The Game of Frailty
Chapter Two: Game of Disbelief
Miao: Lookie! I am still here! , And alive!
Miao's Serious Side: -.-; Sadly.
Miao: ;; Ehh—A lot has changed! I have spell checker now! Wooo!
The Serious Side: Not that that helps -.-;
Miao: Eh....Also! Er—I changed my penname It got boring.
The Serious Side: -.-; This one is just as boring
Miao: Ehhhh--- Reviewers! I love you!
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Strega: Serious side: -Rub's head viciously- ow.
Awww, I'm glad you think its original. Bwhaha, my spelling should seem better in here because I finally, after months and months of nagging, made my parents give me Word Perfect. I have spell checker wooop! Though it seems now that everything I write is illuminated which angers me. Good thing I don't have to write this on paper, ne? I am a sucker for those fics too. They make me supa happi! THANKS FOR REVIEWN!
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OkaaaY! If you weren't here now then you will be next chappie, otay?
The Serious Side: -Sings- I will murder all, blood on the wall. And all you'll see, is a bloody sea. La la la die- Genocide. La la la dum- Ocean of blood.
Miao: O0
The Serious Side: What? -.-;
Miao: O0
The Serious Side: -.-; Please review.
The beefy man's heavy but methodical footsteps echoed off the manicured ivory walls. His pace was quick, suggesting his urgency in rushing to his destination. Sweat was surging down his thick face as though he had just sprinted through every twisting corridor of the Pharaoh's grand palace. He gnawed silently on his fat pink lips. Clearly, as his symptoms implied, Serapis was either about to face the cold pharaoh or risk his life. Musing in his mind, he found that both conclusions applied in this situation.
"Ah, Serapis. How good it is to see you this fine evening." A silky voice looming from the shadows conveyed. Serapis shivered involuntarily as the sly voice seemed to slide over his body like a sneaky serpent, constantly searching for the niches in a lie.
"G-Good day Priest Set."
"You have brought with you Selket's knife I presume?" He questioned, remaining hidden in the shadows.
Through his nervous fidgeting and lip chewing, Serapis still managed to dart him a quizzical glance. The aura of the corridor seemed to swiftly convert from a warm greeting to sudden annoyance.
"The knife I sent you by my servant, you imbecile!" he bellowed indignantly, his silky voice conspicuously absent.
"Oh, y-yes." The portly man rummaged through his tweed cloak and retrieved a glimmering dagger that caused the holder to grimace. The blade was long and silver and seemed to collect a glinting red sparkle that glared malevolently up at Serapis. This knife made him more anxious with the delicately carved scorpion created from a ruby gem that was placed where the blade met the handle. Serapis didn't much care for daggers but he could not stand scorpions, and found himself wincing at just the slightest gleam of the florid gem.
"Ah, it's a beauty, is it not? It harbors unique qualities as well as a few charms I've humbly passed unto it." Priest Set informed the round man. "If the dagger itself does not kill its attacker, then Selket's scorpion will be awakened and her poison surely will. Though that's the lineage of the knife itself. Considering these suspicious times we live in and peoples habit for digging their noses in matters that do not concern them, I concluded on adding a few complex hexes myself, including an undetectable healing charm."
Caught off guard, Serapis stared befuddled into the shadows where he presumed a man was standing. "A-A healing charm? I thought we were supposed to- "
"Of course we are you nitwit!" Set said, "I simply placed it on there so when the damage is inflicted and his life has slipped from his pale lips, the broken skin shall mend, but the internal affliction will linger for eternity. Not a soul will know he was stabbed and therefore the blame cannot rest with us. And even if they do deduce such, they will call upon me to investigate and I will inform them otherwise."
Serapis could almost feel Set's smirk blazing unto him like the fiery sun on the neck of a slave. He truly wished he'd never been mixed into this mess. He did detest the Pharaoh, just as much as anyone else, but still that was no reason to –-Well, do what they were planning on doing.
"B-But when do-"
"When he is alone, of course." The priest replied, then adding in a slightly bemused voice. "What did you think you were going to do, run out in front the royal court swinging wildly like some mad man?"
Serapis shrugged feeling the heat rush to his cheeks. He hated being humiliated and the only two people that seemed to ever do this were Priest Set and the cold Pharaoh. Frankly, he couldn't stand either of them, but if he could just get the Pharaoh out of the way then perhaps on a mysterious day Priest Set would follow in suit.
