Jin: *pouts* Och, why've I gotta be here, lassie?
WSJ: *squeals and glomps the wind demon* Because you're so CUTE!!!!
Jin: *sweatdrops and tries to pry her off*
WSJ: ^_^ Reviews everyone!
Disclaimer: WSJ doesn't own YGO in any way, shape, or form. She's simply having a bit of fun torturing them. She doesn't own Jin either, although she wishes she did.
A note on Malik: Some YGO fans tend to believe that Malik doesn't have a past life in Egypt. Obviously his "yami" isn't a yami in the sense that the pharaoh and the thief are yamis. But after all, Jou and Anzu have past lives, but no yamis. So for this story, at least, I'm assuming that Malik does too, along with Otogi and Shizuka and quite a few other characters never mentioned in either the Egypt manga arc or the video games. ^_~ Just go with it.
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The Pharaoh's Curse
Chapter 2 -- For the Birds
"No way, that's too obvious, even for a cartoon!"
~(Polly Ester - Samurai Pizza Cats)
"My life sucks..."
Bakura groaned and buried her head under a pillow, trying to block out the giggling of the maids and servant girls that seemed to come through every twenty seconds or so, no matter what time of night it was. She'd been given a hastily cleared appartment in the royal harem, and a maid had been appointed for her personal use. The maid, Shahara, seemed almost desperate to please. She had long ginger colored hair and pretty blue eyes, and looked about seventeen. Jono-Inu, who'd followed Bakura to her appartments, nearly flipped out when he saw her.
"Stupid mutt...." Bakura muttered, kicking Jono off the foot of her bed for the third time that night. "What is with you?"
Shahara, who as Bakura's personal maid was sleeping on a woven mat on the floor at the end of Bakura's bed, squeaked in surprise as the dog landed on her. Sitting up, she peeked over the edge of the bed at her new lady. "M-mistress? Maybe the puppy is just restless, being in a new home?"
Bakura snorted and rolled over again. "Damnit, I can't get comfortable... I've been sleeping on nice soft sand too long."
Shahara gasped at Bakura's use of language. "M-maybe my lady would l-like to go for a walk to calm h-her nerves?" she whispered, obviously frightened of Bakura but willing to help all the same.
Bakura blinked and sat up. By Ra, that was actually a good idea! All that gold was just sitting out there by the oasis (that is, if one of Bakura's own band hadn't swooped down to grab it yet). She could take a bag and sneak out there now, in the middle of the night... "Thank you Shahara, that sounds good."
"R-really?" Shahara smiled timidly.
"Yes," Bakura said, already out of bed and starting to pull on one of the plainer tunics she'd been provided. Since she'd come to the palace with no possessions of her own, several of the lesser princesses and concubines had been bullied into giving up a few of their dresses and wigs until "Bathsheba" could have her own made for her. "But you need not accompany me."
Shahara scrambled to help her mistress with her clothes. "Are you sure, Lady Sheba?"
Bakura waved her hand impatiently. "Yes, yes. I'll be back very shortly."
Shahara bobbed in a curtsy as Bakura pulled on her sandals. "I'll wait here then, mistress, and start composing a letter to my brother."
This made Bakura pause. A slave that could read and write? Shahara must have seen the look on her face, for the younger girl blushed. "My big brother is Pharaoh's best friend. We're orphans, and Pharaoh graciously allows us to live here at the palace. My brother and I were educated like nobles. He is a very kind man, our Pharaoh."
Bakura sneered and bit back a rude comment, glancing with growing unease at the little mongrel dog in Shahara's arms. Jono must have caught her look, because he whined and snuggled into the maid's arms. "And your brother wouldn't happen to be one of the men Pharaoh sent north today, would he?" Bakura asked, deciding he may as well play along with Yami's little cover story, as stupid as it was.
Shahara nodded. "Oh yes! My brother Jono is leading the expedition!" she said proudly, but then she frowned worridly. "It's so strange though, he didn't even say good-bye to me..." She looked sad, and Jono whined.
Bakura rolled her eyes and patted the maid awkwardly on the shoulder, grabbing a cloth bag from the bottom of one of the clothes chests. "Well, I'm sure he just had a lot on his mind. I'll be back soon, I won't stray past the palace walls." Well that was an obvious lie, but Shahara nodded, and Bakura quickly slipped out of the room before Shahara decided she needed more heart-to-heart. Good gods, she just had to have Jono's little sister as a maid!
