- Somewhere (who knows where) thinking about happiness -
In the handful of days Sasuke has been in the capital city of Konoha, he has not done anything that would spark a 'blooming happiness' from anyone. He's slept, and he's eaten, and he's bathed in a secluded stream deep in the forest with Aoda keeping watch. He's taken up journaling to make a list of all the possible spells that could have been used, and then he notes all the big names in the dark arts that might have caused this curse. He's scoured the halls for any clues, and he's asked the guards if they have seen anything between now and a year ago, and he has thrown himself into frustration because he can't stand to sit around and wait any longer — but he hasn't done anything to warrant Hinata's joy.
They hardly see each other.
And when they do, she's either hiding under bed sheets or scrubbing down his giant companion. These are not atmospheres of joy.
Not at all
But —
But he still tasted it. Watermelon. An emerging happiness. And she had made it clear it was because of him.
Sasuke does not spoil like Sakura. He does not laugh like Naruto. He does not see to Hinata's every need like Karin. He is a Snake Mage who has been searching for ten long years, far away from the kingdom — pretending to be busy so he had an excuse not to go to his best friend's funeral.
Hell.
He went to his wedding, but not his damn funeral.
What happiness can a man like that bring?
And so Sasuke is convinced that, beyond the curse, something is wrong with Empress Hinata. Something in the head. Grief can change a person and make them act in strange ways and see things differently. Perhaps grief has made her think this mere Snake Mage is a blessing to her from the Gods.
She will be severely disappointed, Sasuke thinks. Nothing about him is a blessing.
...
Two days before the removal process of Hinata's flowers, Karin finds Sasuke in the barn.
"Be good to him," Kiba laughs from behind her, raking new hay into the stables. "He's been gray all day."
She is dignified, as always. Her dress is a deep green that makes her already noteworthy hair stand out, and her hand fan rests against her chest, snapping open every so often to cool her face. Sasuke is finishing up the list of Hyuugas — and there are a lot — that could potentially have something to do with the curse. His old pen is running out of ink, so he stops and rests the parchment on a broken rocking chair before facing her.
"He's right," Karin muses. "You look dull."
"I'm always this way," Sasuke drones.
She snaps her fan shut, then lifts a single hand to motion him over. "Come with me. I have somewhere to bring you."
Shall she take him back to Hinata's chambers, where he will be able to do nothing but stand there and look at her wince in pain at the slightest of movements from her head? That will surely lift his mood. Aoda stays put, enjoying a snooze, so he and Karin traverse across the yard and alongside a wide garden before entering the palace. Rather than go upstairs, they go deeper within the first floor, down corridors and through busy rooms. They come into the great library in the back, and Sasuke has an idea as to where she's taking him.
And he's right.
They enter another corridor, take a small flight of stairs down, and come into one of the magic laboratories.
It's different than it was when he and his brother would sneak down to do their own experiments. The old tools and dusty vials and tubes and glasses are replaced with new, updated equipment. The wooden stools are now steel. The shelves have glass doors so that nothing falls out of them. What really catches Sasuke's attention is the contraption hanging from the ceiling. Karin has to climb onto one of the stools to reach a chain, and when she yanks it down, the thing glows, brightening the entire room in a white light, and Sasuke's senses are filled with magic.
"I haven't given it a name, yet," she says, hopping down from the stool, her heeled shoes clapping against the tile floor. "Isn't it great? Our own lightning — right at our fingertips, and without the need of a magic wielder to help turn it on or off. Though, well, it is dangerous, I suppose. But once I truly have it figured out, I'll see to it that it's put all over the palace. No more candles and torches — ugh, what a blessing!"
Sasuke tries to look at it from another angle, trying to figure out how it works.
"I used light magic," she says. "There are wires that are coated in it. When I pull down the chain, stored lightning from previous storms are channeled into the wires."
Lightning, as is well known, is a form of light magic. Not many people, especially not many non-magical people, understand that mixing different forms of the same type of magic can create a reaction. Sometimes it's a glow. Sometimes it's a burst of energy. Sometimes it's insignificant like a small tremble, and sometimes it's mountainous, like an explosion. Karin is lucky to have gotten the glowing reaction — but then again, Sasuke knows her to be a calculating madwoman. She more likely knew the reaction she would get before creating such a contraption.
"Have you brought me down here to experiment on me?" he asks, rounding a metal table to look upon one of the tall bookshelves hugging the back wall.
Karin snorts. "I can only dream of it. No. I brought you here to familiarize yourself with the laboratory. You'll be using it soon enough."
It's almost hard to imagine using this place without Itachi, but that's a thought Sasuke shoos away.
