I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
etc.
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.
=====================================
The Last Revelation Part I: Night In Cairo
by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)
=====================================
Night in Cairo. The city's usually raging streets were now a kingdom of the wind, and the ominously darkened skies were speeding away. No living creature wandered the streets of the capital of Egypt. It seemed as though even time itself had abandoned this city, its minaret towers clad in silent, naked moonlight.
Near the hanging church in the Coptic quarters, around a street corner from Khan-El Khalili, a single pillar of light pierced a window. The window belonged to a two-storey, colonialist-built stone house.
Inside, a door rattled shut.
Jean-Yves DuCarmine stepped into the third-floor apartment, dropping his keys onto the telephone table. In his footsteps followed a woman who seemed too tired to keep up any kind of a feminine appearance.
Lara Croft banged the door closed after peering into the dark hallway, sighed, and stripped off her heavy holsters with a single, well-practiced rip of velcro. She sat down on the floor, discarding her boots and leaving them near the door. She pushed aside a lock of sweaty hair, and waited for her pounding head to calm down before attempting to get up.
Jean-Yves, ignoring the uninviting darkness of the living room, pulled the curtains closed.
"No need for anyone to look in," he explained, more to himself than anyone else.
In the hallway Lara climbed onto her feet, patting dusty Egyptian sand from her khaki shorts. She watched the grains fall and disappear into the wall- to-wall carpet's surface grottos, and wondered when the place had last been vacuumed properly. Not that she cared. Sleeping in caves made one rather appreciative of any kind of mats.
Jean returned to the narrow hallway and switched on a small lamp. The place looked now slightly cozier. A bit too colonialist, though. A bit too exaggerated with its worn-out, long red velvet curtains and antique furniture, but altogether cozy.
"Larah," Jean-Yves called.
She spared a sad thought on how long it had been since she had last heard her name been pronounced like that. Larah. With an H. She had never wanted to correct it. Never, really. It was nice to have someone calling her name for a change. She didn't really count as such those 'Miss Croft' ones that were always accompanying her on her travels, demanding, asking, admiring and threatening. She felt as if "Miss Croft" was a whole separate persona of hers, the one who was always pitted against something, who always got herself into tricky situations. At times Lara felt she didn't stand a chance of having a decent human relationship because of being downright too much "Miss Crofty". No-one ever called out for a Lara. Noone ever called out for the woman she had grown to be from childhood. No-one ever called out for her insignificant but oh, so important personal thoughts. She had learnt not to share them, as it would always end up in chagrin.
It is a common proverb that nice, honest women always lose their men to melon-breasted, tall and lanky blonde bunnies, but the truth, it seemed, was that most men still, at some point, simply wanted a gentle wife. And that wasn't something Lara Croft was willing to be. Usually she felt proud of this religion of hers, choosing a dream and a career over social happiness, but at times it really bothered her.
Once, a long time ago, she had needed a respected partner, specialized in Egyptology and skilled with deciphering anything that she came across and could not interpret herself - and Jean had been there.
With that bad English of his. It had improved over the years, much from Lara's effort at getting him some kind of "decent upbringing", as she joked. But since day one, she'd been Larah. With an H.
Lara took a quick look at her surroundings, now lit by over a dozen smaller lamps and a small chandelier. It was a large, well-decorated apartment in downtown Cairo. The unavoidable soft coat of sahara sand lay everywhere, and the wall-to-wall carpet she had already noted looked inviting to walk on barefooted. The bookshelves were full of statuettes and small stelae with hieroglyphics.
"Who did you say this place belongs to?" she asked Jean, who was turning on the gas in the kitchen.
"John and Catarina Sheare. They are both currently in Geneva, and gave me the keys years ago in case I ever wanted to spend the night at Cairo. Old colleagues. Let us hope they left something for us to eat."
Lara marveled at the way Jean-Yves managed to stay calm and talk cuisine after what had happened just a few hours earlier. Rope marks were still somewhat visible on his wrists, and Lara herself was a collection of assorted injuries herself. A bullet had scraped her leg. She would take care of it later.
She was still standing in the hallway, her back against the wall. She had a killer headache, and she was feeling cold, although the temperature in Cairo was over thirty degrees. She hadn't been feeling very good for the last couple of days, and being extra worried for Jean-Yves had added to the extreme exertion her body had been through. Dozens of the kind of slight wounds that eventually build up a Niagra of soreness at nights and the lack of food had turned her body into a half-functioning system. And she was worried it would decrease her chances against whatever she was to be battling the next day.
