Getting over my writers block isn't going very well.
The new world was a place for miracles but not the miracles that she was looking for. The magic that these people used was fundamentally different from the one she knew, it was simpler but also weaker ruled by outer factors and not only inner. It was not the strength of the soul that determined what these witches and wizards could do.
And witches and wizards were very human, they had flaws. The face of Sirius Black screamed at her everywhere, she had never liked wanted posters, they dehumanized people so, but the moving wizarding version was even worse. Black was everywhere, Black was nowhere.
The boy was Harry Potter, it seemed everyone knew him though she had no idea why. Just like her he kept to himself and she imagined him to be just as much a loner as she was. She was proven wrong one night when an enormous family of redheads moved into the Leaky Cauldron. When Harry walked into the Leaky Cauldron with a redhead boy and a girl, who seemed to be the only one who didn't belong to the family, it became clear that Harry Potter was not a loner.
It soon became apparent they had been in Egypt. Even in this strange world the ancient Egyptians intrigued the people of the modern world. The remaining Guardians had been known to drop clues now and then in order to further the modern world's understanding of the land the Guardians had been born and raised in. She missed her home more than she'd ever admit even to herself.
She did enjoy being able to walk around without covering her arms, though it seemed it gave her something of a thug status. More than once she had been given directions to Knock-turn Alley, a place not much to her liking. Luckily no one seemed to recognize them. Atem's reign and almost everything before that was shrouded in mystery.
She ate in silence, still not entirely adapt to the food they served in the Leaky Cauldron when she saw the girl looking at her, more specifically her tattoos. There was no doubt that the girl was pondering whether she should come and ask about them or if she should refrain. She wasn't old, maybe fourteen. The Guardian knew very well that children were the most dangerous of all, they had a curiosity that went unpaired with fear.
"We tried to shut him in a pyramid but mom stopped us", one of the red-heads said to Harry and she forgot about the girl at once. Angrily she stood up, calling more attention to herself than was wise. She walked up to her room but when she passed them she couldn't help but snap at them. "Pyramids are sacred burial sights, not playthings for ignorant tourists as yourselves!"
She loudly shut the door behind herself and threw herself on the bed. Within her lived a serious dislike for tourists, especially that type of tourists. Scientists she accepted, historical fanatics that came to bask in the glory of what had been were endurable but sightseers was one the things she hated most.
She had lived before the pyramids were built, but she wished one had been built in Atem's name. If anyone deserved a grave so impressive and honorable it was him. She tried not to think about the small fact that there never had been a body to bury. That her king had vanished was even worse than that he had died. It had been she who had erased all known records of his name, it was the last order he had ever given her. When she had returned the battle was over and her king gone.
Set had told her and the other surviving Guardians they could do what they wished. It should have been a scandal, but it hadn't been. People were too tired, too shocked, too grieved to care about traditions and about how things used to be. Guardians were supposed to give their lives for their Pharaoh and in recorded history no Guardian had outlasted their Pharaoh, not until Atem vanished.
The Guardians had offered their services to Set but he had declined. Atem had given his life to protect his people from the sins of his uncle and Set wanted all knowledge of the Millennium Items to be forgotten by the common people, just to be sure he wanted all knowledge of Ka and Ba to be lost too and he had given them the order not to share this knowledge with anyone and live as normal people. Set himself had normal people as Guardians.
Atem had ordered the Millennium Items to be protected and Isis had herself started a clan of Tomb Keepers that kept the Millennium Items safe. Only they had extensive knowledge of the Millennium Items and therefore remained hidden. Only the Tomb Keepers knew Atem's last orders word by word, but they had forgotten his name, Isis had never passed on that legacy.
Nameless Pharaoh … That was how he was known now. Nameless Pharaoh. She found the idea ridiculous, his name was worth remembering, he deserved to be remembered. But he had wanted all knowledge of his name to vanish, for whatever reason. She never learned what the Pharaoh had done, all she knew to this day was that when she returned her Pharaoh was gone, the Millennium Pendant was in tiny pieces and no one would be allowed to speak his name ever again. He had given Isis and Set orders, but since the Guardians had been reduced to common peasants they weren't told.
And they lived as peasants, most of them left Egypt and started to work as sell swords but she had remained to help rebuild the countryside. It had taken her a few years to realize that she wasn't getting any older. When she went to the palace she was denied access and no one would hear her story, the markings that once had invoked respect and obedience now worked against her.
