Kaiba
The Yugi scene set in space was nonsensical but at least everything about it had been graphically sound. It'd been curiously high fidelity in comparison to most of my dreams; not that having dreams was common for me. Not in comparison to the nightmares. Sleeping for only twenty minutes at a time was supposed to discourage all of that but apparently that strategy wasn't working.
The following dream wasn't half as abstract, or as realistic.
Everything smelled like the subtle musky scent of Atem's room and the proportions of the setting were inexact and sloppy. The real throne room didn't look like this. The throne itself was too tall and the ceiling wasn't high enough. The columns that held up the room were overly long and the shadows from the sunlight coming through the main doors were all being cast in different directions. All of the finer details on the guards stationed around the room were wrong and the audio was off. If this environment was a KaibaCorp hologram I'd have fired the goon who'd passed it through quality assurance.
At least the view out of the palace doors was accurate. My brain had rendered that correctly.
The scenery was boring but the high vista gave it a cinematic air as the palace grounds stretched into the main city and then disappeared out into the desert on the far horizon. It didn't measure up to the view from my office at KaibaCorp but since building skyscrapers wasn't on Atem's to-do list it made for a decent alternative. I could see his whole kingdom from here; just like I could see all of Domino from my desk if I turned around.
I preferred working with my back to the city. It made it easier to concentrate on what I was doing.
Looking out across Domino just irritated me, watching the pedestrians milling around like insignificant insects on the street below and knowing that the only person worth keeping an eye out for wasn't ever going to be down there no matter how long or hard I searched the crowd for his ridiculous hair. The closest I'd get was Yugi's and like everything else about Yugi even that was a lesser imitation of the Pharaoh's. I could pick out the difference between the two of them from orbit.
"Kaiba?" Atem's voice started saying. He hadn't been in the room a second ago but he was now.
The Pharaoh walked me backwards and pushed me down to sit on his throne before leaning to my mouth and kissing me demandingly. His fingers threaded through mine as he perched on me, actually looking like a demi-god as the sunlight seemed to soak into him and make him radiate energy like a solar panel. In a small circular motion he rubbed a knuckle against the underside of my jaw and I opened my mouth against his, allowing his tongue to slip inside. He was really into it for a guy who'd told me that he didn't want us messing around his palace in plain sight.
We parted to catch our breath. Atem looked out across the view and hummed contentedly, like he was taking it all in.
I glanced around his throne room and then taunted, "What happened to keeping things formal?"
"No one else is here." He practically purred. The tone of his voice was extremely distracting. So much so it distracted my blood out of my brain where I usually liked to keep it and redirected it somewhere far less useful.
And he was right. The guards that had been lining the throne room at the start were gone. It was just him and me now. That was suspiciously convenient.
Was this going to be one of 'those' dreams?
With a sweep of his quick pink tongue he leaned down to my chest and licked around my heart as if mapping out a territory for invasion, planting a kiss like a flag in the middle. It made me shiver, but despite the unfamiliar texture of his tongue on my skin I wasn't going to lie and pretend it wasn't exciting too.
I didn't have lecherous dreams like this very often. Was I just supposed to go with it, or try and snap myself out? Irritating as it was there was a logic to having one now. I'd brought this upon myself after letting my body go on that unregulated hormonal tangent with Atem back in the bath.
As far as those kind of dreams went this wasn't a bad set-up. The throne room setting was provocative and gave me the same sharp thrill I always got from flaunting the authority of anyone or anything that tried imposing rules on me. Doing anything in a place like this would definitely leave a mark on Atem's memory too. I'd like to see the Pharaoh try to reign over his lackeys straight-faced after doing what we'd done in the bath in here.
"Kaiba... wake up."
Despite my name being said in Atem's voice his mouth didn't move from kissing my chest. He kept going at it like he was on a deadline.
It felt like the instruction had come from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. That figured. Just when the dream was starting to get interesting.
"Our times up." I told the Atem sat on the throne with me as he lifted up my arm and started kissing my wrist.
"Whatever happened to only sleeping once you were dead?"
"Shut up..." I growled back.
My throat was dry. It threw off the tone of my voice. Even to my ears the words just sounded hoarse and 'grumpy', as Mokuba would put it. Damn cigarettes.
Waking up was such a pain. The warmth of the bed and smell of Atem's stuff nearly got me back to sleep. I didn't think the ancient Egyptians even had beds like these but I wasn't gonna complain about it.
A breeze from the window of the Pharaoh's room crawled over the skin at the base of my neck. I pulled the sheet further up my body to block it out, until something that I vaguely acknowledge was probably Atem snared the fabric and stopped me. Whatever. The room was hot so it wasn't overly annoying and for once I still felt relaxed enough to fall back to sleep if I wanted to. That was rare. Especially since something was softly but insistently messing with my hand.
