"Every Man Has a Twin Somewhere"
Atem walked up to the ship's railing and grabbed hold of the metal bar with both hands. He gazed across the wide watery expanse, the sheer size of it filling him with elation and joy. Inhaling the breeze, which always seemed to smell of something wild and exotic, he allowed himself to hop up and press his hips against the bar, pushing up with his hands so that his feet cleared the deck. Throwing back his head, he luxuriated in the scent of the wind, before opening his eyes again. He felt so light and giddy! And this ship was amazing, so fast, so light and sure among the waves, and it was able to pick up speed without the aid of sails!
If I could just look down far enough, maybe… Atem tipped further over the rail, craning his head, squinting, as he tried to get a line at the propellers that pushed the ship along the river. How does it do that, really, I mean without someone to guide…
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no!" A hand seized the back of his windbreaker and yanked the former pharaoh back onto the deck. Atem gasped and flailed briefly before he collided with the person behind him, knocking the both of them over flat. A few passengers standing or taking pictures of one another who witnessed this laughed.
Still sitting on top of the one who'd pulled him back, Atem turned around, and then had to look down. "Malik," he said regally without a hint of surprise or anger, "I think that was highly unnecessary."
Malik grunted, made an oomph! noise, reached out, and grasped a handful of Atem's clothes. "Get off me," he growled.
Atem complied, stood gracefully, and held out his hand to help his friend to his feet. Malik accepted the help before gesturing at where Atem had been perched precariously only seconds before. "Mind telling me what the heck you were doing there, Rose? One minute you're acting normal, and the next, you're leaning over the side like you were blowing your chips." Pause, distrustful glance, and then hesitantly: "Were you?"
Atem was astonished Malik would even entertain the thought. "I most certainly was not! I only wanted to see how the propellers worked. This ship is very fascinating."
Malik rolled his eyes, slung an arm around his wayward charge's shoulders and neck, and then proceeded to lead them away from the rear of the ship back toward the middle and upper decks. "You idiot, if you wanted to know that badly, you could have questioned a member of the crew. They love talking about their boats." Abruptly he pulled down the other man's head and gave him a sound noogie. "You really are a knucklehead sometimes."
Fighting an indignant yell, Atem twisted out of the other man's grip and shot him a look full of mortification. He still was not used to being treated in the same roughshod manner as a commoner or being touched without his expressed permission. He found he disliked it when other people touched him, actually. "That will be quite enough of that. Mind you that you keep your horseplay to a minimum as I do not recall the upper deck as being one of the safest places for it."
Malik listened to him speak with an expression of incredulity, before he shook his head. "You're never going to get tired of talking like that, are you?" he asked wryly, the barest corner of his mouth hinting up.
The pharaoh blinked a few times, baffled by his friend's question. "I beg your pardon? Talking like what?"
"Like you're a pharaoh from 3000 B.C. and everyone else is just there to kiss the dust around your feet."
Oh by the gods spare me this. "Malik, in case you have forgotten, I am a pharaoh from 3000 B.C." Atem lifted his chin and folded his arms haughtily over his chest. "I cannot change what I was simply because what I was no longer fits into your modern frame of reference. I speak the way I do because I was taught to speak this way."
His guardian nodded, grudgingly, accepting this. "All right, but the English I'm teaching you is plain old fashioned American English. You're learning every bit of slang, wordplay and idiom down to the last metaphor and simile. You're going to talk normal in a language even if it kills me."
Atem smirked and held up a single digit philosophically. "Ah, but that does rather depend on what one's perception of 'normal' is, is it not?"
Exhaling, Malik rubbed the space between his eyes. "Dude, man, stop. A Q-Tip stabbing into my eardrum is preferable to this torment."
"Very well." I shall find some way to annoy you later, which will not be a difficult task. "May I ask you a question?"
After he dragged it over to some shade, Malik plopped down on one of the deck chairs and crossed his ankles as he sat back comfortably. "Fire away." Atem just stared at him. He sighed, long-suffering. "Ask the question."
