"This is ridiculous!" Naruto complains, his shout almost lost in the howling wind. "I've never heard of any village out this way, let alone a temple—it's not even on a proper map!"

Sasuke affords his travelling companion a scant glance, although he is of a similar mind.

The path before them is daunting, so windswept and snowy that it is almost impossible to see two feet in front of their faces. Even Sasuke, whose eyes are far better than anyone else's, has difficulty discerning where white ground ends and sky begins.

"We should stop to rest," Kakashi calls out at the leader of their procession. "This whole pursuit will be a waste if we lose any important bits to frostbite!"

Up ahead, the short, hooded figure spearheading their frigid ascent pauses and turns around. Thick strands of rosy hair whip around her face, a stark contrast to their bleak surroundings, and almost as jarring as her green eyes. Sasuke never would have expected to see eyes the colour of feladara in a Child of the Stone.

He watches her face as she weighs the mage's words, biting her bottom lip in contemplation. Coupled with her small stature, the gesture would fool a stranger into thinking her frail, but he has learned not to take her soft features at face value. In the weeks since meeting her, he has seen her wrestle darkspawn and kill an ogre with nothing but an axe and her fist. The sight reminds him of the stories his people tell of the great elven general Tsunade, who wielded the enchanted blade of Katsuyu during the Battle of Forlorn Falls.

Not that he will ever tell a dwarf that.

Sakura is more of a strategic thinker than her character would suggest—economic but also as opportunistic as a wolf. Though her first instinct is to help the less-fortunate, she is not above taking jobs for monetary gain. And yet, somehow those mercenary chores always yield some bounty vital to their overall objectives.

It is an odd talent of hers, and Sasuke is not sure if it makes him more unnerved by her or more curious. This uncertainty bothers him.

Sakura observes them all now, the slight narrowing of her eyes a tell Sasuke identifies as calculation. She is gauging their current fitness and comparing that to what she knows of their abilities. Whenever Sasuke feels those eyes, he has the disconcerting presentment she sees him like a playing card to sacrifice in a game of Wicked Grace.

"No, let's keep going," she decides after a beat. There is enough reluctance in her voice to suggest she would like to be out of the gale just as much as he, but she remains otherwise resolved. "There's still an hour left of daylight, such as it is. I want to get over that bluff before the snow changes the landscape too much."

Naruto does not bother disguising his moan of dismay, but Sasuke smirks.

The woman is not soft. I will give her that.

As he continues the trek up the frozen, slippery incline of the northernmost Sanrō Mountain, he wonders if that is because she also has a death wish.

The life of a Grey Warden is blighted, Sasuke has heard. The whole Order must be cursed, considering their duty to defend the entire continent from the menace of the darkspawn. Raised among the Dalish, Sasuke was taught to distrust all but his own kind, yet the Keeper and the storytellers in his clan spoke of the Wardens with great respect. It is a fellowship where all are equal, no matter their origins, and whose members follow a worthy calling.

Based on the dangers they face every day he cannot argue that even the hardiest of his own people would have baulked at such a challenge. No elf would have accepted this quest in the first place.

Sasuke still wonders why he agreed to come along. There are four other members of their company who—idiosyncrasies aside—would have been more suited to the expedition. It is no secret he hates the cold almost as much as he hates humans or magic. And yet, here he is, struggling through knee-high snowdrifts in a mountain pass, side by side with two humans—one of them a mage—seeking the ashes of a long dead shemlen madwoman, in a party led by a dwarf with the most offensive coloured hair and puzzling good cheer he has ever encountered. If his father still lived—

Sasuke shakes his head.

There is no point in imagining how his father would or would not have reacted. He has been dead for years, along with the rest of the Uchiha clan.

Except for myself and a certain individual that is.

Sasuke clenches his fist and orders himself to focus on other things.

His life's pursuit will not help him much in this icy hell, except as an incentive not to die. At least that offers more motivation than that which the Elders charged him with as a child. But then, Sasuke is already considered a traitor to his kind, his pursuit of revenge having pulled him far from the beliefs and traditions of the Elvhen. Living the life of an assassin and keeping company with a bunch of ruffians is far from the life he imagined for himself. As for this particular group...

Under normal circumstances, Sasuke would never lower himself to follow another, let alone someone like Sakura. Dwarven blood aside, she thinks too much with her heart, believing the best of people and forgiving them even their worst crimes.

Still.

There's something about her that drew him in. Perhaps it is that she possesses a forthrightness he has not seen since childhood.

"Your gear's quality," she told him at once following their first meeting: a roadside ambush he had led. He had accepted a contract on behalf of the House of Crows to kill her and her party. Instead, she and Naruto handed him his first defeat since his last encounter with his brother, then convinced him to travel with them instead of returning to the Crows. "Well-made, and expensive. Much more serviceable than I'd expect for an elf."

Though her comments were clearly motivated by curiosity instead of malice, his pride was still smarting at his defeat.

"And what exactly would you expect from an elf?" he asked stiffly.

"Well...nothing as practical as this. I thought you'd be all...you know, woodsy. With the flowers and the wind and maybe singing a jaunty tune. But your stuff's about as mean as anything a duster could come up with. Just shinier. Suna-made, I'd say, except I thought elves hated the Empire?"

A clumsy interrogation tactic, which he deflected with ease. "Perhaps Iwa's archives are not the most accurate authority on the elves."

But she merely laughed off his dig at her home.