"Kaiba."
I opened my eyes half-way, entirely uncommitted to the idea of fully waking up despite Atem's loud mouth.
For a moment I just lay there like an idiot and blinked uncomprehendingly at the impossible sight of the Pharaoh as he lay across from me on the bed. His blazing crimson eyes were staring at me intently while he continued rubbing his thumb against the inside of my wrist and kissing the heel of my hand like he was about to bite down and drink my blood.
The intensity of his stare made my pulse pick up.
"Were you just watching me sleep?" I questioned as suspiciously as physically possible. "And why are you making out with my hand?" The sight was appealing on a basic carnal level, but weird.
His lips quirked against my skin and I felt his affirmative hum vibrate through my wrist as he lifted his mouth away from it to speak. "To wake you up."
I stared at him. Was I still dreaming? The room was correctly proportioned, so being awake was my best bet but the Pharaoh could make anything around him seem surreal with just a single look or a couple of words.
"My people believe that waking a sleeping person too suddenly risks causing their soul to become separated from their body." He explained, lowering my arm back to lie flat on the bed and smoothing down the sleeve of the coat he'd given me so it hid the cigar burn that was closest to my pulse point. That one was otherwise impossible to hide without wearing something with full length sleeves – just as Gozaburo had intended for it to be.
"You'd be the expert on that." I countered. The bed sheets fell down my body to pool in my lap as I sat up slowly and pulled my arm away from him so he couldn't play with it any more.
Just the idea of him lying there with a full view of the burns singed into me made my skin crawl. They marked me as weak. I despised them for it. I hated even more that out of all the possible people in the world, it was the Pharaoh, my rival, the King of Games that had seen them. Even Mokuba hadn't, though if he did it would be equally bad for completely different reasons.
"Yes." Atem replied, but there was none of the energy in it that came as part of our usual banter. Instead his tone was empty. "I don't recommend it." He added in a low voice, looking away from me to stare out across his room.
"Tch." I shouldn't have said that, given his reaction, but at least the slip up confirmed that I really was awake. Piercing the Pharaoh's armor of smugness was usually a cause for celebration but I hadn't done it deliberately this time and snubbing him by accident was honorless and amateur. I rubbed the grit out of my eyes left over from sleeping and glanced around the room as I tried to wake myself the hell up so I wouldn't make any additional mistakes.
Looking at the window I estimated we'd slept through most of the afternoon.
The sun was still up but it was getting darker outside, or as dark as it ever got here. Thanks to the overly bright moon and stars the night sky of Atem's afterlife had a strange luminous quality. The light far exceeded the polluted skyline of Domino or any other modern day city but if we were gonna spend whatever was left of the day looking for Dark Renewal in every shadowy corner of this overgrown sandcastle then that worked to our advantage.
"I'm getting up." He announced authoritatively, shifting to sit over the side of the bed and standing up with a solid flex of his well-defined leg muscles. The late afternoon sunlight made his skin shine like burnished bronze. Now that I was used to it my Pharaoh hologram was gonna look distractingly anemic by comparison the next time I dueled it. Atem strode over to a large bowl and poured out water from a pitcher into it before leaning down and washing his face in the makeshift basin. His long fingers traced the sharp aristocratic angles of his cheekbones as he rubbed some sort of cream from a nearby pot into the hollows under his eyes before dipping two of the linen rags into the water.
I couldn't just lie around watching him all day like a useless ornament. Not when there was a duel to win.
I called up the interface of my Duel Disk while he dunked the cloth down deeper to soak it through. "Dark Renewal's still in effect." I noted. That wasn't a shocker. One way or another we always ended up doing everything ourselves. By that logic sending the Pharaoh's toadies to find this magical coffin was set up to fail from the very start.
Atem glanced back at me over his shoulder as he pulled out one of the towels he'd soaked and wrung it out before dabbing it along his neck, behind his ears and across his forehead, lifting his crown up to get at the area underneath. "It's time to join the search."
His expression was determined but his trademark confidence was misplaced. He was forgetting a big factor currently working against him 'joining the search'. I didn't have enough data to judge if he was claustrophobic or cleithrophobic, but it didn't matter; like hell that freak out he'd had back in the cave was a one-off. Throwing himself down any tunnel or into a catacomb was gonna give him a punishing wake up call.
"You better have a plan of attack by now." I grunted, testing if he'd figured that out for himself yet. Limits existed to be smashed, but ignoring them completely was idiotic.
"You mean to say that you don't?" Atem turned back to me after wiping his face dry. "Kaiba, I'm disappointed." He taunted with a goading expression that set my teeth on edge.
