Trials
Part 1: Chill in the Wind
When Princess Temari, the Iron Fan, came in from her final watch, she sat down beside her Kazekage (who was also her brother) and told him, "there's a chill in the wind."
She ran her fingers through her hair, loosening sand grains which dribbled neatly onto the floor and then into a pile. She propped up her fan on the village leader's mahogany desk and looked out over the cone-shaped houses with eyes too old for a woman so young.
The Kazekage looked at her, then out at the rising sun as it spread over his domain. He stood to come beside her. Shoulder to shoulder, they watched the endless horizon.
"A chill?" the Kazekage asked, and his voice was even, cool and dry. His sister nodded and that was that. They continued to stand, two sentinels, watching the barest of movements as the Village Hidden in the Sand began to wake up.
As a single mind, they began to move- to break the moment, and go on with the day. But at the last second, as their combined breath came in and they began to shift, a dissonant chord caught their attention, a strange note in the soft breath of wind.
Far below, in the empty main courtyard of the citadel, there was a crow, and a man. The man tilted his head in a way not unlike cats, offering one arm as though in prayer, or perhaps salvation. Head to toe he was dressed in black and he was the dissonance, the strangeness to the wind. The bird hovered over the man and both could see that there was a note, tied to its leg.
Nothing new; just a message from the Playhouse, received by a puppeteer, who was extending one long hand to grasp the parchment between agile gloved fingers and at that moment, that precise moment, Gaara Sabaku- Kazekage of the village of Sunakagure-no-Sato- felt his sister's chill.
Both knew that a change had come.
And nothing would be the same.
A/N: I know, I know, what business have I to start another multi-chapter when Coping isn't even finished yet, but this demanded that it be written. The next chapters, obviously, will be longer. For Jonyuu, who wished to know more. Cookies for anyone who recognizes the Caithworld Suna superstition.