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Chapter Text

“There is a relationship between chaos and fractals—the strange attractors in chaotic systems have a fractal dimension.” David Ruelle 

Chaos and Fractals

-

Days and days, and months upon months, and endless years over endless years, Gaara had walked into the desert. He vanished into the cool morning and reappeared, sometimes days later, so long into the evening that Venus hovered low on the western horizon. Were anyone to look, they would see the evidences of his walkabouts in the arches of his feet and in the valleys between his toes, in the long-practiced turn of his chin and the learned discernment of his eye. 

The hours lost to his sojourns were seemingly countless. So he did not count them. Rather, he measured his time with his hands, his feet, and his senses. He knew his way to the nearest oasis, a mere fifteen miles walk, could do it backwards with his eyes closed. He could feel the winding veins of granite and rhyolite that stretched out from the village like the roots of a mighty tree, could only guess at their length and had yet to meander to their far-reaching ends. He could tell by the taste of the mineral and salt deposits of the shifting sands from the Wastes when it had last rained, where the rain had come from, and could venture a guess at what might become of it. 

The many distances of his treks were innumerable but the continued compilation of his complex arcana was invaluable and ever growing. It was not only that he could walk to the oasis, or touch and taste and know the minerals. He could feel the desert in his bones, and beared the weight of it and it’s people on his back. He was a part of the desert as much as it was a part of himself. 

His wanderings began in early childhood, having been left unattended and unpoliced for much of his time. His discoveries included the Wastes to the southwest and the scrublands further south. (Then but three times did he bump into the nomadic Wilders, a matriarchal tribe of misfits and outcasts and their herd of mythical long horned camels. The first two encounters were espied from a distance, their dark shadows warped long over the sands. Upon the third they crossed paths. Years later it still seemed but a dream; an impossibly tall woman wearing a veil like the midnight sky leaned down from her tasseled and belled mount to hand him a bladder of water. He received it with as much grace as an eight year old could muster, and with a ruffle of his hair she lurched up and departed without a word.)

After the chunin exams, there came a brief in-between time of a growth the likes of which he had never known. In all spheres of his life he saw unprecedented development - with a simple word, his siblings, his fellow nin, the people of his village turned their eyes to him; the wide vista of the desert spread out before him, like an inviting hand, palm raised to the sky with infinite possibility; even the spirit dwelling inside of him, despite the years spent in lonely terror and shame and guilt, had shown signs of coming around.

Kinda. 

Like a dark spring night in a wetted desert, life bloomed. 

Now, at the young age of sixteen, the youngest leader in his villages’ history, the title of Kazekage came with a new set of expectations and realities. The people who had turned to him now not only looked up to him, but questioned his judgements, his choices, his words; the desert that had put its possibilities before him now loomed, demanding his respect, reverence, and protection. He would not fail them. 

And yet.

And yet, after all the time he spent walking, after all of the years lost to solitude and exploration, simple things eluded him. The desert had not readied him for a sea of complex emotions, of actions and reactions; of the intricate dance of social cues that baffled him on most days; he struggled to define relationships, especially friendship (though that was a developing front), or even classify base feelings (development unknown, uncertain, difficult to quantify). He was often left feeling cold and unsure, but was familiar with the hurt his misunderstandings could, and did, cause. 

With each new day he felt more than ever that he was standing at a precipice, just on the cusp of some new, important experience. Like a budding night bloom, full of potential, and desperate for attention and change. Moreover, he wanted to take everything he had learned into his hands and effect that change himself. He desired to know that secret, base alchemy that others found innate, and create from his experiences a future for not only himself but for his people and for his desert, together.

But each night his mind returned to that dark garden, blooming in secret, lying in wait. There among the sweet blossoms, he longed for the ascent of the sun but was unsure where the skies kissed the earth, unsure that a new day would ever come, unsure that he could change at all. But there, beyond, Venus hung low on the western horizon.

-

It was a rare afternoon that Gaara found himself without appointment or endless string of meetings. In general it wouldn’t be fair to say that he had little time to himself, but his daylight hours were scant for his personal leisure. Rather, the nights were spent in the solace of scrolls, pertaining to anything from botany and herbalism, to accounts from rural communities and their ancient folklore to missives and other epistolaries. Every now and again he found a moment in the day when he could repose with his hands in the dirt; he could commune with plants and put to practice the ever-expanding gnosis he had accumulated. 

He stood comfortably at a bench in his apartments, quietly working a soil layering for an experiment when he heard a rhythmic thumping - steps - on his staircase. Few people entered his rooms, fewer dared to come through the main house at all (though Gaara never minded visitors, after all, it was a very large house.)

“First haboob of the season! Can you believe it?” A loud, filthy Kankuro appeared, grousing at his doorway. He looked as if he had rolled in mud and allowed it to dry, looked as if he had come straight to this room from field duty, looked as if he had argued with several staffers on his way here. 

The puppeteer dropped a barely recognizable kit by the doorway and trudged across the room, all the while flaking muddy sand, like a poor impression of Gaara’s armor technique. He wrestled a bound puppet from his back - from it’s size it looked to be Yagi, a small six legged, two horned, sort of non-creature. He came to a stop, huffed, and turned to Gaara with a wry grin. 

“Oh hey, fun story.”

Gaara smirked. 

“Of that I have no doubt.”

“Yeah, let me tell you.” he muttered then twisted, landing in a wicker chair, and resting the puppet between his knees.The old chair protested quietly as he proceeded to slouch into it. He groaned fitfully and squirmed until he had buried himself into some semblance of comfort, less human, more blob. 

Gaara remained at his station, carefully sifting a series of dirts together, hoping to appear attentive to his brother’s account. In the past he had noted that without some severe form of physical cue, whomever wished for his attention would remain silent. He was at a loss for months, scaring some younger nins half to death with his attempts at eye contact. Finally, Temari offered a correction with a gentling hand on the shoulder as she took him aside during a particularly troubling encounter with a young genin who fainted at the fine point of Gaara’s attention. 

“Use your words.”

He stared at her, as if he could divine her meaning through her forehead. 

“Stop it,” She chided, smacking him with the same hand she had just gentled him with. “It’s all social cues. Just say something. People won’t understand you unless you talk to them.”

He gazed at her toes, at his toes, at the rough floor beneath them, then at the genin who had been led to a couch by an office nin. He sat with a cup of cactus juice and a ruddy expression on his face. He hummed in lieu of something to say.

He could learn how to use his words.

Gaara set his sieve aside and clapped the dirt from his hands. The familiar feeling of dirt beneath his nails was something of a comfort, though not appropropriate for a Kazekage (apparently). He turned to give his eldest sibling his undivided attention - his eldest sibling who looked like he had more than just dirt beneath his fingernails. He was probably far less comfortable, though. 

“You should be glad it was not a dry thunderstorm.”

“I’m not sure which is worse.” Kankuro chuckled humorlessly. “Got caught in the downdraft midday as we approached the Wastes. We had to hightail it to the nearest outcrop and even then we barely managed to avoid the worst of it.”

“I can see that.”

Kankuro snorted and pulled himself back up, his hands unraveling the wrappings on Yagi. In moments, a camel hair covered body fluffed its way to freedom, its single milky eye gaping from its square, painted face. 

“But what you can’t see,” Kankuro smirked and released a catch that revealed a compartment in Yagi’s torso. “Is the little gift I brought back for you.”

Confusion wrinkled Gaara’s brow. He hadn’t asked for Kankuro to bring him anything, so why would he go through the effort if he were out field training? And what could he bring back from the desert that Gaara could need? 

“Alright, I can hear the look on your face, so just relax for a second. I’m honestly not thrilled that I had to go through the effort to get this to you, but I was on the strictest orders.” He pulled a rough-cloth bundle from Yagi’s interior and proceeded to unwrap it.

“Orders?”

“I was given this damn rock by the wilder woman, uh, the one with the crazy genjutsu from Kilika? She specifically told me you ‘needed it’.” He held out a hefty palm sized stone, roundish in that it was shaped more like a deflated handball. “Seriously, she threatened me with a knife the size of her arm.” 

“Ah,” Gaara murmured, “That was... kind of Yuna.” He took the roundesque rock into his hands and examined its surface. It was unremarkable and, to be frank, a little ugly. It was of rough granite, pockmarked, and heavier than its size would suggest. “What did Suisei have to say about that? I can’t imagine she allowed you to depart with this so easily.” Kankuro shrugged. Gaara filed away the information. His brother deemed it to be but a rock, and knowing Suisei, she wouldn’t have told him otherwise. Hers was an unmoving countenance, thicker than the thieves of her vagabond tribe. 

Their dealings with the Wilders were a double edged sword; Councilwoman Sashiko’s grip on Sunagakure was nigh resolute and her influence on the people of his village was just as steadfast. The decades-long ostracizing of the Wilders had started before her generation and she would see it continue long after her death. Since his taking office, Gaara had not been shy about his connection with them. He knew his village was struggling and, one way or another, he would convince Sashiko that they needed them and their knowledge. 

To think that Kankuro was even initiated to their puppetry teachings - it was an impressive feat. To think that they would bestow Gaara with such a rarity was an honor. It was also a grave concern. Her tribe’s many lores were carefully hidden behind a heavy curtain of mysticism; their teachings were only taught under the deepest loyalty and intense skepticism. Gaara was unsure that there had been anything he or his siblings had really done to earn their place among them. 

He could feel Kankuro’s insistent stare boring into the face, trying to catch his eye, a wordless cue to probably explain the weird woman’s gift. He focused the chakra in his hand into the stone, sensing the ancient minerals within. 

“Are… are we…. talking to the rock?”

Gaara smirked.

“Talking to rocks is an ancient art form. Listening to what they have to say is the seeker’s true task.”

Kankuro’s face squashed inward. 

“Are… are you joking with me? I’m having a hard time telling - I mean, it’s not any different than usual, but-”

“I believe this particular rock is called a thunderegg.”

Kankuro’s face squashed further inward. It looked a little painful.

“A what.” 

“A thunderegg. The wilders believe them to be a divination tool.” He held the stone out to his brother. Kankuro hesitated but gingerly took it back. “This is an honor. They’re very rare.”

“Rare, huh? I suppose being the Kazekage has its perks.”

“I don’t know about that. They’re rare in that they’re similar to geodes except they aren’t hollow. The center is usually made of chalcedony, but I’ve been told they’re known to contain banded agate and even opal.”

Kankuro grunted noncommittally, but followed his brother to a separate workbench shoved near the corner where he kept the bone-white corpse of a gigantic cactus and an inlaid shelf filled with glass instruments and earthenware. He took the rock from his brother and set it on the tabletop, then he swung a scissor armed magnifying lens over it. He turned it over in his hands. He studied at it for many minutes. It imparted precious more information. He set the lens back with a moue. 

Gaara was taken aback by the severity of such a gift. The wilders believed thundereggs to be a physical manifestation of the earth star, a fabled chakra point that existed outside of the body and connected one to the environment around them. It meant a great deal if they were willing to part with one. It meant a greater deal to whom the egg was intended. 

“So now you’ve got this egg. Are you supposed to hatch it?”

In turn, Gaara’s face squashed inward, if a less exaggerated rendition of his brothers’. 

“It’s a rock.”

“Yeah, but, she must have given it to you for a reason. You’ve got this super important rock-egg-guy, so what do you do with it? I doubt you just leave it sitting around collecting dust. There’s got to be a proactive application for this thing.”

“I suppose your logic is sound.” He set the egg to the center of the worktop and considered its unattractive surface. It was greyish red. It was rough. It looked like it had seen the inside of a volcano and lost a fight with a lava elemental. It probably had. “If by hatch it, you mean we break it open-”

“Or maybe you put it under a chicken like a chimera.”

“Put it under a chicken?”

“Or is it a toad?”

“... Do you mean a cockatrice?”

“Or am I thinking of a basilisk?”

“It’s a rock.”

“No, a basilisk is a snake.”

“I’ll have to do some research.” The redhead sighed. It was all too much, he knew little about snakes or chimeras or basilisks. 

A small, sharp sound made the brothers jump - something like the crack of a shell, something like the breaking of a mountain face from far away, something like a ceramic cup hitting a countertop with a decisive thunk. Then, there was something odd - like a paradigm shift in his coherence, a subtle bending of logical interconnection, the way light and heat walk without rhythm over the hot dunes, or the precious delirium contracted from sweet smoke and warm oil, the rushing sounds of cool water, of wind through dry grass. Gaara turned back to the thunderegg to see that it did indeed lay there with a hairline fracture straight through its center. His heart kicked into a thudding triplicate but he scarcely dared to breathe. He brought his hand up to hover just over the rock. 

Gaara was suddenly struck by a wall of emotion, an absolute deluge of overwhelming sensation. He felt stretched outside his body, he felt warped thin by reality and onto some other plane.

He was extra-dimensional, supersymmetric, expanding in exceptional numbers and decaying just as quickly. Every breath and heartbeat spiralled him further from what he knew, and where he was going there was no way to tell. 

Despite the shift, he could feel no fear. There was only the driving compulsion to know what was inside the egg. He reached but could barely feel the control it took to lace his finest sand through the fracture of the rock and try to pry it apart. 

Kankuro had said something but it sounded as if it had come from somewhere far away, somewhere watery and deep. Every second lasted forever as he was pulled on all directions, and the curiosity grew stronger. He was drenched in a feeling like warmth, like temerity, like reckless joy. He wove his chakra into the sand and around the egg with all the concentration he could muster, to pry it open, to pull it apart.

And just as suddenly as the sensation had come on, it disappeared. He felt himself spring back into his body like a rubber band snapping back into shape. Normalized, or maybe it was more accurate to say renormalized, maybe something beyond any sort of normal he had previously known. He was breathless and numb and entirely unsurprised to find himself on the floor. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and he shivered at the last strings of boundless joy humming away into nothing. Kankuro was leaning over him, face as wide as it could pull under his thick mask of dried muck. 

“What the fuck.”

Gaara stared up at him. For a moment he couldn’t quite process anything beyond the truly wonderful sensation that phantomed in his chest. He wanted to reach for it, physically, even metaphysically, but there was nothing to grasp. 

“What was that?” He put a hand on Gaara’s shoulder. It tingled. 

“What was what?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, the bit with the egg, the bit where you floated, the bit where I thought you were dead or cursed or - wait, you’re not cursed are you? I can’t deal with another thing today.”

“...what?”

“Seriously, I’ve been through a lot and that would just be icing on the dango, y’know? And don’t get me started on what Temari is going to say! Are you cursed? How do we test if your cursed? Put your thumbs and forefingers together!”

With a slow blink, Gaara complied. 

“Evil,” Kankuro sliced his hand through his fingers with finality. “Begone!”

“...begone.” He echoed back, feeling much too much like a child.

“Did it work?”

He reeled, trying to process what exactly his brother was after. Had he indeed been cursed? Did they break the curse? He hadn’t been cursed before and wasn’t quite sure he believed in curses in the first place; and on that note, how and why did Kankuro know how to break curses? - and then remembered. 

“The egg.”

He wrestled himself up from the floor just enough to peer over the lip of the table. Kankuro knelt at his side. The rock lay split in two but when he reached for it, there was nothing like the sensation he felt. It was just a rock. He wrapped a tendril of sand around them and pulled the halves into his palms. He shifted down onto his knees and brought the pieces to his lap.

The interior shone up at him with a mirrored surface. Almost like set liquid, a gleaming black onyx beckoned him. He felt a whisper of immeasurable strength run down his arms, a marvelous sense of flying endurance. It was singular in its duality, this sense of himself and the sense of something other, something bigger and encompassing than himself. 

From the darkness, something winked at him. He rotated his wrist just so and spied a minute point of silvery ore peeking up from where it lay further embedded within the rock. He tilted his head and stared. He considered burying the thunderegg somewhere deep and far away. He considered taking it back to Suisei and demanding answers. Both options were probably terrible. 

“What does it mean, do you think?” Kankuro muttered, bringing his arm up around Gaara’s shoulders, as if he were worried he might fall again.

“...I’m not sure.”

He brought the halves together and separated them again. The feeling fled and it was just a rock. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there must be something more. 

“Wait, ‘the bit where I floated’?”

“Yeah, you floated for a second. Just, like, a couple of inches. Honestly, it was fucked and I’m uncomfortable.”

“That’s because you’re caked in mud.”

There was a flicker of chakra and a cough at the door jamb. They turned in unison. A short kunoichi dressed in a long, dark indigo coat stood menacingly in the doorway. Kogen was Temari’s indomitable assistant, whom both brothers had learned very quickly was a woman to be feared and respected.

“Kankuro-san,” How she managed to take up the whole doorway was quite impressive. How she managed to instill utter terror with a smile on her face was gruesome.”I was not aware you had arrived back from field duty. Of course, you would have checked in with the sentry nin had you returned.”

“...Uh.”

“And, had you returned and checked in with the sentry nin, that nin would have notified our staff who would have notified you that there was a pressing meeting you were to join with the Kazekage-sama and Temari-san.”

Gaara could physically feel the temperature within the room slowly drop. Kankuro stiffened - Gaara had once been assured by his brother that if you held still, Kogen could not see you. Despite his affirmation and current attempt at application, Gaara doubted this very much. 

“But the sentry nins haven't sent word and the staff are just worried sick. So, as you have not yet returned nor checked in, I can only imagine that I am seeing things. The heat must be going to my head, otherwise I would not see you here covered head to toe in gods knows what and peeling like a mating season lizard-owl, all throughout this house which I work to keep clean and respectable.” She giggled, eyes wide and piercing, looking directly at Kankuro. 

“Kazekage-sama,” She continued, having turned her eyes on him. “Temari-san has requested your company in the kitchen. Kankuro-san will join you when he returns from field duty.”

Kankuro’s mouth pressed in a tight line. Gaara swallowed, shifting the halves of rock in his hands, feeling uncomfortable. The strength he had felt now left him winded. That joy had filled a cavern whose echo rang in his ears. He stood and walked around Kankuro and slipped into a shrouded alcove on the far end of the room. He pulled a tapestry aside and set the rocks on a hidden shelf in the wall, as if he were worried that someone should come upon them. 

Not that he was worried that they would be cursed. He wasn’t cursed. 

Just cautious. Just curious. He let the tapestry fall back into place. 

