Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was difficult to pinpoint the exact night it had all started. The days had seemed to blur into one by that point in time, what with the need to find a routine of some sorts to always remember that the war was behind her now. To remember that the camp wasn’t being ambushed and that enemies weren’t hidden among them, wearing their faces and chakras. Part of her was crushed with what had become of her teammates and herself – Uchiha Sasuke was gone, wandering about outside the Village Hidden in the Leaves on a quest to find himself, and Uzumaki Naruto was readying with his studies for all he needed to know when he took up the hat. Sakura was just there. Tsunade popped back every few months, long since having passed the hat onto Kakashi, and the hospital duties onto her. Of course, she had been prepared for taking up the role of Head of Hospital. She had been preparing for such a thing since she had agreed to be Tsunade’s apprentice, and she had been excited to take up such a responsibility.

But some small part of her could hardly deny the fact she was bored. War had, in some terrible way, excited her, despite the mass casualties and lives forever lost within its greedy clutches. Despite the scars it had left upon her and everyone else left behind after the chaos and death. Ino had changed after that, after the death of her father. Her smile had become just a bit more brittle, her eyes carrying a weight Sakura couldn’t exactly relate to. Both her parents were alive and well, and there was just this terrible sense of illogical guilt whenever she thought on that fact. She couldn’t call her pig like everything was fine and normal, no matter how much Ino called her forehead as though she wanted her to reciprocate the insult with the own she had used so liberally only a short while before.

Every day she wondered over how to interact with all her friends – all of whom felt like they had lost something terrible while she had swanned through it with no reparations whatsoever. Lucky. That was what they called her when they thought she couldn’t hear, caught up in traumas of their own, jealousy licking in their eyes like the embers of flame whenever they caught her out and about with those closest to her. The people who were all still alive. She wondered if any of them resented her when she ventured over on Friday nights to eat with her parents, just as they had done before the war had gone into full swing. She wondered if anyone actually cared for the tears she had shed over the crumpled corpses of those she – with all her skills – hadn’t been able to save.

She didn’t think they would. After all, they were just meant to be strangers to her, without that emotional connection family and friends had. Unlike war though, she never stopped losing patients, but perhaps that was because she was always assigned the hardest ones. The ones on the brink of death which none bar Tsunade’s apprentice would be able to heal.

Breaking the news to the family of the dead patient was the worst.

Though she hardly wanted to bring up the mention of that kind of trauma to those who stared at her with jealousy, yet still called her a friend. It was so very confusing and disheartening sometimes. Sakura supposed that was shinobi life in a nutshell.

It was a day like that, one of many amidst the blur of sadness, joy, and pain, which had brought her to collapsing onto her bed and drifting off into a deep, relaxing sleep. Rest was that which she needed, and that which she had earned many times before. Only something was different that time she slept, though she didn’t quite realise such a fact until she woke up as Haruno Sakura once more.

Because when she went to sleep, she didn’t quite wake up where she was meant to the first time around. An odd dream, or so she had thought after she had woken up and drunk some strong coffee, preparing for the day ahead the only way she knew how.

She came to staring at a ceiling she didn’t recognise. That fact in itself was unnerving, because Sakura was fairly certain she had gone to bed in her room, in her little apartment, under the paint-peeling ceiling she was well accustomed to. Not a fine, tall ceiling. She felt… heavy, oddly enough, weighed down and sluggish.

A groan slipped from her lips, head aching like she had ten gallons of drink in her system without filtering it out via Tsunade’s special technique. She was on her side luckily enough, though she didn’t quite feel the urge to throw up. Though that was hardly surprising, considering she hadn’t drunk a single drop of liquor the evening previous. Then again, it wasn’t her ceiling she was lying underneath for some strange reason. Sakura could only think it a dream. That was the only explanation which made sense. More so, given the fact she remembered rather literally going to sleep before she had ended up there in that bizarre dream.

Besides, she mused, pressing her face into the sinfully comfortable pillow, she certainly deserved a good dream after all the nightmares she’d been having over the previous months.

She rolled over, breathing in the delectable scent of sandalwood which seemed to stain everything around her. It was a nice scent. She liked it – it wasn’t too overpowering, rather, it was comforting and soothing for reasons she couldn’t quite place right then and there.

Something heavy lay over her waist, pinning her down somewhat. It hardly helped that her muscles seemed to be limp noodles. Sakura wondered if that was what being a civilian rather than the fighter she was felt like. She couldn’t help but wonder why she was dreaming of being so civilian-like… Perhaps to escape the madness of a shinobi life? Sakura could only ponder on such thoughts, even as she stared down at the arm slung over her waist.

It was broad, well-muscled, pale-skinned yet gleaming ever so softly in the moonlight which seeped through the window by the bedside. Sakura turned then, onto her other side, blinking calmly at the sight with which she was met with. Though she could probably attribute such a thing to the bizarre, yet delightful dream she was having at that moment in time. The face set before her had not a blemish or freckle in sight, only smooth, marble-like skin which was so eerily perfect – for lack of better words to describe the sight – that it sent shivers rolling down her spine. Golden hair flowed perfectly straight, and by the gods there was a lot of it. One could almost mistake it for threads of gold finely spun. Those golden locks pooled on the pillow beneath his head like a puddle of gold – and Sakura could only tell that the one before her was male thanks to the gloriously exposed chest on display but a scant few inches away from her face.

Sakura blinked, registering the open grey eyes which seemed to glimmer with light – though they weren’t focused on anything in particular. He was staring off into the distance, even as she blinked at him in confusion. The features on his face were fine, and Sakura thought she could describe the male before her as being fey-like, what with bewitching good looks and ears which were undeniably pointed. A strange clan trait for her to imagine…

They looked strange and undeniably foreign to her eyes, and Sakura could only find herself reaching out slowly with one hand. Her fingers were horribly soft and smooth as they touched that odd, pointed ear, tracing the unfamiliar shape. Sakura wondered why she was dreaming of such a strange thing. If she was going to have dreams of her being in bed with someone, then why in the four winds was she dreaming of a hot blonde fey-like stranger rather than Sasuke? But it was certainly nicer than a nightmare, so Sakura supposed she’d take what she got.

A warm hand closed around her own, but her body was too stiff and slow to startle properly as the hot blonde stranger chuckled. “Why are you up so late, love?” he murmured, and Sakura could only wonder if this was some sort of wet dream of hers as lips brushed the backs of her knuckles then. “You should get some more rest,” he said, blinking slowly then, letting go of her hand to tuck fallen strands of pink hair back behind her ear. His hands were calloused. Sakura supposed she ought to have expected that. What with the muscles… and the abs… and the faint scars she could just about see… A fighter of some description. “Sleep, Lothris. You need your rest.”

Sakura blinked, a soft huff of air leaving her as she found herself being pulled into that bare chest. Warm. She closed her eyes then, not really being able to squirm from the grasp of her apparent partner her addled brain had cooked up. She didn’t like the feeling of weakness lingering inside her body in that dream – so she closed her eyes once more, snuggling into that chest as she drifted back off to sleep.

All in all, it was a rather terrible wet dream which probably didn’t deserve to be classified as such.

The alarm cut through her blissful rest with a noisy beep she so hated. But it wasn’t like she had money to waste on such frivolities like replacing her alarm. The better half of her consciousness she liked to call Inner agreed with her there. Despite having such a high position in the medical field, it hardly paid particularly well – what with it being one of the departments with less funds directed its way. It was a problem Tsunade had tried to fix in her tenure, and Sakura liked to think she’d made headway, but Kakashi didn’t quite have the same priorities as her master.

So long hours and little pay it was, made all the worse by the fact she couldn’t really go outside on a mission to supplement her pay. Part of her debated on asking Kakashi to pay attention to the budget if he could, given the alliance between all great nations which would reduce the amount of scuffles. The larger part of her refused, if only because she didn’t want to seem ungrateful for that which she had. She made enough to get by, and that was plenty for her at that current moment in time. She didn’t need any more money, unless she felt like moving out of the little ramshackle apartment so close to the hospital.

“Forehead!”

Sakura blinked as the unexpected knock came on her door moments after the accompanying shout, a sigh escaping her as she hurried over to greet her friend while her excuse of a breakfast heated itself up, and the water boiled in the kettle. “Pig,” she mumbled in greeting, the word sounding hollow and lacking the playfulness of her friend’s childish insult, along with being utterly inaudible to her dear friend standing on her doorstep, and she could only rub her sore eyes at the sudden influx of light as she opened the door. “What’s the matter?”

Ino blinked at her then, looking her up and down, from head to toe, eyes narrowing on her face as she digested the admittedly probably terrible sight before her. Sakura didn’t even need to look in a mirror to acknowledge that much. “You look like death warmed up,” she said, and Sakura could only snort at Ino’s bluntness even as she heard the kettle click off behind her, signalling she ought to be getting a move on if she wanted to make it on time for work. Sakura hated being late with a passion.

“Nice to see you too,” she murmured dryly, yawning as she went back inside, Ino following her into her measly apartment without even an invitation. But Ino always did stuff like that, and Sakura had used to when she went over to Ino’s place… Not that she went there very much nowadays. They had been best friends turned rivals turned whatever the hell they were now. “But I have to be off to the hospital soon,” she said, munching on the snack bar she had picked up as supplementary rations. It didn’t taste particularly nice, but it would see her through until she managed to get her break. Something she would hopefully get so long as there weren’t any complications or emergency patients who required her level of skill.

“You’re working today?” Ino asked, an incredulous expression on her face. “You haven’t taken a day off in months, Forehead!”

Sakura sighed, shrugging then as she chewed on her food. “There’s work which needs to be done, and the hospital doesn’t pay as much as I’d like…”

Ino frowned. “So take some supplementary missions then,” she said, as though it were an obvious thing.

“I can’t,” Sakura grumbled, carding one hand through her admittedly rather greasy hair. She really needed a shower. But there was barely enough time for such rituals. “I’m Head of Hospital now, Pig… There’s legislation which prevents me from leaving the village, and the Sixth isn’t as lenient as the Third…”

“Damn…” Ino mumbled, trailing off, seemingly wracking her brains for another solution to her money problem but evidently coming up empty. Though she doubted Ino would have been able to find a solution she couldn’t. She was the desperate one, after all. Though her mother always did sau a fresh pair of eyes sometimes worked wonders. “No wonder your place is such a dump…”

“Rude. Ouch,” Sakura said, shoulders sinking then as she acknowledged those words. Really, there was no way to defend her ramshackle home – it was the furthest thing from beautiful. “But true. Unfortunately true…”

Sakura very much wanted to know why she seemingly had an obsession with dreaming about lying in bed with one particular hot blonde fey-like stranger. The first one she had written off as a strange happenstance. The second one was a coincidence, perhaps from her taking a liking to the aesthetics which were that chest and those ridiculously pretty golden locks. The third dream… that was when that nervous sensation in her gut started up and she went over everything possible. It wasn’t a dream-based, long range illusion – she had checked, though she didn’t quite see how having her silently drool over some fantasy would weaken Konoha. Rather, they helped because she was getting more sleep.

“Forehead!” Ino’s voice broke through her reverie. “What’s with that look on your face? You only get that when there’s boys involved.” Sakura blinked, shivers rolling down her spine as Ino looked at her pointedly, teeth bared in a sharp grin.

“It’s nothing,” she mumbled, shaking her head then. “I just need more sleep.”

