Chapter 10: Lost Man's Limit
Harker thinned his lips as he traced the sun design at the nose of his board, the action thoughtless with his mind elsewhere. Labradorite eyes were glazed over with absence as his mind wandered to a place beyond the veils that held him from his home.
Carol burst into the dorm of the Pale Pair with enthusiasm, making Harker look up from his board and greet her as she dropped down on the bed beside him.
"I met a Palestine merchant today in the markets!"
"Did you?" He asked, placing the so-called 'boat' back up against the wall and shaking off his solemn mood to smile at the girl.
"Yes!" She cheered, crawling so that she was closer, before kneeling beside his new spot, a hand on his shoulder. "Hark, this means he could be a possible route of escape from Egypt!"
Harker sat straight, his attention fully awake as he locked gazes with the American woman.
"Really? Wait, how do we know we can trust them?"
She bit her lip and thought about the words, before responding with a careful, "They seemed really nice, and there were many people in their caravan. A family maybe?"
The Australian hummed, but still expressed doubt, thumbing his lower lip as he thought about her offer. Carol explained her idea to him in more detail, describing how travelling with such a group across the desert would be a good plan of escape, and disappearing into Palestine or a surrounding country would be easy once there.
Harker nodded, but sighed.
"I understand, Carol, and your idea is good. But we have to be careful."
"But Harker, opportunities are scarce! We need to be careful, yes, but we also need to act when we get the chance! Take risks!" She tried, holding onto his bicep as if to drag him onto her side.
"Yes, I get it, I know what you're talking about but-"
"Please, Harker!"
"Can we please not talk about this now I'm just not-"
"We have to try, it may be our only chance before-"
"Look, I understand-"
"Then you know that, Harker, we have to-"
"Carol!" He snapped, yanking his arm out of her hands and making her tumble.
The Australian yelped and caught her before she could hit the ground, pulling the girl back onto the bed, before backing away with his hands wringing before him with a rise of anxiety.
"Sorry," The pale man uttered, taking another step away. "Sorry. I, um, I'm gonna go take a walk- or something. Sorry."
Carol watched as her older companion fled their room, his teeth grit and body tense. Unasu tried to follow him from their door, but the guard was brushed aside none-too gently by the Western man.
Slowly, she sat up from where she had been practically tossed, and straightened her lopsided headset, brushing her hair out of her face, a bit rattled by the rough handling. She touched her bicep, still feeling dull thrums of pain from where she had been grabbed in her fall, and winced, wondering if a bruise would arise.
Nile eyes looked to the doorway again, before turning to Harker's board, and she swore she saw droplets sliding down its milky white surface.
"Harker..."
()()()
Harker tried to hold his breath as he sat in the shade of a tree in the palace gardens, alabaster knuckles pinched between shards of pearl to cease their shaking and mute his fractured exhales, staring at the black ink sky.
He had been doing so well, he thought he had gotten past this. The ache for his home, for his mother, for his friends had been padded down by the distractions of ancient lives, and he had thought that the sting in his chest and eyes had faded, a resistance built.
It would seem that it had only been biding its time, and now was back with a vengeance. His heart would be neglected no longer.
It was a sharp sting and a painful thrum that squeezed inside of his chest and rolled around in the cavity. His heart was shaking in its terror and in its rage, the jagged edges of it feeling like the inside had turned into a geode, making breath hurt and blood sluggish.
Harker shuddered as a breeze rode up the Nile and chilled him for a moment, before he swallowed thickly and leant back against the hard trunk of the oasis tree. He gazed at the sky again, before grunting and tearing his labradorite away, feeling his heart twist at the sight.
"What are you doing out here?"
The Australian snapped his head to the sharp question, Memphis storming up to him with a scowl. He sniffed and scrubbed his eyes before clearing his throat, the Pharaoh coming to a stop beside him, crossing suntanned arms.
"It's too late for you to be out of your room. You're either in your room or in the court with me after dark!"