When he emerged, he felt a little better and began to loosen the strings of his work apron. Kankuro had not moved and neither had Kogen, her wicked little smile plastered to her face. 

“The, ah, kitchen, you said?”

“Yes,” She replied, and stepped aside to let him pass. “After you, Kazekage-sama.” 

“Thank you, Kogen.”

“I’m sure Kankuro-san will arrive home soon.” She assured him and slammed the door behind her. 

Gaara stared. 

Kogen giggled. 

“My apologies. Must have been the wind.”

-

The two moved through the living room, it’s large wall of windows had been let open to let the spring breeze sweep through the house. Just beyond, the picturesque courtyard fluttered. Neither were much for conversation. 

By the door, he could smell a fragrant green tea brewing. Temari had been favoring it as of late, with it’s hint of peppermint. It was pleasant and cooling. Kogen bobbed her head in a cheerful nod and left him, headed who knows where to surely uncover other bureaucratic nightmares and unceremoniously stick her fingers into them. Gaara hoped Kankuro might make it to the kitchen with at least most of his fingers intact. 

The kitchen was his favorite room in the house, though it wasn’t really a kitchen in a traditional sense, not anymore. There were typical kitchen-ish things that could be spotted; there were shelves stacked with dishes and glasses, a bit of enamel sink, a reliable stove top and copper kettle, but one had to concentrate to spot these things through the vibrant foliage that was found in place of a traditional kitchen. 

High above, a large, round opaque dome crowned the room, bathing it in near constant sunshine. All around vining plants hung overflowing in long troughs, and herbs grew abundantly from a quietly bubbling hydroponic system Gaara had hand carved into the walls. Pots and cups of budding succulents and tiny dishes of the smallest cacti occupied any of the available counter space Temari would relinquish to him. Gaara held this kitchen in the highest esteem; it was the proving grounds of a several years long experimentation, one he hoped to bring before the Council, one he hoped to bring into every home in Suna: a low impact, high efficiency green room in the heart of every home, to feed and nourish his community from the inside out. 

(Recently, he had wanted to introduce tubers to the ecosystem but both his siblings nixed the idea, unimpressed at the amount of dirt and fertilizer required for a healthy, sizable crop. He was working on it.)

In truth, the reimagining of the kitchen into the living space it had become was originally Temari’s idea. Ground space was precious within the walls of Suna, and there could only be so many community greenhouses; the idea came to fruition after a frustrating session with the council when Gaara’s proposition to reassign a rather large portion of the defensive strategies budget to favor greenhouse improvement and expansion was outright rejected. Gaara was certain that if Sashiko was capable of feeling emotion, she would have laughed in his face.

Temari was furious; Gaara trailed behind her with caution as she steamrolled her way through the halls, and nearly kicked his office door off its hinges when they returned to prepare for the afternoon’s following meeting.

“When will they understand that not everything comes down to military prowess?” She shouted once the door had closed behind him. “How can we hope to impress the Capital if we even can’t feed our people?” 

“The people are fed, it’s the Council’s egos that starve.” He retorted.

“The people endure; they’re too enamoured with tradition to see the scarcity.”

”Scarcity is the tradition.” He pressed, pacing to the far wall and leaning against it. She looked at him, her face a mysterious slate. He rubbed his hand over his face, hoping to wipe away the exhaustion he felt. “We have learned how to do without with such success that we are conditioned to seek to deprive ourselves.”

They stood in silence, the weight of his words settling around their ankles like quicksand. Her shoulders drooped with her frown.

“We can’t let this stop us. We just have to think around the problem.” She fell into his chair and stared off into the middle distance. “We need more room for greenhouses, but we can’t touch the existing structures or apply for further ground space. What do we do? Where else is there to go?”

Gaara closed his eyes and considered her question. Temari hummed and kicked the chair in a lazy spin. 

“What about our lines of trade? Is there something we’re missing, something we can profit off of? The northern border states facilitated a regional trade agreement, and now their collective GDP is the strongest on the continent. Why aren’t we involved in that in some way?” She paused and squinted. “Isn’t the Bear government taking advantage of that deal?”

“It was a matter of pride: the previous Daimyo declined the invitation over a decade ago. He didn’t want to be seen negotiating with smaller territories.”  

“Oh good Gods, that’s right.”

“And you’re thinking of Earth. Bear is just north of Mountain on the coast of the North Sea.”

“...Sure.” She sighed.  

“Attempting anything on the River border will be impossible,” He continued. “Tanigakure is far too hostile to partner with, especially anyone who allies with the Leaf. Any missives would no doubt be intercepted at the border and flagged.”

“And probably burned.”

“Not an outlandish assumption.”

They lapsed into silence. 

“On my last visit to Keish, it was pointed out to our party the several ornamental gardens. Their scale was so immense that when they ran out of groundspace, the gardeners went vertical.”

“Vertical?”

“Yes, they built great structures so that the walls of many surrounding buildings became gardens themselves.”

“Interesting if unsurprising. The southern capitals are always trying to outdo one another - have you seen the monstrous National Theatre His Dickishness built in the bay? Billions of ryo just to impress the Empress of Bear Country. And she didn’t even attend the inaugural performance  - the two spent the entire visit on his yacht.”

“Again, you’re thinking of Earth.”

She scoffed. 

“That’s right, she only looks like a bear-”

“Untrue.” He did not laugh.

“A goat bear.” She absolutely did not laugh. 

“...Well.”

Maybe they laughed. But that would be unprofessional. 

“Back on point,” Gaara murmured. “We can’t use the walls outside, but why can’t we use the walls inside?”

“The walls inside?” Her brow shot up with the force of her incredulity. 

“What if we take the initiative to the people? Create those same living walls within their homes? What would it take, do you think, to further expand the water system, to renovate extant structures rather than build new?” He opened his eyes and crossed the room, searched the scroll shelf until he found what he was looking for - the largest blank scroll in his possession. He yanked it from beneath the dozen smaller scrolls atop it, sent them scattering to the floor and flung open the roll and let it fly across the room. 

“What are you doing!”

He ignored her shock in favor of penning down his idea lest it flee from him in the moment it arrived. Materials, local flora, nonlocal flora, man hours, construction, the planning, the paperwork, the micro-communities, the macro-community - everything branching out from itself and integrating like the delicate network of fungi, coming together in harmony and co-existing, sharing the same thoughts, creating a truly living space. 

“We bring the gardens into the homes of the people. We already draw water from the underground river into the houses, why not recreate that concept in scale? It’s called hydroponics. We could grow food in the kitchens.”

She stood next to him and watched his pen fly across the parchment, ideas flowing, chicken scratch paragraphs, haphazard doodles, arrows and circles and underlines, the zeal for such an outlandish project coming together and blowing her over like a great wind. She dropped to her knees next to him and placed a hand over his shoulders while he worked. 

“Gaara,”

Gaara hummed, not entirely listening, eyes and heart and mind set to the task before him.

“Gaara,”

He couldn’t hear her. He was spirited away with his scroll and pen, thoughts rushing past him as he clung to his dearest nerve. He dared to dream. He desperately dared to believe in this outlandish, outrageous, impossible dream. 

“Turtledove.”

His pen stopped, his eyes were wide, information spooling a thousand miles a minute. He wasn’t sure when she had started using that nickname, wasn’t sure he had ever seen a turtledove (he had seen a turtleduck though), but felt a warm pleasure ripple from the name nevertheless. He sat up and turned to her. She seemed to glow. 

“Let’s do it.”

He nodded.

“Please give me the kitchen.”

Temari had an air of tranquility that Gaara treasured, and even now amidst the greenery, she remained unfettered and removed from the hustle of a demanding government post. She didn’t look up at him as he came through the door. 

“Where were you? I sent Kogen up for you an hour ago.”

“I think you’ll find yourself unsurprised at my answer.” He moved to inspect the broad leaves of the plantain drooping over the sink while Temari puttered around at the stove, pouring fragrant tea into blue earthen cups. They were a favorite of hers, a birthday gift upon her last mission in Konoha several months before. 

“Oh, I’m sure.” 

“Kankuro never checked in at the front gate.”

She groaned.

“Of course he didn’t. I swear he does it on purpose.” 

“I disagree.”

“You disagree?” She whipped her head around her shoulders and squinted at him. “I guarantee you he absolutely does it on purpose. He loves teasing her, the poor girl.”

Gaara squinted back. 

“Her?”

“Kogen.”

“Kogen?”

“You’re awfully obtuse today. I don’t usually have to repeat myself this much.”

“He… does it on purpose?”

“Just think about it.”

Gaara looked back to the plantain, ran his fingertips along the undersides of the leaves, dipped his fingertips in a small puddle of water in the basin beneath, and brushed off the dust that had collected. There was something missing, some part of the equation that didn’t add up. 

A thought wavered at the edge of his mind, came on a vision of scales over sand, and a deep chuckle echoed like something within an empty chamber. Then there was a whisper; Shukaku rustling just out of reach, intervening as it amused him. Gaara concentrated on him, waiting for him, hoping he might speak again.

“Foolheart.”

The word dropped in his ears like a great crash. Shukaku’s presence receded with the sounds of laughter - or at least what, in Shukaku’s case, passed as laughter. Gaara held his breath and considered. Foolheart. What was Foolheart? It wasn’t often that the demon made himself known; he was all too pleased to ignore his vessel these days. Was he teasing now, or perhaps laughing at Gaara’s expense?

Who was the Foolheart? Himself or Kankuro?

He decided to take a leap. 

“Does he... like her?”

After a beat, Temari laughed.

“Yes, turtledove, he does.”

“Oh.”

Just as she began to move the tea to the little table in the corner, their brother burst through the door. He had washed and changed, his hair dripped and his face was clean of paint. The puppeteer turned on his heel and cracked the door as much as he dared. 

“Do you think she followed me?” He whispered. 

“Not if she is doing her job.” Temari chided. She waved Gaara over to the seat across from her. “You shouldn’t distract her, she isn’t your babysitter.”

“Babysitter! That girl is a menace! A phantom! A phantom menace, if you will. I think she enjoys tormenting me.” He let the door closed and slouched into the remaining seat. 

“I think you’re the one who enjoys tormenting me. I can’t have another assistant quit because you’re being obnoxious. We’ll develop a reputation.”

“Oh, I don’t think we have to worry about developing a reputation.”

“You asked to see us?” Gaara interrupted. As much as he didn’t mind his siblings picking at each other, he knew that Temari must have had something serious to discuss. 

“I did,” She brought a steaming cup to her lip and stared evenly at them. “We’re a go with Konoha.”

For a moment, there was nothing to be heard but the running water lapping in the walls, the plants growing, the heat in the stove clicking away to nothing. Gaara blinked. 

“The Council agreed?”

She grinned.

“The Council agreed.”

Gaara sat back in his chair and allowed the slow creep of joy and shock to permeate him. Almost a year ago he had brought before the Council, before Sashiko and her iron fist, the first of many installments he hoped would change the socio-economic force of Suna. Their post-war relationship with Konoha would only serve to benefit them; their paper and medical goods were invaluable after the several previous decades of government cutbacks and dwindling national resources, not to mention their massive tactical strength was a major asset that could not be ignored -- but in order to complete his vision, the project would have to be brought before the Daimyo. And the Daimyo was another challenge entirely. 

In the last decade, the previous Daimyo had passed the station to his son and the entire region suffered anew. The new head of states’ wasteful actions resulted in widespread national constraints that rained down upon the multiplicity of local magistrates, and the choices of those governments further trickled down upon Suna. The Council beared a large brunt of the intra-national politics which allowed for the Kazekage to maintain his focus on the management and wellbeing of the village and it’s nin. It was an unusual arrangement that had worked for several years, but Gaara could see it beginning to crumble; with the advancement of technology and the slowly widening gap between the consuming government and the divided peoples of the nation, the future of ninja villages was becoming uncertain.

He let the concerns he felt for the future fade, and returned his attentions to the imminent; here was the chance to take those first steps toward a new horizon. There was change on the wind.

The Council agreed!

“What do you think convinced them?”

“Who cares!” Kankuro cheered. “Oh man, where do we begin?”

Gaara looked at his brother, at the joy animating his face, wondered if he was wearing a similar expression. 

“Where everything begins,” he replied “With several meetings.”

“Ugh, isn’t that just the way? Why isn’t diplomacy more fun?”

“Things are looking up: Uzumaki has yet to take office.”

“Oh, that’s true. Something to look forward to.”

“Something to be concerned about.”

“I’m excited regardless. Ah, Konoha, how I’ve dreamed of those glorious hot springs! Of your various grilled meats and award winning juniper sake!”

“Except you’re staying here.” Gaara intoned.

“What! No, did you not just hear my beautiful ode to baths, barbeques, and beer? I’ve got plans. The universe has plans for me godsdammit!”

“The universe does not care about you.”

“I’m beginning not to care about you.”

“This isn’t a vacation.”

“Why am I always the one who has to stay behind?”

“Because…” He put on his best reasoning voice, searching for a believable excuse. “...everyone likes you the most.” 

Kankuro paused, the corners of his mouth dipped, and he slowly nodded his head in thought.

“Well... when you put it like that-”

“Actually-” Temari interrupted, breaking the two from their rapid fire conversation. “You’ll have to go without me.” 

They stared blankly at her. 

“Why?” Kankuro asked, sounding almost suspicious. 

She seemed to pale just so. Gaara squinted. Kankuro squinted. 

Temari squinted back.

“Because I said so.”

“Oh, well, then it’s settled. Go have fun by yourself; drink beer with the Hokage. I’ll just stay here.” Kankuro muttered, and reached for the sugar bowl, spooning far too much sugar into his cooling tea. “And be murdered by Kogen the Literally Terrible.” Gaara silently lamented the perfectly good tea his brother had single handedly destroyed. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” Gaara wrapped a hand around his own, perhaps protectively, and turned to his sister with a patient expression.

“Temari I would like you to be my point on this. Let Kankuro handle the office, we’ll only be gone a few days. I feel that this takes priority.”

“Well…” She started, and stopped as if measuring her words. “There’s been something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

Both Gaara and Kankuro stared at her. Predictably, she held her silence. Kankuro shifted about, his hand shot out to grab his cup. He motioned for her to continue and took a hesitant sip, his eyes never leaving hers. 

“Ah, it’s just that… Um.”

Gaara leaned in just enough to examine her face. She seemed flustered or uncomfortable, her eyes looking somewhere in a middle distance, somewhere else. It made his heart hurt. 

“Temari?” He asked gingerly, fearing her answer. 

She retracted like a whip, her eyes meeting his with stark intensity. 

“Oh, don’t say it like that. It’s fine, really.” He watched her melt back into herself, watched her come back from that distant place, back to their little kitchen. 

“Whatever you have to say, you can say it. We aren’t going anywhere.” The eldest sibling set his cup to the table with a decisive clunk. “We can handle it.”

The kunoichi sighed and rested her head in her hand, her face breaking into a difficult smile. 

“I was never really sure how to tell you, but I suppose it’s best to just come out with it.”

“Are you cursed?” Kankuro teased from behind his tea. “I wonder if curses run in the family.”

“Am I-? What?”

“Don’t interrupt her.” Gaara murmured, touching his arm, dipping his chin to hide his smirk.

“I’m just saying-”

“You’re being rude-”

“I’m pregnant.” She blurted, shoulders drawn tight to her ears.

The boy’s eyes snapped to hers, both mute from shock. 

For a second time that day, Gaara was suddenly in a wildly different place, shifted just a kilter to the left, just removed from the familiar. Beside him, Kankuro had launched into a thousand word per second tirade, moving for sake of movement, talking for fear of silence. And then he ran right out of the kitchen, his shouts trailing after him like the tail of a kite. 

Gaara took a moment to consider the ruined tea he left behind. 

“So much for handling it.” She sighed. 

Gaara was at a loss for words. A creeping joy met a creeping fear and clashed inside him. He was desperately unsure what to do with either feeling, and then was concerned when they began to mangle, and then distraught when they became indistinguishable from one another. 

Temari’s hand reached out and cupped over his wrist. He looked up at her, at her bright eyes and warm smile. 

“Relax, turtledove.”

He took a deep breath and let it go. He could handle it.

“Alright. I’ll go without you.”

“Good. Everything is already arranged. I’ve had Kogen prepare your travel documents. You’re right about Kankuro staying here; if he’s good at anything, it’s filibustering with Sashiko. He and I can manage in the meantime. I’ve requested for Team Three to be your liaisons and it was met with little objection. Their work ethic is strong, and of the major teams, theirs is the most capable of thinking outside of the box. Also I like them the most, but don’t tell them, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Team… Three?” He mentally rolled through the cells he was familiar with and drew a blank. 

“Yeah.” Her brow wrinkled but her smile didn’t waver. “Did… you want someone else? I thought you were on good terms with them.”

“No, I know you made the right choice.” She chuckled, perhaps sensing his confusion. He tucked away the unsure feeling that laugh gave him. 

“Thank you.” She stood and picked up her cup. “I’m going to go wrangle the excuse that is the eldest child. Are you alright?”

He nodded and watched her leave. 

“I know you made the right choice.” He repeated as she passed through the door. 

She looked at him over her shoulder. Her face was pink. She smiled.

“You’re damn right I did.”

-

Gaara eventually made it back to his quarters to prepare for his journey, but where to start? There were so many avenues that demanded his attention, and all those roads lead to the capital; there were so many minute details that needed his every degree of scrutiny, but the greater authority of the Daimyo loomed over him from his glittering perch by the sea. The last hour had presented a startling array of emotions and sensations, all of them wildly different in meaning and structure. Time shifted about him like some higher spirit were shaking his hourglass. Disintegration and disorientation, hand in hand, tooth and nail. 

He was abruptly pulled from his contemplations when a great gust of wind rose up around him, blowing through his door and rattling the glass instruments and the tables and the cobwebs. His heart shook and the blood in his veins buzzed. The sound of laughter floated through his ears which he instantly recognized as the familiar scatter of Kogen’s cackle. A moment later, a shout, a groan, his brother yelling theatrically. Temari followed, her voice ringing like a bell. And then they were gone, their merriment carried with them on the wind. 

Then, seemingly apropos of nothing, Gaara’s feet carried him forward, one meandering step after another until he was where he had left his thoughts that morning: the alcove. He drew a hand over the corded edge of the thick tapestry, the depiction of the creation of Suna. He rubbed his fingers over the faded swells of lava, the trails of the horned camel herds, and the veiled faces of the ancestors. He brushed it aside and stared at the thunderegg, bifurcated, bemused, and winking at him from the shadows.

