The Sound of Drums, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Shadow: Round…something-or-other of season four Compy's contest (I think it's four), and this time the pairing is Apprenticeshipping, Mana x Mahado. I think…I enjoyed writing this one too much. --;;

Notes: It's been a long while since I watched the Ancient Egypt arc, and even then I never did get to see every episode. So, this is based very loosely around canon, and I took events from the Memory World (which aren't really to be trusted very much anyway, due to Yugi-tachi and Bakura's interventions).

Warnings: (Blatantly) hinted shonen-ai, which means boy x boy. Scandalshipping (Pharaoh Atemu x High Priest Seth). Don't like? Please don't read.

The Sound of Drums

From the east the sun rose, Horus lighting the final gate of night so Ra's barque could burst from the Underworld in a dazzling display of fire. The evil serpent, Apep, had been vanquished once more, and all across the land of Khemet the priests flung open the doors of the temples' inner sanctums, the deities of the Heavens given thanks and greetings for this, the new day. The song rose across Khemet as it did each dawn: -

Nehes, nehes, nehes,

Nehes em hotep.

Mahado smiled to himself as he leant on the balustrade of his chamber's balcony, the selected priests of the palace fulfilling their duties like their brethren elsewhere in the Two Lands.

Awake, awake, awake,

Awake in peace.

Mays the gods awake in peace to this, the land they blessed.

Horus, the bringer of dawn, painted the sky with gold, chasing away the night's shadows with his wings of light. His breath was cooling, stirring the waters of the Nile and rousing the morning birds into melody, the slumbering people out into the streets to begin their work for the day. In the desert the sun cast away the haze lying over the sands, the warming disc burning away the morning mist that pervaded the air.

"Master Mahado?" A soft query broke the quiet, Mahado jumping in surprise at the sound.

The magician turned to look behind him, at the doors of his chamber. "…Mana?" It was rare to see the girl awake so early without complaint, Mana's green eyes bright and clear of sleep. She stood at the entrance to the balcony, a tray with a jug, some cups and food on it in her hands. Mahado frowned slightly. "…Mana, that is the servant's job!"

"Sorry Master." Carefully the young apprentice approached, setting the tray she carried on the balcony's table. "I merely wished to be of service to you, and the servants said you had not eaten already." Her smile was sweet. "Good morning."

Mahado's reproving expression slid into a smile of his own as he walked over to take a seat at the table. "Good morning, Mana, and I thank you for your kind consideration – although you really shouldlet the servants do their jobs."

"Then perhaps Master Mahado should actually eat his breakfast when he is presented with it by his servants, thereby removing the need for his apprentice to do this sort of thing." Mana took a chair opposite her instructor, lifting the jug she had carried in on the tray and pouring red liquid out into a cup she'd brought as well. The drink she handed to Mahado, her fingertips cool from the chilled earthenware when they brushed the male's skin. "It would not do for the Captain of the Guards to be without his strength."

"And what have you eaten this morning?" Mahado took a sip from the offered cup, sweet pomegranate juice tingling at the tip of his tongue. "Since you are here to scold me so very early I doubt it can be much, if anything at all." His brown eyes were serious as he looked over at the girl before him. "As my apprentice you need just as much strength – if not more, as you will be expending so much in your studies throughout the day." A beat. "That is, of course, if you actually show up for your studies today, instead of running off to lead His Majesty astray from matters of state."

Mana laughed, reaching out to pluck a sweet pastry from the tray, breaking it in half and offering one piece to the High Priest. "Master Mahado has so little faith in me."

"Master Mahado knows you too well, especially after one Master Akunadin bends his ear for over half an hour about how a certain errant apprentice stole Khemet's Pharaoh for the afternoon when the Horus-upon-Earth was supposed to be meeting an important delegate from Nubia." Her mentor accepted the pastry with a dry smile, raising it to his mouth for a bite.

"And did Master Seth have some token ear-bending to do as well?" Mana's eyes were gleaming in the post-dawn light, her expression mischievous as she quickly worked through her own share of the pastry. "I'm sure he was most vexed at his wayward King."

"Whether he was vexed or not at His Majesty is none of your concern, Mana." Mahado lightly reprimanded. "If you paid attention to your studies as much as you did the palace gossip you'd be an accomplished sorceress already." The scolded girl slid down in her chair slightly, suitably admonished. Mahado took pity on her. "…And Seth was vexed enough to rant at me for at least three times as long as Akunadin so yes, I'd say your little getaway with the Pharaoh managed to rile him up quite a bit."

Mana laughed again, brightening, mirth carrying easily in the morning air over the sounds of the city coming to life before the palace. Master and apprentice ate quietly together for a little while, quickly demolishing the tray of pastries and fruit. As Mahado drank the last of the pomegranate juice Mana carefully regarded her teacher from under half-lowered lashes, the action easily passed off as shielding her eyes from the sun's glare.

