A/N: Hey, it's another one of those super-quick updates!
*swoons* God, I love all the nice reviews I get for this story-
not just "this is cool" reviews, but long ones, with good ideas
and intelligent questions! *_* Waiii! I feel loved. And
inspired (hint-hint).
Hm, people are starting to request that I put in that lemon I've been promising. -^__^- It's so nice to have such perverted fans. *pats your heads* There, there, dears, be patient. Let me fit in a teensy bit more plot first. And maybe some angst. I know you'd like that, wouldn't you?
Oh, but for those of you who DO want lemon . . . what couple do you want to see first? I was originally intending to do Jounouchi/Seto, but I'm tempted to go for Bakura/Ryou, or I could do that OTHER hinted-at couple for which I will give you candy if you have guessed yet. Or I could do another couple entirely . . . or I could just get around to introducing the rest of the characters and resisting this strange urge to pair Isis up with Mai.
"The Calendars Count Down"
The woman, Honda had to admit, was not really that bad a person. She was just used to a society that saw servants as slaves and slaves as property, and considering her upbringing was surprisingly sympathetic to his less-than desirable situation. He hadn't been beaten or threatened in any way since the guards and that strange inquisitor had left to investigate the screaming, and she was in fact quite patiently trying to teach him how to draw a few different hieroglyphs on an old scrap of papyrus.
To be honest, the things made him go cross-eyed, and he didn't even know what he was writing. He barely knew how to read his OWN language, and writing was mostly beyond him. He'd been raised to be a soldier, not an officer, and his unexpected promotion after his heroics in the last war had led to brief confusion until his illiteracy had been explained. After that, Anzu and Ryou had done the best they could between themselves to teach him, but unfortunately, they'd only had a few months before the next war began and they were all sent out again.
Still, he had to admire Isis's tenacity. So far, he'd managed to successfully fail at duplicating every single one of the complicated glyphs, but the girl was still as patient as she had been when they'd begun. It had taken a few minutes to get across her intentions without the inquisitor as a go-between, but between the admittedly small handful of words both knew of each other's tongue and a fair amount of rather inventive body language, they'd more or less sorted it out.
Well . . . he was PRETTY sure they had.
Still, even discounting her strange desire to teach a foreign slave to write in her language, Isis seemed a bit odd. For example, several times she'd suddenly just stopped dead right in the middle of demonstrating a hieroglyph and stared out into thin air with a slightly vacant expression on her face- or worse, a slightly frightened one.
She always recovered quickly, however, and Honda was rather laid- back anyway. With someone as tense as Yami as the officer he reported to he kind of had to be, or the whole army would've been in trouble. To be honest, the only thing that really disturbed him about Isis at this point was that she kept a little calendar by her bed that appeared to be counting down instead of up.
He wasn't really sure why, but something in his gut was telling him that it might not be the best idea to stick around long enough to figure it out.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"My pharaoh." Seto bowed deeply as Yuugi ran up, followed by the guards.
"We heard screaming. Seto, what did you do this time?" Yuugi asked wearily.
"Nothing, lord," the priest assured him, quietly hoping that nothing on the rather long list of things he'd done lately that might induce screaming in others was responsible, or at least traceable.
"My fault," a slightly muzzy voice mumbled from slightly further down the hall. "Fell down th' stairs. S'rry."
Yuugi turned to the speaker and blinked in surprise. "Who . . .?"
The young boy sprawled on the floor flashed him a slight smirk, then suddenly froze and palled. "Oh shit," he choked. "You're- "
"The pharaoh, yes," Yuugi said impatiently, waving him off with one hand. "What else is new?"
"Yami?" another voice interrupted, this one confused. Yuugi nearly fainted when he discovered it as belonging to the blond soldier from the market; who stood slightly behind him.
"Why do you people keep CALLING me that?!" he shrieked, more than a little unnerved at how easily the blond had concealed his presence. NotgoodnotgoodNOTGOOD . . . especially not in someone who, as has been previously noted, was perfectly capable of starting a revolution on his looks alone.
"I . . . I'm sorry." The blond looked slightly alarmed. "It's just . . . you look EXACTLY like . . ."
"THAT general," Yuugi realized, suddenly scowling. "That stupid general that the nobles are always whispering about! That arrogant bastard of a king sent HIM here?! How DARE he?! I'll fucking kill him!"
"Um, if it helps, I'm about as far from patriotic as you can get without coming back in the other direction," the blond volunteered, eyeing the guards with slight trepidation out of the corner of his eye. Oh sure, he could probably get past them without any fatal injuries, but then there were those few hundred OTHER guards in the palace to keep in mind . . .
Seto burst into laughter, thoroughly terrifying the guards and giving Yuugi a shock that would've quite literally killed a lesser man. Fortunately for him (though less so for his much- harassed guards and advisors), he was just too damn stubborn to die in such an embarrassing way. Or probably at all- another problem for his long-suffering advisors. Heaven knew they'd slipped enough poisons into his food over the years, and at the very least he ought to have died from all of that greasy junk he kept eating, but noooo.
