Telanadas

Epilogue: Mala da'lan tu tan

Author's Note: So, I decided to make this an epilogue to Telanadas after all. It can also serve as a backdoor plot to any future work in my Naruto/Dragon Age 'verse if I ever get around to it. I also changed the original version a bit, adding some more details and switching Rin's participation to Kakashi's. It just felt weird to me that Rin suddenly showed up when she had not been a part of the original story. Besides, the possibilities with Kakashi being the one to approach Sakura...it could make for some interesting interactions in the future. :)

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It starts with the wedding.

Well, no, that's not right.

If Sakura thinks about it (which she has actively avoided doing, since thinking about it leads to reliving a slew of unpleasant memories and what Kakashi calls post-traumatic stress), she supposes it started with the night before the potentially world-ending battle.

Staring down the stark reality of either or both their inevitable demise the next day, there had been a pressing need to steal a few final moments together. And there had been the desperate and rough (and amazing) "we're probably going to die tomorrow" sex.

She doubts Sasuke would call it that, but that is what it was.

That bleak night, as they lay pressed together and pretending to sleep while in reality they counted each others' breaths, Sakura felt the first lingering sense of disconnect. It was a looming unease and primal fear, and yet she did not feel it toward her own death.

Which, as it turned out, had not come to pass.

No one knows why, either.

Nagato, the older Warden that arrived from the Empire, said such a thing was impossible. Killing an archdemon could only be carried out by a Grey Warden, since the destruction of its taint had to be channelled through a living vessel. The Warden that struck the killing blow was destined to perish.

"I will do my best to perform this feat, but if I feel, you or Naruto will have to carry it out," he had said, grave and apologetic at the ill tidings. What neither of them said out loud, because they knew Naruto would argue, was that if Nagato failed it would have to be Sakura.

The human prince was newly seated upon a throne that was far too easy to lose. His untimely death would inevitably cause the civil war she and her companions had tried so hard to stop.

Naruto had to live, and it would fall to Sakura to kill the giant, Blight infested dragon if Nagato died prematurely.

Which he did.

Sakura shivers at the memory.

She and Sasuke did not speak of her dark fate before the battle, and they did not address it afterward. In fact, they have hardly exchanged a handful of words in the past weeks. She knows, because she has spoken to everyone else at length and despite their preoccupation with other affairs.

Naruto is learning to be king, with Yamato acting as one of his advisors. Obito and Sai spend most of their time in the city, supposedly listening for signs of trouble for the new king's reign, while in reality competing at who can get in the most tavern brawls. Kakashi and Rin spend their time pouring over ancient texts on loan from the Circle of Magi, trying to figure out what happened that day to grant Sakura her life. Meanwhile, Sasuke...

Sasuke seems to be trying to retreat from Sakura.

She doubts his feelings for her have ebbed—he is an elf, and she has learned that sort is exceptionally and almost fanatically monogamous—but there is a constant sense of expectation lingering around him. It is as if he expects her to drop dead any day now from some delayed effect of her encounter with the archdemon.