AN: Hello readers, I said that I would be uploading a chapter every tuesday but since I'll be out of town next week (to a land without modern technology, oooh) I am going to be posting today. Yay!
I would like to thank my one reviewer, Lilly, I'm glad that you like the story, Imhotep and Egypt too : ) And even though these chapters are short I would like to know what ya'll think about 'em so please, please, pweeeaaassseee just send at least a little note if you are reading this. It would be really cool to have some reviews to welcome me home from my journey into 'the wild'. But enough with my begging, I give you chapter two of...
What Lay Hidden...Forbidden
To hear your voice is pomegranate wine to me:
I draw life from
hearing it.
Could I see you with every glance,
It would be
better for me
Than to eat or to drink.
- Egyptian New Kingdom poem, 1539-1075 bc
(translated by M.V. Fox)
Golden, sculpted flesh, chiseled yet gently curving lips and dark penetrating eyes; a proud, strong figure walking through the gilded halls of Pharaoh's palace. Anck-su-numan dares not look at him; for this is Imhotep. In her mind she runs over his features, those features she has memorized with guarded eyes, traitorous heart and with the deepest affection. She walks on, breathing slowly in relief as she feels his presence slip from her. She nods to the Medjai as she enters the irrigated gardens. Taking deep a breath of fragrant and cool air, she closes her eyes. Here she can find peace, the Pharaoh, hardly anyone ever comes here, they are all too busy with other things. But Anck does not have much to occupy her as the soon to be Queen, everything is done for her as preparations are made. Approaching the small courtyard where she practices her dances, she picks up a gilded linen fan from the table and does a small, sensual, dance. Waving the fan in arcs and circles, for a moment she thinks of nothing; there is only the flourishing garden around her and a golden bird flitting around her hands. She finishes her dance, the fan hiding her face, revealing only her sultry charcoal eyes. It is then that she sees Imhotep watching her. Her Nile, her torment, her utmost blessing and curse. In his eyes she sees the light of what they hide. She turns from him but his eyes are still on her back, she feels them with a pleasure and fear, then his gaze passes away. After a moment, Anck-su-namun tentatively turns; he has left and her heart flutters back down to its grey perch.
When Anck-su-namun first saw Imhotep she had felt something, she puzzled over what it was until she realized that she loved him. Shocked at her treachery, from then on she had lied to herself; she was just attracted to him, he was younger and more appealing than Pharaoh, she told herself. But slowly, surely, as she saw more of him, heard him speak, her love progressed and she could no longer deny the truth. It was strange how that day when she had been trapped in Imhotep's eyes and she saw acknowledgment of her secret, and…a reciprocation of the same feelings, she had felt as if she was seeing the Nile, the moon, the stars, everything for the first time. Yet after their first time alone, the time when she had nearly kissed the forbidden fruit of his lips just before the Pharaoh had come in, she determined, made herself promise, to never be alone with him again. And she had kept her promise, but the longings that she felt thereafter could not be kept away so easily.
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