A/N: For the YGO Fanfiction Contest Season 12 Round 3. The pairing: Yami no Yuugi x Rishid Ishtar.
Steampunk AU. (Those of you who were here last season might vaguely recall the Thief Bakura x Mai piece I wrote, "Desert Sands". This story takes place in the same universe.)
Disclaimer: Kazuki Takahashi and all associated companies are the rightful owners of the Yuugiou! franchise and I claim no association with any of them. No copyright infringement intended with this and no money is being made from this. Please support the creator by purchasing the official releases.
Warnings: worksafe.
See
It's the little things that you always notice first. The way sunlight reflects off the glass windows. The way a faint breeze makes a stifling hot day a little more bearable. The tantalising scent of freshly baked bread that makes you readily imagine how it would taste – that first piece you break off, too impatient to wait until you've returned to the comfort of your home, if you're fortunate enough to have one.
It's the little things he notices about the other man first as well: the hairstyle once the hood he's wearing comes off, the markings down the side of his face, the nondescript clothing that lets him blend in with the shadows and all the other natives easily. They're small and superficial and utterly insignificant at the first glance; things that gain meaning only after you've taken a closer look at them, after you've learned the reasons behind them.
He doesn't expect to learn much about this man, other than the fee he asks for his services and how well he knows the area they would be travelling to. He watches him approaching and tries to suppress the whisper of worry at the back of his mind. It has been well over a decade since he last set foot on the sand of his homeland – since he was exiled after one man's thirst for power and high status drove him to turn on one of his last few living relatives. He's had his skin bleached; he's stolen a face from an unsuspecting and far too trusting young man to conceal his true identity – an attempt at hiding in plain sight: to be as noticeable as possible. Still, some things are hard to hide and the procedures he's undergone aren't known for being foolproof. Quite the contrary, in fact – they have a very low success rate, as the human body is so changeable: the skin sheds, the hair fall out and grow anew; exposure to sun, wind, and harsh weather can easily derail the condition that has been achieved with quite the great amount of pain and concentrated effort. After all, there are only so many things the science can alter without irreversibly crippling the person in question.
He's been lucky though. He'd taken a risk by finding a doctor with a more or less positive record – someone who knew how far he could go to guarantee a reasonably lasting effect – and gambled everything on the most extensive and time-consuming treatment the doctor had been willing to put him through. He hadn't heeded the warnings and he'd been lucky with that. (Luck follows him and favours him now. It is an odd twist: it hadn't been on his side when he'd been dethroned and banished, and so it sometimes felt like it is trying to make up for that with his every other undertaking.)
"Imay, I presume," his future guide says, stopping a polite distance from him and removing his hood as a sign of goodwill.
He doesn't appear to be armed, but then – you can never tell with people who wear cloaks like his and display a prominent lack of any equipment, which is quite unthinkable in this day and age for a person of his profession.
"And you would be Rashid, the best guide this side of the River," he replies smoothly, keeping his posture reasonably lax. Also a show of goodwill and honest intentions, though his intentions aren't all that pure. (Not that it should matter to this man.)
"One of many," the dark-skinned man returns modestly (and he likes him just a little more for it). "I was told that a man was looking for a guide through the desert."
"I am."
"Along the River would be more pleasant to travel. And much safer."
"I was already informed of that, but the River cannot take me to where I need to go," he returns smoothly and shifts the subject to one that has always stopped all questions (or, at the very least, shifted the questions to more… comfortable ones): "I will pay you well for your trouble. Double, if we encounter danger and you aid me against it."
Rashid considers him for a moment. Usually, the ones to hire him are caravan leaders and owners. Travellers – not quite so often. Most of the time, if they've come as far into Kemet as Ta-Shemau, they already have guides which they've hired in Ta-Mehu, and it makes him wonder what might have happened to this man's guide to have made him leave his patron. But it really isn't his place to ask questions. The less he knows, the better it is in the long run; it's something he's learned throughout the years. And he does need the money.
"What is your destination?"
"Kharga."
"Following the River to Tjenu and setting out for Kharga from there is a safer road. Many caravans go there and we could travel with. More protection against thieves. And Tjenu is a sight to behold."
"Yes, I heard on my way here. They are preparing for a festival of some sort?" He feigns disinterest, though he is anything but. "I have seen Tjenu and I have seen it during a festivity once before, and I also see no reason to waste time by taking your suggested detour. I am not here to observe parades."
Rashid frowns. "The desert is perilous."
"So I've heard." He allows himself a smirk. He knows, perhaps better than Rashid, just what hides amid and beneath the sand dunes out there. "Now, do we have a deal or not?"
Rashid takes a moment to decide and his final conclusion is that he has warned this man sufficiently of the dangers that lie ahead. If the foreigner dies, he can walk away with a clean conscience.
"We do. And we will need camels for the road."
He merely waves Rashid's words away. "That won't be necessary. I have a sandboat."