Creeping along the halls, Bakura's eye started to twitch as she heard the unmistakeable sounds of two humans doing what humans are meant to do farther along the hall. There were guards posted outside the door, so Bakura deduced (correctly) that Pharaoh was visiting the harem. The lucky lady's maid was sitting outside her mistress's door, mere servents not being permitted inside when the Divine and his lady were having thier fun. Since the guards didn't seem to bother anyone unless they tried to enter the room, Bakura sauntered up to the maid. "Excuse me slave, who is your lady, whom Pharaoh blesses?"
The maid looked up at her, apparently not knowing who this lavendar haired woman was. "The Lady Anzusah, mistress. She is Favorite of Pharaoh."
Bakura's eye twitched again. Yami had a Favorite and yet Simon was still looking to marry him to Bakura? Something smelled fishy here. "Why is she not Great Royal Wife, then?"
The maid's eyes widened, as if she couldn't believe Bakura didn't know. "She is a foreign princess, from far to the east. The priests would never allow her to sit on the Throne of Egypt."
Bakura sighed and twitched again before taking her leave. Great, no way out there...
She shook her head and pushed the matter of marrage out of her mind as she concentrated on sneaking out of the palace unnoticed. An easy task for the King of Thieves, especially now that 'his' body was about 30% lighter and smaller. Still, it never hurt to be cautious. With Diabound on vacation she wouldn't be making any quick escapes through solid walls. Blast that wretched kaa beast! Why he chose now to insist that he deserved a vacation to Hawaii was anyone's guess... No doubt he'd heard about all the deeply tanned young ladies dressed in coconut bikinis. Not that women in Egypt were any less tan or any more modest, mind you. But what intrest would a man-snake twenty feet tall have in scantily clad hula girls?
Bakura shuddered and decided that she didn't want to pursue that thought any further, especially now that she was one of those scantily clad tan girls.
Within a few minutes she was out of the palace complex. Ten minutes more and she'd escaped the city and was well on her way toward the oasis. She figured that the water would no longer be there, as it tended to disappear on a whim, but she was hoping that the gold she'd left earlier would be. It had still been there when she'd chased Seto back to the spring, anyway.
Sure enough, under the light of the full moon she could see the gold glinting as she approached. But there was also something else. Someone else.
Instantly she dropped into a crouch, slinking across the sand in silence, with a grace that cats everywhere would envy. As she approached, she resisted the urge to groan. She knew who it was kneeling next to her gold, digging through it with his grubby hands and exclaiming over it in muffled shouts. He was being sloppy, too. Bakura got within ten feet of him before he froze, realizing she was there. Of course, by then it was far too late.
She lept, grabbing the man by the collar and tackling him into the sand, so that she was sitting on his chest and pinning him down. Even in her decreased stature, this was an easy task. He'd never been a tall man by anyone's measure, and was skinny as all hell. He thrashed underneath her, then finally quieted, panting as he stared up in obvious fear at the tiny woman sitting on him. "Oh please, gods! I ain't never done anything to you! Don't hurt me!"
"Malik you blistering fool!" Bakura whispered harshly, slapping one hand over her second-in-command's mouth. "Someone will hear you! Now just shut up! What do you think you're doing, digging your filthy hands through my gold?"
Malik's lavendar eyes were wide in surprise and confusion. The manner of speech was right, and so was the scowl and the scars, and the reddish eyes. But everything else failed to compute. There was the breasts, for one thing. Or rather, two.
Bakura saw the way he was looking at her hungrily and her scowl deepened. She slapped him sharply, still sitting on his chest. "Stop that! It's me you thousand-year-old camel turd [1], stop looking at me like I'm beef!"
Malik blinked, his eyes widening further. "B-bakura?! What happend?!!?"
"I had an accident." Bakura grunted, climbing off of her friend, such as he was, and offering him a hand up. "Look, things should be all right, but I'm stuck for six months! I can't go back looking like this, my whole band will be on top of me in two seconds. I need you to hold things down for me until all this wears off."
"And where will you be?" Malik asked, peering at her suspiciously in the moonlight.
"None of your business!" Bakura hissed. "Just make sure none of the others get into too much trouble without me, you hear?"
"You mean, be King of Thieves for you?" Malik asked, puffing out his chest in pride.
"No." Bakura groaned, massaging her temples. Why had she never noticed how irritating he was before? "That's my job. Just be the leader for awhile."
