Was it really tonight? This night? It seems so beautiful, the stars the moon, the wind gently blowing the sand, she would have loved it.
Today we should be celebrating.
I guess we really should be. But which over powers our day and night, the grief or the celebration? Not that it was really something to celebrate, at least we have never even considered celebrating it before, but things have changed. Changed so much that it could be called a miracle.
And maybe it is a miracle. I know I wish I could thank the angel who helped us so much every single day of my life. But even that angel couldn’t help us with our last problem. No one can. Nothing ever could. She really is gone. Gone forever.
Are we really sure she is gone? I know she is gone for me, but is he lucky enough to still have her near? Why doesn’t she stay with me as well? Why doesn’t she follow me wherever I go? Why doesn’t she protect me? Am I not worthy of it? Did I do something wrong?
The twinkling of stars through the haze of dust that always covers our small village reminds me that I shouldn’t be mad at her or him. They both didn’t ask for their poor fates.
Yet…I still wish every day on some sort of twinkling star, a dropped penny, and some times even when I’m really lucky a lost flower some how blown to our sandy village. I wish, I wish…I just wish.
I know she will never come back. How could she? But…I still wish. Wish that it had never happened. That we hadn’t had to go through all of this, just to be where we are today. We haven’t even finished getting here. It could almost be called a far off dream.
Did it really happen all those years ago? Eighteen. Eighteen years ago. To this very night, at this very hour, eighteen years ago. I made sure to check when I found out. I don’t even know why. I couldn’t have been older then five, maybe even six. I can’t remember that, but I do remember checking the clock, right above the doorway, before rushing out of the house to go meet them on that dust ridden hill, the hill and sand that were tainted with blood before the night was through.
It had happened so fast, yet I remember it taking hours. I stood side by side, my hand grasped onto the equally tiny one next to me, wincing only a bit as the blood just gushed out, otherwise I stood tall. My face felt like stone, sand hitting it again and again. Screams filling my ears. Tears turning the sand to mud. It took me at least an hour to realize most of the tears were mine.
Finally one last piercing scream filled the night air and then the sound of a baby taking its first breath and using it to cry. I remember seeing how bloody and small it was. I remember her screaming a curse at the something; I didn’t know what then. The man that I didn’t know bundled it up and started walking towards the village. He didn’t even stop and check her pulse.
I heard someone start to sob, I realized it was me and a small arm wrapped around my shoulders, his tears soaking me. We were just left there, her body started to be buried in sand even as we stood and cried, mourning her for her being a person. We both knew everyone would only remember her for being the savoir of the village, or so we thought then.
We know better now.
It was hard those first few years, I just watched from the background as nannies were brought in caring for the “secret weapon of Suna”. Father would some times come and check on his little prodigy. People sent gifts, and rejoiced in the streets. People smiled at us when we passed in the streets.
Everyone forgot that she had died, that they were supposed to be mourning, that we were mourning. They just kept celebrating and smiling. It just didn’t seem right. It was almost too much to bear. Why were they so happy when she had died? How did they expect me to be happy? Why couldn’t they just leave me alone?! I wondered these things so much during those first few years that I didn’t think of anything else after awhile, nothing else seemed to matter enough.
Then it all changed.
About three years after her death, It happened. The incident that caused everyone to stop smiling, the gifts to stop coming, the celebrating to finally stop. I could have sighed in relief, but I never did have the time to.
They found her dead. Her throat slashed to bits and blood repainting the walls. This was the second time I had seen so much blood. And there he was. Right in the middle of it all, crying as sand whipped around him, but not in a normal way it swirled directly around him, daring anybody to come closer, it looked like a snake protecting itself or maybe something it cared for. I watched it with wide eyes.
It was obvious that he had killed her, or whatever they had put in him, they hadn’t told me at that time what they had did to him before he was even born, they didn’t tell me what had made her die. No, they hadn’t told me anything.
So now he wasn’t Suna’s “secret weapon”. No, now he was their curse, their mistake, their own homemade killer. I didn’t hate him like most did, but I didn’t love him ether. It was more like fear. I feared him, even when he was so young. To this day I can’t get the picture of his crying three year old form sitting in the middle of all that blood, the dead nanny’s body only a few feet away.
We all watched him grow. Father only came to see him to train him, frowning every time he got stronger. I wondered every night if he would kill me too as I slept. If his little five year old self that never slept would walk in, opening the door just a crack, a kunai glinting in the small moonlight that would come from my window, his sand would seep from outside my door, filling my room slowly as I slept until I woke up with him having the kunai to my throat, the sand swirling around us both, I probably wouldn’t have time to scream as I imagined him slitting my throat quickly his sand leaping upon my blood and sucking me dry.
I had many nightmares those first few years.
The other kids stayed away from him. I never saw him play. He would stand out at the edge of their little games, his teddy bear tucked safely in the crook of his arm, hugged tightly against his small body.
I remember for the first time feeling something besides fear when I saw him like that. I almost wanted to force those kids to play with him, but I knew it would never work. So I could only watch. I watched as he came home one day, crying. He mumbled something about his sand. His sand attacking someone. I remember the fear seeping back into me, trickling like a cold slime down my spine and into my gut. I avoided him once again, even though I knew he was just a little kid crying, he still had It in him. And that was something to be feared.