"No, no," Set said lightly. "You have to make sure you are not seen by anyone, not even the lowliest slave. Those grime would tell in a minute if offered gold or their freedom. No, no, he must be alone. Kill no more then him. If there are others dead, then the limitless mouths of those wretched midwives will fly off and only Rah knows who actually believes their mixed up nonsense, but believe me someone will."
His heart sinking horribly into his vast gut, Serapis glanced up into the eyes of the shadows.
"Tonight---?"
"---Will be perfect."
Silence enveloped the hall like the dying orange sunlight. The fat man found his feet shuffling back and forth, nervously tinkering with the loose stone underfoot. A question was begging to surface and before Serapis could stifle it, it tumbled out into the dangerous open.
"Priest? May I ask why exactly you desire to kill the Pharaoh so? I mean—We all dislike the cold hearted bastard but, why have you—"
"Do you really want to know?" He hissed, stepping out from beneath his veil of shadow. Serapis found himself face to face with Priest Set, through he could not study the man any further then his eyes. Those callous pitiless eyes were an icy frigid blue that seemed to bottle a force so strong that it kept Serapis's own beady brown orbs focused on them and them only.
"He simply reminds me to much of my father." He said conversationally then glancing out the window at the golden setting sun. "They'll be a bloody sunrise tomorrow."
Serapis shuddered and fumbled the dagger in his hands.
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"You're my w-what?" The Pharaoh sputtered gaping down at the humble boy.
"I'm your weakness." He replied simply as a tear followed the trail left by its counterparts. "Aren't you happy to see me?"
Yami blinked and countered quite stupidly. "Why would I be—"
"B-But you're s-supposed to loves me." The little one said melting Yami with his all too innocent gaze.
"Wh-Who are—"
The sound of footsteps caused the pharaoh to swallow the rest of his sentence. If caught with this young boy, the wrong impressions may have been made. Only he and other royalties were aloud in this particular section of the mammoth palace. On another day perhaps, Yami would have proceeded on sentencing this child to wander the orange sands until he collapsed in blind hunger, though not today; not after what the Priestess Edjo had said. A very miniscule part of him was beginning to wonder if her babble had been more then just a condemned one's final say. Besides, this boy was so vulnerable and appeared utterly helpless, almost like those fine porcelain dolls the merchants had persuaded him to buy fifteen of, just so he could admire their artificial beauty. Though this boy's beauty was anything but artificial. In a rush of panic, he clutched the small boy's slender wrist and jerked harshly.
"Doesn't matter who you !"
He hauled 'his weakness' into his majestic and very private chambers, where only his personal servants and he had ventured before. The sweet fragrance of the Nile's lilies glided in between the swaying curtains, as did the last rays of the flaxen sun. Yami swung the unknown boy unto the bed and scowled down at him. He seemed to have regained his grand aura of superiority.
"Answer me, truthful now boy," He spat, "I will handle no more of this incompetent jabber. Who are you and what are you doing in this part of my Palace?"
The young one furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at Yami as those he was a raving loony. "I'm your weakness."
"As you said before!" He hissed violently. "I want the truth! Who are you? Who sent you? Where did you come from? Why are you here?"
The pale boy blinked. "Why do you ask so many questions?"
"Just answer them!" He hollered, his booming voice shaking the sturdy stone floors. He was not accustomed to people defying him and he'd never become used to such.
The child cowered and sniffed. "Why are you yelling at me?"
The Pharaoh's sympathy for the frail boy was snuffed out by his dangerous temper. He struck the boy hard across the cheek though he instantly wish he hadn't. His own face burned as though he had just slapped himself. His brow furrowed in confusion, he gawked down at the small boy who's own hand was clasped to his cheek.
"Y-You hits me." Fresh tears began to glide down his swollen cheek and he began to shiver.
Yami's gaze softened considerably as well as that trademark frigid tone. "I-I'm—er—S-Sorry." He said, though through his tone it sounded meaningless, "but could you please stop crying?"
Oh Rah, this boy has me apologizing, the pharaoh thought sorely, but I am truly sorry. It hurt me to after all, which is one of the strangest things I've ever felt.
Yami waited impatiently for the tears and sniffling to stop until questioning him further.
"Now, answer my questions, child."
The small boy seemed befuddled. "What questions?"
Yami sighed. This was going to be harder then he thought.
"Who are you?"
"You're weakness."
"Where did you come from?"
"You're heart."
"Why are you here?"
"To saves you."
The pharaoh growled, slamming his fist unto a shaky bedpost. "Who put you up to this?" He raged, then turning away to think more deeply, he interrogated, "was it one of the midwives? Those scheming wretched witches! I should have their mouths gagged with papyrus! Or was it an outsider, for you do not appear to be from here. Who is your leader? Whom do you call master?"
