A/N: No Ardeth in this chapter, but he will be in the next one and nearly every other one after that.^^
Chapter one: A way back home
Göttingen Germany, September 1933 AD:
"What do you mean, you will go back?" Her mother was on a roll, Lilly knew it was pointless to say anything at this point so she simply leant back and let her.
"You really want to go back to that god forsaken country? Why in god's name would you want that? God knows how lucky I was when we finally left."
She used the word god three times in a row. That was never a good sign. On the other hand Lilliana had not expected anything less. The good thing was though, that she could not care less. As of today she was her own woman and no longer forced to endure her mother's every whim. But Anna Blackmoor had yet to find out about that.
"I told your father from the beginning that it was a bad idea to go there. I understood that we had to leave, but why Egypt? We could have gone everywhere. Maybe France or Italy but no it had to be that barbaric country."
"Last time I checked Italy and France both took part in the World War mother," Lilly snorted and not for the first time she asked herself, how her father could have fallen for a woman like her. She knew it was not very nice to think badly about the woman that birthed you, but she could not help herself. There weren't two people in the world that had been more ill-suited for each other. Her father had been a loving, kind and fairly intelligent as well as open minded man. His wife on the other hand was as narrow minded as one could get, self-serving and not the brightest bulb out there. Physical beauty was probably all she could claim for herself and likely what brought her into the place she was today.
Though her farther had never said it out loud Lilly suspected that her mother seduced him, because of his money and blackmailed him to marry her due to her being pregnant. She was an early child and graced the lives of her parents seven month after their wedding.
"Don't get cheeky with me missy! Is that how you thank me for everything I've done for you?"
It lay on the tip of her tongue to ask her mother what she thought she had ever done for her, but stopped herself. After all it was not as if she expected an answer to her question. Instead Lilly leant back and let her mother go on with her rant. There was not much she had not heard before. All in all it contained her failure as a daughter, how something just was not right with her and that other girls her age would be looking for a husband to start a family with and were not seeking for adventures.
"I always told your father that it was a bad idea to send you to those schools, didn't I? All it did was putting strange ideas in your head!"
Everything besides settling down to raise a family and allow your husband to think and act for you was strange in the mind of her mother. In her opinion a girl did not need education that exceeded basic school. Luckily her farther saw things different and not only encouraged her but taught her everything he knew himself.
Nathaniel Blackmoor had been a professor on the local university teaching Egyptology and ancient languages. His assignment had been the reason why he moved from England to Germany and had he not met her mother he may have gone back after a period of time. But his marriage and the upcoming war had thwarted his plans. Two years after her birth they had moved to Egypt to escape the Great War, where he had taken a job in one of the museums. Much like her father Lilliana had come to love the country; the people, the weather and their history with all their outlasting architecture. The day they had to return to Germany had been a sad one for both her father and herself and she had sworn herself to go back one day.
Her hand wandered to the medallion around her neck on its own volition. Not once in all the years since Aden had gifted her with the gem, had she taken it off other than to take a bath. She had taken everything he told her to heart and every time she felt sad, regardless of the reason, she rubbed it between her fingers. And every time she did so her heart truly felt lighter.
She had gone through the ritual that so times that it actually broke in two. The oval medallion was made of gold and possessed an Anch symbol on the front lid. Originally the opal made cross was tightly fixed to the lid but her habit of grasping it all the time had loosened the fusion so much, that one day it broke. She had been devastated but wasn't willing to let anybody get their hands on it, so she simply brought a delicate gold chain and attached the Anch to it.
These days she barely opened the medallion any more, out of fear to damage it further. Not that she needed to do so to know what it looked like. She had stared at it more nights than she could count and had memorized it down to the finest detail. The inside showed the image of a lion. Well it was more a picture of a woman with lion like features. Most of her form was graved into the metal while small red stones, maybe rubies were portraying the eyes. But it was the hair that truly stood out. The lion's mane was actually made out of real hair at least that was what it looked like. It was red, like the rubies, with darker strains here and there.
All in all it looked a bit tawdrily, like something one would find at the stalls on the bazaar in Egypt, where merchants tried to foist worthless amulets, relicts and other trash upon ignorant tourists. But Lilly was fairly sure the stones and the gold were pure and the signs which were engraved in the inside looked ancient. She had tried to look them up, her father's library was full of books containing hieroglyphs of all cultures, but till this day she had found nothing on it and she was not entirely sure if they were simply too old to be known or if they were nothing more than meaningless twirls. Somehow she doubted it. Maybe she could find out more about it once she was back in Egypt. Not only about the medallion but about Aden's people too.
