Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Beta'd by Petrames, drowsyivy, UmbreonGurl, and Fishebake.

"In the end, everyone is aware of this;

Nobody keeps any of what he has,

And life is only a borrowing of bones."

— Pablo Neruda, Dying Into Now

Kota sits at her kitchen table, strange and rough in its newness, his hands wrapped around a cup of steaming tea. He'd arrived in time for spring planting, though she suspects he'll make a mess of it, like Kiyo did once upon a time.

The Hatake were not known for being settled, and planting, that connection with the land is foreign to them even under the best of circumstances, which this is not.

Once, many years ago, when Kiyo had first walked out of the red dust to come a-courting, he'd sat down on her porch under the trailing wisteria vine, and laughingly told her he would help her with the planting, before he'd come to the rueful realization that his wandering feet could never truly stay settled.

And now he's wandered further than the stars, to lands she will not walk to join him until the sun sets on her life years from now.

She lives. She breathes, and one day perhaps, she would join him where the sun has set and only twilight sits — listening.

Kota fidgets while sitting there, a bouncing knee, unsettled fingers, that clench and unclench around the teacup.

"Your tea will grow cold, Kota-kun." Kime was out exploring with Takamaru, and while she did not trust this strange new peace, the landscape of this terribly foreign era where like did not live alone with like — clans that were once enemies now had to deal with the tenants of being neighbors — she trusted Takamaru to keep her daughter safe from harm.

"The murderer was there, in the room." Kota's voice breaks and his breathing turns rough with something she can only call wounded grief. "And I couldn't do anything. I'd signed."

Yes, he had signed. She'd encouraged him to.

She loved Kiyo's brother too much to let him die for the sake of vengeance. Kota is young, and hot-headed and if the way he's acting right now is any indication, he would've leapt across the table and tried to kill Senju Tobirama in a heartbeat if he had not signed.

And that could only end in death, for Senju Tobirama is no easy man to kill and Kiyo had always been better with a sword than his little brother.

"Yes," she agrees. Kiyo, more than anything else, would've wanted his younger brother alive. "You did." He would want his wife alive too, a small voice argues, but she shoves that back to the hidden depths of her mind. Whatever her moon wanted for her, it is a very different story now.

"You knew." Kota says again, without drinking his tea, his hands clasped looser around the cup now. "Aneja, you knew." And you didn't stop me.

She hears the accusation in the words he didn't say, the tone that's half of boyish shock and half of grief.

She hears the accusation and knows that it rings true, down in her marrow.

"I did know," she admits, and feels a touch of rue when grief and anger cloud Kota's eyes for a moment, but that is quickly and ruthlessly buried. He'd smelled so betrayed. She'd heard it in the hitch of his breathing, the way he almost but not quite could believe it.

But he could believe it, given what he knew of her.

Better to be a living coward than a courageous dead man.

The dead hold prominence, have, and always will, but the living change history, guided by the eyes of gods and the whims of fate.

"Aneja—" Kota cuts himself off, mouth working but words no longer coming out.

She sits down at the table with him, on the other side, a smile on her lips though that's also no comfort perhaps because he can likely read the disappointment in her scent as easily as picking up a kunai. "Drink your tea, Kota-kun, it's getting cold, and we can talk."

When he leaves later that afternoon, his steps are calmer and more sure of himself than when he came in.

And she counts that as a kindness, even if it wasn't a kindness she gave.

By some sort of rather perverse quirk of fate, Kime takes a liking to Senju Tobirama. Sitting in the kitchen with her feet swinging back and forth, over the floorboards, still shining in their newness, and chattering about this and that, Kime tells her about how 'Tobira-jiji' really was just sad.

He's so sad, Haha. Why is he so sad? How do I make him happier? Tobira-jiji shouldn't be sad!

And she supposes, that this was never out of the realm of possibility.

Kime is a child still, and she'd always been friendly.

And something about Senju Tobirama had reminded her only child of Kiyo.