Ino snorted. “Don’t we all?” she muttered, a terrifying smile still set on her lips still. “But still, who’s the guy on your mind right now? I can tell you’re thinking of a boy…”

Sakura sighed, a slight flush coming to rest in her cheeks. “It’s nothing – really, Ino,” she said, sitting back with a huff as they sat in a pretty little café Ino had chosen out for their ‘date’ out. Though Ino had called it breaking her out of the hospital day. Apparently she was a slave to her work. Ino had apparently been freeing her, and her staff had allowed it for some reason she couldn’t quite fathom. “Just been having some weird dreams as of late.”

“Oh ho.” Ino waggled her eyebrows. “Do tell…”

“It’s nothing!”

Ino smirked. “Forehead, your cheeks are red – it’s something!” she declared, and Sakura felt her face heat up that much more at how obvious she must have seemed. “Are you finally dreaming of you and Sasuke and your future together?”

Who are you?

Was what Sakura wanted to ask whenever she spotted him there at night, lying beside her. But that would be a stupid question. He was obviously a product of her imagination. There was nothing else he could be. Though it would probably be nice if he existed, if only to save her from the loneliness which threatened to consume her all too much in her waking hours.

Sasuke was busy off on his quest to redeem himself. Sakura didn’t know why he couldn’t come home in between. Sakura ignored the whispered words of Inner that he didn’t love them enough to. Of course Konoha would be full of painful memories, and what’s more there were those two elders who had served along Danzo. Two elders who were suspected, though never outright accused, of knowing what Danzo had been doing and letting it happen.

Naruto hadn’t wanted to start anything, because the past was meant to be in the past and everyone could change going forwards. She had seen him sometimes with Hinata at the ramen place they had all used to frequent when they had been a team. Other than that though, he was busy, what with being a shoe-in for the title and role of Hokage.

“Lothris?” the sleepy sexy voice – or so she thought, completely and utterly controlled by her lizard hindbrain – sounded, and Sakura could only smile at the golden stranger who she had dreamed of far too often. “Is something the matter?”

Fingers brushed over her cheek, and Sakura only sighed and pressed her face into the palm of his large hand. Silvery grey eyes stared down at her, confusion, longing, and some other emotion just about present in there depths. It was oddly eerie how she could decipher such a stare. Sakura didn’t quite know how to explain it, just like she didn’t quite understand why she felt so very safe and relaxed in the presence of him – whatever his name was. She blamed it on the dream, because she never quite felt safe in Konoha. It was something to the lifestyle of a glorified mercenary – never knowing when your enemies would appear to take revenge, start a war, stab you while you slept, or something alike.

“How I wish I could talk with you…” he murmured then, frustration and tears appearing as he spoke, and Sakura startled at the sight. “How I wish I could hear your sweet voice… yet he took that away from you along with everything else…”

Her brow crinkled, questions rattling around in her brain, and yet she couldn’t get her mouth to work. She felt eerily like a passenger in her own body. Or was it some ‘dream’ body? Sakura didn’t know how to describe it all.

“Ignore my ramblings, Lothris,” he mumbled, fingers carding in her pink locks then. “I just wish I could have met you before this tragedy… though I doubt you would have given me the time of day…” His fingers traced the slight wrinkle her frown had wrought on her brow. “Relax, love,” he whispered then. “Ignore my ill thought words. I should not have said them, nor made you look so very worried. You ought to get some sleep… perhaps everything will be better on the morn…”

Sakura blinked, peering up at him as she found herself tucked against that warm chest – which she was really becoming too familiar with for comfort – before she felt a wave of tiredness overcome her then.

Tired in a dream.

She could’ve laughed at the irony.

“I thought you were on a diet, Pig,” she mumbled, feeling worriedly exhausted as Ino dragged her into the little cake shop. The dreams were eating at her, ripping into her and feeling like they were tearing her apart piece by piece because she didn’t understand why she kept dreaming of the same thing over and over again.

Just the other day she had looked at a recent picture of Sasuke and thought he wasn’t as nice as her golden-haired stranger. She was comparing Sasuke to some figment of her imagination. Likely what she thought the ideal partner for her was. But that didn’t explain why he was blonde – blonde like Naruto. Though Sakura loathed to compare her golden-haired beauty to Naruto. The hair she dreamt of was so very fine, the strands so very long and silky to the touch.

The vividness of her dreams concerned the small, paranoid part of her, while the rest of her basked in those oddly realistic dreams. Well, if one discounted to pointed ears and the general strangeness which lingered around like a bad smell.

“We both need a break,” Ino said curtly, pointing a fork at her as they waited for their cakes to be delivered to their little table which gave the best view of the shop for Sakura. She was always so terribly conscious of those around her. Paranoia, as Kakashi would call it. Just another part of being a shinobi of course. “Your eyebags are almost as bad as mine, and I’ve been working hard,” Ino declared, staring at her then. “You sure you’re OK? Not pulling too many shifts at the hospital?” she asked, looking so very worried that Sakura felt terrible for keeping the odd dreams from her dear friend.

But they were just dreams – no source of odd chakra invading – nothing in her mind to explain what exactly was going on. She had an uncanny resistance to all jutsu attacking the mind. Both Inoichi, before he passed, and Ino had noted it. She was more aware of genjutsu than most thanks to that little fact. So it was practically impossible for it to be some form of attack.

Besides, everyone had more things to worry about than her silly dreams.

“I’m fine,” she said, smiling then, relaxing as Ino herself relaxed.

“Good,” Ino said with a smile to match her own as they sat there, waiting on their delectable cake to arrive. “Now, time for gossip, so do tell me, have you heard from your beloved teammate recently…?”

You can mar my body, torture me, try to break my mind, but my soul will forever be untouched by your hands.

It was on the eighth consecutive night of those dreams when she was finally able to catch sight of her reflection in the dream.

There was a mirror in the bathing room, adjacent to the bedroom where she spent so much time in within those delightfully strange dreams. She found it then when she woke up alone in the bedroom. Nervousness boiled in her belly at the realisation that the golden-haired male she had grown so very used to had vanished seemingly into thin air. It was her dream, and she wanted him there—so why wasn’t he?

It was an irrational nervousness she couldn’t quite understand or dispel, and so she ventured into the bathroom, intent on finding something with which to occupy herself. Her steps felt heavy, heavier than they should have been, considering she was shinobi rather than civilian, and they naturally had very light footsteps thanks to their training. It was always something to consider when one went undercover. A shinobi’s walk could give them away far too easily. Though she didn’t have a shinobi’s footsteps.

Her feet felt like they were slapping against the tiles as she pulled herself towards the bathing room and that mirror she wanted. She felt heavy, tired, which Sakura supposed she could say the same of in real life. She was too tired as of late, and almost everyone around her had noticed. Sakura wished there would be some sort of quick fix to solve the entire problem – but sadly, there wasn’t seeming to be one, and Sakura could only explore that strange world her brain had created as something of an escape.

She could feel the tile beneath her feet, cold and smooth, hard beneath her knees as she sunk to them before the reflective surface set before her. Fingers pressed against the cool surface, green eyes staring at the strangeness of the being reflected back at her.

Skin pale gleaming softly in the light of the moon as it flooded in through the open doorway. Heart-shaped face. Slightly upturned nose at the end. Features slightly more petite and delicate than what she was used to. No diamond marring her brow.

A face unfamiliar to her.

Yet she recognised it so, in some distant part of her brain. Sakura could only wonder why – why there was such a war within her mind as she stared at her dream self in the mirror, all the while wondering why she looked as she did. If it were a dream, it made more sense to look like herself, albeit with very pointy ears.

She looked as elfin and fey-like as the golden stranger. Made to match, part of her dimly mused as she pressed her hands against the mirror, fascinated and stumped by her odd dream appearance even as a shadow fell over her then.

“Lothris!” her golden stranger cried, relief flooding his face as he crouched down to greet her then. “What are you doing in here?” he asked, seemingly not expecting an answer. He thought she couldn’t talk for some reason. That much she had worked out. She had tried to speak at times, but the words never left her except when she was alone – but they were strange. Words sounded different to her ears for some reason, a simple ‘welcome home’ not able to leave her lips sounding correct. She sounded as though she had a lisp whenever she tried to practice her speaking on the occasion where she was alone in those dreams.

She stared up at the blonde she was coming to like more and more as she dreamed of him more and more. He was so very earnest and oddly pure, especially given he hadn’t lain a hand on her in that way, always so content to snuggle with her and talk more at her than with her. Sakura didn’t mind that though – the sound of his voice was nice, and she seemed incapable of proper speech there. Though she was working to change that, if only to make her odd dream that much more interesting. A smile pulled at her lips, oddly fond and happy as she stared into those grey eyes which always managed to convey so much.

Part of her wondered if hanging around Sasuke so much had helped with her interpretation of all things unsaid. Not that Sasuke said much, either in words or his expression, though she liked to think his was fond whenever he stared at her so. “I am sorry to have left you for so long,” he murmured, fingers running over her cheek before he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Duty called, but I am back now, love,” he said, lifting her up from the ground then, sweeping her up into his arms. “I trust your brothers have looked after you in my place…”

Sakura blinked, head flopping lazily against his warm shoulder. Her body there felt so cumbersome and stiff for some reason she hadn’t been able to work out. Then again, it was a dream, so there was probably just some subconscious desire there. Once, long ago, she had longed for siblings of her own. But that had never happened.

“Come,” her blonde beloved ordered, as though she were somewhere else but his arms. “It is a lovely evening, and the balcony is calling, I think…”

She heard it sometimes, the same words repeated over and over again, when she went to sleep. “You can mar my body, torture me, try to break my mind, but my soul will forever be untouched by your hands,” the voice said without a tremble, despite what the words implied. She was a shinobi, she could read the subtext, and what terrifying subtext there was in that statement.

Though the weirdest thing had to be the fact the voice sounded like her own.

It was funny, in hindsight, how much of her time was occupied by the dreams or her thoughts about those dreams. They were just so odd and strangely dreamy sometimes, because the hot blonde stranger – or so she had dubbed him for lack of any other name coming to mind – was both kind and caring whenever he featured in her dreams.

Truly, he was the opposite of Sasuke, and Sakura found herself questioning herself once more because—because she had stayed so very loyal to Sasuke all this time, and yet it was only now her affections were waning. Sakura didn’t know how she felt about it. That was a lie, she knew she felt as though she were betraying him. But all the blame for her waning affections could probably be lain at the feet of those dreams. Of that hot blonde stranger who was so very sweet and loving yet not wanting her in that way because she was seemingly ill or critically injured in her dreams.

Sakura only wondered what that said about her. Not that anyone would ever know, if she had her way.

“I will return,” her golden warrior promised, and Sakura could only blink dumbly at him as he stood before her, decked in fancy armour, looking as though he were about to head off to war. Dimly, Sakura realised that was exactly what was going on, even as she was pulled into an almost crushing hug. “This I promise you,” he continued, closing his eyes as he pressed his brow against her own. “I will bring your brothers back with me too, and we will see each other again in this world, fear not…”

He stepped back then, a solemn smile on his lips, before he turned sharply then, leaving through the door as shinobi so often didn’t. They preferred windows, because they were odd ducks in the eyes of civilians who always used doors.

“Come sister,” a voice sounded then, and Sakura turned to find what had to be her brother, green-eyed and silvery haired. His arm came around her shoulders, guiding her to a sofa then. “He will return, do not worry so… He is likely the mightiest warrior there is in this age…” His expression turned darker then, sorrow and sadness creeping into his face as he stared at her then, even as she sat down. “Glorfindel will return, and he will bring Nírorn and Alagon with him…”

“Lothris,” a familiar voice came, even as large hands shook at her shoulders gently. “Lothris, wake up,” her hot blonde stranger said, voice so very urgent and demanding.