Mahado was young to take a student under his wing – but then, Mahado's powers had peaked young. Exceptional since childhood he had been an ideal choice for a friend for the then-Crown Prince, an ideal choice for High Priest upon his aging and the death of his predecessor. Mahado was unswervingly loyal to the Crown and his country, and Mana admired that. Only Mahado had the Pharaoh trusted with the volatile Ring of a Thousand Years and Mana could see it hanging from her master's neck from where she sat, gleaming like the golden highlights the sun streaked in Mahado's brown hair.

"Master…" Mana sat up straight in her seat, tidying away the remnants of breakfast, "why are you here today instead of at morning prayers?" Not a priestess Mana usually slept-in in the morning, rising an hour or so after the holier members of the Pharaoh's Court.

"It was not my turn to escort Pharaoh today." Mahado assisted the girl.

"Whose turn is it then?" Mana was ever-curious.

"The High Priest Seth's."

"…And they still plan to actually get some praying done?"

"Mana!" Mahado was scolding again, but even he was laughing. "At times you border on blasphemy."

"Well I'm sorry Master, but if you had walked in on them that day in the temple -"

Her teacher cut her off. "Mana, please; I just ate." The girl closed her mouth with an impish grin. "And if you had actually been in your lessons at that time you wouldn't have been able to walk into the temple and see…what you saw…now, would you?"

"No Master Mahado." Mana was still smiling. "Should I go fetch a servant to clear up our breakfast?" She motioned to the clutter on the table.

A slight nod, Mahado rising to his feet. "Yes, and then run and go fetch your staff – I'll be waiting down in the courtyard for us to begin lessons."

"At once, Master." Mana stood and gave a brief bow to the magician before darting off, all long legs and bubbly bounciness.

Mahado watched her go with a rueful smile.

There was a small 'pop', and a shower of rose-tinted sparkles filled the air for a few moments, drifting to and fro in the light breeze before fading into nothing.

"It's a duck." Mana stared down at the quacking bundle of feathers strutting about the palace courtyard before her, her outstretched smoking staff a large hint as to the origin of both the bird and the sparkles of a few minutes previous.

Mahado folded his arms, leaning back in his seat at the side of the courtyard. "Yes, it would appear so."

Sheepishly, the apprentice looked to her teacher. "…It's not meant to be a duck, is it?"

"Mana, it's supposed to be an ibis."

"…Oops." Mana's cheeks coloured slightly in embarrassment and she tucked her arms behind her back, tilting her head to one side as she appealed to her teacher's sense of humour. "…At least it's an actual bird this time, mm?"

Mahado only rolled his eyes, standing gracefully and coming to the girl's side. "Mana, you have to concentrate if you ever plan on getting this right."

"But I am concentrating!" His apprentice protested.

"Perhaps, but it is on all the wrong things entirely, if this little fellow has anything to say about it." Bending down Mahado scooped up the duck into his arms, the small bird giving a contented little quack at the action and snuggling into the magician's hold. Mana leaned forward to pet it. "Is something distracting you?"

"No Master." Mana quickly shook her head, all wide-eyed innocence.

Mahado sighed, feeling as if he were missing something…but set the duck down again, watching as it waddled off. "Then let's try again."

Vexed, Mahado stared down at his seventh report that week discussing defilement of some distant noble's tomb. As Captain of the Royal Guards it was his duty to oversee protection of the royal persons both in life and deceased – and at a stretch, the same for the Egyptian nobility. All complaints about tomb-defilement were sent to him – but only the more troubling ones ever reached him in person. And these last seven reports to have actually reached him…

"Mahado?" There was the light rapping of knuckles on wood.

The High Priest turned around in the seat at his desk, recognising the voice. "Isis?" The dark-haired priestess smiled at him, walking towards him across the room in her gold-edged sandals. "There is something you require?"

"Only another report to deliver." The Bearer of the Millennium Necklace extended her hand, offering a wrapped paper to Mahado. "The deliverer was most insistent only one of high office that could be trusted should be allowed to carry this to you, and for the sake of peace it was given to me, as I was passing that area at the time."

"Another report?" Her fellow priest groaned, taking the offered paper and snatching off the wrapping. The papyrus within was covered in tiny hieratic; scanning it, Mahado frowned.

"Is something wrong?" Isis asked carefully.

"Tomb-robbing," was the short reply, Mahado flinging the papyrus down on his desk to join the other scattered sheets there with a soft 'tch'. "This is the eighth one this week, and all of them have a similar method of execution."

"Oh?"

Tanned fingers raked through shoulder-length hair in frustration, Mahado's headdress removed and abandoned on a seat nearby where he was working. "The seals at the entrance are never broken; the priest's entrance is always left undisturbed, and only the most valuable things buried with the deceased are stolen."

"The thief has a good eye then," Isis commented, shifting her companion's headdress to another desk so she could take the seat it had occupied. "A professional?"

"This week is the first I've heard of him."

"Even professionals must begin somewhere."

Mahado glared at his desk, deeply annoyed. "It's just…the cheek of the rogue. Not only does he manage to break through the magical seals to enter the tomb, but he recreates them again on his way out."

"Not necessarily." Isis tapped her chin, thoughtful. "He could just bypass the seals altogether…?"

"That's impossible." Mahado shook his head. "The seals are on more than just the entrances in at least four of these tombs. If someone had broken in some other way, they would have registered it."