"I don't live here, unlike you." I sneered back. I didn't feel awake enough yet for our usual repartee. "And for the record, anyone stupid enough to intrude into my mansion would regret it. Instantly." I'd lined the walls of the Kaiba manor with enough state of the art solid vision projectors to summon in a Blue-Eyes into every room. Some were too small for it to maneuver around it, but my dragons didn't need much mobility to bite down and rip a limb off any snake that tried to get at Mokuba or me where we slept. "My new security system takes no prisoners." And if that failed I now had a small army of ex-black ops guys on my private payroll to finish the job. They'd paid for themselves already when we'd cornered Diva. Now I just had to get Mokuba to stop referring to them as 'the Kaiba Troopers'.
Without losing any of his confident smugness the Pharaoh picked up the second cloth he'd wetted and started running it through his hair, teasing the sharp tips with his fingers and polishing up the strands in well-practiced motions that made the crimson-black notes even glossier than normal. If that's what he'd been trying to do to mine then it was no wonder he'd messed it up.
"So what's the play then?" I demanded.
Atem paused mid-motion, wearing a thoughtful expression like he was considering his hand in the middle of a duel. "I want to visit Seto and see what can be done for him."
It didn't matter that the fake was also called 'Seto' by some contrived coincidence, hearing my name come out of his mouth was irritating. Why bother anyway, if the guy was still completely out of it.
"By then Karim, Shada and Shimon will have assembled for evening prayers in the temple." Atem added, reanimating as he pulled the towel across his hair, the nonsensical fronds springing back upright to return their usual position after each bit he toweled. "I'll find them there and gather their reports."
That at least made sense. We needed to know where they'd already looked if we were gonna be most efficient. There was no point in backtracking over old territory if it had already been checked out.
"Then I'll meet you and we'll begin the hunt together." He continued, giving his hair one last sweep before putting the towel back down. "Unless you want to come with me?"
"Tch. Pass." Come with him to visit my fake? No. To the temple, for prayers? Also no.
They weren't my gods, so why bother. I didn't subscribe to any of that nonsense, apart from maybe a closeted worship of the ruthless power of raw capitalism. The knowing smirk Atem shot my way probably meant he wasn't being serious, even as he asked his follow-up question. "What will you do in the meantime?"
"Find something halfway edible." I scowled, already knowing that was going to be a pain. Atem's eyebrow rose wryly and he opened his mouth to argue. "That isn't fruit." I added pointedly before he could get a word in.
Like I wanted any more fiber in my diet right now. I'd cut off my nutritional intake ahead of time so I wouldn't have to find out what counted as a washroom in this backwards dimension, but I hadn't planned for my excursion to last any longer than the length of a duel. What should have been a few hours was now days and standing up too quickly was starting to give me a head rush. It was time to bite the bullet and find something to eat. My mental map of this place also wasn't complete yet. Charting more of it out while I tracked down a kitchen would be a solid use of my time in case I ever wanted to holographically recreate the setting once I was back in the real world.
"And get my clothes." I concluded. Unlike the Pharaoh I wasn't going to stand around half-naked for a minute longer than I had to. My Duel Disk repair kit, spare parts and cigarettes were all still inside of my coat pocket and my briefs would definitely be dry by now.
Atem lowered his eyebrows and gave me a contemplative look that made me grit my teeth. "What?" I hissed.
He blinked at me slowly before answering with a shrug and walking towards the smaller room that was attached to his chamber. "I doubt that'll be possible." He called back.
"Why? Where are they?" I demanded, suspecting sabotage even before Atem could reply.
A long length of bright red material the same as the coat he'd fished out for me was in his hands as he emerged from the adjoining room. "The servants will have taken them away to be washed by now." With a dramatic spin he pulled it through the air, making the heavy fabric flutter and fan out as he tugged the new cloak around his shoulders with a flex of his biceps.
Great.
"They're dry-clean only." I sneered, sarcastically.
"I'm sure the servants will check the labels for the washing instructions." Atem parried as he slipped on a pair of sandals onto his feet. Next to them was a second set clearly intended for me. I suspected they were my fake's cast off since they were stiff with embroidered winged snakes and one look at his living quarters told me that guy had that kind of thing on his mind.
"They don't have labels, they're custom made." I snapped back. What did he take me for, some mall walking window shopper? And how would his servants know what the symbols meant? Even if they did it wasn't like they'd invented the solvent necessary for dry cleaning yet.
Oh, right. He was being a smart-ass.
"Funny."
He smirked back smugly, then softened his features up in a way that made me feel uncomfortably warm.
Other than a few pippy one liners and gloating puns I'd never noticed the Pharaoh had much of a sense of humor. I was reassessing that now. It was mellow and always came out of the left field but it existed. Monarchs weren't famous for being a comedic breed of people and Atem clearly wasn't going to make history as 'the funny Pharaoh', but he wasn't completely humorless either. It was a weird discovery and he was making it even weirder by staring at me with the strange expression on his face. It looked contented, which was ridiculous given everything going on.
