In the days to come, Shikamaru would look back somewhat fondly on the time he spent crossing the desert with the Sand-nin, in the same way that crossing the desert with the Sand-nin made him look back somewhat fondly on being beaten and gagged by only a single ANBU captor. They weren't exactly happy times but as things got worse and worse, nostalgia got easier and easier.

The transition into the Land of Wind was gradual. The air became less humid but the heat more oppressive. The ground became harder, dustier, and the trees lost both their abundant numbers and their lush colouration, lonely structures jutting out of the land like piles of bones. The official border was marked by a crevasse and so could not be missed, but it was unpatrolled and Shikamaru felt no different on one side of it than the other. He was screwed on both sides.

Not long after crossing the border, she made him pause before they left the cover of a thicket of the low, stunted trees which had grown alongside some tall rocks and whistled, the sound of it ringing like a bell across the barren landscape. Shikamaru waited as she listened for a reply, his clothing rough with dirt and dry sweat but with his hair finally out of his face. The air brought the ringing of another distant whistle to them and the kunoichi who escorted him let her shoulders relax in relief. She let out a long breath and smiled. They had arrived.

"I'm going to bind you again," she told him. It made sense, but he was still less than thrilled to have the use of his hands taken from him. Since the incident with the Valley shinobi the day before, he had earned her trust enough that she allowed him to walk with her with some degree of freedom. She had even allowed him to use his jutsu to help her hunt when they stopped to camp, although he had refused to let her take deer. They had shared a hare over a small campfire instead.

As well as binding his hands, she tied the rope around his waist again, though this time it seemed less like an actual security measure and more as though they were playing a part. She seemed to accept that he wasn't about to turn against her or make his escape, but the other Sand-nin wouldn't know that. He would play his role quietly, keep his head down, and be home as soon as possible.

He followed a few steps behind her as they crossed a flat piece of dusty ground where it curved around a tall rock formation. As they turned the corner, a low stone hut built against the side of the rock came into view – far enough away that he could just about see a dark figure stood outside it: the source of the whistle. The hut seemed to be built in two parts – one small, low portion which faced them and another slightly larger, taller structure behind it. The unexpected smell of livestock came to Shikamaru and the heat was already brutal against his skin.

As the pair approached, the darkly cloaked figure began to jog towards them, prompting the Suna kunoichi to drop the rope attached to Shikamaru's middle and run to him. They embraced strongly as they met, him picking her off the ground slightly with her arms around him. Shikamaru felt strange at the sight of it. He ignored the bitter feeling in his gut that seeing his travelling companion in the arms of another man provoked and focused on putting one foot in front of the other towards whatever fate awaited him.

He could hear them speaking to each other in the Wind Tongue, still embracing, but their conversation was too quick for him to follow. He had thought he spoke the language relatively well – certainly well enough to have a good shot at translating intercepted scrolls – but being in front of people who spoke it as their mothertongue was something else.

When he reached them, his captor's face was bright with joy and relief and he noted there were two more Sand nin waiting in the doorway of the smaller half of the hut, though he couldn't make out their features from here. The cloaked ninja turned his attention from reuniting with his comrade to consider the hostage, looking him up and down. He was about as tall as Shikamaru but broader, his head covered by a loose hood with his face stern underneath a sharp pattern of kabuki paint the colour of nightshade. He spat words in his direction that Shikamaru couldn't keep up with.

The kunoichi argued with him and Shikamaru tried to translate in his head, though they spoke quickly and this man's accent was stronger than hers was.

... the correct man… Nara... young… he said with a questioning inflection.

Her reply challenged him. Don't doubt me, brother.

She called him bràthair, or brother - a literal term, not interchangeable with "comrade" as it sometimes was in the common tongue. Shikamaru felt like an idiot. Of course, she had two younger brothers. Only one of them was held captive by the Leaf; this must be the other one. He ignored the inappropriate sense of relief in his chest and continued to intellectualise his situation. He could still only pick up fragments of their conversation.