"Why did you call me 'Rose' before?"
The other man sputtered and stared, "Huh?" before bursting into laughter. "Oh man, I forgot, I haven't made you watch that one yet! Okay, story time." He sat up and leaned forward, while Atem simply sat on the ground by the chair to listen. "Rose is a character in the movie Titanic. There's this one scene when she tries to kill herself by trying to throw herself overboard into the ocean. You know, right into the propellers. Then her future love interest, Jack, comes along and talks her out of it."
Atem's eyes widened. "Jack! Ah yes! This is a pirate film?" He dearly loved those movies.
Malik waved his hand at the air. "Not Jack Sparrow. This is a different Jack. Jack Dawson."
"Oh." The subject was dropped. "Why was she trying to kill herself?"
"Her mother was going to make her marry this rich high society guy and she didn't want to and since there was no way out of it, well, she decided death was a better choice."
Atem frowned. "Why ever for? Was this man richer than she was?"
"Oh yes."
"Then I do not understand. Unless…" Atem smiled, almost indulgently, when he realized what the obvious reason was. "Ah, she wanted to marry for love."
Malik shrugged. "Yeah. Most people do. Some cultures still arrange marriages today but most of the time it's considered best that two people marry each other for love."
He nodded, understanding. "So that I have come to see."
His friend stared at him raptly. "You don't agree with that I take it?"
"Don't agree with what?"
"Marrying for love."
"No. When you are who I am, one must be choosy about the alliances he makes." Atem shook his head. "Unless the woman was of royal blood, I could not put her in the standing of Chief Wife. A concubine was the best a peasant woman could hope for in my household if she had no other skills. At least, for me, as I understood it." Then he grinned. "Of course, if I, what is the phrase, knocked her up, then the child could be considered my legitimate successor, and only if it was a son."
"Isis told me you had a son once." Malik paused, uncertain of the delicacy of the topic. "Hey, let me ask you something." He leaned in conspiratorially, whispering. "So how many women did you have in your harem?"
Atem tilted his head to the side in thought, touching his chin. Hemming and hawing, eventually he began to count on his fingers, shook his head, eliminated and added on fingers as he worked his way through his thoughts before finally he dropped his hands into his lap. "So many came and went," he confessed, defeated, "I cannot remember." He gazed off into the distance, and then something popped into his head. "I remember there was a young man. His name was Heba. I had to keep him out of sight, of course, because I didn't want my priests to know about… Why do you stare at me?" Malik's jaw had dropped anchor. "Such things were considered normal in my time." Atem shrugged, dismissing what he took to be discomfort. He had no patience for intolerance of the culture he had come from. You would have thought that things would have progressed over three millennia. "I had eccentric tastes so it made sense that I could not publically display all them."
Malik seemed to have recovered his tongue. "You're bi then?"
"Bi?"
"Bi-sexual. You like men and women." He could see that Malik was having a hard time digesting this it was written all over the other man's face. But what he was taking for an attempt to accept was actually just his friend trying to wrap his mind around Atem being a human being and having urges like that of any kind. The godly image of a regal, stoic, seemingly androgynous, individual was rapidly fading before his eyes. Atem could see it, and he was a bit puzzled, because he couldn't understand why Malik thought this way about him in the first place. But he had a question to continue answering. He could think about it later.
"Not so much men."
"You just said…"
Atem smiled, and used the edge of a reclining deck chair to push to his feet. "Yes. I know what I said. Heba was very special to me. He was…" He tilted his head to the side, mentally fishing for the word. "It wasn't that he was a man," he finished somewhat lamely. "I cannot describe it." Leaving the thought there, he eagerly surveyed the deck, and smiled when he saw something he liked. He pointed to make sure Malik knew where he was going before heading toward it.