How bizarre this strange attractor was. It was clear there was something it had to say but Gaara couldn’t understand the language it was using; it whispered through an extradimensional veil, was superiorly emotive and oddly psychometric. He ran a finger over the glossy onyx interior to feel the exposed point of ore at its center.

He was struck with two feelings; the first was an odd sensation of being very far from his home, a tugging, coiling feeling in his belly that seemed to disappear far and away to some unseen navel of the earth. He didn’t understand it and set it aside. The second, however, was as clear as a full moon: the vivid realization that politics were about to become much more complicated once Sashiko learned of Temari’s pregnancy.

Though it made no difference to him, he knew the Council would have much to say about Temari having a child before him. He could already hear Sashiko’s shrill cadence echoing through the chambers; direct lineage was a serious concern in Suna history, especially in it’s time long before the village officially became a village, when the desert people fought for resources and fought against the land. The first Kazekage came into power when he raised the plate of an ancient volcano and emptied it of its magma, creating the crater that would shelter the village that would become Sunagakure. 

He had never seen the documents himself and was unsure that the documents were even extant. He had been told all of his life that he was related to that myth of a man, that he should be reverent of his bloodline, that power and responsibility and the future were his, but were they really? In all truths, Gaara doubted that such a man ever existed. 

What did it matter in the scope of things? If he was correct, he suspected the father of Temari’s child was from the Leaf. What would be said about the child’s great great grandfathers? Where was the mighty Kazekage lineage then? Would the child not have the right to it? Would the child be wiped from the public record? Would Temari?

What did it matter then? 

And what of Kankuro, eldest son passed over for leader of his village? Aloof and raffish, but personable, intelligent, calculating. It would seem that these things did not matter. 

Time and again, the overwhelming body of proof pointed to a single factor: strength. It confused Gaara that strength be determined by leadership. There were different kinds of strength; Kankuro had strength of character, and Temari had strength of determination. What did Gaara have? Power, ugly and brute. 

The only strength of any consequence. 

Leadership would not be his without the help and guidance of his siblings. He had spent so much of his youth in fear and anger, as a living weapon, less than a person. From those experiences, he had since come to a single question, again and again: shouldn’t the strength of one’s love determine a leader? Temari seemed most fit in that regard; she was having a baby after all. She commanded space and attention in the Council Hall and among their shinobi, she was respected. Kankuro would fit the role as well, Gaara knew that people enjoyed his brother’s affable demeanor. He, too, was respected. Both his siblings were examples of how to operate within a society, where Gaara knew he stood apart. He had seen what the strength of love could do, knew its power first hand.  

An odd figure came to mind and an odd feeling came to heart - that of a certain leaf nin whose path crossed his at one of the darkest periods of his life. He would sit through the long nights, Shukaku whispering from the mysterious place inside his head, insidious, endless, kill, murder, maim. Never before did he have to actively try to kill someone, but time and again, The Green Beast of Konoha, Rock Lee not only put himself in the path of his destruction but beckoned his advance. 

He had formed a tenuous relationship of sorts with the shinobi, had learned so much from his strange countenance and his odd character. Like Gaara, he possessed the might of brute strength, but his real power lay beneath: the remarkable strength of will, the power to choose joy and grief with both hands - the innate ability to change and affect change. . 

What kept him going? What fueled the perpetual motion machine that was his spirit? It was indomitable. Lee had a mysterious way about him and Gaara realized he had begun to seek it out. He wanted to see his smile, his dexterity, his flexibility, he wanted to crack open his skull and see those thought processes, that insurmountable confidence that attracted everyone in his vicinity like the pull of gravity. 

There was a word for Lee and it escaped Gaara. He lost hours to searching, hunting for the one word. He lost several a midnight hour thinking about his friend, about what he was doing, about the person he was becoming when they weren’t near one another, about how he might be shaped by the people around him and if they might shape him. 

He came to stillness, hands falling to rest at his sides, head tilted as if trying to parse out the faintest whisper. It was an aching curiosity. He would go so far to consider that it may be a longing. That he indeed longed to see Lee again. He wanted to hear his voice. He wanted to see his face. He wanted to meet his friend again. He wanted to see how he could be changed just be being in his presence. He wanted to be changed. 

Wait. 

Stop. 

Breathe.

Gaara didn’t enjoy setting himself up for failure. It was easier to deal with disappointment when he tempered his expectations. Lee was a working nin. He had a life outside their relationship. He would more than likely be away on mission. And Lee probably treated him like he did everyone else. Gaara wasn’t anything more than an acquaintance, a casual comrade, a convenience. Truthfully, they weren’t anything more to one another than allied nin.   

And that was fine. 

He took a breath through his nose, shook the thought from his shoulders, and continued about his business. There was no use dwelling on that which he could not change. There was work to be done. 

-

Gaara had not known that green had a smell before he visited Konohagakure. He hadn’t known the amniotic comfort of constant drizzle or the mill and din of nearby cheerful pedestrians. The Village Hidden in the Leaves was remarkably different from Suna in almost every way. The steady improvement to local infrastructure, the dedicated importance of outdoor public spaces, the architecture, the social standards and expectations, cultural identity, everything, right down to the bafflingly polite clan politics --- entirely widdershins to the oppressive weight of Suna tradition.  

The village had a complex relationship to its people, and a deep and refreshing beauty that differed from anything he had ever experienced. The people of Suna were stalwart but unmoving. They were a people accustomed to extremes and they liked it that way. Konoha was a puzzle to him, but one he appreciated, one he looked forward to confusing him time and again. As he grew he came to realize that Konoha was a comfort. He was grateful for every opportunity he was given to visit.

This, however, was a quandary the loomed upon him every time he had the pleasure of visiting the forested village, a particular problem that danced at the edges of his senses and endeavoured to remind him of his every failed mediation on the subject: What relationship did the desert dweller have to the color green? Why did it have a smell? How did he know the color had a smell? When had he first realized it, and where? What exactly was the smell?

Many of the wee hours of early morning were dedicated to the express rumination on the conundrum. The color was not exactly a favorite of his. Green dye was not particularly favored in his nation nor was readily available - he could cite very few examples of the shade in common items or clothes, now or historically. What he had ascertained, however, was that he knew the color had a smell -- he could not pinpoint his first having smelled it, but it was as familiar to him as the dirt beneath his nails. (And as Temari scolding him for the dirt beneath his nails.)

Always, when he least expected it, the briefest minutia, the faintest whisper of something unerringly, unmistakingly green, would catch on the periphery of his consciousness. Day or night, at rest or work, it would ghost upon him, trailing just out of reach of vocabulary and identification. He was not bothered by the apparition, rather, he relished in it, appreciated its presence and continued his long investigation as to its cause and importance.

The mysterium followed him on the three long days journey through desert, marsh, and forest. The further east they travelled, the more damp it became, until they weren’t an hour from Konoha and they were fighting to stay ahead of the storm front. The smell demanded more and more of his perception, until it too, raged like the approaching storm. 

Without preamble, the unit split, one nin jumping ahead to secure the area, the others spreading off to his left and right. Gaara schooled his expression and prepared himself to meet the party that Temari assigned. A brief feeling passed over him, a hope that he might see a friend, that this diplomatic mission might hold a little more than just work. He proceeded to squash it and slowed as the wall of Konoha came into view. 

Was it like oversteeped tea, bitter and pithy? Or maybe more like the hot smell that wafted from a rug left in the sun? Or was it more like lukewarm well water, rich with silt and salt?Where did the smell begin and where did it end? Was it the first taste of spiced caked, thick and nutty? What did the smell want from him? Was it the thrilling elation of stepping up to a canyon edge, the odor of a centuries old rock bed yawning up into your face? Would it ever end? 

His feet hit the dirt. 

Petrichor filled the air. 

He immediately set himself to work, conferring with his ANBU team, handing over travel papers and destroying a set of false duplicates with a handy jutsu, avoiding the overwhelming sensation of eyes vying for his attention. Then he heard a sound over the wind. He stifled the flare of fight response that rose over his dull headache. Who would threaten him and his team at the border of the arguably strongest village this side of the Kaizoku sea? The smell was almost upon him, powerful and unnamed, appealing and odd. He turned to see who was shouting at him, and suddenly the wind whipping around him and the headache dancing at his temples and the smell threatening him with bittersweet loveliness were all inconsequential. 

Everything simply dropped away because the friendliest smile, because of the welcoming curve of his cheek, the daring line of his brow. For all that he touted a beastly moniker, Rock Lee was quite the opposite. Lee, who seemed to grow perpetually ever taller, ever broader, always bigger than when he last saw him. His smile and vibrant personality blazed without fail. Lee, with his strong arms opening and approaching him, perhaps to hug him? Oh gods, what was this feeling? Gaara swallowed around the lump in his throat, nervously eager to greet his friend again. 

And then ANBU Two appeared and did his job. 

“You will step away from the Kazekage, Leaf.” Gaara noted that the young ANBU was trying to fold Lee’s arm down and away, not that the Leaf nin seemed to notice. He was too busy trying to backpedal. 

“Ah, I apologize-”

“It’s alright.” He heard himself say, staring intently at Lee’s wide eyes. “Release our escort ANBU.”

The ANBU leveled his chin at Lee and went about his business. Before he could talk himself off of the proverbial cliff, Gaara leaped. 

“Hello again.” He murmured, pushing forward into what he hoped was the shape of Lee’s hug. Was he doing it right? He held his breath and tucked his chin over his shoulder. Surely it was right, hugging didn’t look so difficult. He wrapped his arms around his middle, fingers brushing over the rough flak jacket and meeting at his spine. It felt like what he thought a hug should look like. But gods was he tall. And warm. And strong - he squeezed back with fierceness, as if he wrapped him up with his entire body. 

“Hello.” He replied, his lips on the shell of his ear. Gaara would have shivered if he could move, but Lee held him fast. 

He smelled so nice. 

He smelled so…

Green.

Ah.

The days that followed were a struggle. He needed to concentrate on his meetings with Tsunade but everything conspired against him; the rain was an endless barometric nightmare, and the tea was too weak to abate it. The nights were sweaty and miserable; what little sleep he needed eluded him, having been kept awake by the humidity and the memory of Lee squeezing him. His entire body buzzed with a strange foreign pleasure, a sensation he hadn’t felt before. He kept coming back to the feelings of his arms, his spine bending to his stature, the permeating wonder that was the green smell reminding him again and again that it did have a beginning. 

Where would it end?

The following afternoon was thick with spring rain and his ever encroaching headache throbbed intolerably. He and Tsunade had reached some amenable conclusion to their negotiations, thankfully; he knew he was approaching the tail end of her patience and hospitality. As much as he longed to escape the veritable monsoon, he wasn’t ready to leave. He wanted another moment with Lee, however fleeting. Lee whom he got to see every single day, who smiled at him with every opportunity, who probably changed the tea blend each morning, who stiffened under Gaara’s study.  

He wanted just a little more time. And it was selfish. But where would it end? He needed to know. He wanted to see if he could find out.

Tsunade had dismissed him minutes ago, and had stood to chat with her office nin. Lee’s teammate eagerly snapped to her side. He wondered where the Hyuga was. Perhaps given his clan affiliation, Tsunade put him on retainer. He considered how he could get the jounin back on. Neji was far too excellent a ninja to be benched for politics beyond his control. 

Lee stepped into his line of sight. 

What was so green? Was it a soap or perfume? Did it have something to do with his diet? Did it have anything to do with him at all? Was this all psychosomatic? 

“Are you alright?” He asked, bent low that Gaara might be the only one to hear. 

He mulled the question, weaving it through the dull ache. He reached for his hat and turned. He decided on honesty.

“I would like to go.”

“Oh,” Lee breathed, and suddenly, sharply, on that sweet inhale, Gaara remembered his search for a word. His word for Lee. Many came to mind. “Would you like to-”

“I would enjoy your company further,” He could all but whisper, his heart thundering, dozens of possibilities slipping by and then off and gone with the wind. He hadn’t realized he had readied himself to go, to follow Lee wherever he decided to take him, until he felt his hands leave off at the rude knot of his sash, the familiar weight of the desert on his back, and all of the words he could imagine at his disposal.

With a beatific smile, Lee replied, “I think I know just the place. Please follow me.” 

-

Lee lived in a three story building near a secluded stand of trees. The space was darkening with the fall of day and welcomingly lush with greenery. Not as truly overgrown as his own home, but more than he would have ever suspected another nin might have. A dozen succulents dotted the window sills and available tables, unsurprising given the region. A potted plant draped from a basket corded from the ceiling, its golden vines hanging like tails or strewn atop nearby bookshelves, its leaves pleasantly shiny and perfectly cordiform. The sliding door to a small balcony patio revealed larger pots and woodier vegetation, some with blooms, a few others less than thriving. 

However, the plant that caught his eye was a daring little thing that poked from around a curious statue of a turtle with four elephants on its back. He had been studying the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram that was oddly engraved on its surface when he spied the cherub - a petit Echinocereus rigidissimus, just delicately ringed with pink. A distant memory rose in his mind, thick with fragrant smoke. Years ago, when he had just begun to explore the desert, there had been a large prickle of the small pink cacti off the southwestern ridge of the Asra Iman Oasis. The warm memory was redolent with shimmering water, swaying desert trees, and the echo of chanting and chimes from the nearby encampments of the wilder women. 

Unable to resist, he buried his hands in the pot. He wanted to know what it knew, wanted to feel its roots, know the soil, the sand, even the tidy stack of flat pebbles Lee had gathered for it. The Leaf nin puzzled Gaara at times. He was capable of so many things, and was quite good at all of them. It was baffling. Mindlessly, he introduced some sand from his gourd into the pot, gently packing it so as not to aerate the soil too much. The little pink cactus seemed to beam up at him, pleased with his help. He ran a finger over its soft spines and tried to rearrange the pebbles the way Lee had them. 

He could smell the nin standing just out of sight, that curious green, somewhere between bright eucalyptus and ancient well water. He turned his face to him and brushed off his hands, relishing the dirt still beneath his nails.

“That species requires a slightly sandier soil. I added a layer so that as you water, it will penetrate the soil without disrupting the pot’s ecology.”

“Oh, thank you. You would know quite a bit about cactuses - it was a gift from my neighbor. I just try not to overwater it.” Gaara hummed. “I made coffee. I have been under the impression that perhaps you don’t like tea?” He gestured a glass carafe in one hand and a stack of teacups in the other. Atop it, a plate stacked with delicate rice crackers. 

In that moment Gaara discovered the word he had spent so long looking for. 

Charming.

Lee was absolutely, utterly, impossibly, wonderfully, dazzlingly, stupidly, ridiculously charming. 

“No, I just found the tea offered to be too strong. I do prefer coffee, however.” He brought the cup into his hands and held it, eyes aloft but seeing nothing in particular. Trying to act as if several epiphanies had not just occurred to him at once. Outside, the rain picked up, pounding on rooftop, pavement, and tree. The wind buffeted the window quietly. He tried to reign himself in, tried to pull away from the sense that he was in for an unstoppable, unknowable evening, tried to quell the spike of adrenaline searing him from the inside out. “I haven’t seen rain like this before.”

“I would imagine you have never seen rain.” 

“Very seldom, but rain does come our way. Though, not... quite like this.” 

It seemed as though the conversation were lagging. His headache butted in, reminding him of its miserable existence. The fantastic smell lazed around him like a lizard on a hot stone, the found word curling in his mind like a fortune telling fish. Everything was warping. Everything was breaking down. Everything was strange.

“Are you alright?” Lee murmured, suddenly at his side. His warm hand settled on his shoulder. 

“I have had a headache since we arrived.” He admitted. 

“Why didn’t you say something? I have just the thing to help! Stay here, drink more coffee!” He popped up and disappeared around a corner, his dark hair swinging cheerfully.

Charming. Offensively charming. Defensively charming. Rule breakingly charming. 

Lee slipped to his knees before him and began to unwrap his hands. Despite the grating headache, Gaara could not help but stare. He had never seen his hands. Or rather, he didn’t know what his hands looked like beneath his wraps but his nails were tidy ( no dirt beneath them) and his forearms were sturdy if crosshatched with callouses and pale scars. There was a tin between his knees, he realized after the fact. It had seen some use, and when Lee opened it, the grassy salve inside proved to have a healthy divot.  

It was getting so difficult to process what Lee wanted - to… touch him? There was not much touching of other people in Suna, or at least, that he was aware of. He glanced up to see Lee’s eyes wide with concern. Up so close he could see his individual eyelashes, could smell him. 

Suddenly compelled, driven by more than curiosity, by sheer, mind-numbing desire to know that smell, he nodded, closed his eyes, and took a leap of a different kind.  

Lee rubbed his salve slick fingers in slow circles at his temples. They were warm and gentle, and his thumbs came up to smooth along his hairline. Gaara swayed under the firm pressure, spine weak at the lovely relief his touch brought. His palms came down around his neck and seemingly pushed the headache out and away from his body. Without effort, without pause, he discovered a hard knot over his spine and wrestled it into submission.

A sharp, stunning sensation curled in his belly and threatened to spill into his every nook and cranny. Oh, it felt messy and slippery and altogether lovely. Lee applied more and more salve, was close and warm and sturdy, and smelled impossibly green, like an uprooted acacia tree, like breathtaking ozone, like muddy burdock, like the warm, chthonic earth.

His skin hummed like a thousand sand cicadas, his heart thundered, and his cock throbbed. There were hands in his hair and pulling at all parts of him, pulling simultaneously, pulling him apart and nothing ever seemed so appealing. 

And in an instant, everything shattered. There was evening darkness and crowing voices and a knocking at the door. He was on top of Lee, Lee was literally on the floor beneath him, his hands were fisted at his clothes, when had that happened? Mortification flooded his body. Had he blacked out? Had he attacked Lee? Has he touched him in some inappropriate fashion? Had-

“Gaara,’ Lee leaned up, his warm hands over his thighs, his eyes steady, his face sure in the face of the storm that Gaara was so sure he created. “We have to move.”

It was moments. 

They moved. 

Lee smiled at him. 

Something twisted in his belly. 

He left. 

2. 

