Trouble Brewing in the House of Sand
Chapter 2: Rosemary's Daughter and Son
Given that only two Kages ever get any press, it can be safely inferred that Sand and Leaf have fairly close ties, and it wasn't exactly hard for Mrs. Kazekage and the Hokage to keep up their affair.
One night, it happened that Yondaime was staying in Suna on some sort of diplomatic occasion, and he and his two hosts were sitting in the living room, drinking coffee spiked with a shot of alcohol and trying to act like they were all just good friends. (Instead of secret lovers or leaders of villages that were thinly-disguised rivals.)
As they were making sundry conversation, the baby monitor started crying.
"I'll get her," offered the Kazekage, walking out. A moment later his voice came on the monitor. "Hey, Temari! What's wrong, baby? Oh, don't cry, Daddy's here!"
"Yeah, he's in the living room having coffee with Mommy," Rosemary snorted. She set down her coffee. "Yondaime, we need to talk."
"I already promised to help with her college," he said hurriedly.
"No, not about Temari. About all this. We need to stop."
"Aw, Rose-chan, we haven't even begun," Yondaime laughed gently, kissing her neck.
"No, for real," she said, pulling away. "I'm married." Casanova Hokage (he did train under Jiraiya, right?) pulled closer, slipping his hands under her shirt. "Yondy!" she giggled nervously, blushing, "my husband is in the next room!"
Suddenly, Yondaime pulled away from her. "You're right," he said seriously. "This is wrong."
"Very wrong," Rosemary confirmed.
"I mean, I'm working with your husband to keep peace between two nations that have been at war for centuries. The fate of hundreds of people rest on my shoulders... we're only two people... we can't sacrifice all those lives for our own happiness."
"You're right. It would be selfish to give in to our love..."
"It can never be."
Rose nodded. "Actually," she said with a grin, "that's kind of hot."
"Yeah, it is," Yondaime agreed.
And nine months later, Kankuro was born.
Meanwhile, during those nine months:
Rosemary's daughter was, by all accounts, an odd child. She didn't speak in any tongue her family could understand, but she prattled away constantly in a strange-little girl language, and didn't seem inclined to pick up any words besides the ones she invented herself. In fact, nobody understood a word Temari said except for the teakettle.
The teakettle was evil. Nobody was entirely sure where it came from or how it got to be evil, only that it was. It had been handed down in the Kazekage's family for generations and served no function besides hissing and entertaining Temari.
"Mr. Shukaku, if I rub you three times, do I get a wish?" she would ask in Temarese.
"No, you just get soot on your hand," the teakettle would answer in a series of hisses that only Temari could translate.
"Oh. Well, can you see the future?"
"Eh, it depends."
"Like, am I going to be pretty when I grow up?"
"I don't know. I know you'll be very angry and very strong, and beat on anyone who gives you crap."
"Like Mulan?"
"Who's Mulan?"
"She's only the best Disney Princess ever!" And Temari would go through a comprehensive examination of Mulan vs the other Princesses until someone (usually her father or one of his unimportant flunkies) found her and relocated her to the relatively evil-free nursery. They probably needn't have worried so much. Shukaku much preferred her to any of the other idiots he dealt with. Of course, this might be because she was an infant.
"Mr. Shukaku," she asked one day. "Could you kill my parents for me?"
"No. Do your own dirty work."
"Aw, you're no fun," pouted Temari, scooping up a handful of the sand that always seemed to surround the evil kettle and letting in fall in a pile.
"Are you angry about the new baby?"
"Yes. I don't want another baby. And I don't want to go and stay with Aunt Yashamaru while it's born, either."
"Uncle. Yashamaru's your uncle."
"I thought uncles were boys."
"They are—," Shukaku thought about Mrs. Kazekage's entirely-too-effeminate brother. "Never mind, I don't want to confuse you. Anyway, you'll only be there for a night or so."
"But I want to stay here and talk to you!"
"I'll still be here when you get back. I don't get to leave, remember? You're lucky. You get to go places."
"Aunt Yasha's house."
"Hey, I'm trying to cheer you up, here."
So, Temari went to stay with her Uncle, and when she got back, she had a blond-haired, blue-eyed, very-obviously-resembling-the-Hokage little brother, Kankuro. He seemed a little on the slow side to a girl who befriended demons and spoke her own language, but what can you do?
That night, she was lying in her crib, trying to reconcile herself with the knowledge that the crib next to hers was now occupied, when something very odd happened. The door creaked open.
Earlier, while Kankuro was busy being born, Uncle Yashamaru had been entertaining his niece with fairytales. Now, you must remember, Temari was barely a year old, and he naturally assumed that she was being quiet because she was tired, not because she was listening intently.
But she had been listening, and part of the story came back to her now.
"When a baby is born," the story went, "its' parents must be careful, for, late at night, if no one is watching, They will come to visit. The Normal Fairies."
Sure enough, as baby Temari peeked through the bars of her crib, a bizarre entourage of tiny people, maybe three feet high, tiptoed into the room, wearing long pants of the finest blue denim and odd shirts with kangaroo pockets and hoods. All had big, filmy, iridescent wings sprouting from their backs. Temari, remembering her uncle's story, remained motionless. Horrible things happened to those caught spying on the Normal Fairies.
"They especially like the blond-haired, blue-eyed ones, so we're lucky they didn't steal you," Yashamaru had told her, not realizing, of course, that Kankuro would have these features. "They sneak into its room in the dead of the night and swap it for one of their own babies that they no longer want. The changeling is raised as the humans' own child, and the human baby is taken to the Court of Norm and taught to be average."
And sure enough, the invaders in the nursery danced up to Kankuro (because fairies dance when they play Changeling), scooped him up, set down a fairy baby, and danced off again with Temari's little brother.
Even though the new Kankuro had much darker hair and brown eyes, nobody seemed to notice the switch. Indeed, Rosemary only remarked, "see, I told you he would darken up," to her husband, who apologized for the allegations of a secret alliance between Sand and Leaf, and life went on.
The new baby also had large fairy wings, but nobody found this particularly odd.
"I like the new Kankuro better," Temari confided in the kettle. "The old one drooled too much."
"Of course, you only knew him for a few hours."
"I still like this one better."
"Sis, he's got brown eyes," Yashamaru suddenly noticed one day while overstaying his welcome at his sister's house.
"What of it?" Rosemary asked, reclaiming her son from her brother.
"Well, isn't that impossible? You and his father both have blue eyes, and blue is a recessive— AK!" he cut off as Rosemary grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close to her.
"Listen, Yash," she growled, "you're always saying how much you love me, why don't you prove it by not deliberately blowing the cover on my affair?"
"I know, but doesn't your sugar daddy have blue eyes?"
Kankuro fluttered his wings endearingly.
Karura: Guess what! I have REAL a name!
Kazekage: They're not all they've cracked up to be.
Karura: Oh shut up, "Lamont", you're just jealous.
