Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi and Konami, and is being used in this fanfiction for fan purposes only. No infringement or disrespect of the copyright holders of Yu-Gi-Oh! Or its derivative works is intended by this fanfiction.

Description: Pharaoh Set is suffering. Mana wants to help. But magic, like love, can be tricky.

Note: This fic follows anime canon rather more than manga canon, and is intended to be humor. If you're expecting excruciating levels of historical accuracy, stop now: you're going to be disappointed.

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Dedicated to Shirogane,
whose comment gave birth to a plunnie on 12 December 2010
and who drew such lovely art for it.

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From Page Forty-one, Chapter 1: The Shrine of Wedju
by Animom

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Even though it was long past midnight, he knew he wouldn't be able to calm his mind enough to sleep, swirling and churning as it was with the hundreds of details and decisions he had to keep track of as ruler of the kingdom; so when he got to his chambers he pulled off his robes of state, tiptoed across the empty room (re-assigning the floor-slaves to other duties had been one of his first acts as Pharaoh), took a small key from its hiding place, and opened the special wardrobe coffer. Buried at the bottom, under stacks of gilt-cloth and Tyrian-dyed silk, was the hooded acolyte's robe that he had worn at a time when he had been, not Pharaoh Set, not High Priest Set, but simple, ordinary Set. Several lifetimes ago, that seemed now.

He walked quickly and silently through the palace, his heart pounding so loudly that he felt sure that every guard he passed could hear in its beats his guilty secret, that he was going to visit the only tangible reminder he had of the woman he would have given anything to save. When he came to a deserted corridor he pressed a hidden panel, opening it just wide enough to slip into into complete darkness behind it, and then closing it to blindly descend the stone steps that led to the secret underground entrance of the Shrine of Wedju.

Kisara. He often wondered if love was as strange and wonderful for everyone as it had been for them: did it strike everyone so swiftly, so deeply? He could remember all their brief moments together so clearly: the feel of her hair, the perfect blue of her kind, beautiful eyes, her soft, musical voice, the heartrending sound of her sobs …

Her sobs?

The sounds were coming from the chamber ahead of him. Set was outraged: whoever had dared profane the Shrine would pay dearly.

He threaded through the rows of stone slabs containing lesser ka toward a faint glow on the main aisle, where whoever it was sniffled and said, "And I finally finished everything in the blue book, and did the first few in the red book, but … " The words sped up, as if the speaker were racing up a hill, "… there's some stuff … I don't understand … and I need you … to explain."

Set stood in the shadows watching Mana, who had conjured a tiny yellow flame on the floor in front of the tablet of The Black Magician. She sniffled again, wiped the tears from her face, and said, "I miss you so much." She touched the tablet's stone border with her fingertips. "Please come back." She bowed her head and began to sob again.

Set understood all too well her sentiments. He turned to go, planning to leave her to her sorrow, but as he moved his sandal scuffled on the stone floor, the sound magnified by echoes in the huge chamber.

"Who's there?" Mana cried out, a pink fireball spinning in each hand.

He quickly stepped into the light.

"Oh! My pharaoh!" she said, waving her hands to dismiss the fireballs. "You're here for – " She looked down the aisle toward the tablet of the White Dragon.

He saw no need to acknowledge the obvious. "How often do you come here?" he asked.

She looked guilty. "Hardly ever. Only when – "

"Only when you are overcome with sadness?"

She nodded, the corners of her eyes sparkling with constant tears. "I'm sorry that I'm so weak."

"It's not weakness," Set said. "It's natural to think about an important person that has gone to the next life." He didn't want to rush Mana out of the temple – they were both there for similar reasons, after all – but it would be uncomfortable talking to Kisara if others were present. "Our memories of them are sacred, precious."

Mana sniffled again, then said, "Oh!" She hurriedly gathered up the stack of books and some paper-wrapped sweets lying in front of the Magician's tablet, then scrambled to her feet. "I'll leave! So that you can have privacy!"

"Thank you, Mana," Set said. "Perhaps – perhaps you could visit him on even-numbered days of the week? and I will visit her on the others?"

Mana nodded her head in agreement and ran off, leaving the magical flame in front of the Magician's tablet burning.

Set waited until the echoes of her footsteps had completely faded, and then knelt in front of the White Dragon tablet. "Oh Kisara … how I wish you were still here."

