Desert misery, chapter I
Prelude
(Hathor's perception)
It is early morning in Cairo, Egypt. The amber sunrays penetrate through Hathor's open window, forcing her to wake up.
Half asleep, she sits up on her bed and stretches her arms up with a yawn.
She steps out of bed and walks straight across the big bedroom and sits down by her super sumptuous dressing table to freshen up a bit. Drawing a brush through her long, black hair while watching her reflection in the mirror. When she thinks of it, she has pretty strange features. Nothing seems to look like the woman they stated to be her mother, but she had some features from her father, the Pharaoh. She had never found anything that reminded her of the queen though. Not that she gave a damn about that, she never liked the thought of having Teana as her mother anyway. That was probably something the Pharaoh's secret court had come up with to cause her trouble, they weren't better than that!
She stops brushing her hair and puts her purple hairband and her pink head jewelry on while she continues thinking. She rises up with her hands on her hips, admiring herself from different angles. Come to think of it, she is nothing like that bitch!
When done, she takes the stairs down to the room of state where she sees something that makes her step back and hide behind the door frame to listen to what's going on.
Inside the room of state, she sees Teana sitting on the lap of Lux, the Pharao's younger twin, with her face buried in his shoulder.
"What if he throws both of us out?" Teana sobs while digging her nails into his deep purple robe. Lux frowns at the thought but he has to keep his manliness up in front of Teana. He didn't want his love to see him as some sort of chicken. "Such bullshit, Teana! The Pharaoh is too kind-hearted to do such a thing.." He interrupts himself when he realizes that even if the pharaoh is a wise man with a heart of the purest gold in Egypt, he alone isn't the ruler of Egypt, and those in his company may have different hearts than him.
He wraps his arm around Teana's waist and smiles at her. "but hey! Don't you worry about a thing, from now on, I'll take care of you!"
Teana looks up at him, her eyes flooding with tears. "Really?" Lux smiles back at her. "Yes, Teana, really!"
They turn to each other, their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders when a young boy darts into the room, his turban beginning to unfold, revealing parts of his long black hair. This is Preist Seth's abandoned brother, Hati who often comes in to play and now sees Teana in Lux's arms!
"What the heck are you two doing!? Release her, Lux, she belongs to the king and you know that! Hands off, NOW!" he yells, pointing at Lux with a stick.
Lux gives Teana a final smile before turning to the boy. "You know what, kid? Never! You have no idea of what's going on anyway so why should I take advice from you, A simple kid from the streets?"
Hathor sneaks closer to the doorway to hear better. Right now, the only thing she can hear is Teana sobbing and Hati's angry voice. "She is married to your brother, the KING! The mother of princess Hathor and that makes more sense than anything you say, so I don't give a donkeys butt about what's going on, just let go of her before I get mad!" Lux sighs at the stubborn child and releases Teana's waist while giving Hati a serious look. "I would never hurt my queen. Thus I promise never to leave her, never to abandon her. If anybody, Hati, you should know what it is like to be left outside in the cold without anyone caring. If she is your queen as you claim, then you shouldn't be such a stubborn kid while not even having a clue on why I act like I do." Teana nods at Lux and gives Hati a death serious glance. "He is right. For once, uncle Lux is right, just ask the king himself." She walks towards Hati and folds his flappy turban back into a real turban again. Then she kisses his forehead. "Beautiful, beautiful boy.." she looks for a long time at his dirty face while hearing Lux's voice. "I could leave her, you know... But that would have rather nasty consequences in this turbulent world." Teana turns to him and claps her hand over his mouth to make him shut up. "Please, don't tell Hati all this yet, he won't get it! When not even the secret court gets it, then what makes you think a child would?" Lux falls silent and Teana proceeds. "Besides, what if that nasty fox Hathor gets to know this, she already hates me, what will this make her think of us?" Lux turns his back to Teana and Hati. "That woman is nothing like anyone in this house, what difference would it make if she hated you more than she does? She hates everyone!" Hati doesn't really listen to Lux, his thoughts have stuck to the previous thing he said. "Consequences...?" he repeats. "Please, my Queen! Tell me what's going on!" Teana hesitates for a moment before deciding to tell him the truth anyway. "Hati, because you are such a loyal and wonderful person, I will tell you the truth anyway! You see, the king is going to marry his childhood friend Mana. I'm okay with it because I care more about our friendship than about anything and we are still good friends, that's what counts! However, the secret court may not agree about this and that's why I fear that they may throw me out if they find out that I don't have any husband anymore."
