A/N: Hm, apparently I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! Shock! Horror! Oh, and I don't own Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas either. Meh, I'll keep wishing on that star...

Thanks to my two reviewers for last chapter: Aqua girl 007 and YamiBakura1988 . You two are the best!

ooOoo

Chapter 7: The Disadvantages of Volunteering

Unsurprisingly, Bakura was in a foul mood for the next couple of days. He didn't like being shown up in front of others, especially not by a stranger and even more so by royalty. Add to that that just about everyone in the group seemed to know that Bakura had lost a fight with a woman, and it was a recipe for unpredictable mood swings.

The third day led the group to the edge of familiar territory; beyond that none of them knew the layout, so they stopped by a known well to restock on water and perhaps hunt any for some extra meat. The semi arid desert had given way to a more mountainous desert; part of the landscape was rock rather than sand now, but at least it provided shade.

And, for all her stubbornness, Mana was bored. She had spent three long, dull days upon her horse, with little conversation to pass the time and the distinct impression that everyone was avoiding her. Most of the men would dodge any conversation she tried to start, while Bakura ignored her presence entirely. Rishid would talk to her, but he wasn't much of a speaker anyway. In fact, one of the few people she could get a semi-decent conversation out of was Marik – and she rather got the impression that was only because it annoyed Bakura so much.

All the same, the result was that the next evening – when they had travelled beyond their mental map – Mana volunteered to find a source of water. This was met by a mixed response; most of the men stared as if she had just volunteered to grow an extra head, while Bakura only laughed.

Mana, however, didn't find it all that amusing.

"What?" she snapped. "We need water, so I thought I might offer to help. Is there a problem with that?"

"No, of course not, your highness," Bakura replied, smirking. "Just try not to get too lost."

Mana bit back a retort, but only just and only because the prospect of searching for a source of water sounded thrilling compared to another silent evening at the camp. And she would finally have a chance to get away from everyone else; finally she would have a bit of true solitude. Taking his last comment as acknowledgement that she could go, she picked up her cloak and small satchel from the side and walked away from the camp. Up ahead, the cliff divided into two, making the surroundings more like a canyon of sorts than a desert, and quickly Mana disappeared from view.

"Do you think that was wise?" Rishid asked dryly.

Bakura only smirked again, and threw a few sticks to the hungry fire. "When was the last time I did anything that you deemed 'wise'?" he returned. "Don't worry; what's the worst that could happen?"

"Don't tempt fate."

"Ra, you're so gloomy sometimes."

"I can't help thinking that I'd like to avoid having a princess die on our watch."

Bakura scoffed; more sticks found themselves unceremoniously tossed into the flames. "What makes her so important, Rishid? Bloodlines? It was only by chance – fate, fortune; call it what you will – that she was born into a royal family. What would have been so special about her if she had been born into a different background? Nothing. She's not particularly smart, otherwise she wouldn't be here, she's not funny and she's not even that pretty."

Rishid thought over these less-than-complimentary remarks before contributing his own comment. "She's got guts, though. Aren't many princesses who'd have done what she's done."

"That's because she's as stupid as Atem," Bakura grumbled. "All nobleness and no survival instinct. She didn't even meet him in person until the night Apep stole the Puzzle. Why put your life on the line for a near stranger?"

"Perhaps she loves him."

The thief scoffed again, a disbelieving grunt settling in the back of his throat.

"Or perhaps she just has a strong sense of justice," Rishid offered. "Whatever the reason, she's here now. Perhaps you should finally accept that and concentrate on finding Apep's shrine."

"Is our great leader still sulking?" Marik sat down alongside the other two, a bottle of something probably alcoholic grasped in one hand.

"I'm not sulking," Bakura muttered, trying to ignore just how childish he sounded in saying that.

"Bakura, you're sulking, alright? There's no big shame in it, but you might at least admit it," Marik replied lightly.

"I would be fine with admitting if it I were sulking. But I'm not."

"What do you call the last three days then?"

Bakura opened his mouth, struggled for several seconds, and eventually surrendered with silence.

"Anyway, where's the princess?" the other thief asked, letting the sulking topic slide. "We haven't lost her already, have we?"

Bakura jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "She's gone to find water."

"Alone," Rishid added, just for clarification. Bakura received another disapproving look from him.

"Would you stop the guilt-tripping already?"

"Alone?" Marik echoed, ignoring Bakura's irritated remark. He looked to the white-haired thief. "You let her go alone?"

