Don’t make fun of me

Things change when the world ends.

The memory of the flames slide into the past and stubborn sprouts push their way through grey ash. Kankuro is recuperating in the hospital and you shift uncomfortably in the plastic chair in the waiting room, listening the monitor beep in a steady rhythm. It was steady, a constant and you can't help but notice the irony of it in a place full of such frightened anarchy.

The morning was quiet and your mind whirls, overflowing with things you can't name and are unsure of how to address. You wonder if you even want to know and dismiss that question too- another notch on the long list of things you don't understand and have no one to ask for the answers.

Your lips twitch in contempt. Close to seventeen years have passed since you took your first breath but the world doesn't care you're just a child, so why act like one? Father is dead and you think you are happy. Another page is flipped in your magazine and you stare at the beautiful woman on the ad, her lips blood red and full and her hair silky.

The heaviness in your limbs makes you weary, and people rushing around you don't bother with any sentimental condolences. The people of Wind country are hardened, and no one gives any thought to the three orphans left in sudden turmoil. Were you a bad person if the thought of being one was welcome?

You purse you own lips and your eyebrows tilt down, staring at the ad. Beauty like that isn't born in the desert, but beauty isn't something one needs to be tough.

It's the fourth night after the world ended and your hands shake. Interim Kazekage is not a big deal, just another job to put on your long history. You wouldn't be recorded in the Academy's history lesson and you would act as a front while the council sat behind you and directed things officially. If you acted like you belonged, a quiet assassination would be swift and no one would dare ask questions.

The people needed something familiar they had told you, but it doesn't stop the shakes. You aren't scared, because you know what fear is and this is far from it, but there is no joy as you don the Kazekage robes. Perhaps a touch of nostalgia, but even that is distant. Thousands of times you regarded your father with fearful awe as he commanded armies in these robes, but the memory of him is bittersweet at best.

You wonder is anyone recognizes that you're just sixteen; you're still a baby, you can't lead veterans. Nonetheless, in the mirror you see the sensual, very adult curves that only a handful in your age group are blessed with, more a woman than a child than you feel. Which is real, the spirit of the young or the form of a mature. The kunoichi in you whispers it simply doesn't matter.

Blessed is what they told you at least, but you know no god. There was a child once you thought one, but in the end he bled blood just as red as yours and you quickly eliminated 'blessed' from your vocabulary.

The wind howls outside your quarters and you think of your brother. The one who doesn't sleep, the one who stays awake on the lonely nights like these wondering who will be out there to support him when morning comes.

They want an adult and you aren't sure how. What kind of adult would you be, because suddenly your whole future is laid out in front of you and it's overwhelming. So many cross roads, and you can't help but wonder if this is how he is feeling now, at this very moment.

You exit your room and head to the guard posts. The dunes are beautiful this time of night, and you understand know that he knows this better than anyone; your heart breaks a thousand times over. It's far past the time you became a proper older sister, and it was time to grow up. Besides, you're used to having no one to catch you. You didn't wish the same for him.

You keep thinking of him. Flaming red hair and adorable little baby coos as you rocked him back and forth. You remember thinking how could one so little possibly be evil, and gods, he had Okaasan's nose.

You don't look like either of your parents. Your golden blond hair is a mystery and your frame is sturdier than those of your relatives- it meant nothing when your heart leaped in your chest one day when Otosan made a passing comment that you had Okaasan's eyes.

Absently your finger traces the slightly faded scar that marred the underside of your jaw. Upon seeing you rocking his little weapon, your father backhanded you and your head cracked on the edge of the cradle. Tools aren't meant for sentimentality, they can be discarded and replaced, remember that well, Temari- those days you loved the sound of his voice.

It is night time again and the scorpions of the desert are out, all huddled around the glowing lights of the torches for scarce warmth. You found him on the boundary wall, looking west as if it had all the answers within reach. Perhaps it did, but duty bound both of you, and the weight of responsibility felt more like heavy iron chains each sunrise.

You are unsure of what to do, you've never played this role. In the end you sit next to him on the edge of the wall, feet dangling precariously over the edge of the hundred-foot drop. The metaphor it created of your life was fearfully accurate.

Scorpions hiss and strike at your presence but you brush them off calmly, taking care to avoid their stingers. The stone is cold underneath you and you sit still, afraid of what might happen now.

But you're home, father isn't here anymore. Without a word, the two of you wait for day.

You read the words 'once upon a time'. So begins any great story, any epic.

Once upon a time there was a young girl with golden hair. She flinches in her warm bed as another object crashes against the wall and gets up with shaking legs.