Yuugi's family had been on the throne for a very long time, and had developed very thick skin, cast-iron stomachs, and the ability to go from zero-to-bitch in three seconds. The changes of his mood were actually distinguishable by the various levels of his physical attractiveness. When he was Dignified and Handsome he was about to banish someone to the Shadow Realm; when he was Endearingly Cute, he was plotting your death; when he was Really Fucking Sexy, he was contemplating important things and those who interrupted him would receive the admittedly dubious honor of helping to fatten up the very finicky royal crocodiles.
And, most importantly for those feeling attached to the mortal world, when he got Downright Adorable, it was time to move to Persia. Preferably further if possible.
Perhaps into the bits of the maps that said, "Here There Be Dragons."
But currently, Yuugi was Bemusedly Yummy, which meant that if someone didn't do something distracting quick, a whole lot of people were going to find their life expectancy becoming unusually brief. Fortunately for the eight servants, five slaves, and seventeen guardsmen that would've otherwise become croc chow, the child did by trying to run away.
"Stop!" Seto shouted automatically, realizing a second too late what a very stupid thing he might've just done and casting a desperate glance at the pharaoh, who fortunately seemed not to have heard the priest's cry over his own voice as he yelled at the guards to give chase.
But . . .
"Not so fast, brat!" the blonde announced, a hand snaking out to grab the back of the child's neck. "It's very rude to run away from Seto-sama after nearly landing on him!"
"'Seto-sama?'" Yuugi repeated dubiously.
"Hai, Pharaoh-sama!" the blonde agreed, bowing quickly but never releasing the boy. "Seto-sama, what do I do with him?"
"Er . . ." Clearly, the priest hadn't thought that far ahead. "Just . . . just keep hold of him for a little while, alright, Jounouchi? I'll . . . deal with it."
"Hai!" Jounouchi exclaimed, beaming at him and snapping off a quick salute.
Seto gave him an odd look. "What in Osiris's name was that?" he demanded sourly.
"Dunno," Jounouchi replied cheerfully. "Fun as hell, though. An' if I were you, I wouldn't use Osiris's name ta cuss. Kinda temptin' fate an' all, innit, considerin' yer patron's relationship with 'im?"
"Shut up." Seto glared at him, bristling slightly. Yuugi frowned and tried to remember if Jounouchi had been speaking with such a harsh accent before.
The soldier just smiled and patted the child's head.
* tbc . . . *
. : review, review! : .
Hm, people are starting to request that I put in that lemon I've been promising. -^__^- It's so nice to have such perverted fans. *pats your heads* There, there, dears, be patient. Let me fit in a teensy bit more plot first. And maybe some angst. I know you'd like that, wouldn't you?
Oh, but for those of you who DO want lemon . . . what couple do you want to see first? I was originally intending to do Jounouchi/Seto, but I'm tempted to go for Bakura/Ryou, or I could do that OTHER hinted-at couple for which I will give you candy if you have guessed yet. Or I could do another couple entirely . . . or I could just get around to introducing the rest of the characters and resisting this strange urge to pair Isis up with Mai.
"The Calendars Count Down"
The woman, Honda had to admit, was not really that bad a person. She was just used to a society that saw servants as slaves and slaves as property, and considering her upbringing was surprisingly sympathetic to his less-than desirable situation. He hadn't been beaten or threatened in any way since the guards and that strange inquisitor had left to investigate the screaming, and she was in fact quite patiently trying to teach him how to draw a few different hieroglyphs on an old scrap of papyrus.
To be honest, the things made him go cross-eyed, and he didn't even know what he was writing. He barely knew how to read his OWN language, and writing was mostly beyond him. He'd been raised to be a soldier, not an officer, and his unexpected promotion after his heroics in the last war had led to brief confusion until his illiteracy had been explained. After that, Anzu and Ryou had done the best they could between themselves to teach him, but unfortunately, they'd only had a few months before the next war began and they were all sent out again.
Still, he had to admire Isis's tenacity. So far, he'd managed to successfully fail at duplicating every single one of the complicated glyphs, but the girl was still as patient as she had been when they'd begun. It had taken a few minutes to get across her intentions without the inquisitor as a go-between, but between the admittedly small handful of words both knew of each other's tongue and a fair amount of rather inventive body language, they'd more or less sorted it out.
Well . . . he was PRETTY sure they had.
Still, even discounting her strange desire to teach a foreign slave to write in her language, Isis seemed a bit odd. For example, several times she'd suddenly just stopped dead right in the middle of demonstrating a hieroglyph and stared out into thin air with a slightly vacant expression on her face- or worse, a slightly frightened one.