A groan escaped her, coming out as a pitiful moan leaving her lips, even as she cracked open her eyes to stare up at her hot blonde stranger. Stranger didn’t feel like the right word to describe him anymore.

The back of his hand rested against her forehead, strangely cold to her touch, golden eyebrows drawn into a frown. “Do the healers know what is causing this?” came the voice she just about recognised – the voice of her brother, even if there were two more unfamiliar people in the room with her. “I do not think she should travel in this state…” her brother said, silvery brows drawn together, nervousness, worry, and fear drawn on his face then as he stared down at her from where he stood at her bedside.

“We are moving to Imladris,” her blonde declared. “I will follow Lord Elrond from now onwards, until it comes time for me to sail, and besides, he is the best hope we have for Lothris, lest you wish to make her sail over the sea sooner, and you’ve said how well she reacted last time…”

One of the people she didn’t recognise pinched the bridge of their nose and sighed.

Waking up on a horse was an oddly novel experience. Though the fact she was missing her hot blonde stranger worried her, even if the armoured lady she was riding with smiled kindly at her. From what the lady, her apparent escort in place of one of the few she was familiar with in that dream world, said they were headed to a place called Imladris. The name she recognised from one of her earlier dreams in the week.

Truly, she marvelled at how her subconscious seemingly kept all these details in mind while Ino was busy dreaming of snogging Sai and marrying him which didn’t sound as though they made for as an elaborate storyline as her own dreams were following.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and Sakura sat straight up as the cry of ‘Ambush!’ resounded through the air. She was well in the centre of the formation, so very well defended, yet one odd creature wielding a rusted blade still made it through amidst the chaos of fighting after the initial surprise assault.

She kicked its head clean off with a satisfied hum, even as the lady she was riding with gaped in horror.

“So you’re finally here?”

Sakura stiffened as she stared at the blank darkness which seemed to stretch out in all directions. It was a place she vaguely recognised, having stumbled into it when Ino had launched her mental attack all those years ago in the chunin exams.

“Inner,” she mumbled, staring at the oddly lifelike figure standing just a ways in front of her, frowning at her then. “What do you mean, finally?” she asked, tilting her head as she stood there in that eerie darkness.

“Don’t you see?” Inner Sakura questioned, tilting her head then, short pink locks swaying in the non-existent breeze of the innermost depths of her mind. Or so she thought they were – that was the only place Inner could materialise, and even then, not once had Sakura met her in that form.

A mirror winked into existence, looking as though it were glowing in that dark place, and Sakura could only stumble forwards, oddly transfixed by the sight of the fancily wrought mirror. It was something she would never be able to afford for a good long while, but that didn’t mean it was any less beautiful.

“Look,” Inner Sakura ordered.

Sakura looked, staring into the mirror, and the reflection she could see there. Her brow wrinkled, and the face staring back at her did the same. The same face she had seen only once before, because it wasn’t the face she stared back at her each morning whenever she went into the tiny bathroom. Eyes which angled differently, spaced slightly closer together, with lashes longer than she had ever been able to achieve with mascara or the like. Bow-shaped lips of a darker shade of pink than she was used to. A nose which was slimmer and curved ever so slightly upwards at the point. Cheeks smooth and lacking the slight roughness of the ones she’d had before. Pale skin which seemed to glow, as if moonlight had been trapped within. Eyebrows thinner and more arched. The differences weren’t unnoticeable. Rather they were the opposite.

The most damning change though were her ears: the helix longer, finishing with a point. Leaf shaped. She had leaf-shaped ears.

“What?” she mumbled, staring at her reflection then, eyes darting between it and Inner Sakura like pinballs. For all that they had dubbed themselves Inner and Outer Sakura they looked nothing alike. She swallowed, throat suddenly feeling incredibly dry as she tried to piece together what exactly was going on right then and there.

“Everything’s going back to the way it’s meant to be,” Inner Sakura said, smiling then as she knelt down beside her confused form as she remained sat before the mirror. Her eyes darted between Inner Sakura and her own reflection, completely and utterly confused at the sight of them both – because Inner Sakura looked more like Haruno Sakura than she, and Sakura… she didn’t know what—“It’s time to wake up, Lothris…”

Sakura sat up with a start, eyes widening when she didn’t see the familiar paint peeling ceiling above her, nor the all too familiar sight of the on-call room. Her stomach roiled, her breath coming in gasps at how clear everything seemed, at how very real everything suddenly seemed when before it had just been some dream. A fantasy. An imaginary world to escape the loneliness and quietness of her own life. A place where she had been but a passenger in the strange body which had once seemed so alien, foreign, and yet undeniably familiar.

She retched over the bedsheets, emptying the contents of her stomach, whimpering at the sight of blackish blood which stained the sheets she quickly began to scramble out from under. It smelt horrible – foul, and it still dribbled from her lips as she tumbled from the bed, sheets twisted up in her legs.

Her limbs felt awkward then, sensitive and coltish as she dragged herself to sit in front of the mirror. Fingers brushed against the cool, reflective surface, and the face which stared back at her was the same one she had seen before. The same one Inner Sakura had said to be her own. The same face which belonged to Lothris.

Sakura didn’t quite know what to make of that, the odd numbness inside her feeling as though it were a cavernous maw gaping wide to swallow her whole as she sat and stared at the familiar stranger in the mirror.

Dimly, far off in the distance, she heard a wail.

It took a few minutes for her to work out it was her own.

My… Is that a challenge?

Chapter Text

Breathing heavily, she stood in front of the mirror, hands curled around either side of its frame, green eyes wide as she stared at that reflection of hers. Gingerly, she loosened her grip with one hand, fine-boned fingers going to tuck her hair behind one of those pointed ears which looked so foreign and yet so familiar at the same time. She shivered at the touch, fingertips brushing against the pointed helix, eyes widening even further as she let her hand fall back to her side. Her legs ached, a scowl coming to mar that strange face which looked back at her in the mirror. She had barely walked ten metres, and yet she was already out of breath.

Though part of her wanted to attest to the fact that she was truly and utterly freaking out. Where was she? Why was she there? What was going on? Her breath came in short, sharp pants, panic threatening to consume her as she stood there, leant over ever so slightly, feeling exhausted and terribly out of breath. “What…?” she slurred, tongue feeling ever so heavy and slow. Enough to frustrate her so as she turned then.

Her eyes locked on the door leading outside – the same door her hot blonde stranger had always ventured out of. Dimly, she wondered where her hot blonde was right then and there, a scowl curling at her lips as she thought about him. Other than the scattered recollections of those dreams which weren’t apparently dreams, there was little to explain the odd possessiveness she felt for him and the odd sense of security and safety he always granted her in his presence.

Limbs aching, she forced herself towards that door, breathing heavy even as she twisted open the door handle and forced the wooden door open with barely a sound. It was eerily quiet there, as she stepped into the corridor – or perhaps she was simply being too noisy. Sakura wasn’t certain. She didn’t even know if she could still call herself ‘Sakura’ what with how that figure in her mind who’d looked more like Haruno Sakura had than her had called her Lothris.

Breath escaped her in a long sigh, heart beating frantically in her chest. Or maybe that was just the exertion she was forcing upon herself. She wasn’t certain. Part of her felt as though she wasn’t certain of anything anymore, even as she approached the stairs.

She should have been unfazed by stairs, fit and healthy as she was supposed to be, and yet that wasn’t her body. Well, not the one she was used to, anyway. Rather, she had been catapulted from the body of Haruno Sakura into that of Lothris. She wasn’t sure what to think of that. It was as though she had been wearing a blanket of safety the entire time and it had suddenly been ripped away. She felt eerily bare, though maybe that was the fact, for all intents and purposes, she was wearing her nightclothes as she lumbered around the unfamiliar place.

Hands closed around the railing, securing fast around it as she stumbled down the stairs on weak legs. Safely on the ground floor, she stumbled around a bit more before she found a bench in the courtyard gardens. Heaving for breath, she sat down, silently berating her level of fitness. Such a short walk should not have exhausted anyone.

“You should stay in your rooms – where it is safe,” the voice which tickled her memories rang out in her skull, and her brow furrowed as she tried to place it. There was the distinct feeling that she was supposed to know exactly who such a voice belonged to. She was missing something. Something, she was fairly sure would have the answers to everything.

Tiredness pulled at her eyelids, the overwhelming need to sleep making her slump against the bench, part of her still berating the state her body was in. She wondered if she went to sleep – whether she would wake up in the Elemental Nations once more. Though, she wasn’t sure where such a sensation came from, she was fairly certain she wouldn’t. There was the feeling that she would never see Ino again.

Sakura wasn’t sure what to feel about that, much like how she wasn’t certain of how to feel about the fact that Haruno Sakura probably wasn’t her name.

It was supposed to be Lothris, wasn’t it?

“Foolish,” a voice rang out, so similar in tone to the one which had haunted her dreams – her nightmares – all the nights she had slept before. “Do you not realise how unwise it is to provoke my master?” The memory of chaffed wrists, heavy weights around her wrists and ankles dragging her down and down came to her then. “Maitimo was my favourite. I have a feeling you’ll be master’s favourite…” She wondered why she remembered amber eyes, and why they sent shivers down her spine. “Noldo are ever so pretty when they break…”

Sakura groaned, rubbing at her temples, even as sleep came to enfold her in its embrace, leading her off to dreamland and away from the confusing reality which had become her life. “It’s time to wake up—Lothris…”

The sensation of being a passenger, something akin to a puppet on strings, was an eerily familiar phenomenon for her. She wondered if she ought to be concerned by such a fact. Yet there she was, stood on a quiet balcony overlooking glistening, almost black waves which glittered dark blue, teal green, and silver beneath the moonlight. The moon hung high in the sky, the silvery light it radiated bringing back whispers of a memory she couldn’t quite grasp as she was.

He stood at the balcony’s edge, peering down into those unfathomable depths of the ocean on their apparent doorstep. Golden hair spilled over his shoulders, half braided, half left to fall down his back in soft golden waves. Green sleeves were rolled up, revealing pale skin, and fine golden hairs standing up on end as his skin prickled with gooseflesh. He was cold – and that was all Sakura could think of as her body moved without her command, and she shed her own, thick green cloak.

Cool air brushed against her then exposed skin, but the cold was almost a relief. She could never forget being far too warm. Sakura only pondered on why that brought back such strange memories for her. Her cloak settled over his shoulders, startling him from whatever daze he found himself in, and Sakura found herself looking into silvery grey eyes which glowed like faded moonbeams. “My lady?” he stumbled over his words, looking rather taken off-guard by her appearance.

Not that it made her do anything but fasten the clasp of the cloak over his collarbone, and pat him on the cheek. She didn’t say a word, and Sakura could only muse on how that was undoubtedly a memory she was stuck in.

She wondered why all too often her memory-dreams featured her hot blonde. She wondered why she was thinking about him right then. She wondered where he’d been when she had first woken up as Lothris with the distinct impression that she was no longer dreaming.

“My lady,” he spoke hurriedly, almost tripping over his words. “I cannot accept this,” he said, reaching as if to unclasp her cloak. “It is cold—” Her hand reached out once more, patting at his goosebumps on his arm. “You will grow cold in this weather—”

A frown curled at her lips, hands grasping at his own as he fiddled with the clasp she had so carefully done up for him. She stared at him – long enough that he seemed to flinch back and wilt under her stare. Satisfied that he wasn’t about to remove her cloak once more, she nodded, turning on her heel and walking back towards the nearest door inside.

