Whoot! Morning rampages are awesome. Sorry to all those who read chapter six, but I warned you! Well, school's out which means -drumroll- I WILL UPDATE MORE OFTEN! Naruto that's your cue to hold up the 'applause' sign! Oh well, enjoy this random fart of inspiration and kingliness!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto! Stop asking me that -hits head against wall- Get out you dang voices!

Attempted third person view! Let's see if it goes well...Naruto's POV

Naruto was just another poor, suffering boy that lived on the streets in the kingdom, Konoha. It's not that his kingdom was short on money, there was just a very distinguishable line between the well-off and the...not so well-off. However, today was a very special day; for the upper class. A tournament was being held for the princess's hand and the winner would immediately marry her and be crowned king as the old monarchs were past their prime. Naruto had a plan involving all of this, a plan that could land him in jail but a plan he was going to go through with anyway. He groaned as he thought of all the work he was going to have to do but it would be worth it to get Ino as his wife. Slowly, he got his aching body out of the cot he had been trying to sleep on. It was better than what most people had and kept the snakes from sharing his body heat but it sure did leave backaches. After stretching and dressing, he was out on the dirt road and ready to face the day.

The first step in his marvelous plan was to join Kiba on an expedition into the Deadly Forest. The Deadly Forest was aptly named and had been planted while Konoha was still an insignificant little kingdom with no money to afford an army. However, in the present time that 'brilliant' idea seemed very foolhardy. What was once a defense was now a cage to keep the citizens in. The trees had something akin to minds and they would sweep their branches over the various interconnected pathways to push unlucky travelers into the undergrowth. Said undergrowth was rumored to be poisonous with giant beetles crawling over them that would snap up a human in one bite. As it is, the kingdom had prospered and currently held the majority of power on this continent. It was unconquerable and there were tales of times when the king would lead an army to rout his enemies that had been tired from fighting each other. That strategy was infallible and would always prove so until the Deadly Forest was tamed, if that was possible.

And so it was that Naruto approached his fellow commoner with apprehension. Kiba turned to grin at him, revealing teeth that he always suspected were filed. Two red triangles stood out on his cheeks as his trademark, well, mark. Those and his smell allowed him to be identified anywhere. But they were leaving now, unwilling to use words and spoil the morning silence, and these stray thoughts could get him killed. Carefully, Naruto eased after Kiba, trying not to recall the wild stories he had been threatened with as a child. In that terrified state he traveled quite far with his primal companion.

"Naruto." The gruff whisper grabbed his attention and the blond looked to where Kiba was pointing. There was a clearing bathed in golden light from the rising sun and Naruto swore there was a holy feeling about the place. Partially because the air in the Deadly Forest smelled of magic and partially because clearings in it were unheard-of. Especially clearings that had sweet carpets of luscious grass and beautiful flowers springing up in jubilation. Then, just as the morning call was rung on Konoha's bell, the flowers transformed. Every one of them grew and shimmered, gracefully flipping upside down and shifting in to clothes for...sprites? Naruto just vaguely recalled hearing of these mystical creatures, but like everything else they were said to be extinct. Then they began to sing, and lightly danced around to stroke the flowers that hadn't joined the synchronized transformation. Their voices were like sweet honey and fresh scones with just a hint of strawberry baked into them. Naruto began to salivate at the thought, unconsciously following their movements with dilated pupils. His greatest desire at that moment was to capture one and keep it to sing to him alone.

Just as he got lost in that fantasy, the singing stopped and the sprites bell-like voices began to chime in anger. If he craned his head he could just barely glimpse a pink flower in the middle of the clearing that still hadn't transformed. In fact, it seemed reluctant to transform despite all the probing the others did. Finally a sprite that had been born from a light yellow flower gave up and gestured to the others. Naruto couldn't fathom the meaning but in one blur the sprites left the clearing, stepping away from it and taking all the light with them. The last pink flower shuddered and grew a bit, as if considering coming up now that it's fellows were gone. But when Kiba sped forward, it shrank back down and after muttering a few choice words, Naruto followed his wolf-like friend to crouch by it's pink petals.

"Naruto, did you see that? Please tell me I wasn't hallucinating. Do you know how rich we could get if we could trap those other sprites? You wouldn't have to illegally enter the tournament, you could just buy the hand of Ino! By golly...I wonder what's wrong with this one." Before Naruto could stop him, Kiba reached out a hand and poked the flower. It swelled up alarmingly fast and flipped over, knocking them both down and blinding their eyes with a strange light. When he regained sight, Naruto stared in awe at the sprite that stood, no floated in front of him. She was stunning to say the least.

