Bizarre Twist

Honestly, it bothered Yuugi more than he showed to know it was true and he couldn't just trust Akhenaten. At the same time, he had very little time to think about it then as he debated what to do about the more immediate threat—there was no way he was going to let Lord Orion go to the dungeons to find Atem.

As such, he headed for the place, even as he focussed and called, "Kuribo, I need your help again."

The brown ball of fur appeared beside him, but he kept moving, so by the time it fully materialized, it had to fly quickly to catch up to him and attach itself to his shoulder. Reaching up, he gave it a pat on the head, then steadied himself to meet the northern Lord. But really, what was he going to do? Actually, still being dressed as the Prince had its advantages, and he'd seen a small door near the weapons practice courts which he was sure led outside the walls without having to pass through the guarded gates. Or rather, the small gate was guarded by Shadow Guards, who wouldn't stop him, but may just let someone know.

His reason for leaving the Palace? To see other important sites in the city, since Atem had pointed some out to him on a city map, so he should be able to find them. If the Lord would agree.

Finally, he got to the space leading to the dungeons, a large courtyard with one of the Temples—Anubis and Ma'at's—to one side and the dungeons to the other, and a blank wall across from the Palace halls. As he arrived, Orion stepped out of the Temple and turned towards the dungeons, so Yuugi walked right up to him, making the man stop and glare at him.

"You have not seen much of our city, have you, Lord Orion?" he asked cordially.

For a moment, the man's eyes widened, then became suspicious. "What concern is that of yours, Your Highness?"

"Well, if you would rather waste the evening hours, I suppose you could, but there are several sites of interest in the city, if you would like to visit them," he said, meeting the man's gaze.

For a long time, the man just glared at him suspiciously. "What purpose does this sudden offer have after the events in the meeting?"

Yuugi tipped his head to the side and said the first thing which came to mind, "My Father has an unfortunate interest in taunting foreign nobles, and for all your behavior was bad, much of what happened was instigated by my Father. Consider it something of an apology for his behavior."

At the words, the man snorted, then let his eyes stray down the boy's body as he said, "If you wish to apologize, offer me yourself and your bed rather than a tour of the city."

The brown ball of fur on his shoulder gave a questioning 'kurii', even as Yuugi had to commend the man for being so blatant. While sexual discussion in Egypt was surprisingly open, it was rarely quite so direct unless in a private setting with a teacher and a pupil. Blinking, he said, "Even were I to agree to such a thing, you would be slain before doing more than reaching said bed. On Palace grounds, it would be impossible."

Lord Orion's eyes went to the brown ball of fur in complete confusion as he asked, "What is that?"

"This?" the boy asked in faint amusement, pointing at Kuribo. When the man nodded, Yuugi said, "A summoned being called Kuribo. Rather than being the evil in a human's soul, he is a very real spirit entity."

"...A...summoned...?" Orion blinked. "It does not seem powerful..."

"Hmm? By himself, what he does is literally take damage in my place," the boy informed the man. "I cannot be physically harmed while he is at my side. If, however, I call for many of them, they become greatly lethal and easily angered. Once angry, they cling to an attacker or other danger and explode themselves, causing severe injury, even loss of limbs. For all Kuribo is small in stature, he is quite powerful."

"Cannot be...?" Orion began, blinking rapidly several times, considering the conversation. "Are you saying you will oblige me, under conditions where we will not be stopped and where you will not be harmed?"

"Uncle Akhenaten informed me of your desire, and I have other considerations as well, but your 'desire' had turned vindictive. I am not so foolish as to leave myself unprotected, however, hence Kuribo's presence here," Yuugi explained.

"...You would have another watch while I bed you, Your Highness?" the man smirked. "You are quite an exhibitionist, are you not?"

"No," the boy answered. "I would rather no one watch, but that would leave you free to cause harm, and that is a chance I cannot risk taking. As such, Kuribo will be present, and your own actions will determine how far you manage to take the event. An attempt to harm me will end your life."

Lord Orion was stunned speechless by the words, but he didn't walk away, so it looked like Yuugi would have to go through with it now that he'd effectively offered himself to the man. Another reason for taking it off the grounds came to him—no one except Akhenaten would know what actually happened. Still the man's aura showed he was trying to find a way around the terms so he could cause harm, making the boy feel tired suddenly.

"How long can you maintain a summoned being for?" Orion finally asked.