Pink hair fluttered in the breeze behind her, cool air ever so refreshing on her skin, reminding her of freedom, of all things. “Pink,” he murmured, and Sakura felt herself turn, feeling his suddenly rather sorrowful gaze set upon her. “Lady Lóterianna…”

The name made her blink, and Sakura groaned as that name triggered an almighty headache which had her groaning and stirring from her slumber. There was a crook in her back which clicked as she pushed herself to her elbows, noting how she had evidently made herself as comfy as she could, sleeping atop a bench in that still rather unfamiliar land.

Stars above her glittered in the sky, and Sakura could only blink and note that none of them were the same as the ones she had been taught to navigate by as Haruno Sakura.

“Lothris!”

Sakura blinked, supposing then, that she really ought to get used to that name. She wasn’t Haruno Sakura, though calling herself as such was going to take a lot more getting used to. “Huh?” the grunt escaped her before she realised it, and she could only blink as a face appeared in her peripheral.

“What are you doing out here?” the lady with silver hair asked, peering down at her. “Rondil grew worried when you were not in your rooms when he came to check upon you…” she trailed off seeming as though she was more talking to herself than her. Though Sakura supposed that was quite natural. What with how she usually couldn’t make a sound otherwise. Her speech had been ripped from her along with something else. But right then it was back – she was back.

“Sister!” a voice called, silvery hair flying in the gentle breeze which had picked up as the ellon sprinted towards her, almost tripping over the flowerbeds in his haste to get to her. “Sister,” he mumbled, looking relieved upon seeing her there, unharmed.

“Calm yourself, Rondil,” the silver-haired lady spoke, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Your sister is fine. Clearly, she just decided to go for an ill-timed adventure… Had Glorfindel been here, all would have been well…”

“He is due back soon, along with our brothers,” Rondil, her brother, said, and Sakura felt the hazy memories of a chubby-cheeked, red-faced baby crowned with a thick coating of silvery hair. Her younger brother, if she was guessing things correctly. “Silly sister,” he murmured. “We’ve told you time and time again to wait for one of us to escort you if you wish to venture outside…”

A frown marred her face, even as she tried to remember such things. Though evidently they’d happened before she had woken up there. Sakura wasn’t entirely sure what to think about how easily she was accepting everything which had been loaded onto her plate. She didn’t understand why being in that body felt like coming home – really she did, because clearly that was her home, she just didn’t understand how she’d become Haruno Sakura in the first place. She chewed on her lip, worries and confusion coming to gnaw at her belly as she sat up, her brother and the silver lady flittering about her nervously as though she might fall over.

Her legs ached, almost giving out on her, and Sakura could only despise her weakness right then and there. “Easy,” her brother spoke, taking her into his arms as if she weighed nothing more than a feather. “I believe it time you went to the Halls of Healing, anyhow. You were due a check-up around this time. It has been far too long since your last… Though I suppose your prognosis…” he trailed off, and Sakura could see a sheen of unshed tears in his eyes as he rested his chin atop her head almost lovingly.

“There is always hope, Rondil,” silver-haired lady said, staring at him with an intensity which made her brother flinch back ever so slightly.

“Dawn is said to be the hope of men, Lady Celebrían,” he said flatly. “Tell me, what is the hope of elves meant to be?”

The silver-haired lady sighed softly, expression one of sorrow as she glanced between her and her brother. “Come,” she spoke, a note of command in her voice. “I think it time my husband tended to your sister. It has been too long since we have checked her progress.”

Her brother inclined his head in what could only be agreement, and then they were off, and she was left to watch as she found herself carried through hallways, night air cool against her skin while she lamented on the fact that she couldn’t quite walk with her own too feet. Why was she so very weak? Sakura could only ponder on that question, even as she was carried into what could only be the hospital wing. The scent of herbs and fresh linen was thick in the air, and she could only blink and take it all in as she was carried into a private room.

One she had definitely been in before, if the sense of familiarity she received was anything to go by.

“Rondil,” a voice called. “We have need of your expertise – Lord Glorfindel’s patrol has just returned.”

Rondil set her down on the bed, looking torn then between staying with her and going where he was needed. Sakura reached out, patting his arm almost hesitantly, not trusting her dry, disused throat to be up for the task of speaking coherently. “I will be back,” he murmured, retreating a few steps before he pointed to the bed. “Stay,” he ordered.

Lady Celebrían hovered around her bedside for a few more moments, looking worriedly between the door and her. “I will go and fetch my husband,” she said, reaching out then, taking her hands into her own. “Please stay here, Lothris,” she spoke, and Sakura debated on the merits of staying put for all of thirty seconds before she was moving to the long, open window which had a view out onto a peaceful garden.

Her legs weren’t thanking her for throwing herself out the window – and neither was the bush she had landed in – but her sense of curiosity and the wariness of the odd familiarity she felt were being subdued as she hauled herself out of the bush which had bright yellow flowers branching from its stems. Part of her felt bad for destroying the wildlife, whilst the other part of her had her feet moving towards someplace else. She didn’t really have a conscious thought of where she was going – seeing as how she didn’t consciously remember or know where or what was there in that strange place.

Imladris. The name came to her unbidden, but it felt right to call that place just that. “—dris,” she slurred, voice feeling sluggish and awkward. And she totally had a lisp. “Im-laa-dris,” she said again, wondering when exactly her voice would come out as she wished it to.

The place her aching legs had taken her was an armoury. That much was indisputable. Dimly, she wondered if it was something akin to the stores of Konoha which outfitted its shinobi with the weapons they needed, and then some if they had the right permissions or the right amount of money.

Fingers traced over the hilts of the swords on the rack, the familiar sensation of her hands closing around the leathery grip coming to the forefront of her mind. A song hummed in her ears, the melodical sound ringing in her eardrums as she tried, brokenly, to hum along. Metal glinted in the moonlight all of a sudden, voices sounding from close by, but her focus was taken up by the blade which was so clearly on display.

She wondered why she was suddenly catapulted back into her memories – why there was an ellon there, staring down at her so levelly despite the glint of rage in his eyes, as she held the reins to two saddled horses.

“Why,” the ellon asked, some wry, aplomb amusement flashing fleetingly across his face as he stood there, staring at her, “is it that you seem to be able to predict my every move?”

She remembered a smile breaking across her face at that. “Perhaps, your majesty, since I have known you for so long,” she said, voice coming out as she wished, strong and resolute.

Humour fled from his face as he stood there, rage coming to the forefront of his expression. “You cannot persuade me otherwise – I care not how long you have been by my side, nor of my brother’s pleas which you have undoubtedly listened and kept in your heart all this time.”

One eyebrow arched up. “Your majesty, I apologise for my impoliteness, but are you blind?” she asked, some small part of her relishing in the almost adorably confused expression which flitted over his face. “I have saddled our horses. I do not intend to stop you – in fact, I believe no force on this earth could…”

Tears trailed down over her cheeks, the memory, the fondness in her chest weeping like an open wound as she stared down at the familiar blade which she had taken in her hands. It was old, signs of repair and careful care clear to her eye as she stared down at the blade he had wielded – the dark-haired ellon in her memories. “Rin…gil…” she murmured brokenly, throat aching, eyes burning as she stared at the clear Quenya script carved into the blade so very carefully.

Her fingers ran down the flat of the blade before they returned to its hilt. She grasped the sword then, lifting it with almost unbearably weak arms. The weight of a blade felt ever so right in her hands.

“Lothris!”

The shout made her startle, and she turned a little too quickly, almost losing her balance as she spun to face the one who had called her name. Her hot blonde had returned, his name on the tip of her tongue as she stared at him, named blade in hand.

“Sister!” Sakura blinked, spying two more ellyn as she stood there, dumbfounded and slightly embarrassed at letting herself be caught exploring. She had lived as a shinobi for years, and they were supposed to be masters of stealth. “What are you doing here?” The red-haired one stepped forwards, looming almost menacingly over her. “You should be in the Halls of Healing. Rondil just said that you were supposed to be there, awaiting healing… or a check-up…” he trailed off, green eyes peering into her matching ones, as if finally noticing her tears. “You… are crying…” he murmured, stepping towards her.

Sakura stumbled backwards, knowing they wanted to take that blade away from her. She didn’t want to lose her grip on it – didn’t want to lose it the same way she had lost that ellon.

“Sister,” the silver-haired one who wasn’t Rondil spoke, holding out his hands in a placating manner. “How about we head on over to the Halls of Healing?” he asked gently, approaching her almost hesitantly. “We can leave that blade here – it will still be here when you next come back.”

Alagon – that was the red-haired one’s name, she remembered belatedly – edged ever closer, and clearly he knew her better than she did herself. Namely the limits of her own body. She had pushed herself a bit too much, she realised as black spots began to fill her vision.

“Easy,” Alagon murmured, and Sakura could only stare at Ringil as it was placed back on the nearest shelf. Her legs had given out on her, breathing laboured as her brother all but held her up.

“That blade,” her hot blonde said, grey eyes cutting to her own. “Lothris,” he mumbled, stepping ever closer to her. “Do you—”

“We should get her to the Halls of Healing,” Alagon interrupted. “She has exhausted herself… How could Rondil allow this to happen?” he muttered, shaking his head, and Sakura groaned as she felt herself jostled up into his arms. Her being princess carried everywhere was becoming too much of a reoccurring theme there. She wasn’t entirely sure she liked it right then.

She wondered if it was because it wasn’t her hot blonde doing the lifting. Glorfindel, her mind corrected silently, and Sakura could only glance over at the ellon who always brought her an alarming sense of comfort and safety. “—findel,” she murmured, tiredness clawing her eyelids shut as her cheek pressed itself against her brother’s collar and sleep came for her once more.

Noise was what finally stirred her from her slumber.

The hubbub was hard to ignore, and Sakura could only groan softly as her eyelids fluttered open and she was greeted by a ceiling and numerous faces in her peripheral. She recognised all of them, though there was one new addition.

Lord Elrond sat at her bedside, a circlet sitting pretty atop his head, and vaguely, Sakura recalled seeing him in a great hall, dressed in finery and looking longingly at a silver-haired figure as she passed. “You have woken,” he said, and she stared at him incredulously. That much was obvious. A smile curled at his lips. “You have never worn such an expression before me before,” he murmured, and those words stirred another memory deep from the recesses of her mind.

“You are blunt, curt, at times insufferably rude, and the intricacies and politics of court are oftentimes lost upon you – but I like that,” the same ellon from before told her. “Though I should not forget that you are loyal to a fault. I suppose that is why I put up with you as much as I do.”

“Well, that, and your wife is rather fond of me,” she replied, a cheeky grin on her lips.

“You,” he announced, “are insufferable.”

“Why thank you, my lord,” she said, still grinning, watching as he rolled his eyes at her. She didn’t miss the slight curve of his lips as he did though. Sakura wondered why that memory was like a knife to the chest as she blinked up at Lord Elrond.

“Your fae is whole once more,” Lord Elrond said, as though that was supposed to mean something to her. Dimly, she wondered why nothing from her memories decided to come forwards to explain what exactly was going on – some thought to give her more understanding and insight into exactly what he spoke of. “Although, perhaps it would be more apt to say that the parts were missing have come back, but they have yet to assimilate to what they once were…”

“Noldo are ever so pretty when they break,” that voice murmured in her ear, and shivers rolled down her spine at that.

