AN: And I love the sand trio most of all. Well, at least equally to Kiba, Shikamaru, and Ino. – And Genma and Hana. Hmm, has that couple ever been done?
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9
Sand scuttled absently in the breeze, scraping in a hush across the landscape of Suna; its voice a whisper, and its breath a dry cough, more erosion than memory. Temari likes it that way; absent and empty and rough, just like the sand that keeps her skin soft and dry.
It's nothing like Konoha, with its long-lived trees, and the moist lingering memories – with leaves that fall and re-grow each season, and never forget. Nothing like the rain that falls to mourn death and sorrow, all tears for another memory that will mold and grow and remain. In Suna, the wind blows it all way.
Temari drags her fingers through the sand, drawing tiny sketches of people she hardly knew; people that somehow, still manage to wreck her composure just a little. I didn't even know them. She reminds herself silently, because her brothers are watching her. Her fingers, however, still trace those fleeting memories in the sand. A triangle, a drooping flower, a thin little figure with a wavy shadow. It makes her laugh; these are too insignificant, too silly to be respectful memories. And, she reminds her self: I didn't even know them.
Tomorrow, they leave Suna; her and both of her brothers. Not because the Kazekage of Suna needs to be there, but because Gaara has changed, and he considered them friends, even if he didn't know them either. Perhaps, Temari figures, he did know them, and she just didn't realize it. So tomorrow, they leave for Konoha; they will travel without the company of guards, without the political procession. They will simply be three siblings on their way to say goodbye. Even though they didn't really know them.
Temari glances to her side and catches Kankuro staring at her. His eyes are creased with some unspoken question, but he doesn't ask; at least, he hasn't yet. She twitches a shoulder at him, and it feels like a spasm. Kankuro frowns at her, and she scowls at the concern she sees in his face.
"I think…" Gaara's voice is soft and scratchy, unused, still, to speaking; his words, too, are choppy and unsure. He is still learning to express himself. Temari watches Kankuro's eyes soften, watches him turn slowly to catch Gaara's profile. "I think I will miss them." A soft nod of his head shakes his red hair, punctuates the end of the sentence. Temari's fingers drag through her sand drawings as her hands tighten into fists. Her chest is suddenly heavy and she very nearly struggles in her next breath.
"You hardly knew them." Her voice is weakly disbelieving. Gaara's pale eyes turn to catch hers. It feels, to Temari, that his eyes are absorbing her, reading the book of secrets written beneath her skin. She looks away.
"They were just like us." Gaara tilts his head to the side as he stares at his sister; the frown on his lips is thoughtful. "They could have been us." Somehow, that makes more sense than Temari would like.
"That will never be us." Temari's voice betrays her state; the words waver enough that Kankuro clears his throat, as if it were his voice that had broken. He shifts uncomfortably, uses his fingers and threads of chakra to bring life to one of his puppets. It dances across the sand without purpose.
"You knew one of them a little, didn't you?" Kankuro's voice is slow, deliberately accusatory. Temari watches the puppets shadow dance across the ground, the one crawling its way across the sand toward her; she draws her legs closer to her body and shifts away from the reaching shadow. When she's sure it can't touch her, she lifts her head to scowl at her brother.
"That guy…" Temari wipes her hand across the drawings in the sand, her fingers smear the squiggles harshly and they disappear into the ground. "I didn't really know any of them." Her voice is rough as she speaks, and, she hopes, betrays nothing more than annoyance. Kankuro shrugs, and his eyes linger on her face - perhaps a moment too long - before he turns to watch his puppet.
"I would have liked…" Gaara's voice breaks the silence. His sand whispers quietly at his feet, forming and reforming in indistinct images of people he barely knew. "to have known them better." Temari stares at the shifting sand swirling at her brother's side, and fights, for the second time that day, for her breath.