"Infinitely," Yuugi answered simply. It was true, since it depended on how much damage the spirit took, and Kuribo's ability meant it wouldn't 'take damage' unless someone tried to kill him. Any other damage would cease to exist and just wear down his own soul, but he doubted it would wear it down to nothing.

"Impossible!" the man frowned.

"Ask any of the Guardians or my Father. They will tell you the same thing, as what constitutes 'damage' to them is not the same as what constitutes 'damage' to us," the acting Prince replied. "Calling them takes a set amount of energy, but maintaining them takes none, as they, in fact, maintain themselves."

At the words, the man paused again, still trying to find a way around it. As the man was trying to think of something else, a new, familiar voice asked, "Is something wrong, My Prince, Lord Orion?" Looking, Yuugi and Orion saw Shada standing there, looking puzzled. He'd come from the Temple.

Taking a sudden chance, Yuugi said, "Apparently, Lord Orion prefers to cause harm to a potential partner than not, and is attempting to find ways around Kuribo's protective abilities." The Lord glared at him as Shada went momentarily cross-eyed.

A moment later, the Priest asked the Lord, "I take it you have an affinity for using 'toys' on your partner, then?"

The question actually shocked both of them, making Yuugi and Orion stare at the Priest, but Shada showed nothing but resignation. Slowly, Orion nodded and said, "I was introduced to them quite early by my own father, so anything without them is rather too tame and unsatisfying for me."

"Did you know there are ones which do not cause pain?" Shada asked in reply. When the Lord frowned, the Priest held a hand up to stop him, saying, "Lord Orion, I will be very honest with you, speaking as a man with a male partner, and both of whom have been on the receiving end of nearly every 'toy', harmful and otherwise. The ones which do not cause pain create singularly unique pleasure in place of pain, without diminishing the current 'dominant' partner's power. What both partners gain in those conditions is a degree of pleasure I am certain you have never experienced. If the Prince is willing to experiment, this would be the way to do so, also because you will be dead if you harm our Prince. Is a night of pain with Prince Atem worth your life, or would you rather have a night of pleasure and be able to return home to have more of them?"

Shada's eyes then went to Yuugi as he carefully controlled his expression and asked, "Is it your will to experiment with the northern Lord, Your Highness? I can fairly guarantee he will be both 'dominant' and well-endowed, so if you care to keep your power, it would be best to refuse."

Both gaped at Shada for a minute as Yuugi realized the Priest was trying to protect him after what he'd already been through, but Shada's words had suddenly made him rather curious. It may turn out to be fatal, but he suspected the man wouldn't leave him alone with Lord Orion, since the Lord had no idea what to do with toys for pleasure and needed to be taught that particular aspect.

Giving the Priest a wry smile, Yuugi said, "If you were intending to discourage me, you failed dismally, and made it sound a good deal more interesting than I had thought of it before." Shada stared at him in surprise, so he asked, "I take it you would take it upon yourself to 'teach' Lord Orion how to use toys he obviously knows nothing about?"

"That would rather be a requirement. Unless you would rather I not be present?" the Priest asked as Orion stared between them in something like amazement.

"I would prefer to know someone who knows what he is doing guide the experience, as it is equally new to me," Yuugi replied dryly. "Well, then, what would you suggest, given how protective the people in the Palace are, Priest Shada?"

"Is it common for more than two people to participate in such an act?" Lord Orion suddenly spat, glaring at the two.

"Ironically, yes," Shada replied, suddenly looking amused. "Part of our role as 'priests' is to teach men and women how to properly please their partners, and this would count as a lesson most of us are familiar with giving. Normally, the High Priest would 'teach' the Crown Prince how to please his wife, but no wife has yet been chosen for His Highness, and you are not a woman, so it would be better if another gave this lesson. Also, there are admittedly a good many people who would love nothing better than to bed Prince Atem, and so few opportunities to so much as entertain the thought. I would be a fool to pass up the opportunity to participate in the act."

While the Lord stared, Yuugi actually chuckled and asked, "So, where?"

"This way. Unless you would rather not, Lord Orion?" Shada asked of the Lord.

After a silence, Orion made an exasperated noise and said, "Very well."

The three headed away, leaving the Palace via the door Yuugi had noted, after they had stopped by the Prince's room to leave 'his' most obvious marks there.

