Chapter Text
The Father Superior’s instructions came as a riddle when Tenten was deemed ready.
Everything in the young half-elf’s life had led up to this moment, for a chance to earn her Lady’s favor. But, hope–even just that she might pass this trial–was a folly. A distraction that Tenten couldn’t afford.
The Father Superior spoke, and it was as if his voice embodied the dusty tomes littering the library that dictated Lady Shar’s words themselves. “Seek out the purest of lambs, and lead it to harvest.” The redhead paused, and Tenten remained still, head bowed in silence and hands resting on her thighs. “Never let the creature know you are a wolf come to claim it.”
Goosebumps flashed across her skin, the presence of Lady Shar drifting through her for a split second. Then the feeling faded into numbness, the goddess’s presence gone as quickly as it had appeared.
He spoke again. His voice like gravel underfoot in the dark. “Spill the lamb’s blood on our Lady’s altar. Here, with your brothers and sisters present.”
He took her hand and uncurled Tenten’s fingers before pressing a blade into her waiting palms, slicing through her flesh and binding her. Tenten gripped, as she was taught to, offering blood to her goddess.
“Then, Tenten, you will be one of us, and you shall be known by a new name. One chosen by our Lady.”
—
“Now, Lee, remember what I taught you!” Guy pulled his apprentice into his shoulder to yell in his ear. There was nothing subtle about the pair of monks, especially not their green robes or blunt haircuts. The way that they announced everything as if they were having a private conversation also drew in the attention of many unsavory eyes.
“Yes, Guy Sensei!” Lee yelled back in agreement. “I must choose my party using my gut, and not let my mind cloud my judgement!”
Oh? The monks caught a pair of unsavory brown eyes in particular.
The two were sitting at a table in a pub, a little handwritten sign posted on the town bulletin weeks ago announcing to the world that Lee was ready to set out on his first adventure alone and he needed allies. According to the sign, any allies would be given a fair portion of treasure found and if interested to show up at the local pub the day after the full moon. Lee and Guy expected a whole swath of youthful adventurers to show up, ready to join Lee on his quest.
But, the pub was empty. There were only a few older patrons at the bartop, a heavily armored pointy eared maiden in one corner, and a cloaked individual in the opposite one. Regardless, smack-dab in the middle of the pub sat Lee and Guy, both waiting diligently for someone to enter.
Lee turned towards the door, his back as stiff as a board, ready to face anyone who showed up to join his party. “Yosh!” The monk hardly even blinked as he grinned staring into open space. Guy smiled and folded his arms beside him, fighting back tears realizing that his student was all grown up.
They waited in silence for twenty minutes like that.
The door opened, and a long haired elf in a robe stumbled in. Immediately, he was offended by the smell of spoiled ale inside–no one else seemed to notice anything–and he put his sleeve up to his nose. He was wearing long blue velvet robes with a pair of expensive looking black pants underneath. His shoes curled in at the end, looking utterly terrible for walking in. “Is this a human establishment where I may procure sustenance and lodging?” the elf asked, earning a ‘the hells did you just ask me’ head tilt from the barkeep, but they took his coin nonetheless.
The cloaked individual in the corner stood up, adjusting his belt then settling back down into the wooden chair. The buckle caught the glint of candle light and reflected a red, white, and black fan towards anyone looking at it. No one was. No one ever seemed to notice the Uchiha unless he wanted them to, and Sasuke preferred it that way.
“Over here! If you’re looking to join my adventuring party! Over here!” Lee stood up, waving his hand frantically in the direction of the elf. The elf gave him a once over and furrowed his eyebrows in disdain.
“Riffraff,” the elf muttered in his mother tongue. Both monks understood, having spent years learning Elvish to read ancient monastic texts about temples hidden deep in the forests. If either cared, it was impossible to read from their expressions.
Lee sat back down, his grin plastered on his face; his enthusiasm and confidence were unbreakable. Guy was sobbing silently–so proud of Lee–the tears streaming down his face and soaking into the collar of his robe. His thick eyebrows were drawn together deep in happiness.
The pointy eared maiden approached, gathering not only the attention of the elf but the cloaked person in the corner as well. She wore a heavy half-plate made of dark metal, with a thin circlet on her forehead that bore a black jewel. There was a mace on her hip, and a shield on her back, but these were the least notable things of her appearance. It was summer, so perhaps there was a practical reason for not wearing additional clothing, but when the woman walked her bare hips snuck out from between the joints in her armor, and everyone but Lee looked at the soft flesh. The leather straps on her chest plate were cinched as tight as they could go, hinting at a very narrow waist under her bulky armor, and she didn’t hide her face behind a helmet like most adventurers would. She had a twisted braid down her back and two large doe-like brown eyes. Sasuke noticed her earlier, but he was trained to recognize traps, and the elf–no, half-elf?–was a tripwire at the top of a set of stone stairs, begging someone to come trip on it. Even if he was curious about who she was, or what she was doing, Sasuke knew better than to involve himself.
“Excuse me, did you say you’re looking for an adventuring party?” she asked. Lee managed to sit up even a little straighter at her sudden interest. Sasuke’s back hurt just looking at him.
“That is correct!” Lee’s dark eyes reflected the candle light brilliantly back at her with a youthful glow. “Will you join me?”
She answered with a nod. “I could use some adventure.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I must return to Baldur’s Gate by the end of the season, however…”
Guy blinked the tears in his eyes away, sensing something that his student couldn’t. This woman was bad news. “Hmmm.” His circular eyes drifted in Lee’s direction, wondering if Lee could pick up on the strange Ki the woman gave off. Guy didn’t know where it stemmed from, but he didn’t like it. He was quiet, deciding to let Lee learn from this experience instead of swooping in like a mother duck to save her duckling.
