Scale
Battered feet, dry and cracked, beat mercilessly against the dirt paved road. The child fled from her pursuers, hair flailing wildly in the wind, her breath coming in short pants as she ran. The muscles in her thin legs flexed and tightened with fatigue as she ran, kicking up dirt and earning several protests from a street vendor as she knocked over produce and vases and things of the like. She glanced up and then back with a wicked glint in her eyes before using all her strength to jump. To her dismay she almost missed, but luckily her fingers grasped the ledge of a roof, digging in to the cheap wood. As soon as she pulled herself up she jumped onto the nearest roof top to avoid further angering customers and vendors below.
Looking back down at her pursuers she smirked, and flipped them an extremely vulgar hand gesture before turning around and fading to the palest ivory shade ever seen in the desert.
"Goddamnit," She swore; the large hand of her swordsman hit her, knocking her cleanly on the ground. The blow was a reprimand for her arrogance, and not being aware of all her surroundings, she was told.
"Bullshit," She told them, and they just rolled their eyes and led their foul-mouthed queen-to-be home - what they considered home, that is. To her, home was back with her mother, back in the King's city, not lost in the endless seas of sand with these people she barely knew.
But they fed her and clothed her and offered more permanent shelter than the goddess's temple. In the temple, if you didn't swear yourself celibate by the sacred oath, they just as readily offered you to the slave traders as any child-snatcher.
"Sakura…"
She rose her head to glare at the old woman.
"What? What did I do wrong this time, Chiyo?"
Chiyo sighed and motioned for the girl to come forward, and grudgingly she did as she was told. The guards left, recognizing their dismissal. Sakura was lead into the queen's private chamber and offered a seat in which she immediately slumped into.
"Sakura, you're you are not taking this seriously enough."
"How? How Am I not taking this seriously? Damnit Chiyo, I'm working my ass off every damn day!"
"Language, Sakura."
The rosette girl howled in anger and frustration.
Chiyo sipped her tea.
"Sakura, you are not taking this seriously enough."
"You mentioned that before-"
"Perhaps if you listened, the message would get through your thick skull."
"I do-" Sakura cut her own protest short, and slumped back after a look from Chiyo.
"Sakura, if you are to become the Gypsy Queen after me, you must understand that you will not be handed anything on a silver platter. That is not your place. Your place will be in the shadows; away from the public eyes, hidden, untraceable, unseen. You will be nothing more than whispers and myths. When you take your own stand, create your own rule as Queen, your people will suffer as they always have, but you will be their hope. You will be the legend told to babies, the mother of orphans; if men should take up arms against the crown, you will be the general, if only from the sidelines."
"But what's the point of being a Queen if I never take action? You said yourself that the crown was poison to the people-"
"So you do listen."
Sakura's still young chubby face flushed and she opened her mouth to rebuke, but Chiyo spoke first.
"Sakura, if you were to lead the people against the king, how many people would you be willing to lose? Not just warriors, but mothers and babies, brothers and fathers, all murdered for what? For the small chance that you might win? What if you lost? All those people would die in vain, and so many more would join them for nothing. Sakura, we work the way we do to protect our people. In the king's eyes we are outlaws, bandits, and anyone who knows the slightest whisper of us would be traitors. Are you willing to risk that?"
For once the hot-blooded and foul-mouthed girl found nothing to say.
"You must always look at every side, every angle, before you act, Sakura. Otherwise many others will lose their mothers in the way you did, brutally murdered."
And with that said, Chiyo left her young successor in an unusually pensive state.
Clang.
The sound of metal on metal echoed throughout the courtyard, followed by more ringing noises in rapid succession. After a few moments, the rhythmic sounds were broken by the harsh cry of a child in pain, followed by a heavy thud. A red-haired boy lay sprawled on the ground, clutching a hand to his face. Blood trickled through his fingers from the long, thin slash across his face. It was a simple flesh wound that would heal quickly and leave no scar, but the fact that he had fallen was more painful than the cut.
"You lose," a deep voice told him, and the boy flinched as he retrieved his sword and stood up, dusting himself off as he did so. "Yes, Father," he murmured, keeping his eyes respectfully lowered. The smallest thing, even eye contact, could send his father into one of his unexplainable rages. That was the last thing the small prince wanted. "tell me why you lost," The voice went on, and the redhead swallowed nervously before answering. "My concentration faltered for a moment, and you got under my guard. In short, I was not paying attention."
"Very good," came the answer. "And that is precisely why you will fail as future King, Gaara. You do not pay attention to the details, the small things, the important things." Gaara glanced away, scuffing at the sandy ground with his toe. "Yes, Father," he murmured passively, trying his best to remain quiet so that the lesson he knew was coming would pass quicker. His only thoughts were of escaping the courtyard and the imposing King that currently resided within it.
"Someday, Gaara, you will be King. That will be many years from now, but if you do not listen and learn before then your reign as ruler will be short-lived. The world will not be handed to you on a jeweled plate. You will have to work to maintain your rule. There are people who would wish to end the rule of the desert kingdom, people who are too cowardly to show their own faces. They hide in the shadows and live as rats, stealing form the good and honest people of the desert kingdom. They are parasites, leeches, pests that deserve to be wiped from the face of the desert. Every last one of them should be eradicated, from the oldest woman to the youngest child. None should be allowed to continue to exist, stealing and leeching from the desert kingdom."
Finally Gaara could contain his silence no longer, and he asked tentatively, "But Father…why all of them? Even the children? They haven't done anything, have they?"