PA-HPS-YM-SK

When the boy woke, sunlight was shining on his face and he was more than a little confused—and very sore. His whole body ached and his muscles were pretty much slack, keeping him from moving, but the pain was from muscle exhaustion, not damage. It was as though he had been exercising hard for a long time. Then again, if what he remembered of the night was accurate—and he admittedly couldn't remember it all—he likely had been exercising hard for a long time, longer than even he was actively aware, given the way he'd been handled. It had been so intense and gone on for so long he had reached a threshold and gone completely blank, 'feeling' only without any other senses, and whether he'd even been 'conscious' by then was debatable.

Finally, by the time he finished assessing that, he could at least open tired eyes—only to see...Atem's room in the Palace? As he scanned the area he could see, he realized it was indeed the Prince's room, and there were people in it, people who included Mahad, Mana, and Set. Also, it was probably past mid-day by the light he could see from the window, which made him wonder about the meetings and the state Atem was in.

At that moment, Mana, who sat beside him on the bed-cushions, looked down and saw his eyes open, so she asked, "You're awake, Your Highness? How are you feeling?"

Her words drew Mahad and Set over, both of whom seemed pale, even as Mahad knelt to run a hand gently over his forehead and pausing to check his temperature. Vaguely, Yuugi heard the others leave. "I would usually be more concerned about a fever, but...you have none, and there was no reason for you to have slept to mid-afternoon. Rather...you couldn't be woken, Your Highness. What happened?"

After a silence while Yuugi tried to get his mouth working, he asked quietly, "Meetings...?"

"This is a day of rest, and the noble Lords, along with the Pharaoh and Vizier, have left the Palace to visit nearby sites in the countryside. You were never required to participate today, but your absences at the morning and noon meals have been noted," the older Priest explained.

"I also heard Akhenaten call you a fool to the Pharaoh," Set added suddenly. "He seemed royally angry, and while I couldn't hear what he was actually saying, the one other thing I could pick out of the mess was how you were 'entertaining' a foreign Lord's foolishness. It would be better for you to tell us what happened, rather than being so concerned about the meetings, which technically aren't actually your concern."

"How can you say the Prince shouldn't be concerned about them?" Mana glared at the two older men.

Both of their attention stayed on Yuugi, instead, but he still couldn't move properly, and actually felt more like going back to sleep. Actually, he felt more like he didn't want to move, since he rather thought he'd regret it if he tried, and it would worry them more to see something other than exhaustion. What was he supposed to tell them? And for that matter, how had he gotten back to the Palace after all that? He found it hard to believe the other two had been energetic enough to return him there...

He was spared having to answer as something hard landed on the floor near the other two Priests, and Set blinked at it for a moment before reaching over to pick it up. It was a sheet of papyrus wrapped around a square, stone device Yuugi would normally have called a paperweight—which it technically had been used as when he thought about it. What surprised him was how Set turned pale as he read the papyrus, then passed it to Mahad, who also turned pale.

"What's wrong, Master, High Priest?" Mana asked in concern.

"...Why?" Set asked softly, eyes on Yuugi.

"What...?" the boy asked in mild confusion.

"Mana, please go tell Shada we need him here, and Isis as well," Mahad told his apprentice, who blinked, then nodded and left the room.

Once the door had closed behind her, Set yelled, "What in all the Heavens, Hells, and the living world were you thinking, Yuugi?" His hand went to his head for a moment as he drew a deep breath and tried to calm down.

"What made you go with a northern Lord who tried to kill you, even if Shada was also there?" Mahad asked more calmly, but it was clear he was also on the verge of breaking down. "It seems obvious you were going for physical 'pleasure', though I doubt you found it very pleasurable, given your state...And you knew what would happen, so why did you do it?"

By then, Yuugi realized the one who had passed on the note was probably one of the Shadow Guards who had seen the three leave for town, so he sighed and said softly, "Atem...would have...been..."

"That's no excuse for—!" Set yelled at the top of his lungs.

"High Priest!" Mahad cut in sharply, and to Yuugi's surprise, Set shut up in the middle of the sentence. After a silent pause, Mahad asked quietly, "What would have happened in these talks if Prince Atem had been found by Lord Orion?" His gaze then went back to Yuugi, and he asked, "But why did it have to be that? Wasn't there some other way to keep him from finding the Prince? After everything you've been through, for this to happen...there's really a limit to self-sacrifice, and you've crossed it. What you did was foolishness, not something which helped us, since it now gives him a very real threat to use against us, and that's besides the suffering it caused you."

At that, Yuugi's expression became wryly amused, then he murmured, "Not by...the def...inition...of the word..."

"Not by the...?" both older men frowned in confusion and worry.