"A sandboat."
There is no hiding the disbelief and scepticism in his guide's voice at that, but he only smiles in reply as he reaches for the pouch with the earnest money he'd mentioned when he'd let the word of his need for a guide slip over a friendly game of die the other day in the town's marketplace. There had been plenty of keen ears. He hands the pouch over without deliberation or any additional bartering, knowing that sometimes less is more. (Throw a bone, and wait for the prey to approach you.)
"Oh, you'll see – if you meet me on the outskirts of this town tomorrow at sunrise."
As he turns to walk away, he is confident that Rashid will come. Now he can head to make a few final purchases for the long trip ahead before turning in for the night at the local tavern.
As he traverses the small distance from the marketplace to the tavern, he reflects on the stories he'd heard from the builder himself of how people had laughed at him, ridiculed him for building a boat when there was no water in sight, and he does have to admit that the man had not appeared in his right mind at first. But Nuh is a man of his word and his boats do run on sand as they would on water. He does not sell them – he lends them to travellers in need for a hefty price. At the time he'd visited the old man, he'd already been in the process of building his third vessel – more of a small ship rather than the modest little thing (his very first creation), which he'd let him borrow after a good deal of haggling and after most of the gold he'd acquired through gambling had already disappeared in the shrewd man's very wide and very deep pockets. (He isn't worried about the gold; he has already regained half of that amount on his way here.)
He still remembers the mischievous grin on the builder's bright-eyed youngest son's face when he'd asked if they didn't fear thieves or otherwise dishonest people who might conspire to not return the vessels. The boy had stalled like a true man of high trade or one of the royal councillors, leaning down to pick up the sable puppy playfully nipping at the hem of his robe, letting the silence speak for him before he even uttered his confident statement:
"They always come back. Always."
When the morning comes, he is already waiting for his guide, leaning against the side of the sandboat in a leisurely manner. He has seen the first light gradually colour the horizon, the first rays pushing through the darkness slow and searching, only to grow brighter and more rapid as the red-golden disc ascends to its throne in the sky. He has watched the sand dunes catch fire, the shadows run and hide, bending around protrusions from the desert floor, and he has greeted Re with a silent chant in a language that is as natural to him as breathing (and as strange coming from his lips to any ears who might have happened to hear it as his pale skin).
He watches Rashid approach and though he cannot see the man's face, hidden beneath the hood and further concealed from the view by the way the shadows fall, he knows that the sight greeting him has left an impression. How could it not? A boat in the middle of the desert; its every curve painted a warm auburn colour by the rays of the morning sun, the details of the cabin and the mast accentuated by the shadows as they rush to hide from the light, and the prominent propeller near the bow gleaming like pure gold. And the sails haven't even been unfurled yet. A slight breeze ruffles the hair on his forehead as a sign from above. He reaches out to pull the rope, loosening the last few inches of the coil that has been barely hanging on, waiting to be released, and the off-colour white canvas unfurls with a snap, instantly colouring golden.
He lets the smirk show.
Rashid knows when he has been bested. He stops an honourable distance from his patron and bows slightly.
"You do have a sandboat."
He accepts the apology with an incline of his head and invites him on board and into the cabin. He tightens the sails and starts up the engine which runs on coal and water – or camel droppings and vinegar when the former runs out – and they set out on their way to Kharga.
"You seem to know the way quite well," Rashid comments after hours of silence. He is comfortably seated in one of the recliners which he has some trouble getting used to. He has never sat on a chair this soft, but his patron merely shrugs, barely sparing a glance his way from his position at the helm.
"I have the map and the sextant to adhere to." He gestures at the named items on a small table beside himself. "If I take a wrong turn, I expect you to correct me."
Rashid makes a thoughtful sound and for a moment there is silence again. But it seems there is no stemming his curiosity. (Because he has his suspicions. And because the morning light has revealed more than just the magnificence of the sandboat. Upon closer inspection, now that the rising sun's glamour is gone, it turns out to be a mere fisherman's vessel, and quite worn at that. Its sides are battered, having seen a good share of hardships, and the woodwork has gained the typical gleam of something well-worn, polished by the sweat and oils of the countless human hands that have passed over it.)
"What lies in Kharga that would make a man risk travel through the hostile sand here?"
"A precious treasure of unimaginable worth," he replies smoothly, quirking the corner of his lip in amusement, though he also grows suspicious of these questions. Every inquiry might lead closer to truths he doesn't wish revealed; not when he is so close to his old home. Not when he is heading to the burial grounds of his forefathers and the hidden values in the vaults that no thief has yet managed to find.
"What might that be?" Rashid muses pensively. He doesn't need to feign the disbelief and the dismissal: he knows that there is nothing of value in the Southern Oasis. There hasn't been anything for decades now. "Unless it's a woman."
"I'll know it when I see it," is the undeterred reply.
"That's not very promising."