She still isolated Jean-Yves from her private thoughts, silently demanding personal space. And Jean - ever so close but at the same time ever so distant to her, didn't push her. He waited, as he had waited before. Knowing that eventually, she would say something that would lead to a rhetorically philosophical, all-night-long conversation. The pressure was intense.
Lara wondered how Jean-Yves felt. She had always wondered if men were given a strong ability to deal with extreme stress in birth. Now that would be something to ask from Jean. Sometime.
Not all archaeologists are field-specialized ones. And Jean-Yves had always been a definite non-fieldie. Still, he seemed to have nerves of steel.
After all, the end of the world was at hand, their colleague had turned into a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian god of evil, and Jean-Yves himself has suffered a kidnapping.
On the surface Lara was characteristically calm, of course. As always. No rhetorical questions beginning with the word 'why'. No what-ifs. Just a mission to accomplish - nothing more but nothing less. She saved questions for those who were weak anough to ask them.
Yet life itself was a line of why's, and most of them she didn't even have the time to ask.
"Lara, would you like to take a shower?" called Jean-Yves.
Lara slumped on the red sofa and let the mighty weariness wash all over her. She felt unusually warm now, and every muscle in her body was aching in a strange way that made her movements stiff and powerless.
"In a minute, Jean. I have to wait for the." she stopped for a yawn, ".the Amex to bring my suitcase."
Jean-Yves looked puzzled.
"I ordered my bags from Alexandria. They delivered them from Hotel Tulip in Alexandria to Hilton here in Cairo yesterday. I called them from a telephone post with the few piasters I had left before I came to meet you outside the Citadel gates."
Jean seemed happy with the explanation. Lara Croft, always the practical one. The thought of her running out of change was disconcerting, though. Very unlike Lara.
"I need my gear", Lara continued, as if defending her actions, "I'll make plenty of use of my bow tomorrow, I predict."
"You seem tired, my dear. Why don't you let me wait for the porter and you go have the nice shower."
Lara turned to look at him from the sofa she'd conquered.
"I'm tired, Jean. I'm going to take a shower tomorrow. Right now, all I need is a fresh, clean shirt and time to prepare for tomorrow. I still have a transcript of the Set stela to go through and."
Jean-Yves crossed his arms on his chest.
"I am not trying to be, how do you say, nosy? Here, but." Jean began, but paused, as Lara looked at her, smiling vaguely.
"What now?" he asked.
"You sound like our friend Werner when you say that. 'Howdyiysaaayit'" Lara mocked and stretched her left arm, watching an old scar on the tanned skin stretch as well. "You were saying?"
"How about if you forgot about Werner von Croy for this evening. And I am not trying to be impolite here, Lara, but when are you planning on sleeping?"
"I'll take a nap after I've read through your papers and fixed the crossbow. If I have the time," Lara stated, following Jean-Yves with her tired gaze.
"And when was the last time you ate something? You do not look too well. I hope you will join me for some dinner."
Lara took a long look at him. He was starting to sound concerned - at least on Lara's scale, and she was a somewhat overtly sensitive on the subject.
"I always have a chocolate bar or two in my pocket. I had a sandwich before I found von Croy's note in Alexandria."
"Lara, that was two days ago. How have you managed?"
"Fine, for your concern. Now, if you please, where is the phone? I need to call the company. I'm going to speed those lads a little. Those bags contain all your books, and your translation of the amulet of Horus. If they've misplaced those I won't be responsible for my actions."
Lara began to climb up from the sofa but lost balance for a second, and needed another try to get up. She smiled apologetically to Jean and disappeared to the kitchen.
"I'm dying of thirst, though."
Jean-Yves followed her like a shadow, taking a critical look at her.
To say that Lara looked tired would be a mock understatement. Exhausted was more like it. Muddy. Battle-stained. Jean observed the dark lines around her eyes, and a fine trail of blood that had dried up on her calf. The line lead up to a reddish four-inch wound in the proxitimity of her knee.
"Lara, someone should take a look at that knee."
Lara put the wet glass she had drank from into the sink, wiping the drops of water from her lips
"Oh, this?" she asked, raising her left leg. "It's okay, Jean, even if it catches an infection, it won't happen yet."
Jean-Yves looked concerned again. He knelt down and ran a finger over the rip. The wound was full of sand, and a crack of glass was firmly situated inside it. "You are just going to leave it like that, oui? And not even put anything in it? You know there is a glass piece in it?"
