It began with music. The elemental curiosity for the beautiful sound brought the people to her. Then it was her dance, smooth and slow. The sunlight made her royal purple shift with light blue edges made all her movements magical and ethereal.
Tanith danced with her heart and soul out where everyone could see. The music that mysteriously played too came from the inner depths of Tanith. The sweet sound of the lyre, pipe and drum hovered above the crowd. Not one person looked up and spied the floating instruments or noticed when Bakura emptied them of their pouches of gold.
When she finally ended her song and dance, the crowd slowly disappeared, never the wiser of the two grinning thieves they left behind.
"Not bad for a first time." Bakura told his partner as he tossed up the pouches of gold up in the air then caught them smoothly. "Next time we try my plan and simply cut a few throats."
Tanith scrunched up her nose, "Bringing death was never my thing."
"Besides," she added with a smile. "Didn't my way do just as well as yours might have?"
He snorted, "My way at least there was no danger of being caught. Dead men can't kill you."
"You're too bloody of a person, Bakura." Tanith said dropping the instruments that still floated in the air. "One day that blood thirstiness is going to get you killed."
Again he snorted, "Not hardly."
"So now what do we do, my friend?" Tanith asked a moment later as they walked the streets. "We've pilfered enough gold to keep both of us fed well."
"Ha! You're not getting one coin from me, Tanith." Bakura replied. "This gold is all mine."
"Of course. I don't have any need for it."
Again Bakura snorted and a moment of silence passed between them as they strolled the streets.
"Why don't we store our gold and then do things the old way." Tanith said suddenly.
He grinned, "Find a nice tomb…"
"Rob it blind." Tanith giggled, "I remember the old ways."
"Let's see how good the princess is at the old ways…no magic."
Tanith smirked, "Sure no magic, just talent."
High Regent Simbel lived to be forty years of age before falling victim to excesses. He was found in the bed of another man's wife with a dagger in his heart and showed signs of drinking poisoned wine the woman served before finding that method too slow for such a great man.
His tomb was a quiet testing ground for the newly discovered partner in crime and stood unguarded despite being a new tomb.
"Where are the guards?" Tanith asked as they silently crept toward the entranceway. They stuck to the shadows and stopped at the mouth of the tomb.
"Sleeping." Bakura replied. "I took the liberty of gifting such naïve guards with a skin of drugged wine earlier this morning. Wasn't that nice of me."
"Exceptionally!" Tanith exclaimed with a quiet giggle. "So what should I expect when I go in?"
"Everything." He replied. "You go in first and I'll follow a little behind so you can disable the traps first."
"Gee, how nice of you."
He shoved her inside and waited to follow.
Torches illuminated the dank sandy hallways as Tanith slowly walked. Writing on the walls depicted a fat man in various states of his life. As a child he played. As a man he gathered a harem of wives. Then as in death he did in life.
Tanith passed a chamber filled with the bodies of Simbel's wives. The stench from the room was akin to something dying a dried death as the sickly sweet smell of stick incense. She gagged as she passed allowing her to trip a thinly strung wire.
Suddenly the floor dropped out from under Tanith and she fell down toward a pit full of vipers. She would have screamed if not a firm hand grasped her wrist. In seconds, she found looking down into what might be her death.
"Hmm, now this is interesting." He purred. "I have you at my mercy. If I let go, you die and I can navigate on my own. Or I can pull you up and have to worry about you springing traps every second. What a dilemma."
"Betrayer!"
"Remember Tanith, there is no honor among thieves."
"You drop me and you'll find yourself down there as well." She swore. Bakura sighed and jerked her safely into his arms.
"Think quick and move quicker." He told her. "I'd have noticed that trip wire even before I passed the door. You must do the same, dummy."
Tanith scowled and sent him sailing over the pit in a heap then floated gracefully over it herself a moment later.
"Come, there is robbing we must do." She told him pulling him up to his feet. He scowled.
Together they bypassed the many traps set aside for just such two individuals as Tanith and Bakura. When they finally reached the treasure room they whooped for joy but carefully examined it for traps.
"See that trip wire?" he asked her as they both knelt on the ground in front of the chamber. "It leads up to a sand trap, a normal type of trap the builders set up. It shuts the room then fills it with sand."
"What happens if we cut it?"
"Same thing that would occur if you tripped it."
Tanith winced, "Not a honorable death for the two best tomb robbers in the world."
Bakura smirked, "For the prince of bandits you mean."
"What don't you call yourself the King of Bandits or the bandit King and just get it over with." Tanith asked as they rose to their feet. "If you're going to be full of yourself it's best to go all the way."
Bakura snorted and stepped into the treasure room, carefully avoiding the wire. Tanith followed a short time later.
