AN: Sorry for the delay! School, you know? I would've gotten this up sooner, but the second half of it didn't want to be written until today. I briefly mention the next chapter's fairy tale at the end of this one, but if you want to look it up ahead of time it's called the White Cat (French). Enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think! I live for your reviews. :)

Ship at Sea

Once upon a time there was a young prince who longed for adventure. The king, tired of hearing his son complain about how boring life was in the castle, sent him away to find a bride worthy of becoming queen. The prince was ordered to find a princess as beautiful as the sun above, as gentle as a summer breeze, and as kind as his mother had been.

The prince set off on his journey, determined to find a maiden who matched the criteria his father set for him. Months into his adventure, he hadn't found a single girl, princess or poor farm girl, who was worthy of becoming the future queen, let alone his bride. In despair, the prince wandered aimlessly into a forest, until he realized he was utterly lost.

He tried in vain to escape the trees, but the more he struggled, the more the vines seemed to tangle around him. Finally, after ages, he managed to make his way into a clearing. There, in the center, was a large tower that seemed completely abandoned. The prince stared at the tower in confusion, until a movement at the single window caused him to hide behind the nearest tree. Standing at the window of the tower was the most beautiful maiden he'd ever seen.

The prince wanted to approach her, but before he could, a movement to his right caused him to stay still. An old woman appeared from the trees, carrying a large basket. "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!" She called as she reached the bottom of the tower. The prince watched in amazement as the beautiful girl lowered the longest braid of hair he'd ever seen in his life. His amazement grew as he watched the witch climb the hair and disappear into the window.

At that moment he knew that girl was his destined princess, and he wanted nothing more than to climb the tower and ask for her hand in marriage, but the witch's presence prevented him from doing just that. He waited through the night, and the next morning the witch climbed down from the window and disappeared again into the forest. He stepped out of the trees and walked up to the tower, before crying the words he'd heard the witch yell: "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!" The golden braid dropped, and he climbed up to meet his true love.

The question was eating at him. Sasuke had tried pushing it to the back of his mind, but it still managed to break free and consume his thoughts as he manned the ship. He had avoided going down into the brig to visit their prisoner, instead sending Kiba to take care of him. According to the brunet, Naruto had gotten over his earlier seasickness and was now as talkative as ever.

He tried to not let it bother him how quickly his first mate had seemed to befriend the prince. He tried to forget the question that was popping into his dreams. He tried to concentrate on the goal at hand.

He failed.

It wasn't until the end of the fourth day at sea that he finally gave in to his curiosity. He waited until Kiba had taken supper down to the prisoner and snuck down. He wasn't entirely sure why he felt the need to sneak around on his own ship, but he would rather not have his crew know what he was up to.

To his dismay – though not shock – the blond was whistling when he got down there. He cleared his throat with an "hn" to get the other's attention and was rewarded with an unwavering blue gaze.

"Sasuke?" The other asked, as if he wasn't sure he was seeing correctly.

"Hn. Captain Uchiha to you." Sasuke retorted, ignoring the shiver that travelled down his spine at the other's casual way of addressing him.

Naruto ignored him, of course. "What are you doing down here? Ready to let me out?"

"Not a chance."

The blond tilted his head to the side. "Ok…" Damn, most people would look ridiculous wearing such an open expression. But Naruto made it look –

"I have a question, and you will answer it." He crushed the thoughts before they could even form.

"Bossy now that we're on your ship, aren't we?" Naruto didn't look intimidated by his commanding tone. Sasuke felt his eyebrow twitch. Normally when he spoke that way, his crew – and anyone else really – did exactly what he asked of them. The fact this prince didn't irritated him beyond belief.

"Why were you always late?"

"What?"

He waved one hand impatiently. "To rescue the princess or whatever. Why were you always late?"

Naruto frowned. "See, that's the thing. I shouldn't have been. I did everything the book said and –" He broke off as if realizing he'd said too much.

"The book?"

"Um…" Naruto dropped eye contact, no doubt trying to hide his expression. It didn't work.