This journey down the Nile River on a sight-seeing vessel had been such a good idea! Atem thought, smiling again as he resumed his viewing of the sights, gasping silently at the distant familiar sights of temples and pyramids. These ancient places of worship of course had been weathered and broken down over the centuries to mere shadows of what he remembered of them but they were still here, only they were now protected tourist attractions for all who wished to see the former ancient glory of Egypt. It warmed his heart despite their ascent into modernity, today's Egyptians kept a firm hold of remembering who they were and where they came from. Really, when he thought about it, he wasn't such the outsider. Not after seeing the wonder of the Giza pyramids, the Sphinx, Karnak at Luxor, and what was left of the ancient city of Thebes. He thanked the pharaohs that had come after him for working so hard to preserve their names. Perhaps their ambition for immortality had not quite paid off as intended, they had done the world Atem had come from justice in making sure they were not forgotten.
Because to be forgotten was to be truly dead; and for a while there Atem had been truly dead. It was shocking to have learned that his name had been stricken from recorded history. Oh for sure he had been known about well enough in certain circles – Malik and Isis had told him enough of that (and so had Sarah when he could catch her on the phone), but only as the Nameless Pharaoh.
So then why…? Atem exhaled, cursing under his breath. Why was he still dwelling on the past? He was no longer of that world and of that life. This is my new life now, he reminded himself firmly. I did not get the opportunity to make my mark before. I will not let that opportunity pass me by again.
"Oh my god! Yuugi? Is that you?"
Atem didn't realize he was being addressed until she was touching his shoulder. A blond, busty, long-limbed, pale-skinned, gorgeous vision of a woman popped into his line of sight. For a second he wondered if not the goddess Isis herself had descended before him. He turned from his screening of the river and tried not to gape too openly.
The woman halted in her tracks, performed the rapid blinking motion of a double-take, before a wide pearly grin asserted itself across her striking face. "Oh I am so sorry. For a second there, I thought you were a friend of mine. But wow do you ever look like him! You even have the same hair style!" She held up a small pink digital camera, the picture taking device Atem was finding a lot of people always seemed to be carrying around with them (and on this ship that was especially true). "You're the best looking man on this ship, cutie pie. Mind if I take a photo? For posterity? I'm sure my friend will get a kick out of seeing he's not the only one who looks like him."
Atem recovered from his surprise, nodded, and leaned his elbows against the handrail. The woman played with her camera a bit before she held it up in front of her face. "Oh honey, that's perfect. Can you smile for me? Handsome fellow like you should smile." Atem turned his head a bit and gave her one of his enigmatically confident smirks. "That'll do!"
There was a clicking noise, a flash, his vision filled with sparkles, and then it was over. He rubbed his eyes discreetly. The woman fussed with the device again for a second, smiled for some reason, and tucked it away. Returning her attention to him, she stuck out her hand. "Hi, my name is Mai Kujaku." It took a second for Atem to realize this was the Western manner of properly greeting another person. He tentatively laid his own hand in hers and was pleasantly surprised at her firm yet gentle grip.
"Atem."
Mai smiled. "Nice to meet you, Atem. You native?"
This was a chance to practice his English as this woman spoke it fluently (and plus it had been a sore while since he'd been able to converse with a member of the opposite sex who wasn't Isis). "Yes. I am Egyptian."
She winked at him. "I could tell that just from the jewelry you're wearing babe. So are you just out enjoying the sights or you going somewhere?"
"Yes. I have never been on a ship before and my friend thought this would be good for me to take a sight-seeing trip. He is right." He glanced at the Nile briefly and then back to her. "But I did not expect to have to choose between my sights."
Mai put a hand on one hip. "Is that so?" she replied dryly.
He imitated her stance. Said nothing… but his lips did twitch upward just a bit.
Mai's eyes did a curious little up and down thing over his form – and seemed to like what she saw, for her smile seemed to broaden just a bit more. Her wanton display of flirtation would have astonished him if he hadn't been expecting it. Why he expected it, he didn't know, as he had never met the woman before. Yet she wasn't surprising him at all with her behavior. I feel like I know her from somewhere, he thought, but from where? We've never met before I don't think… A wrinkle of concentration appeared between his eyebrows. Very strange.