“Lothris,” Glorfindel murmured, drawing her attention to how he, of all people, was sitting at her bedside, reaching out to clutch her hands in his own, a smile curving at his lips as he did so.

“Though I fear this has not been without it’s effects,” Lord Elrond said, voice cutting through the happy atmosphere which had begun to descend on the four ellyn surrounding her bedside. “Tell me, Lady Lothris,” he spoke, and Sakura had the distinct impression she wouldn’t like what he was about to say – even as he handed her over a glass of water which she drank from greedily. “Your memories… of everything up until this very day, how are they?”

Sakura blinked, wondering just how she was supposed to answer that for a few moments. Some memories were coming back to her – and it was almost scary how quickly she had stopped thinking of herself as a shinobi of the Elemental Nations. She didn’t belong there. “Mud-dled,” she decided on, staring determinedly at her toes.

Rondil sucked in a sharp breath, and the only brother whose name she couldn’t remember looked at her, eyes wide in concern. “What do you mean?” her brother demanded, looking frantically between her and Lord Elrond.

“Nírorn,” Lord Elrond said, and the sound of his name shut her silvery-haired brother up quicker than anything else. “You must understand, your sister’s – Lothris’s – case was the first and only case such as this.”

“My…” A grin crept into her memories, white teeth glinting even as his face was cast in shadow, deep and terrible. Amber eyes burnt into her own, cold and cruel, as a voice which made the mountains tremble echoed in her ears. “Is that a challenge?”

Mentally, she shook her head, pushing that thought – that memory – away. She didn’t think she wanted to remember that. Whatever ‘that’ was.

“Oh, Lady Lóterianna,” a voice whispered, soft and gentle. “What has he done to you?”

“Your voice is not up to the task of speaking much, is it?” Lord Elrond asked, gaze soft and gentle as he stared at her with something like pity and happiness. “I would advise nodding and shaking your head to answer – or perhaps would you like something to write with?”

Sakura shook her head.

“Tell me, Lady Lothris,” he said, and Sakura could only ponder on why he called her a lady. “Do you remember our first meeting?”

She shook her head once more, frowning as she tried to desperately remember something about the almost insufferably kind ellon before her. She didn’t mind insufferability. She had once been insufferable herself.

“It matters not,” Lord Elrond said. “I am sure they will return to you in time.” He took her hand from Glorfindel then, and Sakura could only blink as he seemed to greet her like one did a noble lady. “It is an honour, then, Lady Lothris, to both meet you once more and to have known you these past years.”

Sakura felt her brow furrow.

“You are rather infamous,” he answered her unspoken question. “Though perhaps for reasons which would be better for you to not remember…”

Chapter Text

“Lothris.”

The sound of her name there in that strange place made her stir from her daydreams, and she pulled her gaze from the moonlight which filtered through the window. She was still in the Halls of Healing, where she had been situated for most of the day. Though, admittedly, she had slept most of the day away, recovering as she apparently was.

That was what everyone told her, time and time again.

“You’re recovering,” was what they said whenever she tried to do anything besides sit placidly in her bed in the Halls of Healing. She might as well have been living there by that point, and she had her suspicions she had been a very frequent patient for all how the healers seemed to know her – and they knew her well. Given how nobody seemed to know about Haruno Sakura, she could only wonder exactly what it was she was recovering from. She occasionally found herself wondering why her body was as weak as it was… why there was an aching, numbing tiredness which clawed at her eyes… and yet there was a part of her which was fairly certain she didn’t want to know, though she had the strangest feeling that nothing in her mind would care to acknowledge such a wish.

Her mind had never been her own – not truly, as far as she could remember, besides those snippets of another life lived which haunted both her waking hours and her nightmares themselves. She had never actually been Haruno Sakura, and it was that very thought which was chewing at her mind whenever she dared to think about the matter. She wondered why it always circled back to memories of amber eyes which gleamed with unspoken cruelty and those cold murmurings about Noldo.

She was Noldo, or so she had slowly come to realise, and everyone around her seemed to be treading on eggshells when it came to mentioning her past. Frustration simmered beneath her skin, followed by the unending confusion and fear of not knowing who she was. She was supposed to be Lothris, and she was supposed to be Lóterianna, and yet all she knew of was Haruno Sakura. The same person who didn’t exist there, so to speak. Haruno Sakura belonged under different stars which she didn’t have the first clue of how exactly she had arrived beneath.

“Lothris,” the same voice called, and she startled from her thoughts.

She blinked, turning to face her younger brother then – or who she assumed to be her younger brother, given how she had the vaguest of memories of a small baby crowned with wispy, silvery locks. “Rondil,” she acknowledged, peering at him curiously, as if his face could give her the answer to many of the questions swirling around in her own head.

“Are you… well?” he asked, staring at her then – as if speaking without thought before he winced. “That was a foolish question. Of course you are not well…” he trailed off, seeming lost for words as he stared at her.

“Am okay,” she answered, voice sounding as hoarse and disused as ever – though she was working on changing that fact. Her brother slid a glass of water over to her, and she nodded in acknowledgement at that. “You?” she questioned, raising an eyebrow and looking at him pointedly.

“Oh, me? I am fine – in fact, our family has never been better, now that you are recovering after all these years,” he said, and there was a familiarity and fondness to his expression. As if he had made that face at her thousands of times before.

Yet she couldn’t remember that much, and the feeling burnt. She might as well have been a stranger for all she knew—and part of her almost felt as if she was a stranger. How else was she supposed to describe people who it felt as though she were meeting for the first time? But she wasn’t meeting them for the first time. They were her family, and yet they were strangers to her, and she wasn’t quite sure if they knew her as she was right then.

“Tell me,” she spoke, brow furrowing at just how bad her speech was. And yet she was technically speaking a completely different language to the one she had spoken to Naruto and Sasuke, wasn’t she? Sakura tilted her head, looking out through the window at the moon which hung up in the sky. “You… named after the moon?” she murmured, reaching out then, weaving one small braid of silver hair through her fingers.

“Yes,” Rondil said, patiently letting her and her clumsy fingers play with his hair for a few moments before taking her hand in his own. “Mother liked to tell me of how you leant over the cot I’d been placed into and declared my hair to be as pale as the moonlight,” he explained, glancing out towards the moon and where it hung heavy in the twilight skies above them. “Father took inspiration from that and named me Rondil, or, rather, the Quenya version… back when we still used that language daily… before it was associated with—” his words cut off, expression darkening for a brief moment. “Well, I suppose that does not matter all that much right now. My father name, and that is the name I prefer to go by, as opposed to our brothers. Though I suppose we are the same in the fact that we both opted to use our Father Names… and perhaps the matter that they are both rooted in our hair colouration somewhat,” Rondil added, reaching out then to fiddle around with her own hair. “Although your hair is a far more unique colouration than my own.”

“It is pretty,” she reminded, searching then for the words to describe just how ethereal that particular shade of silver was when the moonlight shone through it at the right angle. But the spoken word wasn’t her greatest friend right there and then.

“Why thank you, dearest sister,” he murmured, smiling at her ever so prettily. “What… do you remember, am I allowed to ask?” he spoke, his voice ever so hesitant as he sat there with her at her bedside – perched there as he had been for who knew how many hours?

“Bits… pieces,” she answered, figuring that she had no other choice than but to be honest – but perhaps not reveal everything. She was there, separated from the life she had once known, and once thought of as her only life. Part of her was still acclimatising herself to the fact that it wasn’t the only life she’d had. “There is… an ellon,” she said, remembering the one who had looked at her with so much sorrow, even as she reached for her glass of water to take a sip. “Blonde. He asks what happened,” she explained, eyes growing distant as she that particular memory came to the forefront of her mind.

“Glorfindel?” Rondil tilted his head, and she turned to him.

She shook her head at that. “Different. Wore a circlet. Fancy,” she said, wondering then if she was making any sense as she gestured to her head. “He lifted me up… since I could not walk,” she rambled, remembering then the way she had been lifted up so carefully. As if she were something precious – as if she’d been someone beloved by many. “I think,” she said, pausing to take a breath as she remembered the four walls that—her thoughts ground to a halt. “A prison… what I was being carried out of.”

Fingers dug into her arm, grounding her there in the present moment. “Finarfin, then,” Rondil murmured, eyes shadowed – haunted by an event long passed. “They found you there, when they were clearing Angband. I felt my bond to your snap long before; both of our brothers did, and we mourned you then—it’s why… well, it’s why everyone thought that you had long since passed. We thought that you dwelled within the Halls of Mandos, awaiting re-embodiment alongside our once-king.” His shoulders sunk, unshed tears pooling in his eyes. “Oh how wrong we were.”

Sakura reached out, grabbing a hold of his shoulder. “Here now,” she reminded, eyes meeting his grey ones that focused back on the present.

“So you are,” he murmured, closing his eyes and leaning into her shoulder, wrapping her up in a gentle hug. “So you are…” he repeated, as if reminding himself of that fact. “Please do not go anywhere again,” he pleaded, and Sakura found herself hugging him back awkwardly with one free arm.

“I will not,” she promised, pressing her lips to his forehead in a way which came naturally to her. He was her baby brother, after all. She was an elder sister. A frown came to mar her forehead, even as she hugged her little brother.

Haruno Sakura had never had brothers – or any kind of sibling, really – and part of her could only wonder on how the actions of an elder sister came to her so easily. Because evidently she had been one before, she mused, closing her eyes and humming softly under her breath. She had been an older and a younger sister long before she had become Haruno Sakura with no siblings to speak of. A sigh escaped her at that, even as her brother relinquished his hold on her.

“Tell me more,” she demanded, curiosity of her past ignited.

“It is not a happy tale,” Rondil warned.

“Is my tale,” she said matter-of-factly. “One… cannot remember. I want to,” she added, wanting to facepalm then at just how broken her Sindarin was. “Please?”

Rondil closed his eyes, a soft smile pulling at his lips. “I cannot deny you that, sister,” he murmured. “I would not even want to,” he added, reaching out to grab a hold of her hand, as if to remind himself that she was there. That she was whole once more, whatever that meant. “You must have been taken captive at the time you accompanied the then-High King of the Noldor, Fingolfin, to the gates of Angband. What happened to you then, not even our greatest healers could explain, nor could a maia,” he explained. “Eönwë accompanied those who wished to clear Angband and rescue our people. He could not say much besides the fact that your fae had been severed, and note the presence of unlight – but that is all. The mechanism behind how your fae was severed is something that perhaps you or… Morgoth,” he spat the name, the word alone conjuring up images of a tall, cruel figure with amber eyes that burnt her underneath the weight of that gaze, “alone knows. Forgive me, sister, but there is a part of me that hopes you never remember that much.” He grabbed a hold of her hand, fingers tracing the veins just about visible through her skin. “It would be a kindness to forget that much forever.”

“Torture,” she mumbled, knowing what he spoke of for what it was. T&I had been something like the bread and butter of shinobi. Yet Lothris had not been a shinobi.

“Fae… I do not know how much you remember or know, sister, but though the fae and the rhaw can naturally be separated through death… fading, if you wish… the fae itself is never supposed to be severed into multiple pieces. Lord Eönwë theorised that it was only possible because unlight is not something of The World That Is. Ungoliant came from the beyond the shadows of Arda,” Rondil explained, and Sakura could only blink at the echo of what could only be a dream.