"I just," Harker began, taking up a dried weed and peeling it to distract himself. "Needed to be alone. For a bit."
Memphis furrowed his brows at the hoarse voice and shaking words, arms falling as he tried to see the man's face.
"What's wrong with you?" He huffed.
"Nothing. I'm fine." The other grunted, looking away pointedly as his vision burnt.
The Pharaoh scowled at the abrupt brush off, and crossed his arms again out of sheer restlessness, a raising pressure of unsurety blooming in his chest. Memphis didn't know how to deal with this.
"Are you sure?" He asked, something that was meant to come out more gently than it did.
Harker didn't answer, and just tossed away strings of dried plant matter, before coiling himself up.
The teenaged king bit his lower lip and glanced around, half-hoping he'd find someone, maybe Minus or Isis, and ask them to take over. The other half wanted to be the one to solve the alabaster man's grievance. That side won out.
Memphis grit his teeth before shuffling over and dropping down beside the pale person like a petulant child, arms still crossed in nervousness as he glanced at the stubbornly quiet man. He looked at Harker expectantly, fidgeting.
"So..." He began, gazing around. "Are...What did you do in the village?"
The Australian glanced at him, letting the Pharaoh see a flash of saline red.
"I went and saw the place I left my...boat."
"Oh."
The Ancient wiggled his toes in his sandals and looked over to the pale man, before dropping his haze and gritting his teeth. They sat in an awkward, tense silence before he looked up and took in the speckles of brilliant light amongst the dark night.
"The stars are...nice tonight."
Harker flinched.
"I guess."
The Westerner pulled his linen cape around himself tighter, wings of white curling to hide the being of alabaster away. It made the Pharaoh nearly lunge for him, to keep him visible and unwound, but his nerves kept him from moving, and he only watched with gritted teeth.
"Just tell me what's going on!" He finally snapped, fists clenched, temper rising. "Gods! Speak man!"
Slabs of Ra's sky turned on him with a kind of simmering fury that stung his flesh, but Memphis was stubborn, and he merely responded with a hot coaled glare of expectation.
Harker scoffed. Of course, the teen king expected him to peel his layers for him, to vocalise and express his plight. He doubted Memphis had ever quietly suffered with himself, always quick to shout and vent his frustrations.
Perhaps, he thought for a moment, that was slightly healthier. In a manner of speaking.
The Pharaoh growled before lashing out, and wrapping his arms around the pale man in a violent embrace that left the Australian baffled.
Harker turned his head to the king in confusion, but the other had looked away to hide the unsurety in his expression. His lip twitched, he was unsure if it would have turned into a scowl or a smile, before he slumped into the embrace, gently guiding an elbow away from his neck so it could settle somewhere more comfortable.
Memphis stilled as a head of golden locks dropped onto his shoulder, a light stream of warm breath wafting across the sweat spangled dips of his clavicle, the grand form of the celestial man relaxing under his hands. His heart soared before he could ground it with stone, a smile creeping up the corners of his lips.
"I miss my home."
And Memphis froze.
"I miss it so badly. I want to see it again." Harker continued, oblivious to the wide state of the Egyptian's eyes. "I want to smell the fire, I want to smell the soil."
"It would be cold this time of year, July. So the leaves must have turned orange and gold already, fallen to leave the trees bare." He glanced over to the Pharaoh, but his vision was filled by the jewelled collar that hung from his neck. "Not the gum trees or the wattle though, they never change colour. They bloom in fire. They need to die to live. I always liked gum trees cause of that."
"My home is burning nearly all year round, you know?" The Australian laughed weakly, feeling the arms of the Ancient tighten around him. "Somewhere, something is on fire, whether rain or shine. The smell of smoke isn't an unfamiliar one."
Harker sighed, before relaxing more into the man, taking a loose lotus leaf from the sand and sliding it across his pearly fingers.
"Everything's so different here. Everything." He uttered weakly, touching the brown, veiny patterns that spread across the pale petal. He grit his teeth and threw it away, the thing fluttering gently despite his rise of temper that made his jaw tense. "Not even the stars are the same, God damn it!"
