Telanadas

8

They spend the next half hour in silence, focussed on her injury.

Luckily for both, the bone implement has not caught on anything, and Sasuke is able to pull it free without trouble. Blood fills in the wound at once, but it is not the wet gush of a clipped blood vessel or ruptured organ. Sakura talks him through stitching it closed. Liberal applications of her "little elfroot and deep mushroom" knit the flesh back together as he goes.

She dozes for a little while as he puts away the supplies, carefully erasing any trace of what was done here. Kakashi has sharp eyes, and even a fleck of blood might have him asking questions.

Sakura was right about one thing: they cannot afford him expending more magic than he must.

Just as he clears away the last of the soiled bandages, he hears a low, lyrical hum behind him. Slowly, he turns around and notes Sakura, eyes still closed in slumber and barely breathing even as her throat moves around the notes of a wordless song. Normally, she is as tone deaf as a mabari howling at the moon. He knows this because she tried to teach Sai, another of their companions, the words to a dwarven drinking song not long after he joined the outfit.

The memory itself makes him wince.

But this tune she hums under her breath is different. It makes the hairs on the back of his arms and neck stand on end, but not because it is unpleasant.

It is because it is not.

"Sakura," he says, something in his gut telling him he needs her to stop that.

Her body startles a little, the way one might when woken suddenly from a dream, but considering she never fully dropped off to sleep he doubts that it is. Still, the noise stops, and her breathing suddenly evens out.

"Something about this place...it calls to me," she tells him after a moment, eyes still closed, and face still relaxed. "It almost feels like lyrium, but...different."

"Different?" he echoes.

"Like a voice on the wind...just out of earshot, words garbled...and you know they're speaking to you, but can't for the life of you make out the meaning..." She opens her eyes and notices his concerned expression, and quickly straightens. With a sheepish grin, she says, "Sorry. I think I'm just getting ahead of myself. We're almost to the top of the mountain which means we're closer to ending this journey. I can see the end in sight, and then we get a nice long deserved rest."

"Until the next errand of overblown importance is thrust upon us," he replies, still frowning at her behaviour. He wonders if this is another one of those Warden quirks, hearing music no one else does. "And the next."

"Until we stop the Blight, that's the job," she agrees. "But still, the prospect of a moment's peace, however short, that's valuable—don't you think?"

"I would not know."

"Oh, come on! You've had to have at least a little downtime!" she protests, pulling herself stiffly to her feet. He makes a move to help her, but she waves him away. "Don't the Crows give days off?"

"There is time between contracts, if that is what you are asking."

She shoots him an unimpressed look as if to say she knows he is deliberately not answering her question. "And what do you do in your spare time?"

"Prepare for the next assignment."

"That's it?" she deadpans. "Seriously? Isn't there anything you do for fun?"

"No."

"That's..." Sakura sighs then. "I'm sorry."

This brings him up short, and he stares at her. He can see her finding his lifestyle distasteful or boring, but he never would have expected pity from her. "Sorry for what?"