...trust you… damaged shinobi … weak, grunted the Prince.

Don't underestimate… death… Maki, the Princess argued.

And Otokaze?

Dead.

The cloaked man sighed, his face troubled. He hissed a final comment in Shikamaru's direction before turning his back on them and striding towards the hut.

"What did he say?" Shikamaru asked her, but it was her brother who called back a response in the common tongue before she had chance to answer.

"I said you look like a bitch."

She picked the end of his rope up off the ground, purely as a formality at this point, and they walked together towards the smaller side of the hut where her brother and two other ninja would be waiting.

"Don't let Kankurou intimidate you," she tried to reassure him. "He's harmless."

"He doesn't look harmless. He looks like he could kill me in a dozen different ways in under a minute."

"Oh yeah, at least a dozen," she agreed. "But he's a decent guy, really."

"I'm starting to question your judgement of character, Suna."

So, the cloaked man with the kabuki paint was called Kankurou, that was her brother. There was also a slim, young-looking woman with black hair who they called Hakuto and an older man with the deep lines of experience on his face who wore a veil-less ghutrah over his head and went by Isago.

Shikamaru took an instant dislike to Isago. It may have had something to do with the look of disgust on his face, or the profanity he aimed at him, or possibly how he kicked him into the corner of the hut as soon as he walked inside. Shikamaru hit his head against the stone, unable to use his arms to protect himself, his ears ringing as though someone had struck a gong inside his skull. By the time he got back to his feet, Isago was on the ground. The Princess was above him. She had a blade drawn.

"Buinidh am fear seo dhòmhsa."

This one is mine.

She addressed the whole of the hut in the common tongue, ensuring that her prisoner understood her sentiment as well as the rest of them. "No one touches this one except for me. Am I understood?"

She drew back from her squadmate when satisfied with everyone's grumbled responses, and Kankurou offered the older man his hand, pulling him to his feet. Isago shot Shikamaru a look of disdain but the aggression in the air was dispelled by Kankurou moving the conversation forward.

"So, we can send the hawk?"

"Send the hawk."

The scroll was already written, the squad had just been waiting on their comrade's return. It was the scroll for the Hokage; the scroll announcing that he was their captive and requesting the release of Gaara in trade for his safe return. Kankurou suggested cutting a piece of him off to send with it as proof, but it didn't happen; perhaps because the Prince had been joking, perhaps because the extra weight might have slowed the bird. The Princess released it herself and the group watched it grow smaller and smaller in the vast desert sky as it began its journey towards the Leaf Village. Shikamaru wished he could have followed it.

The inside of the hut was surprisingly cool as the sun reached its peak in the sky. They passed a water skin around to hydrate from, the Princess ensuring that Shikamaru got his share. Once hydrated, she took the black-haired woman, Hakuto, to one of the cots on the floor at the back of the room and lowered her combat pants. She was getting her wound out – Hakuto must be a medical-nin. As she undid the bandage, her brother saw the wound for the first time and winced before staring at Shikamaru as though his very glare could melt flesh from his bones. But Shikamaru tried not to care – the important thing was that she was finally having her injury seen to. Maybe she'd even be easier to deal with when she wasn't in constant pain.

When they were done and the festering wound was reduced to silver scar visible through the gaping tear in her trousers, she came to sit with him. No one seemed to be hurrying to hit the road and it was obvious why.

"We only travel in the morning and evening," she told him. "Never in the hottest part of the day or the darkest part of the night."

It made sense. "Right, because of the desert heat during the day. And at night, because…"

"Because of the scorpions," she said, matter-of-factly.

The thought of being able the nap in the middle of every afternoon had briefly cheered him up, but he should have guessed that these Sand folk would always have new and interesting ways of ruining his day.

"The scorpions. Of course. Charming country."

They would peel westward, inland, then follow the ridge north to the Sand Village. It was a longer route but less dangerous than going as the crow flies, over the demon desert. They would be in the Hidden Sand Village by tomorrow night.