"Hm…" Isis was interested in the problem, "so either our thief is an accomplished magician in his own right, or knows an accomplished magician. I assume, as there were seals on the tombs, the thefts have all been from the deceased nobility or merchants?"

"Yes, so the seals were some of the best money could buy."

"Then you should investigate the magicians of the appropriate areas relating to the thefts." The priestess nodded her head. "Someone is bound to have noticed if a magician suddenly came into a lot of unexpected wealth, and is liable to comment on it."

"I'll do that, thank you."

Isis stood with a smile, pleated skirt falling into smooth lines once more. "I'm sure you'll work it out, Mahado. You've always managed to before." She left, footsteps echoing in the otherwise silent chamber.

Mahado went back to his work.

The Pharaoh of Egypt watched from one of the many windows of his summer palace with some amusement as, in the courtyard below, two of his long-time friends stood and bickered with each other. Mahado, the eldest, was trying vainly to teach his apprentice how to freeze the water in the fountain with her staff, but the furthest Mana had got to anything so much as resembling ice was a blue viscous semi-liquid that gurgled ominously when the young would-be sorceress poked it with the end of a stick.

Mana's problem, Mahado kept telling the girl, was the way she was holding her staff. Something about direction of thought and magic needing to work as one and – Atemu mostly tuned it out, more entertained watching Mana's eyes droop in boredom, Mahado not noticing even when his apprentice subtly yawned into her hand. She quickly woke up, of course, when Mahado stood directly behind her and began positioning her hands on her staff, manipulating her hold and leading her through the necessary movements for the spell to work correctly.

They tried the spell a few more times. Mana still messed it up.

"…Is it any wonder she keeps getting it wrong if he will persist in holding her like that to try and help her correct it?" Seth appeared like a silent shadow at his sovereign's side, blue gaze flickering over the hopeless duo in courtyard before looking to his king. "Mahado is oblivious if he cannot see the effect he has upon the girl."

"This is from the man who required being physically dragged to a bedroom before he realised just how much his admirer wanted him?" Atemu's lips quirked, his expression teasing as the priest beside him coughed discreetly into his hand.

"…Be that as it may, Mahado is still oblivious."

"They both are." The Pharaoh leaned a little more comfortably on the window-edge, basking in the feel of the afternoon sun upon the skin of his face and arms. "Mana is still so very much an innocent – I sincerely doubt she even knows she likes Mahado in the way you are suggesting."

Seth snorted, muttering something quietly under his breath. "…I have duties elsewhere I should be attending to; the merchants of the north have put in a complaint against the increase in Hittite trade in the area, and I am required to play diplomat to stop the situation escalating."

Atemu glanced at the brunet, voice a little more serious. "I trust I will be informed if the situation does…?"

"Of course, my Pharaoh," the High Priest gave a brief bow, straightening immediately afterwards, "though I doubt it will. It is all very much just petty squabbling; it should not take long to sort out."

"Then I trust I will see you later…?"

"The many legions of Set's minions could not bar my way."

"You have wax on your nose."

"Huh?" Mana looked up where she sat cross-legged, leaning over her wax working-board, her stylus clenched firmly in one hand as she agonised over some mathematical problems set to her by her teacher. Another day, the same pain.

"Wax," Mahado repeated patiently, raising his own ink-tipped stylus to point at the afore-mentioned flaw, "you have some on your nose."

"Oh." The girl rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. "S'it gone?"

"…No." More rubbing. "Now it's beginning to melt." Mana squeaked and dived for a polished copper plate on a table in the room they were in, peering at her reflection as she picked at the wax stuck to her face. Mahado watched her, both vaguely amused and mildly perplexed. "I don't think there's another young lady of the Court quite like you, Mana."

"That's a good thing, right?" The girl seemed to have finally got the wax off, crossing the room to her old position and plopping back down on the rug on the floor. "Master Mahado?"

Rather a dangerous question for any male to answer a teenage girl for. "It definitely makes you…stand out, Mana, but…it's not really the dignified behaviour one would associate with a potential princess."

"…'Potential princess'?" Mana looked up, green eyes suddenly narrowed slightly. "Master, what do you mean, 'potential princess'? The only way I could ever become a princess would be if I married royalty – and the only royalty available for marrying right now is the Pharaoh. The very idea of that is simply ridiculous-"

Mahado shook his head, features unusually impassive. "Mana, you are childhood friends with the Pharaoh; it is not such a ridiculous thing to suppose – especially with how often you disappear with the Golden Horus for hours at a time."

Mana wrinkled her nose. "The prince -"

"Pharaoh."

"The Pharaoh is my friend, Master Mahado, nothing more. I could never view him as a wife views her husband." This was said with perfect firmness.

"Not even if such a match greatly pleased your mother?" It was almost manipulative, Mahado's mentioning of his apprentice's mother. Of distinctly Greek birth the woman was paranoid about what her peers thought of her, determined to fit into society whatever the cost, to be well-thought of. Added to this paranoia was a distinctly domineering nature that simply overrode whatever was flung at it – even Mahado, one of the highest and most powerful men in the land, was somewhat cowed by Mana's mother. For the sake of peace most people just gave in at once when the woman demanded something; it was always the easiest and most stress-free course of action to take.

