1.
Temari remembers very little about her mother. The funeral is clear in her mind: hot, even for the desert, and the air as dead as the body being left for the birds. She held Kankuro's hand while he tried not to cry. Their father never looked at them and burned their mother's pictures afterward. She sometimes tries to remember what her mother looked like, but all that remains is the back of a robe and the slight smell of sweat and something else. Years later, as she's about to make her first kill, Temari realizes the other scent was fear.
2.
There are even fewer kunoichi in Suna than there are in Konoha. Temari has no girlfriends growing up and never thinks to miss them. She and Kankuro train together and are taught by off-duty ANBU, but never by their father. All she knows of Gaara is that he's somehow responsible for her mother's death. It's not until her uncle Yashimaru is killed that she demands the details from the ninja who brought the news. The man is amused at being threatened by a nine-year-old with a hand fan, but tells her anyway.
Temari is nine, and she hates her father.
3.
Temari stops talking to Kankuro when he turns ten. At first he thinks it's a joke. He glues her fan shut, thinking to make her lose the game by yelling at him. Her silence instead frightens him (though he would never admit it). They still practice against each other because they have no one else, but it's not the same. Three months later, he's not quite quick enough, and her fan slices the artery in his arm. In the hospital that night she finally tells him why. The next day, he starts wearing grease paint to cover his father's face.
4.
After Gaara kills yet another handler, and the Kazekage realizes assassins are useless against his son, Temari and Kankuro find themselves in the youngest genin squad in Suna's history. They take a perverse pride in going through squadron leaders faster than water evaporates at noon.
Baki surprises them all by lasting more than a week. And another, and yet another. Temari starts hounding him everywhere, determined to get as much training as she can before he quits. After four months, she realizes Gaara is more manageable with Baki's reliable presence, and tells Kankuro to stop hiding scorpions in his apartment.
5.
And then Konoha. Where it all falls apart. Her father's death touches Temari less than the tarnishing of Suna's honor. And Gaara's transformation into Shukaku terrifies her less than what follows his defeat, when he tells her and Kankuro thank you. She doesn't know what to do with a second brother.
Kankuro's eyes are just as uncertain as he looks at her over Gaara's head. Some of his face paint has smeared on to Gaara's hair, making them both look younger. Temari takes a deep breath and grins. She's still one up on Kankuro; he's only ever had a sister.
X.
Sometimes, made brave through alcohol, the huddled group of friends at their back, or sheer ignorance, a shinobi will ask Temari if it's difficult being the sister of the Kazekage. She always shrugs and tells them it's the simplest thing in the world after being the sister of Gaara of the Desert.
Sometimes, if the shinobi is also very stupid, they will say, um, isn't he still Gaara of the Desert?
Temari always smiles at this and says, no, he isn't. But, she'll add, right when the other person starts to relax, I'm still his sister. And unsnaps her fan.