There is a story, and like most stories, it happened in a time before time. It is a story older than the written word, a story whose oral tradition has spanned several languages and thousands of miles. It is a story that has been passed from one tribe to the next, down the curving coastline and deep into the sand sea. It is a story known by every child in Wind country, and, indeed shared with children across lands both known and unknown. This is the story that took place where it all began, at the Navel of the Earth, the Crystal Upon the Sea: Luca. 

This is the story of Gommalu. 

Before Luca was called the Great Capital, before it was known far and wide as the dazzling Jewel of Wind, it was a humble fishing village. The coastal community was well populated with many skilled fisherman, boat-makers, and wayfinders. They raised their sails, cast their nets, and thrived off the bounty and benevolence of the Mother Ocean. 

At their backs lay the vast sand sea, a vista of endlessly swelling dunes further surrounded by nigh unreachable scrublands and flat wastes bearing little more than monolithic rocks and dry, unyielding earth. Before them lay the even vaster ocean, rife with tales of monsters and waves like cliff sides. The people of Luca knew the desert was demanding and absolute. They knew the Mother Ocean was cruel and firm. Betwixt these, they found balance; moderation; temperance. 

Just beyond the blue rim of the horizon there lay a tiny cluster of islands, the smallest and most remote of which was called Kilika. There are many tales still told of this deeply spiritual place; tales of powerful monsters, the amazing feats of their tribesmen and more still of their athletes, and even the whispered coming of an unlikely hero from a distant age. The few fishermen who dared to venture beyond sight ferried the stories back and forth over the waves, sharing them and keeping them alive - to the delight of some, and the concern of others. 

One midsummer brought with it a strangeness: as celestial noon struck, a great shadow crawled over the sun. Boats rocked at their moors, birds and animals shrieked, and the ocean roared like the great maw of an unfathomable beast yawning into consciousness. The people stood transfixed at the sight, clutching their hearts in terror, and seizing their loved ones in shock. 

In the moment of perfect darkness, all came to stillness, all came to silence. The desert did not quake, and the Mother Ocean did not stir. Some say time itself came to a stop, if but for a moment. 

But the shadow passed almost as quickly as it had appeared. Overhead, the solstice sun hung as it had always done, and the village by the sea picked up their baskets and ran. Some to their homes and others to their boats, but there was nowhere to go, and no one to hear of the strange occurrence. Night fell and brought the morning. The people, though wary, returned to their boats. After all, fish and hungry bellies were not concerned with such mysteries. 

The sun climbed into the noon sky, and another strange sight appeared, this time from on the sea: a boat slipped over the horizon. As it approached, a great joining of voices and clamoring of metal could be heard. It was an immense and beautiful galleon, with many colored sails and tall masts and gleaming decks. From bowsprit to stern, the ship was bedecked with massive lengths of hand-tied hemp rope and mighty bells that could be heard even over the crashing surf. It’s sailors sang a joyful hymn in a language now forgotten, but whose beauty, though fragmented, remains. 

An island in an island in an island, they repeated and refrained and rejoiced. An island in an island in an island, a veritable thousand voices coming together, over ocean and beyond the sea, carrying with them innumerable songs and stories from a mysterious island. An island in an island in an island, they cried, calling to all who would hear; they carried with them a ship within a ship, the great spirit of the mysterium, a curious deity they called Gommalu.  

The dockmen stared in wonder at the great vessel, at the laughing and cheering crew. They were none other than the villagers of Kilika, from the mysterious isle, a hidden land of monsters and men they had heard so many stories about but whose peoples they had never seen. The Kilikans tossed down great lengths of rope and threw flowers into the air. An island in an island in an island, they sang, blessings of the dark and of the wild!

They came dressed in red and orange silks, with jingling silver, and painted faces. The Kilikans cried and clapped, beating hand drums and playing stringed instruments. The people of Luca gathered at the docks and upon the shore to marvel at the veritable festival growing before their eyes. Tents were pitched and fires were lit, children played in the surf and people hurried to prepare a feast. 

When the ring of the sun kissed the ocean, the Kilikans stopped singing. They stopped dancing and eating and playing. An island in an island in an island, they chanted, eyes cast to their boat. A processional appeared, moving with inhuman beauty over the shore. Women sank to the sand at the sight, heads low and hands outstretched. Men clapped a slow rhythm and hummed.

Bejeweled and adorned in colorful tassels and gleaming bells and all manners of flowers and woven cords and baubles, this was their divinity emerged; his gait mighty and sure, standing a head taller than his worshippers, this was their god, realized. This was Gommalu.

A camel. 

Gommalu, a camel born at the zenith of the solar eclipse, black as the shadow that obscured the sun; blessed with a third eye that some said opened to the fourth dimension; others claim that he could speak from worlds inconceivable, to beings unknowable, and of futures unfathomable; more yet believed he could breathe fire. 

The festival bore witness to the dark, hornless beast. The God heaved a great breath and came to a stop, then lumbered to the sand like any other camel would. The people of Luca looked on, baffled, curious, and unsure.  

An old woman came forward with weather beaten hands and eyes like cracked marbles. She was a respected elder of her tribe, the priestess shepherd of Gommalu. She bid the Lucans join them, to abandon their lives between the sea and the desert, and receive the greater bounty Gommalu could offer them - the promise of eternal life.

But before the Lucans could accept or deny the proposal, the Kilians jumped to their feet and beat their drums and sang out into the night air, a wild frenzy of religious fervor. Gommalu reared his head back and bellowed skyward, his third eye flashing like the jewel of a crown over the crest of his brow. 

He stood untethered and walked into the desert.

The bobbing mass of people followed for days on end, far into the sand sea. They sang and danced and clattered huge bells in his honor, tolling the sun and the moon and the cosmic Gommalu. The caravan reached the heart of the desert and stopped at a massive rocky outcropping filled with dozens of caves. Inside the caves, the walls bared mysterious crystals that hummed with the energy of the earth itself. 

Gommalu walked into one such cave and did not return. The people waited for him to re-emerge. They went in after him, only to never be seen again. 

There are many questions as to the fate of the Kilians. Perhaps they left the desert and integrated with the Lucans. It is more realistic to imagine that they didn’t exist at all. More fantastical, however, was storied that the desert people disappeared. The mystery cult - a band of worshippers made up of a tribe of wilders from beyond the Southernmost coast, passionate nomads from the unseen isle - like a vapor of water, simply vanished into the air.

Whether this account told of an act of magick or a clever work of jutsu was so heavily debated that the story had been repeatedly censured and restored with the will of each new Daimyo administration, until it was eventually lost. What remains are the last vestiges of this legend, the fragmented depictions of camels, on rugs and pottery and art, and words spoken in shadows, daring to remember and wanting to believe in the island within the island within the island.

-

Gaara had come to consider that his Purpose in life was to pursue the Work; this meant the time and effort that went into maintaining his relationship with his people, with other governments, with his family, and his friends. This meant the years spent under the burning sun and silent moon out in the desert swells and flats. This meant all the hours lost to the confines of his studies, bent low over scrolls and texts; hours lost to dizzying experiments, of burying his hands so far in the dirt that he wondered if he might be pulled through some extradimensional portal and never be heard from again.  

He would agree that he thoroughly enjoyed the Work. He endeavored everyday to improve the lives of his people and hold the office of the Kazekage to higher and higher standards, but the Work - his true Work, the Work that called from across the cooling dunes, the Work that leapt from shadows and scurried into crevices too small for nimble fingers - he lived for the Work. Or, perhaps, he was made for the Work; perhaps he had been Designed with Purpose. 

It was a very cosmic thought, one that he didn’t think too hard on. 

After all, he had Work to do. 

- 

Four in the morning was an interesting, if liminal, headspace. It was still some time before dawn but hours since the sun had set. It was a time that one wondered if the sun would ever rise again. One wondered many unusual things at such an hour - if there might be any number of mysterious persons walking around outside, what the universe thought about all this, and how many species of giraffe there were.

Gaara lay on his back, cushioned by dozens of heavy pillows on the floor of his hidden alcove. The smell of candle smoke curled around him in the deep, comforting weight of the darkness. He knew that there were, in fact, many peoples walking around outside, with both nefarious intentions and not; it was his belief that the universe did not, in fact, care about him or anything else for that matter; and he knew just how many species of Giraffe there were (Four, not including Giraffapillers, which were a curious group of Lepidoptera and not, in fact, four toed ungulates). But tonight he was not thinking about any of these things. 

Tonight, he thought, he would try for a nap. 

It wasn’t unheard of, but was, truly, uncommon. The last he had slept had been weeks before, after a particularly troubling day; a section of exterior wall had shown signs of failing structural integrity just off the south end of the village. This proved problematic as the winds prevailed from the sea, so if the wall was crumbling and the wind blew, eventually, the wall would fall inward - an event that would be less than ideal for the people that lived near the wall, not to mention the structures hidden within. That day he learned a painful lesson in democratic bureaucracy and the agony of the emotional labor of public works engineers attempting to explain their work without being complete jackasses.  

The wall was fixed and, miraculously, no one was fired (though Temari had come impressively close to exercising her penmanship on a record breaking number of pink slips.) Gaara slept for a fitful three hours that night. 

The next day, his brother reassured him, “Sometimes the best way to deal with things is to simply be unconscious.”

Gaara was unsure that it was sound advice. 

Through the drawn tapestries, he could hear the wind whistling. The weather had taken a turn for the worst a little over a week ago, and the sheer increase in the volume of kinetic energy in the air alone was unsettling. Gaara was very much affected by the shifts in the climate - anything from a dust devil to a haboob had the ability to puff his hair and put his teeth on edge. 

Even now, his skin prickled and the blood in his veins ran hot. He huffed and rolled over on his shoulder. He squinted through the dark and tried to find the wall. Moments passed and it was clear that sleep was well far and away. He returned to his back and smacked the hard floor when his carefully constructed stack of cushions toppled. 

He grimaced and squinted at the ceiling. 

He felt sweat gather at his hairline and in his armpits. 

The wind howled.

This was intolerable.  

He ripped at the neck of his shirt, yanked it over his head and threw it somewhere in the dark. He hoped it would hit the wall that he couldn’t see, and had considered might not exist anymore. He attempted to rearrange the few pillows he could find into some blind semblance of their original structure. and flopped to his belly. He scrunched his face up as tight as he could and strived to will himself into unconsciousness. 

His blood ran all the hotter.

He wondered if the walls had fallen away and he was being roasted alive in some unseen pocket dimension that was near a screaming alien sun. He wondered if he had tossed his shirt over an invisible lava slug, thus setting it ablaze. He wondered if this had angered the slug, and if it was now oozing rivers of lava as a defense mechanism. He wondered if the slug was going to snack on his carbonaceous corpse.

He wondered if Lee ever dealt with problems like pocket dimensions and giant man-eating slug elementals. 

He wondered if Lee laid up at night, unable to sleep, thinking of him.  

He wondered if he ever wanted to see him again. Would it be awkward? Would he even deign to look at him? Would he decline to attend the series of upcoming meetings? Would he go so far as to request a different team to be assigned to the project? Would he file a report that would halt all interactions between their villages, cancel all trade agreements, and plunge them back into war until either village was destroyed? 

Perhaps it would be better to lay still and wait for the entirely imaginary and invisible lava slug to boil him to death. 

Would Lee, with his broad shoulders and warm smile, reject him? Lee with his coffee and houseplants? Lee with his kind heart and honest soul? Would he push him away with his broad hands? Would he touch those hands again? 

He imagined those hands on his body, longed for their square palms and gentle fingers to smooth over his skin. His face tingled, his body burned, he felt like he had spent a week in the unforgiving sun without water or shade. He felt effervescent and thick-headed, intolerably so. He wretched himself onto his back and shucked off his shorts, hoping to smother the invisible slug and deter his demise.  

Frustrated, he smoothed his own hands down his body, shaky and unsure under the oppression of this new collision of feelings. He bit his lip and tried to touch, tried anything, to remedy the buzzing in his skin. He pushed at his thighs and tugged at his hair. A finger strayed over a nipple and he immediately explored the lush shock it induced. Pinching, squeezing, pulling. Everything felt terribly good. Anything to chase away the heat. 

His heart thundered and he huffed, the foreign pleasure within him building. His cock ached and stood out from the single, sparse thatch of hair that had struggled to grow when he went through puberty. The tingle in his cheeks felt like fire. One hand worked at a sore nipple, the other reached out and took his cock in its grip. His breath pulled out of him like a great downdraft, tugging his balls up with it. 

Unable to cope with the ferocious pleasure whorling in his gut, he dropped his head back and moaned desperately. This feeling was so deep and encompassing, how could anyone masturbate with regular frequency and possibly survive? Breathing heavy, he peeked down and watched his fist slowly, oh so slowly, pull the foreskin back from the pink head of his cock. 

Then, like a flash from the blue, a tidy little thought unraveled like a great sail. On a shivery breath, with a twist of his fingers, Gaara imagined Lee leaning low over him and taking his cock in his hot mouth. But it was too much to bear, and the beautiful, desperate fantasy proved too great a machination to maintain. 

His body lurched in blissful agony as he came, curling over his fist. It was like a punch to the gut, he couldn’t hear himself shout over the ringing of his ears, the wave of pleasure washing his veins ice cold. His fist pumped beyond his control, and a warm, sticky strand of semen landed across his lip and cheek. His mind blind to anything but the fantasy of Lee sucking his cock, his brown eyes peeking up from beneath his thick eyelashes, he licked his lip into his mouth and tasted himself for the first time.

A salty bitterness spread in his mouth and warmed his stomach like oil. He gasped and felt himself fall into a bittersweet fog. For a moment, everything was too bright, too quiet. Through the haze the first thing he felt was the cooling semen on his belly, chest, and embarrassingly, his face. He shuddered with aftershock; his body felt like a squeezed fruit, bruised from the sheer trauma of the compounding pleasure that proved too great. He quaked as his cock softened against his belly. Then came bone deep exhaustion, so unlike the aching for sleep that he alleviated with meditation. 

He allowed himself to lose focus, to drift from the room, to forget the sensation of his tender skin, of the carpets beneath him, of the smell of warm dirt and warmer skin. He forgot the imaginary slugs and the crushing weight of embarrassment and regret. He simply allowed the physical and immaterial to dissolve and slip into darker depths. He wandered formless halls and colorless landscapes, somewhere interior, somewhere other. Then, from far away and impossibly close, a familiar sound of scales sliding over the floor, the sensation of reptilian skin and ancient sands. A laugh that rattled a chest that was not his own. 

Then, an odd sensation, like one too many eyes was looking at him, looking in him, looking through him. 

“Foolheart.”

He woke abruptly from his trace, clammy and stiff shouldered. Then glanced to the window to see the dome hazed over by wind blasted sand. If there was daylight, it was weak. Dishearteningly weak. 

His body hummed with contrasting energies, both fighting harmonics, struggling to overcome the other. The storm was huge; so huge that he felt it from across the country the week before. It started like a tickle in his fingers, felt like a faint humming from around a corner. Now it reared like some ungainly beast, pulling at the base of his neck and howling in his ears. Conversely, there was the still cooling refrains of the sexual fantasy - his first sexual fantasy - smoldering in his belly. The combination of these heady forces was entirely new and surprisingly overwhelming. He felt like an overloaded pottery wheel, unbalanced and spinning toward disaster. 

There was also the vision to consider - or what he took as a vision. 

“Gaara, are you up?” Temari called, sounding far away. “Be presentable in ten minutes, Sashiko called a meeting nearly half an hour ago! I’ll meet you near the atrium!” There was the echo of her feet on the stairwell and then, naught but the wind.

He stared at the ceiling for a while. He listened to the white noise of the mighty wind. He felt the tension in his body and breathed through it. Then he considered the halved thunderegg cupped in his palm, with its smooth, alien surface with the single speck of metal peeking through like an unseen turtle in a pond. 

Mostly he wondered when he came to hold it. 

He returned it to its twin in the hidden alcove. A fleeting thought of curses swept through his mind and tossed itself into a dark corner like a cloth. He did not bother to pick it up. He hoped it smothered the dimensional rift that the lava slugs crawled out of. 

After a quick wash, he dressed carefully with the threat of Sashiko at the front of his mind. She was a wraith of a woman. Calculating, sharply acute, her every action executed with rigid precision; she drew carefully measured breaths and delivered each statement and ruling with the severity of a sword’s edge. 

“Temari,” He breathed in greeting, rushing to meet her. They swept down the stairs and paced through empty winding corridors. He could just see the line of her mouth from the corner of his eye. It was tight and even. Gaara knew that face. Gaara knew exhaustion. 

“Fucking unbelievable - not you,” She huffed, sensing his mild shock at her language. “I was in the middle of a meeting with the division heads when Kogen of all people let me know we’ve been late to a council meeting that I was never informed about. That hag is getting worse with age.”

“Do we have any idea what she wants?”

“I’ll give you a hint - it starts with ‘sand’ and ends with ‘storm’.”

“I do understand the concept of sass.”

“But do you understand the concept of Sashiko doing whatever she wants? She expects us to jump through hoops we can’t see.”

“Then we retaliate by jumping through hoops she doesn’t know exist.”

Temari barked with dry laughter. 

“That’s a lofty ideal, Turtledove. I’d love to see her learn something she doesn’t already know.”

They came to a stop outside a pair of large, ornate doors, one of the few in the village that boasted hand carved reliefs and intricate gold filigree. Like the tapestries in his own home, there was much camel imagery, as well as the oldest depiction of the Mother Ocean in the country; but the centrepiece of the doorway was the massive jade cabochon nestled in the keystone of the arch. 

The green disc was incredibly old, storied to have been created by the second Kazekage Matabei of the Lunar Sea as both a means of divination and to serve as a fetish of spiritual protection for the village (or so, as it was recorded, he claimed). It was lost for a time after the Thousand Year Earthquake and subsequently rediscovered in the collapsed tunnel recovery project undertaken by Hakkutsu, a famed shinobi of Suna lore fabled to have been mentored by the Giant Star-Nosed Desert Moles - though almost no artist renderings or depictions of said creatures nor of Hakkutsu himself remain extant. 

Gaara stared at the Matabei Medallion, at it’s mysterious surface covered in a sheer layer of grit, and decided to have it cleaned at some point in the near future. As he considered it’s mysterious carvings, he was filled with a feeling very much like existential dread. Unsure if the sensation was some sort of omen or just a byproduct brought on by proximity to the Sashiko, he squeezed his eyes shut and attempted to expel the feeling out of his nose with a mighty breath.  