"What's with that look?" I deadpanned.
It cleared up instantly, hardening into something goading and challenging that I found infinitely more comfortable to look at. "What look?" He parried, becoming totally unreadable and self-satisfied.
I rolled my eyes at him. "It's like you got dealt a perfect hand at the start of a duel." I sneered. That was the best thing I could compare it to. I shouldn't have bothered asking. It's not like it mattered if the Pharaoh started pulling stupid faces. His eyebrows both perked up in surprise and then pulled together into a thoughtful, analytical expression. Almost like he'd just begun to figure something out. I refused to be simpering enough to ask about it.
"Forget it." I stood up slowly and straightened out my ridiculous cosplay. If he wanted me to know then he'd tell me and if he didn't then it wasn't my business, and I didn't care.
"Alright." He replied as Atem blinked the question away. The Pharaoh shrugged at me and then got busy preening again as he tucked the part of his cape that hung around his neck underneath the larger of his two necklaces and slipped the Puzzle on over his head. I had to hand it to him that the silhouette he cut was striking as he marched over the doorway; aggravatingly regal and full of his signature pomp.
"Kaiba."
Atem paused as he placed his hands on the door handles and turned back to me as I walked over to follow him out of the room.
"Things may happen very quickly after we find Andro Sphinx." He remarked thoughtfully as he lingered on the threshold of his room, not going anywhere despite the action plan he'd just outlined for me. "Once we defeat him Anubis will have no minions left to defend himself with."
Like I wasn't already aware of that.
"I know." I crossed my arms. "Thanks for the useless reminder, Pharaoh." In fact I was looking forward to it. Anubis might have only one Death Counter verses our two but that wouldn't matter once I set my dragons on him and kept blasting until he was nothing but a smouldering pile of ash.
"And after that-" Atem added slowly.
"-We part ways. I get it." I cut in, forcing the Pharaoh to shut his big mouth half-way through his sentence. I was sick of hearing about it.
After hesitating at the doors for three seconds he glanced pensively back at me over his shoulder. "Yes. We part ways." He repeated slowly, quietly enough that it seemed like he was saying it to himself. The Pharaoh turned back to me, locking onto my eyes with his like they were laser pointers. "And you're still willing to continue this even knowing that?" He asked, sounding as serious as a heart attack.
"Tch." Where was this coming from and just who did he think he was dealing with? His dedication to playing Schrödinger's Pharaoh was impressive, but even Atem wasn't deluded enough to actually believe I was just gonna surrender and quit trying to change his mind, or that I'd spend the rest of my life moping around Domino like a lovesick dolt because we'd made out a few times. That would be stupid. He had another thing coming if he thought I was going to back out now and judging from the tentative look on his face he knew that as well as I did.
"You're stalling." I called him out on it drinking in the way it made him look shocked, as if he thought he was unreadable. "Get on with it, Pharaoh. You're blocking the door."
He blinked at me owlishly with those crimson eyes of his that now matched his cape. It made him look like an idiot, which made me seem like an even bigger idiot by association.
"Before this battle with Anubis ends..." He began before cutting out and putting on his mid-duel face like he was having to play the words out one by one onto a Duel Disk. "Before you return to your world, I want to..."
Atem paused again and frowned. "No. Nevermind."
"What?" I demanded. Whatever this was it had better be good.
"It's nothing." He countered and turned back the door, about to run off without having the guts to finish what he was mulling over.
"It's clearly not 'nothing'." I noted, unimpressed by his sudden shy act.
"It's a conversation for another tim-"
"-Spit it out already." What could possibly deserve all of this pointless stammering?
He glared at me for interrupting him and his voice heated up to match. "I was going to say that I want us to try going further, you impatient oaf."
I stared at him deadpan. Going 'further'? "Going further how?"
He must have figured there was some cognitive disconnect there. "Going further than what we did earlier." A flush of red stained his cheeks that looked totally opposed to his determined expression and his whole body went rigid like he was about to summon in a monster as he pointed between our bodies with his finger.
Wait a minute. Did he mean...?
"You want to do what?!" I yelled.
At just the idea of it my body went exactly as stiff as his now was.
"Right now?!" This was damn sudden! And why bring it up so soon? We'd only just started doing anything at all!
He shook his head at that, but even after replying "No. Not now" my pulse still picked up and began racing just like it had in the pool. This time the adrenaline rush felt differently calibrated - not excited; more like my body thought someone was about to try and attack me.
I scoffed at my own reaction. It was such nonsense, especially after what we'd already done in the bath and the dumb dream I'd just had. I pulled my voice back to a normal volume and set my expression to match. I had to make sure I was understanding this right and this wasn't some poorly-timed translation error or cultural misunderstanding.