Mana pulled another face. "Don't bring my mother into this, I implore you. She only allows me to study magic at Court for the prestige it brings our family -"

Mahado interrupted again. "-And the fact she, like most of the rest of Khemet, has noticed how much time the Pharaoh spends in your company, and she dearly hopes for news of more than just 'friendship'."

"I could never marry him."

"Most women would kill for the chance." Mahado looked away, seemingly concentrating on his work once more. "The power, the influence and wealth…"

"Then maybe I am not 'most women'!" Mana put her hands on her hips, annoyed. "Do you so want rid of me, Master? Those of Pharaoh's harem are not allowed to study magic for the safety of the Crown – are you saying you don't like me anymore? You want me gone?" The girl was hurt.

"Mana, I never said that -" Mahado tried to console his apprentice, to correct his mistake, but Mana had already leapt to her feet again, running away. "Mana!"

She lay on Atemu's bed, crying, while the Pharaoh sat beside her, awkwardly rubbing circles on her back to make her feel better. There were many things Atemu could do better than anyone else; he was famed throughout Khemet for his looks, his magical prowess, physical endurance and his intellect; but he was still a teenage boy. And Mana was a girl, and she was crying, and he had no idea what to do.

"Mana…" if anyone could have seen Atemu at that moment in time they would've assumed he was just some ordinary pubescent, like all the other youths of the kingdom, not their sovereign lord and king, their Pharaoh. "Mana, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong…"

"You wouldn't understand!" Mana sniffled, utterly miserable as she looked up at the teen beside her.

"Try me," Atemu coaxed, "maybe I can be some help all the same."

"No-one's ever tried to get rid of you!" There was a heartbeat's pause, Mana suddenly realising what she'd just said and to whom as Atemu smiled at her, expression wry. The amount of usurpation plots that had been foiled over the many years Atemu had been in power… "Not like that!"

"Then like what, Mana?"

"…I don't think Master Mahado wants me as his apprentice anymore." Mana used the cotton sheet below her to dry her eyes, black kohl smudging on the material – the royal seamstress was going to have a fit, Atemu internally noted -, sitting up straight to look her friend in the eye.

The Pharaoh's brow furrowed. "Did he say that?"

"No, but it was implied."

"How?"

"He – he tried to – we were -" Mana floundered; suddenly realising she didn't want to go into the details of her conversation with her teacher with Atemu, of all people. She'd die of embarrassment, as well as her hurt at what she saw as Mahado's betrayal. Instead, she began to cry again, flinging herself at her friend and clinging to his shoulders. If any of the Court could've seen her, she would've been dragged up for blasphemy of the highest order. Since it was just them…

"Hey!" Truly alarmed now, Atemu grabbed the edge of his sheets, figuring they were already pretty much ruined so he might as well just offer them to the distraught Mana to wipe away her tears. "Mana...Mana…I'm sure you just misinterpreted whatever Mahado said."

"You never heard him!"

"I know," Atemu admitted, "but Mana, I know him. I know him very well and Mahado lo-" re-thinking that word quickly in the light of his conversation with Seth a few days ago, "Mahado is very fond of you. More than fond. He wouldn't want rid of you; he'd miss you terribly if you were gone. Who else would there be to turn the palace fountains into sinisterly gurgling substances?"

There was a break in the crying, Mana's cheeks colouring. "…You saw that?"

"Mmhmm." Atemu nodded his head, smiling at the other's sheepish expression. "And Mahado didn't yell at you for it, did he?"

"Master Mahado's too kind to yell…"

"And he wouldn't yell at you anyway, would he? You and he are very close."

"But what if he secretly thought -"

"No, Mana." Atemu cut the girl off mid-sentence, for once stern. "Now you're just being silly. Mahado likes you too much to ever willingly let you go."

Mana coloured some more, cheeks going from light rose to red. "…You really think he likes me?"

Atemu smiled again, holding the girl a little closer. "More than anything." His bed-sheet was dropped. "Just…don't wipe your nose on my robes, alright?"

Mana swatted a hand at his head.

The Dark Magician Girl giggled, bouncing on the toes of her feet as Mahado circled her. When the magician came to a stop in front of her the Ka gave a perky bow, twirling her staff dramatically in one hand before snapping to attention.

Mahado laughed, giving a slight bow of his own, before looking to his sheepish apprentice. "You and she are very similar."

Mana looked at her Ka rather critically – before glancing down at herself. "Is my dress really that short?" The Dark Magician Girl giggled again at the question, rushing forward to take her mistress' hand and lead her over to Mahado. "Is your Ka like mine, Master?"

"My Magician is faceless." Mahado smiled again as his apprentice's Ka pushed back his headdress and petted his hair. "And he's a lot less…bouncy," the headdress ran off with completely, levitated into the air and turned into a flock of white doves that flew to sit on an overhead balcony, cooing down at them all, "but – otherwise? Pretty much the same."