Spiders generally weren’t the size of mountains, and they didn’t usually snack on glowing trees… Sakura tilted her head. “Ungoliant?” she echoed.

“A spider the size of the mountains,” her brother answered, and Sakura could only blink blankly at that.

Apparently she stood corrected – and there were spiders the size of mountains there, she mused, a deep, primal fear of spiders then surfacing. There hadn’t been spiders that large in the Elemental Nations, her brain informed her, and part of her almost wanted to go back to the days when she didn’t have to worry about giant spiders that could easily prey on her adult-sized human form.

“Ungoliant… she destroyed the Two Trees, casting the world back into the barest amount of light in the form of stars,” her brother explained, and Sakura could only draw her knees to her chest, resting her chin atop her kneecaps and watching as Rondil recounted the history of that place to her.

“Is our little brother reciting history tales at you?” a familiar voice interrupted Rondil’s latest story about a group of seven brothers, their father, and the Oath – with a capital O – that they had taken. “I thought you were a healer, not a historian,” Alagon, her red-haired brother, remarked, even as he slid into a seat on the other side of her bed.

“Lord Elrond was kind enough to permit me to look after out sister as she recovers,” Rondil said, folding his arms and looking sternly at their older brother then. “And in case you have forgot, our sister’s memories are muddled. Forgive me if I simply did as she asked, and tell her tales of the history she wishes to know—”

“It would seem my jest hit a rather sore spot,” Alagon acknowledged, staring at Rondil then with an abject fondness. “You like your history, brother, and it shows. There is nothing wrong with that much,” he said, and Rondil merely blinked.

“Our histories mention our sister and the yén before tragedy came to our doorstep and dwelt for two ages gone,” Rondil murmured. “Isn’t it only natural that I would long for the days when we dwelt in Aman peacefully, before we fled with the host of Fingolfin for these cursed shores,” he said. “A land where we had to fight for happiness and peace. A land which has only taken things from us time and time again.”

“History… cannot be changed,” she interjected, frowning at Alagon as he grabbed a hold of her other hand with his own.

“Indeed,” Alagon murmured. “It cannot, even if you are unable to recall your own past in these lands.”

“Time,” she said, part of her simply knowing that in time, the answers would come to her. It was almost uncanny to her – with how much certainty there was behind that belief.

Alagon merely frowned at her. “Though I am eager to spend time with you, sister, more so now that you have recovered greatly, I’m afraid there is someone who wishes to spend time with you whose request I simply could not ignore—”

Sakura looked at him, eyebrow raised.

“Glorfindel wishes to see you, if you will permit him,” he explained, and Sakura could only smile at the thought of seeing the person who until recently she had mostly thought of as her hot blonde. The thought brought a grin to her face.

“Please,” she said, nodding in agreement.

“Then I will go and fetch him,” Alagon said, squeezing her hand once before climbing to his feet and leaving the room to go and fetch her… Sakura cocked her head, wondering then exactly what name she was supposed to put to the relationship that she had with Glorfindel – and it was a relationship that she couldn’t quite remember beyond fragments of shattered memories.

“I suppose you will want to speak with him alone,” Rondil murmured, looking over at the door as it clicked back open.

“Yes.” She nodded once more. “Would not mind?”

“Of course not, sister,” he said, even as Alagon returned with her… beloved in tow. “I suppose I shall leave you to it, then,” he added, glancing over at Glorfindel and nodding at him as he made his way to the door. “I shall return later, Lothris.”

Sakura hummed in acknowledgement, glancing between her brother still left in the room and the ellon she felt nothing but affection and adoration for. And perhaps a glimmer of lust for too, she mused, meeting his gaze as he looked at her ever so intently.

“I will see you later, Lothris,” Alagon said, nodding at her once. “I will drag Nírorn by the tips of his pointy ears if I must, but we will have a family gathering later. The first proper one we’ve had in quite some time,” he added in a voice so soft Sakura wasn’t sure she was supposed to hear, the door closing behind him with a soft click as he left her alone with her hot blonde. A smile curved at her lips at the thought, even as she shuffled to the other side of the bed and patted the empty space next to her pointedly.

“Come. Sit,” she said, patting the spot next to her, remembering fondly then, when she had thought the life unfolding around her was nothing more than a dream. Before she had seen the differences between Lothris and Haruno Sakura in a mirror within her subconsciousness. At least, she presumed that was what that space she had lingered in before she had woke up as Lothris.

She was probably supposed to start thinking of herself as Lothris. She had never truly been Haruno Sakura, no matter how confusing that matter was for everyone involved including her. Yet those seventeen years of being called Haruno Sakura made up most of her memories, and habits ingrained by those years were hard to shift. Idly, she wondered what Inner – and the actual Haruno Sakura – was up to right then and there.

The bed shifted, mattress sinking beneath the sudden added weight, and she looked at the face that she thought she knew the best out of even those of her brothers. She supposed that was because, technically, he was in her first memory of those lands.

“Lothris,” Glorfindel greeted, sounding somewhat hesitant.

“Glorfindel,” she responded in kind, leaning into the warmth of his body, making herself as comfy as she could and sighing in relief from the familiarity of it all. “Miss me?”

“I was under the impression that your memories were muddled,” he said, looking at her consideringly. “Does that not include your memories of me?”

“You. First memory… I remember, is of you,” she explained, wishing then, that her Sindarin would hurry up and return to what she thought it had once been – that been fluent and not oddly disjointed. There was a disconnect between the language of the Elemental Nations that she remembered speaking for seventeen-odd years, her brain, and the Sindarin she was fairly certain she’d spoken for far longer than seventeen sun years.

A smile overtook his lips at that, eyes fond and somewhat proud for some reason. “I see,” he murmured. “Am I allowed to know what memory that might be?”

“Us. Lying together in bed,” Sakura stated. “Before we… came here to this place,” she murmured, looking around the room then, as if something somewhere would remind her of what that place was called. She thought someone had mentioned it before, but her memories were scattered and disjointed at best.

“Imladris,” Glorfindel said, as if he had read her mind. Or perhaps she was just that obvious and Glorfindel knew her all too well? She blinked at him. “I suppose I ought to have caught onto the fact that perhaps you were recovering after I received a report of you relieving an orc of its head with just a kick,” he murmured, an arm coming up to rest itself around her shoulders, and she leant into the embrace that much more.

“Mn,” she hummed. “Remember that.”

“Your master taught you well… to think that you were injured so grievously and could still manage that much,” he acknowledged, and Sakura merely shifted her head so she could hear his heartbeat and its repetitive soothing sound. A reminder that they were both alive and relatively well in those lands her brother had called cursed.

“My master?” she echoed, thinking then of the master that Haruno Sakura had; all blonde hair with fists that were very much capable of crushing entire armies. They had gone against Uchiha Madara and lived to spite him.

“So you remember me first over one of the Valar?” Glorfindel murmured, sounding infinitely smug and satisfied at that. “How delightful. Yet I feel as though I should inform you that this is one of the reasons you are so renowned – particularly within this day and age. There are not many on these shores in this Third Age of the Sun who can claim to have had the direct tutelage of a Vala. Those relationships belonged to an age long passed, long before the sun and moon were sent to roam the skies above.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow at him, and evidently he heard the silent request for him to continue telling her those tales of years long gone by. Years that she hoped and believed that one day she would remember too.

“Tulkas, whom you studied under, never took another student besides you,” he informed. “Tales say that… well, he was not good with counsel, nor with teaching. His strength came to him naturally, the song surrounding his fists not something so easily taught. I saw him from time to time, when I dwelt on the shores of Aman before I was sent back to these lands, and upon seeing you once more, I finally saw his echo in you.”

“Echo…” she echoed.

“Indeed,” Glorfindel said, leaning back against the headboard as he shifted to make himself more comfortable. “There are similarities between master and student, both in their skill and their temperament, it seems. Slow to wrath; though I suppose you were always determined to have all the facts before making final judgement. Your master was far more quick to action, though perhaps you learnt from his examples. Yet you were also as stubborn as a mule – hard-headed to a fault. Once you decided on a course of action you could not be dissuaded easily. A hardy friend, the histories call you,” he explained, looking wistful. “You were a loyal to a fault, and you would not abide those you called friends to face evils by themselves. I suspect that defining characteristic of yours led you to accompany our then-High King to the Gates of Angband… to his and your doom,” he murmured. “I have no idea why your fae did not flee to the Halls when it was severed…”

“Am here now,” she reminded, looking back out up at the moon – as if that would have the answers to all her struggles. “I am back,” she said carefully, endeavouring to say a proper, complete sentence.

“For that I can only be glad,” he murmured, resting his head atop her own. “Though a part of me cannot help but feel as though I might have taken advantage of you in your injured state…”

Sakura pushed herself to her elbows, turning around to face him and look him in the eyes in confusion. “How so?” she questioned hesitantly.

“I have long since harboured feelings for you, if only from afar,” he said, and Sakura could only blink at the heat that suffused through her cheeks at the incredibly direct way that he was speaking. It wasn’t as if a lot of people had ever come up to her when she’d been Haruno Sakura and told her they adored her in that manner. That was something new, mildly embarrassing, incredibly flattering, and generally had her flailing about inside. “Yet I only grew closer to you after your memory and fae had been impaired and damaged… in a way that  meant you were, perhaps, not able to fully understand or reciprocate – or refuse ­– my feelings for you,” he stated, and she swallowed thickly at that, pondering on his words then.

She thought then – desperately trying to work out what she wanted, knowing then inside her there was a longing for him. The main memories she had as Lothris mostly featured him, and there was no denying the sense of comfort he brought to her. “Comfort,” she tried to explain, a familiar frustration building within her at all the ways she felt as though she were lacking right then and there. “I… do not remember much,” she stumbled her way through explaining, taking her time speaking. “You are comforting. To me, that is…” she said. “I like you, that… I know. Not certain if it is love… but think it could be… in time,” she stated.

“I don’t suppose you have any recollection of how we first met?” Glorfindel asked, tilting his head in question.

“Cloak?”

His lips quirked up into a smile. “Yes, that’s right,” he said. “I was relaxing by myself on one of the balconies within the Court of Lindon, and I suddenly found myself accosted by an elleth attempting to give me a cloak.”

Sakura found herself smiling then. “Looked cold.”

“We have both crossed the Grinding Ice – at the same time nonetheless,” he said matter-of-factly, a shadow crossing his face so swiftly she could have blinked and missed it. “No other cold comes close to that…”

She frowned, memories stirring then of bitingly cold winds that nipped at her nose and anything not covered beneath cloak and clothing. She remembered Rondil’s face, half-covered by the hood he wore, nose and cheeks covered by a thin cloth in an attempt to keep the freezing winter at bay. She knew the sounds ice made when cracking, and she had become familiar with where to step on ice that shuddered and shifted with every step they took over it and the deadly waters beneath. “Had a name in Quenya…”

“Helcaraxë,” Glorfindel supplied, and she shivered then at the ghost of the memory. “You remember it then?” he asked, looking at her plainly.

“A fragment,” she mumbled.

“Perhaps it is for the best you only remember a fragment of those memories,” he murmured. “I would rather you remember the good times before the bad… Though perhaps, when you are feeling up to it, we could take a tour of the galleries and see if that stirs any of your memories.”

“Galleries?” she asked.

“Artwork depicting the past,” Glorfindel explained. “We have quite the collection – and it has been collected throughout the years. Imladris’ painters did quite some restorative work on some of those pieces. You occasionally liked to watch them work. I think you found it soothing to watch… or perhaps you knew what some of those scenes depicted were.”