"Hey," she interrupted his ruminations. "You duel?"
"Duel?"
"Play Duel Monsters, you know the card game?"
"I do, yes."
Mai eyes seemed to glow in anticipation. "Well now, that's just what I wanted to hear. Do you have a duel disk?"
"Pardon?"
She stared at him oddly. "The device you wear on your arm? You use it to play the game?"
Atem shook his head. "I know not of what you speak. I do not use one."
"What do you use?"
"I sit on the ground or at a table."
Mai laughed and patted him on the arm. "You poor thing! No worries, I have two in my luggage. Do you want to play a short game with me before we disembark? I promise I'll go easy on ya." She winked at him again.
Atem nodded once and folded his arms. "I promise nothing."
Mai caught the gleam of challenge in his eye and seemed to realize she had not run into just any idle duelist. Her face lost its cheer, and simmered down into something more serious and searching. "You know, you really do remind me of my friend," she said quietly. "He used to get that look in his eye too when he was about to duel."
He gave her serene look. "I may have to meet this friend of yours."
"You may yet." Another wink. "Do you have your deck on you?" He pulled it from his back pocket and held it up. "Awesome. My bag is just right over there. Be back in a sec."
"I will be here." Not that there was, he reflected amusedly, anywhere for him to go at the moment. He watched her blend into the crowd and turned his gaze back to the river. Malik chose that very instance to appear at his side. "There you are. I saw you talking to that blond. Where'd she go?"
"She'll be back. She just went to get these duel disk items." Atem turned up his palm and showed him his deck. "We're going to play a game."
Atem didn't think Malik's eyes could get much bigger than they did then. "You challenged someone to a duel on a tourist liner?"
"No. She challenged me." The former god king bounced slightly on his heels. "This will be interesting. I have never played against anyone other than you."
"And again it starts," Malik muttered under his breath. Atem frowned at the remark, opened his mouth to ask him what he meant by it, when Mai reappeared, with two of what he assumed to be duel disks tucked underneath both arms. "Hey, told you I'd be back." She halted again, right dead still, and stared at the both of them with an open mouth. "Malik Ishtar?"
Malik was staring at her too, ashen with trepidation. "Mai?" His eyes darted from her to Atem and back again. A heavy, awkward silence descended upon them. The clamor of the other passengers seemed to intrude and grow deafening for several minutes. Tired of standing there while Malik and Mai ogled one another, Atem decided to take charge of things. "If we are to duel, we should begin now. Our itinerary appears almost complete and I would like to have finished our duel before then. Perhaps after, Malik, you will tell me how you and Mai came to know one another."
Malik swallowed – hard. "Uh, yeah, um, all right." Almost as if in a daze, he backed up and stuck out an arm, shifting his attention to the crowd, directing people away, and asking them to move back. Meanwhile Mai, who had recovered from her shock quickly, was showing Atem how to put on the dueling device. She showed him where to put his deck, where to put each of his cards into play, and then held out her hand for his deck, while offering hers to him. After they'd shuffled, they took opposing positions, and activated their duel disks.
"Your move, handsome."
Atem gave her a thin smirk. "That's not how it works, beautiful."
Grasping at what he was implying, Mai's face brightened in an admiring way. "Good-looking and a gentleman too. Alrighty then." She picked up a card between two fingers and placed it down. "If I win, I get one date with you."
Well then, everyone wins that way! Atem was pleased but he couldn't allow her to know that. He merely nodded once to acknowledge he'd heard her terms, and proceeded to select from the five cards in his hand. He was vaguely aware of Malik hovering nearby, looking on anxiously, but decided to deal with him and his odd behavior later. It was time to duel!
Author's Note: The name of Atem's former lover is a nod to the fandom-created incarnation of Yuugi and nothing more. I have only used the name, it does not mean what it would normally imply in other fanfiction. Personally I do not believe Yuugi could have had a counter part in ancient Egypt as I am of the fandom school of thought that Atem and Yuugi are two halves of a split soul. The ancient ruins that have been mentioned do still exist today.
