Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Onyx Rain ❯ Gold Wish ( Chapter 9 )

With the quarter moon came the dry desert night. It liquefied the landcape into a lumpy, cold mush of ash and quiet death. An oppressive silence hung over the desert, broken only by the occasional lonely howl of air blasting overhead. The wind carried with it the sands, which in turn flew over the sides of the dunes and landed on other sand. Occasionally, the sand would land on something other than sand - two people. They were lying on the leeward side of a dune, facing the sand that was Gaara's to clean.

Gaara himself was asleep - at least from what Maizul could gather.

His eyes were shut and his breathing was slow and even. His short, tangled-fire hair was dusted with a light coating of sand, the kanji for love was lit by pale moonlight, dulling its scarlet hue. His eye sockets themselves looked like holes into his face, what with the black that was spread around and over his eyelids. He certainly didn't look `cute' when he slept - it was like using `cute' to describe a skeleton.

She touched a hand to his forehead, and winced when her prediction turned out to be true. Gaara was burning with fever. She knew he would never tell her if he wasn't feeling well; he would assume that it was only the heat of the desert affecting him. Maizul snorted. Men could be so stubborn, sometimes.

But why had she been assigned to take care of Gaara?

There were those more equipped for handling the desert than her. They knew that dry places like the desert were her weakness. They would only do this for a reason.

And in the middle of a drought, too! A frown spread over Maizul's face. Her specialties made her weakest during droughts, so. . . .

So it had to do with her charge in the first place, then.

But what was special about Gaara? He wasn't as old as most of the other madmen she had been sent to handle, but he didn't seem any kinder than most of them.

Well, he had given her some of his water willingly.

Maybe it dealt with something Gaara had to do. She didn't think he could survive much longer in the desert, though. Neither could she. Not in this drought. And there really wasn't anything he could do for anyone else in the desert.

Maybe that was it, then. Maybe, maybe, if it rained. . . . .

Maybe she could save him. Maybe he could save himself. Maybe he could save everybody.

It was a hope, a wish, but right then, a golden shooting star streaked across the pitch sky. It briefly illuminated that wish before its fleeting light faded and it disappeared.

Maizul smiled to herself. She knew what to do.