Shikamaru must have drifted off. Resting in a hide was different to resting on the road, the enclosure giving the illusion of comfort, even if it was an enemy hide. The heat was tiring, the relief at knowing the Princess's injuries were seen to was tiring... being ignored while the Suna shinobi spoke to catch up on news was as safe as he was going to feel.

He awoke to a sharp kick in the ribs, as she told him it was time to go. Shikamaru wasn't keen on the prospect of yet more walking, until he realised that walking wasn't exactly what his captors had in mind.

There were three things that Shikamaru struggled with the most on his journey to the Sand. The first was the company. The medical-nin simply ignored him which was a grace, but the older man watched him constantly, unspeaking. He could feel the man's eyes boring into him, keeping him on edge at all times. The Princess herself was certainly in a better mood when in her homeland, surrounded by her kin, and with her wound healed. But a better mood did not mean that she was any less vicious. In fact, the glimmers of softness she had shown him during their travel so far seemed to be forgotten when company was around. He was grateful for her continued protection, but where he had been close to enjoying her companionship a mere day previously, she was now very much returned to playing the role of his captor.

And then there was Kankurou: the Suna-nin who thought that Shikamaru was far too young and weak-looking to be of any importance to his Village, despite the men being around the same age. That in itself was enough to make Shikamaru dislike his presence, but there was something else as well. Shikamaru had heard of the Kazekage's middle son being a puppet user, but he wasn't prepared for just how creepy those puppets would be. He kept two of them with him, named in the Wind tongue for a Crow and an Ant, each bound in cloth and making noises that sounded like bone scraping along bone when they moved, which they seemed to do of their own accord, haunted. Shikamaru had thought they might be less worrisome if they were carried unwrapped, until he caught sight of the Ant's face while their master was caring for them. After that, he was glad they were bound.

The second was the heat. Shikamaru had lived through hot summers in the Land of Fire and had spent his share of time in the warmer regions on missions before but this was something else. The heat here choked him. To travel through it felt like transversing the surface of the sun. He had been given a ghutrah to wear over his face to protect against the sun and dust which was such a symbol of Suna violence that it had felt like a betrayal of the Leaf Village just to wear it, but it was worth it for the protection it gave him against the extremity of the Land of Wind – and this was even when avoiding the most dangerous part of the day and the most exposed routes through the Land. His clothes were soaked through with sweat, far more than seemed to affect these local ninja, and he could only be grateful that he was allowed a reasonable water allowance to stop his blood itself turning to dust. The sky was huge. No clouds.

The third problem was the mode of transport.

"Horses?" He panicked, overhearing their conversation when it was time to leave the stone hide. "Did Hakuto just say she was getting the horses ready?"

The Princess smiled at him as though he were a frightened child, and explained to her brother that horses weren't commonplace in the Land of Fire before turning her attention back to the prisoner. "You didn't think we were going to cross the desert on foot, did you?"

"I can't ride."

"Then this is the perfect time to learn."

The mounts were already saddled when Shikamaru was lead from the smaller half of the hide to the taller part of the building – the stable. It smelled of leather and horseshit, made more intense by the heat of the air. She still had that smug look on her face.

"We've even got you a kid's saddle with stirrups for your feet and a pommel to strap you to, so you can't possibly fall off."

There were more horses than shinobi. It took Shikamaru a moment to remember that two of their companions had been lost; two empty saddles. The horses were all slender types with tails held high, stamping and snorting at the anticipation of getting moving again. The one saved for Shikamaru was dark brown creature with a black mane and tail and an asymmetrical snip of white on its face.

"I've never even sat on a horse before," the Leaf-nin protested.

"He does love complaining, doesn't he," Kankurou observed to his sister in his thick, guttural accent.

The prisoner was hardly in a position to challenge him but resentment made him brave. "Maybe it has something to do with having been kidnapped in my sleep and dragged across the nations to this shithole."

