Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters
Title: Didn't See It Coming
Pairing: Isis x Mana
Word Count: 2,195||Status: One-shot
Genre: Romance||Rated: PG
Challenge: Yu-Gi-Oh Pairings Challenge, Season 12, Round 5: Priestess Isis x Mana/Mana x Priestess Isis: Adviseshipping
Summary: [one-shot, Yu-Gi-Oh Pairings Challenge Season 12, Round 5: Priestess Isis x Mana/Mana x Priestess Isis, Adviseshipping, au: other] Isis knew about the girl from the moment she opened her eyes. Not everything, but enough. And yet she still found herself surprised at the end of the day.
Today was the day. Isis woke up knowing that it was. It didn't bother her that she hadn't known the night before, or the day before, or the week before. She knew now and that was what mattered.
She showered calmly, carefully putting together the rest of what she would need in her mind. This wouldn't be difficult at all. It was going to be a very good day. She knew what was important about the other already.
The girl liked action. She was always in motion, spinning from one activity to the next with scarcely time to breathe in between them. She didn't spend her time thinking about what would happen next, but not for the reasons Isis didn't.
Isis didn't think about what would happen next because when it was important, she already knew.
This girl, Mana, didn't think about the future because she never worried about it. It would take care of itself. Mana had too much time she spent thinking about everything else.
Isis knew what else she liked: peanut butter sandwiches, roasted chicken, apples and pears, sweets of any kind. Feeding Mana sweets threatened to make her shake the foundations of the heavens, but Isis could hardly wait to see it for herself. It was one thing to know, it was another to see with one's own eyes.
She and Mana had never met before. Isis wasn't bothered by this at all. She lived her life by the visions that filled her mind, and when one blossomed behind her eyes that spoke of a young woman, some years younger than herself and vividly, wonderfully alive in a way that Isis hadn't seen in some time, she did not even consider denying them.
Not that she ever did. The visions told her and she listened to them, because that was what she'd always done, and would always do.
She would've known if she'd ever stopped. She knew she wouldn't.
Isis stepped out of her apartment, not bothering to lock the door behind her. No one would come while she was gone. Once she'd known someone had planned to, and spoke to him as she passed, greeting him as an old friend.
He hadn't broken in. She hadn't seen him since, but she knew he'd chosen a different path in life, a much better one, that wouldn't end with him bleeding in an alleyway one day.
Now, she moved swiftly down the street, searching for the place she knew the other would be. Mana hadn't lived in the city for very long, perhaps only a few weeks, and she still spent much of her free time wandering here and there, learning the ways of the place. Isis could help her there; she'd lived here her entire life, and knew even the places she'd never set foot in intimately well.
Mana would like that, Isis knew. She would be a little disturbed by it, but she'd like it all the same. Isis wasn't bothered by the disturbance. She was quite used to it after all these years. Those who didn't have the visions she did, who lived life as if it were an unknowable book, frequently reacted like that. Sometimes they were even worse.
The morning crowd surged here and there, people getting in and out of cars and taxis, on and off the buses that ran up and down the street, in and out of the stores that lined the area. Isis paid no heed to any of them, but headed without hesitation toward a small park some four blocks down from her apartment.
Mana would be lost, but not afraid. She would look on it as a way to learn her way around the city. But she would be hungry, since she'd skipped breakfast, and more nervous than she wanted to admit. The city could be scary to those who didn't know it, and before here, Mana had spent her life in a much smaller town, one that she did know by heart, but which hadn't had the crowds the city here did.
Isis found the park and chose the bench she knew she would be sitting on when Mana arrived. She set the basket she'd brought with her on the bench and plucked her newspaper from within it. She didn't need to read it; most of what was there she'd already known in some fashion or another. But the crossword could fill up a little bit of time, and her visions seldom told her what the comics section would hold. Perhaps even her second sight enjoyed a good surprise there.
She didn't have to wait very long. That didn't surprise her. She'd known when Mana would arrive, after all.
The girl, perhaps nineteen if that, turned into the park, looking around eagerly, covering up that nervousness that curled in the depths of her soul with a vast curiosity. She glanced at Isis, then looked away, clearly not wanting to bother the stranger who sat there reading her newspaper.
Isis closed the paper, tucked it away, and looked directly at her. "Hello, Mana."
Isis hadn't ever seen someone who fit the description of 'jumping out of one's skin' before. Mana stared at her, clutching at the bag by her side with intent to use it to defend herself if necessary. "Do I know you?"
"No. But I know you." Isis smiled her best reassuring smile. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I've been waiting for you."
Mana shifted a little, but came no closer. "You know me?"
"I do." Isis didn't move. She didn't want to scare Mana more than she would be already. "I've seen you in my visions before. I knew you'd be here today."
That got a surprised look. "Visions?" Surprised and curious, not angry, not worried that this was some kind of a strange trap. Isis had known all along.
"I see things." From the way she spoke 'see', she wanted Mana to understand this wasn't ordinary sight. It truly wasn't; this ability ran in her family, and had for as far back as any of them knew. "You're hungry. You didn't have breakfast."