"The book?" Sasuke repeated. He wasn't going to let the prince get off so easily on this one. Not when he was finally getting an answer to the question that had been keeping him up at night. He was going to sit here and wait for the blond to give him a satisfactory answer, or he was going to keep waking up continuing to think this was all an elaborate scheme to sabotage him before he could complete his goal.

Naruto's face was screwed up in concentration before he finally relaxed with an exaggerated sigh. "Ok. Well, what harm can it do now, right?" He spoke more to himself than Sasuke. "There's this book, see, and it has all the princesses' stories in it. So I use it to find the princesses and try to save them."

"If you had a book like that, then you would know that the stories had already ended." Sasuke retorted.

"Well…See the stories would disappear if the princesses had already been rescued, but the weird thing is they hadn't disappeared until after I ran into you and the princess was gone."

Sasuke frowned. "What purpose would they serve if the story just disappeared when they ended?" That didn't make sense to him. Wouldn't they need to know how it ended?

"It doesn't matter how they end, though. Just that they do."

"But don't you want to know how?" The good stuff was at the end; like what had been left behind to pillage.

"No. Because I'm trying to be the ending. So if someone else got there first then it just means I have to pick a new story." Naruto looked horribly confused at this point. "Why do you want to know anyway?"

Sasuke ignored the question. "Where is this book you speak of then?" He had a theory he needed to test. Naruto pointed to the wall behind Sasuke, and the pirate turned to see all of the prince's belongings hanging up.

"It's in the bag."

He riffled through the bag, pulling out a large tome. For a moment, he stared wordlessly at the cover.

"It's real, you know. The stories change."

But Sasuke didn't care what the prince had to say about the stupid book. Because he already knew. Without another word to the blond, he tucked it under his arm and all but ran up the stairs, ignoring the shout of "hey!" behind him.

Once in his own quarters, he locked the door and pulled out one of his drawers, revealing a secret compartment. He carefully took out a book and placed it on his table next to Naruto's. Once they were side-by-side he sunk into the chair.

There was no doubting it; the books were identical.

Carefully, he opened both covers, looking at the ever-changing table of contents. He selected a story at random and opened both books to the same page before scanning them individually.

Where the covers, titles, and page numbers were the same, the stories were different. Sasuke could tell that at first glance. But he flipped through several different stories before confirming his suspicions. The blond's version of the book started back at the beginning, before the princesses were cursed, and ended before the prince rescued the princess. His, however, started with the prince beginning his journey and ended with happily ever after. Together, the books completed the stories.

The blond prince arriving at the same location was another mystery that should be solved, but this at least answered the question of how the blond knew about the princesses at all. He also noticed, as he flipped back to the table of contents, that there were a couple of stories that weren't the same. The prince still had stories that he knew were finished, and his own book was missing stories that he suspected had yet to meet their halfway point.

Why the delay though? Was the magic in Naruto's book worn down? No. Sasuke didn't think magic could go bad. But, of course, witches were devious creatures and so he couldn't really be sure. Perhaps there was some kind of time spell on it that prevented the prince from knowing the exact date a story ended. That seemed more reasonable.

Resigning himself to the fact he couldn't just ignore the prince, he picked up both books and a candle and made his way back down to where the blond was locked up. Naruto didn't look happy to see him. "Took you long enough! Dammit," he mumbled to himself. "I knew I shouldn't have told you; now you're gonna steal the rest of the princesses from me too."

So he was still on that. "How can you still think I'm the one stealing the princesses from you? I've already told you; I'm not."

"You haven't proven it."

Sasuke resisted the urge to slap his hand against his forehead. "Idiot prince, if I were to have princesses here what would I do with them?"

"I don't know. Keep them locked up so you can have your wicked way with them."

