A.N.: I wrote a fic called Silver Lily on my other account years ago that I've now deleted. I tried rewriting, completely failed, and decided to just scrap it and recycle the OC. I haven't written a fic with an OC in it in a really long time, but I'm having fun writing this and I hope you enjoy.
Bad Luck
The trek up the side of the mountain will take days to complete, and from what they've been informed, the cave sits nearest the top. There's supposed to be some sort of village near a Cliffside around the western face, and here they will request the assistance of a few locals in order to find it. Something about some mystical force, concealing its whereabouts. Only bypassed by those who have lived alongside it for years on end. Whether they believe this or not, their contractor doesn't care to know. The job is to locate, extract the valuables, and hand them off as instructed. It's supposed to be simple, the suggested due date will be a week from today. But Temari projects they can halve that.
This is the reason they have made this trip alone, unsupervised by their sensei.
Simple enough.
"Should be a quarter mile from here," Temari says, glancing up and down the path they're following. "We can get some rest, regroup, figure out how we're gonna pull this off."
The weather is nice, a soft breeze lifts up under the leaves and cools the sweat that's accumulated from their hike. Without the rancid smell of the more industrialized network of villages at the base of the mountain, the foliage surrounding them on almost all sides comes sharp. Pervasive. Impossible to ignore. It creates the dual sensation of comfort, and alienation. They are not accustomed to this. The shade underneath the trees beckons, as it should. But without the need to heed its call.
Kankuro swipes at his brow and as such, he smears the paint he has layered thick upon his face. "I need a shower," he replies with a sigh.
The humidity up here is awful, and paired with how thin the air is it becomes unbearable to be here.
"There," Temari points, and it takes a moment for her brothers to find what she's found.
The trees crowd thick, it is only through the barest cracks the first signs of human life are visible. Some sort of architecture, unnatural. Very obviously manmade. There's this wood building, shimmering under the afternoon sun. There's chittering, but it could just be some birds hidden away in the green. It is enough sign for them.
The buildings are scattered at first, each crafted out of the surrounding trees and finished to a shine. They are topped with tightly weaved bamboo roofs, rudimentary to the point of contempt. The older siblings glance at one another, almost certain that what they'll be met with will be less than pleasant. Some antiquated system. Spewing nonsense. Believing so completely in the mystiques they will leave no room for debate. But the deeper they wander, the more open the area becomes. The path more distinguishable. The homes they come upon are intricate, beautiful. There is fruit growing in small gardens wherever the soil holds, mindfully tended to if the color says anything.
This is about the time they run into the first of them, some toddler stumbling out into the open naked and giggling. Their mother, swooping in behind them to finish the bath, and catching sight of the three across the way.
She is dressed in pretty shawls, jewels decorating her from the necklaces looped down her chest to the bracelets up to her forearms. There are rings on her fingers, and paint on her face. Her hair looks like silk, coiled into a bun with an elegant pin. Her first reaction upon seeing them is to smile invitingly.
"Is there someone around we can speak to?" Temari asks, coming forward when nobody makes the move to. "A... An elder, perhaps?"
It's hard to tell what the lingo here is, how regressed this village truly is. They were told it'd been largely untouched by the new world developments, and by the lady's attire this isn't hard to believe. Only exposure will tell, and they don't have much time on their hands as is.
"Follow this path," the woman tells them, holding her child close. "At the heart of the village, you will find help."
The heart of the village is a sort of marketplace, with much activity rolling through. On the outskirts is the cliff, the houses built there scant and sturdy. Everyone is dressed most similarly, shawls and robes and breathable fabric. One way or another, they are a highly decorative people. Some covered head to toe in ink, and others adorned with jewelry. They gleam under the sun prettily, golden brown skin and sleek dark hair and pearly teeth. The siblings amble about inquiring after some sort of leader among them and when they finally find him, they are taken aback.
Some tall, looming man with piercings in the face. He is squatted in this modest home with clay pots lined outside, and doesn't look at all surprised when they tell him why they're there.
"I'd heard something about that," he replies, waving them into his home almost indifferently. Incense is burning somewhere in some other room, somebody unseen moving about across his home. Maybe a wife. Maybe a child. He looks both young enough to be unmarried, and old enough to be a father. "Some voyagers passed through here hoping to bank off some legend they'd heard about. I didn't have any reason to deny them access, so I lent them a guide and when they came back they got all secretive. Musta told, once they got back to where they came from."
He's got sharp, golden eyes. When Kankuro glances at his sister, the man seems to catch it.
"I don't care what you do," he says, crossing his arms. "Just don't desecrate that cave. It's been there longer than we have. Fresh water filters through there. We depend on it. And so we respect it. You need to do the same."
"Our village didn't send us," Temari feels the need to clarify, holding up one hand. "We were contracted by another. They only asked for a certain amount. That's all we'll take."
