by Ceresi
Rating:
GSummary:
A drabble. The moon is an alchemist that cannot be defeated. Very mild Ryou/Yami Yugi.***
The moon was an alchemist in Egypt. It turned blue skies to black, golden sands to ivory dust. It was worshipped as a god in it's own right.
The young prince looked intently at the sky, as if the moon-god was a foe he might beat in a game.
It was very late, and he really ought to be inside, sleeping. He wasn't dressed properly for the night, either, and the air pricked his defenseless arms and chest painfully. Egyptian nights were cold.
(5000 years later, he would understand why -- no water on the ground meant no water in the air, no water in the air meant no clouds, and no clouds meant that daytime heat escaped when the sun fell. He summoned Shadow Magics and knew god-secrets, but he didn't understand why night was cold.)
It was the moon, he thought, like a giant ball of ice that left all the world in winter. A giant ball of ice that was defeated by Ra every morning, and if Ra could do it, so could he.
His breath fogged the air almost defiantly. For some tribes, it was a crime to breathe without veils over mouth and nose. Those same tribes had the same word for 'blood' and 'water', and considered the latter to be the infinitely more valuable of the two.
But he was the son of the pharaoh. And his blood was much more valuable than any water.
Someone stepped onto the balcony beside him, tugging her robes tightly around her. Straight black hair framed a dark face.
"Are you well, my prince?"
He didn't glance away from the sky. "I'm fine."
Aishisu waited. When he remained unmoved, she said softly, but with amusement, "You cannot defeat the moon, crown prince."
"Why not?" he demanded angrily.
"It is too gentle a foe, even for you."
With all the determination of a ten-year-old boy, he continued to glare. But the moon did not fall from the sky, the air did not warm itself, and the woman did not leave him.
"Come inside," Aishisu advised, already turning back to the doors. "It's too cold out here."
He followed her in a moment later. His uncle was murmuring an apology to his brother, something about a village and thieves. The other priests were waiting with a golden circlet, the crown his father used to wear.
(And 5000 years later, he stood on a battlefield, looking down at a boy with eyes the color of a night sky, stars included, with hair like sand bleached by night. He was finally free of the spirit that possessed him, and his eyes were passive and frightened. Yami remembered -- you cannot defeat the moon. It is too gentle a foe, even for you.
And he reflected wryly that some things just never changed.)