He whirled around again to find that the boy presented as though he hadn't heard a word the superior pharaoh had said. Instead, his attention lay outside the window on a fluttering pink butterfly that was sailing through the dying sky.
"Are you--!"
"Look Atemu! There's a flying pretty out there!" The young boy leaped to his feet and sprinted to the open window leaving Yami behind quite frozen.
Did he just—Call me...Atemu? No, no I must be mistaken.
"Atemu, Hurry! It's flying away!"
To nervous to be angry, he questioned quite suddenly in a voice much unlike his own, "how did you---?
For the second time that night, the child looked confused. "Isn't it your name?"
"N-No!" He cried a bit to quickly, "I mean—Well, it sort of was but it isn't anymore. I mean—Ho-How did you know this? Not even my highest priests know this."
His cluttered expression lingered. "I've always known it. It's the name you were given when you were born. Did you change it?"
"Of course I did!" The pharaoh declared exasperatedly. "My father,"(He spat the word like it was bile) "had a good friend who worked in the Japanese trades. The moment his eyes met me he thought I was something of the darkness with my crimson eyes. The Japanese word for darkness is 'Yami' and thinking he was hilariously funny, he began to call me this. As I began to speak, I refused to accept anything but it for my name, for the darkness seemed more brilliant then some lineage name. It was also foreign, exotic and free, all of which I desired. So I kept it. And—Why exactly am I telling you this?"
The innocent eyed child barred a grin that exhibited all his teeth. "This is a secret, right?"
"Of course it is you dolt! If you dare tell a soul anything I'll—"
He didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to Yami, who looked fit to burst into flames. Instead, his smile widened.
"I have a secret?" He whispered excitedly, with the tiniest twinkle in his eye.
Yami sighed listlessly, giving in. "Yes, an important secret that if you tell you'll find yourself in more trouble then you're in now."
"Ooh I swear, I won't tell nobody."
The boy contemplated the landscape outside, as if fascinated with the sheer brilliance of the dull sand dunes and boring stone columns. Yami wondered why he hadn't thrown him out already. Was he going to keep this boy to probe him further? Or was he—Softening?
Oh Rah, I sincerely hope not.
"Boy," he hissed, disgusted with the idea that he might be going as soft as a lily petal. "Why don't you leave now?"
"Can't." He chimed, leaning over the balcony railing.
Why did this boy defy him so much? Did he not comprehend who Yami was?
He tried the Pharaoh superiority. "I order you to get out."
"Still can't."
As Yami drew nearer to the boy to haul him out by force, suddenly the child slipped over the stone rail and went hurling toward the orange sand below. Though the pharaoh, with his sharp reflexes born of gaming, grabbed him by the ankle and lifted him to his feet before any damage could be dealt.
"Thank you!" He cried, embracing Yami's chest and nestling his head into the delicate silk. Yami was utterly repulsed though somewhat flattered. His cheeks coloring deeply, he muttered, "get off, get off," and shoved the warm body away thereby ending the fourth hug he'd ever received.
"What's your name anyway?" Yami grunted smothering the wrinkles the boy had created on his robe.
The angelic child gawked at him and the pharaoh remarked silently how sweet the slight curvature of his face was and how magnificently his violet eyes glittered into his, almost as if purifying his own cold stare and reflecting it back to arouse the opposite emotion.
"I don't have one."
The quiet, beautiful moment had ended and Yami was left sighing with agitation.
"How can you not possess a name? Even the scummiest bottom feeders retain an identification."
"But I don'ts."
"It's don't not don'ts and you have to hold a name of some sort."
"But I never gotten' one."
Outraged by his atrocious grammar and lack of name, he blurted out. "Then you must obtain one!"
"Okay," He tilted his head, "how?"
Yami plopped into his chair that had held him securely through the worst of times and the most horrible decision he'd ever had to make. This boy almost made him sympathetic.
"Where are your parents?"
"I don't have any."
Yami blinked and sat up straighter. "You're an orphan?"
The little one shook his head and entrusted the pharaoh with his innocently helpless gaze. Yami recognized this stare for he had once worn it along with a forlorn mask as he stood above his pale, frigid mother who lay in an ocean of twisted sheets and stale sweat. No—He jerked his head—He mustn't think of that. It was in the past and he was in the present with not tool to convert the beforehand.
I live in the present. What good can come from living in the past?
"If you don't have parents, then where exactly did you come from?" He questioned restraining the urge to smile. It was fun chatting to children if only to mess with their already mingled minds.
