In all of her years, Sakura had been in many, varying situations, though she could say none were as bad as the same one she was currently stuck in.
The soup in her mouth tasted like ash. Because they were the same kind of people she had once tried to kill... and rather than attacking her, they had taken pity after she blurted out the first story which came to mind. Though it wasn't like the blade the so-called Ranger had held to her throat would've killed her. She wasn't human.
Sakura ignored the snide voice which whispered she never had been. Shinobi were merciless killers, after all, for the right price and political climate, of course. She forced herself to swallow yet another mouthful of the meal so kindly prepared for her, hating the tense silence in the air as she sat inside the home of the Ranger who'd held a blade to her neck not fifteen minutes ago.
He was a scruffy man, with greying salt-pepper hair and a week's worth of stubble. Had Sakura truly been a lost, terrified traveller, she would probably have screamed at the sight of him earlier. As it was, she was a hardened shinobi with a side of skin-changing tendencies and an alarming habit of setting people who irritated her on fire. She hadn't needed much introspection to put that together, but she had decided to turn away from her fire-breathing tendencies.
Fainbarad, he had introduced himself as, and the name suited him – tall as he was. He had grown into his name, or so she figured with a mental chuckle, figuring it wouldn't be good to mention anything of the sort when she had only just met him for the first time. He was a Ranger of the North, and Sakura supposed she was lucky she had run into him over any of the other villagers, because Rangers were bound by the code they followed to help the free peoples of middle-earth.
She wasn't one of the free people, even though she looked like one. Melkor's machinations still lingered in the back of her mind, clinging to the fibres of her very soul, even if he and his influence had been purged from the lands. The maia who had served him too was a different matter entirely though. She had heard the songs of discord on the wind, ones which beckoned to her soul with the resemblance to his master's for a split second before she had clamped down on her impulses and blocked off that noise. She was Haruno Sakura, and another name she didn't want to speak of, and she refused to bow down to yet another tyrant.
She had only done it before because she'd been angry. Oh so very angry. But the fires of her rage had cooled, and now she was wallowing in regret, self-loathing, and a number of other depressing emotions. Because she hadn't been thinking ahead. She hadn't thought of soulmates, and how hard it might be for hers to accept her. She hadn't even realised she had a soulmate in her second life – her first as the skin-changing being of destruction and immolation.
Now she was paying for those actions.
Good, a bitter part of her thought, even as she found herself being prodded by Fainbarad's wife. Gilithien, was her name, and Sakura was acutely reminded of her mother – even if she spoke nothing like one Haruno Mebuki. "Yeh need some more meat on those bones, love," she had declared upon her husband bringing her stray self in, which was how she had wound up at the table for dinner.
Sakura wasn't in the habit of trusting complete strangers, especially those who'd held her at knifepoint, but she figured she would take the help she could. It wasn't as if she'd be completely defenceless if they had lured her in to murder her... Though in all honesty, she would be very happy if she never had to transform. To shed her edain skin and become a creature of nightmare and fire once more.
Besides, she had to try and make it up to the free peoples of middle earth... even if he'd never accept her. It was a selfish wish. One to try and make her feel better about her miserable self. One to try and repair the damages she had done once upon a time. Not that she would ever be satisfied with herself. There was no way to undo anything.
"Terrible business," Gilithien mumbled, prompting her to tune back in to the conversation about her and her circumstances taking place. "Yeh gettin' waylaid by those no good sorts. Rarely see folk like that 'round here, what with the presence of mah husband's folk protectin' these lands." She shook her head. "Terrible luck, lassie."
Sakura inclined her head. "I suppose," she said, swallowing another mouthful. "Nothing too important was lost, and I got away safely..."
"You will have shelter here for tonight," Fainbarad spoke then, and Sakura nodded once more.
"Thank you," she said, reminding herself she needed to have acceptable manners with these people. She was trying to be good. Not to mention they hadn't hunted her. They hadn't turned their backs on her. In fact, they were doing the complete opposite. They were opening their door to her – a complete stranger in need of assistance. She could have been anyone. She could have been a murderer for all they—
Oh wait, she technically was one. Sakura resisted the urge to choke on her bitter laughter once more. It just meant it was all the more imperative to conceal her true identity and nature. People would only turn against her once more should they discover that much. She would deserve it, but it wasn't something she wanted.
