The Song of Metal and Shadows
Her feet found themselves treading down increasingly familiar corridors, a maelstrom of thoughts swirling behind her eyes as she made her way to the smithy. What was she supposed to do about the fact that she – who was now Aerloth, and thus had to deal with whatever she had – had brothers? She had been an only child once before. She was hardly experienced when it came to the matter of dealing with brothers. She could barely remember Sasuke and what had happened with his brother after the length of time which had passed – and how she didn’t like thinking of the pair, and what she no longer had.
Immortality was a funny thing. One which had come to twist her personality little by little as the years went by. Then those people had happened, and her last embers of faith and comfort around other human beings had went up in smoke.
She was jaded, she knew by that point. She wasn’t quite the outspoken, hair-trigger tempered woman she had once been. Part of her still didn’t know what to think on that. All she knew was that she had to move forwards on her own two feet. It was the only option she had left. The only thing which hadn’t been ripped from her in depravity or her own ongoing loneliness. The latter was something she had long since come to terms with.
Which was why the revelation that Lady Aerloth had brothers was ever so nerve-wracking to her shot nerves, if only because they knew the old ‘her’ and the fact that they were people.
Sakura didn’t particularly enjoy interacting with people those days.
She prayed then silently to whatever deities might be out there, that none of her brothers would ever deign to visit her in that strange, far too large house. She prayed that they would stay away, far away and out of sight, until she thought she could manage to see them. And somehow pretend to be an elleth she had never been before… A frown creased at her brow. What was an elleth? She wondered then, wondering why that term had been used to replace woman when referring to herself and the lady who had been half of the group who had brought her supplies.
“They should be getting the forge restocked soon,” she mumbled, reminding herself that she still had enough metal to hopefully last her until new supplies came. “Until then,” she murmured, going about setting out her little station she had carved out for herself in the forge which had undoubtedly belonged to another before she had started venturing there.
Her father, she thought she could recall them saying that smithy belonged to. Idly, she wondered where Aerloth’s father was, shaking her head as she tried to remember that she was Aerloth now. She wondered why there was no discomfort to that very thought, heart beating frantically in her chest before she cast those thoughts aside. Thinking too much wasn’t all that great for her mental state, she was discovering, even as a familiar heat washed over her and almost seemed to carry her worries away to the cold corners of the room.
She could feel the thin, fragile hairs on her hands and arms being singed by the constant heat she was exposing them to, a melodic laughter escaping her even as she took one of the varying ingots of metal she still had no idea of the name of. It was the best as the base material, she had come to learn after many a failure of blades.
Though she had yet to figure out the best composition, even as she selected the other ingots she was to use for another attempt at making a blade her once-father – in another life, part of her whispered – would have been proud of.
She wondered then if Aerloth’s father – her father – would be proud of what she was doing right then and there. Or whether he would shake his head and tell her that she simply ought to have sought out a proper bladesmith to learn from… Then again, there were no guarantees that he had been a bladesmith. There were other things to be crafted with metal, and the box of small jewels of numerous vivid colourations implied that he might have had a hand in crafting jewellery.
The kind that the Sakura before immortality and before that place of torture would have loved to admire. She didn’t know whether she would still be able to admire them as she was right then and there, what with how her priorities and interests had shifted when it came to beauty and all things beautiful.
A faint melody rang in her ears, soothing and what could only be a remnant of happier times before a scalpel had been put to skin – before flesh had been peeled back as if that could discover the secrets of her folly. She hummed along to that melody, the song coming to her, yet she couldn’t for the life of her remember where she had heard it before.
It was a strange tune, part of her whispered to herself, utterly unlike the ones common to Konoha. Yet that was the only place she could have heard it – and knowing that strange song was the only explanation as to why she was humming along so happily to it, even as the hammer she had selected rose and fell with that clashing sound of metal on metal. Thoughts drifted away as she worked the metal, eyes watching as the length of metal glowed that familiar, comforting amber-red.
She was home – there, in the forge. Maybe that was why she always felt so infinitely safe within those walls lit with those strange sconces she had yet to figure out the lighting mechanism behind.
Safety was a fickle thing, Sakura was coming to learn, even as she watched strangers – people she had never met before – carry new ingots of varying sheens and colourations into her forge. Barrels full to the brim with liquid were carried in, for quenching, her mind supplied, knowledge of bladesmithing coming to her then. Proof her weeks of practice had amounted to something rather than nothing, and proof that she remembered more about smithing than she had once thought.
Her heart beat almost frantically in her chest, hands twitching with the urge to rip those pointy-eared people out of her forge and throw them onto the doorstep of the too-large house she occupied right then and there. The same house she had apparently been exiled to, with brothers who wrote to her even in her apparent exile.
Idly, she wondered exactly what she had done to merit being exiled, her heart a similarly fickle thing which was beating far too loudly and quickly in her chest as she watched the odd procession of intruders.
“What exactly has she been doing with all that metal?” Faelon asked, turning to his brown-haired companion, as if she might somehow know.
Yet she had ensured she couldn’t be spied upon, so it would be all the more concerning if that strange unnamed elleth knew what she had been doing. More so when she had carefully cleared up all evidence of her failures and successes – rare as the latter were those days – in the forge at least.
