Chapter Text
Once upon a time, there was a prince named Madara who came upon a tower while he was out hunting.
Normally, he'd have ignored it but there was someone singing inside, and he became curious.
So he called out. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
At the top of the tower, there was a window.
And out of that window, a head promptly stuck out. “Hello! You're new!”
Madara was bewildered. “I've been the prince of this land since I was born! How can you not know of me? You must be one of my subjects!”
The young man - and it was definitely a man from his voice, despite the long fall of unbound brown hair - covered his mouth with his hand. “Oops! I'm not supposed to tell anyone!”
Now you might not have guessed it from the way Madara looked or acted - he was grumpy, and growly, and he tended to stomp - but he loved secrets. He was very good with them too, always keeping the confidence of his younger siblings, and getting them out of trouble where he could.
Which was sometimes impossible, because his youngest brother Izuna was the most mischievous little imp that he knew.
As such, the hint of a secret was a lure that he couldn't resist. But he knew that you don't get a secret by asking.
You have to coax it out.
So he climbed a tree to be closer to the window and sat down on a branch, kicking his heels. “Alright, then I won't ask.” He took out his lunch waved it. “But can I eat here?”
"Of course!” the young man in the tower said, looking down at him even though he was sitting in the highest tree around. “Oh! Where are my manners! I'm Hashirama!”
Madara did the best approximation of a courtly bow he could, without falling out of the tree. “Prince Madara, second in line for the throne.”
Hashirama hummed thoughtfully. “That must make you very important. I've read about thrones, they're a thing you sit on, right? To make yourself seem important?”
Madara puffed up like one of the palace peacocks. “They are not! They're a symbol of the divine right to rule!”
Hashirama's face scrunched up adorably in thought. “Isn't what what I just said?”
“No!” For all of his previous determination to be nice, Madara found himself shouting.
“Aha! I see!” The confusion on Hashirama's face cleared. “I missed the bit about being divine! You're a gift from the gods!”
Madara covered his face, groaning.
“You're not actually descended from one are you?” Hashirama inquired. “I'm not supposed to be praying, or anything?”
It was tempting to say yes just to see what would happen, but Madara refrained. “No, please don’t.”
So they spent their afternoon talking, and Madara found that Hashirama, while well read, had huge gaps in his knowledge of the world. He knew nothing of how the country was structured, money, or what a job was. And he had only the most theoretical knowledge of how to obtain food, mostly centred around hunting.
By the time evening fell and Madara had to leave his new friend, he had more questions than answers.
That night, Madara appeared very absent minded at dinner, evading questions about how he'd spent his day. His older brother and the twins simply smirked, suspecting either a prank or perhaps a new interest. Madara was of an age to begin courting after all.
Izuna, on the other hand, always wanted to know everything, right down to the smallest detail, and he resolved to find out his brother's latest secret.
So, that night, he went to Madara's room and deployed his secret weapon.
He whined.
Frustrated by Izuna's inability to leave the subject alone, Madara confessed it all; the young man that he'd met, the tower, and the secret that he'd only barely gotten the scent of.
Izuna was worried. “Brother! You are the heir to the kingdom! You can't go off into the woods and meet with strange men!”
Ignoring Madara's grumblings about being able to take care of himself, Izuna majestically decreed, “You won't meet this person again until I have a chance to talk to him. I need to make sure that he's good enough to be friends with a prince!”
Madara was touched by his younger brother's protectiveness and so he agreed to let Izuna meet his new friend. “But you're not to scare him off, understand? He's my friend!”
Izuna scoffed. “As if I would want him. He sounds like an idiot!”
So, the next morning, the two princes set off together to visit the tower.
Madara stayed back, hiding himself in a tree, while Izuna approached. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
It was merely a conversational opening, for Izuna could see, sitting in the window, a young man of about his own age. He was as pale as the moon, with hair as white as snow, and red markings that decorated his face.
Izuna had never seen anyone like him.
Never heard anyone like him either.
“Oh, it's you," the young man sounded bored. “Go away.”
Go away! Izuna was a prince! No one had ever told him to go away before!
Alright, that was a lie, lots of people had told him to go away and stop bothering them, but never in such a disrespectful tone.
So he yelled back. “I am a prince, I will have you know! You're the one living in my kingdom! How dare you speak to me that way!”
The white haired youth in the tower gave him a hard stare. “I'll give you the respect you deserve and not a bit more. Behaving like an infant will only make me treat you as one. Now go away before I throw something at you, I'm too busy to talk.”
“Busy! You're just sitting there reading!” Izuna filled his voice with scorn that he didn't really feel - he quite liked books, but he wanted to get this other person to look at him properly.
It felt important somehow.
And then he felt a book hit him in the face.
Thrown from such a height, it knocked him right over.
Flat on his back on the ground, he stared up at the young man who had thrown it, blinking.
High up in the window, haloed by the sun, the white haired man looked other worldly, magical.
He was also pouting.
"Leave the book when you go away. I wasn't done reading it."
And then he vanished.
Izuna struggled upright and carefully flipped through the book, which turned out to be a detailed description of the human body.
Izuna made a face at the drawings of people's internal organs. That was the kind of thing he didn't want to see, insides should never be visible in his opinion. It usually meant that something had gone wrong.
So he tucked the book into the hollow of a tree, just because he didn't want to offend the cranky and possibly magical being, and made his way back to his brother. “Brother, that man is the rudest person that I have ever met! He's nothing like you described!”
Madara grinned. “I guess Hashirama just likes me better.”
The end.