“Welcome,” Lee said, thrusting his hand out to shake hers.
“I’m called Tenten,” she said, reaching out to take his hand. The moment their hands connected, Lee began to aggressively throw hers up and down–as if he’d never shook anyone’s hand before in his life. She didn’t pull away and let him manhandle her.
Sasuke turned his attention towards the male elf that just entered. He looked to be a wizard, that or a dumb noble that didn’t think he needed a weapon to travel. Either way, he was distracted by the woman and an easy mark. Distracted was an understatement. The elf was about to fall off his stool seeing a pretty maid. The only thing that stopped him from toppling over, was his feet as he hurried over to the cleric, his robes and long hair flowing behind him.
Sasuke took a sip of his ale. Tenten was definitely a cleric, but the symbols on her armor weren’t anything that Sasuke had seen before. He regrettably did not know much about clerics, but Shisui had always filled that role, so it had never mattered before. Perhaps the next time he visited home he’d ask which god the symbols on her armor praised.
“You can’t be serious about joining that monk,” the wizard complained, speaking to the cleric in Elvish. “He’s an imbecile, and he’ll get you killed!” He leaned in between the pair and pulled their hands apart with a vigor.
Breathing out an optimistic sigh, Lee pretended like he hadn’t understood the wizard.
Tenten looked at him, and she blinked, two big brown eyes shining in the soft light up at him. “I don’t speak that tongue.”
His mouth fell open in shock, and with that simple exchange the wizard was snared. He put his hand on Tenten’s shoulder and started to pull her behind him. To Sasuke’s surprise, she let him, because there was no other way the wizard was moving all that armor on his own. “Hold on! What adventure are you even going on?” the elf asked Lee, trying to get the cleric to see some sense.
Lee smiled brightly, his teeth straight and white. “I’m going on a quest to find grass for my first pair of sandals!”
Everyone looked down to see that he was barefoot under the table.
The wizard frowned deeply. “Will that be dangerous?”
Sasuke’s eyebrows jumped. How green was this wizard? It was impossible to tell ages when you looked at an elf–either he was straight out of a magic school, barely able to call himself a wizard, or he was a thousand years old and he could blow the whole town up with a fireball… However, Sasuke doubted that a thousand-year old wizard would get his robes in a twist over a pretty woman.
“It may be dangerous!” Lee shouted back. Then he hopped, his smile growing larger. “However, if we are together, even a dangerous adventure is nothing!”
Sasuke grimaced hearing the cheesy phrase.
“Perhaps you could accompany us,” Tenten suggested, looking at the wizard. She took a step towards him, and Sasuke could see an excited shiver run up the elf’s spine. He definitely wasn’t a thousand years old.
Like a moth to a flame… “As long as it’s not a long journey,” the elf huffed, a pink stain reaching his cheeks. Sasuke doubted that a little blush was the only effect that the she-elf had on him.
Sasuke stood up and brought his cup to the counter, moving slowly to keep from drawing attention to himself. This would be too easy. He dropped a coin on the bar for the keep and slipped behind the group of adventurers, keeping his chin low so they wouldn’t see his face under his hood. He didn’t bother to look at the others, feeling like he’d seen enough as he passed them. Sasuke dipped his hand into the wizard’s pocket, quickly finding a heavy coin purse prime for the taking. Whether the wizard was distracted by the woman, or naturally lacked any spatial awareness, or a mix of both, he didn’t notice as Sasuke tugged the purse out of his pocket and stuffed it up the sleeve of his cloak.
The wizard didn’t notice, but the cleric did. As Sasuke stepped away, she shot an arm out and grabbed him by the wrist. “That does not belong to you.” Her soft voice tickled his ear, and Sasuke spun around to wrestle his hand away from her. He knew she was a comely maid, but he hadn’t seen her face in detail until now, and Sasuke’s mouth fell open in an uncharacteristic moment of confusion. He’d never been caught red-handed, not since he was a child and Itachi slapped him for trying to take a sweet roll off a cart in the city. And, Itachi only slapped him because the cart keeper saw Sasuke’s grubby little fingers wrap around the pastry. Shisui had been so embarrassed, he’d made Sasuke pray to his patron god that night as part of his nightly cleric rituals, which had been a worse punishment than Itachi’s slap. Itachi simply made sure that his little brother didn’t get caught again instead of trying to correct the behavior because they needed the skills of a rogue and he didn’t trust any of the ones for hire.
The wizard spun around, nearly smacking Sasuke in the face with his long flowy hair. “A scoundrel!"
Sasuke produced the coin purse with a flick of his wrist, giving it back with an aggravated smile. “You wouldn't need a rogue on your adventure, would you?” he asked, ignoring the wizard and addressing Lee directly.
The monk gasped, his thick eyebrows high on his forehead before he began clapping. “An excellent show of your skills!”
Tenten looked back at Lee for a moment, something flickering in her dark eyes. “I can handle traps, Lee. It may be best-” She let go of Sasuke, letting his hand drop, but the rogue kept his attention on her. A cleric with knowledge of traps? This entire situation was fishy. What was her angle? When Sasuke looked at Lee, he saw nothing other than a gullible monk, nothing worth his time… and nothing of value hidden in the man’s green outfit.
“Welcome!” Lee shouted, talking over Tenten while she tried to dissuade him from hiring Sasuke. “With myself, Tenten–” He stared intensely at the wizard waiting for him to introduce himself.
“Neji Hyuugapolis, the sec-”
“Neji, and–” Lee held a hand out to Sasuke suggesting that he go next. The wizard scoffed in offense.
Sasuke sighed. Well, at least he had nothing better to do. He’d be able to slip away when they made camp anyway–with the wizard’s coin. “Sasuke,” he answered.
“-and Sasuke, we’ll make a great adventuring party! Yosh!”