Malik deflated slightly, disappointed. "Aww, all right. I just figured, you know, since you're a skank [2] now and all-" The blond suddenly found himself lifted off his feet as Bakura grabbed him by the collar again. Her strength really was incredible, he noted distantly, for someone that size.
"Listen here, you sun-baked bleach head, I may be temporarily female, but I'm. No. SKANK!!!" She threw him backward, and it wasn't until she heard the splash that she groaned aloud in realization.
She really was an idiot.
Just as Bakura'd hoped, Shahara was sound asleep with Jono-Inu curled up beside her when she came back in with a bag of loot over one shouler. As quietly as she could Bakura stashed the jingling bag in a trunk next to her bed and tossed several dresses in on top. Hopefully as a soon-to-be royal lady she had diplomatic immunity from having her chests searched.
"RAWK! Gold in chest, gold in chest!"
Bakura spun around and grabbed the brightly colored parrot straight out of the air, pulling him down so that she was nose to beak with him. "Shut up Malik, or I'll pull out your Ra-forsaken tail feathers one by one!"
The parrot looked miffed, insomuch as a parrot can look miffed, but he did fall silent. As soon as Bakura let go of him, he fluttered over to perch on the wooden headrest that Egyptians used in place of pillows and busily began preening himself. Bakura rolled her eyes and went back to 'packing her trunk'. As a parrot, Malik's predominant color was a sort of sandy gold, the same color his hair was as a human, though he had feathers of lavandar and light blue arranged in bands across his wings.
Once Bakura was sure that no one would be finding her gold any time soon, she picked up the smaller thing she'd dropped by the door as she came in and made her way down the halls, leaving Malik behind in her chambers. Aha! She was in luck. Pharaoh never stayed with his women the entire night, it was considered unhealthy and unethical [3]. It seemed Yami had just finished with Princess Anzusah. The guards were ahead of him as they walked away, and all three had their backs to Bakura. Slowly, with a stealth accumulated from years and years of thievery, Bakura crept up behind Yami and slid a hand around the Pharaoh's mouth, dragging the startled monarch toward an abandonned room that Bakura had found earlier. The Pharaoh kicked and fought, but he was no match for Bakura.
Once they were in the room, Bakura let Yami go, grinning evilly. "You can scream if you like," she said, observing Yami taking a deep breath. "But don't you think I could kill you easily before anyone ever got here?"
Yami's eyes widened in fear. "Y-You're-"
"Oh don't worry, I have no intention of killing you." Bakura spat. "Although it's against my better judgement. No, I'm going to place a curse on you, Pharaoh. Why should I be the one to suffer? Why shouldn't you, when your high priest and you captain are eating the dust off the ground? Shouldn't you be with them, Pharaoh?" She grinned in sheer delight as she watched Yami try to back away, only to find he had no where to go. Slowly the thief girl pulled out from behind her the waterskin that Malik had been carrying. The one that was now full with not-so-innocent water. She uncorked it, watching the horror grow on the ruler's face. "Catch, oh Mighty One."
She tossed the water skin, and Yami could only fumble with it futily as it splashed all over him. He let out one last human shriek as the cursed water began to trasform him. His neck and nose lengthened, and he sprouted feathers and wings. Bakura wasn't exactly sure what the Pharaoh had just been turned into, except that it was most definately a bird.
The overall effect was very.... pink.
Slowly, Bakura began to shake in laughter as Yami gave him his best birdie glare. The Crown of Egypt, which had fallen from Yami's head as the transformation began, was laying on the floor. Bakura stooped down to pick it up and, still laughing, placed it on her head.
[1] - *giggles* Coming up with creative insults is fun. :D
[2] skank - my knowledge of street Egyptian is severely limited, so I'm forced to fall back on modern words that sound sorta Egyptiony. -_-;
[3] - That's true. Pharaoh would only stay in a lady's chambers long enough to do his business. Afterward he would return to his own rooms for the rest of the night.
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WSJ: Mwahahaha! And so the reign of Queen Bakura begins! XD Don't worry, I'm not turning this into some dark angst story. It's staying exclusively humor. Mostly.
Jin: 0o; Och, am I glad that this tain't a Yu Yu Hakusho story! Who knows what I'd be turned inta!
WSJ: *slow grin* We could try and find out...
Jin: Meep! *runs off back toward "Like a Thief" were he belongs, as WSJ giggles*
Reviews please!
God bless minna-san!