She never saw Set or anyone else again after they had been dismissed and neither Tomb Keeper nor royals knew that something was preventing the Guardians from dying and disappearing. She knew about the Tomb Keepers though. Once the Tomb Keepers had been one big clan, but conflicts had formed and a vendetta followed that splintered the Tomb Keepers into several families. This conflict had occurred many hundred years ago and most had never seen the significance of this family feud, but she had.
She had lost track entirely when Isis took the Tomb Keepers underground, protecting Atem's tomb and the Millennium items in great secret. Many thousand years later she picked up on them again, because of a their feud. They had forgotten about the Guardians entirely and they certainly didn't know that a few of them were still alive. Ever since she had been keeping an eye on them, best she could.
She had not been pleased. The Millennium Ring had vanished and the Millennium Puzzle was no longer in the tomb where it had been placed. Not to mention that the Tomb Keepers had turned to crude methods of storing information. The initiation rite was a cruel one. The Guardians initiation rite had also been painful, but at least they had been willing to undergo it.
Pegasus J. Crawford was also a complication. She had noticed the similarities between the game he had created and the ancient Diahas they had preformed. Not to mention that he had the Millennium Eye. Pegasus hided this and so far she was fairly certain she was the only outsider who knew. She was concerned, the eye was probably the Millennium Item that had caused them most trouble, it had belonged to the most corrupt of the priests. The eye should have been under closest surveillance, but now it was in the hands of a man who seemed to know an awful lot, but had no reason or right to.
Certainly there were changes, more significant changes than had occurred in the last several thousand years. Yet she had chosen to come here, to this new world, both for her own safety and because of the creatures she had seen. She shuddered at the thought alone.
Tomorrow she would take action. She couldn't remain here and just wait for something to happen, she had done that enough. At the moment she was too tired. She curled up in bed and dreamed a painful dream of her Pharaoh putting the Millennium Puzzle back together in the room of a teenage boy.
There was activity in the Leaky Cauldron that morning. It seemed the only other resident that had stayed as long as she had was leaving. Words such as 'train' and 'Hogwarts' fluttered by, the same words she had been hearing every day the past week. A lot of people in Diagon Alley seemed to be heading there and it hadn't taken long for her to realize that Hogwarts was a school.
It was one of the few things that had made her laugh out loud. She had started to realize that these people practiced a very crude and simplified version of the magic Mahad and Mana had practiced. Mahad and Mana had been the ancestors of this magic, the reason people respected her so much was not because she had magical tattoos, that just caused fear, it was because they were Egyptian. Their magic came from Egypt and they very well knew it. It seemed the purer version of magic that Mahad had practiced and had tried to teach Mana was gone.
When the large family had disappeared together with the curious girl and Harry Potter a sort of peace settled over the inn. Finally, she needed some peace. She sneaked up to her room and sat with crossed legs on the bed. She placed her hands on her knees, palms facing upwards, opening her body to her surrounding, making the task ahead of her easier. She might not know how to use magic, but she could utilize the strength within her. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Easily she slipped into the Ka that stirred when she connected with it.
Almond eyes opened and four soft paws stood on the floor of her room in the Leaky Cauldron. Everything appeared sharper through the eyes of her Ka and that was the most important thing, her Ka helped her see while nobody could see it. She leaped through the wall, her Ka not abiding to the laws of physics and ran over London, both magical and non-magical London, unhindered by the barriers the wizards had placed upon their world.
Her Ka was fast, incredibly fast, faster than the fastest airplane, faster than anything. As per usual she made an emotional trip down to Egypt. If there was something that hurt her it was the way the country had turned out. Atem had given his life to make Egypt a good country, a peaceful country and it had lasted a hundred years. Now there was nothing left of his sacrifice, it wasn't even remembered.
It hadn't taken her long to get from London to Egypt, but now she slowed down and with normal speed the sphinx walked over the streets. The people had abandoned their gods and replaced them with others. Anhur and Sekhmet had been forgotten, Ra, Isis, Anubis and Horus had become the main characters of sagas. They too deserved much better. She had seen the Gods, the three powerful Kas that Atem's soul had housed, proof that the Pharaoh truly was a descendant from Horus. Everyone had talked about it, entire Egypt had told the story of the Pharaoh who had commanded the three Gods. But now everything had been lost, lost to the ages, everything but she.
