this one is uh.. Very different to the previous chaps (and almost certainly the following ones too) but it was a really fun experiment anyway though I am really not fit to write in this tense jfc warning for violence and some very lightly implied sexual content
I played with the sibs' canon ages just a tad, bc kishi apparently doesn't know how either time, pregnancy, or both actually work (probably both) in this tema is a year older than in canon, so she was around 2 when kank was born and 5 when gaa was born
(also I'm going super un-canon here with the ending, bc I will always be bitter, sorry bout that)
Day 3 – Family
Age two and there is so much she can't even comprehend.
A thick, inexperienced tongue trips around familiar sounds, meanings known, but still new and terrifying, the words echoed back encouraging her to try more and more; the bright colours and bold shapes that had once entertained her, now need to be put into order and pattern, a task that gave her more fulfilment than simply drumming them against walls and floors ever could; sensations are huge and overwhelming, but, unable to share them, all she can do is cry and flail and wait for someone to come with shushing noises and gentle hands.
Family is a word she still cannot say, but she knows that it is found in the enfolding warmth of soft arms, the deep rumble of a laugh that shudders her whole body, the comforting pressure stroking down her short, fluffy hair.
Age four and she finds herself for the first time the bearer of knowledge, instead of the seeker.
Her words and thoughts are big, rushing, important and she's found a captive audience in the soft, mushy potato-boy that her mother calls 'Kankuro', he sits and stares with wide, dark eyes, his mouth open, giggling, as she tells him all the things he needs to know; the best foods, how to play with his toys properly, her grand stories played out with stuffed animals, everything she's decided about how the stars and the sky and the land itself came to be.
Family isn't just parents, she suddenly understands, it is also a baby brother – who can't talk and flaps his arms whenever he sees her, but pushes her away when she tries to pick him up – it's being looked up to and it's caring for someone else, the same way that she'd always been cared for.
Age five and she is just beginning to realise that everything she'd thought she'd known, was wrong.
The cold press of metal in her palm is heavy, it makes her whole arm ache and her fingers don't quite encircle the handle of the kunai, when she throws it, it never quite reaches the post; she's no longer allowed to play as she once did, so instead she follows the servants around the house, watching them perform tasks that she'd never had to consider before; father hasn't shown himself in a long time, he doesn't come into her room to kiss her goodnight anymore, neither does her mother, nor the scary old lady who sends her to bed now. She understands that her mother is gone, that she's never coming back, but that knowledge isn't quite enough to smother the way her heart beats at the sight of golden brown, or deep, calm, indigo blue.
Family is not an unbreakable force, as she'd always assumed, it is long, lonely nights and heavy expectations and eyes that no longer light up at her smile alone. She sneaks into Kankuro's room at night to kiss his forehead anyway, wiping away the tears that drop onto his puffy cheeks before he wakes.
Age seven and information is quickly becoming her most trusted ally.
Feelings and thoughts are confusing, unreliable, but facts are solid, they mean something. Recently enrolled into the academy, her days are filled with reading, writing and training, skills that she has talent for, skills that she basks in, her teacher's praise pushes her to read more, write more, train harder, push herself past her peers, because she is the Kazekage's daughter and only now does she understand what that represents.
Family is the satisfied nod when her kunai hits dead centre, the recital of the bloodline that built this nation, it's the knowledge that she will further this legacy, or her life will have been worthless.
Age ten and not even fear can break her.
Murder is so common, that she no longer feels her eyes water and throat constrict when it happens; the sound of a massacre in the streets filters in through the window, she mentally recites the ninja code and finishes her dinner; a corpse is splattered across the hall, she steps over chunks on her way to the bathroom; her friend is crushed before her eyes, she refuses to turn away; her father informs her that, one day soon, she will be put on a team with her two brothers, she nods and doesn't let the rage leak out, not until she is alone in the desert, hurling her rough, unpractised wind jutsu at a great rock formation, until it disintegrates into sand.
Family is being constantly alert and always restrained, by her father, by her brothers, by her tutors, by the public. Family is the knife she must always have ready to strike at a back.
Age fifteen and she knows what she must do.