"I'm off to my lady." She stops by the door, looking at him. "Come see her, if you can."
Why should I? But Sasuke stays silent, and Karin leaves.
...
It's not hard to get familiar with everything. Sasuke recognizes most of the tools; and if he doesn't, Karin had left two sheets of parchment on the desk that detail the uses of everything in that room. There is a shelf full of books about magic, and then there is a shelf, less full, full of all types of magic gathered by Karin (and maybe a small selection of other researchers). Sasuke spots gems and water from blessed springs and the skeleton of a magical toad. It's not much, but it's a good start. Non-magic wielders do not have the ability to extract magic from nature; that is a job that he will have to shoulder, it seems.
An hour or two passes, perhaps. The glowing contraption above blinks and dims, so Sasuke tugs the chain, and the electric smell of light magic pushing against light magic fades.
There is not much more he can do here without anything to work on. Tomorrow, he will come with things to extract magic from; the day after that, it will finally be time for him to work on figuring out the curse.
When he emerges from the depths of the laboratory, he hovers in the natural light of the sun coming in through the windows of the library. He knows a hidden passage that will take him outside without having to go through the entirety of the palace, avoiding the likes of noblemen and gossipy women.
But . . .
"Come see her, if you can."
It was a suggestion. A suggestion Sasuke can ignore.
There is no reason for him to scout out the Empress. She is busy — and even if she weren't, what would he possibly do for her by coming to see her? They will struggle to understand each other, and then they will part ways, more confused than they were just a few minutes ago.
"Come see her . . ."
He sucks on the backs of his teeth, annoyed, and tastes watermelon.
...
As expected, Empress Hinata is acting out her duties.
He finds her talking with some important, old geezer — a duke or something, probably — with Kō as her translator. It's not something he can easily push himself into; and even if he did, he knows nothing of foreign policies or financial circumstances or trades or whatever the hell they're discussing.
Wasted time.
It's his own fault, of course.
Sasuke turns away, his cape swishing against the backs of his legs, and he leaves. There's a gaggle of women that pass him, whispering and cooing, and he grits his teeth and —
"Mmh!"
His cloak is tugged, and a soft hum grabs his attention and makes him turn and look down at Hinata. In the distance, Kō and the old gentleman are still in a heavy discussion, perhaps not even aware of Hinata's disappearance. She follows his gaze, giggles, and brings him outside with her, where they stand at the top of the great staircase. One of the guards at the front gives her a look, and she waves him off, making a strange story of gestures with her hands before going on her way with Sasuke at her side.
"They will come after you," he mutters, "and they will blame me for your leaving."
Hinata smiles, not bothered at all, and points back to the palace with a question in her gaze.
"Do you need to know every place I go?" Her eyes stay bright and curious, not understanding him, and Sasuke sighs. "The laboratory."
She hums and opens her hands out, as if to hold a book.
"No," he says. "Not library. Laboratory."
She stops by the garden to pick a few marigolds, and as they continue on to the stables, she braids their stems together and brushes the petals with her thumbs to give them more volume. Sasuke thinks that if he had flowers growing out of his ears, he'd burn any flower he comes across into the earth.
Again, she motions a book.
"I give up," he drones.
Then, she taps her hand before pretending to slice it and licking the imaginary blood. Oh. She's talking about tasting blood. Her hands lift to her daisies, gesturing to them, and he knows what she's asking.
Sasuke frowns. "Use your voice. I know you can." He taps his throat. "Talk."
Unexpectedly, Hinata blushes, and she bows her head like he's the emperor and she's a mere servant to the castle. She mouths something to herself, but when Sasuke ducks his head, he thinks he catches the word.
Ugly.
There's nothing ugly about Hinata. He wishes there was so he wouldn't get himself in situations like this. It would be easier to ignore her and wave her off if she had something ugly about her, but she doesn't — and it's frustrating — and annoying — but Sasuke can't believe she has an ugly bone in her body.
"Stop moping," he sighs.
He takes her marigolds and casts a small spell on them, and their leaves grow into dragon wings, causing them to soar out of his hand. Hinata's head snaps up, and her face instantly gleams as she chases after them like a child following a dragonfly. Sasuke follows, remembering a time where he used to have that kind of energy. Back when he was seven, and his mother (the poor thing) had to deal with him every day before and after work.
...
In the stables, Hinata greets Aoda and rubs his snout until he awakens. He sticks his tongue out to taste her mood, and she giggles and shows him the flying bouquet of marigolds. A few stable boys spot her and gawk, bowing low when she comes over to show off the magical flowers to them, next. She undos the braid and gives them each a flower, and they're momentarily distracted from their job to play with them outside.
