DateMe entry Dec 09

Title: Blossoms in the Snow

Theme: SasuHina fairytale

Based on yuki onna, the snow woman. Ever notice how the unimportant characters have no names in these things? Not like it matters, they only help you or try to kill you, but fail because you're such a smart cookie. All the guys who don't get the girl are redshirts. Like when the princess sends out five princes on impossible quests and the only one who comes back to her FAKED IT. No one cares about the others. AT ALL. That's how it goes in fairy tales.

The Golden Hairpin is another Japanese tale. Also figured the gifts would mirror present-giving for all the westerners.

Not hard to believe I wrote it in one day. This counts for Christmas, right?

Don't wander too far nor cry too loud on snowy nights, or yuki onna will come and take you away.

Hanabi had forgotten about her grandmother's warnings. She had been the only one to see the wolf leaving through a window in the storeroom. So she had told a child on the street and gone after it, her own tracks as clear as the sun. She had followed it high up above the village, further up the mountain than she had ever been alone. And then the blizzard had struck; at first it was just soft drifts of snow that fell like feathers, and there was no hope of catching the beast now. She had turned around and after ten paces she had no idea which way home was. She had been cold, but it wasn't uncomfortable any more. She knew if she couldn't find shelter soon, she would die. A flurry of snow burst in front of her, and she forced herself to focus on the solid white shape that appeared. All she saw were hollow black eyes before she collapsed.

"She's impetuous. And nature has been cruel to us this year," Hinata explains to her betrothed why her sister would be so very stupid as to run up the mountain all by herself. "The wolf she was chasing ravaged the family stores. She might have taken it rather personally."

"Why do you even think she's still alive?" he grumbles, clearly not as impressed with the Hyuuga lineage as he should be.

"Hanabi is special…" The roar of the wind steals her voice, but it's the figure in white that takes her breath away.

"Yuki onna," her fiancé screams and tries to run. The apparition doesn't say anything, but Hinata thinks it might be irritated. Her fear spikes when it swoops over him and breathes ice and death into his face. And she realizes yuki onna doesn't match her grandmother's description at all. For one thing—

"You're a man!" she exclaims, startled out of her stupor. Short messy hair instead of long and loose, black eyes rather than gold, and while it could be confused from a distance, his robes are not kimono. But aside from his features, heartbreakingly handsome and not ethereally beautiful, he behaves like all the stories say yuki onna should.

He turns and looks at her, cold and calculating. He must see something he likes because he walks over to stare into her eyes.

"You came here for a girl? About seven?" His voice is like a faraway storm, and she shivers uncontrollably.

"S-she's ten," Hinata whispers, knowing how badly Hanabi would have reacted to that, yuki onna or not.

The snow apparition rolls his eyes.

"I don't care, I don't like her," he takes her by the hand and walks determinedly into the storm. "You people haven't lost a child in years. Unlike my predecessor, I actually prefer not having to collect strays."

"Y-your predecessor?" she stammers, trying to think about something other than her hand turning blue. His skin is colder than ice.

"Yeah. Orochimaru actually looked the part of freakish vindictive dead thing. He found me when I ran away. But she didn't run away, nor is she an orphan, so I don't need to keep her."

Hinata tries very hard to wrap her mind around the solid proof grabbing her by the hand that her grandmother's stories had a grain of truth within them. Her family and fiancé are a distant memory, distorted and brittle like they are trapped in deep beneath a frozen lake.

"You have names?"

He looks at her like she's particularly slow-witted, near brush with death notwithstanding. "Of course. I used to be Sasuke."

"Oh." She doesn't get the chance to say anything else before her sister tackles her into a snowdrift.

"Told you people would miss me," she tells Sasuke. Then she rears back and stares. "You do know that she has a fiancé, right?"

"Not any more," mutters Sasuke, ducking into the barely visible cave. Hanabi helps her sister up and ushers her inside.

"You killed him?" she asks interestedly. "Like in the stories, icy breath of death? He deserved it. Although, I don't think our father will like you enough to bring you into the family."

Hinata is still catching her breath, but Sasuke asks for both of them.

"What the hell?"