When Hathor hears this, she gets her golden chance to get Teana where she wants her, outside the kingdom!
She rumbles into the room with a triumphant smile on her face. "Oh, so THIS is what you guys are trying to swindle with? Just you wait until I've told the secret court about this!" She gets closer to Teana's face. "I guess somebody will have to sleep in the desert tonight!" she smirks and runs out of the room with a hysterical laugh.
(Atem's perception)
Atem comes into the room of state in company with Priest Akunadin when they meet a chaotic atmosphere. At the same time, they almost get overrun by Hathor who runs out under hysterical laughter.
Akunadin follows her with his gaze before skeptically clicking his tongue multiple times. "I wonder what problems the children of today may have..." He sighs. Atem shrugs as to highlight that he doesn't know what to reply. Then he walks towards Lux and pierces his eyes through him as if he knew perfectly well that he was part of this. "What's going on, Lux? I guess you know a lot about this, you usually do!" Lux snorts a bit and turns to his brother. "I could say it out loud, my Pharaoh, but it contains too many bad words, and I'm not a big fan of Priest Karim and his mouth washer," he said with a smirk. "Instead, ask lady Teana and the little one over there! Now if you excuse me, I will remove myself from this room!" Atem snorts and whisks his hand at Lux's direction as he disappears through the doorway.
When Lux has left the room, Atem walks towards one of the windows, his back against the others in the room. "I thought you were okay with this, Teana. Afterall, this was your idea, for the sake of Ra!" He turns around and faces her blue eyes. "What's wrong? Please talk to me, that has to be the least I can ask you for!" Teana stays quiet as she glances after Lux's shadow as it disappears around the corner of the hallway. She swallows multiple times before giving in to the tears. "I really hope I haven't hurt any of your feelings, my beloved ones. I'm so sorry, Atem, but I have to leave!" she whispers half-woven before running out of the room, crying her eyes out. "Teana, WAIT!" Atem yells in a terrified voice as he sees her run off, but Akunadin puts a hand on his shoulder. "Calm down, my king, don't bother about her anymore! You should lay your thoughts on what your sneaky daughter has thought about, that's more important than running after your ex-wife."
He walks towards Hati and points at him. "As well as finding a home to this dirty kid and his brother, I'm getting tired of them living in that hovel day out and day in." Hati looks at Akunadin, was he really sane? Did he just call him and Nil "dirty kids" when he probably knew who they were? He can't believe his ears. "Don't worry, grandpa, we will be okay!" He snaps at Akunadin and runs off before either him nor Atem could answer. Atem grinned at the old man. "I bet you want his energy though, that kid is highly valuable since he practically lives in here. Ask Mana, she knows both him and his clever brother." He turns his back to Akunadin and walks towards the balcony. "Enough about them already, I want to know what's going on and why the hell nobody tells me, the KING, about anything, UNREASONABLE!" He yells while slapping his hands up in the air. Akunaden's eyes widen as he sees the kings behavior. Apparently, he needs Teana's presence in order to not flip out. "Calm down, your majesty, I will try and solve this for you, trust me!" Atem turns to Akunadin with a huge frown on his face. "Trust YOU, sir? Last time I trusted you, Priest Shadda got rid of his hair! Remember? He used to look like Karim before you "helped" him. Ah well, because I'm desperate then, off you go!" Akunadin snorts at the accusations, it was an accident, and he had told the court that multiple times and not even his own son would believe him. He could swear they were all laughing without daring to show it. As he walks towards the courtyard he sees Hathor and Katoka in front of a bunch of soldiers. He hides behind a corner to get a better view on what's going on and then he hears it. "And don't stop before the bitch is caught. But leave the killing to the princess herself, that will show her!" Akunadin gasps as he hears Hathor's orders. She is actually going to kill Teana? How vile!
"Alright, Princess Hathor has spoken, we have a traitor to liquidate! Off we go!" Katoka yells at the soldiers and the second after that, the ground starts trembling from the clattering of running horses. Akunadin needs to run and jump into a ditch in order to not get run over. Something his back doesn't like when he gets on his feet again. The Pharaoh needs to know this, and that's fast! Akunadin runs off to the priest house to tell the others but the only one he finds there is Seth. "Seth, my son! In the name of Ra-atum stop those troops!" Seth looks at him as if he was a maniac. "Ehm.. Excuse me father, but didn't I tell you not to eat the Myrrh? It may have bad impacts on you. I do not like it!" Akunadin makes an ugly face at his son and mimics him. "bleh bleh I told you not to eat myrrh!" It wasn't that this time, you know that! The princess has gone totally nuts!" He exclaimed and Seth just walked past him towards the doorway "already? Then she is in good company, Old man... I can't see any..." He looks at the horizon and sees a dust cloud. Maybe it wasn't the myrrh this time anyway. Maybe he was right. "Troops!" He exclaimed and pointed at the cloud. "Told you so..." Akunadin agreed with a smirk. "Oh don't get cocky old man, you were just lucky.." Seth snorted and went off to look for Mahad. Probably he was in the temple, praying for the heat to get a bit friendlier.
