"The Monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance." ―Sue Townsend.

It was, as her entire life had been, for the Fire Country. For peace. So that the lives of soldiers who had died would not be in vain. The Fire Country and the Wind Country had had an alliance since the war ended 13 years before, while she was just a child, but it was shaky, and this marriage was to soldify it. The threat of war always loomed in the world, and the Fire Country had to be prepared. The last war, the war against the Wind Country, had been devastating to both sides. This was to ensure that something like that would never happen again between the two countries.

Sakura knew the reasoning. She knew the great responsibility she had. She just wished that they had chosen someone else to do this. She didn't want to live out her days being the wife of the third prince of the Wind Country; she wanted to be free. She sighed and laid back on her bed. She didn't know what kind of person this Sasori was. Maybe he was a good person. Maybe he would be kind and gentle and loving and strong and would keep her safe yet allow her to do what she wanted. He wasn't Sasuke, the man she'd pined after for years, but he could always be better.

As if there's a better man than Sasuke, she thought, rolling her eyes. Conversely, for all she knew, he could be mean and cruel and abusive. But why would her loving family sell her to someone like that?

Peace. Of course.

She was the adopted daughter of Princess Tsunade of the Fire Country. Due to various succession laws placing her as the fifth princess, Sakura herself was far away from the throne, but that didn't keep her from being a useful bargaining chip as she was still part of the royal family. A princess was a princess after all.

She checked the clock on sitting on her wall across from her bed. Five o'clock, it was time to get ready for dinner, where she would meet her soon-to-be husband. She sighed once more, but tried to keep her hopes up. He wouldn't be as good a man as Sasuke she knew, but she could settle for a second or third place. It was, after all, for peace.

A/N: Yep. Another one of those SasoSaku AUs. I'll try to update it every few days.