So he went to Yashamaru. Yashamaru was always there for him. For that I was thankful. I always thought the man was a good one. Every time, he hurt someone by accident, every time my fear wouldn’t let me comfort him, Yashamaru was there instead. It came as a huge relief for me.
Then that terrible night came. I swear I didn’t know. I didn’t. If I had…I don’t know, but I didn’t.
He had gone to Yashamaru after hurting a little girl with his sand when trying to give back her ball. He had only wanted to play, I see that now, but then…then fear wouldn’t let me come near him. So he went to Yashmaru’s. A few hours he came back, happy and actually smiling. He didn’t smile nearly as much as he should have for such a little kid. It made me want to smile too. He said something about giving someone medicine and that he finally understood something. He left the house after getting a small package of medicine together and went down the street.
He never came back home that night.
I knew I shouldn’t be worried about him. That I feared him much less then most did and that they wouldn’t dare go after him, not with It inside him. But still a part of me worried.
The next morning he came home. He didn’t talk, his clothes were stained with bits of blood, and he looked like he had been crying for hours. But what stood out most was the tattoo.
Love.
It was carved into his forehead, right above his eye. It was red with blood, yet it was a clean wound, made to scar. I didn’t have the courage to ask if he was okay, or to offer him something to help stop the bleeding. Not that it looked like he wanted it to stop. He looked as if was…enjoying the pain.
His eyes were dead and lifeless, so different from his usual emotion filled teal eyes, that always had something in them, from tears to a smile, but now…now their was nothing but death.
That day I heard about Yashamaru. I heard it from the whispers in the wind, the ladies in the market place, the men at the local bar. All talked of how the assassination didn’t work. How the demon still lived. How it was said the demon killed whatever came near it or annoyed it. How Father had sent Yashamaru to kill it. How it didn’t work.
I’m not sure what I felt first. So many emotions hit me when I heard that. Shock, disgust, pity, fear, and anger all hit me in a powerful wave. I couldn’t stand to look at any of the villagers. So she was sacrificed for this? For him to be hated? For him to be tried to killed too? I asked myself these questions as I moved through the sand and the horrible people living in it, rage boiling in me.
I went home, to find no one else there. I didn’t know where they were. Where he was. And this worried me. All anger drained out, only to be filled back up with the horrible cold slime of fear. I could imagine the worst, that someone was getting killed at that very moment, by none other then him.
It only worsened over the years. Every time I didn’t know where he was I knew someone was dieing. It was a horrible thing to know. I wondered if it was my fault. Could I have stopped him? Could I have helped him not become a killer? I still don’t know the answers.
He carried his sand with him after that night, keeping it in a gourd on his back. I always thought it seemed like he was carrying the burden of every death he caused, the blood that soaked his grains of sand making it a bit heavier every time. Maybe I was wrong.
Finally Father thought to use him to engage in a war against another village. I didn’t like the idea. I didn’t want to encourage him to kill. I wanted to let him realize it was wrong. That he didn’t have to kill. Didn’t have to take a life to know he had his own. But Father sent us all to Konoha to join in the Chunin exams. I was told to watch him. That he was my responsibility . I didn’t want that responsibility. That would mean I would be responsible for anyone he killed. Anyone he hurt. Anyone that got in his way. It was a horrible responsibility.
And I was of course right. He did try to kill someone, twice, threatening to kill two other people and of course engaging in a battle that actually almost killed him.
Now that is a thing I will never forget.
I remember telling him not to do it. Not to go so far as to try and kill him, but he didn’t listen and wasted his energy. We had to carry him through the forest as the stupid boy chased us. Finally after he woke up only to start a fight that he was sure he could win.
It started against the stupid boy, but ended with an angel winning.
The blond loud mouth had to be an angel with what he did to him. He actually beat him. He hurt him, he changed him. He fixed what we broke. What I was too afraid to even touch.
It was truly a miracle.
So now we are here. He is finally not so blood thirsty, but I haven’t changed. I still fear him. Maybe not as much as before, but…I can’t love him yet. His hands are soaked with blood. His mind filled with memories of death. His back bent with the load of his burden of blood and sand.
And of course I can’t forget how I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t stop it. How I didn’t have the courage to stop it. How I wasn’t brave enough to wipe away his tears. How I couldn’t push my fear away to just give him a hug. To tell him just once that I cared for him. That I worried about him. That I was there for him. And now if I did it would be a lie.
I wish I could say I was sorry. Would he accept my apology? Does he blame me as much as I blame myself? Does he remember each day he came home crying or how each day he couldn’t play with the other kids and remember that I didn’t do anything?
So it was this night. This was the night it all happened. This was night he was born and the night she died.
“Temari are you coming in?”
“Sure Gaara, just a second. And Gaara?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
Maybe we should celebrate.
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Chapter notes: Hi there! Damn this took me all day to write. And I still think I could have done it better. But well I think I did pretty good. Judge for yourself. With much love, A Vampires Butterfly ^.^