(no subject)
So, sna did this thing where she challenged me to write drabbles, too, and me and my pride can't back down. Sigh ~ !
So! Following in her footsteps, I present five roughly 200-word drabbles, one for each of the first five years of Asuka's life. The next twenty-odd will come along eventually ~
ONE - give away
---
Thirty two years ago, Konoha was still in the middle of a war. It had been waging for what felt like an eternity, one long war that was split into the First and the Second and the Third, and after a lifetime there was hardly any energy left for living after taking lives.
They didn't expect her to make it past her first trimester; she should have miscarried from the stress, like she had the last time. And then they didn't expect her to carry to term; with her responsibilities and her public profile, she was sure to kill herself or get killed while seven months pregnant and hardly able to defend herself. And then they didn't expect her to live long after the death of her husband; and then they didn't expect the infant to survive outside six months.
After a year, they didn't expect the Hokage to be able to manage a war, a village, and a baby all at the same time. This time they were right.
Sandaime-sama remained outwardly impassive when she gave her only daughter to her new family. After all, little Asuka didn't seem to see what the big deal was all about.
TWO - temper tantrum
---
By two years of age, it was clear that Asuka was destined to be a firecracker. It was hardly enough to deal with the stress of having both foster parents active ninja in the middle of a war - did they really need to deal with temper tantrums on top of everything else? Their little girl, on the other hand, didn't approach the matter in quite the same way. The world was supposed to revolve around her, after all. Didn't they know better?
The trick, they found, was to just let the child wear herself out. She did an admirable job in doing so, after all; kicking, screaming, and quickly learning to hold her breath when she found out how frantic and indulging her mother got when she started turning an ugly shade of purple. (Who says parents are the ones training their children?) But once she did wear herself out, well, all an upset toddler wants at that point is comfort.
The fact that she just wants a hug when exhausted and worn out and upset is a secret Asuka plays very close to the vest even now.
THREE - siblings
---
Asuka, for all that she was being fostered by two married chuunin unable to have children of their own, was still the daughter of the Third Hokage. She just... didn't see her mother very much.
Sandaime-sama did do her best to see her daughter, though, often enough that the girl would know who she was and what their relation was. Not that Asuka saw the big deal of it - her mother might be the Hokage, but her mama was the soft-spoken woman with unruly curls, completely incapable in the kitchen. Her father might be three years dead and a hero, but her papa was the man with the crooked smile and the large fingers she couldn't wrap her small hands around, who rocked her to sleep on stormy nights.
Her brother, however, she didn't meet until three. She had been shown pictures, and was told about him, but he never actually came around to meet his little sister. Until late one evening, just after he'd returned from a mission, sweaty and starving from the field and invited in for a hot meal by his sister's foster parents.
Asuka took one look at him and declared, "You're ugly and you smell funny."
Their relationship didn't get better from there.
FOUR - rin
---
Most children have problems with infections: colds, pneumonia, bronchitis, strep throat, and especially ear infections. Ear infections were the worse.
Asuka didn't have a problem with any of these. Instead, she prefered to break bones.
When she was four, she went in to the hospital to have her third cast removed. (The first had been her left ulna, the second her left fibula, and the third her right wrist; she had the doctor in stitches as she carefully repeated the words - because, she'd said at the time, she liked the way they tasted.) Even for a child who was learning her first steps as a ninja, she was remarkably accident prone. Probably because she spent so much time climbing up things and not enough time learning how to fall correctly.
But she wore her wounds with pride, and enjoyed when the younger kids scribbled on her casts, and enjoyed it best when the casts finally came off. But the doctors were being slow to come take this cast off, so she went to watch the fish instead.
When the younger kid almost fell after the lobster tried to attack him, she reached out and caught him, and didn't let go despite the fact that it hurt her still-healing wrist. Her father patted her on her head and congratulated her on her reflexes, and she preened under the praise (and wheedled another lollypop out of the nurse to boot).
Later, she would say she did it because she should be the only one breaking bones all the time. In reality, she'd done it without even thinking.
FIVE - first day at school
---
There's really nothing quite like the first day of school, especially when one has never been to school in the first place. It's a time of great excitement - finally getting to go to school, to learn how to become a ninja, to become great like the First and the Second and the Third Hokages - and a time of great worry as well. What if I'm not good? What if I fail? What if the other kids think I'm weird? What if I look stupid?
Despite her confidence, Asuka was as prone to the same worries as every other kid, and shied to the back of the classroom to avoid being noticed (it helped that her last named started with an S). Everyone else seemed just as scared, though, so after introductions were made she started to feel okay enough to start getting excited again when the teacher declared what they'd be doing on their first day of school.
The first thing she was told to do was paperwork.
"How was your day at school?" her mother asked when she came home later that day.
