Anam Cara || Sasusaku

Anam Cara

CTHFFA One-shot #6 . Canon-compliance. Sasuke's thoughts. Blank period. Sasusaku.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the characters, plots or scenarios used in any way. Enjoy reading.

***

Sasuke has always found abode in solitude. 

But he is also a traveler, and travels do not sit well with loneness. Travelers are walking novels. Each step they take is another chapter added to the book. It is for this reason most vagabonds tend to be storytellers for people whose hesitation restrains them more than their lifestyle or strength does, for people who seek the relishes of nature through second-hand inspirations without a flicker of doubt that what may be narrated to them may be terminological inexactitude. They see lost dreams, cognate youth and words of promise in those travelers. Travelers perceive the world as sculptured around each step they take to reach it. They carry names of people they ate with, soils their sandals picked up, sunrises, sunsets, fragrances of flower fields, sway of crops, villages' traditions and unmatchable innovations. Sasuke, for his own good, carries a few weapons and scrolls, some cash and a water bottle and thinks of it as more than necessary luggage.

He isn't too keen on expressing what he sees in words so storytelling is a profession too preposterous for his likeness. He can't imagine himself either, sitting on a porch under a tree exaggerating lands with drawn out flattery, flocked around by men, women and children, all the same, regarding his narration with widened eyes and choruses of enthusiasm. It makes his hair stand to lay out a scenario in which an audience would find excitement in his experiences. It may be his shinobi nature or a personal belief but stories are better locked away in experience and experience is better expressed in action. Naruto, he regards, could have played a storyteller too well. He pesters him about his journey in letters but Sasuke doesn't find them a matter to tend to. 

That said, it is not an anomaly to rain in the desert, and there are times Sasuke feels a non-existing burden of what he has uncovered, for even though these were not his first travels, it was the first time he realized how vast the world was, the amassed its problems, how narrow a human's shoulders were to carry the weight of its existence, but the world still went on. It always has. Nature doesn't cry when a human dies; humans do. Moving on—both know, one faster than the other. Sasuke, blinded by the venom of vengeance, had only ever cried his pain. Sympathy, to him, had been a privilege of the weak and his mistake had been believing he was strong. Now that he realizes the weakness in him, the world around him seems a lot more relatable, a lot more livable. There are children, with more traumatic experiences than his, healing their pain on their own. His struggles seem less decipherable when he realized the worst death comes from starvation and that, it's not uncommon. 

So, Sasuke, for a rarity, gets an urge to be a storyteller.

On a day as bright and dry as any, he decides to spare some details of his journey.

"The village chief's daughter waited for 10 years before she found her lover but the lover had found his family in someone else."

Aoda had not expected it when he was summoned. 

Sasuke raises his head covertly to seek Aoda's engagement, and the snake has no idea what exactly is the situation he is in. Is his master testing him?

Aoda had known, from when his master began his journey, that he would not be of use to him as often as his other summons. He had not minded, instead, prepared himself to prove his worth if his master finds him in need. So was his reaction when his master summoned him an hour earlier, his body posed, ready to attack, when Sasuke casually greeted him, sitting on a dry log in the middle of drylands, snags stretching out from crevices like claws of a dead bird.