember how easily the heart is wounded," she sighed, rubbing her hand through her hair. When she glanced over her shoulder, he was glaring at her. Those round red eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

"You look like this because one of your ancestors lusted after a demon. It's not your fault," she concluded.

She almost expected him to stay there. Because he didn't say anything to her. But when she peeked back, he was trailing her steps through the woods, rubbing his nose with his sleeve as he stared at the ground.

A few days later, several more pieces of her missing silverware turned up. Sakura almost smiled as she watched him run into the greenhouse with a bucket of water.

Sakura forgot how quickly human children grew. It startled her how as soon as she conjured up clothes for the boy, he outgrew them again. Limbs lengthening, shoulders growing wide. The roundness of his face narrowing into something a little less sullen with each passing day.

She stopped in the middle of a sentence one day when she realized that she had to look up at him to speak. He wrinkled his nose as she stared at him.

"What?" he demanded, looking down at his shirt to check for stains. She didn't respond. But she took to speaking to him from the top of the steps when she gave orders.

He stopped whining when she sent him into the woods for pixie dust. And he no longer grumbled at night that his legs hurt or that his fingers were blistered. His arms grew strong and the callouses on his palms were rough when he asked her to remove splinters. Sometimes, on the windiest, coldest nights, he would creep out of his little room in the pantry and lay his head in her lap. Eyes drifting shut as she leafed through the crinkled pages of her spell books.

She watched those rings on his horns grow and grow. As the winter frosts melted and life sprang from the ground. As the bees hummed drunkenly around the greenhouse, limbs heavy with pollen. And she started to see a new look in his eyes that she pretended not to understand.

She tied her robe a little more carefully. Laced the front of her dresses up higher. She stopped using the lavender-scented cream on her hands that he loved so much. But that didn't stop him from resting his head in her lap, asking her in a sleep-slurred voice to pet his head. Her fingers tangling in his thick, dark hair and tracing the multiplying ridges of his horns.

Sometimes, he opened his eyes. Irises gleaming like rubies in the moonlight as he stared up at her.

On one of those nights, the smell of sage burning in the air, he opened his mouth too. To ask: "Why did you let me stay?"

She pretended to read the spell book hovering in front of her. As the crickets sang a reedy chorus outside.

"I didn't let you stay. You just didn't bother to leave," she replied.

She remembered when people first settled the town. They settled along the banks of the gentle river. Hauling up stones and mud to build their homes. Felling trees and filling the air with chatter.

The first men and women who had raised those buildings grew grey and brittle. In their place, their children grew tall and strong. And they had children of their own in turn. The generations had always blurred past without her paying much notice. She had never paid much attention to birthday celebrations or deaths. Because soon, each person would be replaced by someone equally unremarkable.

Sakura didn't remember when Itachi began calling the first day of winter her birthday.

"This is pointless," she told him the first time he presented her with a lumpy, slightly-charred cake.

But she hadn't stopped him as he swept her spell books and vials aside a year later. Making room on the counter for eggs and flour.

Every year, the cake grew a little more symmetrical, a little less burnt. Soon he was using fruit and frosting to decorate it. And, amused, she obliged him when he demanded that she blow out the candles.

"How old are you really?" Itachi asked one year as he carved her a big hunk of cake. There were apples and cinnamon in it this year.

A smile touched the corner of her mouth as she took the plate. "There isn't a cake big enough to fit the number of candles you'd need, boy," she told him.

"100? 200?" he guessed. He handed her a fork.

"I've lived long enough to know that birthdays don't matter," was all she said. But he just rolled his eyes.

"You say that every year," he pointed out. But the smile returned to his face as he watched her finish every little crumb of her slice.

But she was telling the truth when she said that the number of years she had lived didn't really matter. Because no matter how old she grew. No matter how many times she purified dew on the winter solstice, she knew that there was an end to all things.

Sakura had sensed it brewing for quite some time. And it came to fruition when an old acquaintance brought her a strange little curse. He had spent many months trying to solve it. And while she wasn't particularly interested in helping him, she did enjoy riddles. They spent several nights in the kitchen, poring over her old books and scribbling notes onto bits of parchment. He didn't pack his things until almost a week later. His shriveled and blackened hand was beginning to regain color even as he crossed the threshold to leave.

During the week, the boy had made himself scarce. She had put him to work, gathering roots and snipping herbs from the garden. She even made him scale the cliffs to retrieve spider silk to bind the potion together. And while Itachi had done all these things without complaint, he had spent the rest of his time cooped up in the greenhouse or in his room.

As their guest left, he slunk out of his room. His tail swished back and forth, slapping the cabinet doors and drawer shut as he passed.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing at the counter.

Sakura turned to look. It was a crystal rose. The stem looked normal, but the clear petals on top were made of crystallized pixie dust. It took a good grasp of transmutation spells to be able to hold the dust in such a stable form. Sakura held it up to her eye to examine the angles in the crystals. Her eyebrows rose.