~ : ~

Set was listening wearily to his High Priest Kheffry insist, for the third day in a row, that it was essential to immediately enforce the old, pre-disaster schedule of religious observances. While Set did understand the need to get the country back to normal, he was sure that even on his most inflexible days as Atem's High Priest he would have recognized that rebuilding houses and getting the fields ready for the Inundation was far more important than having thousands – and truly, now only hundreds – of people prostrate themselves before the royal balcony several days a month. He wondered, as Kheffry unrolled and began to read from yet another papyrus, if the other priests had elected Kheffry as High Priest not so much for his ability to serve the Pharaoh as to remove him from the ecclesiastical chambers before they went insane and killed him.

"As I told you two days ago, I have already made my decision," he said when Kheffry finally stopped reading. "Consult the oracles, and with the god's guidance select one ceremony per moon cycle. One." As Kheffry started to protest Set cut him off firmly. "After the Inundation, we will weigh again the will of the gods and the spirit of the people. Until then, we will speak no more of this."

Kheffry frowned but nodded. Set sighed and lifted his hand to dismiss the Sacred Guardians. As they began to leave the chamber in ones and twos in search of supper Mana caught his eye: she was gathering up the various bound tomes she always carried and placing them into her satchel as slowly as possible. Clearly she had something to say, and to him alone.

Once everyone else had gone, she glanced around the room, then pulled out a huge, ancient looking book bound in dark leather. "So I've been doing some reading," she said. "And I found a spell."

"Spell?" Set said. He didn't like to think ill of the dead, but he that thought often recently that he could add "very poor teacher" to the list of Mahaado's faults: although Mana's proficiency had improved, her spellcasting still caused the prudent to clear the immediate vicinity. "What does this spell do?"

"It's hard to explain, but – you know people say that time is a river?"

Set had never heard this, but it did make some sense, he supposed, and so he nodded.

"Well," Mana said, her voice slightly more confident than usual. "If our life is like sitting on a riverbank, watching the Water of Time go by, then the future – things that haven't happened yet – is upstream. And the past is downstream."

Set wondered where this was going.

"And this spell," Mana was now nervously playing with the Ring, "it lets you – run downstream. Faster than the river's flow."

"And why would you do that?"

She said solemnly, "Going down stream means going into the past. To maybe catch something that has floated away?"

"I don't quite see … " he said, but actually he was starting to think that he did. His heart began to gallop.

"So that's the first half, the spirit-traveling part, which is easy. The other half of the spell," she opened the huge tome, "lets me make a mirror image of any living thing, and bring it back to where were are now on the riverbank. Which is actually a when. And not a real river, but you know what I mean." She looked up at him expectantly. "Won't it be wonderful?"

"So you would – "

She smiled and jumped in place. "Yes! I'll go into the past, to just before you and Shaada found Kisara in the marketplace. I'll copy her, and bring her back here." She stopped jumping and bit her lip. "I'm not sure if her ka will be copied, but it's not like she'll have to bring the White Dragon out once she's safe here, right?"

"Mana!" He almost tossed her in the air in his excitement. "You can do this?"

"Well, actually," she said, running to her satchel, "I already did." She pulled out a small bronze box. "Look!"

Set took the box, opened it, then drew back, startled. Inside was a huge spider.

"Remember how upset Kheffry was when Queen died?" Mana said. "I just went back to just before I stepped – er, before Queen died – and got a copy."

It was astounding how stimulating hope could be.

~ : ~

Although it was quite an ingenious idea in theory, he doubted at first that Mana had the magical prowess to bring Kisara back: but then, as she produced a succession of beetles, birds, lizards, and the exact twin of an elderly three-legged cat that he remembered from his childhood, he began to believe.

And that led to a new concern. He didn't know much about magic, but even he could see that as the creatures got larger so did the magical circle needed to copy them, and so was the ba that Mana was expending bring them back. He found himself beginning to worry that something would go horribly wrong with the spell, and that he would lose Mana, the only person from his past still alive. The only one he could talk to about Kisara and Atem.

"You can't do it," he finally said to her. "I forbid it."

"Why?" Mana, who had just brought back a copy of a goat with perfect moon-shaped patches of white fur on either flank (a herd of which had been gifts from the Nubian Empire during Aknamkanon's reign).

"As Pharaoh, I am responsible for the welfare of the people," he said as coldly as possible. "You are people. I will not allow you to endanger yourself."

"And I am a Guardian," Mana said, scowling and lifting her chin with pride. "The welfare of the Pharaoh is my responsibility."

Seeing her determination, all his worry condensed into impulsiveness. "I don't want to lose you too."