After gathering the priest in the room of state along with the Pharaoh, He let Akunadin tell his story. Atem was furious to hear that his daughter had disobeyed him and smashed his fist into the throne. Something that turned out being a bad Idea. "I regret it! I hope you all heard that I regret getting that sneaky lady pregnant!" Mahad looked up from his bow and met Karim's eyes with an amused smile. He knew that he had warned him about Hathor's mother before, but nobody ever listened to him anyway. Isis looked Equally as amused as Mahad and her face was turned to the king himself. "Maybe you should borrow my necklace next time you choose your wife, my Pharaoh?" She smirked and caused the others to snicker. Atem wasn't that amused though. "Shut your face, Isis..." He moaned, still stroking his fist.
Seth stood up and looked at the king. "sir, instead of talking about that slut Maliku..." he glanced at Karim to see if he reacted at him saying a bad word. "that's not a bad word, is it?" Karim shrugs and whisks his hand at him to make him continue. "..Well, maybe, instead of that, we should send another troop to make Hathor's troop retreat. I bet they listen more to the king than to her anyway!" Atem nodded. "True, and I know who the best commander of that group would be. Seth! You will lead that squad, along with Mahad!
Later, Seth and Mahad ride off with their troop to find Teana and Lux before Hathor does it. "Isn't it rather funny? I spoke to my brother before he went off and he told me that Hathor told him about the Pharaoh getting insane because of Teana. I highly doubt that she would have such bad impact on people." Mahad says. Seth nods. "And why would such a pure soul want to manipulate a person like king Atem? If she wanted to be the queen of Egypt, then why did she run away with Lux?" Mahad smiles back at Seth "I thought you knew that perfectly well. You who did the same for Kisara..." Seth snorts as an answer. Why does Mahad always have to talk about Kisara? It is nothing between him and her anyway.
Almost three hours later, after riding through the steaming hot desert, Mahad realizes that Katoka's troops must be far ahead of them. Of course, he doesn't want Seth to know this, he would murder him if he told him that he was right when he told him that, about an hour ago. However, somehow, Seth manages to figure it out himself and gives Mahad a skeptical look. "Don't say it, Mahad! I know you figured out that I was right!" He exclaims. At first, Mahad doesn't answer him, he already knows that it's force majeure talking to Seth when he is angry, but eventually, he opens his mouth to snap back, but gets interrupted by a long "Nooooo!" from the far distance. Shortly after that, they see a man on a grey horse come galloping towards them. The rider seems really upset. When he stops and jumps down from the horse, he removes the purple hood that covered his face. "LUX!?" Mahad and Seth exclaim. "Arrest me! I don't want to live without her anyway!"Lux shouts and puts his hands in front of himself. The priests look at Lux with shocked eyes. "are YOU crying!? Oh my Ra, then the case must be worse than when you put camel poop into the mouth washer!" Seth says. Lux just shakes his head. "If I hadn't disgusted her so much, I'd keep quiet until death spoke for me..." He kneels in front of Seth and Mahad and doesn't say anything more to them. Seth snorts at him. "Rise, Lux! You look too much like the king to kneel in front of your own cousin. Furthermore, the princess has clearly lost her mind completely, so I'm willing to spare you." Lux frowns back at Seth. Was he willing to spare him? "Wait, there's a catch, ain't it?" Seth frowns at Mahad who answers with a smile. "absolutely. We want to know where Teana is!" Lux looks down at the ground and starts crying again. "You are right. She is insane! Teana... Katoka couldn't make it when Hathor told him to cut her throat, so she showed him how it was done! The greedy bitch!" He shouted and Seth's and Mahad's eyes widened. Did she really make reality out of her threat? Had she really gone as far as to kill her own stepmother? It all felt so surreal! At length, Seth raises his millennium rod and points it at Lux. "Jump on the horse, Prince! There will be no execution! Well, at least not for you." Mahad nods in agreement."Correct! Come and show us where she is!" Lux jumps up on the horse and rides away, followed by the priests. Hathor, you will pay!
To be continued