Konoha is an alien land, with so many things to catch the eye, intrigue the mind, but she has no such luxury, her gaze must remain intent on their mission, because if they fail, then there will be nothing to return to. Her home is crumbling and her family is long dead, but she will dig her sharp talons into their decaying carcasses and fight off the circling scavengers regardless; when one has so little to fight for, the scraps of an old life are more valuable than gold.
Family is doing what the village needs, no matter her personal doubts, it is destroying herself, to preserve others.
Age sixteen and she realises that she has failed as a legacy, as a protector.
Her father's face is empty, his eyes closed, skin pale; she wants to feel something as heavy stone closes the sight off for good, and the coffin is lowered into the sand, but her eyes are dry and her voice doesn't shake when she speaks to the mourners. She does not mourn, for she already knows that her father had died years before, instead, she holds Kankuro's hand as he screams in his room, restraining him from destroying his life's work, instead, she watches, cautious, as Gaara struggles with words he'd never been taught, the uneasy ways he navigated this terrifying new world that he'd been kept from his entire life.
Family is the emptiness of losing a father who never was, it's soothing the rage of someone who'd never accepted it, and nurturing the feeble hope of a boy who needed to learn what it meant.
Age nineteen and, for the first time in years, she has no plan.
Her brother lies panting on a small, featureless bed, his too-long legs spilling over the end. She has watched him for hours now, but still, she gets up once again to place a cool finger to his neck; the slow, steady thud against her skin does nothing to comfort her, nor does the faint, bitter smell of medicine, dust and fresh sweat as she presses trembling lips to his forehead, muffling her haggard sobs there. Somewhere, another brother is lying, helpless, probably in pain, probably dying… and she cannot be there to kiss him goodnight.
Family is the pain of knowing her life will never, ever be worth theirs, and that she would burn the world a thousand times over, just to get her hollow, tattered, broken imitation of a family back, if only to embrace it one last time.
Age twenty-two and she is late to exploring intimacy.
Kisses are harsh and hurried, all grabbing hands and pulling hair and biting lips and frantic gasps; Shikamaru frowns at her roughness and impatience, he pushes her back with calm understanding, but honest rejection; he does not have what she needs, and she cannot accept what he wants, she always knew nothing would come of it, but the loss still aches. Her digging nails are ignored as she pulls Tenten down to kiss her, the warmth of sympathetic arms and an open heart burns her, but she stays anyway, wanting to experience what it is she's been missing.
Family is the faint desire for something undefinable – so long suppressed under duty and fear – but seeing clearly that she will never truly reach it. It is returning to Suna with a great void in her heart, and the warm hands on her shoulders, the tiny smile and wide grin that welcome her home, the unspoken promise to never leave her.
Age thirty and she needs to learn, swiftly.
She'd never expected children to become a part of her life, never wanted them to, but her brother has always been so much braver than her, so when he brings three young wards into the only home the siblings had ever known, she does not object. She will not be a mother, but the possibilities of aunthood intrigue her; memories of the man with her sandy-blond hair and her mother's gentle, dark eyes are vague, but echoing the past would only repeat it, so she decides to discover for herself how to care for, teach and cherish the three children who fill her with both terror and hope, in equal measure.
Family is growth and expansion, the young boy with the blank face, who needed guidance to find the happiness he deserved, the scarred boy, who sought only love and companionship, the girl who wanted to lash out at a harsh world, but whose anger and fear could be soothed with careful words. These children would never have to struggle to find the definition, like she always had.
Age Eighty-eight and she is wise enough to know, that she doesn't know a damn thing.
Age has weakened her bones and loosened her skin, but she feels more alive than she can ever remember.
Family is a word she's never quite been able to speak and one she's accepted that she'll never fully comprehend, but she doesn't need to, it is found in the unquestioned trust of her niece and nephews, it is in the effortless familiarity of old friends, the lost loves she still thought of with fondness, her two brothers and their constant support, understanding and love, the distant memories of a father flawed and broken, but who had tried his best in a world that demanded his worst, a warm haze and gentle laugh that sometimes swept over her with the breeze.
It's all she ever wanted.