Once, long long ago in what seemed to be another life, Temari had thought she had known pain. She had thought she had understood it, had risen above it in any form it had taken no matter how powerful it was.
She had known the pain of losing a mother and a father, leaving behind only a man who was in no way the father she had once loved. She had known the pain of growing up without knowing that love, and had known the pain of having a brother which everyone feared. And then she had eventually known the pain of that fear herself.
She had created walls of steel and stone around herself and her heart, ones that were soon bathed in blood as she stood on the other side and covered her ears against the screams of those she damned.
She had learned of the pain of being bested by someone that no one had ever expected, even if there were those who still insisted she was the victor. But she had known the truth was that a lazy child had defeated her at the one thing she had even been sure of.
She had felt the sweet pain of having the brother she had never been able to know come back to her, of finally having something not to fear but to care for freely. She had learned how gloriously freeing it was after the painful pinch of the initial fight when it was a fight for something worthwhile.
She had learned about how gently reassuring and scary it was to be trusted with the safety and well-being of so many people, and had felt those little stabbing pinprick pains when they had been threatened.
And then she had known the stabbing pain of having those walls she had hid behind for so long pulled apart stone by irreplaceable stone by an infuriating boy who had suddenly turned into a man, one who wore a lazy smirk that made her stomach tighten in warning.
She had felt the pains of the battles she had survived, of the love she had gained and the life she had earned. She had known terror and had overcome it, had been able to fight past pain and come out the victor. She had always known that she was strong and had felt secure in the knowledge that she would be fine and that nothing could touch her.
She had been so terribly wrong, though she had never learned such truths until it was too late.
This, what she felt now, locked away in the all-consuming darkness with no escape or mercy, was pain. The stench of her burning flesh filling her nose, the cut of a scalpel as it easily split her in two, the cracking of her voice as she screamed for mercy from those who did not have it, the tug of the stitches as they dared to try to piece her back together and the paralyzing chill of the metal table beneath her bare back as their masked faces looked on, devils masquerading as humans.
And the thought of her children and her husband not knowing of her fate, callously moving on with their lives as if she had never been, forgetting her face and forgetting her. That was true pain, pain that threatened to shred her soul.
Sometimes she wondered -on the days when the pain receded enough to allow her to do so- if she was remembering them wrong in her constant effort to never forget their fading faces. Were Asuma's eyes really so big? Kyoko's hair really so silky and soothing to brush? Was her giggle really so sweet and his smile so tiny and soft? Was Shikamaru's smirk really so attractive, his touch truly so firm?
"Stop." Came a familiar scratchy voice from the depths of the darkness.
Temari's head jerked up, blinking as she straightened against the cool stone wall. Her thick and stringy hair tangled down to the middle of her back of her naked and scarred body, now used to the chill the air carried after countless years of being exposed to it and worse.
"What?"
"Stop thinking. I can hear it from over here and it's annoying." Temari tilted her head back against the wall, closing her eyes though it made no difference if they were open or closed. The darkness that she saw was still just as dark either way, though there was something slightly comforting about choosing to feel it instead of it being forced on her.
That was the only choice she was ever given here in hell, whether or not to keep her eyes open or close them.
"I can't stop thinking. It's the only thing the devils haven't taken away from me yet, though I'm just waiting." A high pitched giggle, one that no longer frightened her as it had when she had first heard it. She actually found some comfort in the sound, perhaps because she knew there were much more frightening things outside of the safety of her cell.
"No no no. You know what I'm talking about girly." He giggled again, the sound echoing and surrounding the unlikely pair that were separated what could have been miles of depthless darkness. "Stop thinking about them."
"I can't. I won't." He sighed and she heard the sound of clanking chains as he moved his hands to probably pick up the dish of water he was allowed.
"What you're torturing yourself with in that busy little mind of yours does more damage than what the devils can do to you. So stop thinking about it. Release your feelings as if it were a balloon, watching as it flies away high into the sky, to be eaten by some passing bird."
"I don't think birds eat balloons."
"They could if they wanted to, and this bird wanted to. It happened to find red a very appetizing color."
"Ah, so it was a red balloon."
"But of course. But we're getting off topic."
"And what topic was that?" Silence, one that dragged on and made her question if he was even there, one that made her think that she had simply made him up in a desperate attempt to stave off her loneliness. But she pushed the thought away, forcefully reminding herself that she couldn't think like that. Not if she wanted to keep her screams and sanity in check.
"Screech?" She called out quietly to the man, speaking the name she had given him back in the days that they had first met long ago. So terribly long ago. She just wanted to hear something from him, anything, to confirm the fact that the mentally unstable man was really and truly there.
"Girly, forget about them. Don't make them be the reason you give into the darkness. Don't curse them with your tainted soul." Temari clenched her fists, closing her eyes against the surprising truth that lay in his words.
She knew that she should let them go, along with everything she held close in her heart from her old life. She knew that the chains leading out of her heart that she had wrapped around them must be stifling. But while knowing this, she also knew one more sterling truth.
If she let them go, if she broke those chains to tearfully and selflessly release them. She'd be letting her humanity go along with them. They were her everything, the memories of them the only thing she had to hold dearly in the darkness. When her eyes were open it was their faces she painted on the surface of the deafening black velvet that consumed her every other thought. When her eyes closed and blessedly dreamless sleep surrounding her it was their laughter she heard, their kisses she felt.
Screech sighed in defeat, though Temari knew they would have the same argument again sometime in the near future. She was selfish, especially compared to Screech who had let go of the memories of his family long ago, forgetting their names and faces in a desperate attempt to keep even that little bit of them away from the evil that filled the very air they shallowly breathed.
But she would not forget, even if the devils themselves tortured her with the precious memories.
She let her chin fall forward to her chest, resting before they came to get her again. It was almost time for the tests to begin again; her old wounds were already beginning to scab.
And until then she would remember and swear to never forget, building up her strength so that they wouldn't be able to break her as they so desperately tried to do.
Asuma.
Kyoko.
Shikamaru.
Temari. My name is Temari.
Just a little something about Temari after a couple years of her imprisonment.
I'm trying to keep her strong, but it's difficult to get the balance right because the stuff they do on her is pretty bad and it will mess her up quite a bit.
Kathy gave me this one and once more took over one of my characters.
Screech, yeah, he wasn't supposed to have a name or a back story or even a face. He was just... there. But now he has all of those things.
Is it sad that my muse likes my characters more than me?