Mana blushed at her Ka's antics. "I guess he's a lot more obedient too, hm Master?"

Mahado laughed again, running a hand through the girl's hair fondly, pushing a brown lock back off his apprentice's face. "The nature of the Ka reflects the nature of its master or mistress, so I can truthfully say…" brown eyes glanced up to the mischievous Dark Magician Girl above them, who dimpled prettily and blew them a kiss, "I'd have her no other way."

Mana only coloured more darkly at the compliment, liking the gentleness with which Mahado treat her. "Master Mahado, I -"

"Holiness?" A servant suddenly appeared in the training courtyard, cutting off Mana seemingly without noticing. Mahado immediately looked over at him. "Holiness, His Majesty the Pharaoh sends reminder that you are due in the Throne Room presently for the trial of the criminals that came in a few days previously."

…Trial? Mana shivered. A 'trial' required all seven Bearers of the Items of a Thousand Years to be gathered together to enact judgment on a criminal, where the offender would forcibly have his Ka removed and encased in a stone stele forevermore. It was excruciatingly painful for the one having his Ka contained, and usually meant death. 'Trials' were reserved only for those with the highest of offences against the Crown – treason, for example.

"Tell His Majesty I will be there with all due haste," Mahado said, before turning back to Mana when the servant hurried off. "Since it is just now before noon, we'll reconvene after the trial when Ra is in the third hour after his peak."

Mana bowed"Yes, Master Mahado."

"And make sure you've eaten!" Mahado chided lightly, well aware the girl would skip off and play in the fountains for a few hours without food if she wasn't reminded.

"Yes, Master Mahado." Mana rose from her bow, smiling.

"Good," a definite nod, "now…can I have my hat back?" Mana laughed, her Dark Magician Girl waving her staff and calling to the doves to come land on Mahado's head and shoulders. The High Priest looked comically taken aback for a few seconds before the Ka gave a teasing smirk, twirling her curled staff one more time and causing the doves to vanish, Mahado's headdress reappearing in a shower of feathers. Mahado touched his apprentice on the shoulder one more time, smile soft. "I'll see you later, alright?"

"Yes Master!" Mana cheerily waved goodbye as her teacher left to attend Court and the trial, waiting until Mahado was out of sight before dismissing her Dark Magician Girl. The Ka vanished with a soft 'pop'.

The Throne Room was in ruins. Mana stared around what had once been a glorious room in utter shock, unable to take in the sheer scope of power that would have been necessary to bring such a large room of the palace crashing down as it had.

"Such is the might of a god…"

Mana jumped, startled by the voice speaking so suddenly behind her, whirling around to lock eyes with the solemn High Priestess of the Millennium Necklace. "I – Holiness!" She quickly tried to bow, only to have a slim hand catch her shoulder and pull her up straight again.

"It is not necessary, Mana." Isis let her hand fall again. There were a few moments of silence.

Shyly, Mana broke it, dropping her eyes and pretending to be absorbed in a large pile of rubble near her foot. "…Was…it really a god that did this? I mean," she babbled, as Isis looked at her coolly, "everyone's been talking about how the Temple of Tablets lit up, and the beam stretched so high into the sky they said it reached the heavens themselves -"

"His Majesty summoned a god, yes that is true." Isis cut her off, voice firm. "But it was not a god that caused this chaos you see before you now. Instead it was a criminal, a rogue posing as a king -"

"They're calling him the Thief King." Mana's own voice was quiet, subdued. "Because he can thieve anything, from anyone, and rode into the palace dragging a king behind him…"

"The man's heart will be thrown to Ammut for his blasphemy, and his name will be ridden into the muck where it belongs." Isis spat, suddenly vicious. "That he even dared to defile the tomb of the late Pharaoh -" anger made the usually calm woman speechless. "…Mahado has asked permission to rebury the late king."

Mana frowned at that. Mahado was Captain of the Guards, so the fact some lowly thief had managed to sneak past his guards and break into the tomb of Atemu's father… Mahado probably hated himself right about now, but even Mana could see that burying the late Pharaoh again was just frankly stupid – if the Thief King had stolen the body once before just to torment Atemu, surely he could just as easily do it all over again…? "The prince gave his permission?"

"Pharaoh, Mana." Isis corrected. "And yes, he did. Mahado leaves immediately -"

Mana squeaked at that, suddenly turning tail and diving out of the room. Mahado couldn't leave! Diving full pelt down the corridors of the royal palace unheeding of anyone else Mana raced for the grand terrace – and sure enough, there her master was, just finishing organising the last of a grand procession, stolen sarcophagus in tow. "Master! Master Mahado!"

"Mana?" Mahado paused in his work for a few moments to look at his flustered apprentice, eyes flaring wide when the girl suddenly flung herself at him, arms around his neck. "Mana!"

"Master, don't go!" The Millennium Ring pressed uncomfortably into Mana's front, sharp pointers digging and catching in the soft cotton of her robes. "The whole idea is stupid – Master, don't go!" She was outright pleading. "Surely someone else can go instead?"

"…What do you know of the idea?" Mahado looked troubled, raising a hand to brush some of his apprentice's troublesome fringe back off of her face. "And who told you?"

