Author's Note: Hey guys! This was written for the Triwizard Tournament, task 3. Hopin' I can make my 'Puffs proud! Prompts: Ancient Egypt AU, focused (emotion), violent (word), clue (word), "You'll have to try better than that if you want to manipulate me." (phrase). This was... Super hard.
Unlike normal, I tried to end it on a hopeful note! 'Cause, you know, I usually write somethin' sad and angsty.
Secrets
There were different types of secrets that the daughter of a scribe could hold, but even fewer that she could hold near and dear to her chest. Pansy was slated to be a priestess of Ma'at, and was therefore expected to uphold the truth above all. She spoke the truth whenever she could, she held honesty above all, and had a sense of morality that her father proclaimed rivaled even his.
She still held secrets, though, because even the world could not know every detail about her.
Her first secret was simple: magic. Pansy held magic in her fingers, her toes, her heart. It was an inherited gift of her family, but they tried not to talk about it. Her father had it, her mother had it, and so did she. But they kept their magic quiet, out of sight. Magic was for the gods, and she was not a god.
Her second secret was different, tied close to her chest. It was for her to keep, not for others, and it was something she intended to hold tightly until the empire fell. She used to say she would keep it until the Romans left, but it seemed like they would never go. Her second secret was for herself, and she was never going to tell it to anyone.
And the third? The third she kept from herself; even Pansy couldn't figure out what it was. She was so tied to the second secret, so sure that she needed to keep it safe… She forgot the third more often than she thought of it. It was a small nick in the day, a tiny sliver of something that she knew was off.
Her second secret was the most important.
Her second secret was Hermione.
She could remember the day that they met clearly. The Romans were still new, they were still something that Pansy was unsure of. She didn't want them there, and she knew that the others didn't want them there, but Pansy could acknowledge that they didn't get much of a choice. The Romans were there to stay.
They were going to become the pillars of her great kingdom. They wore their clothes and preached their religion, a mass of stone and wind that attempted to wear down the great pyramids. Egypt would not bow to them. Pansy would not bow to them.
The market had been warm that morning, warmer than normal. The sun was beating down on them all, and Pansy assumed that Ra was looking down on them with a sense of ferocity. They had failed him, had they not? They had given up their kingdom. She had stared wistfully towards the sky before wrapping her white linen tighter around her body. Her kohl-lined eyes flickered between cloud and dust, searching and wanting.
She had come to escape. She didn't want to be at home any longer, with her mother staring and her father working. She was eleven, then, and she had just come into her magic fully. Pansy had wanted to be somewhere else just as much as she wanted to be anyone else.
It was the market that had drawn her. There was something magical about people gathering together, something beautiful about friends and family laughing and shrieking as they toured the square. The smells, the sights... There was nothing she didn't like about it, and Pansy thought it was a great place to sit with some of her friends. Even better, though, was when she was alone.
Pansy was relatively well-known among the area for being the daughter of a white-linen family, the girl who was slated to become a high priestess when she grew older. Even at eleven she was already speaking only the truth, and she stopped to talk to each person that she knew. Mostly, they welcomed her. Despite the barbs in her tongue she was liked, and she spent her time chatting and giggling with everyone she came across.
The farmers had been first, that day. She liked the farmers who came to the market far more than she liked the ones on her family's farm. They were kinder, freer. They didn't see her as their owner; they saw her as someone who could purchase what they were attempting to sell. She had been speaking to one when she heard the clear, defiant voice, a voice that she couldn't quite place.
"You'll have to try better than that if you want to manipulate me!"
Ah. A Roman. Pansy swiveled slightly to see, and she noticed a small girl who looked nothing like she had expected. She did not have the pale, frightened look of the other Roman children. She was fierce and she was angry, her bronzed skin peppered with more freckles than Pansy had ever seen. She didn't want to bid farewell to investigate, but her ever-truthful tongue announced she was going as she strode over to the new, weird girl.
"You're being loud," she said, sticking an arm out. The person that the stranger was talking to was familiar; a neighbor, the one who had a son around her age. "And disrespectful. Who are you?"
She didn't have a clue why she had bothered. It wasn't worth it. She was ruining her perfect day! But Pansy was curious, more curious than she could ever remember.
"Hermione. I'm Hermione, daughter of..."
Pansy didn't let her finish. She turned on her heel and strode away, not quite aware of the shortness of their meeting. She had gotten her response, and now she was going to investigate. "Goodbye, Hermione."
Their meetings were fleeting, at first. Pansy had found out who she was: the daughter of a Roman soldier, the prized child, the only girl. She thought, at first, that the girl belonged to doctors, or that she was a slave. But she was prized, adored.
She was loud. She was rude.
She opposed everything that they stood for, and she called Pansy a heathen, once.
She didn't think that she liked her.
She didn't tell her parents, though, that she had met a Roman girl.
