A/N: New year, new me, new fanfic.
Here's what you need to know - Orochimaru never roped Suna into his schemes, the Fourth Kazekage is still alive, Gaara never attended the Chuunin exams in Konoha and never got his face smashed in with the awesome power of friendship. Our story begins with a 19 year old Gaara that went through puberty under the thumb of his father, sans Naruto's influence. Enter my poor OC.
Prologue:
Leelu stumbled on the sand again and for a moment she teetered on the steep ridge of a dune, the three distinct figures ahead of her wavering in the heat. She regained her balance by furiously waving her arm and cleared the ridge with a wheeze, her footsteps taking her forward onto sturdier sand. She adjusted the heavy pack on her back with a shaking hand and continued on her way, breath heavy.
The sun beat down on her face as she squinted at her companions' backs, half relieved and half disappointed when they showed no signs of noticing her near tumble. She lowered her gaze again, allowing the white sheet of cloth secured to her head to shade her face. She trudged along, watching her feet land one in front of the other, obeying the gruelling and merciless pace they had set. They hadn't stopped once, hadn't spoken a single word to her or each other since leaving Suna. They just walked, the three of them always a disheartening distance ahead while Leelu pushed herself to keep up.
She didn't know if all Shinobi were this inhumanly fit, or if the Sand Siblings were just particularly practiced at long treks through the dessert. The acted like the sun wasn't glaring at them, like the rolling dunes that sprawled never-ending on the horizon weren't hot enough to fry eggs on.
When Leelu dreamed of escaping Suna, it had never been like this. She never could have predicted that her first voyage into the outside world would be accompanied by an infamous triad of deadly Shinobi – who, apparently, didn't need to drink. No, they subsisted on stern silence and unfair levels of stamina alone, while Leelu quietly dehydrated behind them. Would they even stop if she dropped dead, or would they just avoid her corpse on the return trip?
She wiped peach coloured strands of hair off her sweaty, sand-crusted forehead, and tried really hard to ward off a negative spiral. The Sand siblings weren't exactly know for compassion, but at least the worst they'd done was ignore her.
Temari traveled on the left, her iconic four-ponytails swaying in tune with her gait. She carried her impractically large fan on her back, a burden she shouldered with far more grace than should be allowed. What kind of weapon was a fan anyway? It was established lore in Suna that Temari was more deadly than a dessert cobra, but how she achieved that reputation with a weaponized fan was beyond Leelu. She was beginning to realize how sheltered from the Shinobi world her life had been, despite growing up in the Hidden Village. Was the fan really sharp? Or did she hit them with it like a club? How effective could waving it at an enemy really be?
Kankurou's weapon was even more mysterious, though context led her to believe it had to be some sort of puppet. Kankurou travelled on the right, dressed in a traditional black puppeteer costume. He was a puppeteer Shinobi, so the big, bandaged, man-sized thing on his back with the tuft of what looked suspiciously like human hair sticking out the top was probably a puppet. Hopefully. She had been trying not to look at it too closely. The endearing, cat like stubs atop his cloth-hat were better to focus on.
The weapon of the third Sand Sibling was the only one she thought she understood. Gaara was the most notorious of the three, and the giant gourd he carried was a helpful red flag to all in Suna. If you saw those distinctive black designs and calabash shape the recommended practice was to drop what you were doing and find somewhere else to be. Gaara of the Desert was a bloodthirsty fiend that controlled sand with his mind, and carried it in a gourd everywhere he went to help him spread calamity and death. He was malevolence made flesh, the weapon that Suna despised and coveted. A 'Jinchuuriki' - a demon container.
Leelu had heard so many stories about this man and if even one of them were true he was a monster. His hair was that shade of red because he showered so regularly in blood. He drank it too – soaked it up in his sand and devoured it like gory mud-soup. He killed men, women and babies indiscriminately and that was the only time he ever smiled. The monster that lived inside him wouldn't allow him to sleep and devoured his sanity at night, which was why his unsettling, pale eyes were smudged with charcoal markings and why his personality was so unfortunate. Many of the sandstorms that hit Suna were just the aftershocks of a psychotic tantrum he had thrown, way out in the dessert where no one could hear his enraged screams. He once killed a man for stuttering.
Etc.
The latest rumour was that someone had been stupid enough to try and poison what, by all accounts, was the unholy avatar of the Devil himself and the events that followed had been predictably messy. Leelu had heard that the Kazekage's estate was now short-staffed by a half and they had been cleaning blood and viscera off the walls for days.