"Isis said you were going to rebury the body of the late Pharaoh." Fingers hooked into the chain of the Item, curling into the cloak around Mahado's neck. "But you can't just be going to do that, because you're too smart to think that if you bury that sarcophagus the Thief King simply won't dig it back up again." Grip almost painful – "He will, you know he will – so tell me what you're stupidly going to go do instead!"

"My intelligent young apprentice…" Mahado smiled, the expression pained. "Mana, you really are a bright one, aren't you?"

"Master…" Mana laid her head against the other's chest, infinitely worried by that sentence more than anything else, "please tell what it is you're planning to do."

"…I'm going to make sure Bakura," - the Thief King's real name? - "doesn't trouble this kingdom again."

Ice, cold and hard, formed inside Mana's stomach, freezing cold spreading out through her veins and numbing her nerves and mind. "Master…" the girl took a deep breath, steeling herself to look up and meet eyes of soft, sad brown, "please don't go." She'd seen what Bakura had done to the Throne Room, and she knew getting rid of the thief had required Atemu to summon a god. Mahado was good, Mana knew, and there were rumours the true extent of his power had only ever been revealed once, before being locked away in that Ring he wore around his neck, but –

She couldn't trust in rumour alone if it meant letting her master go.

"I have to." Mahado held her gaze.

Mana clung tighter. "Then let me go with you."

"No."

No? But –

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No.

How can you say no?

If Mana's mind repeated the word enough times it lost all meaning.

"Master -"

"No." That terrible, horrible word again. Lips touched Mana's forehead softly, a brief kiss. "Stay here." The girl's fingers were gently undone from the cloth and chain they'd wound themselves into. "Stay safe."

Something low swooped and span in Mana's stomach at the simple touch, and all she wanted to do was cling to Mahado again but – she just couldn't move. "Don't go." Her green eyes were bright with unshed tears, her plea a whisper.

"I'll be back soon." And then he was gone.

Mana stood watching as the procession rose out of the palace into the city proper, Mahado a tiny figure at the head. With her teacher rode something – something –

But it was too late, and she didn't know what 'something' was.

Oh, how she'd run when she'd heard of the return of the guards!

The rumours had travelled ahead of the procession so Mana had been prepared and ready when the group finally reached the palace. Crowds blocked her path to see the triumphant return however, people thronging the palace's hallways speaking in hushed whispers, excitement and rumour everywhere underfoot.

It had taken both bribery and blackmail for Mana to sneak into the Throne Room – the doors had been barred to all but Pharaoh and his High Priests the moment the procession had entered, slamming closed with a doom-laden finality. Mana, undeterred, had bribed her way in through the servant's usually unnoticed entrance, creeping past the menial workers of the palace peering entranced between fronds of decorative plants.

There was a stone stele in the middle of the Throne Room, the Pharaoh with his forehead pressed to the slab's surface, his whole weight focused through his head. Mana couldn't see his face. Behind him, about the throne, five High Priests stood in varying stages of…something. The room was deathly silent.

Curious, Mana snuck around to see what exactly it was on the stele that had enraptured everyone's attention so, to see if perhaps Mahado stood just out of sight, overshadowed by the mammoth stone –

A strange human form was etched on the stele, a weird creature dressed in long robes with a curved, pointed hat and vaguely familiar staff, but why-?

And then it hit her. That was Mahado's Ka. But the only way for a person's Ka to be trapped in stone like that was if the person was –

The world tilted and span alarmingly for an instant – or was that just Mana?

"No!" She wasn't really aware she was shrieking, her voice painfully loud in the otherwise silent room. She was aware that her world was skewed somehow, that she was clinging to a nearby pillar for support as she stared in hopeless, hopeless red eyes full of guilt – and why wasn't Atemu saying anything? Why wasn't anyone correcting her? "He isn't dead; he isn't!"

"Mana -" Isis touched her arm, having hurried across, wrapped arms around the younger woman for comfort –

"Let go of me!" Mana flung the arms away, furious. "Tell me he isn't dead!" She turned flaring green eyes on Atemu. Atemu, the Pharaoh, the living Horus. Atemu, hers and Mahado's best friend for many, many seasons. "Tell me!" Atemu couldn't lie, not to her.

Atemu looked at her, anguished; held her gaze for a full five seconds. Then he looked away.

Mana fled the room, sobbing.

Atemu locked himself in his chambers, and refused to come out for anyone. Outside the palace it was spread he was 'planning something', but those who knew him more intimately knew he was, for lack of a better term, depressed. Mahado, his oldest friend, was dead, and Mana refused to speak to him. Akunadin, his uncle, kept disappearing for hours at a stretch, and he cut himself off completely from Seth, from Isis, Karimu and Shada.

No-one disturbed him, by his order. No-one bothered him. And it remained that way for four days, and the Court mourned.

And then Seth kicked up a fuss on the fifth day at being barred from his king for the fifth day, and with terrible news –

"Pharaoh, Mana's gone!"

There was the sound of rapid footsteps, the doors to the Royal Chamber suddenly flung open from inside. "Gone?" Atemu's eyes were wide, panicked. "Gone where?"