This was impossible. "There is so much wrong with your theory, I don't even know where to start." The blond was still pouting, so Sasuke sighed. "First of all: where would these princesses be? The best place to keep people would be down here. In the brig. And in case you didn't notice; you're all alone." Naruto snorted, looking like he was about to say something, but Sasuke raised his hand to stop him. "Second of all: it's bad luck to have a woman onboard. Every sailor knows that. Keeping a princess on this ship, let alone multiple princesses, would be asking for a disaster, and I'm not an idiot like you."

"Bad luck?"

"And third," Sasuke spoke over him, "I have no desire to 'steal princesses' from you or anyone else."

"Then how the hell do you know the locations in my book?"

That was the question Sasuke had been waiting for. It was the same question he'd been asking himself every night since the second encounter he'd had with the prince. It was the question he now had half an answer to.

In response to Naruto, Sasuke slammed the two books down on the ground. The blond walked over, crouching to see them from the other side of the bars. Sasuke ignored the smooth expanse of skin on the back of the prince's neck and instead crouched down to join him.

"There are two…" Naruto breathed in wonder. He looked up at Sasuke. "So you have one too."

"Not quite." The raven flipped open both books, bring the candle closer so the words could be seen. Naruto leaned in to the light, quietly reading for a few minutes.

He let out a soft whistle as he sat back. "Wow. It's like we each only had half the book."

"Exactly."

They sat there silently absorbing the new information until Naruto spoke again. "Where did you get yours?"

"It was given to me by a witch." He wasn't sure why he was trusting the blond so much; this book was his secret weapon. It was something his crew didn't even know about. Yet, the prince had a similar thing. So maybe, just this once, he could be trusted too.

"Mine was too." Neither of them ask the burning question of who; witches were dangerous, and revealing the one who had created a magical item was asking for trouble. So instead they sat there awkwardly, neither of them quite looking at the other, while they tried to figure out where they stood.

Finally, Sasuke made a decision. "You can sleep in here or with the crew, it doesn't matter. You'll be let off the ship the next time we reach land, so don't cause any problems or get in anyone's way." He stood up, taking his own book as he went. The blond stared up at him, not moving from where he was still crouched, even when Sasuke pulled out the keys and unlocked the door. "Well, goodnight then." He turned to leave.

"Wait." He didn't have to turn to know that Naruto had stood and was staring at him through the bars. "You don't think this is coincidence either, do you?" Sasuke didn't respond. "Then why would you just let me go? Wouldn't it be better to wait around and see what the books have to say? Aren't you the least bit curious at all?"

He was, but he wasn't about to admit that. "Tomorrow morning report to Kiba above deck. Now that you're not a prisoner, you're just a useless mouth to feed." He left before the other had a chance to respond.

When Naruto woke up the next morning, he stared around at the bars, sure he'd been dreaming about what happened the night before. A tentative push against the door revealed that he hadn't, and he made his way up the stairs.

The sun was barely up, but the ship was already a flurry of activity. Men were rushing back and forth yelling instructions at each other and throwing ropes to and fro. Naruto managed to make his way up the second set of stairs where a familiar brunet was standing in front of a large wheel.

"Morning, princess. Took you long enough to get up." Kiba eyed him up and down before coming to a conclusion. "You can't work in those clothes."

"Huh?" Naruto stared down at himself. "What's wrong with my clothes?" He was wearing his usual orange cape over his traditional pants and shirt.

Kiba gestured vaguely. "You look like a prince."

"I am a prince."

"Exactly." When Naruto didn't respond, Kiba sighed and continued. "We're pirates; we like to steal. A defenseless prince sitting in the midst of us is too tempting. Therefore, you're changing so you fit in."

"I guess that makes sense…" Naruto trailed off as the brunet dragged him back down both sets of stairs into a room that looked more like a dragon's treasure nest than a storage room. He stood there patiently while Kiba sifted through the trunks – there were so many – grabbing something out of them occasionally.

"Here." He thrust a pile of cloth into Naruto's arms. "I'm afraid we don't have spare pants small enough – we need to wear something too, you know – so I threw a belt in there. Put that on and join me above deck."

"Above…deck?"

"Yeah. Right now we're below deck, so you want to go above deck." Without any further explanation, Kiba disappeared up the stairs.