Pink hair that matched her petals drifted around her in wisps, her eyes were daring and green: quickly darting about and observing everything around her. The lashes that framed those eyes were long and gorgeous, black against her pale skin. As he looked down to her lips, he blushed and diverted his attention to her ears which weren't remotely as full and red as those kissable features of her face. Said ears were pointy though, and held a green-ish tinge to them. Finally Naruto glanced down at her dress and saw she was garbed in petals just like the other sprites. Long petals that fully covered her and all the parts humans would consider private. Once the initial spell was broken, he looked around and saw Kiba sprawled 3 meters away, as dead as a nail. Now Naruto looked upon that beautiful face with fear and amazement. It didn't seem likely that this sprite could kill a flea, let alone a person.

"Uh...Hello? Ms. Sprite? Am I allowed to leave with my friend's body?" Naruto's voice wavered distinctly and when she directed those intense green eyes at him he quailed in misery. They were so bright and condescending they made him want to crawl in a hole and die. Every movement he made, every blink and nervous lip-wetting was tracked by those eyes that pierced his soul and pulled hooks through it. Indeed, it seemed he was drawn to this sprite by an invisible force, despite the fact she had killed Kiba...a minute ago? Time had lost meaning and it's meaning came back, Naruto was shocked. He still needed to make armor and somehow enter the tournament which started at two rings in the afternoon. Disregarding his watcher, Naruto crawled across to Kiba and began pulling him on his back while kneeling. The sprite made some inquisitory chimes but he ignored those too, refusing to be caught in her spell again.

One ring later found him staggering about with a dead weight on his back and an annoying follower he couldn't even understand. Naruto was rather surprised to have lived this long, but he tacked that under the long list of strange things that had happened since the sprite began following him. Trees would move as they passed, plants would perk up and sway as if dancing for them. The really bizarre event was when they came face to three eyes with one of those giant bugs that devour people. It bowed to them and side-stepped out of their way, staring at them all the while with its three dark eyes. So it was that he came to the conclusion the sprite was useful if annoying in keeping things away from him but it offered no help to find a dirt path cutting through the forest. Yes, he was back to referring to her as and 'it' because it was a monster. Just look at the way the Deadly Forest was accepting her. Surely that meant that it was just like those brightly colored fighting frogs in the next kingdom over. They had a colorful exterior but they were extremely dangerous; only the king could tame them but you couldn't even call it that. It was more like he bargained with them somehow, he wasn't sure what had been offered, and gained their promise to assist where needed.

Now that Naruto thought about it, there were lots of beautiful things that hid ugly interiors. Take a rose, it's pretty to look at but pick one up and you get stabbed by it's thorns. Just like those things, it was monster in disguise. An iron hand clothed in a mitten. But it sure was tempting to ignore that fact and fall under it's spell. He walked for about another minute and then stopped to adjust Kiba whom he was carrying piggy-back style. A sound behind him caught his notice and he turned in dread because it had been a word he had heard.

"H-hello" The sprite opened it's mouth again and chimed out the two syllables with confidence. Naruto felt his own mouth open in shock as his nerveless arms dropped Kiba's body with a thump. After a minute of staring into her eyes that were bright with pride, he heard another sound behind him. Upon whirling around he spotted Kiba's body being dragged off by a bug similar to the one they had met earlier. He shouted and ran at the thing, but only got swatted away by a very hairy leg. In horror he watched as his friend slowly disappeared from sight and then stared upward at the crack of a branch. There were hordes of the insects up there, all eagerly rushing to get a morsel of Kiba; Naruto turned and was sick, weeping with terror and bafflement.

"Y-you lost? Leave f-forest?" Her bright eyes calmed him somewhat and he found he was replying before he even considered the fact it had talked again.

"YES! Please, if you can take me out of this darn place!" His eyes watered at the thought of being free of this dreary place so he followed her willingly when she flounced off in a completely different direction. Now that he was trailing behind her he noticed the way she illuminated the forest around her. It was eerie so he tried not to think about it and focused on her hair instead. Gently it billowed out behind her like a cloak and he fell under her spell again, not aware of his body moving anymore. When she stopped ahead of him, Naruto saw that they had come back to the clearing where Kiba died. Tears leaked out of his eyes and he collapsed to the ground, heaving with sobs as the loss hit home. She simply knelt by him, waiting for his noise to subside.

