Disclaimer: Still don't own Yugioh.
Note: The part where Jasana visits her mother's room with Nebatet was inspired partly by a similar scene in the book Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
I was glad when the banquet was over. The tables were cleared, the court took their leave of the Pharaoh, and finally I relaxed. Since I noticed the men staring at me, I had felt vulnerable and uncomfortable for the rest of the banquet.
Nebatet, Mahado, Isis, and I were leaving the hall with Atem when my brother suddenly asked of me, "Sister, do you remember what Mother was like?"
I stopped in my tracks. "Why do you ask this of me?" I said shakily.
"Because I don't remember Mother at all. I've always wanted to know of her, but nobody I ask can tell me."
"Did you go and ask Father?"
Atem scuffed the floor with his toe. He gazed at the ground as he reluctantly said, "Well, um- no. But that's only because I don't know what he'll say. When I asked around, Uncle Akhnadin said that I shouldn't ask Father about Mother."
My eyebrows shot up at this. Nebatet calmly took Atem by the hand and said, "Now is not the time for your sister to tell you, my Prince. She will tell you all about Mother another night- with my assistance, of course," she added after seeing the uncertain look on my face. "She was only about your age when your mother died, and so she might not remember that much of her. But if you be good and wait patiently, your questions will be answered."
"When will you tell me?" Atem asked impatiently.
Nebatet, seeing that this was something Atem really wanted to know about, sighed. "Tomorrow night. Now it is time that you lay yourself down to sleep, Prince."
Atem replied, "All right. As long as you keep your promise, Lady Nebatet."
"I will. You need not worry. Jasana, why don't you escort your brother to his room? I shall meet you in your room upon your return, rather than having you come to my room."
I nodded. Mahado said, "I bid you good night then, Jani, and good night, my Prince."
"Sleep well, Mad," I replied.
"See you tomorrow, Mahado! Remember that you promised me a ride on your horse!" Atem called as I led him away by the hand.
"Sister, why does Mahado call you 'Jani', and you call him 'Mad'?" Atem asked, bright with curiosity.
"They are the names that we gave each other a long time ago, when we were four years old."
"Jani," Atem murmured pensively. "That's a good name for you. I think from now on, I'll call you 'Jani' as well!"
I laughed at his determination as he said that. Atem always had a way of making me laugh.
"Mahado won't mind, will he?" Atem's adorable amethyst eyes filled with worry for a second.
I smiled. "I am sure that he will not, Atem. Go now. You must be well rested if you are going to ride tomorrow."
"Good night then, Jani." Atem hugged me.
"Good night, Little Brother. May the gods grant you a restful sleep."
I walked away from my brother's suite deep in thought. He had asked me about what Mother was like; I found that to be strange. I had never heard him ask about Mother before until that night. And when the moment came, when I tried to remember for him the details of Mother's face, I found that I could not. I remember precisely that Mother had beautiful amber eyes, but the other details were lost to me. This filled me with terror, and I paused to dedicate all of my effort into remembering Mother's face. Completely forgetting that I was supposed to meet Nebatet, I leaned against a pillar and shut my eyes, trying to remember the color of Mother's hair, how tall she was, what did she usually wear…
A door opens before me, and Mother is lying in her bed. Upon seeing me, she sits up. "Jasana! Is there something wrong? What troubles you, my dear? You should be sleeping!"
"I can't sleep."
"Did you have another bad dream?"
"No, I'm just not tired."
Mother raises her hand and beckons. "Well, you must sleep, Jasana. You will need all of your energy for your lessons tomorrow. Come, you may sleep with me tonight. You know, if you want, we may go on a ride tomorrow after your lessons. But only if you sleep and rest well tonight…
"Jasana! Jasana!" Akhnadin's voice shocked me out of my reverie and brought me back to reality. His hand was on my shoulder and he was shaking me. "Are you ill? You look really pale!"
"I'm fine, Uncle Akhnadin. I was just thinking…"
"Of your mother?" Akhnadin seemed to have read my mind. As he looked at me, the Millennium Eye was gleaming in the torchlight. Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.
Akhnadin's face softened. "I understand, my little Princess- well, my not-so-little Princess! You're growing quickly." He briefly glanced at Mother's necklace before saying, "Nebatet is waiting for you. It would not do to keep her waiting any longer." Without another word, we started to walk towards my chambers.
