There really isn't much to say, here, just some of my headcaonons regarding Temari and her life. I'll be publishing a few different things like this, so we'll see what you guys think. Set just before the beginning of Shippuden.
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, the ending couples would not have been a thing.
Sometimes, she contemplated her life.
Sometimes, when missions were slow or she wasn't specifically set on a task, Temari would muse about what all had led her to this point. Normally, she wasn't one for introspection or thinking about the past, if she could help it. Remembering her childhood made something suspiciously like regret leave a bitter taste in her mouth. And even if things could have been done differently, they hadn't, and regret and guilt would do nothing but drag her down in the present. At heart, she was a simple, pragmatic woman; guilt and egret, especially for the wrong reasons, had no place in her world. Regardless of what had happened, the most respectful, most honorable thing she could do was move forward and continue to help build a better world than the one she had known as a child. Suna would never change its harsh ways, she knew that, but there was certainly a way to be harsh constructively – what did the Konoha nin call it? Tough love? Yes, that was it. At times, when she was lost to introspection like this, Temari was wont to chuckle softly.
If ever there was one expression to sum up the way she lived her life and treated the people she cared about – now that they had all learned a better way – it was that one. She would never coddle her brothers, it simply wasn't in her nature to be soft in that way (if at all), but she had learned in the past three years since those fateful Chuunin Exams how to build them up rather than to break them down. As much as it made her uncomfortable to feel indebted to anyone, it was certainly the blonde knucklehead from the Village Hidden in the Leaves that she owed this new understanding to. Before she and her brothers had met Uzumaki Naruto, harsh cruelty was all that she had known. She supposed that they had all been weapons in their Father's eyes, though all with different purposes. Kankuro had been the one meant to rule after their Father had passed, had been the one meant to don the robes of the Kazekage after Rasa. Gaara had been created even before birth as the weapon to protect the Sand Village from everything, including itself.
But Temari's role as a weapon had always been the one that she hated the most. Given her fan at the age of six, the weapon that her Mother before her had used, she had been told point blank by her Father what was expected of her. She was to become the one strong enough to kill Gaara, should he ever turn on the Village. She had trusted her Father above all things, back then, tiny and wide-eyed ad not yet aware of how much it would hurt when she fully realized the ramifications of what she had been ordered to do – what she had been ordered to become. Even now, over a decade later, that one memory filled her with more rage than she had ever felt toward anyone or anything, before or since. But, as she had been raised to believe that emotions were nothing more than a weakness, she had learned all too well. Before the fateful attack on the Leaf Village, she had channeled the rage and hate and sorrow that she couldn't understand into her training.
Before, she had sought any sort of outlet possible for the feelings she was oh so good at pretending that she didn't have. Seeking out company of the carnal sort had started as a form of both directing those turbulent emotions, so much like the winds she commanded with a mere flick of her wrist, and as a form of rebellion against her Father. So what if she didn't want to be like other girls? It was the principle of the matter that she didn't even have the choice to decide that for herself. At first, seeking out pleasures of the flesh had been a random, angry thing, but it had slowly helped her to come to terms with at least one part of herself. When she wanted a fight, even if nothing ever went further than kissing and groping, she had sought out men. When she wanted something a little softer, she had sought out women. She never sought out a civilian simply because of the fact that no civilian could ever have survived an encounter with her – male or female.
But, there had been one woman that she had ended up seeking out more often than not. No, they were nothing like lovers, but Temari had admired the female ANBU even before she had come across her amidst the low lighting and pulsating music of a club. At first, it was the thrill she sought, in brushing up against someone who could overpower her without a moment's thought. Later, as time wore on, something small and comfortable had begun to take root. She wouldn't call t love, even now five years later, but it had been something related. A carnal friendship, perhaps, but it didn't matter, not anymore. Shortly before the Chuunin Exams, the older woman had been given a deep undercover mission, and that had been that. It had ended as easily as it had begun, and while Temari might have missed the familiar warmth of a body she knew, it never bothered her. Then they had begun planning the invasion, and her mind had been focused elsewhere.
Even up until present, those few months had been her longest dalliance with anyone if either sex. Over the years, as her bonds with her brothers and eventually her students had strengthened, she had felt the need to seek others out less and less. She had simply put it down to growing up, and had left it at that. As previously noted, she generally wasn't one for periods of introspection. She was a simple woman – training, fighting, protecting those she cared for, and knowing that she finally had a home to return to following particularly grueling missions were all that she required in life. In her experience, simple was better than complicated. Her mind was tactical by nature; anything that she perceived ad either frivolous or unneeded was quickly done away with. If she had ever learned anything from her Father that wasn't how best to kill, how best to hurt, how best to be cruel, it had been that.
Pragmatism had always served her well, and it would always continue to do so.