He stokes the fire sitting in a pit at the center of the room. It's low, and in all possibility he may be intending to eat soon. "You're looking for a guide," he surmises, shifting his weight on the balls of his feet.
"And a place to stay the night," Kankuro interjects, and then quickly amends when Temari gives him a look. "Or we could camp out, it's fine."
"There's room," the man dismisses with a wave of his hand. "I'll offer you what I have, but you'll have to choose the guide."
At their perplexed looks, the man gives a defeated sigh.
"It's ritualistic," he says, turning his hands up toward the ceiling. "There used to be this belief that having outsiders choose laid the foundations of their trip, and in turn decides the outsiders' fates. If the choice is fortuitous, so too would the outcome. It's an old wives' tale at this point, but it's important to my people and it's my second condition."
"That's fine," Temari says, straightening. "Is there a third?"
He considers this, scratching at his right ear. It's mangled at the shell, as if it'd been bitten off by an animal. "Don't pick the shaman kid."
She exchanges glances with her brothers. "Why?"
"Bad luck," he says, although this seems to ring strange. "The kid's training to be a shaman for a reason. Spirits follow her like a plague, and, to be perfectly honest, the other villagers don't completely trust her for it."
.x.
They hold a sort of feast in welcome, there at the center of the village. Tables are assembled at the middle and the dishes are brought out from individual homes. At one end, their young chief sits with his equally young wife and lifts his cup in their direction, just beside him. On the other end, some old woman strikes some stone against another and the villagers clink their cups hard enough to slosh their drinks into the each other. The pork is fresh made, some pig had been caught the other day and here it sits roasted to perfection.
Her brothers eat ravenously and Temari leans toward the young chief to ask, "When's the earliest we can go?"
His wife replies, instead, "Do you have a place to stay for the night?"
She's beautiful, soft at the face and with eyes like honey. Much smaller than her lanky husband, but undoubtedly commanding in presence. She folds a gentle hand over his to settle him, and immediately he redirects his attention. She is far too good for him, at first glance. Where he is rugged and intimidating, she is sweet and warming. But they fit a balance, and without ever raising her voice she speaks over him. Offsetting him.
"Why not with us?" she asks, before Temari can say anything. "We have space."
"I figured the inn," the chief says, not quite disagreeing.
"We have space," she repeats, and that's that.
.x.
Morning comes sooner than they'd like. The hike had been more exhausting than they'd anticipated, combined with the enormous meal and the private baths offered to them they hadn't stood a chance. Of course, the first of them to rise is the youngest. Temari cracks open her eyes as he opens up the windows to the early sun, and can't help the scowl she makes in response.
"The village is awake," Gaara informs her. "We're allowed to go out and find a guide."
"What about breakfast," Kankuro croaks from under his blankets.
"There's some in the kitchen," Gaara replies, stepping around them. "I already ate."
They pack their things but leave the bags in the room. There's no telling if they'll be leaving today, how much preparation their guide will need. Outside, there are already children playing under the sun. Farmers embarking on their trek back down the side of the mountain. Some people sit in front of their homes braiding baskets, others tend to their small gardens. There is no worry here.
It is a peaceful existence.
They find the chief around the side of his home, scraping clean some pots in an outer sink. There are pieces of unfinished furniture around him, perhaps a crib in the making. He glances up at them as they approach, twisting shut the faucet and wiping his hands on a rag.
"How do we go about this?" Temari asks, breaking off first. "Do we just—go up to whoever we want?"
"Anyone within reason," he says, rolling his shoulders. "Nobody too old or young to make the journey. They know why you're here. You've got the whole village at your disposal."
"Thank you," Temari says after a moment. "For this. We'll be out of your way as soon as possible."
He only shrugs. "There isn't much excitement here. They're just as eager to help."
"How many of you know the layout?"
"We all do. It's a rite of passage here to climb the top of the mountain. 'Round the age of thirteen, we get to see the cave for ourselves."
Temari returns to her brothers with only half a plan. "I'm giving us an hour to decide on this. Nobody over the age of fifty for practicality's sake. As far as I've been made aware, the people with the freshest memory are in their early teens. That, or anyone with children in their early teens. If we come to an agreement, that's the one we choose. We don't have all the time in the world to investigate every single person here. As soon as we pick, we get going. Got it?"
.x.
It takes less than an hour. Many of the people fitting the qualifications are farmers, off to harvest their crops miles down. They're mostly left with the young, and of those half are attending lectures for the day. Temari narrows it down to five, and when she gathers them up to question she finds herself coming up empty-handed. One of the conditions she gives is the ability to handle themselves in the wilderness; self-sufficiency is key here. Most of these children have never stepped foot outside of this village without adult supervision.
"Is there," Temari says, rubbing at her temples, "anyone else?"