"Just to be clear; you're propositioning me for -" my brain stalled at how to get the word out of my mouth. "-'that'?"
His eyebrow perked up quizzically and the most moronic staring competition in history lasted a few seconds as we just watched each other like fools, until slowly Atem nodded.
"We don't have to if-"
"-It's fine!" I barked back, interrupting whatever 'out' he was about to throw at me like I was a coward who needed an excuse not to rise to his challenge. His eyebrows jumped up his forehead and he pulled a face.
"It's fine." I repeated, more evenly.
This was happening fast. Maybe too fast, as ridiculous as the very idea of anything so fundamentally basic outpacing me was, but like hell I'd ever allow the Pharaoh to overtake me. I could take anything that he could dish out!
"Our time together is a scarce commodity." Atem added with a lack of surety that didn't suit him as he shifted his weight between his feet. It was like he thought he had to justify the request to me. He didn't. I could understand the reason why he was bringing this up so damn quickly, now that I'd had a second to think about it. "I want to experience this with you, while I can." He concluded quietly.
I wasn't totally comfortable with the idea of doing 'that', but I wasn't against it either, and I got his point. We didn't have days, or weeks or months to get to that point slowly. We had the length of this duel, and that was it.
It was hardly a grounds for 'romance', but doing it wasn't really about romance - just two different sets of biological components slotting together. Worthless anxiety aside, statistically speaking I was around the right age to be experiencing it for the first time, and despite him being another guy my years of prior association with Atem made him a good candidate so with the question of eligibility answered that just left the mechanical details...
"How do we decide the positions?" I interrogated sarcastically. "Coin flip?"
"Hmm." Atem looked unsure but injected some confidence into his voice anyway as he came up with an answer of "We'll do what feels best. Whatever comes naturally."
What a load of bull. I couldn't imagine playing the socket would come to either of us 'naturally' when being the plug was clearly the stronger, more tactically sound option.
"Tch. So we'll just figure it out?" So much for the masterful strategies of The King of Games.
Atem chuckled at that for some reason and taunted me with a mild smile that made me blush humiliatingly if the sudden heat on my face was any indicator. "I believe we will." He agreed with a slow blink, looking too eager not to be annoying.
Lewd bastard. I'd sooner draw straws than willingly waste a single moment of my valuable time thinking about something like that.
Snapping "Well then it's a good thing there's still an opponent hiding out around here to beat" only made his face look more irritating as he kept smiling at me like the expression was going out of style. "Until then keep your mind on winning the damn duel." I bit out, scowling as my face got even hotter at the short laugh he threw my way before turning on his heel.
"I always do, Kaiba." He taunted and swept out through the doors in front of me with his cape flying behind him.
Isis
Having vanished away for hours the Pharaoh and Other Seto reappeared just as swiftly as they had dissipated. I felt the Pharaoh's presence shortly before I heard his light footfalls in the hallway ahead, accompanied by Seto Kaiba's somewhat hoarse voice. It was no surprise to me when our paths crossed in the courtyard that separated the royal quarters of the semi-divine from the rest of the palace.
There was a saying that gossip traveled faster than lice and the slightly ruddy hue painting the Other Seto's face as he reemerged from the Pharaoh's private chambers was sure to prompt interesting conversations behind closed doors between the servants and guards who were inclined to such talk. For the last two generations the palace had known little of the historically tantalizing scandals that came to define the reigns of the Pharaohs of the past. Given that, I imagined the curious few would be even more interested than one would expect in the rare thrill of new born royal gossip.
Dressing Seto Kaiba in clothing more suitable to the palace did nothing to disguise his outlandishness as the two of them conversed in our guest's foreign tongue before the Pharaoh finally gestured off in the direction of the Mansion of Life. At my steady approach both young men turned to me and Seto Kaiba volleyed a sharp look in my direction, perhaps to hide his obvious embarrassment behind hostility. Without another word he stalked off down the hallway in the direction the Pharaoh had indicated with the march of a general to a battlefield, coat billowing behind him.
"My Pharaoh," I greeted, respectfully lowering my head as I did so. He paused, staying still as I neared him instead of simply returning the gesture and leaving to pursue Seto Kaiba. I took this as invitation to an audience of some sort. "You look well for having rested." I observed.
Already the variety of injuries that he had accrued were beginning to heal and fade. His color was brighter and the pristine linens revived his regality, though they already bore signs of creases as if something large had laid on the material for a long amount of time. I chose not to indulge in speculation as to the nature of that object.
The Pharaoh nodded back, "Thank you, Isis. You're looking better as well." He commented and I smiled at his kind words. A clean new robe and tamed hair could indeed set to right even the most egregious of wrongs and now that I had expunged the last remaining traces of Sphinx Teleia's filth from my body I felt renewed.