"It sucked," she said, and went to go sulk over her homework for the rest of the night.
So! Following in her footsteps, I present five roughly 200-word drabbles, one for each of the first five years of Asuka's life. The next twenty-odd will come along eventually ~
ONE - give away
---
Thirty two years ago, Konoha was still in the middle of a war. It had been waging for what felt like an eternity, one long war that was split into the First and the Second and the Third, and after a lifetime there was hardly any energy left for living after taking lives.
They didn't expect her to make it past her first trimester; she should have miscarried from the stress, like she had the last time. And then they didn't expect her to carry to term; with her responsibilities and her public profile, she was sure to kill herself or get killed while seven months pregnant and hardly able to defend herself. And then they didn't expect her to live long after the death of her husband; and then they didn't expect the infant to survive outside six months.
After a year, they didn't expect the Hokage to be able to manage a war, a village, and a baby all at the same time. This time they were right.
Sandaime-sama remained outwardly impassive when she gave her only daughter to her new family. After all, little Asuka didn't seem to see what the big deal was all about.
TWO - temper tantrum
---
By two years of age, it was clear that Asuka was destined to be a firecracker. It was hardly enough to deal with the stress of having both foster parents active ninja in the middle of a war - did they really need to deal with temper tantrums on top of everything else? Their little girl, on the other hand, didn't approach the matter in quite the same way. The world was supposed to revolve around her, after all. Didn't they know better?
The trick, they found, was to just let the child wear herself out. She did an admirable job in doing so, after all; kicking, screaming, and quickly learning to hold her breath when she found out how frantic and indulging her mother got when she started turning an ugly shade of purple. (Who says parents are the ones training their children?) But once she did wear herself out, well, all an upset toddler wants at that point is comfort.
The fact that she just wants a hug when exhausted and worn out and upset is a secret Asuka plays very close to the vest even now.
THREE - siblings
---
Asuka, for all that she was being fostered by two married chuunin unable to have children of their own, was still the daughter of the Third Hokage. She just... didn't see her mother very much.
Sandaime-sama did do her best to see her daughter, though, often enough that the girl would know who she was and what their relation was. Not that Asuka saw the big deal of it - her mother might be the Hokage, but her mama was the soft-spoken woman with unruly curls, completely incapable in the kitchen. Her father might be three years dead and a hero, but her papa was the man with the crooked smile and the large fingers she couldn't wrap her small hands around, who rocked her to sleep on stormy nights.
Her brother, however, she didn't meet until three. She had been shown pictures, and was told about him, but he never actually came around to meet his little sister. Until late one evening, just after he'd returned from a mission, sweaty and starving from the field and invited in for a hot meal by his sister's foster parents.
Asuka took one look at him and declared, "You're ugly and you smell funny."
Their relationship didn't get better from there.
FOUR - rin
---
Most children have problems with infections: colds, pneumonia, bronchitis, strep throat, and especially ear infections. Ear infections were the worse.
Asuka didn't have a problem with any of these. Instead, she prefered to break bones.
When she was four, she went in to the hospital to have her third cast removed. (The first had been her left ulna, the second her left fibula, and the third her right wrist; she had the doctor in stitches as she carefully repeated the words - because, she'd said at the time, she liked the way they tasted.) Even for a child who was learning her first steps as a ninja, she was remarkably accident prone. Probably because she spent so much time climbing up things and not enough time learning how to fall correctly.
But she wore her wounds with pride, and enjoyed when the younger kids scribbled on her casts, and enjoyed it best when the casts finally came off. But the doctors were being slow to come take this cast off, so she went to watch the fish instead.
When the younger kid almost fell after the lobster tried to attack him, she reached out and caught him, and didn't let go despite the fact that it hurt her still-healing wrist. Her father patted her on her head and congratulated her on her reflexes, and she preened under the praise (and wheedled another lollypop out of the nurse to boot).
Later, she would say she did it because she should be the only one breaking bones all the time. In reality, she'd done it without even thinking.
FIVE - first day at school
---
There's really nothing quite like the first day of school, especially when one has never been to school in the first place. It's a time of great excitement - finally getting to go to school, to learn how to become a ninja, to become great like the First and the Second and the Third Hokages - and a time of great worry as well. What if I'm not good? What if I fail? What if the other kids think I'm weird? What if I look stupid?
Despite her confidence, Asuka was as prone to the same worries as every other kid, and shied to the back of the classroom to avoid being noticed (it helped that her last named started with an S). Everyone else seemed just as scared, though, so after introductions were made she started to feel okay enough to start getting excited again when the teacher declared what they'd be doing on their first day of school.
The first thing she was told to do was paperwork.
"How was your day at school?" her mother asked when she came home later that day.
"It sucked," she said, and went to go sulk over her homework for the rest of the night.