"No," the Princess disagreed, talking over her brother's chuckle. "It's just a personality flaw. We're being very good to you, Nara: you can either ride this horse, or be dragged behind it. Your choice."

She took the reins of her own steed, a bright chestnut stallion, leaving the two young men to watch her canter away.

"Is she always like this?" Shikamaru asked Kankurou.

The Prince shrugged. "She cheers up if you feed her."

Riding was every bit as horrific as he feared it would be. Kankurou helped the prisoner mount which was a far less than dignified experience given that his hands were still bound. At risk of complaining again, he did attempt to inform the Sand-nin that he wouldn't be able to hold reins with bound fingers.

"You don't need reins," he silenced him. "The horse knows where he's going."

Thankfully, the horse either did know the way home or was just very good at following the others because Shikamaru could not have concentrated enough to steer even if he was in control of reins. The saddle had looked soft from the ground but Shikamaru was certain he would find his thighs bruised if he even survived the route to the next check point. There must have been some rhythm to the animal's movements but Shikamaru couldn't match it and bounced awkwardly in the saddle. The horses weren't particularly tall but the bone-dry ground seemed very far away from up on the back of one, and seemed to travel very quickly underneath him. If he had no stirrups to grip against and had not been thoroughly strapped in, he was certain he wouldn't have made it past the first hundred yards away from the camp.

The Princess on her chestnut had sped away like the wind itself until she was a blur on the horizon, perhaps having missed her horse and her Land, while Kankurou on his black mare lead the way for the rest of the party. Isago and Hakuto took a more steady pace, each leading another horse that should have carried an ANBU but instead carried only supplies. The land here was vast and seemed to stretch on for a lifetime. It was ageless and, as soon as the hide they had come from was out of sight, devoid of landmarks. It would be easy to lose one's way in a place like this. Shikamaru presumed that many had. It wouldn't have been a nice way to die.

He thought of the hawk, on its way out of this hellhole to the lush green shelter of the Leaf Village. He thought of his own bed in his quarters of the Nara clan compound. He thought of scorpions. He thought of dying out here in the desert, surrounded by strangers, his family never knowing what had really happened to him. He wondered if the Princess would perform the Suna death ritual if that happened, saying the prayer to him before piling sand onto his forehead and blowing it away.

Then, Shikamaru discovered a fourth revelation during this journey. This one wasn't painful or frightening or a weight for him to bear at all. It was the songs.

They rode at a steady pace, hooves thudding softly on the dusty earth, as a group now. She had returned to the squad and rode close to him while he was just beginning to soften into the rhythm of the horse's walk beneath him, its muscular shoulders rocking him this way and that like a metronome. He was watching the way her core relaxed to let her hips follow her stallion's movement and trying to imitate it when there was a call from elsewhere in the herd. It was Hakuto, calling a single note out across the plains. Shikamaru furrowed his sweating brow and looked to his guide, expecting apprehension, but was met with something very different. The little of her that he could see behind her veil was smiling. He didn't realise what was happening until Isago began to sing. His low notes began the song and he was swiftly joined by Hakato's feminine tones. The song was slow and melodic, though Shikamaru struggled to catch any words. The siblings of the group joined in at the same line, harmonising, and she trotted away to be nearer to her brother.

The Fire ninja told stories while they travelled; the Wind ninja sang.

Their voices carried well through the hot desert air, complementing each other like colours on canvas. The song had a distinct structure of verses and chorus, and Shikamaru could make out a few of the themes as he listened: something about lights and ghosts and journeys. Each of the travellers knew all of the words by heart and took roles for certain segments, some of them taking harmonies on particular lines and one verse calling for only the women of the group to sing a line, followed by only the men. Three of the voices silenced before the last line, leaving the Princess to sing the final notes alone, which he learned afterwards were also the title of the song.

He hadn't asked out loud - it had seemed disrespectful somehow – but she had anticipated his curiosity.

"We lost comrades on this mission," she explained, "so we need to sing Treòraich Dhachaidh Mi." Guide Me Home.