Sprite's POV

A ring tolled out, true and clear and a different sprite, one with beautiful brown hair and brown petals, stepped into the clearing. The boy was asleep and she deemed it was safe enough to talk of family matters with her. Tenten, the other sprite's name spoke first, quietly and slowly.

"So he's bound to you? You were supposed to go with the Margu's heir! This will not please Mother, not at all. I hope you're happy that she'll have to choose another heir." The brunette sat with a sigh, absently tugging at one of the two buns her hair was pulled back in. Eventually the pinkette responded, speaking just as quietly but with acid in her words.

"We can't all be good little sprites like Mother wants us to be! I'm sick of her and the Margu! Have you noticed the way they leer at us, as if we could be owned by the likes of them. And they're getting more rebellious, refusing to give up territories they stole from Mother." She opened her mouth to gush out more frustrations but the brunette beat her to it.

"So you think you can just up and leave? We need to work on fixing this and we need all the help we can get, especially from our blossoming princess! You think you can just desert us because you've found your bond-mate? Well it's time for you to think about the situation we're in. The Margu are almost to the stage of open rebellion and your bondage with their heir could've smoothed that over. But now it's too late." The pinkette watched silently as the brunette sighed again and sprang up with grace. Her parting words were tossed back as if an afterthought but they poked at the pinkette's heart painfully.

"Have fun being the betrayer of us!"

Tears fell from her eyes, splashing on the face of her bond-mate and waking him up. His hand went to his face, touching his fingers to the liquid and then examining them closely. It was silver liquid and he looked upon her with wonder and concern. She turned away and fled, hating the pressures that were trying to steer her in different directions. The pinkette desperately needed to speak with Mother, and gain counsel from her boundless wisdom.

Naruto's POV

An unfamiliar sensation woke Naruto up. Tears from the sprite's eyes were falling onto his face and when he dipped his fingers into the drops of liquid and looked at them he discovered the sprite's tears were silver. Amazement flooded his face, doubled with concern as to why she was crying. He lifted up his hand to pat her head, but she sped away before he could touch her. The Deadly Forest seemed to close in on the clearing as her light receded and Naruto was sorely tempted to run after her but he knew for certain now that she had kept him safe from the critters and plants. Sighing, he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the skittering steps of bugs in the trees surrounding the clearing. Ino seemed so faraway that she was no longer important to him, or so he told himself. It was as though his love had flown out the window when the sprite had come to life before him. He pondered on that for a bit, then fell prey to the tiredness his exertions and adrenaline rushes had given him.

Well I'll leave you all with a cliffhanger! I had planned to finish this story in one chapter but my shoulders hurt now so here's part one. Part two may or may not be chapter 8, it all depends. So yah~! Sorry again to all of those who read the original chapter six, I'm really, really sorry.

To clear up a few things...

Sprites: They're a cross between elves and fairies in appearance. No wings, can turn into flowers at will and wear beautiful petal dresses when in 'woman' form. They've had control of Deadly Forest for a long time, their only enemy is the margu. Their 'Mother' created all of the children from regular flowers and presides over them all, electing a princess when they began to think of retirement. They live in the Deadly Forest in clearings and originally owned all of the forest but about 100 years before this story the Margu stole territory from them. It's been a long dispute since then.

Margu: Yeah, they're the giant man-eating bugs that prowl the forest. Just like the sprites they have a ruler and heirs to that position of power. Usually their heir is married to the heir of the sprites, unless the sprite finds her 'bond-mate' before the ceremony. The opposite of sprites, Margu are rude, ugly and all males. They're rulers have all been tyrants and they look with disgust upon the sprites, whom they consider servants.

Bond-mates: Basically this story's version of soul mates. Very strong and almost impossible to break without one of the ones in question not killing themselves.

Kingdom, Konoha: Konoha village has become a kingdom! It's situated in the center of the Deadly Forest which was grown to protect it from the more powerful kingdoms. Basically, each ninja village becomes a kingdom in this story and are ruled by monarchs who like to marry their children off to other royalty.

Rings: It's basically liked a big bell that tolls out the hours. The morning ring is at 7'o'clock and at noon they ring twice. Up until then, the citizens just have to keep track of the number of rings. And the bell is magical so it can be heard all throughout the kingdom Konoha. The other kingdoms have similar methods of communicating time to their citizens and they all work to keep everything on schedule.