Naruto stripped off what he was wearing, leaving it in a pile in the corner, and put on the clothes Kiba had given him; a simple white tunic that he tucked in to the admittedly too large sky blue pants. The belt Kiba had given him was the same bright orange as his cloak. With a grin as to what Sasuke would no doubt have to say about that, Naruto ascended the stairs to 'above deck'.

Kiba was there waiting for him with a bucket and a mop. "Since you're new and all, we're just gonna have you swab the deck. Today it's supposed to be Shika's job, but he's a lazy ass so congratulations."

"Ahh, Kiba you don't have to be so loud about it." A voice Naruto recognized instantly came from above. Both men jumped before looking up. The voice belonged to a man with his hair pulled into a spikey ponytail, who had been presumably sleeping on one of those wooden poles that held the sails.

"God Shika, you're always –"

"Shikamaru?!" Naruto exclaimed shocked. "What are you doing here?"

The man above started before leaping down from where he was lying and bowing low to the deck. "Prince Naruto, I didn't expect to see you here."

Naruto stared down at the son of his father's advisor in shock. "I thought you were exploring the world so you could become a scholar or something."

Shikamaru stood back up, facing Naruto as he scratched the back of his head nervously. "Well, uh, I was. And then I kind of ended up here."

Kiba chose this moment to step between them. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You guys know each other?" He looked back and forth between them, until Naruto finally piped up.

"Yeah. He's the son of my dad's best advisor."

"Your dad?" Kiba turned to the other. "But, Shika, I thought your dad was advisor to the Yellow King?"

"He is."

"But that would mean…" Kiba trailed off before suddenly pointing an accusatory finger at Naruto. "You're the Golden Prince?!" Naruto nodded dumbly. "Whoa! Did you really kill that Chimera and save the kingdom? That would be so intense!"

The prince grinned despite himself; Sasuke may not know who he was, but at least his crew did. "Yeah, I did. It was a lot easier than the dragon though…"

"YOU KILLED A DRAGON?!"

Shikamaru stuffed his fingers into his ears. "Too loud," he complained to no one.

"Um, yeah. Didn't Sasuke tell you? He was there…"

"Sas – the captain?! No! He didn't tell us anything! When was this? Where were you? Did the captain help you or did you have to save his ass?"

The brunet was speaking at an unnatural speed that Naruto wasn't used to. With wide eyes, he turned to Shikamaru. "Is he always like this?" The other just nodded.

"I can't believe it!" Kiba was blathering. "We had an actual real life dragon slayer in our midst and didn't even know it! That is so cool! Did you take any of its treasure?"

"No. I think Sasuke did, though."

"So we have actual dragon treasure on this ship? Wow! Why didn't he tell me? And here I'm his first mate!"

"Kiba," Shikamaru cut in. "If you're going to have him swab the decks, you better do that soon. The captain won't be happy if he sees all three of us lazing around."

The brunet spun around poking his finger into Shikamaru's nose. "Oh you are one to talk. You do realize we're having him do your chores, you lazy-ass book reader." The other shrugged, and Kiba thrust the bucket at Naruto, who managed to catch it without sloshing any of the water out the top. "Come on, Golden Boy, we have decks to swab."

As it turned out, "swabbing the decks" really meant "mopping the floor", and Naruto ended up having to mop all the floors, both above and below deck. The task took him the entire day, with only a short break for lunch where Kiba popped down with food and unlimited questions on his adventures. When he talked with Kiba, it made his adventures sound like fun rather than fruitless searches for a princess.

He finished in time for dinner was going to eat it alone when he found himself being dragged into the mess hall by Kiba. "What are you doing?" But the brunet just ignored him in favor of plopping Naruto in the seat next to his.

"Dig in."

The crew attacked their food with fervor, and Naruto soon relaxed and started to eat as well. It was nice, listening these men argue and fight over their food. So different from the quiet, polite meals decorum demanded at the palace. Soon enough, though, someone brought up the elephant in the room. "So what's he doing out of the brig then?" A man with long hair and strangely empty eyes asked.