Mana shifted closer, just a tiny bit, a mere step or two, and her stomach spoke for her, rumbling as a breath of wind brought the aroma of peanut butter to her. Isis opened the basket, then faced Mana directly again, a soft murmur in the back of her mind guiding her on what to say next.
"You can choose whatever you'd like out of here. I promise nothing is dangerous." She'd considered bringing boiled eggs, until she knew that Mana didn't like them, and was even mildly allergic to them. A pity; she rather liked them herself. She'd also included a bottle of lemonade for herself and Mana's favorite soda for her.
Mana peeked into the basket, and her eyes widened when she caught sight of the bottle. "How did you…"
"I told you. I see things. Visions of the future. When I woke up this morning, I knew that I was going to meet you here today, so I packed what I knew you'd like."
For a brief moment more Mana hesitated, then she darted forward and selected a wrapped sandwich and the soda. Isis picked out her own food and began to unwrap it. She made no move to make conversation until Mana satisfied the first urgings of her hunger and started to stare at her.
"You can really see the future?"
"How else do you explain me knowing that you'd come here, when even you didn't know you would?" Isis pointed out calmly. "And knowing exactly what you like best to eat? Or that you moved here a month and a half ago to study under Professor Mahaado at the university, folklore and ancient magic, to be precise."
Mana's eyes grew rounder and rounder with each word. "You…you could know the professor?"
"I could. But I don't." Isis shrugged; she knew that she would meet him, thanks to Mana, but that hadn't happened yet. It was for the weekend. She would think more on that when the time came.
"What else do you know?" Mana asked after a few quiet moments. "And why should you meet me, anyway? I mean, why would anyone have psychic visions about me?"
Isis smiled at that. "That I don't know. I've never known why I have these." She would explain at some point about the family gift, but one step at a time. "But why shouldn't we meet?"
Mana blinked a time or two, then shrugged, settling herself down on the bench next to Isis. "You're probably right. So, is there anything that I should be worried about? Like, am I going to fall in front of a bus or something? Or maybe win the lottery?"
"I don't know." Isis chuckled under her breath. "The visions don't show things like that all the time. They only told me about you this morning." She wasn't used to waking up to having her head full of information about another woman, but she could get used to it, especially if it was Mana. Her lively grin and endless curiosity whispered to parts of Isis that she hadn't thought of in years.
Mana drummed her feet against the ground. "Well, if you don't know what we're going to do, then how about I decide?" She didn't wait for an answer, but leaped up. "I was doing some exploring today. I don't have to see the Professor until tomorrow. So we can keep doing that, can't we?"
Isis rose to her feet, tucking everything she needed to back into the basket. "I don't see why not." When the visions fell silent, she made her own path, unused to it as she was. Today was the first day with Mana. There was nothing at all wrong with following where the other led.
Mana led to trouble of all kinds, though that didn't surprise Isis at all. Surprising her would've been far more difficult than Mana would've ever believed.
Mana's idea of exploring was just to go wherever the streets took them and see what lay around them. Isis could've told her most, if not all, of what lay there already, but Mana enjoyed seeing it on her own too much for Isis to spoil it for her.
Besides, she already knew that she wouldn't tell her.
Isis also knew where they would end up once Mana was too tired to keep going. The other woman yawned, trying to block it behind one hand, and peeked over at her.
"I really should get home." She didn't remind Isis that she had an appointment with her teacher the next day, or that she had no idea of where they were and hoped that Isis would. Isis knew all of that.
"You can stay the night here." Isis said instead, one hand indicating the apartment building they stood beside. "I can make certain you get up in time to get home and change."
Mana tilted her head. "Stay here?"
Isis smiled and headed for the door. "This is where I live." She wouldn't call it a home as of yet. She knew she hadn't found that one special place that would be home. Finding Mana was one step closer toward finding a home, though.
It wasn't much of an apartment; it consisted of a small bedroom, a living room, a kitchen where if Isis changed her mind about what she wanted for dinner – which she'd never done, she always knew what she would have – she would've been wise to do so in the living room for more mental space, and a bathroom. She'd never needed more than that.
Mana peered around curiously as Isis busied herself in the kitchen with a quick dinner for the two of them to share. As always, there was no surprise when Mana spoke.
"Are you going to be busy this weekend?"
Isis considered. She would meet Mahaado on Friday, but other than that… "I'm not on Saturday." She didn't get living color images of everything that would happen next, but she still had a very good idea of what Mana was about to ask her.
"Would you like to see a movie with me?"
Isis brought the two plates full of roast chicken and vegetables over to the small table that served her for dining purposes. There was barely enough room for one, let alone two, but they could manage. Isis considered looking for a larger place, now that Mana would be more a part of her life.
"I would." Again, not a shred of surprise. It took a great deal to surprise Isis.
But Mana still managed to pull it off, with a simple brush of lips against Isis's cheek and a grin that sparkled brighter than any future Isis had ever seen.
"I can't wait." Mana dropped onto the kitchnette's stool and applied herself to her food with all the appetite of youth.
Isis realized that neither could she. She'd seldom been surprised, but she thought she could get used to the idea. Especially if those surprises included more kisses from Mana.
The End