Tears stung his eyes as a growl slithered into his voice, the unfamiliar constellations blurring into unidentifiable blights of white.
"I can't find my stars! Where's the upside-down Big Dipper? The Southern Cross?!" The white quartz body shuddered with a broken breath, hands coming to scrub his eyes and face. "I want to go home. I want to see my mum, I want to see my stars."
Memphis stared down at the restless man, watching how shoulders rattled. His mind screeched. Harker wanted to leave. Carol wanted to leave. They wanted to leave Egypt. Leave him.
He tightened his arms further and bared his teeth, eyes wide with a high, bubbling enmity. Why couldn't they just be happy with what he had here? They should be thrilled by his love for them, anyone else would throw themselves on the hot floor at his feet for such affection from the son of the Sun God. And yet they shuddered and craved a 'home' far beyond his reach.
Harker sniffed and shook his head before falling back against the Pharaoh, his breath laboured as he tried to settle himself, using the firm grip of the arms around him as an anchor to the reality he despised, but had to accept.
"I miss my home, Pharaoh." He uttered, his hand coming up to brush aside his cape and bare the mark of the sun on his bicep, tracing it with his fingers as his heart ached. "I just want to go home."
The Westerner sighed after a moment of silence, and made to stand.
"Thanks for listening, I gue-" He paused, unable to get to his feet. "Pharaoh?"
"Stay." Memphis grunted, yanking the man down roughly. "You will stay here. You cannot leave."
Harker uttered a noise of confusion before yelping as he was yanked back into the ancient king's chest, arms constricting to the point of near painful around his waist, making alabaster hands fall to earthy arms in a halted attempt to pry them off.
"You cannot leave!" The Pharaoh hissed, holding the Westerner closer. "I do not allow it!"
"What is wrong with you now?!" Harker snapped.
"You will stay in Egypt with me! You are not allowed to leave! Not you, not Carol!"
"The fuck mate?!" The Australian shouted, before prying off the constricting arms and getting to his feet, taking steps away to place distance between the two men.
Memphis was standing in moments, watching the white other with caution and rage as he fought the desire to outright grab him, knowing that such a tactic would only end badly. He bared his teeth and stepped forwards, eyes of kohl and coal narrowing as the male of the Golden Set took an evasive one to the side.
"That's enough, I think," Harker gritted out, pulling his cape over his mark. "I'm going back to my room. I think we've spent enough time around each other."
"No, come here!"
The Pharaoh threw caution to the wind and lunge, grabbing the Westerner by the arms in his moment of stun. Harker snapped back and tried to yank his arms out of the Egyptian's grip, but only found blunt nails digging into his flesh as a response, being used to try and drag him against the warm body of the king.
"Get off of me!"
"Hold still!"
"Enough!" Harker boomed, pushing the man off and sending him stumbling. "I've had enough, God damn it! I've had enough!"
His hands flew to golden strands as the Western man tried to reign his temper, feeling it festering under his skin as it fumed. Pearl teeth were exposed in a growl-laced snarl that promised violence, but the eyes, carved from the sky, shone with a well up of liquid loneliness and frustration.
"Just leave me alone! I just want to be alone! Is that so hard?" He roared, ignoring the gatherings of servants and court members, attracted by the sounds of shouting. "Just leave me alone…"
Memphis flinched at the broken sound that came out of the celestial, before the druzy being turned and trudged from the gardens, shoulders slumped, looking distressed and drained. The royal gazed after him, emotions he couldn't identify or reign swamping bis chest and mind, making his hands clench and his teeth grit, before he stormed into the palace and kicked a large vase over in a fit.
Water spilt across the hot stone floor, fire dancing on the liquid mirror as it spider-webbed into smaller rivers which dripped down the stairs. The stars glimmered in the thin spires of fluid, and Memphis found himself staring, before slamming his foot down on the lights.
