- Upon the silver gates of Konoha Palace -
Snake travel, believe it or not, is much faster than foot travel. The usual two-week journey from forest to kingdom was cut down to ten days. Aoda, while quite large and able to slither across rivers and streams and hills and other such obstacles with an ease Sasuke's humanly form cannot accomplish, is still fatigued after such a monstrous journey. He rests in a lavender field between farms and pastures, and Sasuke leaves him to enter the heart of the kingdom.
It has been years since Sasuke has been back here. The home he once lived in with his family is long gone, torn down three or four years ago to become stables for the royal horses. His father had been a nobleman — his mother a lady-in-waiting and personal friend of the late Empress. Sasuke's childhood was waking early to the royal gongs and exploring the unoccupied palace rooms with his brother. He used to look out his bedroom window and see the rainbow-stained windows that overlooked the throne room.
The horses, he's sure, must appreciate the view as much as he once did.
He spends the night in an inn that serves beef stew and beans on toast and tea so hot that he feels less Snake Mage and more Dragon Mage. The innkeeper is ten years his senior, the roots of her hair beginning to turn a noteworthy platinum that is stiff like basket wire. Still, when she sees him out that morning, she has the collar of her high-waisted muslin dress pulled purposefully low, and Sasuke has to keep his eyes dutifully toward the horizon to not tempt her.
The Capital City of Konoha is not, in any way, forest-like or farmtown-like or thunderous mountain range-like. It is noise and smell and constant, constant chaos.
Maybe, Sasuke considers, he should retrieve Aoda. A giant snake is the perfect way to avoid crowds and people. But he pushes on, and soon he's at the silver gates that surround Konoha Palace. Guards stand in a perfect line, never breaking from their posts.
Sasuke approaches the small building to the immediate left of the towering gate. Inside, a young boy, perhaps a handful of years younger than him, sits on a wooden stool, nodding off despite the sun being at its apex in the sky. Sasuke has to knock his foot into the dutch door to stir the boy awake, and he regards him with a sniff.
"You're no carriage," the boy remarks. "Usually, carriages come through this entrance." Giving Sasuke's attire a steady look over, he does not flitter out of his relaxed, unbothered posture. "Got an appointment or something? Can't just let you in without seein' some papers."
"I'm here to see the Empress," Sasuke drones.
The boy snorts. "Right. Bet she invited you over herself, huh?"
"I've been called upon to break the curse."
"Sure, you were. Look. I'm not letting you in 'less I see some papers — and I'm talkin' the official sorts!"
As it were, Sakura hadn't given him anything; she didn't have a way to. Sasuke's the one with magic and a giant snake who can hear messages from hundreds of miles away.
"Is the Priestess Sakura in?"
The boy groans. "Give it up! You can dress as the king from the next place over, and I'm still not —"
Sasuke is starting to really miss the forest. Trees don't talk back.
A rattle comes from beneath his robe. Sasuke pulls out Caduceus from its sling attached to his belt. The boy gives the septre a prolonged look, the electric sharpness of concern lighting the corners of his eyes when he notes the twin serpents engraved along the dark wood, their slim heads protruding just enough to stare him straight in the eye. Swiftly, Sasuke presses thumb and finger into the two heads, and when a bone white blade emerges from the tip, he leans forward and slices the boy's palm.
"Fu— what the —"
The boy barks his rage. Sasuke licks the thin line of blood off the blade. He tastes it carefully, reading the boy's life story with his tongue.
"Konohamaru," he drones. "Took years for your parents to come up with that one, I'm sure."
And the boy, Konohamaru, sputters, "What did you do to me, you hell creature!?"
"Well, I cut you."
"I see that! I mean — how do you know —"
Sasuke uses his robe's long sleeve to wipe the remaining blood off Caduceus, then releases the snake heads so that the blade slides back into hiding. "I tasted it," he says, returning the septre to its sling. "I tasted other things, too. Honey. That signifies young love, you know. But it was thick and bitter. Unrequited, I take it."
Konohamaru wobbles on his stool. "Don't . . . How . . . Stop —"
"And with how you're sweating, I can only assume the lucky girl is in the palace." Sasuke grins, and it is wicked, and his fangs glint. "Perhaps even part of the royal family. It'd be a shame if word got out that —"
Low, so that the guards nearby do not hear, Konohamaru hisses, "Are you threatening me?"
Sasuke turns his head, looking upon the gate. "Call for Priestess Sakura, and you will have nothing to fear."
Konohamaru has the face of an animal backed into a cage, distressed and angry, but helpless at the same time. He calls over a guard and whispers to him curt instructions. The guard slips through a hidden passageway (not very well hidden, if you ask Sasuke), and goes on his way.
"You're a mage," Konohamaru grits. "Not one of the Great Sages — that's quite obvious."
It takes a special kind of bravery for someone of Konohamaru's size and age and utter magicless-ness to poke at someone like Sasuke. One haunting look, and the boy is back to wobbling on that stool of his, wiping his flustered face with clammy hands. This, perhaps, is the one good thing about the city that a forest does not possess: people to fear him.
It does not take long for a cry from above, and then the silver gates open wide. Sakura, dressed in a long gown, flower beads and pearls adoring her hair, comes to meet him. She leans over the Dutch door to address Konohamaru first.
"I have to apologize," she says in that perfect, mild voice that Sasuke has always known her to possess. "I really meant to come this morning to explain the situation, but the Empress had terrible pains today that I had to see to. I absolutely forgot to come to you, and now I've given you both trouble."