Temari paused to adjust his collar and he let her. There was little else to do than steel his nerves and open the door. 

Suna’s historic council chambers were the third oldest building within the original perimeter of the village, the second being the Kazekage mansion and the first being the postal office. (All the village's original structures were yurts as the tribe was largely nomadic, traveling between the sea and the wastes, following the sun’s path across the sky. After a period of what modern historians have had difficulty pinpointing because of unstable solar oscillation - which resulted in fluctuating source accounts of primary establishment and, surprisingly, a exact date of ultimate dissolution - the nomads sought to be acknowledged by both the sovereign and local authority. But in order for the village to be sanctioned by the Daimyo and recognized by regional caliphates and various magistrates, a means of communication run by the government was necessary -- to commission the village for work and labor while conveniently being the easiest way to keep tabs on the burgeoning ninja tribe should they foolishly decide to stage a coup and overthrow the daimyo’s administration.) 

With the storm seemingly throwing up the whole of the desert to blot out the sun, the few porthole windows afforded to the council chamber did little to illuminate the long room. At the far end, there stood a large dais, atop of which were seven chairs. In the center sat Sashiko, not unlike the stern figurehead at the prow of a ship. 

“Thank you for deigning us with your presence, Kazekage.” She did not look up at him. 

“Please forgive my tardiness, there has been much to attend to this morning.” He replied, taking his place in the center of the room, feeling very much like he was on trial. 

“Let us begin.” She announced, thoroughly dismissing any further preamble. There was a moment of shuffling, some papers coming to stillness, and various members turning their attention to Gaara. Still Sashiko did not look at him.

“As you are no doubt aware, there is a severe weather system approaching the village. We have received word from other municipalities concerning the size and severity of the storm over the last week. From what I am aware of, you have made no moves to address the situation. Explain yourself.”

Biting and direct, Sashiko poured down upon him with extreme intent. As she slowed to an agonizing stop - less of a stop, more of a pause, or a mere suspension of breath - only now, in the hanging space of her own making, did she flick her eyes at him over the rim of her glasses. 

Temari stepped forward with paperwork in hand, ready for battle. 

“We’ve mobilized a dozen units to scout both the common agoras and secluded areas of the village proper; several more are overseeing successful civilian passage to the underground tunnels. I’m set up to receive intelligence every thirty minutes and as of an hour ago, the situation is proceeding smoothly and as planned. Further, provisions for long term sanctuary are readily available should we need them-”

“Advisor, if you would be so kind as to hold your tongue.” 

The Councilwoman was not needlessly caustic but a command issued from her lips could startle a singing bowl into resonance from across a crowded room. A teacup pushed off a table would sheepishly put itself back together with as little as an unpleasant turn of her cheek. But even under enormous pressure Temari would bend and not break, and she would not do so now. In his periphery Gaara watched her collect and calculate, could see her running cost-benefit scenarios, and then, with a dignified incline of her chin, quietly step back just beyond his line of sight.

Temari was a marvel, a pillar of unwavering grace. He hoped to draw from that same well of patience as Sashiko redirected her dissatisfaction to fire again. 

“Allow me to clarify, Kazekage; I have here the ledger from the southern sentry postern which, as you are no doubt aware, tracks the comings and goings of all who pass through our gates. The southern postern experiences less traffic than our northern and eastern gates, so, as you can imagine, it is an easy task to piece together a timeline of departures and arrivals of various individuals. 

“From what I see here, you have ventured from the southern gate more than twenty times in the last four months, on what would seem a biweekly basis. Let it be noted that you have logged yourself departing from the southern gate twice in the last ten days alone, is this accurate?”

“It is, Councilwoman.” He replied, unable to keep the curl of a question from his statement. 

“I understand that these walkabouts were an idle pastime in your youth, but your continued indulgence in them concerns me. As far as I or the council are aware, you are not conducting state or political business, and while these excursions don’t seem to interfere with your work hours, they do seem to have some effect on your work ethic.”

“My work ethic?”

“Councilwoman, what are you suggesting?” Temari bristled. Sashiko shifted her gaze over her, past her, through her. 

“Advisor, if you interject again I shall have you removed.”

Temari stiffened with indignation. She pressed her lips together as tightly as she could, lest she say something that would land her in probation. Having wound herself up, Sashiko quickly turned out the pointed end of her examination. 

“You needn’t play at obfuscation. I am neither dumb nor blind. From the evidence before me I cannot but conclude that you are fraternizing with the wilder tribes in the gods forsaken Wastes. There is evidence of not only yourself but your advisors nee siblings venturing nearly half as much as you do in the same direction. 

“I care not for conjecture or speculation, and I won’t waste my time guessing as to the nature of your interactions. I do, however, care for the office of the Kazekage to function within it’s clearly defined parameters. As it is stated in the charter set forth by the founding people of our village, and I quote, “the privileges of the Kazekage are limited to overseeing the ultimate well being of his people” end quote, and it seems that you need reminding that those people stated therein are the ones within our borders and not beyond it. 

“In short, while you are off playing sandbox with those filthy cave dwellers, you are putting your people and government at risk. If I so deem it, I can have you removed from your station - but at this juncture, our remaining options are... less than desirable.”

Gaara held his breath and considered her biting tone. He considered what she might be accusing him of. He considered, at great length, the consequences of her implications and the widespread vista of the future before him, more murky than ever. 

“All the people of the desert are my people,” he measured his words, heart burning with cold fire. “In the eyes of the desert, we are no different. They are still people - bound by our laws or not - and I will act in their best interests as if they were my own.” 

“You tread a dangerous path, boy. Do not forget your place.”

“My place,” He challenged, “is well attended. I look to those around me for guidance as they in turn look to me. Thank you for your concern.

“If you will excuse me-” He turned to leave, not daring to catch eyes with Temari. He wasn’t sure he could bear what he might see. 

“We are not finished,” Sashiko’s voice rose in both pitch and timbre, filling the chamber to an uncomfortable stiffness he hadn’t known she was yet capable of. Gaara allowed himself the time to slowly return to his position before the council.

“Am I to believe you have elected to withdraw your hand from the little matter of your line of succession?”

“Withdraw my-”

“You are aware that the Kazekage heritage has yet to be broken in over 300 years, are you not?”

“What-”

“We had a deal, Godaime; we would allow you to conduct your own search for a partner, which you would then bring in for our revision. You were to have your decision, or list thereof, at our disposal by the solstice. And yet here we are, still waiting. Do you have something for me?”

Gaara drew a blank. He could barely remember having such a conversation. So much had happened in the last few months that the thought of looking for a suitor was laughable. 

He recognized a curling, comforting smell, something green - like mysterious coiling smoke of an extinguished candle in a darkened bedroom, or the warming taste of fresh cinnamon dusted over a creamy bowl of rice pudding - and pushed the sensation away. 

“I do not, Councilwoman.”

“I did not think so.” She replied, her fine eyebrows lax with cold disappointment, as if all of her extremely low-set expectations had been met.

“Despite the limited timeframe at our disposal, you were graciously afforded an allotment of time - agreed upon by both parties - to come to a solution of your choosing. Your opinions and concerns had been patiently accommodated, and yet I’ve come to discover that you’ve done little but twiddle your thumbs and while away my generosity; and here you stand, at a political precipice most dire, empty handed and not an excuse to your name.

“It is clear to me through the negligence of your actions that you had no intention of looking for a wife. Unless, of course, you mean to bed one of those wilders you and your siblings are so fond of.“

Gaara’s face stung with a furious whiplash of embarrassment. He was truly speechless in the brunt of this new assault. 

“Further,” she drove forward, tearing his defence asunder as if it were little more than detritus in her path, “What miniscule leverage you think you posses over the quickly diminishing spectre of my patience is all but exhausted.

“I am through playing games with you.” The finality with which she spoke clattered with the sharp clarity of a shattering plate. “You appear to be laboring under some grotesque illusion of luxury that you cannot afford, and I will no longer allow you to waste my time or that of the people you represent. Choices must be made, and, as you are no doubt aware, if you will not make them, then they will be made for you.”

He swallowed around the ache in his throat. 

“Councilwoman?”

“Given your incompetence in the matter, I will form a special committee and have a resume of acceptable suitors drawn up. You will agree to our decision, which we shall have for you at our leisure.

“There will be no further discourse on the matter. Have I made myself clear?”

“Entirely.” He answered shallowly. 

“I should think so.” She clipped. 

“If that is all?”

“For now, but,” Sashiko tucked her chin to examine his face. The scrutiny was absolute. “What will you do, Kazekage.” 

“I will do what I must.” He replied and turned on his heel. 

Temari slipped her warm hand against his spine as if to hurry him out the door. At his back he could hear moving chairs and shuffling feet. The Councilwoman tilted her head back and stared down her nose at his retreating form.  

“Proceed with caution, boy.” Sashiko chided, the sneer of her mouth spreading her face wide like a snake's maw. “Needs must when the devil drives.”

-

“This is outrageous. That woman is overstepping her bounds.” Rage wasn’t a common emotion for his sister, but now it clung to her like a great cloak that billowed behind her as they sped through the winding halls toward his office.

Truth be told, were he any younger, he would share the sentiment, and wear it as loudly and as viciously as he could muster; but now was not the time. Age had brought with it a clearness of sight that helped define the path of his responsibilities. He recognized the precarious position on which he perched, and the steadfast cage in which Sashiko held him. Hostile backlash for the sake of his feelings would be a waste of energy and time. 

“Temari,”’

“Don’t ‘Temari’ me, this is unacceptable. And for her to corner you when the threat of national disaster is hanging over our heads!”

“Please, Temari,” he stopped abruptly and pulled her into a dim stairwell. His heart beat hard against his breast. Temari stared hard at his shoulder. 

“She called us ‘less than desirable’.” She hissed through gritted teeth.

Gaara felt a cold, grey weight settle in his chest.

“...She did.”

“Look at me.”

He couldn’t. He was wildly uncertain as to what he might see. Perhaps a battleworn expression, battered, beaten, and broken, or hard features softened by harder tears. Maybe he would see a blank slate, all emotion wiped away, because becoming a weapon was better than becoming a victim.  

“Turtledove.” She murmured. “Where are you going? Come back here.”

She pressed a hand to his chin and raised his head. Her cheeks were a muddled red, but her eyes were clear. She was no victim. She was a shinobi. 

If she could somehow be strong, then so could he.

“Are you okay?”

He closed his eyes and hummed, unsure he could form the words to reply. 

“Let’s pick ourselves back up. We have to keep moving.”

He heaved a breath and nodded. 

“Yes,” he said, clearing the hard lump in his throat with a cough. Then he turned out of the alcove and slipped down the hall. One storm had passed and yet another loomed on the horizon. “There is much to do and no time in which to do it.”

“Ahuh.”

“We need to prioritize, and worrying about a decision that has been taken out of our hands is counterproductive.”

“Right.”

 “And it doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Okay, no. You can’t say doesn’t matter. It absolutely matters! What you think and have to say is important, despite what that bitter root of a woman decrees.”

“Right now what matters most,” He replied evenly, freeing the topmost button of his stiff collar. “Is what we do about this storm. Are Tsunade and her staff in my office?”

“I had them called for when we were with the Council.” She huffed. “Also, we’re not done having this conversation.”

“Alright. We need only ask for their patience and then move forward.” He stopped at his door and took a breath. Temari rolled her shoulders. They stared at the knob.

“Do you have a plan?”

He reached for it.

“I will do what I must.”

-

Perception had never been Gaara’s strong suit, but he supposed he was getting better at it. Or perhaps it was more accurate to suppose that reality was shifting more these days, in bigger, more noticeable ways. 

It was readily apparent that time moved in a variety of ways beyond his initial understanding of chronology. It could twist and stop and then suddenly loop back on itself; he had experienced temporal shifting and spatial anomaly more times than he could count - and he had tried, and kept coming up with a different number; he had once attempted to document a month's progress of solar transit and had come up with a graph that looked more or less like scrambled eggs. 

(Perhaps it went without saying that this was not what aligned with common knowledge of the sciences. But perhaps it was worth mentioning. Not that he mentioned it.These changes were apparent to the senses. There were small shifts and huge jumps that both boggled and startled him on even the best days.)

He could see it in the way plants grew; how their leaves reached for the sun, or in the way their roots stretched deep for water and nutrients. There were times, sitting alone at his desk, he could practically see the drooping head of a healthy echeveria elegans turn to acknowledge the room, like a sleepy green lion. 

Whether this change had occurred before or after his receiving the thunderegg had yet to be determined - but he had his suspicions. 

Then there was Lee, who existed in a constant state of defiance of reality. Lee who worked in ways people said was impossible, who achieved beyond reason. Lee, who seemed bigger than life itself, who was indeed taller than he (although that wasn’t a feat), was taller than even Kankuro. He was a man of deep seated kindness, and possessed of a will that could seemingly twist and change fate to suit his needs. 

Lee was full of surprises and Gaara could scarcely predict him better than he could the minute or monumental shifts that disrupted his reality on a daily basis. He simply wasn’t subject to the laws of gravity nor the principles of mathematics or even common social constructs. 

He could see this in the way he set his jaw and then in the way people set their jaws around him. He instituted change on a subatomic level - his presence alone prompted a paradigm shift. It was like dropping a stone in a body of water and watching the ripples that formed; Gaara could observe the physical transfer of energies and how those energies affected the environment, but could he predict how the fish beneath would move to avoid the stone, or their feelings of surprise and panic? 

What remained clear was some form of proximal attachment, try as he might to observe it (despite reality shifting in rainbow hues, it’s radiant beams blinding him at every lovely pass). Whatever gravitational support kept them within each other's orbits was fickle. It seemed impossible to quantify but was determined to try. Precession, rotation, nutation, mutation, the blur of time scales and axes and variation upon variation, the very phenomenon of change, the intoxication of relation - what remained clear, at least, was Lee. 

And Gaara was sure that if he studied him long enough, he would eventually see the very chakra patterns of nearby life forms shift and change directions. 

-

There was something to be said about the feeling of power. Yes, there was the seamless flow of chakra in his body and the bone deep familiarity of unearthed ancient sands; yes, there was also the burn of working muscles and unprotected skin under an unfeeling sun. But power - power unparalleled, power unknown, power uproarious - there was something to be said, surely. 

It could be said that it was thrilling, with the whole of the desert spread out beneath him like a blanket, scattered with toys and baubles. A playset of meaningless things, trivial and transient, strewn at his leisure. Boulders were mere pebbles in the wake of his enormity. The scant trees were naught but weeds to rip from their ill-gotten crannies. 

And it certainly could be said that it was awesome. Power thundered through him and shook the bedrock of the earth. It filled him and spilled from him, uncontainable and chaotic. It burned like a wildfire and surged like the sea. And oh, how pleasurable it was. 

But it must be said that it was enthralling. He luxuriated in it’s overwhelming ecstasy, in it’s impossible summation of entangled emotions and sensations. Memory meant little in the face of such power. Humanity, even less. This was surely death. Whatever he had done to become this, surely there was no going back. 

Arms that were not his own reared back in fantastic show of strength, his skull was reshaping and distorting, the length of his neck stretched away from his body, his three eyes tore open but were yet blind to the sheer magnitude of kinetic energy that flowed inside him, around him, beneath him. Detached and attached, inhuman humanity, a war, a symphony, rage and serenity. 

This was a frightful reality. These were not his arms or neck or eyes. He existed outside of himself. The power, so raw and unwieldy, this was surely not his own? Could he escape it’s thrall? Was there a meaning to the madness that gripped him? To what end did he walk this nightmare desert? 

He reached out with all of the hands he could control - four, maybe? Perhaps more? - and wrestled every fly away of power he could hold. His bones felt like lightning, his skin like a cold, extraterrestrial mountain range. Every breath was a century. Every moment a myth. 

And then, nothing.

-

The sun rose slowly over the edge of the planet, making all the small mountains and plateaus and flat, arid desert planes wobble in the onslaught of its warmth. A lone sand cicada buzzed on a nearby rock. The air was calm. Gaara stared at the far off horizon, where the infinitesimal collections of oasis trees would soon shimmer and disappear beneath the hot ring of the sun. Venus, hanging low in the sky, slowly winked into stellar obscurity.

He closed his eyes and took a breath, yearning to dip his toes in that far off oasis, leaning into the pleasant memories of calm waters and patient plants. He wanted little more than the space of a breath to allow himself to relax. It was as if he was caught in a sandstorm, blowing and raging and shaking the very earth itself. 

His heart raced and his body quivered with some great force in his blood. He could swear there was some great rumbling and shaking of the earth and yet the ground beneath him was disturbingly still. A sandstorm? He could see the calamine sun through his eyelids. There was no sandstorm. 

Gaara felt like he was forgetting something. He rolled his head about his shoulders, slowly, back and forth, trying to knock the far off thought from its hiding spot. He shook his shoulders and wiggled his hips and stretched his toes. He crushed his face in his hands and breathed out through his nose. Despite his attempts, the forgotten thought slipped farther and farther away until it slipped away somewhere on the unseen event horizon of his brain. 

He shivered in the early morning sun, a sudden exhaustion climbing onto his shoulders. It was as if the night had passed without his knowing. Sleep was a strange beast. It was capable of weighing you down, and suddenly swallowing whole all of one’s faculties, swiftly and silently, a dark creature of darker waters. 

Water.

There was the sound of water. He opened his eyes. Huge date palms soared overhead, the fronds rustling in some unfelt breeze. Nearby, a collection of squat apricot trees reeked pleasantly, whose fruits, both young and green and mature and moldering, littered the ground. The short, sparse hair on his arms stood on end. The cool waters of the oasis lapped at the shore, almost as if it were reaching for him, beckoning him to slip down the bank.

Come here, it said. Drink from me. 

A smattering of birds chittered among the low hanging clusters of overhead fruits. The water hummed and lapped at the shore. It rolled playfully. It called out, it laughed. His heart thundered and a sensation so very much like uncontainable joy flooded his bloodstream. He wanted to slip into the water and hold his head beneath it, that he might observe the refracted world above him, shifting with the push and pull of the moon. 

Come here, it said again. I can teach you how to swim. 