"How pretty," she remarked. She looked at Itachi who was now staring into the fireplace. Like he was trying to ignore her.

"What're you sulking for?"

"He likes you," Itachi pointed out.

"Oh, I know. He has for quite some time. He comes up with excuses to see me every now and then," she responded. His mouth puckered.

"I... don't like him being around," he ground out.

"You're such a child," Sakura sighed.

"I'm not. I'm 19," Itachi retorted, hands fisted at his sides. She scoffed.

"Even that response tells me that you're still a child. If you're going to be so unpleasant, you can go," she snapped in return. It had been years since she had said anything like that to him. And his shoulders tensed, rising close to his ears as they had done for years. She already knew he was crying before he whirled to face her.

"I'm a man now! I'm taller than you and I'm stronger than you! And you still treat me like I'm a kid!" he yelled.

And Sakura wasn't taken aback. Nor was she frightened. All she did was let out a tired sort of sigh. He didn't wait for her to give any sort of response because he went on.

"And honestly, why're you still acting like you want to get rid of me when you let me stay for all these years?"

"I already told you, boy. It's not that I let you stay. You just didn't bother to leave."

"Stop lying!" he retorted. "I know you let me sleep close to the fire so I wouldn't be scared of the dark. I know you made me weed the greenhouse so I would learn what each plant looks like."

She didn't look at him.

"You made me carry things so I'd become strong. And you taught me to read and write when you sent me on errands."

"So what?" she replied. Trying to act like she didn't see the tears welling up in his eyes.

"Why do you act like you don't care about me when you do?" he demanded. "Why do you always act like you don't know that I love you?"

Laughing softly, she shook her head. "How do you expect me to answer to a child's love confession?"

"I'm not a child! I'm a man now!" he insisted.

Smile fading, she lifted her chin to look right at him. Through him. A shiver ran through him as something in her gaze darkened. The ages bled into her voice. Something ancient and powerful. "I've lived through centuries. I've seen the rise and fall of empires. You are but a petulant child."

Because magic played tricks with time. If her life was an hourglass, magic slowed the drop of each grain of sand, twisting and lengthening the descent it until it almost seemed that the sand wasn't falling at all.

And then her voice returned to normal as she turned away from him.

"If you don't like it, you can leave," she told him. Folding her arms across her chest, she left the kitchen, heading upstairs to her room. She locked the door behind her, trying not to hear his sniffles drifting up through the floorboards.

When she woke, the little pantry was empty. Sheets folded. Floor dusted. Like no one had ever been there in the first place.

The sun rose and fell. The moon shone its round face, withering away and growing over and over again. The leaves fell in autumn, coating the forest floor in crackling orange. Snow came to bury it all. And in the spring, shoots of green poked out between cracks in the ice.

As the years went on, Sakura began to hear rumors of a great sorcerer in the west. One who summoned rain and lightning with a single incantation.

And as the townsfolk relayed these rumors, Sakura continued grinding the herbs in her mortar. Pestle grating against the stone, matching the tempo of those words. Customers came to request their tinctures and salves. Gold clinking into her hand as they hurried in and out.

"They say he's a demon," Naruto whispered as he collected the salve for his elderly father's aching joints. Naruto was a father himself now. He kept his son strapped to his chest as he drove his wagon in and out of the market. The boy had round blue eyes and knew better than to reach for Sakura. He sucked on the front of his father's shirt, staring at her.

"How little I care," sighed Sakura, clinking the coins together in her palm.

There came a day when Naruto was gone. It was his son who came to request from her now. The years bleeding into each other, like ink spilling across the paper.

Rumors of the sorcerer grew stranger and stranger. How he pulled lava from the earth and brewed great storms that spanned across many towns. His golems rose from the valleys, lugging great boulders up the side of a mountain to build his fortress. It loomed on the horizon, dragons flitting in and out of its windows and filling the summer nights with their haunting calls.

And then, one day, someone rang the silver bell outside her door. She gave a careless flick of her hand, shoving it open before she even left the kitchen. But as she crossed the living room, the hairs on the back of her neck rose. Like the entire place was filling with electricity. It tingled her skin with each step she took toward the threshold.

He lowered his hood. The years had carved away at that soft, child's face. Revealing something a little less kind underneath. From his temples extended great, spiraling horns like those on a ram. But the way his shining blood-colored eyes followed her hadn't changed. A little anxious. And so eager to please.

"Who broke your spell?" she asked.

His tail swished out behind him. It was coated in barbs now. Gleaming black and sharp in the afternoon's dying sun.

"I did," he replied.

Drawing his hands inside his cloak, he pulled something shining and silver out. The ornate handle carved into the shape of an owl.

"Is your tantrum over now?" she asked, accepting the fork.

"I don't throw tantrums. I'm not a child anymore," he responded, the corner of his mouth pulling up.

She searched his eyes for a long time. Scrutinizing the way that he held her gaze.

"We'll see about that," she responded as she stepped aside to let him pass.