He had called them Medjai, desert warriors. Information about them were nearly as rare as one about the medallion. But she had not been able to forget about the man who had gifted her with the gem, his face would often appear in her dreams and through the years guilt had found its way into them too. As a child she had felt that something was not right, though she had not been able to put a finger on it and maybe had not been willing to dig deeper. These days she was fairly certain he had been in pain, deeply so and it had been his condition that forced him to present her with the medallion. On the other hand it happened many years ago and she could not be certain if her mind was fabricating these things, but it was nagging at her and she knew she would not be able to put it aside before she did something about it. Like seeking him out or at least his tribe.
"Lilliana Sophia Blackmoor!" The use of her full name snapped her out of her musings. "Are you even listening to me?"
"Of course." Not, she thought and inwardly rolled her eyes.
"So?"
"So what?"
"What about Leonard?"
"What about him?" She pressed knowing exactly what her mother was aiming at. Leonard Friedrich Greifenwald was everything her mother ever dreamed about in a son in law. He was rich, good looking and came from the right family. An old family with a lot of connections which was probably why her mother was hell bent on forcing her on him.
"He's shown a promising interest in you, if you play your cards right..."
"Mother!" Lilly interrupted her angrily.
"Well someone has to point it out for you. Other girls would give anything to be the next Lady Greifenwald. What will he think when he hears that you ran off to some god forsaken country?"
He would probably shrug his shoulders and look for another challenge. Leonard was a player. The man had the look, the smile and the charm and he was used to women falling over their feet to get his attention. His family name and wealth only added to the attraction. The fact that she had given him the cold shoulder was the only reason he kept pestering her. Clearly he was not used to a woman saying no and the challenge of changing her mind evidently was a way of fighting the boredom one felt when he had everything in life presented on a silver pattern.
Not that she really gave a damn about what Leonard Greifenwald would think. Truth to be told, since the death of her father two years ago there was not a single person which opinion matter for her, after all there was not anyone left who returned the favour. Her mother did not care for her but for what she could do for herself and she had not much family beside her. All her grandparents beside her father's mother died in the First World War and she had never come to know them, not even her grandmother, as she lived in England and died shortly after the war ended. Her mother was an only child. Her uncles from her father's side were absent too. One went missing with the rest of his unit and the other was killed in a bombing. If she remembered correctly she once heard her father talking about the pregnant widow of his older brother, so she might have a cousin out there, but she could hardly call a person she had never met family. More or less she was alone, but she intended to change that eventually, though it was not her prime concern at the moment.
For now she simply wished to enjoy her new found freedom and for that she'd decided to return to the spot where she'd been the happiest in her live; Egypt.
"...so no. No, I forbid you to go! You will banish these silly ideas of yours out of your head and start acting your age and...and social standing!"
For a long moment Lilly did nothing but stare at the woman in front of her. She was of average height much like herself but held herself in a way that oozed self-importance. The years had been kind to Anna and her red-blond hair was still shiny and long, her skin barely showed her true age and her slender and well-shaped figure still had the power to turn a few heads. The elegant clothes, careful manicure and well applied make-up only added to that.
Though Lilly was a bit curvier around her hips and bust and her hair more of a dark auburn than an reddish blond, it was hard to miss that they shared the same gene-pole. The only thing she had inherited from her father was the green colour of her eyes, and it was also her favourite part of herself. Sometimes when she stared long enough into a mirror, she could almost see her father looking back at her. Shaking her head, as if to scare away those thoughts she turned her attention back to her mother who was still glaring at her with displeasure.
"No mother I will not," she started calmly. "As of today you no longer have any say about what I do or don't do. Mr Peterson soughed me out this morning and informed me of a part in fathers will that allows me full power of attorney about a rather large fund he attached for me." Money had never been an issue in her life but the sum, the lawyer had informed her about, nearly send her in a state of shock. That was of course before she realised that she was no longer tied to her mother but independent and wealthy of her own. She would have left anyway, after her twenty first birthday but the money truly alleviated things. Mr Peterson also informed her that her dear mother had no way of getting her hands on it and part of it was placed in funds and other investments so even she could not run through it on a whim. Not that she would.
"I don't need your approval to do anything but I truly wish you would at least try to understand that the things you want for me are not the same things I wish for in my life. And I'm not being silly, just because you never dared to live your dreams! I want and I will go to this god forsaken country as you call it, it has been my home since I was three. Coming back to Germany didn't change that. So you either accept my decision or not but in any case I will be gone next month!" And with that she got up and left the room, ignoring the fish expression her mother was regarding her with, as well as the shouts of her name that followed once she got over her shock.
There was a lot of packing to do and she had spent enough time arguing with her mother in the past now it was time to look what her future might bring along. It couldn't be worse than her mother on a bad day.
She would find out soon enough how wrong she was.
TBC