“Feel fine now,” she stated, looking at him pointedly, throwing her legs out from under the covers.

The mattress shifted, a soft sigh coming from behind her as he vacated the bed as well. “Of course,” he said, voice a mix of fondness and exasperation. “There is that bull-headedness of yours. I’m glad that has not changed.”

“Nor will it,” she declared, earning herself a laugh even as he offered a hand to her.

“Let us visit the galleries, then, my lady.”

Chapter Text

The hallways were eerily quiet, but Sakura supposed they had the late hour to blame for that much. Or perhaps that place was simply quieter than she was used to… She swallowed thickly at that, the sound far too loud amidst the quiet of the late evening.

“It’s… quiet,” she said, breaking the strangely comfortable silence which had fallen between them for a few moments since leaving her room there in the Halls of Healing.

“That it is,” Glorfindel remarked, leading her then over to the edge of the walkway which overlooked what could only be the majority of the rest of Imladris. “Though I suppose that might be because the night is a time of rest for most.”

“Does that make us odd, being out and about, then?” she asked, squeezing the hand that was holding her own.

“Well, you have been resting for most of the daylight hours,” he said, and she only hummed in acknowledgement of that fact because she had been all but forced to rest, lest her family – her brothers, older and younger – start fretting over her. “It is not that odd that you would want to wander when you have been cooped up in one room for a long period of time.”

“A long period of time,” she echoed, taking her time with the words that still came to her just a bit too stilted. “I thought smallest measurement of time passing was a yén…” The remark surprised her, part of her knowing that was one-hundred-and-forty-four sun years. A soft sigh escaped her at the sheer time scale she was living with, the smaller, more subdued part of her simply going I know to every piece of information that shocked the better half of her.

The ‘better’ part of her that still tried to cling to the illusion that she was still, somehow Haruno Sakura despite the truths being revealed before her very eyes.

Then again, she was Lothris of the Firstborn, not Haruno Sakura who lived in a world where the Firstborn didn’t even exist. The distinction sounded so simple when put like that, and yet her memories of Lothris were fragmented and lost.

He laughed then, the sound stirring her from her reverie, and all she could do was watch him ever so curiously. “Perhaps,” he murmured. “Yet we are focused on the here and now, which passes us by in hours and minutes, rather than sun years… though there will be many of those ahead of us as well,” he said, looking out across their home in that Third Age.

“So we are,” she mumbled, tugging on his hand then, curiosity and irritation at just how much she was missing stirring within her as she just stood there, looking at her new, current, and old home. All of those descriptors applied. “Galleries?” she requested, tilting her head in question, her gaze turning somewhat pleading. “Want to see them.”

“You are quite impatient today, it seems,” Glorfindel acknowledged, leading her back down the corridor, their moment of respite passed.

“Wouldn’t you?” she asked, tilting her head as they walked down the hallway together. “If you could not remember much.”

He hummed under his breath at that, a contemplative look flashing across his face so quickly she could have blinked and missed it. “I have never lost any of my memories, so I do not think I could speak on that,” he said, appearing puzzled then. “There are many events I wish I could forget from time to time, and yet those made me who I am today.”

Sakura sighed ever so softly. “Memories… experiences… make us who we are,” she murmured, allowing herself to be pulled into a large room that she presumed to be part of the galleries she was so eager to see. “Who are we then, without them?”

Who was ‘she’ supposed to be without the memories and experiences of Lothris?

How was she supposed to be Lothris, when all she could remember was being Haruno Sakura and nothing else?

“Is that not a question that you could answer far more astutely than I?” he questioned, one eyebrow rising up in query. “I can only imagine how it would be to lose years upon years of memories, and yet there are nuances to an individual’s situation. You… The events leading up to your memory loss are unknown, and yet widely speculated upon, and there is a very firm consensus as to the fact that it was far from painless for you…”

She swallowed thickly at the reminder, her mind feeling fuzzy as she mused over what exactly had happened, and the ever present question of whether she really wanted to know the answer to it. Yet that was merely one of many memories that she had misplaced. They were just lost, and she knew that one day she would find them. She had to. Otherwise she might never begin to think of herself as Lothris over Haruno Sakura – and that was who she was supposed to be.

That was who she needed to be.

“We have arrived,” Glorfindel said as they swept out of the corridor and into the larger rooms off on one side, gesturing then to the nearest painting hung up on the wall. “These are the paintings you wished to see,” he added, tugging on her hand then to guide her closer to the nearest piece. “They are arranged in chronological order.”

“So these are… oldest pieces?” she questioned, fighting the urge to go closer and run her fingers over the paint – and the tapestry it was next to. Yet she hardly wanted to be the cause of the next round of restoration work being needed, so admiring the artwork from a safe distance it was.

“Yes, these are the oldest pieces,” he remarked, gesturing then to the framed piece closest to them which depicted some sort of lamps amidst the darkness of a painted night sky. “Though, I suppose I ought to say that these are not necessarily the oldest, rather, they depict the oldest scenes or tales,” he added. “The Children of Ilúvatar had yet to wake in the Age of the Lamps, so most depictions tend to come about from word of mouth and the artists own imagination,” he explained, and all Sakura could do was blink and stare at the numerous paintings lining all sides of the room. “This particular section mostly encompasses the Years of the Trees; First Age and Second Age – of the Sun, that is – their paintings are in the next room over.” He lifted an arm, guiding her gaze to the archway that presumably led to the next section of the little gallery.

Sakura glanced around, eyes never daring to linger on one spot of dried paint for too long. Her head was ringing, part of her almost feeling like she was on the edge of something or another. A realisation about her life there, or the fleeting glimpses of another memory – she wasn’t sure.

Her eyes caught on the colour pink, gaze narrowing on the painting depicting what looked like a ball—

“Would you care to dance, my lady?”

The memory washed over her like a mist rolling in from the ocean, her mind going back however many thousands of years to the ballroom where the musicians had played, and she had danced amidst all the other party-goers. A hall full of whirling ballgowns and formal-wear, a parade of swirling bright silks, as they danced in unison in the middle of the floor. She remembered him, her king – though he hadn’t been a king just yet, the part of her which actually seemed to remember told herself – sat there with his brothers, whilst his older half-brother had been glaringly absent. But that wasn’t a surprise, she mused, stiffening then as she wondered just how she knew that much.

Obviously because those were her memories, part of her mused, shoulders sinking as that familiar irritation simmered back to the surface.

It felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under her feet, the blatantly obvious clues that she was very much not Haruno Sakura surfacing and making her feel like that much more of a fool for not noticing it sooner. So why did she still refer to herself as ‘Sakura’? She tilted her head, wondering that, as more and more memories returned to her, whether she might grow more comfortable with the name Lothris.

“Lothris?” A gentle touch came at her shoulder, stirring herself from her thoughts before they could begin to spiral. “Are you quite alright?”

She blinked, the memory of that ballroom with its music and twirling figures vanishing like smoke on the wind. “I… am well,” she mumbled, feeling herself lean into that presence at her side. It was a comforting thing, she realised. Something which had been there for a very long time, even when she wasn’t quite herself. A soft sigh escaped her. “Just… memories,” she mumbled, still trying to piece together the puzzle she only had a few pieces of.

“Then I suppose coming to the galleries was quite a good idea,” Glorfindel said evenly as they moved along into the next room and away from the artwork of glowing trees that brought odd wistful feelings to the forefront of her mind. “Provided you are ready for your memories to return…”

“Why would I not?” she asked, wondering just why she was asking him that when she didn’t even really know the answer to that herself. “Be, uh, ready, I mean?” she added, wishing for the day that her words would flow that much more smoothly.

It was grating to not be able to say what she wanted, her mind fumbling for the words she knew subconsciously.

Then again, Lothris, as she was, hadn’t spoken properly in thousands of years…

It was almost strange to think about how it had only been a matter of days since she’d so confidently thought of herself as Haruno Sakura. And Haruno Sakura could actually speak properly… She tilted her head at that. Was that just yet another strike against her? More proof that she was Lothris even when she still thought of herself as that Haruno Sakura whose appearance didn’t even match her own as it was right then and there.

“Not all memories are good,” he answered, his gaze falling upon a particular painting then, and Sakura couldn’t help but follow his gaze. “There is the good, the bad, and the bittersweet, or so I have found… and not everyone has the same amount of each,” he said, his eyes still lingering on that painting, and Sakura could only scrutinise it and wonder exactly what that particular piece of artwork meant to him.

A white city met her gaze, its expanse littered with fountains, and she could almost hear the sounds of the flutes that a few people within the frame were playing. “Gondolin.” The name came to her unbidden, slipping from her lips without much thought.

Sakura blinked, brow furrowing in the next second. She knew more than she realised, she was coming to understand with every passing moment she spent there as Lothris. As the elleth she was supposed to be instead of the human she’d apparently been playing as for the past seventeen or so years of her life. Yet seventeen years was a rather short time, or so she realised, compared to the thousands that Lothris undoubtedly lived. That she undoubtedly had lived through…

Just the thought of it had a gaping chasm opening in her gut as her probably irrational human sentiments that she shouldn’t have had, met a tidal wave of elven logic.

“You would be correct,” Glorfindel remarked, a soft smile playing on his lips, and Sakura wondered what memories that painting brought back for him. “I called Gondolin my home for the majority of the First Age.”

“What happened?” she asked, watching as a dark shadow seemed to flash across his face so quickly that she could have blinked and missed it.

A frown curled at her lips, and she went to his side, hand reaching for his own. He turned to her then, a fond expression on his face as he looked at her. “Always so concerned for my wellbeing,” he murmured, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she stood there, looking at him in confusion and concern.

“Why would I not be?” she questioned, her eyes darting down to their intertwined fingers. He’d been there for her throughout it all. Patchy memories, she might have had – yet even she knew that much. It was why the very act of being close to him brought her the simplest of comforts. “You stayed with me”—she trailed off, mind struggling to find the words in the dusty recesses of her brain—“through it all…”

“That is not something you should feel indebted to me for,” he said. “I did that because I wanted to… for admittedly rather selfish reasons.”

Sakura frowned. “Caring for me… is selfish?” She tilted her head, letting out a soft sigh. “Do not think so,” she added, staring at him ever so intently then. The undeniable fact was that she cared about him – and perhaps it did stem from the fact that she knew that he had taken care of her for years. Yet that hardly meant her own affection for him was misplaced. Even if her memories were fragmented, her feelings certainly weren’t. “If… you can be selfish, then why cannot I?”

“Caring is not selfish, I was merely reminding you that my motives—”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “Caring is not selfish,” she said matter-of-factly, squeezing his hand. “No matter motive.”

A soft, amused huff met her ears. “There is no arguing with you, is there?” he murmured ever so softly, nothing but warm amusement on his lips as he met her gaze. “How I’ve longed for these days…” his words were barely more than a whisper, and Sakura could only muse on how she would have also been longing for the days when she could string together a semi-decent sentence – if only she could remember all those missing years.

Yet right there and then she was longing for the days when she could speak as fluently as she once had as Haruno Sakura.

She snorted softly, letting her head rest against his shoulder then, finding comfort in his touch. That much probably wasn’t all that surprising, considering that might as well have been what their odd relationship there had been built off of. She hadn’t been able to speak or understand words of comfort. Yet she could understand the comfort of another’s presence, standing there next to her, standing with her throughout it all.

“Do you want to continue touring the galleries?” Glorfindel asked. “Or would you rather come back another day?”