It hurt.
She gathered herself and focused. She wasn't one with her Ka to take a trip down memory lane. She closed her eyes to the suffering of Egypt's people and within a few seconds she was back in the air and had left Egypt behind. She put her nose in the air and sniffed, even though the sphinx had a human looking nose she didn't do under for the feline whose body she had and on a more cosmic plane that gave her a great insight in what was going on.
She returned to London and kept sniffing the air. The creature she had seen had induced fear, fear had a strong scent, especially to a Ka. All human emotions had a strong scent. The London air was filled with the scent of lust, love, anger, happiness, worry, sorrow and fear, but not fear as strong as the one she was looking for.
A new world had opened to her even through the eyes of her Ka. Now that she knew about the magical world she could see it and below her stretched things she would have never seen before. One of those was a gleaming red steam engine to the north. She followed it, knowing from the sign on the train that it was the Hogwarts Express. The steam engine had caught her eye because they were no longer in use anymore, not for real travel anyway.
She followed it, curious to see the castle that taught children magic. Amused she thought about Mana, Mahad had his hands full with teaching her alone. If that train was filled with students she felt sorry for the teachers, and feeling sorry for anyone was something she rarely did. Mana had caused them a lot of trouble, she had been one of the few people who hadn't been intimidated by the Guardians. Even the priests had been uncomfortable around the rare but intimidating and rigid presence of the Guardians. Eventually one of the Guardians had gotten so tired of Mana that Mana had been victim to the full might of a Guardian and Mana had never again bothered them. Instead she had satisfied herself with trying her tricks on regular guards.
Mana once said, after Atem had disappeared, that she was immensely grateful that the Guardian had lost his patience with her. He had given a not so friendly demonstration of what he could do and called upon his Ka. It had been because of this that Mana later figured out how to summon her own Ka and by doing so saving Mahad and the other priests.
Then a strong biting cold sensation hit her and the train came to a stop. The sensation was so strong that she was almost thrown back into her own body and disconnected from the mind of her Ka. Whenever she was in her Ka her Ka and Ba fused in a way that never occurred in a regular body and her own urges and that of her Ka were almost one. She couldn't help the roar that came from her muzzle.
Something was pulling at her, she had to fight to remain connected to her Ka. Like a lonely person fighting the wind of a strong, unforgiving storm she and her Ka fought to get close to the source of the icy cold. She recognized the cold, this was one of the creatures she had seen stealing a soul. She had not been prepared for its effect on her to multiply so many times while she stood in direct connection to her Ka.
Angrily she fought on, her claws leaving marks on the roof of the train. There were children in this train, many of them, it was unacceptable for a being like that to threaten those whose Kas had hardly developed. At the same time she was tormented, she was seeing things she had once hidden in the deepest recesses of her soul and she wished nothing dearer than to return to her own body and abandon this fight. But as always the thought of her king gave her the strength to fight on, he would have been furious had he known of this threat to innocent children.
Eventually the sensation became so strong that she knew that this terrible being was right beneath her. She forced her astral head through the roof of the train and was shocked at what she saw. Nothing quite appeared in the same way through the eyes of her Ka, that existed more in a spiritual than mortal plane, everything living had bright colors that said something about the true aspect of the being. Only rarely she had seen something that was amortal, but this thing was.
Beneath her sat five children, thirteen or so, one of them seemed to be unconscious and had the amortal beings full attention. A single adult was with them, wand raised, ready to protect the children. To her eyes it didn't look like he was doing much good, although his aura clearly stated he would do anything to protect these children. She jumped down through the roof and landed agile on the floor, her paws avoiding the unconscious boy. Though she was invisible to the wizards and witches the amortal being was quite aware of her presence; it made a hissing sound and backed away from the compartment. That was alright with her, her Ka was big and the hallway gave her more room to maneuver.
In essence Kas were amortal beings, they were never alive and couldn't be killed, but she didn't really think Kas could be classified that way since they were always connected to a Ba. Kas were a class of their own. But that was not what was important, amortal beings couldn't be killed, at least that was common belief. There was however an exception to that rule, an amortal being could destroy another one and in that a Ka would do fine, Ba or not. She didn't hesitate, she had already seen what the being could do and filled with anger she charged, her sharp claws ripping through it and effectively shredding it into pieces.