"Hey, let's not start up the stereotypical dwarven-elven rivalry, okay? Iwa's archives are hardly an authority on Iwa. I just want to know more about you, Sasuke-kun."

"Hn."

He should have been insulted by the familiarity of her address, but as he could not detect even a hint of true derision, he merely settled on puzzled irritation.

Sakura is nothing like the legends say a Grey Warden should be though that could be down to the fact she apparently has not been one that long. This is according to the other Warden, Naruto, who has only been one six months longer.

As fate would have it, the bastard is also heir to the humans' throne in Konoha.

And that is bastard in the literal sense, too, it would seem.

"You're the first elf I've ever known," the bewhiskered man told him shortly after Sakura spared Sasuke's life and recruited him. "I hope you understand how big a deal that it."

Sasuke had stared blankly. "Why?"

"Because your actions will influence my opinion of your race forever," Naruto replied with a grin. "So, if you turn out to be a giant wuss, I'll think all the elves are like that."

"And if I shove my arm into your chest and remove your still-beating heart?"

"I'll know you don't have a problem with getting your hand dirty?"

"Felasil," Sasuke muttered, trying to put distance between the two of them.

Naruto was not put off by the threat of bodily harm at all. Worse, somehow Sasuke now finds himself constantly trailed after by the human and treated to a running commentary on every fool thought which enters his head. It has been a constant annoyance, though not without some reward. Sasuke has learned much more about his current travelling companions, the dwarf woman especially, than he would have had he lowered himself to asking.

As per to halfwit's ceaseless complaining and lamenting, and the occasional input from Kakashi, a mage who was also at the ill-fated offensive at Kannabi Bridge, Naruto and Sakura are the sole survivors of the entire contingent of Konoha's Grey Wardens.

During an encounter with the growing darkspawn horde, Konoha's war leader and the king's right-hand man, Danzō Shimura, quit the field mid-battle. Besides allowing the darkspawn to overrun the Grey Wardens, he facilitated the death of Konoha's king, Minato—Naruto's father. Now the traitor rules the country while the surviving Wardens are deemed criminals and the target of bounty-hunters everywhere.

Not that this has made them easy quarry to apprehend. Even if Sakura and Naruto lacked basic fighting abilities, they carry with them treaties that ensure safe passage based on the Warden name. While Sakura focusses her efforts on drumming up support to battle the Blight, Naruto seeks to clear the names of the Wardens. Sasuke is not sure he can fathom the threat of a giant horde of darkspawn beyond what he knows from legends. Yet he does understand Naruto's wish to seek vindication for the deaths of one he considered family.

It does not make the younger man more palatable.

He is a constant source of tasteless jokes and immaturity, which on anyone else might speak of innocence but which Sasuke ascribes to dimwittedness. Some hand guides his fate, though, because he is still alive. Wardens do not initiate those without an ability to survive, and Sasuke is not about to suggest Naruto is unskilled. The swordsman is fast enough in combat that it sometimes seems like he can copy himself.

And as a leader, Sakura is not entirely a loss either. She has maintained a determination and optimism about her task, even climbing this godsforsaken mountain despite disliking the cold more than Sasuke. Dwarves come from deep underground where it is always warm. Elves wander wherever they will, from stifling deserts to—when necessary—the cold, winter steppes beyond the Land of Iron.

All of this on the off-chance of support for her quest.

Pursuit of lost causes must be a dwarven trait, Sasuke decides, not for the first time.

There is a bellowing roar in the distance, and an odd gusting sound that just cuts above the keening wind.

"Dragonkin," Sasuke says after a moment of straining his ears; he has encountered enough drakes in his life to recognise that type of cry. But this sounds a lot bigger. "Best to be careful—very careful."

"No, I figured we'd shout at it and get it to notice us," Naruto shoots back.

"Perhaps ring a gong?" Sakura suggests in jest.

"There are rumours of a high dragon in these mountains," Kakashi tells them. "At least that is what the historical scrolls say."

The Warden stomps a little harder at the snow.

"Bah! As if we don't have enough to worry about with a giant, Blight infected dragon commanding hordes of darkspawn underground. Now we have to deal with one that can swoop down and knock us off a mountain?"

"Yeah," Naruto agrees. "Swooping is bad."

Sasuke shoots the other man a look of disgust. Is it possible for him to sound like a bigger fool?

"Oh well, at least if it tries to set us on fire, we'll die warm!"

Apparently so.

"Would anyone miss him if we threw him into a crevice?" Sasuke wonders.

"Only the people of Konoha who hope to be rescued from beneath the heel of a megalomaniac dictator," Kakashi replies.

"You humans..." Sasuke rolls his eyes. "If he were anyone else with a less impressive pedigree, he'd be shovelling manure in the streets. But because his father happened to be what you call royal, he is considered important. It boggles the mind that your kind has spread so far across what was once Elvhenan when your leaders are as thick as druffalo hide."

The wind must divert his words because neither Kakashi nor Naruto react to the slight. Sakura, however, sniggers in a way that is both conspiratorial and amused. As the only other non-human there, she appreciates the truth in his words. For that reason alone, he supposes he can tolerate her other quirks.

Even the ones that make his stomach jump at the oddest moments.

_____

Translations:

feladara – elfroot

shemlen – quick children; human

Elvhen – our people; what the elves call themselves

Felasil – fool, idiot, literally "slow mind"

Elvhenan – the place of our people; the place where freedom dwells our hearts; the entire continent which belonged to the elves before the humans destroyed their empire and enslaved most