Sorry for the long delay between entries. The end of the semester came, and so did a re-awakening of my love for Lord of the Rings. I own nothing.

The sun glitters coldly in the sky, the spring opening up the sleeping flower buds and growing soft, wispy tendrils of sweet-smelling grass, but still chilly on days like this when the wind blows hard. Having lived far further north than this for most of his life, Tobirama doesn't really feel the cold as much as others might, and is just ready to welcome the end of the snows. At least his feet won't grow cold and soggy trudging through the drifts.

Of course, with the milder weather come other challenges.

"Weren't we told to go get water for the laundry?" Tobirama asks, as Hashirama, mounting the hill in front of him (his longer legs always leave him outstripping the younger boy), swings the still quite-empty water bucket in his loose, easy grip. He frowns at Hashirama's back, something he's been doing often lately as he somewhat eases into life here and the weather grows milder.

Hashirama shrugs. "In a few minutes. The whole camp's not going to fall to pieces just because they have to wait a while to get their clothes washed." They reach the top of the hill and Hashirama collapses into the long, sweet grass, his knees cresting above the green sea but all else lost to the waves. Tobirama stands and frowns at those knees until a hand comes out of nowhere and pulls him down into the grass beside the older boy. "Just relax, Tobirama." There's a too-light, overly-soothing note in his voice that Tobirama, even at his age, finds absolutely insufferable, but he bites his tongue and says nothing. "You won't get in trouble."

Once down on the ground, Tobirama, lost himself in that grassy sea, a thin screen separating him from the older boy beside him, can't find the energy to spring back up to his feet. He gets an image of doing just that, of wrenching the bucket from Hashirama's hands and going back down to civilization, but he does not. He has learned to be still and be silent, to value solitude the same way he's learned to turn himself cold to the too-long stares and whispered words of the people around him. The lure of being away from all those people has proved too great to go unheeded. Like this, he can almost be alone.

Beside him, Hashirama sighs, and Tobirama ignores him, not really wishing to know just what has made him sigh—Probably forgotten to do something again. He stares upwards at the sky, a brilliant shade of pale blue, dappled with gently swirling clouds. A crow passes overhead, a thin black shape wheeling about and marring the view. A few harsh, lonely caws pierce the air, before diving out of sight.

"Do you ever get the idea that you can change the entire world with one action, or one false step?"

Tobirama's brow furrows, and he shifts his weight on the ground, frowning. Hashirama tries to have conversations of this sort with him from time to time, and Tobirama would be lying if he said they didn't make him uncomfortable. "Maybe." Perhaps such a noncommittal answer will keep him from getting sucked in, once again.

Or perhaps not.

Hashirama chuckles, an odd, slightly hoarse sound that Tobirama has always found out-of-place for an eleven-year-old boy. "I have dreams about changing the world, you know. I'm not just talking about wanting to change it either; I really do dream about it. They're so real I can almost taste them."

The wind blusters over them, and a thin, sharp chill pierces through Tobirama's tunic, woolen it may be. He shivers despite himself, and shifts his weight again, grimacing irritably to realize that no matter where he puts his weight, he still can't get comfortable. His muscles, grown slightly in strength thanks to training in weights and kunai, are ever tense and stiff, like a deer caught mid-spring.

What Hashirama seems not to know is that Tobirama has dreams too.

Not dreams of changing the world, per say. Nothing so grand or wide in scope. When Tobirama remembers the dreams he dreamt the night before, they are inevitably of the sort of life he would still be leading had the forces of Senju and Uchiha never come to his village. He would not still be old enough for his father to start teaching him his craft, but Tobirama can easily see himself as an older boy, learning how to tan hides from his father. He can imagine himself growing to adulthood, limbs lengthening and face narrowing, with a wife and children and a prospering business. He can imagine himself living a life only ever remotely touched by war.

But that was not to be, and the possibility of that dream ever coming true was taken from him by the people on whose sufferance he lives now. And now, Tobirama has other dreams at night, and moments during the waking day that feel more like slightly unreal, vaguely disturbing dreams than the mechanics of his waking life. He remembers no longer actively fearing for his life among these people. He remembers seeing good qualities in them. He remembers once, at night, dreaming of home and seeing a tent full of sleeping children, all less than ten years his senior, rather than a small town in Kaminari.

Tobirama isn't quite ready to like these people. He isn't quite ready to like Hashirama, or Toka, or Minako, or Susumu or Yori. He's not sure he ever will be. Tobirama has not forgotten how he came to be here, how he came to be divested of kin and home. But certain features of the life he had before begin to grow vague and fuzzy, faces losing their sharp detail and sights and smells and sounds no longer quite so vivid as they once were. He is losing that, bit by bit, and the idea frightens Tobirama, but he doesn't know how to prevent the loss. He twists his head towards Hashirama and scowls briefly, a need for someone to blame spiking up within him, but as soon as the scowl appears, it fades. Tobirama is angrier at the world for the fate that has befallen him than he is at Hashirama for taking him from his home.

Instead of spitting recriminations, Tobirama frowns, and finds himself asking, "What d'you mean?"

"We'll live in a better world." Hashirama speaks without hesitation, his voice distant and far-away, almost dreamy. "Every shinobi in this country will live united under one banner, working together instead of always fighting. I think we'd be stronger that way, you know, and safer too. You wouldn't get kids losing their parents." Maybe the hint of something bitter enters his words. "You wouldn't get kids being sent out to die. Doesn't that sound like a better sort of world to live in?"

Tobirama stares up at the sky, vast and blue and endless, and swallows hard on a sudden hard lump in his throat. "Yes," he says quietly. "It does."