It was a ritual, and one that they had all clearly performed many times before, though presumably in different circumstances and as part of different squads. But the songs weren't all so sombre. During the long evening ride across the plains to the next camp, the group had plenty of time of kill and Shikamaru greatly preferred the songs to silence. One interesting tune seemed to be about the favourite horse of a previous Kazekage, and Kankurou and Isago taught him some ungraceful colloquial terms for breasts in a happy little tune about women and wine.

He even recognised one of the melodies: it was the tune she had been humming to herself as they had crossed the nations to reach the desert. It was called An Sgian Airgid - The Silver Blade - and Shikamaru thought it might have been his favourite one until he learned that it was a historical tale about a young kunoichi who had been wronged by a man and went on to steal his weapon and use it to remove his genitalia.

The horses needed to be watered twice along the way and the prisoner relished the opportunity to get out the saddle and regain feeling in his lower extremities. The air was cooler now but the ground was still hot from having been beaten by the sun all day. His captors didn't even seem tired and he feared there might be much further to go before they reached camp.

On the second of their rest stops, she approached him where he sat to refill his water skin and he ventured to ask about her place in this part of her culture.

"Are there any songs about you?"

They were both still wearing veils over their faces.

"There are," she told him hesitantly with just a hint of pride in her voice. "Well… at least there are songs I happen to be featured in that are actually about other things."

His water skin was filled, few drops spilled onto the ground next to where he lay, darkening the sand before evaporating almost immediately. A huge sky sprawled above them.

"I have a verse in Gold in the Blood, a few lines in Poison Storm…" she explained, using the Common translations of their titles. He wondered if she was dumbing it down for him and noted how rarely he had been on this end of such condescension. "The only one that's actually about me is a vulgar little tune called Sand Sister which my comrades are usually kind enough not to sing in my presence."

Shikamaru suspected that Sand Sister must have been about what was between her legs rather than her skill as a shinobi or her strength of character, but she didn't seem particularly soured by the notion. She knew who she was. She didn't need a song to remind her.

"They could sing a song of your adventures in the Land of Wind one day," she teased him. Isago was setting up to ride again. Shikamaru wasn't ready.

"About my kidnapping? Sounds catchy."

"We'll call it A Ballad of Sand and Shadow."

Shikamaru translated: "Duan Gainmhich Agus Sgàile?"

He saw her narrow her eyes. She'd underestimated him. "Yes. We really need to work on your accent though."

He let himself laugh. The shadows on the sand beneath them were long now in the evening light, and sharp on the ground; the kind borne from a strong sun and clear sky. Shikamaru took a deep breath of this foreign Land's air.

"How does the song end?"

"That's the tricky part." She stood. It was time to get riding again. "You've got to survive it to find out."

By the time they reached the second hide, Shikamaru was certain he'd never walk again. One upside of being kidnapped and held hostage was the fact that he wasn't expected to do any of the labour when they reached camp, so he collapsed on the floor, shaking off his veil, as soon as the opportunity presented itself while the four Sand-nin continued to work. The women took the horses around to their shelter to unsaddle and feed them, while Isago walked a perimeter of the area laying what looked like paper bombs at regular intervals around the hide. Meanwhile, Kankurou had unpacked bedrolls along the far wall and was now going through some of the packs to set up supplies for food. Shikamaru watched him unwrap some dried fruits and pop one into his mouth, chewing as he set up an oiled pan over a few flames on a small metal stove near the open door of the hide. It wasn't until he added some salted meat to the pan and the smell of it began to fill the shelter that Shikamaru realised he was so ravenous.

"What meat is it?" the cook's sister asked as she and Hakuto returned from settling the horses. Kankurou shook his head at her as he turned the meat, claiming it didn't matter, so she repeated her question.

"Torc." Boar.

When the food was ready - meat with sweet fruits, spiced chickpeas and an unleavened bread - she sat next to him with two bowls and fed him mouthfuls in between her own meal.