Down the hall, one left and straight again, now she's by the kitchen. Peeking around the corner she can see the red haired man roar in fury just before he picks up another vase – Obaasan gave that to her- and throws it at the enraged woman. The vase shatters, and the sound of the pieces falling to the floor in an agonizing rain will remain with her till her hair goes grey and her features wrinkle with years of life. Funny how she won't remember the man's smiles, only the way he bared his teeth.

Her little brother calls her name softly behind her, so as to not be heard by their parents. Tears are pricking at his eyes and as young as she is, she steps away from the corner and beckons him into her arms. He rushes to her and she whispers naive comforts into his ear as she leads him away. She thinks to herself how she would always do this, because that was her purpose; Okaasan said everyone had a purpose. Her arms tighten around his shaking shoulders but she's not sure who she's comforting anymore.

It is these small pieces of compassion that allow the two to live for a while. Even as the horrible thump of a fist against flesh echoes through the house, and they hear their mother fall on the cold linoleum, five months pregnant.

And they do live, for a while.

You wonder where that compassion has gone, because you can't remember the last time in sixteen years that you've hugged your little brothers. They are just babies, like you, but the days of playing and children are gone -though you have a suspicion they might have never existed at all- and it's time to grow up.

So maybe you're a little late when they both come home after their days work to find a simple meal waiting for them on the dining table. You've long since moved from the house of your childhood, but the sense of family that they had always lacked remained expecting, waiting in the shared barren kitchen.

The noodles were always over cooked and broth was always cold, but you and them ate in silence. Over time, the kitchen would regain what had been long lost.

It's a year after the end of the world that the new age begins.

The world was on fire, and all that remained were the ashes, but they have scattered in the wind and melded to the desert, as everything must. You've watched it since the world was young, you know its patterns, its intricacies.

Your eyes glisten at the dawn light that peaked over the horizon, golden and pink hues reaching out and melding together like the wind itself had painted it. The dunes create shadows over shadows and your hands itch for your fan.

He stands beside you, the one with hair like flames and you notice with a touch of irritation that he is as tall as you now. Another itch in your hands when your own wind tugs crimson locks to dance in front of his eyes.

"I don't think I can do it, Temari." His voice was deeper now, always calm but having lost that sense of bloodlust like in his younger years.

You gifted him with a rare warm smile. You tell him he's the best one for the job, then laugh. Certainly better than you would have ever been, and the irony of the thought makes you breathe a heavy sigh. Of relief or bitterness, or something else entirely you don't know, but it slumped your shoulders with a weight that came something more from the weapon on your back.

You are not meant for leadership, this past year has made that clear. At first what you thought would be a lonely existence turned into something heavier, not a burden exactly but you knew it didn't fit. Looking at the plains of sand that stretched across the horizon, your breath came short, the breeze of the desert tickling the thin hairs on your nape, its wind pushing against your side. Your heart swelled in affection.

The boy beside you was meant to be needed. He was born to help, to teach and be taught, to be surrounded by those who loved, and god, you want to be there when it happens. One can only deny their destiny for so long, and there was a tickling feeling at the back of your mind that he had found his path once more.

It was thoughts like these that made you wonder if you are getting old.

There is no peace in these lands, there never was but if you have learned anything, it is that there could be. He turns to go and as he passes you, you feel the slightest brush of warmth against the backs of your fingers. When you twist your head, your mouth already open to speak, he is gone. Another warm smile graces your face and your eyes drift to watch morning come, as it always had.

They've grown up well, your boys. You like to think you had something to do with that but to claim so would be selfish, and that's the last thing you want to be. Years pass by as they must and that scared little boy carefully applies his warrior paint and becomes a man before your eyes. You grow decades older and the lonely child of yesterday dons his robes and leads the people with a fair hand and level gaze.

Perhaps you had nothing to do with it. While your world's capacity for evil never astounds you, the rare kindness that emerges after its destruction, your life's very own Armageddon leaves you breathless, pushing you to your knees. Such beauty in a land of arid rolling hills, and you finally feel like you belong to it.

These were your times, your days to understand what had happened, your years to learn to face it and a lifetime to make peace with yourself. He was a demon, but what's a demon to a god? And what is a god to a non believer? Which one are you?

You breathe in a breath of air and know that this is a time too. One that will fade in your memory perhaps, or if you are lucky will appear on the backs of your lids every time you close your eyes. The now seems so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but if you squint hard enough, beauty can be found in the most lonely of places.

The rest of your days will be caught forever in a limbo, between heaven and earth. There was no heaven in these lands but neither were you to be bound to soil, and you wouldn't leave them to the same fate too.

Father is long gone and mother, you know now never truly lived, but you'll be damned if you and your boys suffer the same. You lay prostate on the sand for the aching glory of it all and the nights alone have never felt so warm.