The Card Sprite
Chapter Eight
Kokoro no Kioku ... A Heart of Memories
Kioku sat with her head on her knees, said knees pulled up closely to her chest. Her hair whipped about in the maverick breeze, and she sighed. She was perched upon the roof of the Turtle Game Shop, having been to distracted and emotional to sleep. She watched the sun as it lazily climbed over the roofs of the sleeping city. It reminded her of Egypt, that sun, in all of its heat and redness and dry flame. A sob caught in her throat, but she suppressed it with a cough. Homesick she was, but strong she could be. And strong she was. She would not cry for Egypt. It wasn't going anywhere, and she'd see it again when she had fulfilled her duty and retrieved Solomon Moto's soul from Maxamillian Pegasus.
Pegasus... she recalled seeing the silver-haired man once before... or twice, was it not? Once when he followed Shadi into the crypt and received the Sennen eye, and then again when he collapsed on her door step a short year later. And all of this trouble had been caused because the eye had accepted him. Should she have acted on instincts and thrown him from the crypt before he even received the cursed item, perhaps none of this would have happened. But sitting perched upon the rooftop of her little charge's house, she sternly reminded herself not to live in the past. What happens has happened, she thought. Do what you can to change what will happen, and do not dwell on what has happened.
She smiled tiredly, pushing a few stray strands of onyx hair from her eyes. The teasing wind soon tore them into view again, and soon she gave up trying to control them.
Not two days ago, her world once again spun from her grasp. Chaos ensued after Pegasus stole away Solomon Moto's soul. Kioku sighed for what must have been the thirty-thousandth time. Yami yawned, watching her.
He had heard her soft footsteps climb out her window and tread across the gravel shingles, heard her muttered oath when she sat on the hem of her dress and nearly choked herself. He watched her profile from before dawn until sunrise and still she made no motion except to sigh. Still, she fascinated him.
He had an inkling as to why he was so captivated by her. Memories, surfacing from a nearly forgotten age, told him she had once been a normal teenage girl...
*~*~*
Yami was bored. He sat slumped in his throne, drumming his fingers absently on its ornate sides, sighing every few moments. His advisors ground their teeth at his most obvious annoyance, but what could they do? He was, after all, the Pharaoh, and whether or not he embarrassed himself in front of visiting nobles was his decision.
That's right, Yami grinned inwardly as he watched his advisors, his puppets, scurry about dredging up last-minute entertainment. I can do what I damn well please and you are forced, by law and tradition, to agree with me.
The visiting nobles, whose name Yami had quite conveniently forgotten, had brought along their young son. He was about Yami's age but seemed to be captivated by every little thing. Yami suspected he was a little slow, but didn't dislike the child or his sire for it. If anything he made sure to be a bit more benevolent than usual when speaking to any member of this particular household, lest the boy be listening or watching. With children like that, anything they observed would be absorbed then spat back out in a variety of different ways. Yami tried to make sure the boy saw nothing but good and wonderful things.
The head of their house, a tallish man with a severe mustache and receding hairline, was looking rather impatient. He began tapping his foot as he sat, but then noticed Yami watching him and forced a quick, unconvincing smile.
Suddenly, coverings were placed over all the windows, and candles were lit. Incense wafted through the air, and Yami could see the boy's eyes became half-lidded with drowsiness. The Pharaoh nodded, giving the servants unspoken orders to take the child and his mother to their quarters. She went willingly, carrying the boy and hissing thanks as she filed past the throne.
As soon as the great doors shut behind the woman, the candles were extinguished. Yami leapt to his feet in alarm, only to stare in amazement as torches were simultaneously lit with a sinuous chord from hidden musicians.
A lone dancer stood in the middle of the torch-lit chamber, her feet together and her head bowed slightly. The music seemed to tug at her, and she swayed a little. Then one chord seemed to stick out from the flow of the music, and her arm jerked up, her hand still dangling like that of a puppet. Then another chord, and her other arm struck another awkward puppet's pose. The music proceeded to lead the girl through a complicated series of poses, ending in her total collapse. Just like a child's puppet, a wooden plaything left behind.
Yami slowly returned to his seat, mesmerized by the slender form before him. He didn't spare a glance in the nobleman's direction but knew the man was just as slack-jawed as he himself was. And probably glad that his wife and son were safety out of the room.
A slow Egyptian beat filled the room, and the girl picked herself up. Slowly, as though in a trance, she began to perform the most intricate set of maneuvers Yami had ever seen. His eyes, he figured, were wide enough to fill meat platters, but they grew wider still as the music swelled and began to race.
The girl kicked and spun, her arms pointing about and her torso gyrating with the exhilarating music. At the last chord and crash of symbols Yami found her down on one knee, her other leg struck out gracefully behind her and her arms in a spellcaster's pose pointed directly at his chest. Her fiery eyes seemed to burn through his soul.
Before he could even breathe, the torches were extinguished once more. When the coverings were removed, the room was found to be empty save for a few shell-shocked servants and the nobleman. The noble's face had turned the color of curdled milk. Yami laughed a little, not bothering to hide his humor from his guest. The man probably hadn't had that kind of pleasure in a long, long while.