"Uncle, Atem has just told me that you said he shouldn't ask Father about Mother. Why is this so?"
Akhnadin seemed to be surprised by this question. He slowly replied, "I do not know the reason for sure, Jasana. I only know that it is best not to bother your father with questions of the late Queen. He misses her terribly, and still has not gotten over her death. He was devastated when your mother died. He confined himself to his rooms and would not be seen in public for a month."
"I didn't know that," I murmured, completely taken aback.
"At that time, whenever I did see him, he looked like he had some heavy burden on his mind, but he would not tell anyone what was troubling him. He would not even consult the priests who wanted to help him recover from his grief."
"Well, I still miss Mother too, and it has been-how long- seven years?" Suddenly I stopped walking and turned sideways to face Akhnadin. "If Father cannot tell Atem about Mother, why don't you tell him? You were friends with Mother! You can tell him all about Mother, can you not? He does have a right to know who Mother was."
Akhnadin chuckled at this, much to my surprise. "Well, though I was familiar with Queen Hathoraset, I always thought that it was Lady Nebatet who knew her best." We reached the hallway leading to my suite of rooms. Completely dropping the subject, Akhnadin said warmly, "Well, here we are! I will see you tomorrow then, Jasana. Sleep well!" He hugged me and then walked away. I turned and made my way straight to my bedroom. I heard Nebatet and Isis talking in low voices as I entered.
Upon seeing me, Nebatet smiled and rose from the seat. "I will give you time to change out of those clothes before we talk." She walked out of my bedroom to wait in another room.
Isis and I changed into more comfortable sleeping shifts. I took off Mother's necklace and returned it to its casket. As she combed my hair, Isis remarked, "If I may say so, Jasana, I think Mahado was quite taken with you tonight!"
I laughed nervously as I felt my heart jump. "What nonsense."
"It's true! Did you not see the way he looked at you when he said that you were beautiful?"
"What about the way he looked at me? There was nothing out of the ordinary in the way he looked at me, Isis. He looked at me as he has always looked at me!" I tried in vain to keep my voice calm. Now I felt the heat rising to my face. My mind was racing. I wondered: Could what Isis is saying be true?
"And what do you think of him?" Isis asked slyly. She looked knowingly at my face.
I did my best to compose myself. "Of course I am fond of him, Isis. We are good friends. He is my best friend, besides you. We've known each other since we were quite young." I was telling myself as much as I was telling her. "It is natural that we should think highly of each other, as a brother and sister would. What else would we think of each other?"
"Oh, I think you know, Jasana." Isis was not joking now. She looked at me seriously, as if she really wanted to know what I was thinking. "Tell the truth. Your heart races when he comes near, doesn't it? Sometimes you catch yourself thinking of him when you don't mean to, do you not? And you are confused and have no idea of why you feel this way, but you do?"
I gasped. "How do you-"
"Know?" Isis gently took me by the shoulders. "I know because it is obvious, the way you reacted when he told you that you looked beautiful. It was written all over your face." She spoke as if she had the experience of a mother who was advising her growing daughter.
"What about you, Isis? Have you felt this way before?"
"Yes, I have," Isis answered truthfully.
"Who is it that you have your eye on?" Now it was my turn to tease her.
Isis blushed slightly. "Nobody. I said that I have felt as you do in the past, but not now."
"You're lying!"
"It won't do to keep Nebatet waiting. You should go to her now." I gazed suspiciously at her. I knew that she was lying, but she would not tell me who had captured her attention.
I sighed. This was definitely not the time to wheedle it out of Isis. "Fine," I said, walking out, "but you'll tell me later, Isis, or I will either force it out of you, or find out myself."
Isis laughed. "I would like to see you try." Before I could protest, she pushed me out of the room and closed the door.
Nebatet smiled at me. "Well then, Jasana. Shall we begin?"
I walked nervously at Nebatet's side, wondering about what she wanted to show me. We paused in front of the entry to her chamber. Nebatet turned to face me. "Be warned, Jasana. What you are about to see may be…shocking, in a way. It might be painful at first, but now that you are getting older, you should see this. Are you ready?"
My mind was throbbing with anxious curiosity. Part of me wanted to know what Nebatet meant through her words, and part of me was scared because she had said that it would cause me pain. "I…I think so." I said uncertainly.
