Chapter Text
Born too early, too small, ugly and ruddy and loud, shut away in private rooms, away from his parents and prettier siblings, spoiled and coddled. Face marred by a large wine-stain birthmark. Kept quiet, hidden away.
Then one day, Gaara sneaks out of his rooms, exploring the edges of the heavens, stumbling upon his father, dangling his mother over the cliffside of the mountain, holding onto her with only the chain looped around her neck.
Too young and too naive to know what is happening, he freezes at the sight, thinking his mother had tripped, Rasa in the process of saving her from the fall.
Then the chain slips, and Karura screams as she drops further before Rasa’s grip is resecured, but he doesn’t pull her back up, letting her dangle, limbs flailing, instead of hauling her over the edge into safety.
“You stupid whore. You think you’ll get away with this?” Rasa looks angry, madder than Gaara’s ever seen, face red and veiny as he hisses down at the women below.
Confused, frightened, Gaara steps forward, once, twice, then stubby legs are running, uncoordinated, tripping and stumbling over the terrain. “Papa. Papa, what are you doing to Mama?”
His snarling father turns his head, making eye contact before he finally hauls Karura half over the lip of the edge, leaving her grasping at the ground, fingers trying to find purchase to gain traction to pull herself the rest of the way up.
She tells Rasa something Gaara cannot hear, not with the pounding in his ears. Legs tiring, slowing as he approaches. Tears stream down his face, one hand twisting into the pain in his chest, the other reaching out, as if he could do something to save her against his father—king of the gods.
“Gaara,” his mother orders, high and shrill, ringing in his ears. “Return home, now!”
Rasa roars, then he is upon her, wrestling like gladiators down in the mortal realm when they have lost their gladius and have only fists to rely on.
Fabric tears and Karura screams, alternating between bidding Gaara to leave and begging Rasa. “Please. Please, Rasa, not in front of the boy.”
His father is attacking her, hurting her, Gaara understands, throwing his meager weight into Rasa’s side, pushing at his sides to try and shove him off of her.
Rasa pushes him off with ease, a hand on Gaara’s face sends him tumbling into the dirt.
“Stop it!” He cries. On hands and knees, he crawls back, rising up to pound tiny fists on his father’s back. “Stop hurting Mama!”
Rasa, irritated to the point of hurling Gaara from the great mount. The world spins as he is airborne, the sound of a wounded animal as he reaches out for his mother, growing smaller as she reaches back, leaning over the edge of the heavens as Rasa hooks his arms around her waist and yanks her from sight.
Gaara falls for a day and a half, landing in a volcano, at the bottom of its basin, broken like he’s never been before in his small, sheltered life.
He's landed just in front of a small cave on the side of the volcano. He has to crawl to the shelter, dragging his left leg behind, too injured to walk on. Sharp shards of rock flake off in his hands, cutting into his palms as he moves.
He doesn’t stop, not until he is deep enough in the cave that he cannot see the light of the sky. Collapsing into a heap, too tired to even cry himself to sleep.
Neither Rasa nor Karura climbs down from the heavens to gather him, to pick him up and carry him back home.
Kankuro comes once, with bandages and medicine, improvising a splint with bandages and driftwood that washed up on the beach that runs along the volcano’s base. Giving Gaara a piece of leather to bite down on, Kankuro rebreaks his leg to more properly set it into place.
“Why?” Gaara asks his brother. “Why did Papa do this?”
“You’ll understand once you’re older,” Kanakuro sighs, standing at the mouth of the cave, ready to leave Gaara alone again. “You'll soon find it is always best to not anger the gods.”
His sister Temari visits soon after, bringing a single, unornate spear, nothing more than a metal tip on a long pole.
He asks her as well, why has he been cast off, thrown from his plush, cushioned life to the harshness below, where his heavy limp only exacerbates the pain of the sharp ground underfoot?
“Best not to dwell on the past,” she tells him, before she too leaves and he is alone again.
His injuries heal poorly, leaving one leg lame, a nasty limp in his walk. He crawls up the inside of the volcano, hands and feet callusing, adapting to the harsh environment, and becoming stronger, tougher against the rocks.
From the rim, Gaara can see the whole of the island, sloping away from his high vantage. A small mortal settlement sits on the far side, and several smaller islands dot the horizon.
Scrambling down the outer slope of the volcano, he missteps and slips, tumbling the rest of the way to the bottom, landing with a groan half on the rocks, half in the surf, waves crashing against him. He lies there, gasping for breath, listening to the caws and cackles of seagulls and nymphs, laughing at his misfortune.
Gaara sits up, only to find that while he had bounced clear to the bottom, his spear had not—stuck in the rocks very nearly where he had fallen from.
Muscles and bones both scream at him as he climbs, finally getting his hands on the shaft. Wearily making his way back down, more mindful of his steps this time.
The water is nice, his leg hurts less, bearing weight more easily, that is, when the force of it doesn't knock him off his feet. He flounders in the water a bit, trying to overcome the crashing waves and manage the spear. His attempts to stab a fish are poor. Miss after miss after miss, as the sea nymphs cheer and boo, taunting and teasing him from their perches.
And just when Gaara thinks he has one, a nice fatty thing, it twists at the last moment, knocking the spear out of his hand, swirling away in the water. He tries to swim down after it, but a pain grows in his ear at the attempt, rising to the surface instead.
A figure sits on the beach, lounging as Gaara crawls onto the sand, collapsing down next to his father’s brother.
“You need a net, kid,” Kisame, the god of the sea, advises. “Catch ‘em and pull ‘em into the range of your spear.”
“I don’t have a spear anymore,” Gaara grunts.
Kisame brings his fingers to his mouth, whistling loudly, sending several of the sea nymphs diving down into the water. Fighting with one another as they surface, Kisame whistles again, and it's tossed on the sand between the pair.
The metal tip is gone, broken off by the fish.
Nothing will come easy here, it seems.