Sighing softly, she continued to eat, some small part of her curling up in revulsion at the kindness she could sense in those gazes directed her way. Don't look at me, she wanted to scream. She didn't deserve those kinds of looks. Shoulders stiffening, she stared determinedly at her dinner determinedly.
"We shall see about getting you home on the morrow," Fainbarad said, slicing through her thoughts of shame and annoyance. "For tonight, rest well as our guest."
She nodded again, the words escaping her almost unbidden. "I no longer have any place to call home," she mumbled listlessly, remembering the cloudiness in the sky, blocking the light from Melkor's dwelling. The smog and the ash which choked at her lungs. Even if it still existed there and hadn't been destroyed beyond repair by the Host of Valinor, she would not want to venture near the place.
"Yeh poor child," Gilithien murmured, and Sakura hated the thrum of anger which overcame her at those words. She didn't want pity. She didn't want anything of the sort. But then again she didn't want the world to burn any more. Not now she was safely away from the Elemental Nations. In the same world as her soulmate, even though he'd hate her so bitterly for her past crimes of anger, rage, and sorrow.
"I'm nineteen, ma'am," she said then, wincing at the memory of her dying at nineteen in that second time around as Haruno Sakura, ignoring the fact she was truthfully nineteen plus a few centuries give or take. Deception was a shinobi's bread and butter. "Not a child."
"That is still young," Fainbarad spoke, and Sakura almost frowned. Edain were short lived, and as Sakura she could remember tales of sixteen-year-olds getting married within certain clans in the warring clans era. She would have thought the culture there would be similar to that period, seeing as how the technology level was roughly the same. But she wouldn't question what appeared to be common knowledge. "With a name like Lothien, and your knowledge of Sindarin, you're undoubtedly of numenorian descent."
Or she was, y'know, the creature of nightmare and legend who was supposed to hate everything.
Not anymore though. She refused to be. "Oh... I, uh, see," she said, twiddling her thumbs as she stared determinedly at her empty dinner plates. "I'll help clean up," she added swiftly, picking up her bowl, plate, and the rest of the cutlery she had used.
"We take it out back tah wash, lassie," Gilithien explained, and Sakura followed her obediently, wondering about the name with which she had introduced herself. Lothien, translated roughly to blossom-daughter, which was as close to her original name as she could really think of. Well, the closest translation she could come up with on the spot. Sindarin was the tongue she was most familiar with, followed by Quenya. Probably something to do with the fact she had an elf for a soulmate, the reason why those two languages had come to her tongue so naturally.
::
"Skills?" she had been asked over breakfast, a pair of dark brown eyes boring into her own so unnervingly as the Ranger nibbled at his own breakfast so lovingly prepared by his wife.
Her eyes narrowed, untrusting. Trust was not something drilled into shinobi. Not blind trust, at the very least, not that many realised that their blind loyalty and belief their village could do no wrong was a type of that trust. Idiots, the lot of them, Sakura decided, lip curling into a sneer at the thought. Shunning people because of circumstances beyond their control wasn't right. Though the way she'd gone about protesting that hadn't been right. Not that there had been other choices.
Death or betrayal. Those were the two options the oh so nice Konohagakure had given to her. Anyone who thought Konoha was the nice village was an absolute imbecile. It was still a military dictatorship who oppressed anyone it didn't like. So very petty of them.
"I'm proficient in combat, tracking, stealth – hence why I escaped unscathed – as well as haggling and negotiation, as part of my family's trade..." she said, giving the briefest overview of her skills. Nothing that would give him an advantage, but Sakura had the horrible suspicion that this couple was sickeningly nice. They hadn't tried to kill her in the middle of the night, and they were seemingly trying to find some sort of work or option for her.
Kindness like that had been far too scarce in the Elemental Nations. Sakura choked on her laughter, musing over the fact that despite the lower level of technology, her soulmate's world was nicer. Humanity as a whole were closer knit. Though maybe it had something to do with having a common enemy? They did like their fights, after all.