Lara stretched down, leaning on her ankles, trying to see what Jean-Yves had noticed.
"Great. Now I have to go and fish it out." Lara managed to hide a grimace. She noticed her hands shaking a bit, probably due to low blood sugar. Considering her options, she decided for a quick scream, and sat down to a chair, in a half-lotus position. She grabbed the shard of glass with two fingers and, gasping, pulled it off. The wound slowly began to trickle dark, clotted blood.
Jean-Yves brought her backpack by request and she tied an old handkerchief on the wound, slightly amused by Jean's concerned face as he tried to lecture her on the importance of cleaning up injuries properly.
"Jean, I've more than had my share of these. It's nothing, really." She sneezed to end her statement, and felt a sudden urge to go to bed.
Jean started rummaging through the kitchen cupboards in search for kettles and cutlery, and Lara limped to the living room, carefully trying to move the wounded leg as little as possible to avoid the dull ache using the muscles induced. It had hurt considerably less before she pulled out the glass shard.
Strangely, slight aches and pains often proved valuable in battle. Adrenaline had an aggressor effect. Quickened one's reactions. But mostly just made one plain angry. And speaking of experience - what ached slightly at noon would be a killer pain at midnight. But now wasn't the time to run around looking for a hospital.
Securing the continuance of civilization on Earth came first. After that one would have plenty of time for running after penicillin prescriptions.
She returned to the sofa after retrieving a book from her backpack - one of Jean's books from Alexandria. He had hidden the transcription inside the cover. Lara piled a couple of pillows behind her back and lifted her throbbing leg on the sofa table, inspecting her tennis-sock-covered foot.
She tried studying the book and the transcription but all the focus was gone. 'Either you are getting old, Lara dear, or you are extremely nervous,' she thought a bit bitterly. 'Disoriented' would have been the most descriptive choice.
Ignoring her aching leg she walked to the bathroom, after spying on Jean- Yves in the kitchen. He seemed to be only concerned with his own thoughts, far from the world and Cairo.
Walking to the bathroom, Lara wondered secretly whose part was tougher, hers or Jean's.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.
siirma6@surfeu.fi
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.
=====================================
The Last Revelation Part I: Night In Cairo
by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)
=====================================
Night in Cairo. The city's usually raging streets were now a kingdom of the wind, and the ominously darkened skies were speeding away. No living creature wandered the streets of the capital of Egypt. It seemed as though even time itself had abandoned this city, its minaret towers clad in silent, naked moonlight.
Near the hanging church in the Coptic quarters, around a street corner from Khan-El Khalili, a single pillar of light pierced a window. The window belonged to a two-storey, colonialist-built stone house.
Inside, a door rattled shut.
Jean-Yves DuCarmine stepped into the third-floor apartment, dropping his keys onto the telephone table. In his footsteps followed a woman who seemed too tired to keep up any kind of a feminine appearance.
Lara Croft banged the door closed after peering into the dark hallway, sighed, and stripped off her heavy holsters with a single, well-practiced rip of velcro. She sat down on the floor, discarding her boots and leaving them near the door. She pushed aside a lock of sweaty hair, and waited for her pounding head to calm down before attempting to get up.
Jean-Yves, ignoring the uninviting darkness of the living room, pulled the curtains closed.
"No need for anyone to look in," he explained, more to himself than anyone else.
In the hallway Lara climbed onto her feet, patting dusty Egyptian sand from her khaki shorts. She watched the grains fall and disappear into the wall- to-wall carpet's surface grottos, and wondered when the place had last been vacuumed properly. Not that she cared. Sleeping in caves made one rather appreciative of any kind of mats.
Jean returned to the narrow hallway and switched on a small lamp. The place looked now slightly cozier. A bit too colonialist, though. A bit too exaggerated with its worn-out, long red velvet curtains and antique furniture, but altogether cozy.
"Larah," Jean-Yves called.
She spared a sad thought on how long it had been since she had last heard her name been pronounced like that. Larah. With an H. She had never wanted to correct it. Never, really. It was nice to have someone calling her name for a change. She didn't really count as such those 'Miss Croft' ones that were always accompanying her on her travels, demanding, asking, admiring and threatening. She felt as if "Miss Croft" was a whole separate persona of hers, the one who was always pitted against something, who always got herself into tricky situations. At times Lara felt she didn't stand a chance of having a decent human relationship because of being downright too much "Miss Crofty". No-one ever called out for a Lara. Noone ever called out for the woman she had grown to be from childhood. No-one ever called out for her insignificant but oh, so important personal thoughts. She had learnt not to share them, as it would always end up in chagrin.
