CONVERSATIONS WITH GAARA
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto OR Gaara. I do own me though so HAH!
A/N: This is a spin-off of Soshite's (Keiri-chan's) fan fiction 'Blatant Self Insertion' (1895026) in which she and I get sucked into Naruto-world to foster over the various orphans. I get to be Gaara's foster mother. There are many things about life that Gaara needs to be taught and I can imagine that if you could get over the fear that he would kill you, Gaara would be a really interesting person to have philosophical conversations with. So here are some of those philosophical (and some not quite so philosophical) dialogues that I would have with Gaara, if I could.
CONVERSATION 1: LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR...
The sun was setting over the desert in the Hidden Village of the Sand, creating an almost blinding orange glare as its light glanced off the little shiny granules. It was a spectacular sight: a fiery orange sea, but it was a sight lost on the two figures, or rather what appeared to be one figure and a rather large globule of sand, standing on a balcony of the former Kazekage's mansion at the edge of the village.
The peace of the scene was suddenly rent by the outraged yell of a young woman.
'GAAARRRRRAAAAAAA!!!!!!' yelled the one voice in the entire world that Lord Gaara of the Sand feared. Gaara, shifting his gaze towards the entranceway to the balcony, froze in mid-action, vainly trying to hide what he was doing behind his back. This wasn't very successful as the object in question was larger then he, and floating in mid air.
'Yes Mother?' he tried to ask innocently, but his pale eyes gave him away in their guilty look.
'Gaara,' the short curly-haired girl said, appearing in the entranceway and glancing at him over her glasses in a particularly dangerous way. She held up one finger, 'First of all, I am not your mother. I would have had to have you at the age of eight to be so, and besides being very, very unlikely, that is extremely icky. Secondly,' here she held up another finger, 'how many times have I told you not to kill the servants? Now let him go.'
Gaara pouted at this but loosened the stranglehold his sand had on the unfortunate servant of his manor so that he could breathe again.
'But he looked at me funny,' Gaara pouted.
'Let him GO, Gaara,' the girl replied, her green and brown eyes still glaring over her glasses and her hands now on her hips, 'this INSTANT.'
Gaara pouted more but let the man drop, mumbling, 'Yes Mother.' The man who had been imprisoned by the 'desert tomb' scrambled away as fast as his crushed legs could carry him, glancing back suspiciously at the two people left standing on the balcony.
Eri watched the servant go and sighed. Even when she'd saved his life, he still didn't trust her. Shaking these thoughts and turning back to look at her charge she said, 'Please, Gaara-kun, call me Eri.' Eri walked over to where Gaara was standing in the centre of the balcony and ruffled his hair. Gaara glared at her with crossed arms, refusing either to call her by her name or to be soothed by the one person who could touch him without dying a horrible sandy death.
Eri sighed. She knew she would never win that particular battle. For some reason Gaara insisted on calling her 'Mother' no matter how strange it seemed. Instead, Eri walked passed him to the railing of the balcony, looking wistfully out over the Land of the Sand.
'Love thy neighbour' she whispered, half to herself, 'as you love thyself.'
'What?' Gaara asked, turning to look at his foster mother.
'It's a saying we have where I come from. It's from a holy book we have, called the Bible, or, in my faith, the Torah (1).'
' "Love thy neighbour"?' Gaara repeated sceptically. Nevertheless, he walked over to the railing to stand next to Eri.
' "As you love yourself," yes.' Eri continued. She turned so that she was leaning on her side, looking at Gaara who was gazing out over the sun-drenched village.
'My grandfather always said that the Torah doesn't really command you to love your neighbour, but to love yourself.'
At this Gaara glanced at her sharply. 'But it does SAY to "love thy neighbour,"' he pointed out.
'No, it says to love him, or her,' she added, sticking her tongue out at male supremacy everywhere, 'as you love yourself. How can you love another person if you can't even love the most important person in your life?'
Eri paused to give Gaara a contemplative look, 'Do you love yourself, Gaara-kun?'
Gaara stared glumly at his hands, pondering this question. He had long ago found out that it was no use lying to Eri. She seemed to know everything about him. It was kind of creepy at times.
'No,' he replied after a long time.
'Why not, Gaara-kun?' Eri asked him gently.
'Because...' he faltered, searching for the right words, 'because I am a demon.'
'No you're not. You just HARBOUR a demon,' his caretaker clarified.
'People don't seem to think so,' he muttered bitterly.
'Hmmm... maybe, maybe not. Have you ever given any thought to the fact that they might hate you because you kill them?'
'I kill them because they hate me.'
'They don't hate you, you know, they're just frightened of you. They don't see you like I do,' with this Eri reached out to ruffle Gaara's hair again. This time he allowed himself to be soothed and closed his eyes both in relaxation and against the sun, which had now sunk to a golden sliver above the sand dunes of the horizon.
'So... you mean, if I learn to love myself,' he puzzled out after a while, opening his eyes, 'then I won't get so mad at people all the time, and they won't hate me so much?'
'It's worth a try,' Eri replied, smiling at her 'son.'
Gaara frowned. This sounded weak to him.
'It's not being weak to show compassion and mercy, Gaara,' she said, in that creepy way she had of reading his mind. The taciturn boy simply blinked slowly at her.
'In fact,' she continued, 'it shows great strength, especially for you, who must control the demon as well as yourself. I believe that if you try it, you may find that the villagers will actually come to respect you more as a man of justice than a man of power.'
There was another pause as Gaara let this idea sink in. Eri absentmindedly stroked his hair as he thought. Gaara would rather die than admit it, but he had discovered that he enjoyed being patted like this very much. It was very comforting.
'How do I learn to love myself?'
'Well... that's a difficult question to answer, Gaara honey. I can help you a little, but it's mostly something you have to come to by yourself. You have to realise that you are a worthwhile human being, not a demon. I believe you use your ability to kill people to prove you exist?'
Gaara nodded.
'That's very Hegelian.'
'What?' Gaara asked.
'Hegel. He's a philosopher, darling, but that's another conversation'
'I'm confused,' Gaara complained.
'So am I,' Eri admitted, 'I think we should continue our conversation tomorrow. I can teach you about Hegel. You'd like Hegel; he's right up your alley. So! What have we learned today?'
'Ummm... that in order to love your neighbour you have to love yourself?' Gaara asked hesitantly.
'Right!' Eri said proudly. 'And?'
'And that if you treat people with compassion and mercy, they will respect you. Though I doubt it,' he added sceptically.
'Well, most people will. You'll see. Now run along and play,' Eri said making shooing motions with her hands.
Gaara crossed his arms in disgust. 'I DON'T play,' he said coldly.
'Fine then,' Eri replied, 'stay out here and sulk. I'm going to go pretend that I actually sleep at night. Goodnight, Gaara.'
'Goodnight Mother.'
And at that, she left him in the waning sun to think over the conversation they had just had.
A/N
Boy is it strange to talk about yourself in the third person... ;;
Okay... present to anyone who can guess how old I am and what religion I was born into. I was kinda guessing at Gaara's age actually... I'm kinda assuming he's the same age as my proper brother... who scarily looks a lot like Gaara... but with eyebrows and brown hair.
Many thanks to Volandum for going through this story with me to prevent major grammatical errors.
This chapter was very philosophical, but I did say it was going to be. Next one won't be so bad though, it'll be about why Keiry-chan wants to get Naruto and Gaara together.
Please review, even if this is really only for my own amusement.
Kat (Eri-chan)