Inside, torches illuminated the gold statuettes of favored gods, gleaming jewels and the beautiful painted walls. It was a hoard that would feed both of the two robbers for months and still afford them to squander on lavish surroundings.
"Check out this two headed lion sculpture. It has rubies for eyes." Bakura exclaimed. Tanith walked over and looked at his prize.
"Aker, protector of Ra in His overnight travels." She murmured she looked up at him and grinned, "I'd give it, two bolts of silk?"
Her partner grinned and picked up another sculpture this one with topazes for eyes. It had a crocodile's snout and head, feline claws and front, and a hippopotamus body
"Who's this?"
"Am-mit, the death swollower. It is said that if your heart is heavier than that of Ma'at's feather, Am-mit will gobble it up and thus ending everything that you were."
Bakura threw the statue to the ground, shattering it and pocketed the topazes. He found another much prettier figure, one with a male's body and a jackal's head then showed it to Tanith.
"He is Yinepu, guardian of the tomb and caretaker of the dead. His duties are to lead the dead to the Hall of Double Truth to get his heart weighed."
"Not much of a tomb guardian if we can rob it."
"Maybe." She replied with a smirk. "Maybe Yinepu didn't particularly care for the one buried here and that is why we are allowed here."
"I doubt the gods' power." Bakura told her. "If they can allow the pharaoh to destroy our village then they are not so high and mighty as they appear."
Tanith didn't try to correct him and stayed silent.
Bakura didn't want to show Tanith where he kept his stolen goods and they parted ways. She walked only a short way before she spotted an apparently deserted horse and happily rode it past the owner who was bathing in a nearby lake.
The wind raced through her long free hair. The sun beat upon her flesh, soon a cooling sweat beaded down her face. Sand and ground sped behind her, strong horseflesh was beneath her. For once, Tanith was simply free. No thoughts of master, his secrets, her past, her strange red hair. Just her and speed.
She sped through the village and breezed or snuck past everyone in her path toward her room. Inside her master waited tapping his foot impatiently. Tanith lowered her gaze and shut the door behind her.
"I hear strange things, Tanith." He told her calmly pacing in front of her. "That a thief was blessed with the power of flight and that things--- like a barrel---began floating as if by magic. Does this sound familiar apprentice?"
She winced and thought, I should not have shown off so much!
"I see by your face this sounds very familiar. Do you know why there are no red haired children in our great empire of Egypt?"
"No master. Why?"
"Because red haired children are given to the altars of the gods as burnt offerings. Do you understand?" he replied firmly.
Tanith paled and bowed, "Yes master."
"The gods allowed you to be spared from the fire and destruction of Kuruelna, I doubt they will save you again." Her master told her stopping before her then reached out and tilted her chin up. His harsh expression softened as he gazed at the beautiful blue eyes lowered before him.
"You are a beautiful child. So very beautiful."
Tanith looked up at him, noticing for the first time just how close her master was getting. How he appeared to be bending down to kiss her.
"A asp is beautiful too. But it will still bite." She replied her eyes spitting blue fire.
He scowled and stood to his full height, "But not before you can chop it's pretty head off."
"Who do you think is faster, Master? You or the asp?" Tanith replied quietly.
Her master spun around and left, slamming the door behind him. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Just what I need to end a lovely day. First getting caught dropping that wine skin on Seto now his dad thinks I'm cute. Perfect. She fumed as various objects around her began to rattle in place.
Out from under her bed a runt gray calico kitten climbed out and peered up at her mistress with wide gray eyes. Tanith sat beside the feline and sighed.
"What am I going to do Conniption? Master is starting to like me as in take me as his freaking concubine like. I love Master but not that way!"
The kitten purred and rubbed her small face against her friend. Tanith absently petted the cat.
"Do you think your goddess Bast could help me out a bit? Change me into one of her beloved cats and let me hide until Master gets over me."
The cat looked at her funny.
She sighed, "I didn't think Bast would either. So what can I do?"
The cat ran over to the balcony and looked out as if the answer were apparent.
"I can't leave Master, Conniption. He gives us so much. He gave us life, it is at his mercy that we exist."
The feline eyes turn into slits and gazed at Tanith with annoyance.
"You don't mean…Bakura? Do you think he'll help us?"
"Mew"
Tanith smiled as she rose to her feet and padded over to the small kitten. She gazed out upon the busy town and laid her head down on the sandstone rail. She breathed in the fresh air blowing into her room, sending the thin silk curtains behind her. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. Behind her, objects settled and quieted. Peace settled into her.
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I couldn't help it, I had to add my cat Nippy!! I had to she was just perfect for the role.