For the moment after we merely stood quietly, the Pharaoh neither moving away to continue elsewhere nor speaking to perpetuate the conversation. Instead he remained silent, weighing something behind his eyes as his brows drew together in concentration. I waited quietly while he rallied his thoughts.
"Isis." He glanced downwards pensively.
"Yes, my Pharaoh?" I wondered what was bothering him.
His eyes roamed the richly painted wall next to us before finally flicking back to mine, meeting them with a probing intensity. "When I lived, I thought nothing of it -" A line on his forehead creases slightly as he continued his thought. "-And even once arriving here in the afterlife, I saw it as little more than a special sort of friendship..." A curious statement, but not one that had been selected thoughtlessly judging from the Pharaoh's troubled expression. "But I now know that the way you look at Mahad is more than that." He concluded, keeping my gaze steadily trapped beneath his own. If his words were a question or statement was unclear, but the expectation of my honesty shone through his expression with perfect clarity.
"Yes." I replied truthfully. "It is so."
We had not thought to burden the Pharaoh or the rest of the priesthood with our private happenings and as younger people not yet familiar with such life experiences, Seto, the Pharaoh and Mana had remained largely oblivious to the feelings that Mahad and I shared, but our veiled affection for each other had not gone totally unnoticed by the older and wiser of the palace's denizens.
"I regret that I didn't recognize it sooner." The Pharaoh admitted.
Once more I was humbled by my Pharaoh. "Often it is difficult to see something if one has no knowledge of what they are looking for." I gently assured him. It seemed that now, with the advent of his growing fondness for Seto Kaiba, that the Pharaoh recognized the closeness that Mahad and I shared for what it truly was.
"Why have the two of you kept it a secret?" He asked curiously, his eyes darkening as they narrowed slightly as if confused or very mildly concerned.
I felt my hand softly clench into a gentle fist as I held it over my heart, searching for a way to explain our decision.
Our courtship had barely begun before the fateful events that lead to the end of he Pharaoh's short reign. To have it be made possible here, in the afterlife; it was my greatest wish granted. Mahad and I both felt as though it was a blessing precious and fragile enough to be worthy of disguise.
"It was ours." I began. Already I knew that while my short explanation was heart-felt, it was also too tentative for the Pharaoh to full understand as he regarded me silently as though waiting for me to elaborate. "Our affections needed not concern anyone else besides the two of us." I tried once more. "We wished to come to know each other in this new way privately, at a pace of our choosing."
At that the Pharaoh's quizzical expression slowly eased in one of comprehension. "I understand." He quietly replied. For a moment his head turned away from mine and he blinked, his face looking wistful in the momentary lapse of confidence.
"Kaiba's been my rival for years, but I feel as if I'm only now coming to know him." The Pharaoh frowned pensively, glancing back the way the Other Seto had departed as though to check the subject of his thoughts had not appeared at the mention of his name. "Is it selfish of me to want to deepen our connection, even though I know it's fated to end?"
"My Pharaoh?" I questioned, wondering where this belated line of questioning had grown from.
"Accepting defeat isn't in Kaiba's nature." The Pharaoh noted, his tone frustrated and respectful in equal measure as he spoke his thoughts aloud. "Until the very second before he returns to his world he'll believe without a doubt that it's possible for him convince me to return with him." He met my eyes with his own, steadfast and determined as though preparing himself to face down an answer that he did not want to hear. "Am I unjust for seeking to strengthen a bond I know that I'm destined to break?"
"I cannot say." I replied humbly, unable to answer that question. "Weighing the selfishness of a thing is difficult in matters of the heart." I observed neutrally, holding the Pharaoh's stare. The heart had a strange way of changing things; becoming both heavier and lighter than the Feather of Truth many times in a single lifetime and forever shifting the delicate balance of everything around it.
"So then, it's true." He concluded, drawing a solid thread out from the diplomatic words I had unsuccessfully attempted to weave. I was not the Pharaoh's champion, High Priest, nor Vizier. Dispensing such wisdom was not something made familiar to me by the expectations of my current station. All I had was the prudence of honesty and so I began again.
"Had the Millennium Necklace shown me a vision of Mahad's fate I believe that our courtship would have continued regardless." I offered solemnly, my words drawing back the Pharaoh's consideration from the well of shallow remorse it had fallen into. A dark and slender eyebrow hitched once more in rueful intrigue. "Each and every moment that we shared together was a gift to treasure." I explained and smiled at the memory of our early courtship. It was such a shy and strange thing. "A gift that's value was beyond the cost." I reflected sincerely, knowing I would not have traded a single second of our time away despite the heavy toll of Mahad's loss.
I lowered my eyes to the Pharaoh's feet respectfully so my manner was seemingly neither brash nor impertinent as I risked a question that was not my place to ask. "How is it that the Other Seto makes you feel, my Pharaoh?"