Bakura groaned. "So you're having a go at me too now? Look, she'll be fine." His comment was met with doubtful expressions. "If you're so damn worried you can go running after her. You two seemed to be getting along like a house on fire anyway."

"Ra, Bakura, of course we got along like a house on fire," Marik responded, losing a little of his cool demeanour at his friend's irritably irrational paranoia. "I'm the only one who's actually talked to her for the last three days. At this rate, I think she'll be happy to talk to the horses."

"Alright then," Bakura snapped waspishly. "You can go after her."

"No way. I'm not going to make up for your appalling people skills. It's about time you attempted to talk to her yourself. And shouting doesn't count," Marik clarified with a grin. "We all know you're very good at that."

Bakura glared at his two friends, his two second-in-commands, and, with a growl, rose to his feet. "Fine. Fine. If it'll make you happy, I'll go and check on her. Don't expect any pleasantries though."

"We're not expecting a miracle."

Bakura's mood wasn't improved by that, but he still headed off in the direction he'd seen Mana take, muttering under his breath about the inconvenience of having friends as he went.

ooOoo

At the other end of the spectrum, Mana was thoroughly enjoying herself. Despite any worries on either Rishid or Marik's part, she hadn't fallen into trouble yet and was gradually mapping out the layout of the canyon. The cliffs rose high above her, towering in stature, and easily establishing a secluded atmosphere. Here she could believe that she was truly in a foreign, unfamiliar country, far away from what many would class as civilisation.

There had been no sign of water yet, but the fact that the place didn't look as lifeless as the desert they had trekked in from gave her hope. There would have to be a water source to support any life, and she could make an educated guess that any water would be at the bottom of the canyon. Those few facts alone gave her the reassurance to continue her search.

She paused beside the rock-face and glanced up, up at the dusky evening sky. How long had it been since she had last watched the sun set in the forest beside her home palace? Too long. But apparently staying out in the forest without a guard wasn't wise for a princess, especially in the evening. She'd had free reign over her movements until she reached eighteen; at eighteen, her parents had abruptly realised that their youngest child was no longer a child, but an adult, and the lessons on being a princess had begun.

In the stilled evening silence Mana heard a telltale drip of water. She picked up her head and found herself rounding on a gap in the wall of rock; she found a roughened cavern entrance, the sides still rugged even with the many years of erosion.

The sound of the water was indeed coming from inside. Her curiosity began to swell inside her; the prospect of exploring a cave held a certain appeal to it. Anyway, she rationalised as she opened up her bag, it wasn't like she'd have much chance to do this sort of thing once she was married; as a wife and princess, she would have other duties to attend to. Her hand found a makeshift torch – in essence a bat with rags wrapped around one end – and she quickly lit it. It burned with a weak, hesitant flame for a short period before gradually gaining strength.

Now, with one hand lightly resting against the outside layer of rock, she leant towards the entrance, using her dim torch to illuminate a few murky steps into the interior. Lifting it up, she cast flickering shadows onto the cave's floor; the floor in question was uneven but dry.

Stepping inside, she took the first few steps away from the bright outdoors. She discovered quickly that she didn't suffer from claustrophobia, her steps becoming slowly more confident as she plunged further inside and still hadn't met anything unusual. For the next few minutes her world was the faded sphere of light cast from her torch; anything further beyond it was darkness and creeping shadow.

Her foot kicked into something, something solid. Pausing in her step, she knelt down, bringing her light to floor level. She found the unmoving bodies of mice. Initially she wondered whether they were frozen out of fear, but when her hand passed over them and they still failed to move, she came to the conclusion that they were dead.

They seemed unmarked; their bodies were in no bitten or injured state, they were simply unmoving. Even when she accidentally knocked one away with her foot, it remained frozen in the same position.

"Okay... weird..."

Mana quickly straightened up, trying to expel the unwanted worries from her mind and failing miserably. She looked around her, but could only see into the limited light from her burning torch. Suddenly her expedition seemed like a bad idea.

She scowled to herself, frowning down at the voice of cowardice muttering in the back of her mind. She pushed it aside and crept further into the cave, mentally keeping track of her progress with every step that took her deeper into the cave's clutches. She wanted to ensure she would know the exit, if the need came.