“Hey dumbass.”

He looked up and there was a very tall, very black, very three eyed camel staring at him from between a pair of nearby palm trees. 

“Don’t get in the water.” Said a voice, clearly from the camel’s direction. He turned around, searching the oasis for another person who knew was not there. 

“What?”

The camel blinked its three eyes.

“I said, don’t get in the water. You can’t swim.”

“Uh.”

“It’s deeper than it looks.”

Gaara stared. The camel was talking but not really moving its mouth. He looked back at the water. It bubbled and sang. It also did not have a mouth. 

I can teach you.

“It can’t teach you.”

“What?”

“It’s water. It can’t teach you how to swim.”

He looked to the water again. It had frozen solid. He looked to the horizon beyond the trees. They were still in the desert, and he was pretty sure there wasn’t a sandstorm.

Mostly sure. 

“Thank you?”

“Sure.”

“Um, what are you?”

“I’m a camel. We’re great at conversation.”

He opened his eyes even though his eyes were already open. Or so he thought. Gone was the camel and the water and the trees. Gone was the oasis and it’s sickly, saccharine odor. Gone was the morning sun. It was night, he was in a cave, and there was the wretched remaining scraps of energy of a dying sandstorm.

His body quivered, wrung dry from exertion. 

He turned to see Lee slumped by the wall. Breathing. Alive. With every step he took, he could feel his body growing heavier and lighter. Tides of adrenaline washed over a bone deep weariness he could not place. 

Sleep clung to his shoulders and weighed him down, exhaustion rattling his bones. He shivered, realizing the thought that disappeared to some distant infinitesimal point was this - their connection. He was looking for this. It was beyond the sudden discovery of not being able to swim. It was the shock of realizing he was drowning.

Had he been drowning? 

A moment perched in a high away point in his brain, ruffled its nonexistent feathers, blinked its three eyes and took off into the darkness. 

There had been a sandstorm. The largest in over a century. And they stopped it. 

 Lee - capable, strong, determined, remarkable - lent him strength he couldn’t have dreamed of. He followed him blindly into the desert and believed in him. He pulled him from the beautiful riptide and back to the cold cave, back into reality, and into the fierce warm of his arms. His skin was hot and his face was sweaty and he smelled like cherry glucose. 

Sleep was a strange beast, a familiar monster from familiar waters. He allowed it to curl around his shoulders until the light faded like a star disappearing from the morning sky. 

3. 

Thick, mountainous clouds lurked far off in the distance, crouching on the horizon. Always just out of reach on the rim of the earth, Gaara fancied such clouds hid a mythical skyward island entrenched in magic and mystery. Such clouds required immense amounts of water, immense amounts of both cool and heated air - Gaara couldn’t take his eyes off them. Such clouds tickled his imagination and held a childhood fascination close to his heart. 

He spent hours observing their structures. Here, in the city, far from his crater, the clouds were numerous and never ending. He had been here nearly a week and there were fat mountains of clouds rolling overhead, blocking out the sun and disappearing beyond the sea.  If he stared at it long enough, he wondered if he could parse out the barely perceptible curve of the earth.

The beautiful day was quickly sinking into comfortable night, and the opening ceremonies stretched before him, much like the clouds all along the perimeter of the open, endless water. Beneath, the ocean glimmered, reflecting the sinking sun and the beautiful lights of the city, lit by something called ‘electricity’, which was generated from water in a nearby dam. 

In a way, he wondered if she would be pleased. She, the chthonic deity of the sea, the Mother Ocean. He recanted all of the lore and mythos of his nation; a bounteous, uncaring guardian, with unknowable hands that pushed and pulled the peoples of the land at her leisure. But to put the power of lightning in her reach? Or perhaps, had she become their workhorse? 

Luca, with its electric lights, stretched out around the arc of the bay, white washed and dazzling. The city shone in the sunset; any and all metal gleaming, the round window panes reflecting the blue of the sea and sky, and the hundreds of multicolored flags, pennants, and incredible kites all sailing in the evening breeze. A large square was dressed in endless strands of these fairy lights and even from so far away, Gaara could hear the bubble and joy of people gathering. 

It would seem that the Daimyo’s was not the only party being held tonight. 

The Jewel of Wind lived up to its name. It was a prosperous city with as much wealth as there were people to spend it. It seemed so carefree; here, there was no concern for preservation, no need for precious handling of resources. Just that morning he had walked through the bazaar to find a woman weighed down with sumptuous bolts of cloth (that would have cost a small fortune in Suna) going for what he considered a pittance of their worth. She smiled and waved him into her stall, her thin wrists stacked with silver and gold bangles. 

(He was not ashamed to admit that she goaded him into several purchases, but he was inclined to agree that the pale green of the sherwani really did bring out his eyes).

On the coast, overlooking both the sea and the city, rose the grand glass and metal structure of the Daimyo’s palace. Beyond that, on a manmade island sat the newly constructed National Opera House. Everywhere he looked, there was some impressive, elegant structure or marvel of engineering to behold; there were tall apartments above fragrant restaurants, glass enclosed sky bridges linking together buildings of finance and business, and even grand fountains replete with giant, artisan crafted statues that spit water in the air. Just for decoration. For the enjoyment of looking at them do it. It baffled him. 

There were buskers on corners playing for dancing women and coins. There was no shortage of children laughing and playing in the street, uncaring for the hustle of business around them. Gaara counted no less than five shopping plazas, one of which outletted to a nearby beach upon which hundreds of people lounged in revealing swimming costumes.

Abundance upon abundance, he decided. Life in Luca was a lavish living. 

Even the private washroom of his palatial quarters boasted a shimmering tiled bath, which grew dark and cool as the sun slipped behind the edge of the ocean. Despite himself, he filled the tub with as much water as he could bear - not very much, but certainly more than he would have dared in Suna - and set about giving himself a thorough scrub. 

Without fail, his hands found his cock, half-interested, as it was wont to be these days. It would stand up when he went down for a nap, it throbbed when he rolled over and pressed it to the carpet to quiet it’s curiosity, and it ached when he closed his eyes, pressed his forehead to the floor and thought of Lee. 

Sometimes they were innocent wanderings - ruminations on his routines and ethics. Other times they were salacious fantasies - bright machinations involving his large hands and hot mouth. 

He breathed out harshly through his nose, and smoothly put his palm over his nipples and down his belly and then over his cock, pressing it to his thigh, just to feel it bob back. He moved his hands over his slick thighs, relishing the rare excess of bath water.  He curled his toes as he ran his fingernails through his sparse pubic hair. He sighed at the delicate pleasure coursing in his belly, at the newness of this discovery, this allowance that hadn’t occurred to him before. 

For a moment, he dared even lower than that, his fingers slipping over the furl of skin. He had discovered that if he pressed inward, just so, the feeling was pleasurable. The stretch was lovely, and he worked until he could just fit a second and then a third finger inside. He had a revelation, a startling little idea, of Lee’s cock hard against his own, thick and hot and pulsing.

Some seed of desire blossomed wild and dark. He wondered what Lee’s mouth tasted like. He had seen people kiss each other, and he himself had come so breathtakingly close. The memory of the cave was dark and watery, was frustratingly little more than emotional impressions and a strict acknowledgement that he had experienced an orgasm - he remembered the bright, beautiful agony in the midst of the endless swim. 

Gods, he was eager to know if Lee remembered it too. 

“Gaara!” He startled at the sound of his name, his face burning. Kankuro had let himself into the bedroom. Or rather, the ANBU stationed just out of sight allowed Kankuro to access his apartment. 

The shadows on the wall had indeed slipped well into twilight and the water was uncomfortably tepid. Upon closer inspection, he could just see that his fingers and toes were a little pruney.

“Are you in the bathroom?” Kankuro called from the other side of the door. Gaara bristled in embarrassment. 

“Yes. I’ll be out in a moment.” He hissed, draining the bath and stepping onto the cold tile floor.

“It’s dark in there. You know they do the electricky-thing-whatever here, right?”

“It’s pronounced ‘electricity’.” He replied as he knotted the belt of the plush robe he found behind the door, and reached for the knob. He paused.

He breathed. 

He listened. 

He acted. 

“I know what it’s called, it’s just some wild stuff.” Gaara stepped into the room and glanced at the patio. Below was the Daimyos’ dark garden, twinkling with fairy lights. It was far later than he realized. 

Kankuro turned to look at him from a large shelf hewn into the wall. Upon it was a collection of books and framed illustrations and trinkets he hadn’t had time to enjoy himself. His brother held in his hand a large pink seashell. He was also dressed for the evening. 

“I see you are dressed for the evening.” He mentioned, noting the distinct lack of ornamentation he had come to expect on his brothers face. He wasn’t even wearing nail lacquer. 

“Uh, yeah. We’re expected in the great hall. Actually, we were expected twenty minutes ago.”

“By whom?” he replied.

“A little diplomatic atrocity by the name of Kogen.” He grumbled and set the shell down. “These ANBU are real sticklers for timeframes. Who picked them?”

“Temari.”

“Oh, well, that clears up everything. Take as long as possible. Lose an earring, maybe.”

Gaara pressed a thumb and forefinger over the knots in his earlobes. They were still pliable. 

“I haven’t worn earrings in years.”

“Great time to start.”

“...So that I can lose one?”

“Oh my gods, get dressed.” Kankuro chuckled. He walked around the room and fiddled with curtains, played with the latches of the multiple floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that opened to the large patio, and even messed with the large floral arrangement by his bedside.

“These are beautiful, “ He murmured, nosing an ornate flower bud. He looked up at his brother as he slipped into his evening wear. “Do you have the boutonnieres?” 

“I asked the horticulturist to keep them shortly after we arrived. Someone should be by with them soon.”

“You mean gardener.”

“The gardener?”

“Horticulturist, really? It’s just a glorified gardener.” 

“That would demean his position. Daisuke-san deserves the respect he’s earned - he runs the royal gardens, nurseries, and oversees the import and export of all florativity. It’s a massive undertaking.” He ruffled his hair in the mirror and paused. “Were you serious about the earrings?”

“Why are you caught up on the earring goof?” He cocked his head to the side and stared at him. Gaara felt a tension come over him. Kankuro’s face was a strange mask without his usual mask. He asked, “Are you nervous?” 

He squinted at Kankuro’s reflection. 

Kankuro squinted back. 

“No.”

“Sounds like a lie, but okay.”

“How do I look?” He asked, trying to change the topic. He threw his arms out and presented himself. Kankuro clapped his hands together. 

“You look great, are you ready?”

“Kankuro, are you sure? This is a very important evening, we must make a good impression if we are to win the Daimyo’s favor.” He turned and fussed at his reflection. 

“You look fine, really. You should see what some of the other dignitaries are wearing. Not what I would call dignifying, but that’s court fashion for you.”

Without preamble, the door clicked open. The brothers turned to see a sharply dressed Kogen slip inside and press herself to the wall, knocking the lightswitch and blinking the room into darkness once again. 

“Wow. okay, we need to talk about your foreign policy skills here, Kogen.”

“Kazekage-sama there is an urgent matter that I feel should be brought to your attention.” She whispered, sounding out of breath. 

“Cool, pretend I’m not here, it’s cool.”

“It isn’t foreign policy if she’s speaking to us.” Gaara replied. “Kogen, my apologies, what were you saying?”

“Hey, let’s hit those lights again, K. They’ve got electricity here, you know.”

“Kazekage-sama, I apologize for barging in.” She tried again, and continued to ignore Kankuro. Gaara suspected that this would only incite her brother further. Temari reassured him that this was what was called flirting. To what end it served, he was unsure, but as long as they were happy, he was more than willing to allow it. It was becoming quite fun to see his brother exhibit so many different shades of red and purple. “But something's come up.”

“What?” He replied, sensing her hesitation. At his back on the far side of the room, he could feel the gourd of sand by the bed vibrate just so. He willed the simmering chakra within to stillness. 

“I was given a missive from the council. Our council. I have been placed under the strictest orders from Madam Sashiko to see her orders through.”

“Was I to be left in the dark?”

“Again, lights?”

“A shadow contingency of her own, it would seem, yes.” She said wryly. She made no move to flick the light switch. Gaara could just see her face in the fading light. There was some sort of conflict in her eyes. 

“Kogen?”

“I will not abide you being made a fool or, or worse.”

“Worse?”

“Publicly being made a fool of.”

“Oh.” He replied. There was little else to say. Her odd confession warmed his heart, in the places where his heart wasn’t falling into his stomach with dread. 

“There are secret arrangements that have been made by the council - arrangements that I had no prior knowledge of, honestly! I was attending to Temari and one of the ANBU pulled me aside! There was a scroll, and I opened it and it I don’t have it anymore, it destroyed itself, but the message was clearly intended for-”

“Kogen, breathe. It isn’t that I don’t believe you. Subterfuge really isn’t Sashiko’s style. If she is displeased with me, she has always been quite clear about letting me know. What did the message say?”

“Actually, no.” Kankuro stepped in. “You said an ANBU gave it to you? I thought Temari handpicked our unit. Which one was it? This is a serious breach of protocol.”

“Does Temari know? Have you spoken with her yet?” 

“Kazekage-sama, please, I don’t have much time!”

“Kogen, just tell us what is going on.” Kankuro stepped forward, his hands coming up to - perhaps grab her? Calm her in some way? Turn the lights back on himself? Gaara wasn’t sure. 

A sharp series of knocks rapped the door. Temari waited three beats and then entered. The three nins watched her silently. The quartet stood there three beats longer. 

“You guys know there’s electric lights, right?” She asked. 

“No way, what.” Kankuro replied dryly. 

“Kogen, the lights please.” Gaara sighed. When the lights flickered to life, there was no trace of the unease he had felt from her. Just the dependable, fierce, tiny woman he knew her to be. 

He noticed that Temari had the boutineers.

“You have the boutineers.”

“Yes, here,” She walked up to him and set about pinning the ribbon wrapped succulent just beneath his collar bone. “This is a lovely green, where did you get it?”

“In town.” He murmured. Kogen and Kankuro stood in silence. Temari hummed in response. Even he could tell the room was uncomfortable. 

“Kankuro,” She said. He jumped.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Do you want me to pin yours?”

“Oh! No, I think I got it.”

“Kogen, help him.” 

“What! I said I got it!”

She passed the boutonniere to Kogen who set about her work with surprisingly nothing to say. His sister turned and looked him in the eye. 

“Don’t be nervous, Turtledove.”

“I’m not nervous.” 

“Your fidgeting.” She pointed out. She was not wrong. 

“I might be a little nervous.”

“Don’t be,” She smiled. “We’re all here for you, supporting you. Kankuro will be by your side the whole time. Our nins and the Leaf are stationed throughout the hall. All you have to do is schmooze for a few hours and this will all be over.”

“Right,” He breathed. He wasn’t alone tonight. His siblings were here with him, his nins, nins that bound themselves to his cause were here, all believing in his farfetched vision. 

And somewhere out there, was Lee. 

With nothing left to be said, Temari had a pair of ANBU usher them down to the hall. Kankuro stood what Gaara would consider conspicuously close. The ANBU peeled off as they entered the great hall. The room was noisy with speech and song, and bright as a sunlit jewel. People paraded slowly in ugly hats and noisy shoes, stopping every few feet to greet one another and sip from glasses that were passed around on trays by faceless people - Gaara was taken aback momentarily, shocked that the waitstaff wore pale shrouds over their faces, as if looking upon these people were forbidden. 

At the edges of the room stood familiar faces of ninja. He stopped to speak to Lee, handsome and tall, in a black silk ensemble. He didn’t know the nin had anything in his wardrobe besides green jumpsuits. His teammate Hyuuga Neji stood at his side, an enigma but still a fine face to see. After a moment of pleasant conversation, he handed Lee a boutonniere, and went about his business. 

“What are the boutonnieres about, anyway?” Kankuro pulled him to a halt, eyes scanning the crowd.

“Just something pleasant. A rare formality, I suppose, calls for a little flair.” 

“Sure, sure. But aren’t flowers more traditional?” He waved down a passing faceless servant and ogled their drinks tray.

“I can’t exactly grow carnations, nor would they have survived the trip.”

“Anything to do with the tree we lugged down here?”

“Not at all.” he replied.  

Kankuro handed him a glass and he took it gratefully as he turned around the hall again. The evening was becoming an endless familiar loop: they would pause every few feet and nod, blindly following the same conversation again and again, how are you, you look lovely, doesn’t Hirohito-osama throw the nicest shindigs, and where is the canape? 

“ ‘Oh, Hiroki-san, look how pretty I am! I don’t know which you should compliment first, my diamond encrusted hand fan or my beluga caviar headdress.’ ” Kankuro muttered behind him. “ ‘Sorry, Fumiko-chan, I want to shower you with praise but I’m too busy farting in my hand and smelling it!’ “

“Stop.”

“Make me.”

“I’m going to laugh.”

“Do it, you quitter.”

“Oh my god,” Gaara muttered, hiding his grin behind his glass. “No, seriously, here comes the Daimyo, the most obnoxiously powerful person in the country.”

“ ‘Oh, Hiroki-san, they’ve got the loveliest elecrickety here, buy me one for the throne room!’ ‘Hu hu, anything for you, Fumiko-chan! Garcon, ten of your finest elecrickets! No, a thousand!’ “ Kankuro snorted, barely containing himself. Gaara choked a little. “Oh wait, fuck, here he actually comes. Okay, I’ll stop.” He silenced himself with the rest of his cocktail. 

The Daimyo was indeed walking across the room, no doubt with Gaara in mind. He was an impressive figure to watch because his robes were so numerous and large that if some unfortunate partygoer were not minding their surroundings, they would probably be knocked down as the man swept past. His name was Hirohito Yuudai, which Gaara assumed was entirely fake because the previous Daimyo had not been a ridiculous man. Hirohito walked with all the grandeur someone of his position afforded, which was quite a lot; he wore soft slippers with immensely thick soles, so thick that Kankuro would probably only come up to the man’s shoulder. His face was cake white and teeth coal black. It was like looking at a Noh performer. The Daimyo had affected his appearance so much that he literally lorded over everyone he spoke to. 

“Ah, Kazekage-same, we meet at last,” He offered his hand to Gaara’s face. He wore many rings and nail lacquer. Gaara wasn’t sure if he was meant to touch this hand, but he needn’t have worried long, as it was whipped out of his face as soon as it had been put there. 