"Let's go this way then." Nebatet walked past her room and turned a corner. I felt my heart lurch as I turned the corner. It seemed to be eerily familiar, but I didn't know why. I remembered that it was a place where I had felt sadness and dread. I walked warily down the hallway. Nebatet pulled a torch out of its holder and carried it, as there were no lit torches in this corridor.
"Nebatet, why is this corridor dark?"
"Nobody walks this way anymore, Jasana, though once they did." The last phrase sent a chill down my spine. I saw that where the floor met the wall, there was a thick layer of dust. I gripped Nebatet's hand as we walked further into the darkness.
"There's nothing to be afraid of, Jasana." Nebatet's voice was gentle yet strong. "We are here." She had stopped at the end of the corridor. In front of her there was nothing but the brick wall.
"Where are we?" I asked.
Without answering, Nebatet placed her right hand on the wall in front of her. As she murmured a spell, the wall in front of her became a door, and it opened before us. Nebatet stepped inside, and I followed. My eyes took in everything before me, and I gasped as I realized where we were.
We were in Mother's bedroom. She had stayed here when she was alive. But instead of being covered with dust, there was not a blemish on the bed. The cedar wood shone softly in the torchlight, as if it had just been polished. The cushioned pillows were arranged neatly at the head of the bed, but the blanket was tucked in rather untidily, as if Mother had just made her bed in a hurry. To the right of the bed, there was a dresser table accompanied with a mirror. Mother had sat there as her attendants applied her cosmetics, or sometimes she would apply the cosmetics herself. All sorts of little memories came flooding back to me as I gazed around the room. My knees started to give way, and I put my hand on the wall to steady myself.
Nebatet took me by the arm. "You may have a closer look, if you like." Gently she led me closer to the table, and I saw that there were various cosmetic pots with brushes resting on the table, as if they were waiting for Mother to use them. Next to the pots, I saw a piece of silver as big as my two hands put together resting against the wall. I picked it up. It was an image frozen in time. Mother looked at me, her amber eyes smiling, and in front of her was a young girl with light turquoise eyes…
"That's me!" I gasped, my voice barely above a whisper. My hands were shaking as they held the piece of silver. There was Mother's face, as clear as if she was standing right before me. I remembered dreaming of when she had created this.
Nebatet's hands covered mine, and she closed my fingers over the piece of silver. "You may keep it; it is yours. Hathoraset wanted you to have it when you were old enough."
I weakly replied, "How-How is this possible, Nebatet? How is it that this room isn't coated with dust, and it's as if Mother will come back any second?"
Nebatet gently wrapped her arms around me. "That is a mystery, Jasana. I do not know how it can be, but here it is."
"Does anyone else know about this room?"
"Nobody except for your father, not even Meta knows. Your father ordered this room to be magically sealed, so that nobody can trespass upon this. I was the one who sealed it."
I sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the tears and pain to come. But they did not. I felt strangely at peace there, in the room. Seeing the room just as it was seemed to have brought me closure. The cosmetic pots and brushes that seemed to be waiting to be picked up by Mother's loving hand, the bed that was made up for Mother to rest on- the whole room seemed to bear proof that Mother had really existed. Until that night, all I had left of Mother were memories that were quickly fading.
Nebatet spoke. "I brought you in here, my dear, so that you can see that your mother is still very much alive. She is dead, yes, but her spirit lives on."
"I can feel her," I whispered. After a pause of silence, I said, "Thank you for bringing me here, Nebatet. I thought that I had forgotten about Mother, because I could not remember her face. But now I remember, and I will not forget."
Nebatet smiled and handed me a chest. "These scrolls contain all the spells that she had discovered. She was known for inventing her own spells, and she dreamed of teaching them to you." I opened the chest, and found another frozen image of Mother on a piece of silver. Intending to give it to Atem, I shut the chest and handed it back to Nebatet. After I gazed at the room for a little while longer, Nebatet yawned and said, "Well, I think it is time to go and get some sleep! Just so you know, you will be able to come back in here without my assistance. I have enchanted the room so that besides me, only you will be able to enter it. So feel free to come here whenever you feel that your memories of your mother need to be refreshed. But it would be wise to come here without anyone following you."
I nodded, at a complete loss for words. To be able to see Mother's room and have something that once belonged to her meant more than words could ever say. I gave Nebatet a grateful hug, and together we left the room, sealing it behind us.
