A Flame in the Desert
-12-
Rooftop
Aimi shuffled to the barn slowly. She was exhausted after spending the day working in the sun and heat. Her long black hair was dripping wet; she had been at Temari's using the shower. It had been like heaven to feel the warm water coursing over her, washing away all of the sweat and sand and grime. Temari had great-smelling soap too; Aimi now smelled of desert flowers and sandalwood.
She had kissed all three of the kids goodnight, with the assurance that she would spend some quality time with them the next day.
The sun had already disappeared over the horizon, and the coolness of the night was settling in. A light breeze rustled her shirt, now also clean, and pieces of her hair that were already dry.
She approached the barn and was about to enter it and head straight for the hayloft, when she noticed how light everything was. She looked up and saw a brilliant full moon sitting heavily in the sky, illuminating the scenery so that it looked like an ocean of silver. It was absolutely breathtaking.
The girl decided that, instead of going to sleep straight away, she would sit on top of the barn and look up at the moon and stars for a little while.
She walked down the aisle of stalls, stopping to check on Kaen - who was sleeping soundly, apparently also worn out from the day's acitivities – and made her way up to the loft. From there, she crawled carefully out of the small window that was cut into the wall and onto the roof of the barn. Once again, she was so overwhelmed by the spectacular sight of the moonlight on the sand – allowing her to see for miles – that she didn't immediately notice a certain red-haired young man who had already been sitting on the roof, a little further up towards the peak where the two sides of the roof came together.
He was startled again by her sudden and unexpected appearance; she seemed to do that a lot to him: just show up out of nowhere, effectively interrupting his thoughts. He watched with amused eyes as she crawled onto the rooftop, only tearing her gaze from the full moon in the sky to make sure that her hand was on a solid piece of roof before she put her weight on it.
When she had found a comfortable spot to sit in, she pulled her knees up to her chest and turned her gaze up to the night sky. She was absolutely astounded by the flawless beauty of the moon and at the number of stars that she could see so clearly.
A breeze caught some of her fresh scent and wafted it up to him where he sat just above her. He breathed it in and smelled the aroma of the desert on her.
He had gone up to the barn roof to watch the sunset and moonrise. He knew that there would be a full moon that night, and he had wanted to do some thinking without being disturbed, which is why he had chosen to sit on the barn roof. Had he stayed in his office, he would have been bothered by all of the paperwork on his desk and he was positive that someone would come and disrupt him with stupid questions about something unimportant that the idiot who presented the question would figure out on his own anyways. They always did. He was still convinced that he employed a horde of incompetents who were unable to perform even the most menial tasks correctly.
He had also wanted to be on the barn roof because it housed the two creatures who inhabited his thoughts: Kaen and Aimi.
He was excited about Kaen; the colt was finally getting some real training put into him; he was living in the barn like all of the other horses and not running around wildly like a feral animal. Gaara didn't think it would be long before Aimi would be able to put a saddle on Kaen and begin breaking him to ride. And once that happened, he, Sabaku no Gaara, Kazekage of the Suna, would have his horse. The horse he had always dreamed of having, with burning eyes and a coat the color of blood on sand and a fighting spirit, but that was faithful to his rider. That was the horse that Kaen was going to be when Aimi was finished training him.
As far as his thoughts of Aimi were concerned, he was still very confused. He still wondered about the exceedingly sensual scenario that had popped into his head earlier and what it meant. The instant after it had happened, he had convinced himself that it was nothing but a random fleeting thought that somehow got stuck in his head, and that it meant nothing. However, now he wasn't so sure. As he watched her, sitting just yards away from him, the light, warm breeze playing with her long dark hair, he wasn't sure that he felt nothing for her.
He already knew that he was attracted to her strength and beauty; it would be hard for any man not to be. But there was something more about her that captured him, something in her light blue eyes that he had seen on the day he met her when she had engaged him in a stare down to show that she wasn't afraid of him, despite the many rumors and horror stories that she might have heard.
Maybe that was it: The fact that she was willing to get to know him for herself and not simply react to the person that she had heard about. He had seen that she had an understanding nature which allowed her to learn the habits and personality of a creature before she formed any sort of opinion about it.
He wanted to go down to her so that he could hear her voice, breathe in her scent, feel the softness of her jet hair.
He stood and slowly and almost-silently walked down to her. She didn't notice him; she was still hypnotized by the moon. He tentatively reached out and caught a floating strand of her silken hair between two fingers, letting it run smoothly through them, more liquid-like than solid.
It was only when a cloud momentarily covered the glowing orb in the sky that she was able to feel a presence behind her, and she whipped around, nearly smacking him in the face with her long black mane.
He scooted back a few inches, his eyes wary, unsure of how she would react to his close proximity. But once she realized who she was facing, she visibly relaxed.
"Oh, it's just you. You startled me, I thought I was alone up here," she said, a sheepish grin coming across her face.