Fully fixated on me now the Pharaoh's eyebrows rose slightly in surprise and then pursed together across the bridge of his nose as he carefully contemplated the question.
"Kaiba makes me feel-" The first of his words were swift and sure before abruptly halting. His focus turned inward, his eyes becoming distracted for a mere moment as he searched his heart for the truest of words just as I had not a moment ago. "He makes me feel alive." He replied, slowly, deliberately, each word heavily weighed with meaning and selected with a great deal of care. "More than alive." He settled on.
"When he returns to his home will that feeling fade?" I questioned gently, already knowing the answer. I could see it in the Pharaoh's face.
Without the Other Seto things would be peaceful and orderly again but the downturn of the Pharaoh's lips and pinching at the corner of his eyes told me that despite the sizable disruption that Seto Kaiba represented, the loss of his presence would still be felt keenly by our young Pharaoh.
"Yes." He conceded simply.
"Will it have been worth it?" I pressed.
"Yes." There was no hesitation in his reply this time. He announced it with the surety of a royal proclamation. "In the beginning it was strange, seeing him again." He noted. "I didn't know if I should've felt joy or anger. His actions left me conflicted." He admitted and the Pharaoh's expression turned inward once more. After a long pause he managed a small smirk. "But now, no matter what happens, I'm glad for the time we've spent together."
A burden lifted from his demeanor. He filled with confidence anew, once more becoming the commanding Pharaoh of Egypt and no longer a confused, conflicted young man.
"Thank you for your council, Isis."
I bowed to the Pharaoh, recognizing the unspoken end to the short conversation.
"Of course, my Pharaoh."
With a belated smile he turned from me, stepping backward before reorienting himself to face the direction of the healing chambers. With a final appreciative nod he departed, his steps light but purposeful. I turned to continue on my way as the smells of the evening meal grew thick on the air and tantalizing my tongue with their promise.
The Pharaoh was most welcome to my council, but I was not as adept at giving it as Mahad or Shimon. I wondered if I had managed to provide the answers he sought as he strode out of my sight. Throughout the conversation an air on unease had lingered around him and I hoped I had lightened it as I continued my walk in the very direction that Seto Kaiba had escaped in and brushed aside the silk tapestries that hung closed over the entrance to the Mansion of Life.
The palace had many kitchens and bakeries, enough to service the many priests who dwelt within its walls. Though it had once been normal for the evening meal to be served individually to each of us on a small table in chambers better befitting the rank of priest, the Pharaoh had done away with that tradition upon his glorious return to the afterlife. Now we were invited to feast here with him in the Mansion of Life, where only the royal family had once dined. This was not the only break from tradition. The Pharaoh had re-imagined meals as a communal affair, seated on benches on either side of a single long slab of stone. It was a more intimate way of sharing a meal and one of only a few changes the Pharaoh had suggested to daily life upon his return. He had not shared the origin of the idea and it was not the place of any priest to question the novelty or reasoning for the Pharaoh's wishes, so we had accepted it without explanation.
A selection of lower ranking priests and Shimon sat about the room, a tension in some of their faces that I could not place until one glanced over his shoulder and by following his eyes I spotted the object of their cloaked agitation. Seto Kaiba lingered in the background, leaning against a wall at the edge of the room like a human obelisk and carefully observing everything and everyone within it as if he were a large and brightly plumed vulture. His near predatory leer was faintly disturbing as he repelled all attendants who proved bold enough to chance approaching him with a sharp look. Despite rejecting their offerings he also refused to make any motions towards the table, even as I met his gaze questioningly. He scowled back me for doing so, apparently hungry but patient in equal measure. Perhaps he was hoping that if he proved intimidating enough everyone else would vacate the chamber so he could dine in private. The ploy may not have been as unbelievable as it outwardly seemed, I noted, as in the periphery of my vision I noticed the tenser of the two lesser priests hastily leave the room.
Shimon smiled at me as I entered, appearing skillfully nonchalant as he ignored the onlooker, rinsed his hands in a small bowl of water and reached to the center of the table toward a plate of dried waterfowl. I respectfully inclined my head to him and found a seat on the bench to this right side.
"Good afternoon." I greeted, pulling a plate toward me and glancing around at the table's offerings. It seemed I had missed the first course and other than the hushed sounds of the servants collecting old dishes and replacing them with new offerings there was no noise to speak of. None of the muted conversation or agreeable ambience that had come to accompany our meals. The silence was thick enough to cut and I suspected it would remain that way until Mahad was himself again and the various interlopers within the palace walls were gone.
"We have a guest." Shimon stated on that subject, maneuvering a lump of roasted pigeon into his mouth with his hand.