She doesn't have the heart to explain the matter, not when Kime looks so happy now, in ways that she hasn't been for a long time.

"Haha," Kime tugs at her sleeve urgently. "Haha, you haven't answered, Tobira-jiji isn't happy. How do I help?"

She glances over at her daughter, who is standing knee deep in the paddy water, limply holding a few more stalks of young rice to be planted, and the crooked rows Kime has turned out so far. "There are many reasons why Senju Tobirama may not be happy." She thinks about it, and can plainly see plenty of reasons why it might be so — the animosity between his brother's husband and himself, the sheer workload the man has, the odd way that no one will look him in the eye — none of which Kime could possibly hope to fix. "But not all things are fixed so easily, neh?"

Kime shoves another rice plant into the dirt beneath their feet. "But Haha, can't you think of something?"

"Hmmmm?" She plants another rice stalk, bending low as is the nature of planting season, warm mud between her toes as water sloshes about her calves. They could not cart the paddy fish with them, but she hopes to introduce new ones from the river soon, hopes that the paddies will attract frogs. "My little wolf, why would I be thinking of something?"

"Because people are always happier after talking to you, Haha."

She has not thought so in recent months, with the way that people came to her house for disputes over this and that, uneasy with their new neighbors, upset over things that have already changed, unsure of Okami-sama and his faith in the clan.

She has mediated disputes yes, but that does not mean that the end result is happiness. "Things are more complex sometimes," she says, slowly tasting the words that come alive to her senses, the world coming alive in the throes of spring. "And just because I know what might make members of our pack happy, does not mean I know what will make Senju Tobirama happy, Little Wolf." He is not pack, and I have no understanding of him that I care to use to make him happy.

And that is true, sure enough.

For Asari and Kiji and Yuzu and Kota and the others, she knows what will bring them peace, what will set them at ease, that she need only pass time smoking with Asari to hear all the words in her heart.

But for strangers, she is much at a loss.

And for this particular stranger, she has much less to say at all.

"But Haha," Kime grumbles, sloshing after her as they plant more rice. "Can't you try?"

The question follows her well into the evening, with dragonflies darting here and there among the newly planted rice, as the sun slides down to rest. Can't you try?

Uchiha Madara comes to call rather suddenly one day, while she's sitting at a desk, writing with quick strokes of a pig bristle brush, logging the fields planted, the houses built, where Kiji might be getting clay for his pottery from the Nakano River, a thousand little details that happen when one moves and suddenly everything changes.

The wisteria sapling planted at the corner of her porch is a frail little thing, unlike the vines of her memory, blanketing the entire porch with sweet, dangling flowers all throughout the summer.

Their herds of sheep had traveled with them from the Villa, but now needed a new place to be tended, her relatives who worked the wool into clothing needed direction on what to do next, as did everyone else. Leatherwork, wool, the spring planting, the pigs, the dogs, bamboo groves and woven baskets, where to place Okami-sama's shrine, all the traditions of her clan have been shifted and made new, and this is the time to set down new traditions, new ways to go about business.

She hears him coming from a long ways off, smells the woodsmoke, sweat, and rust that clings to him as if he's come from a forge.

"Didn't take you for the type," he drawls, voice deep with a slight rasp that almost turns into a cough. Casually, he leans one broad shoulder against the doorframe, and doesn't come further into the room.

"I'm a queen, not a washerwoman." She knows her kanji, the set for daily use, the set for formal use, the set only for clan records, the set for Okami-sama, had been taught them by her mother, back when she was only a girl. She raises her eyes to meet his gaze then, red and black pinwheels spinning in the wind. "Is there a reason you've come to visit, Uchiha-san?"

This close, she hears the wetness in his lungs. It's something that she's listened to for a long time now, though he disguises his coughing often as laughter.

Demented, crazy laughter, but laughter nonetheless, which implies he doesn't actually want to hear someone comment upon it.

