A/N: My goodness, if you people are still here I praise you! Sorry this took so long, I'm not even going to try to dig up an excuse for myself... Thanks going again to Sirithiliel, Marble Angel, Amy and Darkmetaldragonfangs for the awesome reviews!
Chapter 6: Tver
"Here is my house. You leave shoes at door." The woman said as she opened the door to allow Bakura to enter first.
That he did, looking around with something less polite than curiousity but more civil than disdain. It was a very small house; there was a narrow hallway leading off the entrance with three doors off it two to the left and one on the right and stairs leading up at the end of the hall. The carpets were all thin and old, but they looked like they were in good shape and were a shade of dark red. Pictures lined the walls, one of the Mosque and others of other important looking buildings.
The woman stepped past him and went through the furthest left-hand door, saying to him, "You look around if you like. I make food."
Bakura did not particularly want to look around –the house smelled sort of musty- but he took his shoes off and stood in the entrance until he heard a strange sort of mewling noise coming from the room on the right. This piqued enough of his curiousity that he poked his head inside the door. Then he gasped and nearly ran down the hall to the room the woman was in, which turned out to be a kitchen. Harshly, he accused, "You never said you had a cat!"
The woman turned from a the contents of a pot she was stirring and shrugged, replying, "Not thing that come up in alleyway when you scream at me."
If Bakura had been raised in a more modern environment and had the courtesy to feel such a thing, he would have felt guilty, but as he was an ancient thief, he continued, "Yes but... a cat! Cats are sacred creatures!"
The woman's eyebrow quirked. "Maybe long time ago, but not now. Now Kinfen just kitty."
"Just a kitty?" Bakura looked scandalized; perhaps it had something to do with being in a different country, but he could not bring himself to accept that cats were not still regarded as important, "But... it's a cat..."
"Yes, Kinfen is cat, you go see cat now and I cook?" It sounded as if she was trying not to smile at him but Bakura didn't seem to notice.
"Yes, I'll go see the cat... It shouldn't be alone, someone might try to injure it..." Bakura did not mutter his response to her, but more under his breath to himself as he left the kitchen and went to the cat's side. He did not attempt to touch the cat, nor to speak to it The holiest of deities could be very temperamental but merely sat at the opposite end of the couch to it. Every now and then he'd glance at it sidelong, as if to check if it was still there; Kinfen stayed asleep.
"Food done!" The woman called out about ten minutes later; Kinfen rose and stretched and leapt off the couch onto the floor. Bakura also leapt from the couch to the floor, though he elected to go on two feet instead of four. Both cat and male entered the kitchen at almost the exact same time, though Bakura stayed in the doorway and Kinfen wove his way around the woman's legs. She smiled at the feline and cooed at him in her maiden tongue, then gestured to a bowl of something on the counter, "There, you eat. Is good."
Bakura looked at the red, soup-like substance with white-ish chunks and asked, "What the hell is this?"
"Borscht."
Bakura took a spoonful of it and lifted it to his nose, sniffing it suspiciously. It didn't smell entirely disgusting. He slowly put the spoon in his mouth and tasted it, swallowing after a second and giving her a look of rather grudging admiration, "It's good."
"Borscht good for headaches." She replied simply, tucking into her own bowl. Kinfen meowed loudly from around her ankles; she consented to his request with a small smile and put a third bowl of the tomatoey flavoured soup on the floor for him.
The two humans and single cat ate in silence for a long while before the woman finally said, "What your name?"
Bakura looked up through narrowed eyes, "Why does it matter?"
The woman sighed and continued speaking, "See, I call Kinfen by name, not 'kitty'. You call me Raiza, because is my name. I call you...?"
"Man. Male. Person." Bakura muttered, not entirely willing to give up his name to this woman; no matter how he tried, –which honestly wasn't very much- he couldn't bring himself to trust her.
"Be nice. I feed you and give you place to sleep. You give me your name. Not much."
Bakura sighed; he figured if he didn't tell her something, he'd never hear the end of it; either that, or he'd end up back on the street with nothing but a mortal body and not the least idea of how to communicate. Seeing as he wasn't the most creative of people, he simply said, "Fine. Bakura."
"Bakura? Weird name."
"Raiza isn't so normal itself, bitch." Bakura growled, taking slight offense at the ridicule of his name.
To his surprise, she smiled. "Raiza name in my country. Bakura name in your's. Sorry."
Finding nothing to say, he grunted. Well, at least she cooked a decent meal.
Interlude 6.1 Aswãn
He'd crossed the Nile just beyond the First Cataract, and now stood beside a busy street, people milling in and out and back and forth and jumbled Arabic sailing back and forth above his head and the smells of the city whirling around him. Malik drank it in; such were the things you never thought you'd miss until you left home for an age.
Someone shoved him roughly in the ribs, causing him to crunch backwards against the muddy stone wall of a building. Someone several floors above poked her head out and yelled at him, shaking her fist. He apologized quickly while drawing back in the bustling crowd, losing himself to her eyes.
'That could have turned out badly.' He thought to himself, tucking his elbows in close to him while people jostled him left and right. The dust rose in thick clouds and threatened to choke him. He felt the need to move out of the crowd and just sit back. He'd not experienced this in a while and –though he had missed it- it was definitely something you had to gradually get back into.
He chose a direction and pushed.
Location: Thirteen Degrees South, Forty-Nine Degrees East
Mokuba opened his eyes and sat up, hearing hollers of laughter outside his room. Now, how did that make sense? No one ever laughed in his house... maybe he'd left the television on again...
He rubbed his fist across his eyes, now wondering why Seto hadn't just turned the television off whenever he'd gone to bed.
Oh shoot.
This wasn't his room.
The floor was packed dirt, the walls and roof constructed of some sort of straw-and-mud mixture that sort of looked like primitive clay. Pots and jars or various sizes stood around in the corners, a few smelling of spices but others giving off no scent. He wasn't lying on his own bed; it was actually a mat on the floor with reed-like things lain underneath.
Just as he was standing up and turning around with curious wonder, a young boy poked his head in and looked at him. Mokuba stared. The boy had deep brown, sun-baked skin and wide brown eyes. His hands and feet looked muddy, and he was wearing a simple cloth tunic as a shirt. Ragged, nearly thread-bare shorts complete his outfit.
The boy looked nearly as surprised to see Mokuba up as Mokuba was to see him. He backed out of the room quickly, yelling something in a language Mokuba didn't understand.
About twenty more children came to the door, some older, most younger than the first who'd come, and in all varying states of dress and cleanliness. One little girl came in dressed in nothing at all, but she looked to be no older than two so Mokuba thought nothing of it.
But when a few of the more daring children came forward and started poking him, he began to feel a little uncomfortable. After one nearly touched his face, he whacked the hand away and yelled, "Get back! Don't touch me!"
The children screamed and ran outside the hut, scattering to who knows where. Mokuba sighed and also stepped out, then gasped loudly and nearly fell down.
Stretched before him was wide expanse of what could only be African Savannah. Small bushes and trees reached for the sky with thin, scraggly branches, and in the distance animals could be seen.
The first thing Mokuba thought was: 'How in the world did I get here?'
The second thing he thought was: 'I wonder how my cell phone reception is?'
And without thinking any further than that, he pulled the phone out of his pocket (odd that the people here hadn't touched it) and dialed his home phone number, hoping that his brother would pick it up.