She always recovered quickly, however, and Honda was rather laid- back anyway. With someone as tense as Yami as the officer he reported to he kind of had to be, or the whole army would've been in trouble. To be honest, the only thing that really disturbed him about Isis at this point was that she kept a little calendar by her bed that appeared to be counting down instead of up.
He wasn't really sure why, but something in his gut was telling him that it might not be the best idea to stick around long enough to figure it out.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"My pharaoh." Seto bowed deeply as Yuugi ran up, followed by the guards.
"We heard screaming. Seto, what did you do this time?" Yuugi asked wearily.
"Nothing, lord," the priest assured him, quietly hoping that nothing on the rather long list of things he'd done lately that might induce screaming in others was responsible, or at least traceable.
"My fault," a slightly muzzy voice mumbled from slightly further down the hall. "Fell down th' stairs. S'rry."
Yuugi turned to the speaker and blinked in surprise. "Who . . .?"
The young boy sprawled on the floor flashed him a slight smirk, then suddenly froze and palled. "Oh shit," he choked. "You're- "
"The pharaoh, yes," Yuugi said impatiently, waving him off with one hand. "What else is new?"
"Yami?" another voice interrupted, this one confused. Yuugi nearly fainted when he discovered it as belonging to the blond soldier from the market; who stood slightly behind him.
"Why do you people keep CALLING me that?!" he shrieked, more than a little unnerved at how easily the blond had concealed his presence. NotgoodnotgoodNOTGOOD . . . especially not in someone who, as has been previously noted, was perfectly capable of starting a revolution on his looks alone.
"I . . . I'm sorry." The blond looked slightly alarmed. "It's just . . . you look EXACTLY like . . ."
"THAT general," Yuugi realized, suddenly scowling. "That stupid general that the nobles are always whispering about! That arrogant bastard of a king sent HIM here?! How DARE he?! I'll fucking kill him!"
"Um, if it helps, I'm about as far from patriotic as you can get without coming back in the other direction," the blond volunteered, eyeing the guards with slight trepidation out of the corner of his eye. Oh sure, he could probably get past them without any fatal injuries, but then there were those few hundred OTHER guards in the palace to keep in mind . . .
Seto burst into laughter, thoroughly terrifying the guards and giving Yuugi a shock that would've quite literally killed a lesser man. Fortunately for him (though less so for his much- harassed guards and advisors), he was just too damn stubborn to die in such an embarrassing way. Or probably at all- another problem for his long-suffering advisors. Heaven knew they'd slipped enough poisons into his food over the years, and at the very least he ought to have died from all of that greasy junk he kept eating, but noooo.
Yuugi's family had been on the throne for a very long time, and had developed very thick skin, cast-iron stomachs, and the ability to go from zero-to-bitch in three seconds. The changes of his mood were actually distinguishable by the various levels of his physical attractiveness. When he was Dignified and Handsome he was about to banish someone to the Shadow Realm; when he was Endearingly Cute, he was plotting your death; when he was Really Fucking Sexy, he was contemplating important things and those who interrupted him would receive the admittedly dubious honor of helping to fatten up the very finicky royal crocodiles.
And, most importantly for those feeling attached to the mortal world, when he got Downright Adorable, it was time to move to Persia. Preferably further if possible.
Perhaps into the bits of the maps that said, "Here There Be Dragons."
But currently, Yuugi was Bemusedly Yummy, which meant that if someone didn't do something distracting quick, a whole lot of people were going to find their life expectancy becoming unusually brief. Fortunately for the eight servants, five slaves, and seventeen guardsmen that would've otherwise become croc chow, the child did by trying to run away.
"Stop!" Seto shouted automatically, realizing a second too late what a very stupid thing he might've just done and casting a desperate glance at the pharaoh, who fortunately seemed not to have heard the priest's cry over his own voice as he yelled at the guards to give chase.
But . . .
"Not so fast, brat!" the blonde announced, a hand snaking out to grab the back of the child's neck. "It's very rude to run away from Seto-sama after nearly landing on him!"
"'Seto-sama?'" Yuugi repeated dubiously.
"Hai, Pharaoh-sama!" the blonde agreed, bowing quickly but never releasing the boy. "Seto-sama, what do I do with him?"
"Er . . ." Clearly, the priest hadn't thought that far ahead. "Just . . . just keep hold of him for a little while, alright, Jounouchi? I'll . . . deal with it."
"Hai!" Jounouchi exclaimed, beaming at him and snapping off a quick salute.
Seto gave him an odd look. "What in Osiris's name was that?" he demanded sourly.
"Dunno," Jounouchi replied cheerfully. "Fun as hell, though. An' if I were you, I wouldn't use Osiris's name ta cuss. Kinda temptin' fate an' all, innit, considerin' yer patron's relationship with 'im?"
"Shut up." Seto glared at him, bristling slightly. Yuugi frowned and tried to remember if Jounouchi had been speaking with such a harsh accent before.
The soldier just smiled and patted the child's head.
* tbc . . . *
. : review, review! : .
