Ok, chapter 2 comin' at ya...Enjoy!
Toria and Kaiba strolled down the carnival midway, hands clasped, alternately sharing a mocha ice cream cone. Kaiba gave her a long look while she admired the horses in the nearby arena. She watched the dark Arabian horse, her eyes flickering gentle purple hearth fire, and mentally wondered what it was that seemed so familiar about him. They had been dating nearly a month, ever since that amazing night in his library. He gave a slight smirk, remembering the intense emotions he had felt that night...and Toria's butt. But however long they had been dating, she still reminded him of something he had not seen in many long years...She had said she had been in the orphanage system at the same time, but that couldn't be it...She had been in San Francisco while he was in Tokyo. He just couldn't put his finger on it.
His thoughts were interrupted as he saw she had vanished from his side. He looked wildly around. Kidnapped friends, family, and loved ones were nothing new to him. He breathed a sigh of relief as he looked up and saw her waving to him from the seat of a dark golden thoroughbred.
"Want to come for a ride, Seto?" called Toria, winking at him flirtatiously. It suddenly struck him that the scene was different, that the carnival hay was replaced by blazing yellow ochre sand, the sun burned a fiery red, and Toria was draped in the beautiful, shifting light of transparent silks, gently tinkling with beads and bells. He blinked, clearing his vision, and saw the norm again, free of ancient silks and long- ago places. He shook his head quickly, to rid himself of any more strange visions. They came and went, more and more, especially since he had met Toria. He saw the screen flicker, and then righted itself, as he watched Toria trot around the ring.
"No, I don't ride."
"You're coming," ordered Toria in her extraordinary way of forcing him into things he would never ordinarily do. She slid off the horse, in an attempt to drag him bodily to a horse. But in the next second he had flung his arms around her and pulled her in close to him, kissing her with a sudden furious energy. Surprised, Toria pushed herself away from him gently, looking up into his dark eyes filled with longing and pain, her hands braced against his firm chest. Sensing he needed her, she responded by stroking his hair and kissing him softly, letting him cradle her against him.
It was true that she was so tiny and fragile, but in her Kaiba found a pinnacle of strength, sturdy and firm, and for some reason found himself almost shouting with relief that her skin was not stone and her eyes were alive with warmth. He held her form to him tightly, a hidden voice begging him to never let her go.
A brightly colored sateen tent was perched by the midway; flashy even compared to the circling Saggi the Dark Clown imitations. Golden tassels adorned the fabric doorway, and the cardboard sign was a badly painted picture of a drag queen staring cross-eyed into a crystal ball. Naturally, it caught Toria's attention.
"Let's go," insisted Toria, and Kaiba, knowing it was pointless to argue the idea or the fact that he was utterly whipped by a 5 foot seventeen year old girl, let himself be led, as obediently as an exhausted racehorse stallion, into the tent.
The stifling heat of the hot summer's day was magnified in the dark of the tent, mixed with cigarette smoke and the ripe scent of too much incense. A large ottoman was placed in front of a card table. Kaiba sank onto the soft velveteen of it, smiling with a hidden pleasure as he realized Toria was seated on his lap. He was glad of this – not only for the reason any seventeen-year-old boy would be, but also for the fact that her solid shape was comforting. He kept expecting her to melt away.
The large blue and star patterned shape turned and straightened, revealing the drag queen-like woman from the cardboard sandwich sign. A filthy cigarette waggled in her mouth, and her long red false fingernails clacked as she attempted to stroke the crystal ball. The first word to enter Kaiba's mind was: fraud.
The woman-esque man – or, manly woman – took a deep drink out a bottle emblazoned with 'Carnie's Finest Vodka' and looked at the couple past too much eye makeup. The pair struck a distant memory in his or her mind and he or she bent over the globe. In a husky and smoke-damaged voice, the figure croaked a chant:
"'ive 'ousand years, 'our corners of the earth, three diff'rent names, two 'earts, and one love, 'orever separated and 'orever searching. Now joined again, but 'or how long? Remember your own story, yung'uns..."
And with a bright flash of light, Toria and Seto both found themselves back in ancient Egypt, experiencing a memory more like vision.