Kiba doesn't bother to call them back, though he does give Sasuke a look.
Not my fault she gave them away.
...
"Lady Hinata! I better not find you in the royal stables! Tsk! If you're hiding here with Sasuke, I'm giving that rat something to think about!"
Karin's screech from outside is mute on Hinata's ears, but not on Sasuke's.
Great.
He takes her elbow and lifts her from the straw.
"Karin is here," he warns her.
Her eyes widen, and before he knows it, she's hiding behind Aoda, and he's all alone by the time the doors push open and Karin comes stomping inside.
"Where is she?" she demands.
Sasuke stares at her, a bit blindsighted, before slowly saying, "I don't know whom you mean."
"Don't play with me. Lady Hinata. Has she come here?" Karin digs through the haystack Hinata had previously been sitting on. Aoda subtly coils, hiding Hinata further behind his tail. "Dinner is soon — oh — and she has lessons in an hour. I swear that girl will run me up the wall!"
"Take a breath, Karin," Kiba calls. "You're scaring the horses. The Empress ain't here. Think I saw her in the garden a bit ago."
She frowns. "I just checked there."
"Must have missed her. Try again."
Pulling a handkerchief from between her breasts, which earns a stare from Kiba and a tired sigh from Sasuke, Karin rubs off the mud collected on her shoes, then is on her way out of the stables. They wait a beat, and then Kiba hops over Aoda to pull Hinata out.
"You're getting better and better at hiding," he tells her, laughing. "Naruto would be proud!"
It doesn't matter if Hinata understands him or not. She laughs with him, holding his shoulders as Aoda moves around them.
And Sasuke thinks, at that moment, that if anyone should make the taste of watermelon come to Hinata's blood, it should be Kiba. He's a bastard, but he's at least a kind bastard that makes a look of pure glee come to her face.
So why is it me? he, again, wonders. I've done nothing.
It is probably a question he will never know the answer to.
How annoying.
...
The stable boys return with their flying flowers resting behind their ears. The horses smell them, curious, and they laugh and go back to work.
"Better not make anything else grow wings," Kiba tells Sasuke, eyes taking a sharp turn that contrast so substantially when compared to the soft, melting look he gives the Empress. "You already give us enough shit to work with."
Before Sasuke can say a word, Hinata takes in a deep breath and blows into Kiba's face, making him jump a centimeter or two into the air. She frowns in a way that isn't at all threatening, and Kiba laughs, despite trying to keep it in.
"Alright, alright," he says, "I'll be nice . As long as he is, that is."
He blows her bangs, and she snickers and fixes them as he slings an arm around her in a half-hug. This is not the normal relationship between palace employee and Empress, but somehow, it makes sense. Hinata would be the type to treat anyone like her equal, whether it be her dim-witted husband or cocky stable boy or the impatient Snake Mage.
"You should go on," Kiba says, "before Karin loses her hair."
He makes his hands into circles to put around his eyes, mimicking Karin's specks. She nods, hugs him, then goes up to caress Aoda, thanking him for the perfect hiding spot he provided.
When she turns to Sasuke, she pauses and reads his face like he would her blood — carefully, as to not miss anything subtle. Her arms are stiff at her side, as if she's purposefully keeping them there, and her fingers rub together — and she looks like she'd like to hug him, too.
But there must be something about him that tells her not to, so she just smiles, taps her hand as a reminder of their shared humanity amongst the likes of horses and giant snakes, and goes on her way. The stable boys wave her off. Kiba goes back to cleaning his tools.
Sasuke, usually with many things to do, sits down, and does nothing.
...
The next day, when Sasuke goes up that all-too-grand staircase, he sees the guards at their normal posts. The one that had nearly stopped Empress Hinata yesterday has a small bouquet of marigolds in his breast pocket, lacking any sort of wings to fly off at a moment's notice. He seems to be in a good mood, too, for the guard bows his head in a polite greeting before opening the door for Sasuke's entrance.
It stinks of the stuff inside. They're in women's hair and folded between men's handkerchiefs.
Sasuke takes a turn away from the library to come down the royal family corridor. There's a vase of fresh marigolds sat on a table in front of Naruto's portrait, and Sasuke looks at the still landscape of his friend's face.
"If you're watching your wife from the heavens," he murmurs, "then I'm sure you're happy to know that she annoys me as much as you once did."
A type of annoyance that one can only have for their best friend.
Naruto knows this, and if Sasuke squints, he thinks he might see that portrait of his grin knowingly.