"Captain's orders," Kiba answered. "Besides, he's our new deck swabber since this guy is useless." He emphasized his point by slamming his hand into Shikamaru's back, causing the other to nearly spit out his food. "Plus, my new friend here slayed a dragon, and the captain didn't even tell us about it."

"Whoa really?" A bushy browed man wearing all green leaned forward, delight clearly written across his face. "Will you tell us about it?"

"Um, sure." Naruto told his tale the second time that day to a completely captivated audience. They oohhed and aahhed at all the right places, and for the first time in his life Naruto knew what it felt like to be popular.

By the time his story was over and everyone had exhausted their questions for him – he had politely left out most of Sasuke's role, knowing there was a reason the captain didn't tell the story himself – the moon was high in the sky. Kiba walked with him back down to the brig after they bid their farewells to everyone else.

"You sure you wanna keep sleeping down here?"

Naruto nodded. "Those guys are great and all; I'm just not used to sharing a room." He hesitated before asking the question that had been eating at his mind all night. "Hey, uh, did you really mean what you said before?"

"Huh? Which thing?"

"That we were friends."

Kiba looked taken aback. "Yeah, of course I did." Naruto felt a smile tug at his lips. "What? It's not a big deal, right?"

"I've just never had someone say they were my friend before."

"Really? Well, I guess that makes me your first real friend then, huh?" He slapped Naruto's shoulder. "Sleep well, ok? I'll get you tomorrow in time for breakfast." He shot Naruto a bright grin before disappearing. The blond fell asleep thinking it wasn't such a bad thing he got captured on the pirate ship.

Over the next few days, Naruto helped out with the various chores, learning new skills like deck swabbing and sail rigging. He was woken up early each morning by Kiba, and worked until sundown when he would join the rest of the crew for dinner in the mess hall and listened to their stories. Sometimes they asked him about his own adventures, but more often than not, he was able to listen to theirs. From the sounds of it, Sasuke wasn't a bad captain – even though he rarely ate with the rest of his crew anymore – and they never felt the need to overthrow him. He was also less cruel than the tales Naruto had heard before made him out to be; he tended to let the innocent live and was averse to the spilling of unnecessary blood.

And though Naruto didn't see the captain himself, he felt that he belonged here with the crew. The knowledge that Sasuke wanted to drop him off next time they hit port didn't sit well with him. But by the end of the first week, Naruto had all but forgotten about Sasuke's promise to get rid of him.

Which is why a knock to his bars that night woke him up with a start.

"What the –?"

"Wake up, idiot prince." Sasuke was standing there, holding a candle and his copy of the book.

Naruto sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily. "What's going on?"

Sasuke opened the door, tossing Naruto's bag at his feet with a clatter. "One of your stories has a new ending that just appeared in my book. It's two days from now."

That got his attention. "Which one?" Naruto stood up, grabbing his own book from the bag and flipping it open.

"The Cat Princess. Hurry up and get your sword."

Naruto looked up confused. "You're letting me come with you?"

"The sooner you realize I'm not stealing princesses from you, the sooner I can get you off my ship." The blond's heart sank; he liked being on the ship, and he wasn't ready to leave. "I already told Kiba I was leaving and taking you with me. Grab your things; you won't be coming back."

He couldn't find a good reason to argue with the raven; after all, it was true he snuck on board with the original intention of finding out why Sasuke was where the princesses should be. And as much as he liked life on the ship, he needed to return home to his kingdom soon. He had a duty to fulfill. The raven set the candle on the deck, pulling a black one out from his shirt.

"Tell the crew I said goodbye when you get back," he said as he walked forward, strapping his sword around his hips and throwing the bag over his shoulders.

"Hn," Sasuke responded. The raven grabbed his wrist, dropping his other hand so the black candle was lit. There was a rush, and Naruto felt the floorboards disappear under his feet. He only wished he could've spent longer with his new friends.