Fainbarad looked to be in deep thought on the other side of the table, and Sakura could only hum softly as she ate the dried meat and eggs. It was so unlike what she usually ate back in her... back in the Elemental Nations. She couldn't bring herself to call that place home. Yet another thing one Uchiha Sasuke had ruined for her.
Sakura mused over the benefits of writing a list of everything which had been spoiled for her, pushing away that idea in an instant. She didn't know how difficult it would be to procure paper in the first place. Though there was no doubt the elves and their scholars would have plenty.
Ah. There was the bitterness talking.
A wide smile broke out on her face. It felt wrong. She hadn't truly smiled in a long time, given there wasn't much to be laughing over or rejoicing when one was running for their life from ANBU and other teams of loyal, braindead Konoha shinobi sent out. She was terribly grateful they wouldn't be able to follow her there. Not now that she was in a world she had visited by pure chance before. Pure chance which had led to her soul itself being warped along with the body which housed her spirit so.
"Well then, your best option, if you wish to stay in this village for the time being would be to bring back game from the forest," Fainbarad said matter-of-factly, as though he dealt with people in search of work all the time. "There aren't many this far north who dare to venture far in search of game."
"Not since yeh went and got injured," Gilithien chimed in, levelling a scolding glare in the direction of her husband.
"You say that like being a Ranger isn't a dangerous profession," Fainbarad grumbled, shrinking slightly under the pointed look his wife continued to give him. "I would do it again, if I had the chance, dear."
"Aye, I know," she murmured. "Yeh're a stubborn man."
"That's why you married me," he said, and Sakura felt her stomach twist at the weight their gestures to each other had. The way that there was fondness lingering in those gazes, even as reprimanding as they were. Something she would never have. Sakura gritted her teeth together, chewing determinedly on her breakfast, as if she could grind those memories to dust with her teeth.
Jealousy was an ugly thing.
So was denial.
She didn't want love. She couldn't have it. She would never want it. Air hissed from behind clenched teeth, and Sakura begrudgingly tried to let go of the tiny well of anger raging about inside her like a storm. It would do her no good, and she had sworn to change her ways. To diverge from the path she had unknowingly been treading through at least two of her lives.
Change was hard, and the well of anger remained, the waters of her rage stilled for the moment. Sakura closed her eyes. "Are there any maps of the surrounding area?" she asked, hating the way she felt she was breaking up a moment between the two soulmates. She could see their marks clearly now it was morning. Now that she was looking for them.
"Aye," Gilithien said, fiddling about in the kitchen area of the small dwelling. "But Fain'll help yeh become... acquainted with the area. If yeh really want to stay this far north in Eriador, that is," she continued, ignorant to the way Sakura perked up at that snippet of information. She was in Eriador. More information she hadn't had moments before. Though it did bring up the question of why she had ended up so far east. It would have made more sense if she had awakened in Beleriand. Sakura chewed on her lip. But at least she would be less likely to run into any elves... Shrugging, she turned her attention back to the task at hand.
She nodded then. "I think I'd like to stay here... for the time being at least," she murmured, wrapping her arms around herself. "So I can... find my feet..." In a world she had once set aflame under the orders of a mad tyrant who might as well have been a 'god'. Times had clearly changed since the First Age.
Silently, she pondered the date. She was probably in a new age, at the very least... The War of Wrath had certainly been an excellent finale for such a time, she thought with a snort.
"Good on yeh, lassie, comin' tah a decision like that," Gilithien spoke, interrupting her thought train. "We can shelter yeh for a while... certainly got the room for yeh... jus' help Fain with the huntin' and the like is all I ask. His bones are gettin' old, though he doesn't want tah admit it."
"Oh hush, you bothersome worrywart," Fainbarad grumbled, shaking his head, before he spared a glance over towards the door where his outwear lay. Though Sakura knew he had two daggers already hidden on his person. "I'll show you the game trails and the rest of the village after I've finished here," he remarked, gesturing to his half-finished plate.
"I look forward to it," Sakura said, sighing softly as she turned her own attention back to the remains of her own breakfast.