“Daimyo-osama,” He replied with a curt bow of his head. 

By the Daimyo’s side was a conventionally attractive girl, if not color blind. She clashed with the Daimyo’s pale color palette in bright oranges and creams, her hair as red as a candied cactus apple. She stared at Gaara with eyes that didn’t seem to quite look at him, obviously waiting for an introduction. 

The Daimyo chortled like a pleased hen, and shifted in a way that seemed to signal that the two should meet.

“Kazekage-san,” The Daimyo simpered politely, “You have no doubt met the lovely Akane-san?”

Akane-san preened at his words and offered her hand much in the same way he had. Gaara fisted his free hand by his side, still unsure what this gesture meant. She blinked, confused by his confusion. The Daimyo stared down like the sun. 

After a moment, she took her hand back and took his instead. 

 “Oh, we are deeply involved in one another's social season, are we not, Kazekage-osama?” she lilted, fluttering her eyelashes. He stared at her, entirely dumbfounded. They had never met. 

“Akane-san.” He replied simply because he was baffled. She was clutching his arm like a lifeline, and pressing her breasts to his shoulder. He wondered if this was meant to have some sort of intended effect on him. He tried to take a step back but she held him like a vice.

She took him by the elbow and saddled into his space as if she belonged there. There was something dangerously wrong here and he knew he must be the butt of some joke that he could not fathom. He could practically see his brother stiffen in shock at her forwardness in his periphere. 

“What do you think, Yuudai-osama?” Gaara felt his stomach drop. She was so informal that she might refer to the leader of the country by name? Who on earth was this woman? “Don’t we just make a lovely pair? Spring will be upon us sooner than I can hope to imagine! Oh, it’s all so romantic, don’t you think? Hm, Kazekage-sama? Or should I say, Gorou-kun?” 

“Spring?” He asked, perplexed.

“Gorou?” Kankuro muttered, equally perplexed.

“Well I do believe congratulations are in order!” The young Daimyo smiled, flourishing his small glass over their heads. The rim glittered with a gold ring beneath the sugared rim. Each of his fingers wore a heavy stoned ring. Gaara stared at the little glass and baubles on the Daimyo’s fingers, the only stable thing in the vicinity. They ignored him. 

“For… what?” Gaara replied, feeling so far out of his depth, he might as well be drowning. 

“Why, on your engagement, dear boy! You shant find a prettier wisp this side of Bear country! And absolutely loaded, I’m sure she doesn’t mind my telling you.” He chuckled. “Really, Akane-san, you’re such a lucky young thing. You’ll have to tell me how you do it. Let’s brunch.”

“Oh.”

Everything and anything extrasensory slid off of him like water. Sounds bled together and colors ran like spooked deer. If there were people touching him as he passed, he couldn’t feel them. If there was breath in his lungs, he couldn’t feel it issue from his lips. 

This is what Kogen had meant to tell him. 

Sashiko and the council had reached their decision. 

They sent him into the lion’s den, knowing he would have no way to fight back. 

-

Time passed slowly, but perceptively so. He could feel it, thick on his skin like candle wax or sweet agave nectar. Gaara watched the moon as it carved a slow path overhead and drift out of sight behind the towering roof of the palace. He and Lee watched it pass in the comfortable and relative silence of the breeze and surf. Below, in the dark courtyard a pair of voices could be heard from beneath the fairy lights, loud and jubilant, thick with merriment and liquor.  

Eventually, Lee stood and approached the redhead. He stood for a moment, eyes unreadable. Gaara stood because Lee had. They stared at each other. Gaara felt like a thick band of rubber was squeezing his lungs. The very air around Lee pulsated. After a beat, Lee wrapped him up in another hug. It was warm and entirely lovely. And then he left. 

Around two in the morning, Gaara found himself staring at the black mirror reflection of the wall of glass doors. A single lamp lit the room with low, amber light. As he sat, he could feel tiny, infantesimal specks of sand crawl along the floor towards the gourd to put themselves back. 

A knock on the door. He swore he could see the individual grains jump in surprise. He pressed into the back of the armchair, willing himself into stillness, and sighed through his nose. 

“Come in.”

Temari slipped through the door, to his surprise, alone. She padded across the room with a sigh and pulled a complicated looking clip out of her hair. 

“So,” She said, lowering herself onto the edge of the bed. She set one hand to the coverlet and the other on her round belly. “What happened.”

He had spent the evening thinking about ‘what happened’. Much of it wasn’t as difficult to recount as it was laborious. But he told her what he could and, to her immense credit, she listened. 

“So, I ran.” 

His sister frowned but said nothing. The perceptible passage of time had grown oily. Gone was the intimate comfort of Lee’s gravity. Gone was the agave and wax of their lunar interlude. Now there was only the steady drone of clockwork, with it’s predictable hands segmenting predictable seconds from minutes and hours. He decided he no longer wanted her silence, but her thoughts. 

“Don’t be mad at Kogen, she tried to warn me.” 

“I’m not mad at Kogen.” 

“Are you… mad at me? I know I reacted unprofessionally-”

 “At you? Gods, no.” She stopped him. “I’m mad at Sashiko. This is entrapment.”

It was. Lee had come to the same conclusion. It was foolish to think otherwise, but perhaps more foolish to fight it. There were so many factors out of his favor and so few hours ‘til morning.  

“What do we do?” 

She sighed.

“I’m not sure.” 

“Where’s Kankuro?” 

“I sent him to debrief with the Leaf. I advised him otherwise, but I imagine he’ll be hunting down the ANBU who slipped Kogen the note.”

“You know he’ll do what he wants if he thinks it's right.”

“Yes, but at what cost? And especially in the home of the most important political figure in the country? We’re scheduled to have an audience with the Daimyo in the afternoon. Turtledove, you have seen this from all angles - this is a bad deal.”

He hummed in reply. He knew she was right. This was a slight they weren’t meant to recover from. He knew from the moment the realization dawned that they had been sabotaged. But what were his remaining choices? Flee in disgrace and return early and empty handed? Or appear shamefaced before the court he had disrespected and suffered detachment, degradation, dissociation and, ultimately, dissolution? 

Disheartening, to say the least. 

He wretched himself to his feet and took her hand in his. She fingered the drooping succulent at the dip of his collarbone. 

“Get some rest, we have work to do in the morning.”

4.

As it turned out, they had no clue how bad off they were. The Daimyo had not taken Gaara’s slight to Akane very well. It was later revealed to him in no uncertain terms that the girl was, in fact, the Daimyo’s best friend, and a very well off one at that. 

In retaliation, the Daimyo had it seen that the Suna Coalition was conveniently dropped from the invitational brunch the following afternoon, so when they showed up for the presentation, there was the casual mention of their inattendance, how embarrassing, how rude, how gauche - which serve to only further build upon their grievances.

“He only wanted to shame us. He never intended to hear us out.” Kankuro groused from his filthy wicker chair in the corner. Gaara hummed noncommittally from a workbench. 

“The creamsicle is a close friend of his, apparently.”

Kankuro choked on his tea.

“The what?”

“It’s - it’s a type of- nevermind. Akane, the girl who-”

“ ‘Creamsicle’ - who teaches you these things-”

“What we assumed were egregious liberties were just that, but-”

“But what, daddy makes some money, so she’s rubbing elbows with Prince of Pettiness? I mean, if she could reach his elbows, the bastard.”

“Regardless of her elbows, her full name is Akane Shimada.”

“The point being?”

“As in the Shimada Rice Company.”

“...Oh shit.” 

“Yeah.”

“How did Sashiko get her fingers on the heir of the Shimada Rice Company?” 

“Well, she’s a step daughter.” 

“Oh yikes.”

“Yikes indeed. I can foresee several different outcomes in which one well placed shinobi with nefarious intentions could collapse a business, then an industry, and then an economy-”

“And that’s with just a step daughter as collateral.”

Gaara sighed and pushed his magnifying lens aside. Kankuro could be prone to such dramatics. 

“But Sashiko is not a villain.”

“Oh, but isn’t she?” He rose from his chair and set his cup on a table with a decisive clunk of ceramic. 

“I think not. I think she’s a woman trying to keep her people alive.”

“I think you’re a foolheart.”

Gaara felt his pulse stutter as he glanced up at his brother. Kankuro stiffened.  

“Hey, now, hey, I don’t want to fight-”

“No,” Gaara breathed. “You’re right.”

He looked somewhere, in a middle distance, contemplating the government, his fumbles and follies, and the future. He had done quite a bit of contemplating since they returned from Luca all those weeks ago. Time had passed strangely, as it was wont to do. But he didn’t bother to measure it. He was no longer interested in the weird ways of reality. Trying to compute uncanny mechanics or understand the correlations and causations didn’t concern him anymore. He was no more a victim of it than its champion. 

He realized that if he wanted to move forward, he mustn't concern himself with the bubbles and suds of time, but the source. 

“What are you going to do?”

He smiled at his brother. 

“I’m going to do what I must.” 

-

The moon slipped through a single wane cloud. The stars were numerous. The night was calm and hot. In his lap slept a tiny baby with it’s entire hand fisted around his pointer finger. Temari sat at his side, a sturdy and comfortable presence, drinking a warm mug of tea from the lovely blue handmade mug she received for her birthday the year previous. 

“What are you planning?”

“Nothing.”

She smirked.

“Sounds like a lie, but okay.”

He chuckled.

“Did you hear that from Kankuro?”

“What, is he using my lines again?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Answer the question.”

“What am I planning.”

“Yes that was the one.”

He considered it. At length. She didn’t seem to mind. 

“I’ve been asked many questions lately.”

“How unheard of as a leader of a village.”

“No, I mean. I’ve been asking myself questions too.” 

“Alright?” 

He took a deep breath, and it rattle deep in his chest, but it didn’t hurt as bad as yesterday. Or the day before that.

“Questions like, what am I meant to do today? What did I do yesterday? Will it have any impact today, or even tomorrow?” He cast his eyes to the sleeping babe on his knees. Shikadai was small and smelled like caramel. “And these are important questions, and I look for their answers. Sometimes they are numerous but sometimes they are nonexistent. Then, I try to say, ‘look harder’ or ‘reform the question’, but till the answer eludes me.” Then he looked to his sister. She looked back at him. 

“I’m trying to move forward, but I can’t quite see the path in front of me.”

She smiled and set her cup down with a decisive clunk of ceramic. It was a familiar action, perhaps even familial. 

“How has that stopped you before?”

“Before? I guess,” He paused. “I guess, before I knew where the path ended.” 

“So you don’t know where the path ends now?”

“Well. I have an idea. But it seems so much further away than I’d thought.”

“Hm.”

He rocked his tiny nephew in his lap. 

“Sounds like life. Goals all blend into each other. In order to accomplish one task, you must first complete another, and so on and so forth.”

He hummed. 

“How’s Lee?”

“Lee?” He looked up and felt like he had been caught in a lie. 

“He’s been here for a few weeks. Have you spent any time with him?”

Gaara’s stomach twisted uncomfortably, as if it were trying to turn on inself and escape though his mouth. He tried to flee the question with comfortable silence but she effortlessly chased him down with a quirk of her eyebrows. He sighed. Shikadai also sighed. He could practically hear the trees and the rocks and the single wisp of a cloud high above sigh. 

“There is some sort of... stalemate. Or stagnation. I fear we have reached some impasse of my own making.”

Nearby, a cluster of newly emerged sand cicadas cloaked themselves in crypsis and howled in unison. 

“Oh, foolheart.” Temari, too, sighed.

Taken aback, he looked her full in the face with his shock. Her face was lit by the soft moonlight. There was that word, that single, strange word that had escaped his understanding. So long had it been that he lead himself to believe that he had made it up but Kankuro mentioned it and now Temari-

“You used that word.” She laughed, and it was like a clear echo in a watery cave. Refreshing and unnerving all at once. 

“Yes, because you are being that word.”

“I am… being… that word.”

“You’re doing it now. Amazing. You trip over your own ignorance with such grace. It’s quite impressive, really.”

Despite himself, Gaara snorted.

“I… wasn’t aware it had… practical use.”

Temari chuckled through her nose.

“And there you go. from foolheart to turtledove. You’re just like Kankuro - thick-headed one moment, air-headed the next.”

“Thanks for that.”

“You come by it honestly.”

“What does it mean?”

“Foolheart? I suppose it means something like naivety.” She said, looking up at the dark sky. “Well, to be foolhardy is to be reckless, but to be a foolheart, I think, means to do good, recklessly.”

His brow wrinkled as he considered her words. The baby in his arms struggled for a moment, as babies do, and he began to rock in place again.

“I don’t really understand the difference.”

“I think it’s part of the charm.”

He hummed. Shikadai softened, but his little baby hands held his fingers all the tighter. 

“If you’ve reached an impasse of your own making, then you are the only one who can take it down. You don’t need to worry. Just cut through the bullshit.” She turned to him, her eye twinkling. “It’s like you never listen to me. What have I always told you?”

He breathed in the cool night. The breeze ruffled their hair and the stars and the moon illuminated their reverie. It never ceased to amaze him how Temari was full of wisdom and peace. He exhaled on a hum. 

“I have to use my words.”

Shikadai slept like a rock in his arms. 

-

He has been preparing for this moment for weeks now. He had talked so much and to so many people, he had drafted dozens of letters no one else would ever read, he had distracted himself from the dread that filled his belly with endless avenues of research, but it all came down to this moment. And he was finally ready. 

He was in his office when it happened. He could feel a wave of energy swimming down the hallway, like a sand shark in the outer wastes hunting for scrappy lizard-owls and desert voles. She stormed in, alone, unaided, and almost unrestrained. He had put himself to work, signing the paperwork that would set everything in motion. 

He glanced up at her and then back down, making a show of his penmanship and concentration. 

“Ah, just a moment, I’m just-”

“Don’t toy with me.” She replied curtly. He set his pen aside. He breathed. He could do this. He was prepared. 

“Sashiko, just the person I wanted to speak to.”

“Drop the act. I know what you’re doing.” She paced to stand in front of his desk. She cut an imposing figure despite her short stature and sandy robes. Gaara sat back in his chair and looked at the small, fierce woman. He knew he had displeased her, but he had never known this: outright confrontation. 

It was as if she were lashing out. As if she had been backed into a corner. 

“Well, if you know what it is I’m doing, then I apologize for not coming forward sooner.” He rolled a finger across the pen absently, then folded his hands calmly one atop the other and looked her dead in the eye.  

“Apologize? Nothing you have to say to me will engender some ill-conceived feeling of gratitude.”

“I apologize nonetheless. It will be a messy process, and I imagine it will be uncomfortable for all sides involved. But if we do not move forward from our archaic ways, we will be lost to the desert and to the whiles of time. Thank you for yours.”

She stared him down, the firm line of her lips ever disappearing into one another. He could see the wheels in her head spinning, confusion rising to meet his composure. 

“My what.”

“Your time.”

Another beat. Smoke, fire, alarm. Calm, equilibrium, serenity.  

“My time.”

“Yes, I thank you for it.”

This time, he could see the claxons before they sounded. He had her pinned.  

“Excuse me?” The delicate tremelo of her voice heralded his victory. 

“I am retiring you.” 

And all at once, the eye of the storm had passed and she rained the full brunt of her fury upon him. 

“Retire? Boy, I am not some work horse you can put out to pasture when you’ve had your use of me. I am the backbone of this forsaken pit, I am the long arm of the law where there was chaos and fractals. I am the heart through which your filthy blood and tainted chakra flows and allows the breath in your breast and the water in your body. I am the reason that keeps you alive and bound to service.

“Were it up to me, I’d have put your whole line out in the Wastes, but,” she paused, her chest heaving with passion, and a look of something akin to thinly veiled disdain came over her face. “Needs must when the devil drives.”

“Indeed.” He hummed. “Actions are being taken to formally apologize to both the Shimada family and the Court. The Leaf have been so kind as to continue their support in our cause, and have offered a handful of profitable contracts in the likelihood of a future economic downturn-”

“Does your truly maladroit ineptitude know no end? Would you so willingly roll over for these people?”

“You confuse consideration for weakness. These people are our allies and our leaders; it is within our best interests to not only exchange goods and services, but also our hospitality. It has become increasingly clear to me that this system of government is broken. Gone is the era of mysteries and political intrigue, of duplicity and demagoguery. The world of the shinobi is shrinking, and must evolve or face extinction.”

“The only mistake I made was in not tossing the sham of an election that saw you and your ilk thrust into office. These people wouldn’t recognize competent leadership in a half-adept genin yet they’d throw the meager show of their support to a broken child? If we are to saddle blame, then lay it upon the backs of the people that foolishly put you in you place.”

“Councilwoman.” He stood abruptly, but she held her ground. “I would not be intimidated, blackmailed, or pressured into any choices that would reflect poorly upon my people or the wellbeing of my village. Why do I expect that of me now?” 

“I expect you to lead-”

“Yet at every junction, you are determined to see me fail.”

“How dare you-”

“I will not be bullied anymore. Not by you, or the council, nor anyone else for that matter.” He picked up the document he had been finishing when she arrived. “This is an executive order demanding your immediate removal from any and all government positions, programs, and affiliated parties. Upon it you will find all seven members of the Council are hereby disbanded effective immediately. You will be granted amnesty despite your treason, and a pension that will reflect your service.”

Sashiko smiled humorlessly. She took the document, scanned its contents and tossed it to the desk. Then, her lips puckered and she pinned him with her sour regard. 

“You have made your intentions thoroughly clear, Kazekage. If you will excuse me-”

“We are not finished,” he said, raising a hand, drawing her attention to it. Her face split madly with the force of her short, brusque guffaw.

“Indeed? Would you impugn me further?” She crowed. “Assail me as you will. I have already ceded my position - have my dignity, then.”

“Am I to believe that you underhandedly plotted against me? That you lorded the threat of unwanted marriage over me for months and then proceeded to go over my head and make the decision in my stead, regardless of my feelings or desires on the matter? That you would choose a person for the economic and political advantage it might gain you, without regards to the consequences that choice may cause?”

“An agreed upon scenario you will recall. You read and signed paperwork.”

“That I did.” He conceded. “You may be surprised to learn that I have made organic progress on that same front, a dealing in which you nor anyone else will have a hand or consideration because it is not up for discussion.”

