Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
She is alone, on the wild, unending dunes, in search of a solitary peace. She pulls the brown scarf, made of fine wool and trimmed with lavender silk, closer around her head of dusty gold pigtails.
The wind howls, and seems to reflect her innermost turmoil. She can not hide her grief out here; all is bared to the passing wind.
The hot, bright sand sparkles and shifts at her feet as she walks, slowly, so as not to tax her body greatly. The sun beats down on her back.
To those who do not know life well, they think that this aloneness is the most profound that anyone can experience. She might as well be the last person on earth, because there are no cities, no caravan lines, no animals, no nothing, to indicate that there is anything else on this endless track of sand and rock.
But she knows…this loneliness is not nearly the most profound, the most forlorn, that anyone can know. She knows just how bad it gets, she who has had to be both daughter and mother, sister and comrade, without ever being able to be, simply, herself. She is called the Kazekage's daughter, the jinchūriki's sister, the puppeteer's sister, the kunoichi, but is never called by her name (she'll be surprised if half of the people who associate with her know her name). Unknowingly, she has been robbed and is robbing herself of her own individuality, of her identity, and is replacing it all with emptiness and chaos.
Many before her, many who have woken up one morning and realized that they didn't know who they were anymore (if they ever had at all; she certainly hasn't), have made this pilgrimage. The desert reveals all things; there is no better place to settle down quietly and meditate on things lost and gained.
She is searching for a greater peace, but does not know if she will ever find it.
For even out here, she is trailed by ghosts.
She stops, and stares at the phenomenon taking place in front of her incredulous eyes. The sand swirls and forms, undulating in an oscillating tower, ghosting the dunes. And out of the dunes comes a voice.
The voice calls to her; It knows my name, she thinks, with a strange mixture of fear and longing.
The voice, clear and musical and shifting back and forth, doesn't form any words in the language used for trade and interaction between the countries. The words are instead whispered in the old language of Kaze no Kuni (her homeland is one of the few that has retained its old language), archaic, rolling and undulating like the sands from which they originate.
As the spire grows closer, she begins to understand the words beyond her own name…Time…world…garden…waters…flood…generations…and they populated the land, to their children and their children's children.
She listens, never wanting it to stop, because the roaring within her has been quelled, and all is in harmony…
The moment passes. She opens her eyes, and sees nothing. The only thing that answers her is the cries of the wind. She found her peace, but it is unlikely that she will ever find it again.
Temari shakes her head, and convinces herself that it was nothing more than a mirage.
Moral of the story: some very strange things can happen out on the desert. The words of the spire were based on the early chapters of Genesis, in case you didn't catch the reference. The words are my own; I didn't quote anything directly.