People were watching, but they could see nothing else than the disgusting abnormality being torn to shreds. The man who had been with the children stared in disbelief, but there was something cautious over him, as if he feared the same thing would turn on them.
Pleased she noted the boy was back on his feet, albeit a bit confused. Her work was done, but she stayed around. People came rushing over. The man chased the children back to their compartments and when other adults arrived at the scene it became clear that they had never seen anything like it before.
A woman with a stern face and a tight bun talked animately with the man. "Are you sure that's what happened Remus?" she asked the man.
"Without a doubt Minerva", Remus said as he stared at the spot where the amortal being had been shredded. Nothing was left of it. Amortal beings didn't have bodies and once they were destroyed all form of body they had ever had was turned into nothingness.
"I hold little love for the dementors of Azkaban, but this is …" A second man didn't seem to know how to finish his sentence. He was remarkably short and his white hair stood on an end. "I thought they couldn't be killed?"
She reacted strongly on the name. So these amortal beings were called dementors. And of Azkaban? She knew what Azkaban was, it was a prison, a prison for wizards. So this was were these creatures came from. There were not many crimes that she could imagine that would justify being forced to exist together with these creatures. Madness was sure to thrive next to them and nothing was more dangerous than madness.
Minerva looked grim. "They disintegrate with time or when emotion is scarce. But I have never heard of a dementor being destroyed. They're like poltergeists, they just are."
"I for one am glad to see it gone", Remus said calmly. He glanced behind him, at the compartment where he and the children had been sitting. "It attacked the children."
"Who?" Minerva asked. "Who did it attack?"
"Harry Potter", he replied.
"Of course", Minerva sighed. "Dumbledore will be furious. The moment we get back to Hogwarts I think it's best if madam Pomfrey takes a look at him."
The short man nodded gravely. Then the lights went back on and the train started moving again. "I'll go back to the students, see how they're doing", Remus said, turned around briskly and walked back into his compartment.
"It's just ten minutes left before we arrive", Minerva said. "Let's go see if any other students fared ill during this unacceptable search. I don't understand what Fudge is thinking." Together the two remaining adults strolled off, Minerva still muttering about how unacceptable everything was.
Even though she had no reason to stick around she would quite like to see the school. She jumped up onto the roof of the train so she could have a proper view. The landscape was beautiful, though the rain stole a lot of it from view. They were in the north she realized as the cold rain beat down on her, she didn't feel it. Eventually the train pulled to a stop at a tiny station, with a few rickety old buildings around it. The place appeared to be a small, strange town. A sign said Hogsmeade station and she assumed that the town was called Hogsmeade. The students welled out from the train, they ranged from about ten to twenty if she had to guess. A big man called out for the first years and the youngest children approached the giant hesitantly. The rest of the students walked a bit away from the station and climbed into carriages pulled by skinny, black horses with wings.
The carriages set into motion and she paced next to them. Strangely enough it seemed the black horses could see her, but they didn't react much, curiosity was all she perceived from them. She had no trouble keeping up. With the body of a lion there was little effort in keeping their pace, especially since they were hindered by the weight of the carriages.
They paced through a black iron wrought gate and soon she saw the school. Calling it a school was an understatement, it was a castle and she didn't understand why this amount of students would need a castle that big. She ran ahead, spurring the horses who playfully wanted to follow, but they couldn't.
The doors to the castle stood open. She ran up the stairs and did an attempt to get into the building and bashed against an invisible wall. She hissed and clawed at the seemingly empty air, but the barrier was definitely there. She moved aside as students started to enter the castle, clearly not being hindered by any form of barrier. She didn't move aside because they could touch her, over the course of five thousand years her Ka had learned many tricks and skills, becoming invisible and incorporeal were just two of them. Kas usually were quite visible and they could most definitely touch the living breathing common people, but the skill was a handy one. The reason she moved aside was because she could feel it when somebody walked through her and she hated it.
She turned around as the last carriage arrived and walked down the stairs again, her tail swinging behind her disappointedly. She headed back the same way she had come from and when she reached the iron gate she stopped abruptly. Two dementors flanked the gate and a third was just leaving.
