High-Fantasy in a modern AU. Started as a series in my Golden Ratio Colletion.

Calypso
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1. Sanctuary

Sasuke could feel the poison swirling through his veins, as tangibly as he felt the pain radiating from the deep gash in his side, and the puncture wound at his neck. With the maniacal laughter still ringing in his ears, he summoned the shadows and bid them take him to sanctuary, as far from the Serpent's Lair as possible. They delivered him to the tapering end of a thick grove of trees bordering a lush garden, just at the edge of the moonlight. The gleaming, wide leaves caught his eye, and he stumbled into the moonlight, wrenching a handful of vegetation and pressing it to his side with a hiss of pain. He collapsed onto the worn, stone bench, overcome with dizziness, and the first tastes of despair.

No one could possibly know where he was – he didn't even know where he was - so there would be no help coming. If he could not stave off the poison here and now, he would be dead before the moonlight faded from the sky.

There was a creak of an old and wooden door, and artificial light spilled into the garden.

"Hello?"

He looked up sharply to find a woman framed in the doorway, scanning the garden. He was too injured to will himself into invisibility, so he stayed absolutely still and hoped enough shadow clung to him as to mask his presence. She closed the door and walked down the three or four sagging steps to the garden, and called out again.

"Is anyone there?"

Her eyes alighted upon him with a small gasp of surprise.

"You can't see me," he harshed out. "Go back in the house."

Inconceivably, she disobeyed, a frown marring her face as she hurried over, and dropped to his side, kneeling in the cool of the grass.

"You're hurt," she whispered, and he blamed his injury for weakening his ability to coerce her.

"I'm not here," he tried again, and batted her hand away when she would reach for the leaves clasped against himself. "Stupid mortal – this will burn you."

"Perhaps if it was hogsweed," she agreed, a tilt of amusement on her lips. "But that is cow parsnip."

"Cow parsnip," his wry disgust was a short, sharp bark. "Just my luck."

His sharp eyes caught the familiar glint of red at the edge of her sleeve, and the hand not clutching his side shot out to grab her arm. He ignored her strangled gasp as he pulled her wrist (and her) closer for inspection. There were several bangles there, but he was interested only in the woven bracelet (hemp, perhaps) and the five brilliant red seeds in its center. He thumbed over them, making sure that the tell-tale black spot capped the end of each one, as satisfaction twisted his lips upward.

"Jequirity," he breathed. "Perhaps my luck is not so awful after all."

With no warning, he pulled her wrist to his mouth, and slid his tongue along her pulse and under the fiber of her woven bracelet. He drew the deadly beads into his mouth and cracked them with ease, prying them off of the bracelet and swallowing them whole.

The relief was almost instantaneous, and leaned back against the bench with a groan, staring up at the moon and watching as the faded edges of his peripheral vision became to come back into focus.

The woman snatched back her hand.

Despite everything, a dark chuckle resonated in his chest.

"Don't worry, Little Rabbit. You're safe from me for now." He let his head loll to the side so he could study her. The fringe of dark hair on her bowed head hid her eyes from him, but he could hardly fault her for being in shock. How could she know that the seeds someone had woven into an ornamental bracelet were deadly to mortals, but healing to his kind?

A cooling relief began to weave through the wound at his side, and he glanced down to inspect it.

That was when he noticed the woman's hands cupped over his wound, her lips moving in silent incantation while moon-pale light flowed from her fingers and into his side. Stunned, he watched even as he felt the cool silver of the light slide over his skin, and knit it back together. Before he could protest, the light faded from her hands, and she sat back on her heels with a small release of breath.

"There," her voice was whisper soft, yet he heard her. "That will do for now. We really need to get you inside to tend to the rest of it."

He blinked at her, wondering if she realized that some things should never be invited into your home. The eyes that met his were impossibly pale, and luminous in the moonlight. He swore that the veins around them had been bulging a fraction of a second ago, but dismissed it as a trick of the poison.

There was something otherworldly about her, and he was no longer convinced he'd stumbled into the garden of a mortal.

"You are far too weak to travel right now; you need to rest at least until morning."

"No," he said flatly. "I will leave before dawn."

"Seems unnecessary," she shrugged. "Not to mention ill-advised."

"You wouldn't say that if you had seen what was chasing me," he grimaced. "And don't fool yourself into thinking you are safe. Any being trying to aid me will be marked for death. They won't be distracted by the finer points of cow parsnip versus hogsweed."

"I can imagine," the corner of her lips twitched up in amusement. "Come inside and stay the night. You will be safe until morning.

"You're fool enough to invite a stranger into your home?" he arched an eyebrow out her. "What…" he started, and then thought better of it. "Who are you?"

"No one of importance."

"You weave moonlight," he accused. "You treated my wounds, which means you know what I am - and yet you still invited me into your home. You are either a mage, or a grave fool."

For a split second, he saw the ghosts slide across her face before she tucked them away in the polite mask of her smile.

"I don't know what you are talking about, Sasuke," her quiet voice was gentle and sonorous, and fell thick on his ears, captivating his attention even as he felt his consciuosness and will slipping away. "I'm just the village spinster who lives at the end of the lane. Sometimes wounded animals wander into my garden, and I help them until they are well enough to leave." He heard rather than saw her shrug. "Nothing more."

The use of his name made him at once comorted and gravely unsettled. Names meant power, and he had not granted her the right to use his, and he could not fathom how it came to fall from her lips.

"A name for a name," he demanded, struggling to fight against the warmth and comfort and honey coaxing him to sleep.

"It doesn't work like that," her voice was more distant - softer, even - yet he heard it in his marrow and sinew and bone. "Not here."

"Please." It was little more than a whisper, and if he'd been more alert, the desperation and lonlieness would have made him wince. She knew his name without him revealing it; to take such a thing would be a powerful advantage. "A name."

There was gentle pressure on his forehead, like the press of a mother's kiss.

A fraction before he succumbed, he heard something gentler than the unfurling of the Moonflowers climbing the garden wall.

"Hinata."

"Hinata," he breathed, and then the world went dark, and he slipped into a space between heartbeats where dreams and darkness could not enter.

Wishing you the best! - GL