She laughed. "No one will be lost! It's an easy spell for me now."

He could see that she was not going to be dissuaded, and so he nodded. "Alright. I will trust my magician."

Mana promised to rest fully for an entire day, and then left.

Set paced. His Kisara! He couldn't believe that soon he would see her again, hold her again. And yet – was what they were doing a defiance of the gods? Was it blasphemy to cheat Fate so? Still … had the goddess Isis accepted the murder of her divine husband Osiris, Horus would never have been engendered. Surely the Great Mother would look kindly on the use of magic to bring back a lost love? He folded his arms, his mind swirling as he tried to recall any prophecy or religious law prohibiting what they were about to do. His stomach churned with anticipation and fear and doubt and uncertainty.

~ : ~

The summoning circle Mana needed to draw for Kisara was too large for Set's private chambers, so they closed off the throne room (at every door posting guards with strict instructions that they not be interrupted for any reason) and rolled up the heavy rugs in the center of the room.

After lighting a dozen lamps to illuminate the huge chamber, Set paged though the ancient tome as Mana drew the summoning circle. "Where is the spell?"

"Part five, page forty-one," Mana said, concentrating on drawing sigils. "Lines 2020 to 2024."

Set found the page. He wasn't well-versed in arcane languages – and it didn't help that some of the words on the page kept blurring every time he concentrated on them – but he thought that he glimpsed, from the corner of his eye, the word beware. Or perhaps it said naked. He was about to ask when Mana nodded emphatically, dusted off her hands, and then sat down in the precise center of the circle. "Ready."

'What can I do?" he asked.

"Think about Kisara," she said with a smile, closing her eyes and putting her hands on her knees. "About how much you love her. Describe her to me. It will help tether me to this spot on the Riverbank of Time."

Before he could even start, however, Mana frowned and jerked, as if shoved by an invisible hand.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"The River is really wide tonight. The current is very strong."

"It – it wasn't before?"

Mana shook her head, wincing with effort. "Not this much. I guess it gets bigger as I summon bigger things." She leaned forward a little and clenched her fists. "There, I'm swimming in it now. So, Kisara …?"

Set paused. "Long white hair. Beautiful eyes …"

Mana shook her head. "I don't see her."

Set waited, gripping the book.

"Oops," Mana said, with more than a little panic, "I might be … sort of lost. There are so many people!"

"You should stop, then," Set said, crestfallen. He should have known that it wouldn't work; it was too miraculous. "Come back before you lose your way."

"No." Mana was stubborn. "I'll just – Oh wait! I see Atem!" She giggled. "Good thing he had such recognizable hair." She leaned forward a bit more. "Oh, and now I see you ... I think." She sounded doubtful."You used to dress much differently."

"Yes," Set said, thinking of the simple tunics he'd worn as a boy. "But it sounds like you've gone too far back." Although ... he had met Kisara when he'd been a teenager. Perhaps it would be good to have a younger Kisara, one who had not suffered so much?

"I think I see her," Mana said suddenly. "She's in a … stone building. In a dungeon?"

Set nodded. "Yes, she was quite often a prisoner." Even in the very depths of this palace, he remembered with shame, and hoped that this Kisara wouldn't remember it.

"Alright, here goes," Mana said, holding her arms out as she chanted.

Set stepped back as Mana began to glow. The summoning circle around her blazed with pink flame, the fire rising higher and higher until, with a howling blast of wind, both Set and Mana were thrown to the walls.

He hurried to help her up. "Did it work?" she asked, and they looked to the center of the room and saw, by the dim light of the two lamps that had remained lit, a heavy cloud of mist swirling in the summoning circle.

And in the mist a figure.

"What the hell?"

Kisara's voice was stronger, deeper than before – possibly the result of being pulled from the spirit world, or being without her ka, or … odd, though her silvery hair was as beautiful as ever in the dissipating mist, her shoulders were rather wider than Set remembered. As he found himself staring at Kisara's unusually well-muscled buttocks and legs – which must have been from the running she did all her life – she turned around just as he was thinking that she was much taller than he remembered.

And then, although Set had never had the privilege of seeing his beloved naked, he was willing to bet both of his pharaonic crowns that in her former existence Kisara had never had what he could see all-too-clearly in the dim lamplight.

He caught Mana as she fainted.

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~ to be continued ~

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Special thanks to Silver Dragon Golden Dragon and sefina.

Additional author's notes at my Dreamwidth and LiveJournal (URLs in my profile).

(10) 13 Sept 2011 ~ ded