"No deer," she assured him, respecting the line he had drawn when they had hunted together the night before.

The strange mixture of salt, sweet, and spice was a combination that he wasn't familiar with but he was too hungry to care. Only after the bowl was empty did he realise that that may have been the last decent meal he'd get in a long time. They would reach the Hidden Sand Village tomorrow. The next time he slept, it would be in a cell.

They were just at the base of what they called the ridge: a rocky formation that followed a huge stretch of the Land of Wind and would take them directly north towards the Hidden Sand Village. The ground would be easier going than across the dunes, with the mountainous formations themselves going some way to provide shelter from the elements, allowing them to travel less exposed. Shikamaru didn't relish the thought of a whole other day of riding. But the bird had already been sent to Konoha requesting to arrange his release: all he had to do until then was wait.

After everyone had eaten, it was important that they rested so that they could leave as early as possible the next morning and be at the next hide before the day got too hot. But Shikamaru was in no hurry for the next day to come. He sat cross-legged, staring out of the open door of the hide, into the blackness.

His captor noticed him looking.

"You wanna get some fresh air?" she offered. Her voice was low, directed only at him, ignoring her squadmates who busied themselves with getting ready to sleep.

Shikamaru caught her brother watching them suspiciously as they left the camp together but he said nothing.

"You never told me about the stars," he said to her when they were outside. He was used to the night sky being black and being able to pick out a few of the stronger constellations on a clear night, but this was something else entirely. The huge Land of Wind sky had been a monotonous blue during the day, but was now lit up with more stars than he thought could possibly exist in the sky. Galaxies swirled above them; the moon looked close enough to touch.

"You have stars in the Land of Fire, Nara."

"Not like this."

She sat down on the ground, cooler now, and hugged her knees, craning her head up. Hesitantly, he joined her, sitting at her side.

"Is it safe to be out here after dark?" he asked her.

"Isago has first watch."

Shikamaru hadn't heard the older man come out of the hide but noticed now that he was on top of their little shelter, looking out over the plains. Something about him still made Shikamaru's skin crawl.

He lay back on the ground and stared up at the stars. How small he was and how silly his problems were in comparison to the enormity of the night sky. The sky didn't care if he lived or died, if there would be a war or not. The moon had watched millennia come and go and would continue to look down upon the earth long after the entire shinobi world was dust. What would be, would be. He was powerless, but the feeling wasn't frightening: it was liberating.

"Don't you miss the clouds?" she asked him, watching the awe on his face.

"Of course I miss the clouds, Suna. But if I never see them again, your stars will have to do."

"The sky isn't going anywhere, Nara."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one being locked up tomorrow night." He hoped he would be locked up, and that would be all. There were several other possibilities that he didn't want to think about.

His pessimism had aggravated her. "I'll be kinda locked up in a different way."

"I'm guessing the figurative way isn't as painful, though."

The Princess sighed, unimpressed. "You know what I mean."

He feared he did. He had heard stories of life under Rasa's rule and none of them went well for the people close to him. Shikamaru couldn't imagine what growing up with a father like that must have been like, and to stick around knowing that was all there ever would be. She didn't seem like the type to let herself be put through something like that. Something about her was still so passionate, so childlike, so wild. Surely, she knew that she deserved better?

"If it's that bad, why don't you leave?" he asked her. It felt like a dangerous question, but one he was genuinely curious to hear the answer to.

"It's my home," she said, simply. "I owe myself to the Sand. If I left, who would calm the Kazekage through his tantrums?"

Shikamaru's jaw clenched. "Does he really listen to you?"

"Sometimes. More often than not, by the time he's lashed out at me, there isn't much left of his anger for the Village to endure. It's my job. I don't mind working hard if it keeps my people safe."

She had called them her people. For the first time, she sounded like a Princess. He thought of why he dragged himself to work every day – not for himself, or even for Tsunade, but for the citizens; for the next generation. For his King. His want for an easy life was beaten only by his sense of duty; a sense that this Sand ninja shared. "Don't you want to live a quiet life in a small town somewhere? Have a real job and a family and not be risking your life or killing people every day?"