Which, is unfortunately quite worrying of him, considering that he felt the need to be perceived as crazy before being perceived as sick and probably in need of medical attention. Why no one has done anything about it is a different matter, and certainly not her affair.

"You've got a child." Uchiha Madara crosses his arms over his chest and doesn't say much more.

"I have a daughter, yes." She has a daughter, a pack, a future to look out for.

"A Hatake child." Ah, he did not miss the hair then, how funny it is when other clans speak of rule by men.

"An Inuzuka child." She shrugs languidly. "She is my daughter."

He seems to consider this for a long moment before he speaks again. "Any reason why she keeps coming to the Tower?"

"She's decided that Senju Tobirama needs hugs." She raises an eyebrow at the man leaning against the doorframe. "Don't worry, if you're sad enough you'll be infested with hugs too."

The man barks a laugh at this, sharp, cutting, more than a little defensive. "Like hugs ever did anything for men like us."

"There something wrong with men like you?" She has her own sword to sharpen against Senju Tobirama, but she has heard of plenty, much that other people aren't aware that she and her clan have been hearing.

"Better question," he says, in a slow, heavy drawl. "What isn't wrong with men like me?"

She laughs herself at this, a smile curved sharp about her teeth. "You gonna need a list? Or would you prefer to accept it as the truth?"

"I'd like the list." He's crossed his arms, leaning against her door jamb.

"Vainer than a tiger admiring his own stripes." She waves a hand at him to come in. "If you want a list you'll also want a seat."

That seems to throw him off balance for a moment before he slowly pushes himself away from the door jamb to sprawl relatively peacefully onto her tatami mat. "Well," he says after a moment, "I believe I was promised a list."

She makes a note of the newly planted rice, brushstrokes quick and sure as she marks out the number of paddies and their relative locations — she will have to ask Kazuki to come map out the land for her to give her a sense of scope and scale — before she thinks to respond.

"I assume," she says lightly. "That you have both a functioning mind and a functioning heart, neither prone to delusional insensicalities or weeping sementality, have all of your limbs attached where they are supposed to be, your morals more or less in the right place, once learned a peculiar set of manners you still carry, have some sort of commitment to peace and general welfare, of your pack if nothing else, and that you're not so far gone round the bend of the river that you can't seen your own reflection for the flattery of your stripes."

He laughs at this, genuinely laughs this time, roaring with mirth as he lies sprawled on the tatami mat in the center of the room. "Are those the only measures of a man?" he asks, after another moment.

"Are there other measures that matter when it comes to the inherent value of a soul?" Before Okami-sama, all souls have value. She wonders what gods he worships for that to have twisted into something else.

"I am certainly a blight on the landscape when it comes to peace," he observes without any particular fanfare. "Which implies something wrong with my internal makeup."

"I doubt it." She makes another note to ask Kohaku-chan about the state of the furs from the previous winter. "Unless your stomach is attached to your liver, there's nothing wrong with your internal makeup, only your attitude."

She rises. There are three sets of feet coming up the walk to the porch, and growing closer by the moment is Kime, arguing with her Tobira-jiji.

Something about the nature of rice, which Kime is arguing that she knows a lot about after helping with the planting.

Kime bounces into the room first, followed by Takamaru quickly on her heels, "Haha, Haha, who's the Jiji visiting?"

She casts a glance back at the man who has picked himself off of the tatami in record time, a hand on the hilt of his wakizashi. "Uchiha Madara-san, Little Wolf."

Senju Tobirama lingers outside for a moment longer, before turning and vanishing down the path.

Kime peers around her to look at Madara with serious eyes. "Jiji with messy hair?"

Something on the man's face freezes, and seemingly gets shoved to the very very back of the consciousness before he mumbles a shamefaced "of course," and makes his excuses to head out the door.

What had just happened between Senju Tobirama and Uchiha Madara was interesting.

She has heard of course, that neither man preferred each other's company, and they were kept from bloody violence only by Senju Hashirama's regard for both his husband and his brother, but she is almost certain that Tobirama had come up to the door, but didn't intend to come in.