Yami, after the noble had shakily taken his leave, hissed to his major domo, "Who was that girl?"
The man, visibly frightened, shrugged a little. "We do not know, sire. Her mother shoved her in here when we were discussing the entertainment situation, and then yanked her out just as quickly. Shall I organize a search?"
Yami shook his head, annoyed. "No. But if anything like that happens again, at least find out her name!"
The major domo nodded shakily, then hastily backed out of his Pharaoh's presence.
A fortnight later, on the eve of an illustrious banquet, the lead dancer suddenly took ill with a violent fever. Yami was not told until an hour before the guests were to begin arriving. His rage was unprecedented and severe.
After he calmed down a bit, the major domo whispered, "There is a woman in the courtyard to talk with you, my lord."
Yami cocked his head in surprise, and then went into the courtyard to find a solitary townswoman, hooded and cloaked. When she removed her hood, Yami was shocked to see the same face of the dancer who had so captivated him.
And yet... this woman had a white scare running from her forehead to her chin, puckering her cheek. There had been no such crease in the dancer's skin. Her mother, perhaps?
In the common language, she said quickly, "Watashi no musume desho dansu no tame ni anata, Yami-san." *My daughter will dance for you, Yami.*
Then she turned and walked away, another hooded and cloaked figure taking her place just as swiftly. This time, when the hood was drawn back, Yami was standing in front of that mysterious dancer. Her stony eyes seemed once again to bore into his soul. His heart thudded against his chest, and he wondered why. She is beautiful, his mind breathed, but then he was called in to receive his guests and left the girl to his major domo. Her eyes followed his back. He shuddered as he walked away, wiping a bead of sweat from his tanned forehead.
The dance that night was the same as it had been for the noble, and yet though he knew the dance, Yami could not make his eyes leave her gyrating form. And this time, when the dance ended, though her features remained solemn, her eyes seemed to smile at him. Unconsciously he smiled back.
After the dinner, when Yami had finally managed to disentangle himself from the guests, she was of course gone. But a small charm had been left on the garden seat near where her mother had appeared, along with a crudely written note. Yami read the note and, smiling slightly, returned to his guests.
*~*~*
Yami pulled the yellowed parchment, crinkled with use and age, from the pocket of his blue school jacket. It read: Watashi ni zokusuru anata ima. I belong to you now. He smiled sadly at the slight irony. She had written that nearly 5,000 years ago, and now she did not even remember having written it, much less all of the dances she had given solely to him. She did not remember that night when they'd first come in contact with one another, and she did not remember the war.
Yami had no way of knowing how wrong he was. Kioku not only painfully remembered every day she had spent with the young Pharaoh, she remembered the war as well. The memories of the Sennen War dug into her heart with icy fingers and refused to be forgotten. Yes, she even remembered that stupid note that, on impulse, she'd left that handsome yet heartless boy. Did she regret it? Not yet. But did she think she would have been better off without doing it? Most likely.
*~*~*
Yami had finished his daily duties, which had, that day, included tallying up the responses from the storehouses and figuring their supplies. Boring work, but somebody had to do it, and his was the only mind in the palace capable of figuring such sums.
A sigh escaped his lips, and he slumped dejectedly in his chair. He was in the small room off of the throne room, one he had jokingly labeled his 'study'. It was a storage room, really, one that had been hastily furnished when Yami expressed his need for a room where he could work in peace.
He heard the door open and close with quiet snicks but did not move, instead training his senses on the person he knew to be within his sanctuary. He smelled a sweet scent teasing his nose, a faint whiff of roses upon the barely moving air.
Small yet strong hands gripped his shoulders and before he could move, began to massage them. A groan tore itself loose from his throat as the hands worked. By Ra, it felt... good. And he knew at last where he'd smelled that scent before.
"You."
"Shh."
The hands moved to his lower back, forcing themselves between the chair and his aching muscles. He arched his back when they struck an extremely sensitive nerve in his lower back, and gasped. He could sense her smile, and growled slightly. All this massaging was arousing him, and he would either tell her to stop or show her why she should stop. He began to turn around—
Only he knew by the time he'd gotten out of his chair that she was gone. Just like a faint hint of faraway music on the wind, she'd come, pleasured him, and left before anything serious could happen. He felt a strange ache in his chest and found himself wondering, will she come back?
*~*~*
Yami's fingers on the smooth eye-of-Ra pendant slipped, and the golden trinket went skittering across the roof. Kioku jerked around at the slight sound, and gasped when she scooped it up. Yami had ducked out of sight, but her throaty voice still reached him.
"You— you still have this?"
A hint of dry humor colored her tone. "You didn't sell it, or give it away to some child as a pretty bauble?"
Yami reappeared from behind the curtains, ducking out of the window to stand behind her. "I said I would keep it.
"And a Pharaoh of Egypt, my lady Kioku, is always true to his word."
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Yee! Fun!
Reviews are much appreciated, and flames will just burn. I ran out of sacrifices.
X~P Dead tired. Need sleep. Goodnight.