"I told you, from your heart!"
Yami rolled his eyes and sighed with infuriation. "Are we still on this?"
The boy's eyes widened and the shine in them dulled. "Why don'ts you believe me?"
"Because this is far to unbelievable and sounds more like a child's incoherent blabber." He said, putting his hand to his head.
The child began to pace the room clearly thinking of a way to prove his identity. After a few moments of the idle trail, his eyes lit up. "Look!" He chirped lifting his robe above his knee.
"What?"
"My scars!"
"Your—What?"
The boy pointed at a puffy pink scar that wrapped around his shin like a crude anklet. Yami was aghast. He slid off the golden ornaments that adorned his own shins to reveal the very same scar.
"See?"
How could this boy have the same scar? It's in the same place as mine and even looks the same distance. Wait--
"How do I know you didn't just mutilate yourself like that?" He asked, the sinking feeling in his heart not disappearing with his assumption.
The nameless child blinked. "Why would I do that?"
The pharaoh narrowed his eyes and hissed in a low venomous whisper. "There are many who do not like the way I rule my kingdom. Perhaps you are an assassin here to make me believe what Edjo—"
"No! No! I'm not! I don't want to hurts anyone! Please believe me!" The boy cried pleadingly, crashing to his knobby knees.
Yami towered over the boy. "Get up you moronic brat!" He clutched the back of his ragged collar and brought him to his feet.
From the day he was born, Yami had been bestowed with a wondrous talent. By peering into another's eyes he could discern if they were fibbing or not. It was the slight twitch in the pupil that mostly gave them away or the eyelid that became a bit heavy with the weight of guilt. He had mastered this rare gift over the years and could instantly single a thief from the crowd. There were very few who could deceive him...Perhaps only his father, Priestess Edjo, the obnoxious Priest Set, and of course his own mother who had affirmed to him with two eyes full of pain that she was quite alright and he had foolishly believed it. This boy's pure eyes held no trace of guilt or a sudden lurch of the pupil. He either was a skilled embezzler or declaring the truth. He would discover which with time.
Flopping back into his chair and staring at the child, he examined. "So, you claim you are a game, am I correct?"
The boy's face sparked up with a mysterious lively force and he nodded feverously.
"And you haven't a name of your own?"
He slowly shook his head.
"Then I believe it is in my vast power to bestow you with one." After a few moments of deep pondering the perfect identification arose.
"Yuugi."
The boy provided him with a quizzical stare. "What's that?"
"It means game in Japanese. My father's old friend used to bring me challenging games from the east and that is what he called them. I believe if you claim to be part of a game then it is only fitting."
Eyes laced with joy, he nodded. "I loves games!"
Yami rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Now, please be off with you. I need to sleep."
"But I can'ts."
"You mean can't and why can't you?"
"Because it hurts."
Sighing he picked the boy up by the back of his tattered robe and chunked him outside the threshold. Though a strange pain propelled through his heart and traveled through his very veins boiling his blood.
"Wh-What is this magic?" He questioned in his strained voice, ready to fall to the floor in blind pain.
"It happens when we're apart." The child alleged simply.
Through gasps of pain he some how muttered. "Then—Get—Back—In—Here."
It was a lengthy night from which pharaoh Yami would remember for his short existence. He had tried ruthlessly to make the newly dubbed boy Yuugi to sleep outside in the hall. Through when he had lain back into his warm silk sheets a cold swam through him like ice, freezing his limbs. He had found himself letting the boy back into the room before he knew what was going on. He allowed him two covers and a wheat-filled pillow and Yuugi nestled in right beside Yami's elaborate bed.
"Yuugi?" He called after a long period of silence. He had been enjoying the warmth that engulfed him like The Nile on a particular hot day and had completely forgotten to ask this certain question.
"Yes?"
"Earlier, you said you were here to save me. What is it exactly that I need rescuing from?"
He heard Yuugi shift in his makeshift bed.
"Just yourself."
Miao: Whoooa that took forever. I'm so sowie you guys ; I'm horribly busy. I know you must get that a lot, but eh-I really am. I got so many ideas I want to write and I get all confused. Anyways I understand if a lot of you quit reading.
The Serious Side: I would have -.-;
Miao: I promise to be better! Please review! Oy! And please please please! Do not flame me on a count of Yuugi's really bad grammar...I did it on purpose I swear! I thought it made him cute ; ::Shrug:: Ooh well. But he's really not supposed to be a cute character. He's supposed to seem kind of pathetic and kind of annoying...er...almost. ::runs away from daggers thrown in her general direction::