8-Soft

Character: Gaara

The desert is a hard place where very little survives. Only the most thorniest plants and venomous animals can thrive there because nature weeds out anything it deems weak. Gaara, for all that he is soft, human flesh, is anything but weak. That is why he flourishes, shoots up like a stalk between the cracked earth and rock.

The gourd strapped on his back reinforces his hardiness. Reinforces it like the Kazekage's duty to his village reinforces his father's disappointment. The villagers thought Gaara to be heartless. Caring for human life as a hunter cares for its prey (which it does very little). However, Gaara remembers every life he's taken, carves it into his soul like the mark on his forehead. Each grain of sand was akin to each life he's taken, constantly shifting and moving but always there. The sand is stored nearby, on his person always and thus each memory of life is kept near him as always.

In the beginning he was born surrounded by velvety softness. His mother's embrace as gentle as no other, only to squeeze him out and deny him; banishing the monster it once thought was its child. From then on, the creature that Gaara was, is, grew spikes. A spike for each muttered curse. A spike at each disgusted glance. And the biggest spike, one that curled and pierced itself through Gaara's own heart, formed when his father and siblings' face became indistinguishable from the hatred painted on the villagers.

Yes, a cactus is not as beautiful as a rose. The snake not as innocent as the fawn, but what Gaara has is durability and sturdiness and that is something that not even the demon inside can take away.