"It's just a dank, murky old cave, Mana," she told herself. Her voice bounced off the walls, and while they didn't echo with any clarity, they filled the air with vapid whisperings. "Nothing's going to happen."

ooOoo

Pinpointing the scream when it came – for came it did, and Bakura made an educated guess that the owner was Mana – wasn't the easiest task, but eventually the source was narrowed to a cave entrance embedded in the rock face. He glowered into the dingy darkness.

"Damn princess; probably found a spider or something..."

All the same, he hesitated at the opening. Despite all his snappy remarks at Rishid and Marik he didn't relish the idea of a princess's death while the royal was under his care – whether or not the princess was officially even meant to be accompanying them. He already had one death threat hanging over his head; he'd rather not tempt another.

He began to wish he had brought along a torch, but he had assumed he would be able to locate the elusive royal before the dusk gave way to night, and he certainly hadn't expected to be entering a dark and gloomy cave. Still, he had his other senses, even if he didn't like the idea of tackling the cave blind.

His hands grazed the rough cavern wall, tracing the curve of the passage and guiding him further in. For a few moments he relived his initial fear that he had experienced upon his previous arrival in Apep's realm; the fear of being blind had been all too potent, all too unexpected. Now though, he knew the reason for the lack of sight, but the worry had still momentarily crept into his thoughts.

He froze upon hearing the unsubtle sound of footsteps pounding the uneven ground. 'She really needs to learn to be lighter-footed,' Bakura noted idly to himself, remembering just how easily he had been alerted to her presence when she had first arrived. A light bounced off the walls, locating the girl's approaching presence. However, Bakura hadn't been prepared for Mana to suddenly appear from around a corner and cannonball into him and in the kerfuffle Mana's torch was knocked from her hands and dropped heavily to the floor, where its weak light spluttered and then died.

There was a brief exchanging of cursing; Bakura's language was notably coarser than Mana's. Eventually Bakura sent a waspish remark to the young woman, informing her that it was he she had bumped into. Mana sounded like she had calmed down after that.

Bakura's foot knocked against the dropped torch and, after several seconds rummaging in the pitch black, the thief picked the item up. It took several more stumbling seconds before he managed to light the torch once again. The shadows reluctantly drew back, once more receding into the crevices of the wall, but clinging at the edge of the flickering sphere of light, threatening to flood their surroundings again at the slightest weakness.

"Ra, woman; what are you trying to do?" demanded Bakura, feeling no reservations against glaring at the young princess. "What are you even doing in here?"

Mana gasped a few words, but the thief hadn't been able to distinguish any intelligible words.

"Come again?"

"Body..." Mana finally gasped. She was pointing behind her. "There was a... a body back there!"

Bakura looked in the direction she was gesturing in with not enough worry for Mana's liking. "A body?" he doubtfully repeated. He raised one eyebrow at the brunette and then, just as quickly, shrugged it off. "Well, I suppose some poor sod got lost in these caves and never made it back out. Hell of a way to go, but not unheard of..."

"You don't get it," Mana hissed, still gesturing behind her. Bakura idly wondered whether she was aware of the nerve-ridden action. "There's a body back there. A dead person."

"I assumed that's what you meant the first time. By the gods, princess; did you have to go and scream over that? It sounded like you were being murdered." Bakura smirked. "I suppose princesses aren't made for a life out here."

"No, we're probably not," Mana agreed. She was too shaken to be dragged into another argument. Anyway, right now all she wanted was to get out of the cave. "So you can take this princess back to camp, as far away from the dead person as possible. And I didn't just scream because the man was dead," she added stiffly, gingerly making her way towards the small pocket of light that marked the exit. "I screamed because I almost walked into him."

"Still pathetic." Bakura followed after the princess, torch in hand.

"He was standing."

Bakura paused. "Standing?"

"Like you are now," Mana said, in a not-so-light manner. She looked back at the thief, panic still glimmering in the back of her eyes but mild anger at his dismissal now present. "Frozen in that position. It didn't make any sense and I don't understand it, but perhaps that will explain why I screamed."

Bakura didn't try to think it over; something wasn't right with that, and he didn't want to stick around to find out. He began to wonder whether Apep knew of the quest he had unwillingly embarked on, and whether the god would try to intervene. All he knew right now was that every shadow, every patch of inky darkness, was setting his nerves on edge.

"It happens to dead bodies," he gruffly remarked. He started walking again, taking the lead this time.

"What?"