She had taken the one in the train by surprise and it had been no art shredding him. But this was different, there was three of them and they would be impossible to take by surprise. Shredding a dementor was not a matter of seconds, it came rather close to a minute or two. If she was busy shredding one, she left an opening for the other two.
She sneaked away, deciding to find a different way back, but it was to no avail. There were dementors everywhere. The school was surrounded by them. She wondered if the people who slept in the castle tonight knew about it. Eventually she found a lone dementor a bit away from something that looked much like a gathering of greenhouses. He was not quite as on his guard as the others had been. She stalked close and then, claws ready, she jumped against him, putting some nice tears in him. The dementor hissed furiously and tried to hit her, but she jumped out of the way before quickly moving in again and tearing some more at him. A rotten hand appeared from the black cloak and gripped her so quickly that it took her by surprise and she didn't have time to dodge, instead he lifted her up and threw her against the wall. As she recovered herself she looked around herself. What wall had he thrown her against? The grounds seemed to be open, there didn't even seem to be a tree she could have hit.
Angrily and a bit confused she lunged for the dementor again. A few more shreds fell off the dementor and she jumped back again to avoid his angry, uncoordinated attacks. Again she hit the wall. Looking behind herself it seemed that whatever she hit was another barrier. What concerned her was that this barrier blocked her way out.
At last this dementor too vanished as his amortal state of being ceased to be. Quite satisfied with herself she strolled along the barrier, avoiding the dementors that rarely seemed to be alone but she couldn't find a single part of it that was passable. Somebody must have raised it after the last carriage had passed through the gate.
There was only one thing left to do. She focused on her body, trying to detach her mind from that of her Ka. Her Ka was a very primal being. Most Kas were primal beings, but primal beings came usually with savage personalities and very few of those able to summon their Ka had primal Kas. Most Kas were quite sophisticated, as it required a lot of discipline to summon ones own Ka. She remembered how surprised she had been when it had turned out that Mana's Ka was a sophisticated one, abnormally sophisticated even. That her own Ka was a primal one hadn't surprised her, in heart and soul she was a warrior and her Ka was a predator, they went well together. The biggest disadvantage of a primal Ka was that they were more difficult to connect to and to let go off, in return the connection was always much stronger, although that too had its pros and cons. Disconnecting from her Ka was always something that had been a challenge to her.
With strength of mind and hard work she soon found herself panting back in the Leaky Cauldron. Her Ka was safely back inside her, where the other half of her soul belonged. She sighed relieved, she had been afraid that the barrier would trap her Ka even if she returned to her body. That would have been her death, she was sure of it. Most people just went into a vegetative state when their Ka was taken from them, but her connection to her Ka was a lot stronger than that of regular people and she had suspected it for a long time that if her Ka was lost she would die.
She stood up and went to take a bath. The water was scalding hot, but she enjoyed it. As she was encased by water and incense she thought, deeply and objectively, as she had been taught. Apparently dementors were gathering around Hogwarts and for some reason someone had put up a barrier, keeping all amortal beings out of the castle but also close to the school grounds. A strange thing to do. The dementors wouldn't be leaving and she needed to get to them, she wanted to destroy them, all of them, in the name of her Pharaoh and by the weight of her own conscious. Beings like these shouldn't exist.
She also knew she wouldn't be able to get in again. As long as that barrier was up she wouldn't be able to pass through. The only way to get her Ka through that barrier was to get herself through it first. It had been apparent that living beings had no issue passing through it. If she could summon her Ka inside that barrier she would have no trouble getting to the dementors.
She got up, dried herself off and a put on her muggle clothes. She was quite fond of her new ones, but if she was going to travel to Scotland she was doing it the muggle way and she didn't want to attract attention. She walked down the stairs and as per usual Tom was right there at her service. It had taken him some time to get used to her markings, but once he had he had treated her as overbearing as before. "I'm checking out", she said coolly and handed him the key to the room she had occupied.
"Alrighty", Tom said. "Need anything before you leave? A drink? Anything?"
She shook her head. She paid what was left to pay, turned around and walked out of the leaky cauldron, into central London. She smiled as she saw the people hurry past her. Somehow it was relief to be back in the world she knew and understood.
I used to have a lot of clever ways to tell people to review.
I'm seriously out of practice