When Atem learned that Lotus was in his city, and had set up shop close to the palace, he had been delighted. Being a pharaoh could be quite boring unless you spiced things up.
To that end he removed a considerable amount of his regalia (particularly the crown) and cast the minor magic to disguise his distinctive features. While there was no mistaking the fact he was nobility, with any luck no one would identify him as the pharaoh at first glance.
With an impish smile, he snuck out of the palace during a time where he could be missed for a few hours...and headed to the unusual bar he had heard about by listening to his guards.
The proprietor was a woman of considerable beauty and, this point had caught his particular interest, deep red hair like fire with eyes that could put emeralds to shame.
There was only one woman who fit that description he knew of.
He entered the bar...and his breath almost caught. Gone was the nervous and shy young woman he had seen in that cave. In her place was a Queen in all but name, confident, strong and beautiful. While she wore no jewelry, there was still no mistaking her aura.
He smiled, and took a place at the bar to order a drink.
Lotus was in complete command of her new home. The locals clearly enjoyed the atmosphere as it was somewhat crowded. He sat back to enjoy his drink and mild snack, mostly to take in the atmosphere. Most of the locals wouldn't talk to him openly...he was nobility and offending one would only bring trouble to their families. However a few guards were willing to talk to him, which meant he wasn't entirely bored.
He wondered how a few would react if they knew who he was.
It was halfway through his second beer that provided the height of the night's entertainment.
One of the men, emboldened by drink, decided to slap the ass of the woman serving him. Lotus' expression did not change overly much save for the look of annoyance. She took a glass of what smelled like wine...and dumped it onto the offending idiot.
Rather than take offense for their friend, everyone instead laughed. The man's friends took him away, still sputtering. The women gave Lotus a look of approval and amusement.
Atem was amused and thoroughly enjoying his little outing. That is, until he sensed one of the royal mages coming too close. Clearly Mahaad had sent Mana to try and track him down.
He made sure to tip extra well...mostly for the entertainment from earlier.
For the next few weeks, he would visit the bar regularly. The only one who seemed to figure out who he was (though something told him she had no idea he was the pharaoh) was Lotus.
Then everything changed the day the Pharaoh and a small contingent of his men went to deal with some rather troublesome bandits. Some of which had access to shadow magic, hence why the Pharaoh himself was getting involved.
Third POV...
Atem cursed. Mahaad was badly injured from an arrow, and from the looks of things it was poisoned. If they didn't get out of this death trap it was unlikely that he would live.
He wasn't the only one...they were all exhausted, and things didn't look good at all.
Mahaad was fading fast, Mana was panicking at the thought of losing her teacher, but the bandits still had the upper ground and she was their best long range caster. Her shots were sloppy but were doing an admirable job of keeping them from closing in and finishing them off.
That is... until they started hearing the bandits screaming in panic.
"Holy Ra! Why is the she-demon here?!"
"Run!"
"She-demon?" repeated Atem baffled. The others were equally confused.
There was a massive explosion, followed by more screaming. Then...it suddenly went silent.
Atem's expression when he saw Lotus there was rather comical.
Her expression was more mildly surprised than anything. Then she saw Mahaad and her eyes narrowed.
Atem didn't see where she pulled the bag from, but the next thing he knew she had pushed Set away and was busy working on his most trusted adviser.
"What are you..." started Set, only to be silenced by the rather impressive glare she shot him.
Atem couldn't help but be impressed by the implied command to be silent and the fact that the rather grumpy Set followed it without a word being said.
Lotus worked with what could only be practiced ease as she calmly removed the arrow with deft hands, before pulling out some strange concoctions.
They did not smell the least bit pleasant, but their effects were obvious. Mahaad had already regained a bit more color and his breathing had evened out.
"Drink this," she ordered him. Considering she clearly knew what she was doing, he did so without a word. He gagged a bit at the taste, but said nothing.
"Now. What exactly were you lot doing this far from the city anyway?" she asked finally, now that the worst injury had been dealt with.
"These bandits were posing a serious problem to the merchants. Since they had mages we were asked to deal with them," said Isis.
Lotus raised an eyebrow at that.
"In other words they went after someone too high up and you were sent before I made another potion's run. I'll have to remind them to keep their...habits...on a better leash," she said flatly.
Mana tilted her head.
"Potions run?"
"Some of the ingredients I use to make potions and herbal remedies are nearby. These idiots made the mistake of thinking I was an easy target until I taught the otherwise. We have a mutual agreement not to bother each other in exchange for me not blowing them up anymore," said Lotus dismissively. "In exchange they occasionally water my supply, since if they damage it I will not hesitate to end them."
Atem couldn't help the snort.
"Is that why they called you a she-demon?" he asked.
"They did what?" she asked, her smile obviously hiding a great deal of future implied violence behind it.
"Right before they ran and that last explosion, they shouted something about the 'she-demon' being here," said Mana helpfully.
Lotus was clearly going to pay the bandits another 'visit' later. Atem couldn't find it in him to care.
"Anyway you should see your friend to a proper healer soon. I'm not a trained expert, so it's better he gets someone who has the actual training to double check my work. That blood replenishing potion should keep him stable until you get back to the city."
Considering he already looked far better than he had five minutes ago, Atem was certain she knew more about it than she lead on.
Either way, they really needed to be sure.
After the near catastrophe of the bandit raid, Atem was absolutely certain he had found his perfect queen. Not even Set, who he wasn't entirely certain actually liked women to begin with, liked her.
