Uh…..head hurts from studying…… least I did good
Annya: did well…
Kirsta: shut up! *sigh* I'm so tired… but I don't wanna not update--
Annya: *grimace* double negative…
Kirsta: whatever…--so I'll skip the long intro and just get to the story. Thanx, Mojobubbles who brought to my attention the fact that Yami should be a little more concerned. Everyone should bow down to her cuz she gave me my only inspiration to keep writing and update. Thank you soooo much! I luv ya! (and you were the only one that actually reviewed guardians of the shadow realm that reviews Keeper too~! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!)
*glares at rest of reading audience*
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Chapter 19: Second Thoughts
Yami was having serious second thoughts about letting Caleia go face Morsei as everyone prepared to leave on this mission. He knew she might very well die, and was not prepared to have to part with her again. There was something inside him, 'his parental thoughts,' as Isis had put it earlier, which made him feel that he had to protect her no matter what, just like he had done when she was little
*flashback*
"Daddy, daddy, look at this!" three-year-old Caleia cried as she ran into the throne room where Yami was, holding a lily-flower she had picked in the palace gardens. Yami looked up from the scroll he was studying and smiled at the sight of his daughter. And for another thing, he was glad for any excuse to take a break right now.
Caleia ran up the steps and jumped onto Yami's lap, carefully making sure she didn't squish the flower grasped in her chubby hand. Yami put an arm around her to make sure she didn't fall as she kept squirming about trying to stop herself from sliding off her father's leg. Finally she found a comfortable position and stopped squirming, and thrust the flower up in Yami's face for him to see.
"See daddy? Eets a pwetty flouwer!" she exclaimed, handing Yami the lily. "Eets fwor woo!"
"Oh, thank you Caleia!" Yami said in the singsong voice he saved for his young children.(a/n: can you imagine that? Heehee) Caleia placed the flower in his hand, then slapped her hands on the two flowers she had tucked behind her ears.
"See daddy? I all beuiful! You be beuiful too!" she said, obviously wanting the pharaoh to put the flower in his hand in his hair. The two guards standing nearby sweatdropped. Yami grinned an 'oh how am I going to get out of this one,' grin and just kept looking at the toddler on his knee.
"Why don't you wear this one too?" he tried. Caleia's face dropped and she sniffled, looking as if she was about to cry.
"You dun wike it? It not pwetty? Otay, wen," she said in a dejected voice. Yami couldn't resist the sad chibi eyes and pout!
"Oh, no, no, Caleia, that's not what I meant. I like it very much. It's very pretty. See? I'll put it in my hair," he said as he stuck the flower in his hair at the base of the second right spike of hair. A few of the guards snorted softly, and most were trying to hold back their laughter. Yami ignored them, for now. Caleia's face lit up again.
"Wow! Daddy be pwetty wike me!" she exclaimed and giggled. Yami laughed, glad he brightened her face up again, but also knowing that he would never hear the end of this, and not caring. General Jono walked in with a scroll to show the pharaoh. "Aie! Jowo-sawa!" Caleia greeted.
"Hi, Caleia," Jono greeted back. It was then that he said the flower in Yami's hair, then the two in Caleia's, and pieced it all together. "Good afternoon, pharaoh," he greeted, delayed, and trying his best not to burst out in hysterical laughter. Yami could tell this and glared at his friend.
"You go outside to play now, okay, Caleia. Daddy has some work to do," he urged Caleia. Caleia slid off his knee, a huge grin still on her face, still happy that her father was currently as pretty as she was.
"Otay, Daddy, I see woo waiter! Ah-ha ha ha…" she giggled as she ran out of the room. When she was out of hearing distance the whole throne room burst out with laughter.
"Shut up!" Yami retorted childishly as all of the guards in the room, including Jono, were either on the floor laughing or leaning on their spears laughing. Before long Yami joined in, falling off the throne in the process. But, the flower wasn't going anywhere that day.
*end flashback*
Yami laughed at the memory, then glanced across the hall to Caleia's room where she was examining her dagger.