"The freezing thing, it happens to dead bodies," he reiterated. Perhaps he wasn't being very clear, but he was doing his utmost to rationalise Mana's statement. "A couple of hours after someone dies, their body goes rigid for a period; it's how you can sometimes estimate how long ago someone died. It'll also be why the man appeared to be frozen."

"He must have died on his feet then," Mana mumbled rebelliously. From the sound of her voice, it sounded as if she were glaring at him. Or at his back, to be more precise. "And then someone must have propped him up for the next couple of hours and waited for this rigid process to happen."

Bakura had tried not to see that rather gaping hole in his logic. He abruptly turned on his feet. "At least I'm trying to make sense of it!" he snapped. The torch's flame flickered at the sudden movement, and then regained its steady glow. "At least I'm not the one running around in hysterics, ranting about dead people! If stumbling into the body hadn't alerted anyone of your presence, then your screaming did the trick! You're very lucky that nothing else is in the cave!"

"I wasn't in hysterics," Mana protested under her breath.

"Oh, really? Well then, you must have a different dictionary to me, because I've seen five-year-olds act with more composure than you back there."

"And how many five-year-olds have almost walked into a dead body? Or is that a ritual that thieves apparently have to go through?" the princess retorted. She turned on her heel and stormed along the passageway, torch or no torch. The light marking the exit was light enough anyway.

"Oh, you think you're so full of yourself, don't you, princess?" Bakura snapped, coming up alongside her. "Well just let me tell you one thing. Most people aren't born with the luxury of a title, or a wage, or even the assurance of three whole meals a day. Most people have to work, and they work damn hard to survive. But you, princess? What would you know of life? You've been pampered from the day you were born, brought up in a blip of a bubble where everything is cosy and perfect and nasty little occurrences like starvation or disease or poverty don't exist. So don't go making judgements on others, because you have no idea of the life they've led."

The exit was only a couple of metres away, but Mana slowed. She looked to the thief, shocked and surprised by his outburst. "I didn't mean to say anything hurtful," she murmured. "I just..."

"You were just playing on the stereotype, I know." A growl was emitted from somewhere in the back of Bakura's throat, and he sped up his pace to reduce the distance to the outside. "I know; everyone loves to play on the thief stereotype. It's nothing I haven't heard before."

Before he could step outside though, there was a rumble from the roof. Instinctively, he moved back, pushing aside the conversation to one side of his mind as the rumbling grew in strength and sound and eventually the source of the noise became evident as a landslide of rocks and mud slid down to cover the entrance. Once again the pair were left with only the flickering torchlight to cast away the shadows.

Mana was the first to say anything; she commented on Bakura's luck that he hadn't been at the entrance when it collapsed. She secondly remarked that the timing had been a bit funny; as if someone had intended them to see that their path out was blocked.

Bakura took on a less optimistic view. He strode up to the very solid and indisputably unyielding blockage and beat one hand into the rock. "Funny?" he repeated hoarsely. "It isn't funny at all; I expect Apep meant us to see this."

"You can't blame Apep for a landslide," Mana commented sternly. She walked up to the barrier and prised the torch from his fingers, noting the rather mangled state of the hand which had just made a sudden acquaintance with the rock. "I think you're getting just a little paranoid."

"It's not paranoia! Apep framed me for the theft and now he's trying to make sure I don't get to his realm."

"If he wanted to ensure that, couldn't he just send you to the shadow realm and be done with it?" Mana reminded him. She was already looking at the way they'd previously come, wondering whether there was another exit. They didn't have much choice in the matter really; that tonne of rock behind them didn't look like it would be easy to shift any time soon.

"He wouldn't do that; that would be too boring," Bakura growled. He was still staring hatefully at the barrier before him, apparently unaware that Mana had levered the torch from his grip. "It's much more entertaining to watch us dance for them," he added, bringing up that memory from the palace with an evident air of loathing. "Bloody gods with their bloody games."

"I guess this means we'll have to start finding another exit then," the princess added, choosing to ignore Bakura's foul mood and language. "Unless you'd like to sulk until the fire dies, and then we can have a fun time trying to find our way out in the darkness."

"I'm not sulking!"

"And I wasn't being hysterical earlier," Mana replied dryly. "Come on. I don't know about you, but I don't relish the idea of dying here and I don't relish the idea of waiting to see what got that man. Anyway, if we die here then we'll never be able to reclaim the Puzzle."

"Why does it always come back to Atem?" Bakura grumbled.