As we walked along, I remembered what had happened at the banquet. The gazes of the men were confusing, and if anyone would tell me what was going on, it would be Nebatet. "Nebatet," I began shyly, "at the banquet, I noticed men staring at me, and it…it made me really uncomfortable."
Nebatet looked at me, and then she walked on deep in thought. Finally, she replied, "It might have been nothing, Jasana. Perhaps you were only feeling self-conscious because you have not been in front of so many people in a long time. Do not worry about it and rest well tonight." Thinking that Nebatet was right, I hugged her and then entered my bedroom. Isis was already asleep. Setting the chest and the frozen image of Mother and me on a table, I climbed into bed and fell asleep, a deep sense of peace settling over me.
The next night, I went to Atem's rooms alone. I had told Nebatet that I would not need her help in remembering Mother; I remembered her clearly now. As I stood in the receiving room, the usher went into Atem's bedroom and murmured, "My Prince, Her Highness, the Princess Sahm-Aset, is here to see you." I gritted my teeth at the sound of that name.
The usher reappeared and bowed before me as I swept past him. Atem was sitting up in his bed. As I entered, he said happily, "Jani! Are you here to tell me about Mother?"
"Yes, I am." I returned his smile and sat on the bed. I took out the second frozen image of Mother that I had found in the chest of scrolls and gave it to him. "This is what Mother looked like."
Atem studied the picture of Mother with wonder before asking, "How did she manage to create this?"
"She used a spell, one that she probably invented herself."
"She invented her own spells? That is awesome! Why do I not know of this?"
"I did not know either, Atem. Nebatet told me only recently."
"If it's not too much to ask, how did Mother die?" Seeing sadness fill my face, Atem continued hastily, "If it's too painful, you don't need to tell me, Sister. I can ask Nebatet if you want me to."
"No, I think you should hear it from me. But I think I should tell you some other time, perhaps not tonight." I did not think that Atem should know that Mother died giving birth to him, not just yet. It might make him feel guilty in a sort of way, and I did not want Atem to feel any guilt or pain, not just yet. To me, he was still so young and pure, as all children are. I did not want him to feel as I had to feel when I was his age.
"Please, Sister, please tell me! I've always known that Mother is dead, but I never knew how she died, and nobody has seen it fit to tell me! I really want to know!" Atem pleaded.
There was no way I could say "no" after seeing the begging in Atem's eyes. "You might not be prepared to hear this, Atem."
"Go on. I've been ready to hear it for years."
"All right then." I took a deep breath and said slowly, "Mother died hours after you were born, Atem. She died in childbirth."
Atem nodded solemnly. It was quite common to hear of women dying in childbirth. When I was younger, I remembered that I had heard Mother talk of women dying, but as a child, I could not fully grasp what it meant for one to die. I did not grasp the meaning of death until someone close to me had died.
"Do you miss her, Jani?" Atem whispered.
"Yes." I let one tear roll down my face.
Atem hugged me, and I hugged him back. "But she has now passed into the Afterlife. She's happy there, at least. And I learned that once people die, they can come back as spirits!" I smiled and reminded myself not to laugh as Atem was attempting to comfort me, when I thought that I had to be the one to comfort him.
"I'm glad to see that you're paying attention in your religious lessons," I said. Atem laughed.
"Do you think that Mother's here, watching over us, Jani?"
"I know she is." After a pause, I changed the subject. "Do you know that Osiris was the first person whose body was preserved? He was the first to ever go into the Afterlife."
"Osiris, the Lord of the Dead?" Atem asked curiously.
"Yes."
"But he's a god. How could he have died?"
"He was human once, just like you and me."
"How did he die?"
"Did Nebatet not tell you the story already?"
"But that was a long time ago! Back when I was five years old! I don't remember it now. Tell it again!" Atem eagerly gathered the blanket about him, laid his head on the pillow, and waited. I closed my eyes, trying to remember how Mother always started it. I pictured her face before me, and as I pictured her saying the first words, I said them as well. "Long ago, almost at the beginning of time, Nut gave birth to four children…"
Thanks for reading! Please review and tell me what you think! I didn't mean to have three chapters on just one night, but oh well... I hope you liked this chapter! Have a Happy New Year everyone! Chapter 10 should also be up before school starts again on Jan. 7...