"Where do you think?" Seth's lack of manners was allowed under such circumstances. "After Bakura!"

The Pharaoh was barely more than a streak of crimson, white and gold pushing past him.

Mana had been recovered, saved from crushing rocks the Thief King had set up to fall upon her near the tomb Mahado had died in. Mana had been recovered, and Atemu had given the girl to Karimu's keeping while he rode off after a fleeing Bakura. And Atemu had went missing for two days, and Khemet was falling, falling – ah, it fell so fast!

The world's mightiest and most glorious kingdom tumbled from grace in sheets of raining fire and dust, and the jackals ran in the streets snapping at the heels of the terrified populace. Monsters roamed the sky, slaughtered with ease, and the darkness covered the land even at the height of noon. The High Priest Akunadin had turned traitor, affected by the Shadows roaming the land, and he tried to bend the ear of his revealed-son, to coax Seth into taking the empty Crown – Seth rejected him, rudely, angrily, and widened the searches for the missing king. Akunadin ran, irate, but he had already caused the death of a young, white-haired woman, sealing her powerful Ka in a stele stone. Seth forever felt her blood on his hands.

Atemu was found, alive, but seriously in peril, his spirit sapped by the ghosts of a village viciously butchered. Akunadin reared his head once more besides Bakura, and swept the darkness towards his hesitant son –

Isis and Karimu died. Atemu lost his temper in a glory of golden, burning fury. Bakura died, swallowed by the darkness he sought to control. Akunadin vanished into the same abyss. The Shadows spun and whirled and the land turned black, the situation completely out of control. When Mana, Seth and Atemu tumbled out of the hole that had so nearly been their tomb they emerged into the hell Bakura had unleashed. The Thief King had gone, but the world he left behind…

"Atemu," Mana choked staring out at the darkness, at the sky of black where there was no sun, no stars, "Atemu, I'm scared." Seth drew a deep breath, arm tightening its old around the Pharaoh.

Atemu, in turn, tightened his hold on Mana. It was wonder any of them were standing. "…I'm scared too."

When he told her what he was going to do at first, she didn't believe him. How could she? Atemu had basically just told her he was planning to d-

Then she realised he was serious.

"You can't!"

"I have to." Atemu's gaze was fixed very intently on the dark horizon, refusing to look at the girl beside him. The two were on his balcony, lost somewhere between argument and discussion. "Who else has the control of the gods…? I have the soul -"

"Don't you dare talk to me about souls when we're discussing suicide!" Mana snapped. "Haven't we given up enough lives already?! Master Mahado -"

"Mahado would understand, Mana!"

"And you'd know this?" Tears pricked in the corners of the girl's eyes. "For certain? Now he's little more than a monster in your control…?"

"Mana…"

"And who would perform this…this 'ceremony' of yours?"

The pharaoh sighed, pulling his golden diadem off to dangle between thumb and forefinger. "…Mana, you know as well I that there's only one person left with the magical prowess to handle the ceremony."

"You can't do that to him." Mana was horrified. "It'd kill him."

"I know," Atemu buried his head in his hands, "but what of my kingdom? Do I sacrifice thousands for the sake of one man?"

His friend fell silent, lost in thoughts of her own. "…When are you going to tell him?"

"Tonight." Atemu looked to the sky again, at the utter blankness above and around them. "If – when I go he, as my next living relative, will have to take the Crown…and the ceremony itself will require his involvement so…"

"…I don't envy you the task."

Atemu's smile was bitter. "I might as well just drive a dagger through his heart – it would be a quicker ending."

Treason. The word had fluttered and whirled about the kingdom it seemed in less than the span of two heartbeats, and yet the Throne Room doors had been slammed closed so that no-one but those already present could get inside. Mana knew that outside the palace hallways were full of those eager to see the last of Khemet fall; some there out of sheer curiosity, some with the morbid desire to see death and blood.

Mana had known something had been wrong from earliest morning, when Atemu had walked into the room pale and wan. Seth had not been at his side. The High Priest and cousin to the king had been nowhere to be found, and Mana knew this well, for she herself had heard the reports returned to Atemu when the Morning Star had sent out men looking for his brunet confidant. Atemu was deeply, deeply worried, and Mana in turn worried about them both, but when Seth finally showed she dearly wished he'd stayed away.

There was cold fire in Seth's blue eyes, and his smile flickered eerily between a horrified grimace and a self-satisfied smirk. Standing before the throne his voice had carried easily to a whispering Court, creating an immediate hush.

"Pharaoh, let's play a game."

Treason. Seth had challenged his sovereign lord and king to a Shadow Game, a game played to the death. This was a direct threat against the Pharaoh, and so –

Treason. Atemu could be challenged, but the challengerhad to go through every single one of Khemet's magical elite before they could face the king. Only the best could face the very best, and so every single one of the magical elite had to fall first in the Games.

…Unless, of course, the Pharaoh grew sick of the slaughter by the time the fifth person fell to the driven Seth, and demanded he face his cousin early. The watching Court, thinking this just yet another usurpation lot in a quick succession of usurpation plots, expected the Golden Horus to summon a god at once, and send his challenger straight into oblivion.