"I saw someone," Gaara pipes up, nodding toward the path leading toward the cliff side. "They looked young."
They're further down the path, a small figure ambling toward the last home nearest the cliff's edge. They carry a large clay pot, perhaps filled with fresh water for how much they struggle with it. Of the three, Kankuro is the first to hurry forward to catch the other end before it can angle too far to the side.
It's difficult to discern their gender. Taller than Gaara, with close cropped hair and heavily cloaking robes. They have warm brown skin and pale hair. It is moments before they lift their eyes, mumbling thanks to the boy supporting the other end of the pot. When they do, they find Temari's first. They are a startling blue, and in that moment Temari feels a strange chill down her spine.
If she'd believed in the sort of thing, she would have immediately known just who this is.
They're just shy of the hour mark Temari gave them.
They choose to assume this is a boy they're speaking to. The voice is low but not as low as her brothers', the gait neutral and unaffected. Nothing about them indicates femininity, even the way they sit on the porch of their home alludes nothing.
So this boy, leaving the pot of water on the porch, tells them, "I climb up there a lot. These houses don't have running water yet, it's still a new system in the village and it'll take longer to dig in the pipes for it."
"They don't lend you water from the village?" Kankuro asks.
"To the closer houses," the boy replies, nodding toward the other homes back the way they came. "But that's mostly because they've got little ones there. They're young families, they take priority. It's only me and my father here. I'm old enough to collect from the stream now, I don't wanna be too much bother."
"You've been to the cave?" Temari asks, folding her arms.
"Of course," the boy says with a shrug. "Lots of times. The best water comes from there."
She glances at both her brothers. "Do you know why we're here?"
.x.
"Call me Gin," he tells them, standing from his place on the porch. "I just need to pack a bag and tell my father I'll be going."
"Right," Temari sighs, wiping her hands on her skirt. "We'll head back to get our things. Do we meet you back here?"
Gin shakes his head, moving toward the door. "Meet me at the mouth of the trail. We'll get going immediately."
The chief is turning over the soil in someone else's garden when they find him again, packs on hand, to inform him they found a guide. He leans back on his haunches to squint up at them. After a moment of silence, he stands up with a grunt. "Take some food for the road."
"Ah—we shouldn't," Temari says, holding up her hands.
"I'm not the one offering."
His wife had collected dishes from various villagers, packed them a bag, and left it with her husband before heading out for her shop down the mountain with the farmers. He hands it off to Temari, who hands it off to Kankuro, and sends them on their way.
"Remember my conditions," he reminds them, folding his arms. "There's been irreparable damage before, by people we've chosen to trust. If it comes back to me you've done something you shouldn't have, I'm gonna make damn sure none of you ever step foot in that place again."
Kankuro leans into Temari's space as they walk away. "Does he mean that?"
"Of course he does," she hisses back. "Just, don't touch anything when we get there. That goes for the both of you."
.x.
They don't wait long. Gin hurries toward them as soon as he catches sight of them, standing at the trail's end as promised. He carries a bag on his back, strapped by a thin string across the torso. The cloak he's chosen nearly drags on the floor, the hood long and draping down his back. He has a walking staff, cut from a sturdy wood and warped at the neck.
"Thanks for waiting. He had a few requests," Gin explains.
The trail is well worn, the grass growing away from it at a thin line. The incline is not yet steep, the further up they go the harder it will be to walk. Stones begin to sprout from under the ground at varying shapes and sizes, but it remains as verdant the whole way through. There are trees growing from every gap they possibly can, and before the sun sank beyond the horizon the trail had led them into a sort of forest.
"We're gonna follow the arrowheads from here," Gin informs them, pointing out the metal shards embedded in the tree barks. "They'll take us out toward the edge. We'll have better visibility then."
"Where do we set up for the night?" Temari asks, falling into step beside him. "We were told it would take a little while to get there."
"We can get there by the end of today," Gin says, glancing between arrowheads. "But if we stay out for the night, it's best to stay out of the woods."
"Why?" Kankuro cuts in from the back. The formation they've taken is lopsided. They allow Gin to take the lead, with the other boys lagging around the back. There'd been mention of missing lunch but Temari is determined to cover as much ground as possible.
"The, uh, seal they put on this cave falls over most of this area of the mountain. There's no way of getting to it without passing through here. It has the habit of making outsiders lose their way, particularly around here. If we stay out in the open, it won't affect you so much."
"Can we get there today?" Temari presses on.
"Yes and no," Gin replies, angling his staff away from himself. "We'll reach the location by day's end. But we can't enter the cave at night."
At their perplexed looks, Gin gives a wry smile.
"The seal lets up under daylight."
.x.