At seventeen she was made an official priestess, and no longer did she let a falsehood pass from her lips. Pansy was devoted to the truth, always focused and poised in a way that would allow her to put honesty and the law above all.
She still was herself, though. She was still spoiled, she was still fierce. Her eyes were lined with kohl and she pressed color into her cheeks. She wasn't beautiful, not at all. Her mother had told her that. She was not beautiful, but she could use her money to purchase beauty. People preferred to speak to lovely women. The High Priestess had told her that.
The High Priestess also told her to choose her truths carefully. She said to keep the words honest, to uphold Ma'at, but to think. To choose. To watch. Pansy had been brash and bold and snide, and she kept those traits with her in the temple. She just made sure that she filtered out which cold truths she would tell them.
Once she turned twelve, she wasn't adored any longer. Her once cute words were now seen as cruel. Nobody liked the truth when it was bearing down their neck. She rarely went to market anymore, but people still knew where to find her. Her parents hadn't bothered to see her in quite some time, but others would come.
She sat, bowed, over one of the steps, her lips forming the same prayers that they had since. She spoke as softly as she could, only stopping when she heard footsteps behind her.
Hermione.
She could hear her balance, hear the words she was holding back.
"Do you need something?"
She kept her head down, staring at the stone steps. She had things to do, things far more important than a Roman girl with her eyes filled with fire. She tried to keep her attention on her prayer, but she had broken it with her question.
"Can we speak?" Hermione asked, her voice impatient. It took Pansy a moment to realize that she had already asked this, and she fixated the girl with a frown.
"Now?" Pansy turned her head back to the ground. "I would rather not."
The temple was supposed to be her sanctuary. Even as the Romans preached their religion of one god, Pansy devoted herself to Ma'at. She kept the temple clean, she sacrificed hours and years and moments.
She had left her home at twelve; this was the best home that she had known. It was sweet and delicate, but heavy all the same. The temple was kept as clean as a secret. It was both a house of worship and her living space, and she was ever closer to becoming High Priestess. What was Hermione going to amount to? She would wed well, and Pansy would be alone again.
"Please."
They sat in the back garden, knees touching. Pansy thought that the shape of Hermione's legs was lovely, and she violently tore her gaze from the light material clinging to the other girl's thigh. She looked towards the garden instead, staring at the small plants that braved the weather. She remembered when they were younger, when they ran around the space when they were supposed to be quiet.
She remembered how Hermione used to tell her about slavery, history, and the Romans. She remembered how she used to stare at the coppery expanse of Hermione's skin, wanting to ask questions. She remembered sharing stories of firsts, of how Hermione had met a boy with freckles as aplenty as her own, of how Pansy had received her first compliments from the High Priestess.
She remembered how free they felt, then.
Pansy felt weighed down by responsibility, now.
"What did you want to talk about?" she asks, staring at the horizon. Ra was descending. She wondered if Hermione noticed, or if she was thinking of her own solitary god.
She was to be married.
Pansy could feel the rotting taste of a congratulations on her tongue, and she held it back. She did not lie. She couldn't lie. She had kept the truth for years, and she was not intending on feigning happiness now. She knew that she could not control what Hermione was doing, but she wanted... She didn't know what she wanted. Maybe she wanted it all to stop.
"You are to be married," Pansy repeated, putting a bit of force in the words. "What would you like me to say?"
She was still staring at the horizon, and it took effort to pull herself to look towards the other woman. It was one of the first times that she had ever seen Hermione look disgusted with her. Frustrated? Yes. Angry? Yes. But never disgusted.
It struck her that she was being rude again, but Pansy didn't know of any other way to be.
"I thought you would be happy for me," Hermione said. Her eyes displayed the violent shock of betrayal, her lips pressed in disgust. "You, of all people, should have understood!"
Pansy stared at her friend's dark eyes, then her lips, and finally back to the garden. "I..." She hated hurting Hermione, but she did not lie. "I'm sorry. I'm not happy."
"Why?" she demanded, suddenly standing from her stair step. Pansy continued to stare at the sun, so Hermione crossed in front of her, kneeling so she couldn't look away. She tried, though. She couldn't face this, she couldn't look. But Hermione gently grabbed her chin, focusing her gaze. "Why, Pansy?"
She couldn't think of what to say, so she crashed their lips together clumsily. It wasn't words; she didn't trust herself to speak right then. But it was emotion and it was intent, and when she pulled back it was Hermione who closed the distance the second time.
Pansy had three secrets. The first was for herself and her family. It was a secret born with her and a secret that she would keep until dying. It affected her every day, but she kept it quiet. It was, after all, only made for the family.
Her second secret was different, but it was the one she adored above all. Her second secret was Hermione, the girl she had felt tied to since they were children.
And the third?
Her third secret was that, despite everything, she wanted to be happy.