Nightmare Flame

Prologue: The Beautiful Nightmare…

From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire…

Moonlight shimmers in her room through the sheer curtains from her balcony.

She is still and breathing, but the rise and fall of her chest gradually increase and she inadvertently clutches the bedspread on either side of her frame. Her jaw sets in frustration in her sleep from lack of satisfaction. Sweat begins to form at the base of her skin. Her pulse quickens in her sleep, as a heat seems to emanate from her bed, causing the light hairs on the back of her neck to rise.

Temari shifts to the other side of the bed, giving her a moment to relish its coolness before she turned back to her original position. Behind her eyelids are dark and soothing and soon begin to flame a faint rouge.

And then her eyes open –even though they are not open- and a lick of fire the color of nectar brushes against her skin –even though her comforter is covering her hand- and waves of humidity cause her vision to grow hazy and distorted.

Something shifts in her peripheral and she is sitting up, holding a kunai out. The flames covering the sides of the bed now become black as charcoal and her chest is heaving, her body unaware of the fact that this is fire threatening to drown her and not water. Her lungs work harder, unable to differentiate as the air in the room become heavier and suffocating.

She is now looking around wildly, her teal eyes beginning to water and the fire nears her precariously, scorching the uncovered skin of her arm –even though there is no fire there- and she drops the kunai in anguish.

Logic tells her that this is some sort of genjutsu –it must be, she thinks furiously- except she feels the burn on her arm and cries out. She curses and holds the affected arm, seeing the burn, feeling the burn, as if it were real.

Picking up the kunai in her other hand, she looks around again and finds another pair of eyes piercing through the prison of flames from the foot of her bed. She holds their gaze to hers and she inches forward, ever so slightly. She coughs from the dissipating amount of cool air and speaks: "Who are you and-" She coughs even harder, "How did you get in here?"

He, She, They, It doesn't answer. Instead their obsidian eyes grow bloody red and get closer to the flames, unafraid of the heat or the burn. She holds the weapon in her hand higher, unwilling to let down her guard despite the fact that her body was unwilling to move on it's own volition. Suddenly, she is frozen in a moment and realizes with bated breath and she cannot move and cannot defend.

They face reaches the fire and she can see the outline of the face, the beautifully sculpted jaw line, leading up to the aristocratic cheekbones and those eyes. Those threatening, heartbreaking, searing eyes. She can't breath when her gaze freely roams his face –even though she can't decide if he is real or illusion- and flickers down to his lips. Those lips that rejected her so coldly those few years ago. She looks at that face; half highlighted by the fire and can't see anything about him being cold. Not when the heat surrounding it was so hot.

If she could move, his name would slip from her mouth like the nightmare that it was. She would tell him to vacate the premises, vacate Suna in general, or risk death by her hand. Unlike his former teammates, she held no loyalty to him. She saw that he now donned that black clock colored with red clouds and that put another target on his back.

He was the boy who turned her down without a second thought and the man who joined the organization that nearly killed her brother.

Since she could do nothing at this moment, her merciless eyes form tears due to their unmoving state and she promises to herself that as soon as he gave her leverage –just one moment to kill this son-of-a-bitch, she thinks determinedly- that she would end him, for everyone.

What's one less Uchiha in our world?

He smirks, that famous curvature of his lips that makes her eyes harden and her knees weak all at the same time. She can't remember ever hating someone as much as she did in that moment. How dare he come into the home of her ancestors and torment her dreams?

Answer me, she thinks viciously and he speaks as if he heard the thought: "I'm going to destroy Suna," He whispers as if he were saying that it were a beautiful night. "And after that, I'm going to destroy Konoha. I have to make sure that Suna doesn't come to their aide when I do."

Why? Her thought rages and his smirk reach his eyes. She'd like to claw them out. "Why not?" He murmurs as if he were musing it and she's yelling obscenities at him mentally, not caring whether or not he could hear them. Hoping that he could hear them.

"These villages are corrupt, all of them. Why should any of them stand when they can fall, be made into something better?" He obliges and it makes her pause.

You're insane, her thoughts whisper and he shakes his head. "I'm right, and you know it."

She screams that she doesn't care, that she wants him out of her room, out of her house, out of her village. She wonders if asking for him to be nonexistent is too much. She hears and sees something too close to laughter, but she suspects that must be an illusion too, Get out.

He ignores her and reiterates, "I am going to destroy Suna."

So what is this, some kind of warning?

"If you choose to see it like that," He states and unsheathes his katana. In a gleaming flash, the point lies on the base of her throat as she remains in her still statuesque position, kunai held feebly in front of her. "This is only a taste of what I could really do. Consider this repayment for what your village did to Konoha back then."

Don't pretend like you care. You're planning to destroy it!

"I always cared. You were just too blind to see it," He hisses lowly and the blade is removed from her throat. Her heart is thudding against her eardrums and she hoped they were discussing the same thing.

Tears release themselves from her eyes from inactivity and they begin to burn. Her vision blurs and the flames recede and she is allowed movement. She blinks, rubbing her eyes clear and when they open, he is gone.

She runs from her bed to her balcony and she watches in horror as the entire village is bathing in the same flames that surrounded her bed only a few moments ago. She sees the fire incinerating buildings she walked through, grew up in. She feels the heat as the embers fly up into the sky in a bellowing cloud of black smoke.

Temari blinks and then they are gone, the fires and flames are gone as if they didn't exist.

As if they never existed…

Notes: Quote from "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost. Title of prologue inspired by the song "Sweet Dreams" by Beyonce. Piece in response to the "Uchiha Sasuke x Sabaku no Temari" challenge by Coco-Minu.

I'll be honest, I don't know when, or how this'll be updated, but it will be updated. This is a seven part series, excluding this prologue.

Feel free, drop a review, drop a criticism, drop a flame, (Yes, you know you love that) or don't. Whichever is the choice, thanks for reading!

Next time, Night One: The Invasion of Sunagakure…

DAC