Some Fall By Virtue

Chapter Two: never satisfied, I'm never gonna be refused

In all of her years, Sakura had been in many, varying situations, though she could say none were as bad as the same one she was currently stuck in.

The soup in her mouth tasted like ash. Because they were the same kind of people she had once tried to kill... and rather than attacking her, they had taken pity after she blurted out the first story which came to mind. Though it wasn't like the blade the so-called Ranger had held to her throat would've killed her. She wasn't human.

Sakura ignored the snide voice which whispered she never had been. Shinobi were merciless killers, after all, for the right price and political climate, of course. She forced herself to swallow yet another mouthful of the meal so kindly prepared for her, hating the tense silence in the air as she sat inside the home of the Ranger who'd held a blade to her neck not fifteen minutes ago.

He was a scruffy man, with greying salt-pepper hair and a week's worth of stubble. Had Sakura truly been a lost, terrified traveller, she would probably have screamed at the sight of him earlier. As it was, she was a hardened shinobi with a side of skin-changing tendencies and an alarming habit of setting people who irritated her on fire. She hadn't needed much introspection to put that together, but she had decided to turn away from her fire-breathing tendencies.

Fainbarad, he had introduced himself as, and the name suited him – tall as he was. He had grown into his name, or so she figured with a mental chuckle, figuring it wouldn't be good to mention anything of the sort when she had only just met him for the first time. He was a Ranger of the North, and Sakura supposed she was lucky she had run into him over any of the other villagers, because Rangers were bound by the code they followed to help the free peoples of middle-earth.

She wasn't one of the free people, even though she looked like one. Melkor's machinations still lingered in the back of her mind, clinging to the fibres of her very soul, even if he and his influence had been purged from the lands. The maia who had served him too was a different matter entirely though. She had heard the songs of discord on the wind, ones which beckoned to her soul with the resemblance to his master's for a split second before she had clamped down on her impulses and blocked off that noise. She was Haruno Sakura, and another name she didn't want to speak of, and she refused to bow down to yet another tyrant.

She had only done it before because she'd been angry. Oh so very angry. But the fires of her rage had cooled, and now she was wallowing in regret, self-loathing, and a number of other depressing emotions. Because she hadn't been thinking ahead. She hadn't thought of soulmates, and how hard it might be for hers to accept her. She hadn't even realised she had a soulmate in her second life – her first as the skin-changing being of destruction and immolation.

Now she was paying for those actions.

Good, a bitter part of her thought, even as she found herself being prodded by Fainbarad's wife. Gilithien, was her name, and Sakura was acutely reminded of her mother – even if she spoke nothing like one Haruno Mebuki. "Yeh need some more meat on those bones, love," she had declared upon her husband bringing her stray self in, which was how she had wound up at the table for dinner.

Sakura wasn't in the habit of trusting complete strangers, especially those who'd held her at knifepoint, but she figured she would take the help she could. It wasn't as if she'd be completely defenceless if they had lured her in to murder her... Though in all honesty, she would be very happy if she never had to transform. To shed her edain skin and become a creature of nightmare and fire once more.

Besides, she had to try and make it up to the free peoples of middle earth... even if he'd never accept her. It was a selfish wish. One to try and make her feel better about her miserable self. One to try and repair the damages she had done once upon a time. Not that she would ever be satisfied with herself. There was no way to undo anything.