The Sabaku Clan, cast in the dunes of the desert, under the dominance of the GoldMaker Kaze, was withering. Wilting beneath the blistering sun and growing poverty.

Gold. The leaders of the Sabaku Clan had been named for their ability to summon it from the bowels of the earth and control it, a gift passed down from father to son for generations. Not too long ago, the Sabaku Clan had been rich with it, bars and coins and jewelry, harvesting nuggets and selling them at high prices. Everyone loved gold, and the Sabaku Clan was the only group to have it.

That could have been because Kaze, like his father and grandfather and every father before that, had always manipulated the gold away from other's greedy hands, twisting and churning and redirecting the mineral so that a stranger to his clan could dig in the richest soils and tromp through the most giving shallow waters and never find a single nugget.

The Sabaku Clan had been incredibly wealthy and very, very proud. Their noses were always turned up towards the sky. It was sheer luck that it rarely rained in the desert, or else they surely would have drowned for how far back they threw their heads in haughty disdain for all those they viewed lower than themselves.

Life was very good for them, to them.

Until not too long ago.

Kaze the GoldMaker had a beautiful wife and two perfect, passionate children. When his wife became pregnant the third time, something… changed.

The deserts would surge towards them, dunes unwinding, shadows reaching, animals and plants alike coming up strangled or never seen again. The gold retreated, forced away by some power greater than the GoldMaker's. Yet the retreat was so slow, Kaze did not know of it till it was too late.

His third child, a son, was born far too early, and, at the price of his life, Kaze's wife forfeited her own. The day she died, the day of his third child's birth, was the day the gold disappeared from the ground and all that was left was…

Sand.

Kaze hid this from his clan for three years before they noticed that their coffers had been scraped clean and their reserves were empty. There was no more gold.

Pride and arrogance bled to shame and desperation. The riches the clan held for themselves were sold off, piece by piece, strip of fabric by strip of fabric, crystal by crystal.

In just two more years, the once proud and wealthy clan was nothing more than a group of desert dwellers, dressed in poor cloth and faces sullen and joyless.

The clan could not find it in themselves to hate their leader, despite his lies. Instead, they redirected their despair and loathing towards the third child. The son who had drawn in the sands and forced away their way of living.

Gaara was the child's name.

And his father made it so that Gaara paid dearly for what he had wrought.

Gaara earned four names in the years to come.

Gaara of the Sabaku Clan.

Son of the GoldMaker.

Heir of the Sand.

The Desert Whore.

For Gaara was a rare sight, with his flaming red hair and alabaster pale skin. His pale, exotic eyes were outlined darkly every day in heavy makeup, drawing out his ethereal white glow and the gleam of his piercing gaze.

It was not too hard, neither on their conscious nor in matters of opportunity, to sell the third son out to others. Prostitution was for cowards or those who thought themselves above fighting in the ring, and the West was full of both. The price for him was always high and the times he spent away from the clan were always long as his masters would do anything and everything they liked to him. They were charged by the day.

Though he never earned enough for the entire clan to live as richly as they once had, they each lived in comfort and with enough coins left over to spoil themselves.

But never Gaara, who was the one who earned their livelihood. He was despised. He had made the gold go away. The other children wouldn't play with him, they had learned to hate him from their parents. Their parents wouldn't come near him, they called him filthy and wanton and other terrible names he hadn't even known the meaning of when he had been younger.

But every young, shattered child had to grow up one day, and some grew to be… beasts.

He killed one of his masters, completely by accident. There had been pain, his skin had been too tight, his gums had itched, his eyes had watered, his fingertips had prickled. There had been a roar and claws had lashed out, ripping through his molester cleanly, easily.

When the Desert Whore had woken up the next morning, the bed had been spattered with blood and he had stared into the empty glaze of his master's eyes.

Things changed again in the Sabaku Clan. The Desert Whore became a poison and they would sell him to merchants who no one knew and heirs that would never reach their rightful places. When Gaara would kill them, several of his clan mates would be waiting to steal everything of value that had come with Gaara's master.

This did not continue on for long either.

The Desert Whore began to choose his own masters. He chose his own bedmates and began to step into the ring to fight for the right to have a mate.

And this was when the Sabaku Clan began to doubt their actions. Gaara's bedmates would come away… bloody. Wide-eyed and mute, shaking, haunted, defiled in ways that went deeper than just skin.

Gaara had just cracked, balancing a narrow pole between childhood and manhood, when he turned on his own clan.

Sisters and brothers alike were broken in hours.

Gaara's two siblings, his oldest sister Temari and older brother Kankuro, went missing for four days.

When they were returned, they lived in fear of their youngest sibling. They obeyed his every word and gave him everything he wanted, even if they had to steal it. Even if they had to bleed or others had to suffer, they never denied the Desert Whore.

It would be another year before they would even speak a word.

The day the Sabaku Clan wept over their foolishness, however, was the day the desert shifted and a storm raged for days. When the air was clear, their leader was gone, lost forever.

All they had left of Kaze was the bloodied sheets in his room, the spatters of blood on the walls, and the tongue Gaara had kept as a reminder of everything his father had ever said to him.

He earned his title of Heir of the Sand on that day. His siblings were in no shape to rule and there was no one else related to their deceased leader.

And the people wept.

All the people.

Except for one.

Gaara of the Sabaku Clan, son of the GoldMaker, Heir of the Sand…

The Desert Whore.

~::~

Lybellulla, or KakaIru on fanction, wanted there to be a reason why Gaara was the way he was. The tricky part is that I already have the complete story written and waiting to be uploaded, and an explanation for why Gaara was the way he was wasn't in the chapters…

But this is a gift for Lybellulla, so I have to do everything within my power to make sure she loves it. So here's a side chapter.