Temari stands up from her seat and forces a smile as her future husband bows to her father.
"I shall see you next week," Katsu whispers as he struts past her. The blonde raises a hand in goodbye as he mounts his horse and rides away.
Temari scowls as soon as Katsu is out of sight. God, she hates being a princess. What she wouldn't give to be a peasant…
Gaara stares at their father, Kankuro next to him. It is ridiculous how much Gaara craved their father's approval; Temari doesn't care as long as she was able to leave the Sand Village frequently. Anything to get away from her future as Katsu's bride.
Kankuro glances at her as she picks up her skirts and tiptoes behind her father's throne to get to the staircase. Once there, she slips her shoes off and holds them in one hand as she runs up them quickly and silently. She has had tons of practice sneaking down to the kitchens for a midnight snack.
Servants are in the hallway, cleaning and exchanging words of gossip. Temari strides past them and into her rooms, closing the heavy door and leaning against it.
She breathes out tiredly, crossing to her dresser. Opening the bottom drawer, she hunts around for a moment before finding the catch to open the false bottom.
Her brother had made the dresser for her birthday three years ago; Kankuro was excellent at making things out of wood, and he was in charge of getting her present that year. She had also needed a new dresser, and he had figured that it would be a good hiding place for anything she wanted to keep from the servants.
She pulls out several things—books her father banned, jewelry from various people her father didn't like, and finally, clothes.
She sighs and straightens, padding across the room to her window. She gazes out at the desert, yearning to be one of the people who wandered its vast oceans of sand. She yanks the curtains closed, biting back a shout.
Temari plucks the clothes off the floor, setting them on her bed. The servants had made it recently, and the blue quilt her mother had made for her when she was ten was spread over her sheets carefully. She runs her hand over the soft quilt sadly before forcing herself to undress.
Her skirts drop to the ground once they leave her body. The warm air touches her frustratingly, and she pulls the men's trousers over her lower body with a grimace. She really hates the Sand Village sometimes.
She buttons up the shirt and pulls the jacket on to cover her feminine figure. She goes back over to the dresser and fishes around in the still-open drawer for her hat. She pulls it out and goes back to the bed, kicking her confusing clothes under it.
Her mirror stands against the wall across the room. She strides over to it and jams her long blonde hair under the brown hat, successfully hiding the fact that she is a girl.
This was the only way she could go out anymore; everyone knew her as Princess Temari, the young woman who would be marrying Katsu Deyushi of the Land of Lightning, strengthening the alliance between the two lands.
When she was dressed as a man, however, she was just another villager trying to find something. No one cared. No one thanked her for her duty to her home. She was just there.
She glances at her reflection one more time before walking to her closet. She pulls the door closed behind her and carefully feels along the wall until she finds the crack. She trails her palm down the crack until she reaches the floor, where she taps the ground until a creak indicates the door is open.
She stands up and grabs the lantern hanging inside the door. She lights the wick and it flares to life, illuminating the walls. Temari slides the door closed and starts forward, moving with a purpose she doesn't normally have.
The tunnel out of the castle continues for only a couple more hundred feet before sloping upwards towards the garden. She pushes the rusted door open and emerges into the fresh air. She takes a deep breath and glares out at the brutal sun.
She adjusts her hat to cover her face and walks around to the front of the castle, finding her brother sitting on a rock with a piece of wood in his lap. Kankuro looks up as she walks past, and she subtly gestures at him with her right hand; she will be gone five days visiting the Leaf Village. If she was gone longer, he would know where to find her.
He nods, just barely, and she smiles under her hat and keeps walking. He will know how to cover for her; he always does.
The walk to Konoha would take two days; a day and a half if she moved fast. She can always borrow her horse from the stable; she often took these trips and her father would be used to it. He would not approve but he could not stop her. She was legally an adult. She could make her own choices.
Temari doesn't know why her father even keeps horses; their kingdom is the desert. Most people used camels, if they had to. A horse was rare in the desert; even in their castle area, where there was more vegetation and was closer to the border of the sand.
Her horse is a thoroughbred, a beautiful chestnut color. Saki is her best friend, and she is always able to get her to where Temari needs to go. She makes sure she always has enough water and food to last Saki through the desert, at least until they got to the Land of Fire, where there was plenty of vegetation and water for her to use.
She has a bag specifically for trips like these; there was a sleeping bag, a tent (which she never used), and packets of food and bottles of water. She keeps it hidden in Saki's stable, on a high shelf out of Saki's reach. No one checks there, and it is one of the best hiding places there is.
Gaara is with his horse in the stable next to Saki's, brushing Keegan's coat. Her youngest brother glances up at her when she walked in. He doesn't say anything about her appearance, just shakes his head and goes back to his brushing.
"Gaara," Temari says quietly. "Tell Father where I'm going if you must. But don't do it because you feel that it's the right thing to do. Because it won't. You'll just get me in trouble and I do not need that."
"I was not planning on it, Temari," Gaara responds just as softly. "You know I would do no such thing."
"I can never tell with you," Temari murmurs quietly. She opens the door to Saki's stable and smiles as her horse whinnies at her. Someone has prepared her horse for riding, and she guesses that it was Kankuro. Her brother never ceases to amaze her.
She leads Saki out of the stable and outside, where the sand slips and slides under their feet. Temari curses the fact that she forgot to wear her sandals.
Gaara has followed them outside, and is staring at Temari with a look of disbelief. She ignores him. Kankuro watches from the other side of the yard, his eyes shadowed by the hood over his head.
Temari walks with her horse to the path winding through the village, leading out into the desert and to Konoha. She easily mounts Saki and pushes the horse into walking, starting on her way to where she was treated like she should be.
Her home away from home.
A/N: This is my new story. Definitely different from what I usually write, but I wanted to try it. Plus I need all the stories I can get; must get to 100! 59 more to go!
Please review and tell me what you think. So far I like it. It doesn't really matter what I think though, I guess.