They shouldn't have been so arrogant to assume they knew what was going on in the minds of their royalty. Atemu summoned the Dark Magician.

There were horrified and surprised gasps with the Shadow creature with the face of the former High Priest Mahado appeared; Mana just smiled sadly, having seen her master's new form in the tomb facing Akunadin and Bakura. He was still as proud, as defiant and wise as ever, and it brought a painful ache to Mana's chest every time she saw him. His face was a reminder of everything she'd lost and, as she was slowly coming to realise as she stared at a desperate Seth, she still didn't quite know the entire extent of that loss quite yet.

Treason. Nonsense! Seth wasn't treasonous; everything he did was for the sake of Atemu. It just so happened Atemu was Pharaoh, and so Seth would never do anything against the Crown. The reason then for the Shadow Game…?

Seth blanched at the sight of his once-fellow High Priest tuned Shadow creature, his response the glorious appearance of a blazing dragon, a lizard with scales gleaming with the gods' lightning and fire, eyes as wild and unnamed a blue as its summoner's own.

The White Dragon…? There had been rumours of the ferocious beast about Khemet, but in the light of the Thief King, and the disappearance of the Pharaoh it had been cast aside as sheer speculation.Apparently that speculation had had good founding…

The White Dragon versus the Dark Magician, the High Priest versus the Pharaoh. The reason for the Shadow Game…?

If Seth somehow won…if he could force Atemu to concede defeat, he could take the throne. And if he took the throne, he would be the one responsible for Khemet; he would be the one required to decide who lived and who died. He'd kill himself before ever allowing the option of Atemu's death to be raised.

…It hurt to watch Mahado as part of the duel. It really hurt, and yet Mana knew it was what Mahado had wanted. Mahado had been loyal – to the Crown and to his friends. And Mahado had been –

Mahado had been wonderful. And maybe, just maybe, Mahado had been just that little bit…more than a teacher to Mana. But then he had been…what?

Watching Seth, watching Atemu, Mana began to get a clue, the mystery of 'something' revealed in a shaft of light. And Mana began to hate what she could see, because the hurt –

Ah, the hurt. Each time a blow landed upon a Shadow creature its caller felt the pain, blows landing upon the soul of the user. With the skill level of Atemu and Seth both were gasping in pain, their duel lengthy, long, gruelling… Neither would give in. They were both determined to stick to their cause.

Seth failed, in the end; he couldn't see his challenge through to the end. The only way to stop Atemu killing himself, it seemed, was to kill him first – and that was simply something the brunet could not ever do.

Seth surrendered, and something of himself died that day when his dragon disappeared from the dueling field. Something of him died, and the loss made the priest sway on his feet, fall…be caught by his king, gently lowered until they both were kneeling, Seth's head against his cousin's shoulder. Pharaoh's eyes were hard gems above the brown of the other's hair to the Court. "Get. Out." The Court fled.

Mana stayed. She knew Atemu and Seth knew she was still there, but neither of the royals said a word, neither of the cousins moved a muscle. They stayed still, frozen like the statues of the gods in Khemet's temples. Mana stayed still, and watched them.

Even though the blows had stopped raining, the storms kept going on inside.

From the east the sun rose, Horus lighting the final gate of night so Ra's barque could burst from the Underworld in a dazzling display of fire. The evil serpent, Apep, had been vanquished once more – though his shadow, the Shadows themselves, still lurked. Soon the dawn would be swallowed again, but for now the sun could still be seen. All across the land of Khemet the gods were being woken to meet the dawn, but their greeting song had changed.

Nehes, nehes, nehes.

Mana smiled sadly, standing on the edge of what was once her master's balcony, listening to the priests of the kingdom fulfil their duties. Ah, always how they concentrated on duty!

Awake, awake, awake.

In a time of war, in a time of chaos and grief, no-one could ask the gods to 'awake in peace'.

Awake, awake, awake.

Could Atemu hear the morning melody? Was he awake? Mana had not checked. This…his second-last dawn.

Awake, awake, awake.

Awake and watch your life slip away like the sands…

Damn duty! Damn duty for what it had done to the Two Lands, and damn duty for what it had done to Mana –

Oh, her heart hurt. Mahado, Isis, Karimu, Shada, Atemu. How many would die for the sake of duty? How many would die that, the once-apprentice whispered closely to herself, she loved? It wasn't fair.

Mana was going to continue in her studies, Atemu had asked her to, and become a true magician in her own right. She knew it would've been what Mahado would have wanted, and she wasn't going to let him down. She had…she still… She loved him. Stupid, wasn't it? Stupid to love a dead man, but wonderful all the same. Stupid, wonderful, painful.

And this time tomorrow –

Mana swallowed back the lump in her throat, wiping away the tears clinging to her eyelashes with the back of one hand. She was going to lose a friend, and yet again there was nothing she could do about it. Love – of any kind - hurt terribly.

The morning song went on.

Nehes, nehes, nehes.

Awake, awake, awake.

Mays the gods awake, and bless this land sorely in need of peace.