"The direction is."
Rashid watches his patron closely.
"Imay," he tests the name he has been given, observing his reaction to it. "I have never heard a name like it. What kind of a name is that?"
"A good name."
They're playing a game, he realises. But he hasn't the mood for games.
"What does it mean?"
"It means whatever you want it to mean."
"Imay. Yami. Maiy." He tests the sounds slowly, as if trying to taste them. "It is in no language that I know."
"But it is in a language I speak."
(And perhaps it is only his imagination, but his patron's smile seems to have grown thinner and more strained.)
"What is your name, Imay?" He persists. "Your people always come with several names." He has no doubt now: his patron's hands are gripping the steering wheel so tightly the knuckles are turning white. But when he speaks, there is no trace of tension in his voice. Only a slight dismissal, as if none of his questions would matter.
"You ask too many questions for a guide that has been praised as highly as you have been."
"Perhaps that is the reason." He lets the silence drift between them for a moment, though it is interrupted by the noises of the engine and the rhythmical grinding of the propellers that keep the boat moving. He poses the question again: "What is your name?"
"I have many names, Rashid. Some of them so dangerous they might cause your death."
He lets a moment pass, permitting the implication sink in and a thread to unravel between them. The game has turned dangerous and the one with the best move will win. Rashid has a family to return to and, to do so, he gambles everything.
"Is one of them Atem-waenre?"
Silence settles between them again. When his patron speaks, his voice has gained a faraway tone which Rashid has heard once in his life when, as a child, he listened in to his father conversing with the King's messenger.
"That is the most dangerous one of them all. A hundred and hundred people have already died for it. And a hundred and hundred more will follow." Atem-waenre turns to regard his guide and his intense gaze burns into him hot and red like coals through the darkest night. It leaves nothing hidden. It drags all the truths to the surface, bared before him. "But for you to know it… The marks on your face: I have seen them before. You are one of the Keepers. But…" he breaks off briefly and it is a heavy pause during which Rashid finds himself unable to draw breath. The air has turned as thick as palm oil and it seems to trickle over them, tearing them out of the world and pushing them into somewhere he dares not name in his thoughts, much less words.
"What does a Keeper do wandering above the ground and guiding caravans and stray travellers through the perils of the desert?"
Now, for the first time in a long, long while – as long as his father's whip, and longer still than the waking up from the nightmare that followed his death – he realises that he is tongue-tied. There is something in the middle of the other man's forehead where this suffocating aura seems to originate from: like a bright gleam. Looking at him is the same as looking directly at the sun, and he thinks he finally knows why no one has ever been allowed to look the royal family in the face when in their presence – only from afar when the features are barely distinguishable. It is impossible to endure the brightness emanating from him – for he is (and this Rashid realises belatedly) looking at the descendant of the sun god Re himself.
"Is it a long story?" His once-king prompts and the only thing he can do is nod in reply. A slow smirk curls his lips upwards and he abruptly turns his back on him, hands finding their way back on the steering wheel. His gaze glances over the map and the sextant to check their direction before shifting to a far-off point in the desert ahead of them, and the spell is broken.
Dethroned and banished from the land of his forefathers, changed to the point of almost no recognition, robed as any other foreigner that comes to their land either to trade or steal (and sometimes both) – nobody would look to him as the exiled young king. A decade spent in foreign lands has changed him outwardly, but he still has maintained the same fire that burns down upon them – as merciful and just as it can be cruel.
Rashid stumbles from the chair and falls to the ground as soon as he retains control of his limbs.
"It is, my King." He stops short with the honorific, suddenly unsure what to call a dethroned ruler, but it doesn't seem to matter for Atem-waenre.
"Imay Ut-tom is the name you are looking for," he says with audible amusement in his voice. "We have a long trip ahead of us. Enough time for you to tell me your story and more than enough to forget the other name you called. For I assure you – you will regret ever uttering it before this trip is done. Now rise, Rashid of the guides, and conceal nothing from me."
As he complies, he can't help but think how it's the little things that you always notice first. The little things that slip your attention with how insignificant they appear at a glance that isn't careful enough. The way the desert sun bleaches bones to a nigh pristine white before the sand creeps in and covers everything up; the way a mirage of a lush oasis conjures itself for a tired and weary traveller when he most thirsts for a refreshing sip of water – the way secrets hide in plain sight.
Reference notes. Always.
Ta-Shemau: Upper Egypt; literally, "land of reeds"
Ta-Mehu: Lower Egypt; lit., "land of papyrus"
Tjenu (also Thinis, This): capital city of Egypt under the rule of the First Dynasties, circa 3100-2686 BC
Kharga (El-Kharga, Kharga Oasis): southernmost oasis in the western Egypt, in Libyan desert. Also, a caravan crossroad and a large settlement.
-waenre: lit., "the one of Re"
Noh (and his boats): Arabic for - you guessed it! - Noah.