Work Text:
Mist hangs heavy around the mountain, thick enough to obscure the sun — should you walk into it. There are countless legends about such a place; anything from curses to witches to untold treasures. Those are only stories.
The only real fact is that no one ever comes out once they go in.
Which is why Naruto doesn’t understand why the enchanted map is directing them right into it.
“Uh,” he squints at the parchment, holding it out before him and turning it a few different ways. “Am I reading this wrong?”
“Give me that!”
Sakura snatches it from his hands and peers down at it, pink hair stuck to her forehead. She looks tired and sweaty, her temper shorter than usual. Especially after last night — running from Panther Trolls was no one's idea of a good time.
Sasuke hovers over her shoulder, looking at the map as well. It’s not hard for him to do so, seeing as the surly half-dwarf is quite a bit shorter than the elf. With his hair in disarray and a smudge of what is hopefully dirt on his cheek, Sasuke doesn’t look any bit the regal, royal elf that he’s supposed to be. Though Naruto supposes that that’s the point, as Sasuke is currently on the run — in a manner of speaking.
“...Ah,” Sakura gnaws on her bottom lip, brows furrowing. She looks more enraged by the second.
“So I didn’t read it wrong.”
“Shut up, Naruto.”
“Shutting up.”
The blonde turns away, peering back out into the impenetrable mist. It’s thick enough to appear solid, as though a wall has been planted around the entire mountain. If not for the way it seems to writhe like smoke, Naruto might actually believe that. Not that he knows why anyone would put a wall around a mountain to begin with.
But the land is rife with all manner of mystical and terrible creatures. Curses aren’t falsehoods to be told to children — no, they are real and very, very dangerous.
...Depending on the terms of the curse and the caster, obviously. Still. Dangerous.
“Well, should we go in?”
He turns back to his two friends, a guileless grin on his face. They both look at him with decidedly negative expressions. Sasuke is more incredulous than Sakura, who's definitely feeling the lack of restful sleep last night and channeling that stress into anger.
“Damn, tell me how you really feel.”
“We can’t go in,” Sakura scowls, “you know as well as I do that no one goes in there and comes back out.”
“Maybe they just make it through to the other side and never feel like turning around to come back this way?”
She gives him a scathing glance that has him tittering nervously and prancing a few feet out of her reach. Her physical strength greatly outmatches his own and he’d very much like to not be on the receiving end of her rage. Or fists.
“The map can’t lie to us,” Sasuke begins, his voice slow. He’s less at risk of being reprimanded by the half-dwarf, but only because she’s in love with him.
Naruto is not grumbling.
“If there is a path through here, that means it should be able to lead us to the other side.”
Sakura turns around to stare at Sasuke, her green eyes expressionless. The elf begins to sweat under her piercing gaze, lips twitching while he tries his best to remain unmoved and blank-faced. There’s a heavy moment of silence as they all seem to contemplate these words.
It’s true, the map they have is enchanted to only take them along a path they can survive. Whether or not they do is up to them, however. The stipulations attached to the enchantment are finicky at best. For one, they’ve done quite a lot of running and fighting and ended in places way above their pay grade — but each time they came out alive, even if by the skin of their teeth.
Whatever is in there, hiding among the mist or in the mountain, they can survive. Now it’s just deciding if they actually want to try their hand at it instead of going the exceptionally long way around and adding another couple months to their journey.
“I can fly ahead if you want,” Naruto begins.
Sakura turns her laser-sharp gaze to him, “Absolutely not! You have the directional sense of a blind wormbug!”
“I find that incredibly hurtful.”
“You will not fly ahead. That’s final,” Sakura sniffs, rolling the map up and sticking it back in her bag. She grits her teeth and stares into the wall of fog before nodding her head resolutely.
“We’re going in there together and we need to stay close.”
“Should we tie ourselves to each other?”
Sasuke grimaces, “That might hinder our movements if we walk into a fight.”
“Right,” Sakura claps, then holds her hands out to the boys. She wiggles her fingers with a sly smile. “Looks like we’re holding hands.”
The elf and fae glance at each other — then immediately take one of her hands before anything else can be discussed. The absolute last thing they want is to be stuck holding each other’s hands. Sakura is fine, as long as she doesn’t get startled and smush their appendages in her heavy grip.
Sakura only looks amused, “Maybe I should keep a hand free—”
“No.”
Both men say at the same time, glaring at each other without any real heat.
Sighing fondly, Sakura just shakes her head at the two and continues forward. The two are tugged along for a moment before righting themselves and walking alongside her. Joined in hand, the three of them step into the mist and whatever may lay beyond.