It is a common proverb that nice, honest women always lose their men to melon-breasted, tall and lanky blonde bunnies, but the truth, it seemed, was that most men still, at some point, simply wanted a gentle wife. And that wasn't something Lara Croft was willing to be. Usually she felt proud of this religion of hers, choosing a dream and a career over social happiness, but at times it really bothered her.
Once, a long time ago, she had needed a respected partner, specialized in Egyptology and skilled with deciphering anything that she came across and could not interpret herself - and Jean had been there.
With that bad English of his. It had improved over the years, much from Lara's effort at getting him some kind of "decent upbringing", as she joked. But since day one, she'd been Larah. With an H.
Lara took a quick look at her surroundings, now lit by over a dozen smaller lamps and a small chandelier. It was a large, well-decorated apartment in downtown Cairo. The unavoidable soft coat of sahara sand lay everywhere, and the wall-to-wall carpet she had already noted looked inviting to walk on barefooted. The bookshelves were full of statuettes and small stelae with hieroglyphics.
"Who did you say this place belongs to?" she asked Jean, who was turning on the gas in the kitchen.
"John and Catarina Sheare. They are both currently in Geneva, and gave me the keys years ago in case I ever wanted to spend the night at Cairo. Old colleagues. Let us hope they left something for us to eat."
Lara marveled at the way Jean-Yves managed to stay calm and talk cuisine after what had happened just a few hours earlier. Rope marks were still somewhat visible on his wrists, and Lara herself was a collection of assorted injuries herself. A bullet had scraped her leg. She would take care of it later.
She was still standing in the hallway, her back against the wall. She had a killer headache, and she was feeling cold, although the temperature in Cairo was over thirty degrees. She hadn't been feeling very good for the last couple of days, and being extra worried for Jean-Yves had added to the extreme exertion her body had been through. Dozens of the kind of slight wounds that eventually build up a Niagra of soreness at nights and the lack of food had turned her body into a half-functioning system. And she was worried it would decrease her chances against whatever she was to be battling the next day.
She still isolated Jean-Yves from her private thoughts, silently demanding personal space. And Jean - ever so close but at the same time ever so distant to her, didn't push her. He waited, as he had waited before. Knowing that eventually, she would say something that would lead to a rhetorically philosophical, all-night-long conversation. The pressure was intense.
Lara wondered how Jean-Yves felt. She had always wondered if men were given a strong ability to deal with extreme stress in birth. Now that would be something to ask from Jean. Sometime.
Not all archaeologists are field-specialized ones. And Jean-Yves had always been a definite non-fieldie. Still, he seemed to have nerves of steel.
After all, the end of the world was at hand, their colleague had turned into a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian god of evil, and Jean-Yves himself has suffered a kidnapping.
On the surface Lara was characteristically calm, of course. As always. No rhetorical questions beginning with the word 'why'. No what-ifs. Just a mission to accomplish - nothing more but nothing less. She saved questions for those who were weak anough to ask them.
Yet life itself was a line of why's, and most of them she didn't even have the time to ask.
"Lara, would you like to take a shower?" called Jean-Yves.
Lara slumped on the red sofa and let the mighty weariness wash all over her. She felt unusually warm now, and every muscle in her body was aching in a strange way that made her movements stiff and powerless.
"In a minute, Jean. I have to wait for the." she stopped for a yawn, ".the Amex to bring my suitcase."
Jean-Yves looked puzzled.
"I ordered my bags from Alexandria. They delivered them from Hotel Tulip in Alexandria to Hilton here in Cairo yesterday. I called them from a telephone post with the few piasters I had left before I came to meet you outside the Citadel gates."
Jean seemed happy with the explanation. Lara Croft, always the practical one. The thought of her running out of change was disconcerting, though. Very unlike Lara.
"I need my gear", Lara continued, as if defending her actions, "I'll make plenty of use of my bow tomorrow, I predict."
"You seem tired, my dear. Why don't you let me wait for the porter and you go have the nice shower."
Lara turned to look at him from the sofa she'd conquered.
"I'm tired, Jean. I'm going to take a shower tomorrow. Right now, all I need is a fresh, clean shirt and time to prepare for tomorrow. I still have a transcript of the Set stela to go through and."