"We're shinobi," she sighed. "It doesn't matter what we want."

The pair of them were silent for a long time, underneath their blanket of stars, until she pointed at one of the brightest points in the sky above them, to the west.

"I used to think that one was my mother."

The concept took him by surprise. "What do you mean?"

"When my uncle was alive, he told me that star was her soul watching over me." The desert was eerily silent: no hum of wind through any canopies, no hooting of owls or barking of stags. There was only her voice. "I used to sneak out at night to lie on roof of the tower and ask that star for answers. I used to tell her everything."

The words came from his mouth without him making the conscious decision to say them out loud. "You aren't what I expected."

She turned to him then, looking at him with the same sad, distant expression she wore for the sky. "What did you expect?"

"Sand-nin are supposed to be cold-hearted. No gentleness. And damn, you were brutal when you took me, you were ferocious. I didn't believe there might be a person like you underneath that."

"You're mistaking ferocity for unkindness." Shikamaru wasn't used to anyone telling him he was wrong, so respected in the Leaf was his intelligence. But this one challenged him like she saw him as an equal. "Anyone can be both brutal and gentle. Sure, a person can hate ferociously, but it's far more common to love ferociously. Actually, that's the only kind of love I'm interested in."

She was referring to her love for her little brother and the lengths she would go to to retrieve him. Evidently, it described the love she had for her village as a whole. If there was a war, Shikamaru didn't want to fight against someone who loved like she did.

"Who looks after you, Suna? You put so much effort into looking after everyone else: your brothers, your citizens, your father… Who looks after you?"

She didn't answer at first. "I do just fine on my own."

There was almost no voice in his breathy words as they lay close together in the silent darkness. "Sounds lonely."

Kankurou called to her from inside the hide. He used an unsavoury term for Leaf shinobi. They had another long day of travel ahead of them and this time tomorrow they would be in the Hidden Sand Village; this time tomorrow he would be in a cell. He would miss the sky.

"Can I have five more minutes?" His hands were still bound and Isago was still watching, there was no trouble he could get into.

She looked to him and nodded, but didn't get up to leave. He could feel her gaze on him and cocked his head in her direction a little to make sure he wasn't imagining things. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

The green of her eyes was vivid under the light from the moon.

"I don't know. You have almost zero desirable qualities," she teased. "I just like looking at you, Nara."

"It's Shikamaru," he corrected her.

"What?"

"Nara is my clan name. My name is Shikamaru."

"I know that." Of course she had known him, just as he had known her from the moment she spoke of her family. He wasn't giving her information: he was giving her permission.

"I'm Temari."

"I know."

The moonlight was strong and highlighted her fair hair and the soft lines of her face as she watched him.

"Gu maduinn, Shikamaru."

"Good night, Temari."

She got up to return to the hide and he was alone.

A Ballad of Sand and Shadow would have been a melancholy little tune. How could there ever be a song of his time here with her? To sing of a daughter of the Wind and a son of Fire made no sense when it was she who was she was the inferno and he who was the breeze. He tried to deny the sparkling in his gut, to ignore how unexpectedly safe he felt around her, to intellectualise the urge to protect her which had crept up on him slowly, without him even realising it was consuming him. No, it couldn't be like this. If he had any feelings for her at all, it wasn't a crush: it was a syndrome.

Shikamaru let out a long breath where he lay on the dry ground in the eerily silent plains of the Land of Wind on a late summer night. He stared up at the constellations, the same constellations that watched over the Hidden Leaf Village. He wondered if any of his comrades and family were looking to the sky now, missing him like he missed them.

Author's note:

We're half way through, guys! I'm seeing family over Christmas (for the first time in a long time) so the next chapters might take a little longer. Hopefully they'll be worth the wait. If Shikamaru thinks the brother is difficult, just wait til he meets the daddy.

See you next time! x