“You know as well as I that there are traditions in place for a reason. The hunt for an acceptable consort was no easy task. Not a single candidate deigned to accept the offered incentives or concessions we negotiated.” She scoffed. “No woman would have you.”

“No woman indeed.” He grimaced. “But for all your bitter ways, you wanted to help, didn’t you?”

“Everything I did, everything I have done, has been for this village.” She did not plead. Sashiko held her head high, defiant, proud. “All my efforts have been invested in securing the place of our village in this world, for filling the bellies of her people and the coffers of her government. For that, I have nothing to apologize for.”

He nodded. 

“Thank you, Councilwoman Sashiko. Your efforts are duly noted.” 

“Good day, Kazekage. For your sake, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

He inclined his chin and leveled her with a look. 

“So do I.” 

-

Kogen informed him there would be a gathering this afternoon when he was up to his elbows in paperwork. She informed him again when his hands were full of heady compost. The third time she reminded him, she slammed a mug of hot tea on his desk with a decisive clunk of ceramic, slopping it over scattered scrolls and scratch paper. 

He blinked. 

“Kogen.”

“Kazekage-sama.”

“You know it’s Gaara, please.”

“You know there’s a gathering this afternoon?”

“I do.”

“Care to guess the time?”

“Time... to wash my hands?”

“Good guess.”

“Kogen!” The pair turned to see Kankuro stride through the door, narrowly knocking down a lopsided plant. “Temari is looking for you. Says it’s urgent. There’s a problem with the-”

“My castella cakes!” She gasped and streaked from the room. They two watched her go. 

“There is no problem is there?”

“Probably not.” He chuffed and flopped in his creaky wicker chair. “She makes some dope cake though. Oh shit, Yagi, my boy! This is where I left you.” He crowed and slipped the three eyed puppet from behind an enormous potted gunnera manicata. Gaara had no idea the puppet had been left there. Perhaps he should clean more. 

“Mind if I…?” Kankuro gestured to the tabletop beside his project. 

“Please.” 

Kankuro smiled and set himself to whatever task he seemed to think needed attention. Yagi was a newer creation, and Gaara was unsure as to it’s hidden purposes. Whether his brother had intentionally left it in his quarters or truly had cast it aside in blind forgetfulness had yet to be seen. The three eyed, goat faced puppet stared at the ceiling in shallow bemusement. 

He recalled that this was the same puppet in which his brother had concealed a particular stone all those months ago. 

Maybe Yagi was cursed. 

“What are these? Rocks?”

“Rocks?” he muttered and looked down. “These?” 

“No, over there. Yes, those.”

“Lithops, from the Greek ‘lithos’ for stone and ‘ops’ for face. They are a succulent of sorts, often mistaken for small stones.”

“Faces, huh? They look like the hooves of a goat.”

“I think they look a little bit like brains.”

“Brains?”

“Yes, see how they’re naturally bisected? Like the twin hemispheres of the human brain.”

Kankuro squinted at them, his face squashing inward. “...Ahuh.”

Gaara carefully overturned the pot in his hands. He shook the cluster free and began to loosen the soil from the drainage layer. Kankuro couldn’t keep his hands to himself and Gaara didn’t mind if they spent the next few minutes in silence picking pebbles out of the dirt. 

Kankuro placed his pile off to the side and watched as his brother carefully began picking the succulents apart. 

“Gross.”

“Gross?” Gaara murmured, deep in concentration.

“With their stubby little root, it looks like a tooth. I hate it.”

Gaara snorted. 

“You aren’t wrong, I suppose.” He murmured, lining up his lithops carefully, making them look as much like teeth as possible. “Hey.”

“What.” He could hear his brothers’ grimace. 

“I was thinking just the other day. When you mentioned Yuna.” He turned to look at him once all the plants had been rescued. 

Kankuro’s face was artfully blank. 

“Yuna. You know? The Wilder tribeswoman?”

Still his brother’s face showed no indication of thought or moment of clarity. He sighed.

“From Kilika? She quote threatened you with a knife the size of her arm?”

Something approaching dawning understanding slowly crested over his face, like a full moon over the sea. 

“I said ‘the other day’. It was actually several months ago.”

“Oh! Yeah, when I brought you that ugly rock! She’s the wilder from Kilika! What a cutie, huh?”

“She’s from Besaid.”

“Huh?”

“You said she is from Kilika. She isn’t. She is from Besaid.”

“Besaid?”

“You’re being incredibly obtuse this morning. I don’t usually have to repeat myself this much.”

“She can’t be from Besaid.”

“Well, she sure isn’t from Kilika. The tribe there has a very specific socio-economic lifestyle and wardrobe. She’s far too modest to be from Kilika. And she also doesn’t exhibit the same dietary patterns.”

“No, shut up, you’re babbling. This isn’t about dietary patterns - also, seriously? Dietary patterns? Who died and made you Emperor of Cultural Anthropology, Mr. Hideous-Tooth-Plants? No, she can’t be from Besaid because Besaid doesn’t exist.”

“Doesn’t exist? Nonsense, it’s just off the coast, past Kilika. Emperor of Cultural Anthropology, honestly. I just did a mess of research on the region, is all.”

“The sun has gone to your head. If you’ve done this ‘mess of research’ as you say, then you must have looked at a map. There is no such island.”

“I have.”

“Looked at a map?”

“Found such an island.”

“Sounds like a lie but okay.”

“Kankuro, I’ve found the island.”

His brother flung his arms into the air, narrowly missing the tray of lithops. 

“So now you’re a Master Ocean Cartographer as well? I suppose you’ve learned years of carpentry and built yourself a boat then, too? And you’ve been there and back, I’ll bet. King of Kilika, they’ve called you, huh.”

“I have not done those things, no.” Try as he might, he couldn’t keep a smile off his lips.

“Why bring this up? What does Yuna have to do with anything? And what of Besaid, Schrodinger's island?”

“Why would our nation have lore that specifically documents such an island if it is not real? Why would our ancestors weave and paint the image of a camel and tell the story if it were not rooted in some truth?”

“There are camels everywhere, we live in a fucking desert!”

“These depictions aren’t just of some pedestrian camel. If you look, the central dromedary is always portrayed with a third eye. It’s the deity from the legend.”

There was a sound from the nearby alcove. It sounded a little like a ceramic mug hitting the ground with a decisive clunk. The two brothers stared quietly. 

“What was that.”

“Something fell?” Gaara brushed the dirt from his hands and took a hesitant step toward the sound. Kankuro grabbed his puppet and kept close to his shoulder. He reached for the drawn curtain and slowly lifted it back. 

Upon the floor, beneath an old tapestry covered in camels, lay one half of the thunder egg in a tidy pile of shattered black shards. 

“Holy shit I told you that thing was fucking cursed, oh my god.” Kankuro whispered. It sounded very much like he was crying as well. Gaara ignored this in favor of scooping up the pieces and replacing them in their previously hidden cubby.

Among the chipped onyx was a curious form of metal. He rolled it about in the palm of his hand, recalling the slim point that had once poked through the gleaming surface. The mysterious metal revealed was stranger than fiction; it was less than a cubic centimeter in size, and perhaps weighed no more than ten grams. Most peculiarly, however, was that it was a perfectly shaped merkabah of what looked like pure lead.  

“Nope.”

“What?” Gaara whipped his head around.

“NOPE.” He repeated loudly and flung a hand out and dropped the curtain, which hit him in the side of the head.

“Kankuro-” He managed before he was yanked to his feet. 

“Kogen is bound to come back at any moment.”

“Kogen?”

“Yeah, there’s a party, remember? And we’re up here in your laboratory, doing what, playing with rocks in the dark like nerds? Not on my watch, not my brother.” He had grabbed him by the shoulders and attempted to steer him towards the staircase. 

“Alright, alright, let me just-” Gaara managed to set the gleaming tetrahedron on a nearby table. Then he saw his neat row of lithops laying forgotten.“ No wait! I can’t leave these out. I have to-”

“Do you have to?” He whined in response, shoving him again for what he probably thought was good measure. 

“I absolutely have to, yes. Go on.”

“Look, if Kogen kills you, I’m going to laugh at your corpse.”

“I fully understand the ramifications and possibility of physical harm that my actions may incur. But I have to take care of these before I can join you.”

Kankuro sighed. He clapped him on the shoulder and eyed the metal on the tabletop. It shined politely in the afternoon sunlight. Kankuro squinted at it like it insulted him. 

“Fine. Like, I hate this,” He made a general sweeping motion at the metal and the cubby. “But whatever. It makes you happy. With the camels and the fucking mystery cult and the cannibal island-”

“Cannibal island?” He said sardonically but Kankuro was leaving before he could defend his absolutely incorrect anthropological assumption. 

“Finish playing with your horrible teeth and cursed rocks, and come hang out with your boyfriend’s family.” He shouted as he stormed down the stairs. 

Gaara was too shocked to reply.

-

The two share in some stilted conversation. Too many thank yous, which spiral into less and less understanding. But, it isn’t really stilted, not for them. That’s just how their conversation flows; it bubbles and ripples wildly, unpredictable and unruly. Lee is handsome in his dark silk shirt and trousers, hanging loose and comfortable. 

Gaara thought of the last year they’d spent together. They’ve grown so much, and so much closer than he’d ever imagined. He’s never known someone the way he knows Lee. And Lee is here, in his home. Has been, for weeks now. What has he done with this time? Thrown himself headlong into work - into overcoming failure by sheer force, jumping into projects he had put aside for one reason or another, and ultimately (and single handedly - but mostly because he didn’t tell anyone he was doing it) dismantling a decades old institution of corruption in his government.  

Despite his inattention, Lee looked relaxed, if a bit nervous. He didn’t seem as if he minded the treatment. 

“My life is my own and I will choose how to spend it.” he heard himself say. 

Lee looks at him like some great secret is going to reveal itself imminently. Gaara could practically see his hair puff up, as if it was filled with the same vitality that nin was so possessed of. A small part of Gaara hoped he made Lee feel this way. He sometimes made him feel this way, too. Something between reckless and bold. 

“And how do you want to spend it? Your life?” Lee took the step between them for himself. He pressed close. Gaara’s heart thundered. He felt very daring. 

He looked up into his face, his lovely face, framed with dark hair and a beautiful smile. He was handsome, he was kind, he was determined. There was a sensation that welled within him, a great feeling of all his memories coming together to focus on a pinhole of light. If he concentrated, he could see his midnight garden. He could see the mysterious oasis, too. Both extraplanar sensations side by side, aligned in his mind. 

He leaned forward and put his mouth on Lee’s. 

Flowers bloomed under a neon moon. Water lapped at a muddy bank. The air ran thick with opiate smoke and the sound of distant bells. Everything smelled of ripened stone fruit and cool sand. 

Beyond, Venus hung low on the Western horizon. 

Chapter Text

Long Horned Camel - an Avatar: The Last Airbender animal combo reference. There’s a lot of these in this fic. Can you imagine how mighty and intimidating these creatures would be? These are Bactrian (two humped) camels.

The woman on the saddle from Gaara’s childhood - I neither confirm nor deny that she may be an iteration of Impa, the Gerudo Desert dweller from Legend of Zelda.

Yuna (the Wilder woman with “crazy genjutsu from Kilika”) - She may or may not be Yuna from the Besaid Temple in Final Fantasy X.

Thunderegg - These crystals assist in dispelling negative emotions such as anxiety, stress, or fear and replacing them with joyful vibrational energy. This stone also helps you nurture yourself and feel more comfortable in your own body.This crystal is beneficial in self-analysis and uncovering hidden circumstances that might interfere with well-being. It promotes self-acceptance and confidence, encouraging the speaking of one's own truth. Thunderegg overcomes negativity and bitterness of the heart, by healing anger, fostering love, and lending the courage to start over. It is useful for any kind of trauma.

Suisei - Japanese for the planet Mercury. Mercury is also the associated planet of the thunderegg.

Yagi - meaning Goat. Kankuro hid a stone in the belly of a goat. A bazor. Possibly a Harry Potter reference but more than likely not. But it could be. Listen to what your heart tells you is true.

“Walk without Rhythm” - An EXTREMELY self-indulgent Dune reference. “Walk without rhythm, it won’t attract the worm.”

“Put your thumbs and forefingers together!” - The Japanese version of a cootie shot from Spirited Away.

Kogen - meaning Plateau. Something to overcome. Think of the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming (even though it’s a butte and not a plateau).

Shukaku (as a character) - I had a pretty difficult time characterizing him (as little as I did), as well as defining Gaara’s subconscious interactions with him. The two don’t speak much and I still wanted to leave an air of mystery to their relationship. Reconciling these two elements was hard. Ultimately, they share space on a subconscious level, somewhere Gaara can just only reach and where Shukaku cannot - maybe something like a pocket dimension. More on that next installment. Further, while I adhere to Tanuki!Shukaku, I also imagine he could have scales like a Pangolin.

Luca’s National Theatre - literally taken right out of FFX -- the Blitzball Stadium. You’re welcome.

Turtledove - Symbolizes innocence, love, and faithfulness, as they mate for life. They work together to build nests and raise their young. “Open your psychic ears at dawn and dusk and become enchanted by their rippling vocalizations. One can't help but become subdued by their gentle love-calls. Sweet churbles and downy warbles are testimony to a divinely calming presence among us.”

The Phantom Menace - Is Kogen actually a Sith lord? Who's to say.

Team Three - Team Guy is also referred to as Team Three in both Rock Lee’s Springtime of Youth Full Power Ninja Chronicles and Shippuden Ep 377, but apparently is not canon.

Lee’s statue of four elephants on the back of a turtle - Another extremely self indulgent reference, this time to The Great A’Tuin, an homage to Terry Pratchett's Discworld. A’Tuin is a Great Star Turtle which carries four elephants on it’s back, and in turn, those elephants further support the Disc on their backs. Wouldn’t that make a nifty planter?

Echinocereus rigidissimus - otherwise known as a Rainbow Hedgehog Cactus. Lee has made it painfully obvious to me that he likes the color pink.

Giraffapillar - I dreamed up giraffapillars when I was wee and they are very near and dear to my heart. I like to imagine that they’re the neck of a giraffe combined with the body of a caterpillar, but still the size of a giraffe - not an unusual sized bug for Naruto.

Fortune telling fish - A children’s toy; a piece of cellophane cut in the shape of a fish that curls in your hand and supposedly tells your fortune.

Sand Cicadas - Damn, another Legend of Zelda reference, specifically Skyward Sword. I guess this fic is brought to you in part by Nintendo and Square Enix.

Gommalu - Assyrian and Babylonian word for a two humped Bactrian Camel (which is a different animal than a dromedary) except Gommalu is, in fact, a one humped Arabian camel - a dromedary.

Lava Slugs - from nothing. From me? Maybe they are Pokemon. Is there a lava slug in Pokemon? Call me, people at Pokemon. I’ve got you covered for your next installment. We’ll call it Pokemon: Lava and Slugs. All the pokemons will be slug variants. How the target demographics will love it. (How big would a slug have to be to swallow you whole? Pretty large, I’d imagine. Poor Gaara.)

Jade Cabochon - Jade is a stone of nobility and power; it is also a stone of dreams. It has extremely distinct spiritual attributes as it promotes a higher level of consciousness.

Matabei - an impact crater on Mercury and has a set of dark rays. Like Mozart crater, Matabei is interpreted to have excavated dark material from depth during the impact event, creating dark streamers. Named after famous artist of the Tokugawa period, Iwasa Matabei.

Hakkutsu - meaning excavation. Wow.

Rice pudding - apparently both Gaara and Lee have really joyous feelings about rice pudding. Gaara likes it with golden raisins. Lee prefers his with raspberry jam.

Sherwani - A long coat-like garment worn in the Indian subcontinent, very similar to a British frock coat. It is worn over a handsome pair of churidar - trousers which are cut wide at the top and narrow at the ankle, so that contours of the leg are revealed. They are usually cut on the bias, making them naturally stretchy. They are also longer than the leg and sometimes finish with a tightly fitting buttoned cuff at the ankle. ((It is my life mission to make sure that Gaara is always dressed cute.))

Daisuke-san - The Royal Horticulturist. His name means ‘Big Help’ as in ‘If you would take these boutonnieres and keep them cold until the reception, that would be a BIG HELP, kthxbye”.

Hiroki-san - Meaning Large Sparkle. Basically, what’s the stupidest, most vapid names I could come up with?

Fumiko-chan - Meaning ‘Child of treasured beauty’. I thought to myself, People from the Capitol just don’t understand.

Akane-san - The creamsicle girl, daughter of a local magistrate with lots of money and influence. Akane meaning ‘deep red’ as in “Blood orange? Shut up, it’s fucking red.”

Hirohito Yuudai-Osama, Daimyo of Wind Country - Hirohito meaning ‘mother fucking EMPEROR’ and Yuudai meaning ‘manly hero, big and vast’ as in, “This guy is a selfish dick who does not live up to his name”. After his father died, he more than likely renamed himself, the dickwad.

Gorou-kun - Meaning ‘Fifth Son”. Poor Akane is a fucking idiot. Bless her heart.

“Do good, recklessly.” - From Temari’s speech in part 4. Another indulgence on my part, taken from The Adventure Zone podcast. A quote from Magnus Burnsides, a great big man who is just the embodiment of love. “What if you didn't have to worry and you could just cut out the bullshit and do good recklessly?”

Lithops - they’re back! Really, google a lithops. They’re just the coolest, and I think they’re probably the next big thing in houseplant home decor. (Though they aren’t for the faint of heart. You really need to have a green thumb or you’ll just kill it. Water them as little as you can stand. You have to stand it a lot.) A note: They are not edible. Gaara please stop trying to eat them.

Shimada - Akane’s full name revealed! Shimada meaning ‘island rice paddy’. Her father is a local magistrate who controls the farmers in the southern region and makes his profits selling the rice all over the continent. Im sure he’s in Daisuke-sans pocket.

Sand sharks - Okay, sand sharks are a real TYPE of shark, but imagine an actual goddamn shark swimming in the middle of a fucking desert. Now imagine a 10 year old little boy named Gaara discovering this.

Gunnera manicata - a species known for its ENORMOUS leaves. Manicata is related to rhubarb, and is used as medicine to cure sexually transmitted diseases.

Onyx - the crystal of will power, protection, strength, and motivation.