"It seems so." I agreed, glancing backwards at the Other Seto. While I didn't question the Pharaoh's judgement it was impossible to think of Seto Kaiba as being anything other than an incredibly strange choice of potential consort. They were not a sensible, nor a logical match. From what I observed the two could hardly be more different and yet if the conversation I had just shared with the Pharaoh was any indication his feelings were deepening regardless. I sighed, finding the feeling of Seto Kaiba's eyes on me quite off-putting as I poured a cup of wine for myself.
"The resemblance is uncanny." Shimon chuckled affably as he watched me begin to gather small servings from the nearby plates and collect them on my own.
It was. Despite all the ways that they varied Seto Kaiba's current expression was indeed very close to one of the High Priest's own in this moment. He was looking at the plates with a face that spoke of disinterest but his eyes glinted with the same half-starved ferocity that our Seto's often shone with after a lengthy day of expending his energy. I gently shook my head as I gathered together a plate of the various dishes I knew the High Priest was most partial to. Perhaps they would tempt Seto Kaiba as well and end his staring.
A small silence descended as I went about my selection until Shimon cleared his throat to speak. "Try this." He advised. With a waggle of his finger he called one of the servants forward; an attractive young woman whose shape was ample. He gesturing for her to fill a nearby cup with a beer that I belatedly recalled Seto was rather partial to. It tended to make him more brazen and less interested in bothering to check his tone or volume. I didn't appreciate the drink for that, but Seto enjoyed it nevertheless. Patting the servant girl on the rear as she retreated he then turned and offered the beaker to me.
I smiled at Shimon gratefully as I received the cup. He had realized my intent so quickly. His insight in handling powerful young men was an ever-impressive one that manifested itself in wonderful and surprising ways.
With the offering assembled beckoned the servant girl who Shimon had just patted on the rear to my side and nodded in the Other Seto's direction as I handed the food and drink to her, clearly intending for her to close the distance toward Seto Kaiba. Seeing this the Other Seto swallowed thickly and leveled a dangerous expression at the quaking servant girl. It was difficult to judge who was less pleased with my command as she shakily crossed the temple floor toward him. She kept her gaze to the floor as she offered him the plate and beaker. From my side Shimon observed as Seto Kaiba's leer sliced from the servant to me and then back again. The remarkable feeling of trying to feed a feral or distrustful animal struck me as he warily watched me for a very long few seconds and then grunted in acceptance. Ignoring the servant entirely, he swiped the plate and cup from her hands and waved her off.
With the strange exchange completed I turned my attention to the table and could finally begin my own meal in earnest, making mild conversation with Shimon as we discussed how best to order the search for Mahad's casket and other matters of state that were less dire. After perhaps ten minutes I risked glancing backwards toward our guest. Our Seto ate with a single-minded efficiency that had begun to turn my stomach as I was witness to it in recent months. This Other Seto picked at his food like a small bird, inspecting each portion closely before slowly pecking away at it as though expecting it to be poisoned.
Even in spite of his overt suspicions there was a peacefulness to the proceedings that lasted another few minutes before it was suddenly broken.
In an abrupt rush of pale fabric Mana sprinted into the room carrying a crumpled piece of papyrus, her hair flying around her in a cascade of dark waves. She panted and wiped her arm against her forehead. "Shimon! I went into the vault to get what you said for the Pharaoh and -" She paused as all of our eyes turned on her and composed herself awkwardly. She took a deep breath and then slowly let it out in a high pitched whistle, lifting up her hands and slowly lowering them as she did so. From beside me Shimon nodded to her encouragingly. "I found Mahad! The casket's in the royal vault!"
"There's a 'royal vault' and no one thought to check that first?" Seto Kaiba barked.
Mana jumped and shrank back a little from the Other Seto, only belatedly realizing he was there at all as she had charged passed him.
Shimon nodded at the news, frowning, but not in surprise. A hand moved to scratch at his beard contemplatively as he spoke. "The royal vault can only be accessed by the Pharaoh himself, or those carrying a royal edict."
"Making it the perfect place to hide." Seto Kaiba scowled before sneering and adding. "Let me guess, it's also dark, narrow and underground with only one way in and out?" His tone was sardonic, but his assumption was correct.
"Sections of it are, yes." Shimon confirmed.
"We should act quickly." I announced and Shimon copied me as I found my feet and stood from the table. Now that I knew where Mahad was I could not sit by and be idle. "Mana, find the Pharaoh and-"
"-Don't bother." Seto Kaiba interrupted blandly, handing the remains of the plate he had been picking at off to a startled servant . "I'll deal with this myself." He declared and swept out of the room with a scoff.
AN: Most of act 2 of this story so far has written itself but I've finally run into a mild case of writer's block so there might be a bit of a delay between this chapter and the next. Please review if you get a chance, the feedback always helps!