'By Ra, she's grown up so much,' he thought to himself. 'but, she's still my little girl. I can't let her throw her life away again, and know that I'm powerless to fix her injuries. I just can't. This is not like it was when she was little.'
*flashback*
"Wahhh!" little Caleia cried as she picked herself up and sat on the ground, looking with teary eyes at the raw pink flesh on her palms and knees, still crying her eyes out. (a/n: kinda an oxymoron, but of well)
"Caleia? What's wrong?" Yami asked from behind her. He had heard her cry and rushed outside to see what had happened. Caleia looked at him with big, red, puffy eyes.
"I got a boo-boo!" she sniffled, showing her father her hands and knees.
"Oh Ra, what happened?" Yami asked, concerned, as he picked the little girl up and headed towards her room.
"I fwell," Caleia said between the sobs. "It hwurts, Daddy."
"I know. I'll make it better for you, okay?" Yami gently told Caleia as he put her down on the couch in her room.
:"Otay," Caleia replied, her crying calming down finally. Yami retrieved some bandages and a leaf from an aloe plant in the hallway and came back to Caleia, who was having fun wiping her blood on the couch. He sweatdropped, and made a mental note to get someone to clean that couch.
Snapping the aloe leaf's tip off, Yami squeezed out some of it's soothing gel and smoothed it onto Caleia scrapped knees. Caleia giggled.
"It's cwold!" she laughed. Yami smiled amusingly as he took up the bandages and wrapped up her knees carefully. He then did the same with her hands, smoothing on her palms the cool gel and gently wrapping up the little hands a quarter the size of his own. He got worried when she grimaced at the pressure of the bandages, but she held it in and didn't cry as she got used to it.
"Okay, that's it," Yami announced finally. "Better?"
"Wes! Fwank you, Daddy!" Caleia cried as she jumped off the couch. She looked at her hands and knees and saw the bandages, but no scrapes. Okay, fine, Yami's job with the bandages was far from neat, as Caleia looked like she had four white birds nests on her, but they worked.
"No more boo-boo! I gwo pway now, otay?" Caleia announced.
"Okay, just try not to get the bandages wet," Yami urged, knowing that it would be fairly impossible for the little girl to comply, though.
"I twy. I wuv you, Daddy. I gwo now, otay?"
"Okay, love you too." Caleia grinned and raced out the room, shouting "No more boo-boo!" as she went. Yami looked after her, blinking.
'Out of sight, out of her little mind,' he mused.
*end flashback*
Yami laughed at the memory. 'She's not that little anymore,' a voice inside his head said. 'You can't protect her forever.' He sighed.
'I can't let her throw her life away,' he thought to himself. 'A father shouldn't have to see his daughter's death-especially not twice. I can't live through that again.
*flashback* (a/n: last one, don't worry)\
"Run!" Yami shouted to Caleia and Seto as he stood between the two and the hoard of priest and priesthood-servants that were after them. He heard their fleeing footsteps disappear and a wave of relief swept over him. The mass of people moved towards him.
"Stay back!" he warned, throwing the nearest man into the back wall using his magic. "I'm warning you." The mass kept on advancing. Out of alternative options, Yami pulled out two cards and opened his connection with the shadow realm. "DARK MAGICIANS!" he shouted. Two stone tablets bearing the same picture as the cards rose out of the ground and faced the hoard. The tablets glowed as the Eye of Anubis flashed onto Yami's forehead. A second later, the Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl appeared in front of him. "ATTACK!" Yami commanded. The Dark Magicians attacked the crowd. The weak magic of most the priests---and the lack of magic that the servants possessed, were by far no match for the master & apprentice duo. Within a minute the only person in the room was the Pharaoh, surrounded by a sea of bodies.
Yami recalled his magicians and raced down the dungeon corridors that Caleia and Seto had taken not long before.
A wave of warmth passed through his body as he ran. It carried with it Caleia's magical signature. The power behind it was more than what Yami had ever felt a mortal cast.