“Why are you asking me as if I will have an answer for that much?” she responded, one eyebrow arching up, her expression unimpressed and unamused. “The Valar only know what is up with that elleth these years…”
“Do you not think her strange?” Faelon asked, and Sakura felt her heart skip a beat. “She said thank you, after all, the last we were here.”
“Then perhaps she is attempting to play the part of a regretful elleth,” the lady said, and Sakura bristled at that – at the idea that she was only holding on to a façade. Please and thank you were simple common courtesies, and she didn’t think she could rid herself of them, no matter if it was becoming apparent that the Aerloth of before hadn’t used them.
They hadn’t used common courtesies with her when she had been their prisoner, and sometimes she liked to think herself better than them.
She was fundamentally different to that Aerloth, and it almost alarmed her to think that. She didn’t want to be different and strange, after all. Swallowing thickly at that, she resumed her watching from the embrace of the shadows which hid her ever so well.
“Where do you suppose she is right now?” Faelon asked, and she only smiled in relief at that, even as her heart went thud-thud behind her chest. If they were to explore the shadows of the nearby curtains they would undoubtedly find her, no matter how she wished to remain unseen and undiscovered. “I have seen neither hide nor hair of her since we came inside… and it unnerves me.”
“Does her location truly matter all that much?” the brunette continued, heedless of the way they were being watched by curious, wary green eyes. Around her, the shadows seemed to hum, part of her feeling so infinitely safe in the shadows which leant her their aid. Their cover, she should say. “We are restocking the forge here, should the second eldest master wish to come here and smith for a while. This has little to do with Lady Aerloth or her pursuits, no matter if she is being petty and destroying things,” she said, and Sakura felt herself hunch up at that – at how casually they seemed to write Lady Aerloth off as nothing more than a passing nuisance.
She wondered then, if that was what she was, closing her eyes and letting the shadows engulf her wholly as she sat there on the windowsill and waited for those intruders to be gone.
Her fingers trailed over the spines of the books on the shelves, acutely aware then of how those once gentle, soft hands had slowly turned into something much rougher and harsher – an echo of the hands she had once had when others had called her Haruno Sakura, though different nonetheless. The hands of a blacksmith, she mused, rubbing her fingers against her palms then, almost able to imagine grabbing at her once-father’s hands as a small child.
She missed those carefree days, even as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end and she glanced around frantically. Her heart pounded in her chest, eyes locking on the window, silence reigning supreme even as the thud-thud of her heart echoed in her ears.
A bird burst out from the canopy of trees, shoulders sinking minutely, and she laughed bitterly then. “Scared by a bird…” she muttered, smoothing her hair back and digging her fingers into her scalp as she hid her face from the world.
It was jarring to think sometimes; how far she had fallen from the metaphorical podium she had once stood on. Then she had played about with nature chakra and done something worse than turning herself into stone. She couldn’t deny the fact that everything would have been easier if she had turned to stone and died rather than becoming what she had. Her hands shook, pale pinkish skin free from the marks which should have marred her flesh – should have proven that she had lived through that hell and had mystifyingly come out the other side.
Sometimes she wondered what she had gained and what she had lost when she had become something far too enduring. At least her body had become something enduring. Her mind wasn’t quite of the same rigidity. Sometimes, if she thought on it for long enough, she could almost feel the fractures of her psyche, razor thin lines carved into her very soul itself.
She stood, climbing to her feet, voluminous trousers shifting even as she tugged at her makeshift belt. Her hands itched, mind whispering at her to go back to the forge and strike the iron until she could lose herself and her worries and fears in that rhythmic pounding of metal-on-metal. Yet part of her wanted to linger there a little longer, amongst the scent of parchment and ink, and all the memories of happier days they brought back.
The same memories which made her heart throb painfully.
Sunlight glinted off the mirror to her side, and she braved a look at herself right then and there. Brown hair fell bone straight to her waist, bright green eyes staring back at her as she edged closer and closer to the reflective surface. Her eyes narrowed, catching sight of a single strand of hair which looked odd. Frowning, she picked it up, holding it in front of her and peering at that single lock which had made her pause.
Looking at that strand in the light, she could only frown. It was white, she knew, lips pursing as she wondered what exactly it meant for her to have a white hair. Scars of the mind aren’t so easily healed, wise words whispered in her ear, an echo of a friend long dead.
Her hands went to her head, part of her almost thinking then, for a brief moment, that she could heal the miniscule, branching cracks buried in her mind. Then she remembered it was impossible and let her arms fall back to her sides, sighing as she did.
Working in the forge had put lean muscle on her arms and constantly walking from one end of her home to another had put some muscle on her legs – not that anyone would be able to tell of that much, hidden beneath baggy clothing as her limbs usually were in that place. Yet, somehow, she still looked gaunt, her face sharper than she remembered first catching a glimpse of in the mirror when she had first arrived there.
She tore her eyes away, shuddering at the sight of the familiar stranger in the mirror who was becoming more and more familiar to her as the days slipped past her without much note. “It’s not important,” she murmured to herself, ignoring the way her heart beat ever so frantically in her chest even as she walked away – heading towards the kitchen then to procure herself some lunch. “It’s not important at all.”