"I come up here to think sometimes," he replied.
She nodded understandingly. "Yeah, this is a great place for it. I came up to watch the moon; it's so beautiful."
The cloud moved away from the moon, revealing its brilliant light again. Gaara followed Aimi's gaze up to it. They both sat in silent amazement for a few moments.
Gaara managed to tear his sea-green eyes from the moon only to rest them on Aimi's face, softened in the moonlight. He watched as light and shadow moved around, highlighting certain features; her eyes were lit up like the stars and the moonlight wove itself in and out of her hair, making it seem as though it was made of silver and onyx. Her mouth was slightly open in astonishment of the ethereal beauty of the full moon.
She turned to look at him, thinking that he was still watching the sky, and was surprised to see him gazing at her instead. Her breath caught as her hazy blue eyes connected with his intense sea-green ones yet again.
He reached out and touched his fingertips to her face gently, as though she were made of some delicate material and might shatter if she was handled to roughly.
She didn't pull away or freeze up in fear; her eyes showed surprise, that was all. She had thought that she'd figured him out: he was aloof and didn't show much emotion, unless it was anger or frustration. He cared about his brother and sister and the people of the village, but he didn't like to admit that he did, for he valued being seen as a cold, hard person who had nothing to lose and would brutally crush any opponents.
However, he had surprised her on several occasions, one of such moments had occurred just earlier that week. Puchi had been racing around the village square with Kyoukou and Hogosha, while Aimi chased after them playfully, and the tiny girl had not been paying attention to where she was running. She had caught her foot on one of the uneven stones that paved the village and had been about to crash to the ground, when an arm wrapped around her middle, breaking her fall. Aimi had run up just in time to see Gaara set the little girl upright on her feet again. She had paused and watched as he kneeled down in front of the little girl and looked into her sweet face.
"Are you alright?" he had asked her, rubbing a small smudge of dirt off of her cheek.
Puchi nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thank you."
"Alright, then go on and catch up to your brothers. And be careful," he warned gently as Puchi took off again.
Aimi had wondered at this all that day and for the majority of the week, when Kaen wasn't occupying her thoughts. She had known that he wasn't quite as hard on the inside as his outer appearance would have one believe, but she hadn't expected him to be so…so nice, especially with the little girl who he had everyone believing was nothing but a source of annoyance to him.
Now, as they sat on the roof of the barn, lost in each other's steady gaze, with moonlight adding an unearthly beauty to their surroundings, the young horse master realized that there was a lot more to the Kazekage than she had thought. She had only scratched the surface of who he was.
He slid his fingertips from the front of her cheek back to the spot right before her ear, and let his wrist lightly settle there while he reached around for a piece of her hair again. He loved her hair; it was sleeker than the finest silk and softer than the light, airy cotton that was sometimes imported to the village. He wished that he could wrap himself in her hair; bury his face in it and feel that smooth softness against his cheek and inhale the intoxicating desert scents that it gave off.
Her hazy blue eyes never left his while he toyed with her ebony hair. She wondered what he was thinking; the way he looked at her and touched her reminded her of an animal inspecting a newcomer. He leaned in a little, bringing their faces closer together. Aimi felt her heart start to beat a little bit faster and butterflies start fluttering lightly in her stomach. Something caught her eye and she turned her gaze to the red tattoo on his forehead. Not really thinking about it, she reached up and lightly touched it with one finger.
He tensed a little at her touch and stopped running her hair in between his fingers.
She felt him stiffen up and halted her own movements. "What's wrong?" she asked him.
"Nothing, I just…don't really like being touched," he responded.
She smirked slightly. "Then I need to desensitize you." She said.
"You need to what?" he asked.
"Desensitize you. I do it with horses a lot," she replied.
"Oh, I see. Well, just in case you hadn't noticed, I'm not a horse," he grinned slightly.
She rolled her eyes. "Well, obviously, however I think that it'll work the same way for you that it's worked for the horses."
"Hn…what exactly is involved in this desensitizing?"
She seemed to ponder over her answer for a few seconds, watching him all the while. "I don't know if I should tell you or not," she finally said, "I wouldn't want you to see what's coming and then fight against it."
"I don't think it's fair if I don't know what to expect."
"The horses don't always know what to expect, but they suck it up and face it anyways."
"Why do you keep comparing me to a horse?"
She grinned. "Sorry, bad habit."
He gave a little half-smile. "Alright, so when does this 'desensitizing' thing start?" he asked.
"It already has," she stated, looking down.
He followed the direction of her eyes and saw that she had moved her hand that was on the roof, keeping her steady, so that her fingers were between his spread out ones, their sides touching. He gazed at their intermingling fingers with a disbelieving look on his face.
"See?" she said simply turning her eyes back to him. "Not so bad, is it?"
He smiled shortly and thought to himself, I think I might learn to like this 'desensitizing' thing.