She offers Sasuke an apologetic smile, and when Konohamaru, in a lighter mood, explains that no trouble at all came, she turns back to him and squints. Spotting the cut on his hand, she shoots Sasuke a much more dry look than before, and then she takes the boy's hand and envelops it in a gentle, green glow of magic.
"He read your blood," she sighs. "I apologize."
When the magic fades, Konohamaru studies his now woundless palm, fingers flexing.
"You know him?" he asks Sakura, not sparing even a look Sasuke's way.
She nods, smiling prettily, and pulls away from the door. "This is the Snake Mage Sasuke Uchiha. He's come to see to our Empress's curse."
At the title, Konohamaru pales, and he looks back at his hand, probably realizing he was lucky to only receive a mild cut from such an infamous beast. With a jumble of words, he wishes them off to the palace, and Sakura calmly bids him farewell before going with Sasuke into the main courtyard. Rosy brinks make the pathway, and a grand fountain is the central focus, with benches and trees and gardens taking up either side of the path.
When the gate closes behind them and they are alone, Sakura gives Sasuke's shoulder a very unpriestess-like smack, which he takes in stride, for he and the late emperor were subjects to her hits and slaps when they were children. It fills him with a strange level of nostalgia that Sasuke doesn't know what to do with, so he simply ignores it.
"I can't believe you read his blood!" she shrieks. "I prayed to the Gods you'd have some good sense in your head when you came, but I fear all those years in the woods have made you forget your manners."
"My manners are perfectly intact," he tells her. "Only the receiver of my good etiquette must be worthy of it."
"Konohamaru is a dear boy."
"Only when pretty women are around."
Her ire is snuffed out in a short bout of pride, and she laughs this time as she playfully hits his chest.
"Well, you still have your charm, it seems." Sasuke offers a light smile, which feels odd on his mouth. Sakura takes him around the fountain, and they climb up the grand quartz stairs that lead up to the palace front. "Be sure to act on your manners when we're with the Empress. She's just out of bed and feeling confused. The curse has been awful on her sense of time."
Sasuke has the mind to ask about the details of this curse, but he's momentarily distracted by the entrance of the palace. The ceilings are still high like he remembers, and the rugs are plush and bright scarlet. There are bowls full of evergreen and chrysanthemums, and all the tall windows are spotless, looking over the gardens and the smooth hills in the back.
"We'll go to the West Wing. I believe she's enjoying tea in one of the rooms overlooking the lake."
He follows her with ease, muscle memory taking him through the vaguely familiar rooms. They go along a corridor filled with portraits of the royal family. He finds the late Empress Hitomi, and then her husband, Hiashi. When he thinks he sees Hinata's portrait, he stops in front of the one next to hers.
Naruto's.
The painter captured the wildness perfectly — a man who had to sit there for hours, posing, when he'd rather be horseback riding, shooting, swimming — racing butlers down the halls — practicing all the ballroom dances with his wife. The blue oils of his eyes almost look like they could mold, morph, and turn down to stare at him.
Sakura, next to him, looks upon the portrait with a somber fondness.
"It's been over a year," she says, even if she doesn't need to. He knows she's been counting the days since his passing, and she knows he's done the same. "When he passed, that's when the curse hit Hinata."
His eyes slide to her portrait. "You think someone was aiming for the throne?"
"I don't know," she says, "but Tsunade thought so. And if her magic can't figure out the curse, it must have been someone with great power and vengeance."
Again, Sasuke tries to imagine a world where someone would hold enough anger and hatred to attack Hinata of all people. Even as an angry, hateful person himself, it's hard to see that as the case.
They continue down the corridor, into a room made almost entirely out of windows. Outside, Sasuke sees the long, hourglass-shaped lake with fountains spewing and geese collecting along the edges. Itachi once told him it was Hinata's grandmother, Empress Honoka, who had the lake dug out and filled in honor of her husband, who was terminally ill and died soon after the birth of his second daughter. Time is always passing is what the lake represents. Enjoy every moment.
"Sasuke." They come to a door, and before Sakura knocks, she stops to regard him. "Please. Be kind."
He gives her a look. "I won't say anything."
Her smile is tight. "It's not what you say that I'm worried about."
And without clarifying, Sakura enters without a knock to the door. Sasuke holds back the snide remark of her being the one who needs to remember her manners. The room they enter is small, with sofas and comfortable armchairs about the place. Small, circular tables and chairs hug the large windows facing the front, and a balcony leads out to the back that overlooks the lake. There's a fashionable fireplace against the back wall, unlit, for the day is warm and the sun keeps the room nice and hot from noon to evening.
At one of the armchairs is a figure dressed in a pretty, lavender gown. Sakura goes to her, catching her attention, and smiles kindly before gesturing Sasuke over. It's then, when the figure turns to him, that he notices that not only is it Hinata, but that, from both ears, grow white oxeye daisies.
It is as if she stuck two bouquets into her ears, letting them stand sideways, sagging only the slightest bit and bobbing along with every movement of her head.
So this is the curse.
It doesn't seem all that dangerous. They are flowers, after all. Annoying to deal with, perhaps, but not severe.
Hinata's eyes light up with recognition when she sees him. She places her tea down before standing, holding her hand out expectantly towards him.
"She cannot hear," Sakura explains, "so this is the only way you can greet the Empress."
He looks at the daisies, then at her pearly eyes. Finally, he drops his hand in hers, and she holds it with ten fingers and two palms, warming him up as if he'd just come in from a blizzard. Her eyes are soft and apologetic, and Sasuke realizes she must have been saving that look all these months since Naruto's funeral.
Sasuke, her mouth forms, and then she smiles.
And all he can do is bow his head and let her hold his hand.