It is well past nightfall by the time they reach what Gin tells them is the mouth of the cave. It looks nothing more than the opening to another forest, framing the edges of a well-worn path. Hardly any stone. Only the gentle slope of the mountain nearing its top. Here, Gin asks them to set up camp for the night. He sits himself on a flattened boulder a little ways off, rifling through his bag for a small knife to slice an apple he had picked earlier in their trip.
He declines to join their meal, and when asked why he simply says, "I can't eat meat right now."
Temari chalks it up to religion, turning over the wood in their little fire wordlessly as her younger brother fires off needless questions. When they turn in for the night, Gin mentions needing to be up before the sun rises in order to continue on. He doesn't set up a tent, or lay out a mat to sleep on. He stays on his chosen boulder and watches the fire die out silently as they fall asleep.
Gaara lies on his side, his back to the other boy. A cricket is singing from somewhere in the dark, a sliver of a moon weakly painting the leaves. He blinks, vaguely tired from the day, and doesn't immediately react when Gin speaks up.
"You don't sleep?"
The wording is strange. He doesn't answer right away, searching the darkness under the ferns for that cricket. Still singing. "I have...a form of insomnia," he says, carefully considering his response. There are only so many ways to explain this.
Gin, too, doesn't speak right away. A very long, very pregnant silence stretches between them. Gaara's almost certain that is a reply in and of itself, knowing and unsurprised. "I see," Gin says, slowly. "Same here. So to speak. It comes and goes."
Gaara doesn't say anything, mouth snapped shut as he waits for him to continue.
"Do you wanna see something weird?"
Gin leads him through the undergrowth, reassuring that they can and will find their way back to his siblings. Ordinarily it'd be too dark to see, the moon does very little to light the way. But Gin doesn't lead him very far, ducking under drooping branches and holding them aside for him to pass through. Around this particular bend is the stream the chief had mentioned before, filtered out from what he supposes is the cave. It falls down an opening in the rocks higher up, and creates a small pool before trickling out through another, smaller opening.
"That's not the weird part," Gin says when Gaara turns to look at him. "I learned about this when I was real little, the very first time I came here. Back then, a lot of the other kids still couldn't see the cave so they either couldn't see what I saw, or they didn't believe I could see it at all. You know how kids are. They'll trust almost anyone, but they're also deeply suspicious."
Gaara does know. It's a part of childhood he's painfully familiar with. He just doesn't confirm this.
"The water in the cave has special properties, though I can't say for sure what they are. I haven't figured that out myself." Gin moves toward the water, crouching down at its bank. "This water is the closest source, so it reacts kind of the same."
He extends his left arm, tapping the tip of his middle finger against the water. The moon had been reflecting off it, pale against its dark, gently rippling surface. Upon contact, the water begins to glow—a brilliant blue like that of the sky. Brighter, even.
There are fish, long and slender silhouettes at its center. They glide through the water in circles, never quite touching. Gaara watches them, and knows Gin is in turn watching him. Gauging his reaction.
For as long as Gin keeps his finger in the water, the glow doesn't fade. Gaara can't tear his eyes away, and he can't explain why. It stretches toward the stream trickling out toward the edge, and fades as it spills down. He traces back toward the opening in the rocks, where it glows even brighter. If at all possible.
And then, just like that, Gin retracts his hand. The light dies out, and Gaara has to blink a few times to adjust his eyesight.
It is so desperately dark without it.
"I don't know what that is," Gin tells him, shaking the wet from his hand and pushing himself up to stand. "But, apparently, only certain people can see it."
Gaara furrows his brow.
"You already know outsiders can't see the cave until they're already inside. That's just how it works; the seal acts as a barrier all outside of the cave."
Gin allows a beat to pass, turning toward the water again. He takes Gaara's silence as answer enough.
"They usually tell outsiders that all of the villagers can see it, but that's not completely true. Most have to unlearn the affects, overcome them. It's not easy. That's why you have to start young. The barrier targets the mind, kinda like a…genjutsu. I think they're called. Ordinarily, in a shinobi's case, you can make the right hand signs and deactivate it. But not always. Whoever made the seal made it so that the source is hard to pinpoint. It might be in the cave, it might be out here. It might be at the bottom of the mountain, infecting everyone who unknowingly crosses it."
Gaara shifts his weight from one leg to the other. Gin runs one palm over the tiny bristles of hair on his head, sighing.
"This isn't a genjutsu, if you're wondering," Gin guesses correctly. "They call it spiritual, and it's selective. Only a fraction of the outsiders that come here can see this pond, and only a fraction of that can see the cave itself."
Gaara's mouth feels dry. He doesn't know where Gin is going with this.
Gin looks at him straight on, searching his face. "I'm supposing you can't see the cave."
.x.
A.N.: So I think around the age of thirteen, Gaara's like 4'8" (148 cm). Gin would be around 5' (155-ish cm).