She blinked, tilting her head ever so slightly as she glanced at the next painting along and spied what was distinguishably that same white city – only this time it was bathed in fire and crumbling down. She ought to take it slow with remembering everything, shouldn’t she? Even if she wanted to snap her fingers and recall everything she was missing in an instant.

“Recovery takes time, Forehead,” an old voice – from her time as Haruno Sakura – slithered its way through her ears.

“I suppose we, uh, have time plenty,” she mumbled, mixing her words up in the rush to speak. Ever a common theme with her, she noted, sighing as she reminded herself that delicate matters took time.

“We do have plenty of time, yes,” he acknowledged, inadvertently reminding her of the timescale she was living on – a far cry away from the one she’d had as human Haruno Sakura. It wasn’t like she would die from old age, after all. Yet as a being like that, how was she supposed to view the years that would pass by and leave her untouched? Were they supposed to be viewed like Haruno Sakura had viewed the weeks that rolled by?

Yet that was a question better left unspoken.

It wasn’t like anyone besides her was aware of the whole Lothris-Sakura debacle she was silently facing within the constraints of her own mind. It had something to do with her fae being severed by unlight, she was simply aware of. Then again, she mused, the memories surrounding that much were unlikely to be pleasant, and were probably best saved for last in the grand scheme of memory recovery.

“We have some time before your brothers inevitably steal you back,” Glorfindel said. “Alagon was not best pleased that I wanted to steal you away for a short while.”

“There is plenty of time to spend with both of you,” she said matter-of-factly. She knew she wanted to spend time with both her family, biological and the one she had apparently chosen to become family. “Impatience will not help any of us…” she mumbled, thinking then on her own apparent impatience to remember her own past. “Will it?”

“It will not, no,” he said. “So, with that in mind, would you like to stay here and explore the paintings for a while longer, or would you prefer a change in scenery? Perhaps a walk in the garden? Or we could ask the kitchens for tea and scones, if you would prefer?”

As if on cue her stomach rumbled, and she felt her cheeks turn red at the ravenous sound it made. She hadn’t even done all that much to work up an appetite… unless walking around was that tiring to her… She winced at the thought, knowing she’d once been at a completely different fitness level. How grating was it to be brought down to that level? A scowl curled at her lips—

“I believe your stomach might have answered for us,” he said, a hint of amusement on his own lips and Sakura only sighed ever so softly, annoyance giving way to a glimmer of humour. “Shall we fetch ourselves some tea and scones, my lady?” One golden brow quirked up in query, a hand raised in offer.

She grabbed a hold of it, weaving her fingers between his own. “It is late… or early,” she mumbled, part of her wondering whether their apparent quest to obtain tea and scones would be successful – tea, she knew, they would be able to find—and make themselves, should nobody be in the kitchen—yet the scones she wasn’t quite sure of.

She didn’t even know what a scone was—

The stirrings of her own memories were vaguely familiar to her, the image of a small cake-like confection dripping with jam coming to the forefront of her mind. Part of her was already salivating at the thought of it, her sweet tooth ever needing to be satiated. “Do you truly think we, uh, will find these scones?” she finished asking, tilting her head as she looked up at her guide – and her beloved.

“If not, there should be ingredients to make them at the very least,” Glorfindel answered. “Perhaps I might not be the best baker, but scones are within my realm of capabilities,” he informed her, and Sakura could only muse on what her baking skills were like then and there. Certainly as Haruno Sakura, she had been capable of cooking – baking slightly less so. Now there was only the question as to whether the baking skills Lothris had – if any – had deteriorated as much as her own ability to talk without pause or missing a word or two. “In fact, I think that might be an even better idea than simply raiding the kitchen, no?” He tilted his head, an eager expression spreading across his face.

“Okay,” she agreed, wondering if her stomach was ready to wait at least an hour or so for the promised scones—yet didn’t that give her more time to spend with the one she adored? She was due to be seeing her brothers later. How much later, she wasn’t sure, but if making those scones gave her more time to mentally prepare herself for brothers and all those sorts of family members entailed, then she would certainly take it.

“Though only if you do not mind waiting just a short while longer,” he said, an amused smile curling at his lips as if he could hear her stomach growling in protest of the extra time. “Or should I say, that depends if your stomach does not mind the wait? It does seem to be quite vocal…”

She scowled at the thought, pressing a finger to his lips then.

He grinned behind her finger. “I only tease, beloved,” he said, gently grasping her hand and pulling it down. His fingers intertwined with her own, a question on his face as he slowly started meandering towards the kitchen.

The motion gave her plenty of time to dig her heels in or change her mind. Yet, Lothris though she might be, she still found herself obeying the whims of her stomach. Some things apparently didn’t change… despite the whole world and her existence changing… or maybe that had always been a distinctly Lothris thing, and she merely didn’t remember it as such… She sighed softly, trying to quash that thought as she let herself be led to the kitchen.

It was larger than any other kitchen she had ever stepped into, but then again – she had never really had much of a reason to go inside any sort of commercial kitchen, either as Lothris or Sakura… and the kitchens she remembered as Sakura didn’t really have the same sort of rustic feel to it; all artisan crafted drawers and cupboards with frequent carvings of trees and other crops in the wood, with large swathes of what looked like granite set atop to form the surface. Vines encroached into the room from the window – the sill complete with a little herb garden that only added to the odd homely feel there was to the room. The heat from the ovens, in hindsight, probably added to the cosy atmosphere as well, which only made her feel that much more relaxed. That much more at home, she mused, part of her wishing that she’d stop feeling like such a stranger there – perhaps just a little bit by the time they finished their baking.

“You have never ventured to the kitchen here,” Glorfindel informed her, and she only hummed under her breath at the acknowledgement that she wasn’t likely to run afoul of any flashbacks to a past she was still trying to recall. Although, if that had been her intent, she would have been better off staying in the galleries and squinting at those paintings… Yet she had stopped at seeing Gondolin in all its glory on oil and canvas.

Part of her knew there was a reason for that—

A gloating voice full of glee, and amber eyes which seemed to burn into her soul – fragments of memories she had yet to fully realise, and she didn’t think she wanted to remember those next. There was something ever so unsettling about those eyes that she could vaguely remember. Before the darkness came…

“If you like this, we may have to sneak back into the kitchens again,” her partner in crime remarked, and part of her noted that, whilst she’d been lost in her daze, he had managed to procure all the ingredients they needed from their various cupboards.

“Mn,” she agreed, glancing then to apparent head chef – or was he ‘head baker’? – in charge of the kitchen. “You know what we are making…” she said, raising her eyebrow at him and watching as he started preparations.

It seemed quite simple; flour, butter, a rising agent, sugar, and eggs, all bar the last ingredient mixed together in a bowl until it looked like breadcrumbs.

Her hands were covered in flour, caked on with the handy addition of butter by the end of it, and she wasted no time in leaving a single floury fingerprint on her fellow baker’s nose as he took over; having procured milk from the pantry whilst she had been busy starting the dough.

“Nearly, uh, finished?” she asked, part of her wondering how long it would be before they were ready to go in the oven – and how long they would take before they could sit down and have their late-night snack.

“Finished as in ready to go in the oven?” he asked, tilting his head as he glanced at her between carefully rolling out their scone dough. “Or finished as in ready to eat?”

“Edible,” she said, listening to her stomach growl.

“There is only fifteen minutes to wait once they are in the oven,” he explained, handing her a sandglass filled with pinkish sand then. “And all we need to do right now is make them into the shape we need, and place them in the oven.”

“What shape?” She tilted her head, watching as he procured a round biscuit cutter and held it up for inspection.

“This is the usual shape they’re made in,” he remarked. “Though the smiths do seem to have… gotten creative, when the original order for shape-cutters was apparently made,” he said, raising an eyebrow at the drawer he’d pulled it out from. He pulled another one out, examining the star-shaped cutter. “There’s even a tree…” His eyebrows raised even further as he rooted around in the drawer, making discovery after discovery. “Truly, I did not realise we could make leaf-shaped scones…”

“Round good,” she mumbled, what with how that seemed like the simplest to cut – and it would probably cook relatively evenly compared to more unusual shapes, wouldn’t it?

“So you would be happy with the round cutters,” he acknowledged. “Do you want to do the honours, or should I?” He held the biscuit cutter up, waving it almost teasingly in front of her face as he made the offer. “There’s something quite satisfying about the action.”

“Two… I mean, are there two?” she asked, peering into the neatly arranged drawer. “Here,” she remarked, finding a similarly sized cutter. “For you.”

“Then I suppose this one is for you.” He offered her the one he’d been holding, and she took it, getting to work with creating her yet-to-be-baked scones. Or, rather, their yet-to-be-baked scones.

Though they were about to be baked, she mused, staring at the baking tray as it was loaded with their little circular lumps of dough as they cut them out.

“Are you ready with the timer?” Glorfindel asked, oven gloves at the ready as he opened the door and slid the tray onto the rack inside.

She turned the sandglass, setting it down on the countertop and wondering exactly what she was supposed to do for the next fifteen minutes while they waited.

The answer to that though, came in the form of one of her brothers sticking their head around the kitchen doorway, one red brow raised in question when he spied them both standing there, staring rather fixatedly at the oven. “I thought you were headed to the galleries, last I checked,” Alagon remarked.

“Making scones,” she answered, gesturing to the oven as she leant against the counter, silently counting down the minutes until she could have some freshly-made scones.

“The walking around made us both peckish,” Glorfindel offered, mirroring her brother’s expression. “Though I was under the impression that we would have more time before… you came calling.”

“I merely wished to see my sister,” Alagon said matter-of-factly. “The last few days have been quite tiring for her, what with how she is now fully cognisant.”  

“Am here,” she added, as if to remind her brother that she was, in fact, present, and very, very aware of the conversation that was taking place about her.

“Indeed you are,” her brother agreed, wandering into the kitchen fully. “Do you need to rest?” he asked, starting to fret about her, and part of her could only muse on the fact that she might as well get used to that sort of behaviour.

She was still recovering… Her shoulders sunk at the reminder of it; the facts she couldn’t forget when her world had been upended.

“I am fine,” she stressed, sighing and leaning into Glorfindel’s side – as if that might save her from the woes and worries of her older brother. If Rondil was there instead, would he have fretted less, what with the fact he was younger? Sakura tilted her head as she pondered on that musing. Probably not, she acknowledged, remembering then that at least two of her brothers had a tendency to hover.

Then again, she had – as Lothris – required extensive care for the past few thousand years, so maybe that was to be expected? She sighed at the thought, part of her well aware that there was adjustment time coming for all of them.

“You are recovering,” Alagon said quite pointedly, as if she needed reminding of that fact.

A huff escaped her. “I know.”

“Easy,” Glorfindel murmured to her, his hand finding her own and squeezing it, undoubtedly sensing her minor distress at the reminder of everything she still didn’t know. The reminder that she was at her weakest right then and there, and the tall mountain of ‘recovery’ there was still to climb. “Alagon, will you be joining us for tea and scones?” he asked, glancing at the sandglass behind them and counting the minutes left until they had a valid excuse to leave.

“No,” he answered, sighing ever so softly at that. “I will not further interrupt this little courting session of yours. I merely wished to check up on my sister, and seeing as I have done so, I will be on my way. I will see you both later.”

With that said, he turned on his heel, walking away then, and Sakura could only watch him go – and ponder on the many worries and questions she had.

And the fact that a walk around the galleries followed by some light baking definitely counted as a date… didn’t it?