"It's the story. Yuki onna spares the man because of his looks and then later marries him. If he hadn't been an idiot they would have stayed happily married and prosperous. I just think our father wouldn't let you marry her to begin with. No family, no land, and just a little scary. Not very appealing."

"You wore out your welcome the second you woke up," Sasuke tells her impatiently. "Go now. I can take you most of the way down the mountain, but you'll have to get back to your village by yourself."

"We'll be fine." Hinata bows low, while Hanabi makes faces at him.

It has only been a day since they returned, but rumors are circulating the village that the Hyuuga women are cursed. Hinata isn't sure her sister didn't have something to do with it. No one wants to marry her after her first fiancé died trying to help her family. The Hyuuga don't mind the rumors too much, since the wolves, human and furred, leave them alone after that.

Hinata sneaks in to the storehouse and takes enough rice flour and red beans to make mochi. She packs them carefully in a box and tucks it into her sleeve.

Hanabi pretends she hasn't seen her sister staring up the mountain all day, no doubt retracing their steps. She only waves when Hinata mumbles something about losing their mother's gold hairpin, a betrothal gift from their father.

Her feet unerringly take her back to the cave, where she waits patiently. After several hours, she decides to leave, carefully placing the gift inside the entrance. Her sister asks if she has the hairpin, knowing she can't have found something lost years ago.

When she comes back the next day with tonjiki, the box is waiting for her outside. She can't help but smile as she replaces the old with the new.

The fifth time, there's a delicate white flower atop the empty box.

The sixth, a cup of tea gently steams, as if expecting her to warm herself with it.

On impulse, she leaves a selection of poetry with the seventh treat. That she doesn't get back until a few days after, with several dry comments on the different natures of snow in love and in reality, inked on fine paper. It is more expensive than anything she has been allowed to touch all her life. She wonders, not for the first time, what he really is.

Hanabi sees her with the note and snatches it out of her hands. She doesn't bother to hide a grin, fetches her own favorite collection of death poetry, and insists on helping with mochi this time. Hinata slips a warning into the box before wrapping it up.

He is there when she arrives, with a brazier warming two cups of tea beside him. He makes no motion to take the box from her, so she leaves it in its usual place. He brusquely motions her to take a cup before taking the other.

"How is it a young woman from a village in the mountains knows how to read?"

"How is it a runaway does?" she counters. She sips her tea quietly and then answers him. "My father and mother fled the Emperor's court when the military uprisings first broke out. Our family name was strongly associated with the Taira, so they feared getting caught up in the conflict. What we have is mostly from the summer house, but literature is worth very little here. We will probably return when peace returns to the capital."

Sasuke doesn't offer to answer her question, so she bows and thanks him for the tea, and for saving her sister. Although nearly untouched, there is no steam rising from his cup.

Every day for months she brings her offerings to the spirit of the mountain. Every day she tells her sister she is still looking for the hairpin. Every day she returns looking happier than the last. Hanabi finally decides to accompany her sister. There are three cups on the brazier.

"Are you helping her look for it?" Hanabi asks rudely.

"Look for what?"

"Our mother's golden hairpin," she retorts over her sister's protests.

"Yes," he replies indifferently, waiting for his tea to cool down.

She glares at him, and shakes today's box roughly as she gives it to her sister to open.

They talk of Lady Ise's poetry and how it did or did not relate to her life. She wonders if perhaps she shouldn't have gone after that wolf after all.

The sisters return the day after, and Sasuke surprises them by giving Hinata a box. She doesn't open it. Hanabi has no such qualms, and has the lid off in a minute. An elaborate hairpin, with a waterfall of red petals, rests on faded silk. She drops it as if burned, forcing Sasuke to pick it up. Hinata is refusing to take it, claiming it is too expensive for her. Sasuke ends up pulling a long, thick lock of her hair into a loose knot, and carefully pinning it in place. His warm touch makes her burn.

"That's like announcing your betrothal!" Hanabi wails.

"Good enough," is all Sasuke says, still gazing at her face.

"He's not even human! Say something," she hisses at her sister.

"I… I…"

"Accept?"

She nods weakly and falls into his kiss.