He had no time to defend himself against the hand that suddenly descended, painfully knocking him to the ground.
"Silence!" His father roared, advancing a step towards his son. "You do not question your father. To do so is to question the King. Do you dare to question the King?" His voice had turned dangerously quiet by the time he finished speaking, and Gaara lowered his eyes respectfully, shaking his head. "No…please continue. I'm sorry I interrupted, Father." His answer seemed to mollify the King, and his anger vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. "Of course you are," he said, bending and pulling Gaara to his feet. "
You are smart, much smarter than your fool brother Kankuro. Pathetic excuse for a son." Gaara, once again, could not contain his question. "Father, why is Kankuro not in line to be King?" Even a ten-year-old child could hear the undisguised contempt in the Kings voice as he answered. "Your brother is weak," he said. "Too sickly. He is frail and spends his time holed up in his room, playing with those ridiculous dolls of his that he calls puppets. He has neither the physical ability to lead, nor the intelligence to. Now keep your mouth closed, child, and don't interrupt me again. Now, where were we…?"
"You were telling me about the people in the shadows."
"Ah yes…the gypsy people, as they so elegantly call themselves. Disgusting vermin. When you become King, you will have to deal with them once and for all. Destroy anyone associated with them. Cut all ties to the vermin and let the desert be rid of them once and for all. Their elders speak of balance – pah. There is no balance. There is only the iron rule of the desert kingdom." Their lesson was cut short when a nervous-looking servant appeared in the courtyard.
"My lord," she said with a deep bow, eyes flickering from King to Prince with unease. "The royal procession is about to begin. You must be present for the festivities to begin." The King nodded his dismissal and the servant disappeared into a corridor. "Come," he said to Gaara, and the two departed.
The procession went off without a hitch. The Kings guard kept the streets under control as the gold-plated carriages moved through the streets, lending the people a rare glimpse of their rulers. Gaara sat next to his father, kept cool by the shade of the veranda that they sat under. "Look, Gaara," his father said suddenly, pointing to a small group of people clustered along the edge of the crowd.
They looked for all the world to be normal; the only feature that set them apart from the rest of the crowd was the vivid face paint that accentuated their features. Bright blue triangles, green stripes, flashes of gold and red. All in all the effect was impressive – at least to the young Prince. One girl in particular caught his eye. He wasn't sure why; there was nothing outstanding or special about her. She had ruddy brown hair and sun-browned skin, but the most curious thing about her was her face was not bright and jubilant like the others around her; rather, it was blood-red paint in the form of bloody tear tracks streaking down from her eyes.
He stared at her, entranced, and was broken out of his spellbound state by an angry growl from the King. "How dare they," he spat. "Show their faces in public. Disgusting gypsies." Gaara tore his eyes away from the girl and glanced to his father. He opened his mouth to speak, and then paused. After a moment he shut it wordlessly. Silence was better for now. He turned his head back to the crowd, searching for the familiar face of the girl. To his dismay, she had vanished into the crowd, and as the procession rounded a corner the entire gypsy group disappeared from view.
Dirt, nasty gritty sandy dirt. Mixed with oils and then rubbed into her hair, her skin, every visible inch of her body. "Damnit, Chiyo," She growled as the disgusting mixture was rubbed into her hair. "Why in Kami's name do I have to have this nasty junk on me?" The Queen sighed patiently as the grumbling and muttered curses continued to flow from the queen-to-be. "Symbolism, Sakura. You are showing the gypsy people that you stand strong in the face of the desert kingdom, and that with your reign we shall issue in a new era. Of course, some may also take it as a child enjoying the festivities, nothing more than a carefree day in the city. They may take it as they will."
Sakura let out a bark of laughter as the Queen made two very different predictions.
"You know, Chiyo, despite being a raggedy old hag, you aren't bad."
She accepted a jar of red face paint from a servant and swiped a finger through the thick paste, drawing the bloody tears under her eyes. "Why so dark, Sakura?" Chiyo questioned after she had finished doing herself up; Sakura spared a sideways glance at the Queen with a somber expression. "I draw tears because of the loss that we have suffered and the loss that we have yet to suffer. I draw tears for the lives lost while I spend my time hiding in the shadows." She gave Chiyo one last, lingering look before disappearing out the main door. The Queen continued to gaze at the door minutes after the queen-to-be had vanished; after a time she smiled faintly.
"We will make her a Queen yet."
Long after the King and his Prince had returned home, Gaara lay sprawled in his bed. The still, cold desert air lingered in his room, but the prince noticed not.
He was deep in his dreams.
It was a world of darkness, but as he watched hundreds were cut down before him, killed when they could not defend themselves. Women, children and men all met their bloody ends until a mound of blood-stained bodies rose before him. He scrambled backwards with a cry, and the world around him dissolved in one brief moment of pain. Gaara sat up, rubbing his backside; he had tumbled out of his bed.
Shivering in the cold night air, he clambered back into bed, the images of the mutilated bodies flashing before his eyes. A sort of calm acceptance settled over him in a moment of clarity.
I will never be like my Father, Gaara swore to himself as he drew the covers up.
I will never be the monster he is. There will be a scale. There will be balance.
He permitted himself a small smile, thinking of the gypsy girl in the crowd.
Yes…there would be balance.
A.N: Not much to say here! A prequel to Balance, we've had this idea for some time. With the summer here we've finally managed to put it up. Enjoy, read and review, all that junk.
-Kitsunegirls