This sort of gossip – exchanged in hushed voices with inappropriate levels of excitement – was just about the only entertainment Suna freely provided to someone of her social position. By the time these reports reached her small corner of the world - the slave quarters in Councilman Natsuo's home – she tended to assume the workforce grapevine had done its thing and the details were somewhat embellished. Leelu certainly embellished when she shared the tales – she was pretty sure she started the rumour about the blood soup. That was the fun of it.
But she had recently learned through more reliable sources that Gaara of the Desert had indeed been poisoned two weeks ago, had indeed gone beserk, and – most relevant to her current predicament – had promptly quit eating. This was not common knowledge, because allowing it to get around that Suna's ultimate weapon was wasting away on a diet of pure paranoia would be a "diplomatic disaster", as her master had put it to her that morning. No one really liked to acknowledge it, especially not Natsuo, but Suna's best weapon was also its best defence and when you're the Hidden Village equivalent of a playground bully, a good defence is key.
Leelu wasn't sure how much longer Gaara's condition could have remained unnoticed without intervention. She had seen him around the village on a few occasions, and the man had always had a spectral quality but now he was positively wraith-like. His pale skin was marred with the shadows of hollow cheekbones, his red trench coat hung noticeably loose on his frame. The only reason he was able to travel through the desert in the blistering heat with a literal ton of sand on his back was because he'd been popping soldier pills like candy.
She didn't know what Gaara's long term plan was – if it was true that he had never slept, maybe he just assumed that universal medical consensus didn't apply to him and starvation was totally survivable. Who knew what went on in a mind like that. All Leelu knew was the chain of events that had led her to this mess.
Her master wanted to gain favour with the Kazekage. The Kazekage's son had been poisoned and gone even further off the deep end than usual. Then, after almost two weeks of starving he'd demanded a mission (to sate his hunger with blood, some part of her mind whispered almost mischievously) and the Kazekage had been at a loss. On the one hand, Gaara was in no shape for a mission. On the other hand, he was in good enough shape to make life very unpleasant in Suna if he didn't get his way. She was sure Natsuo had been salivating at the situation by the time he traded her life for that small, appreciative nod he'd been gunning for since he entered politics when they were sixteen. The Kazekage could barely convince his slaves to remain in the same house as Gaara without mutinying, let alone get them to help the man who'd probably killed a few people they rather liked. Gaara apparently wasn't sold on the idea of help from anyone, but Leelu had been a necessary compromise to get him his mission.
Natsuo made headway on whatever dumb political agenda he had going on, the Kazekage got an easy solution to an annoying problem, Gaara got his mission and Leelu got a new master.
She was now the official property of Gaara of the Desert, and the pack she carried was filled to the brim with healthy, nutritious trail rations that she would dutifully test for him so he could start eating again. Leelu had questioned the rational of this being a legitimate counter-measure to poison. What if she tested the food and everything seemed fine, but it turned out to have been a slow poison? Then they'd both be dead.
But apparently, Gaara's immense Chakra and other mysterious qualities gave him a certain level of immunity to poisons. Basically, if a lowly slave like Leelu didn't die immediately from sniffing it, the poison wasn't potent enough to kill Gaara.
On the topic of immunity, Leelu found herself hoping once more that her status as gatekeeper to a steady food supply would keep her alive and unharmed through this journey. If she did survive, she knew that her life would be irrevocably changed. Her new master was a volatile sociopath at best, and evil incarnate at worst.
Only time would tell, but Leelu vowed to do everything in her power to keep the man satisfied. She would not be another forgotten victim to Gaara of the Desert. She would make herself useful and keep him as close to happy as he ever got.
And then one day, when she was stronger, she would learn how to fly and leave Suna far, far behind.
A/N: So this is the first thing I've written in like...almost two years. Got into Naruto over December and over the last week scenes have just been popping into my head relentlessly. This is the first time I've properly plotted out a story, and the first time I know exactly how it ends in my time as a writer. Leelu is also the first OC whose character I feel like I truly grasp. I hope you enjoy getting to know her.
Anyway, this little prologue is a big step for me. My folks divorce three years ago knocked my muse off a cliff but it looks like that sucker survived the fall, and finally the words are flowing again. It would mean so much if you could leave a review.