Now he was really worried. Pushing himself to the limit, Yami sprinted down the corridors, his feet barely touching the ground. With every movement he feared he would be too late. Caleia's energy seemed to grow stronger with every passing second-- then suddenly, Yami could barely feel her aura.
"NO!" Seto's voice rang through the corridors. Yami rounded the last corner and his life seemed to be in slow motion. He could hear nothing but his beating heart--- his face set as stone as he saw Caleia's limp form in Set's arms.
"Caleia!" he gasped under his breath. His face showed no change-- but his heart cried out. 'This can't be happening-- she can't be dead. This isn't…' he thought to himself. 'How? Why?' Yami sank to his knees, his strength leaving him.
Seven cards laid scattered face down on the floor by where Caleia had fallen. The shadow energy in the area was already fading rapidly, and with the turmoil in his mind, Yami didn't realize its presence till it had almost completely faded.
When he did realize it, he raised his head up. 'Shadow energy,' the thought as he looked around blankly for an explanation. His eyes fell upon the scattered cards and he went over to pick them up, the backs of the cards still facing him.
His eyes grew wide as he turned each card over-- and saw in his hand all seven Blue Eyes White Dragons. Seto looked up at him.
"Don't ever let all seven of those be in her deck, even if it's the Keeper's deck," he said. Yami nodded, and understood. It all pieced together in his mind. The flash of energy he had felt earlier was from Caleia summoning the seven Blue Eyes-- and it had drained her, overwhelmed her, killed her-- and it was to protect Seto.
Yami watched as Seto laid Caleia down, whispering something inaudible to the Pharaoh in her ear as he did. Seto stood up and left silently, visibly shaken.
"Yami-san, I'm leaving Kaya to your care. Please take care of her," Seto said, his voice trained with grief.
"I will, but come back-- she'll want her father's love," Yami said Seto didn't respond but just left.
Yami turned back to Caleia's lifeless body and let the tears come.
*end flashback*
Yami had his eyes closed, trying to control the tears rolling down his cheeks. He swallowed the lump in his throat, wiped away the tears with his hand, and took a deep breath.
"You can't protect her forever, Pharaoh," a gentle voice said from the doorway. Yami swung around to see Isis. "She's grown into her own now. You cannot govern her life, even if it means letting her go into danger. This is her own choice to make."
"That's what I've been trying to tell myself, but how can I knowingly let her go into danger? She is still my daughter," Yami said.
"You have to trust her to know what she's doing. To her, this is an acceptable danger."
"To me it's not!" Yami exclaimed. Isis sighed.
"You must learn to let go of her a little. Let her grow up in your mind, where you still treat her as a child." This time Yami sighed.
"I still don't approve of her decision--- "
"But…" Isis hinted.
"But I won't try to stop her."
"And…"
"And I'll help her."
"So…"
"So--what the fuck Isis, stop starting my sentences!" Yami exclaimed. Isis laughed.
"You're the one who is completing them," Isis retorted matter-of-factly. Yami was without retort. They both laughed, diffusing the situation somewhat. "I'll leave you to change and get ready to leave," Isis said, eyeing Yami in his black silk pajamas.
"No, stay, stay and watch me," Yami teased. Isis blushed and left without a word. Yami chuckled and closed the door behind her.
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YAMI WITH A FLOWER IN HIS HAIR!!!!! I'm sorry, that was me on a sugar high. Hopefully by brain will function and I will write me soon. I am soooo sooo sooooo sooooo soooo sooo sooo sooo sooo (x99999999999) sorry I left you all hanging. I haven't updated for what? More than a month? I was going to kill myself soon.
Please please please please please review, it's my medicine to treat my writer's block!!!!! I NEED MY MEDICINE
Have a nice day
Muses: *sweatdrop*
PLEASE REVIEW!!!!! I luv all you who have. *hugs reviewers*
and pleeeeeeeeeease pleeeeease go read my other fic, Guardians of the Shadow Realm and review that!
~Kirsta~