A knock sounded on the door, then Mana opened it and said, "They're both here, High Priest, Master. Should I go?"

"Please go ask the Priests of Bastet to give you a lesson in Bastet's skills," Mahad told her. "I haven't got enough knowledge of her actual position and capabilities to give you proper lessons, and this discussion is best kept as limited as possible."

The teenaged girl nodded and headed out as Isis literally gave Shada a shove into the room, then stepped in behind him and shut the door. The man had no actual expression on his face, and she seemed entirely frustrated as she went to Yuugi and held her hands over his chest and forehead. By her lack of worry, Set and Mahad relaxed a little, and Yuugi noted how skilled a healer the woman was—she could even counteract exhaustion to some degree!

Finally, she sat back and asked in a rather acidic tone, "Would you care to explain where your sanity went to last night, Yuugi?"

"Curiosity took over," the boy replied dryly. "And before you get mad at Shada, he did try to discourage me, but his attempt had the opposite effect."

"And did it have to be with Lord Orion?" Set asked darkly. "Shada would likely have obliged you privately with his usual partner, and you wouldn't have suf—"

"Stop calling it 'suffering'," Yuugi sighed as he slowly pushed himself to a sitting position. "It was intense, but it was all pleasure, and I assume it was just that Orion has a lot more energy than normal people which exhausted me so much. For the rest of it, I'm not a fool, and by the time we left here, I had even stopped thinking about Atem."

The silence which followed was long, then Set asked, "So it's all right with a foreign Lord, but not with me or any of the other Guardians?" He suddenly seemed angry.

"No," Yuugi replied, his tone amused. "Your reasons were all wrong right from the start, so you sleeping with me is entirely unhealthy for your own mind. I had no idea until last night how many people in the Palace would like to bed Atem, or me in the absence of being able to have him. As for Orion and Shada, I really was curious about how he explained his experiences to Orion to try to deter the Lord from effectively torturing me to death. If it had been anyone else, it would probably have been a no-go, since anything 'normal' or 'damaging' wouldn't have made me curious."

"Then Shada was there as a 'teacher'?" Mahad asked in confusion.

"Oh, yes, he did the 'teaching' part, so thoroughly he 'demonstrated' each thing to the Lord," Isis glared at Shada, who still stood there impassively. "You wanted as much as the Lord to bed the boy, and for everyone's peace of mind, you should have talked with Karim about it!"

Her words made Shada flush a bit, and Yuugi asked, "Really? Karim? I thought you two weren't fond of each other...You always seem angry or annoyed when you two would meet."

"It serves as a means of keeping their relationship private," the woman sighed. "And you should stop standing there like a statue, Priest Shada. At least have the courtesy to either apologize or defend yourself!"

After a silence, he lifted his shoulders in a small shrug, then said, "Do I actually have such a right? Or, from Yuugi's perspective, such a need?"

As the other three were about to retort in anger, Yuugi asked, "So what else happened to make everyone so touchy today?"

"What about Shada at least offering an apology?" Set asked sharply.

"Seriously?" the boy asked with wide eyes. "Have you even heard a word I've said? He doesn't need to apologize for something I agreed to do, even wanted to do, and by that logic, there's no reason for him to defend himself. As such, what else is wrong?"

Shada's blank state broke as he gave the boy a wry smile, then said, "I assume the Shadow Guards brought the three of us back to our rooms after we ended for the night, since the next thing I woke to was some of the military leaders and priests preparing to send a party to a village nearby which seems to have vanished."

"A...what?" Yuugi asked with a puzzled frown.

Mahad sighed and answered, "Karim went with the Captain of the Guard to see what had happened, but a couple of injured soldiers from the area made it here just as we were sitting down to our morning meal. According to them, the village suddenly exploded—it didn't even go up in smoke and flames, it literally...by their word, when the explosion and smoke faded, all that remained was a hole. They were knocked down by the blast, and are still being treated for burns and other damage, but they would be much surprised if there were other survivors."

The boy's eyes went to Isis as he asked, "Were you able to see it?"

She gave her head a shake. "It was as the soldiers described it—the explosion came suddenly, with no warning, and of such a scale everyone in the village is dead. I could see no 'cause', but it was not natural."

A knock sounded on the door, then Akhenaten pushed it open to say, "We've returned from the tour. Yuugi—or rather, Prince Atem—we need you to join a military meeting, as it seems the foreign Lords got wind of the vanishing village incident."