Jean-Yves crossed his arms on his chest.
"I am not trying to be, how do you say, nosy? Here, but." Jean began, but paused, as Lara looked at her, smiling vaguely.
"What now?" he asked.
"You sound like our friend Werner when you say that. 'Howdyiysaaayit'" Lara mocked and stretched her left arm, watching an old scar on the tanned skin stretch as well. "You were saying?"
"How about if you forgot about Werner von Croy for this evening. And I am not trying to be impolite here, Lara, but when are you planning on sleeping?"
"I'll take a nap after I've read through your papers and fixed the crossbow. If I have the time," Lara stated, following Jean-Yves with her tired gaze.
"And when was the last time you ate something? You do not look too well. I hope you will join me for some dinner."
Lara took a long look at him. He was starting to sound concerned - at least on Lara's scale, and she was a somewhat overtly sensitive on the subject.
"I always have a chocolate bar or two in my pocket. I had a sandwich before I found von Croy's note in Alexandria."
"Lara, that was two days ago. How have you managed?"
"Fine, for your concern. Now, if you please, where is the phone? I need to call the company. I'm going to speed those lads a little. Those bags contain all your books, and your translation of the amulet of Horus. If they've misplaced those I won't be responsible for my actions."
Lara began to climb up from the sofa but lost balance for a second, and needed another try to get up. She smiled apologetically to Jean and disappeared to the kitchen.
"I'm dying of thirst, though."
Jean-Yves followed her like a shadow, taking a critical look at her.
To say that Lara looked tired would be a mock understatement. Exhausted was more like it. Muddy. Battle-stained. Jean observed the dark lines around her eyes, and a fine trail of blood that had dried up on her calf. The line lead up to a reddish four-inch wound in the proxitimity of her knee.
"Lara, someone should take a look at that knee."
Lara put the wet glass she had drank from into the sink, wiping the drops of water from her lips
"Oh, this?" she asked, raising her left leg. "It's okay, Jean, even if it catches an infection, it won't happen yet."
Jean-Yves looked concerned again. He knelt down and ran a finger over the rip. The wound was full of sand, and a crack of glass was firmly situated inside it. "You are just going to leave it like that, oui? And not even put anything in it? You know there is a glass piece in it?"
Lara stretched down, leaning on her ankles, trying to see what Jean-Yves had noticed.
"Great. Now I have to go and fish it out." Lara managed to hide a grimace. She noticed her hands shaking a bit, probably due to low blood sugar. Considering her options, she decided for a quick scream, and sat down to a chair, in a half-lotus position. She grabbed the shard of glass with two fingers and, gasping, pulled it off. The wound slowly began to trickle dark, clotted blood.
Jean-Yves brought her backpack by request and she tied an old handkerchief on the wound, slightly amused by Jean's concerned face as he tried to lecture her on the importance of cleaning up injuries properly.
"Jean, I've more than had my share of these. It's nothing, really." She sneezed to end her statement, and felt a sudden urge to go to bed.
Jean started rummaging through the kitchen cupboards in search for kettles and cutlery, and Lara limped to the living room, carefully trying to move the wounded leg as little as possible to avoid the dull ache using the muscles induced. It had hurt considerably less before she pulled out the glass shard.
Strangely, slight aches and pains often proved valuable in battle. Adrenaline had an aggressor effect. Quickened one's reactions. But mostly just made one plain angry. And speaking of experience - what ached slightly at noon would be a killer pain at midnight. But now wasn't the time to run around looking for a hospital.
Securing the continuance of civilization on Earth came first. After that one would have plenty of time for running after penicillin prescriptions.
She returned to the sofa after retrieving a book from her backpack - one of Jean's books from Alexandria. He had hidden the transcription inside the cover. Lara piled a couple of pillows behind her back and lifted her throbbing leg on the sofa table, inspecting her tennis-sock-covered foot.
She tried studying the book and the transcription but all the focus was gone. 'Either you are getting old, Lara dear, or you are extremely nervous,' she thought a bit bitterly. 'Disoriented' would have been the most descriptive choice.
Ignoring her aching leg she walked to the bathroom, after spying on Jean- Yves in the kitchen. He seemed to be only concerned with his own thoughts, far from the world and Cairo.
Walking to the bathroom, Lara wondered secretly whose part was tougher, hers or Jean's.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.
siirma6@surfeu.fi