She was clearly a well trained mage, she had a properly royal bearing for a queen, and her healing ability was well above the healers that were on the royal payroll. In fact they wanted to learn more about the subject from her if possible, as the potions she used were several leagues above what they had in their own scrolls!
To that end, Atem was determined to court Lotus and make her his queen. At the very least she was more interesting than the noble women he had to deal with trying to earn a place in his bed as either a queen or a concubine.
Lotus gave him a warmer smile than the one she gave the other men.
"How's your friend?"
"Mahaad will make a full recovery. The healers were very impressed at how thorough his treatment was...they had almost nothing left to do," said Atem honestly.
"That's good. Next time you plan to do a raid, bring a healer with you alright? I don't want to worry you or your friends will get hurt from being cocky," said Lotus.
Atem blushed at that. It was nice to meet a woman who honestly worried about him for him, and not because he was the king.
He settled into his usual seat, before ordering some beer. He had heard from Mahaad, who was very encouraging when he brought up the possibility of making the mysterious Lotus his new queen, that there would be a special sight tomorrow night.
He also knew that such things were often used as romantic rendezvous between couples...or potential couples.
He tried not to think of how his oldest adviser had chuckled and happened to 'mention' that it was highly possible Atem himself had been conceived on such a night.
The look on her face when he casually brought up the subject was adorable. Was it possible no one had properly courted her before?
(As it turned out, yes. It didn't help that Lotus was more or less oblivious to the more subtle forms of flirting he happily used on her.)
The next night...
Atem was certain of it. Not only was Lotus completely inexperienced when it came to subtle flirting, but he had to wonder why it was that she was openly baffled when she realized he was interested in her as a female.
He simply couldn't understand why no one had attempted to claim her before. She was beautiful, powerful, and her noble bearing was very appealing.
As they relaxed and watched the stars seem to dance across the night sky, Lotus spoke up.
"This is nice. I didn't expect there to be a star shower tonight," she said.
"Isis happened to mention it to Mahaad, who told me," said Atem, openly admitting it. He had found out pretty quick Lotus hated liars.
"Did you know that the light you see in the sky is from so far away that by the time you reach the source, your very bones will have turned to dust?"
Atem looked at her fascinated.
"Really?"
"In fact what you see now might not even be burning anymore. It takes so long for the light to reach the earth that it's entirely possible that the source itself has burned out, and we're just seeing the last glimmer of light it had."
"How do you know this?"
"My people spent a good amount of time studying the stars, to see if there is life among them. So far, we haven't found anything but it's not for lack of trying," said Lotus with a coy smile.
She took her hand, and drew a simple circle on the ground.
"Imagine this is the earth we're sitting on," said Lotus.
Atem followed her demonstration fascinated.
"You're saying that the gods placed a shield around the planet that protects us?" he asked.
"Something like that," said Lotus. "In fact, did you know that the waves you see here are caused by the pull of the moon? Without it they would not rock back and forth."
"Where did you learn this?" he asked.
"It's considered common knowledge, and it's something we're taught very young."
Atem was openly disappointed when he had to return to the palace. However he found he enjoyed the time he spent with Lotus than he had expected.
So much so he found himself sneaking out even more to meet her so that he could learn from the common knowledge of her people.
Lotus huffed with frustration. Regardless of what she tried, she simply couldn't get her animagus form to properly form. From what she could tell, it was definitely a bird of some sort.
She suspected it was a phoenix. It was the only thing that made sense. What she couldn't figure out was why she was having such difficulty transforming. She knew what a phoenix looked like. She remembered it's song intimately. Her control over her magic had only grown since she had gotten used to practicing it without her wand.
Actually, she had started forgetting to use her wand when casting the smaller magics because it was so annoying to remember the right wand movements when a simple thought and a push of her magic did the same thing. Now she only used it for precision work.
She sighed in frustration, as no amount of meditation or magic would allow her to fully transform.
Realizing she would have no success today, she turned her focus onto something far more troubling.
Namely the fact that for the first time in her life, she had acquired an admirer.
She had to admit Atem was extremely handsome, even by modern standards. He had an exotic look to her limited experience, the most fascinating hair style she had seen that was apparently done without any magic at all, deep ruby red eyes that drew you in, and the bearing of a king.
She suspected, but had yet to confirm, that Atem was the king.
It would certainly explain quite a bit, but she was too scared to find out if she was right. Mostly because it really begged the question of why a king would be so fascinated by a girl that had been deemed the "least feminine" girl in the school. It had hit hard when Lavender and Parvati had shown her the list and she had found that even Hermione, who was more concerned with her books and studies over her appearance, had ranked ten places above her.
She wasn't very outgoing when it came to her social life. She often preferred to stay in and read or do small projects over going out on the town. She often wore clothing that did it's best to hide her figure, and she hated the spotlight.
It said far too much that she had to accept a pity date from RON of all people (and that only because he failed to find a proper date of his own) for the Yule Ball. Even then, he had spent most of the time fuming over the fact Hermione's date was Viktor Krum and not caring about his own.
To add insult to injury, not a single person came to save her from what was clearly a horrible date, so after thirty minutes into the free dance she had left for her dorm and cut her losses.
Coincidentally it was this incident that cemented the fact that she would never marry Ron once she graduated.
Lotus simply couldn't understand why Atem was showing such interest in her.