Interesting.

It takes some time for her to end up being the one on the prowl with Takamaru at night outside the village proper — Kime needed someone to sleep in the house with her, and Haruko-baa simply hadn't had the time to come up to the house in between all the cooking she has done to feed everyone — but it is now again, her turn to guard the rice and the livestock which are housed away from the sprawling central market of the village.

No one had been happy with the idea of buying and selling — it is the ones who live below who care for money — nevermind that they now lived in the village walls and likely wanted the things that could be bought.

But there is no buying and selling between family — members of the pack traded labor and skills with each other — so she sees how the moment is disquieting.

"They are squabbling," Takamaru observes, having guessed the direction of her thoughts. "Because we might have to make some new traditions."

"We were comfortable at home." It is true enough. Life in the villa means that they do not have to interact with outside ideas. They could look down below and judge, without being in the thick of it.

And now the pack is out here, in the same dirt as the other clans that have always been judged for being warlike, greedy, without morals or sense. It's hard to judge someone else for being greedy when you also want more than just the hand craft you practice and the land.

She's seen the girls stare at the brightly colored hair ribbons and cotton kimono, seen the boys turn green with envy when the Uchiha weapons seller lays out his wares, the way older women looked at the fine Senju woodwork furniture, the way Akimichi food sets off her daughter's nose.

It is harder to be satisfied with what you own when there's something else right before you that's also tempting.

"I don't see why it's such a bad thing to change." Takamaru huffs and flattens his ears against his head. "Too comfortable isn't good either."

"No, of course not." She suspects that most of the pack has grown too comfortable in their traditions and what little interaction they had with the outside world has only served to remind them of the complicated messy nature of living in close proximity to those of different philosophies, and they had not appreciated it. "But we have grown too comfortable, and now we must unlearn our love of comfort and trade it for survival."

The pack's traditions might warp a little, left out as they are because of the newness of the place they must now call home, but they will not be erased entirely.

No, she has faith that some things never will be erased, that there's too much grit in the soul of the pack for it to fall short at this new hurdle.

Takamaru makes a disgruntled noise, but their conversation switches to other topics. "Your pup likes visiting the water man." He turns dark eyes up to her. "Calls him Jiji."

"She likes him." She shrugs. "It's not for me to figure why." She has a good idea of why, and the thought is ironic enough to send her into hysterical laughter.

"You don't like him." Takamaru's lips pull back, a growl low in his throat as his canines glint in the moonlight. "Murderer."

He's a murderer.

"No, I don't." The moon is a round thing over the paddy fields, a broken thing on the water. "But there's more ways to kill than teeth at his throat."

For lack of a better word, Senju Tobirama is interested in her, if the way he acts when she steps into the room is any indication.

She knows if she encourages it, his half confusion half fascination could change to something else rather rapidly. She could hold his heart in the palm of her hand — has anyone given this man any attention or love before that he tries to lick it off the edge of a knife now — and then she could tear it to pieces and that would be just as good as killing him, possibly worse.

But that would be a game, and her haha had held her hands once long ago and said that queens do not play games. Queens that have honor do not play games.

But she isn't sure these days if she does have honor.

The snap of twigs draws her attention away. Takamaru's ears have flattened across his skull, a growl vibrating deep in his throat.

Far across the paddies, on the other side of the clearing, there's a broken shaft of moonlight, a dark shape lumbering slowly across it in the direction of the sheep pens, a flash of sharp claws, a glint of intelligence.

She rises from her crouch at the waterline, eyes on the huffing bear on the other side of the rice paddy.

For a moment, everything is still.

By the next, everything explodes into a flurry of motion.

"The light is dying, as all light must."

— Herodas, Seven Greeks

A.N. This chapter took a bit! But I'm happy with it now!

I've been freed from finals and am now working! Sending the best of wishes to everyone, stay safe, and stay sane.

Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed, favorited, followed, it all means the world to me.

~Tavina