Author's Notes: I'm alive! Really! All summer I was chasing after kids and horses, and now I'm over in Japan with only limited computer access (unless they decide to fix the network some day!). So I haven't had much time to write, but I'll get back to it! Really! Also, lots has been going on with Ankh and Scale over the past few months. You'd hardly recognize Scale. So we all have to get back into this mindset a bit. But anyway, here's the LONG-awaited sixth chapter! I hope you enjoy it! I think it's probably a little rushed, but interesting all the same.
Oh, and if the mention and appearance of Egyptian gods offends you, you may want to skim over the part with the Scales.
Shadi: Indigo has not obtained Yu-Gi-Oh yet, though she may plan an excursion to hold Kazuki Takahashi hostage…
-
Millennial Inheritance
-
After the "transportation spell incident," Shadi's father took a month or two just getting Shadi to practice things he had already learned. It included a lot of gathering and focusing and gathering power in varied amounts, and meditation exercises. In short, Shadi had plenty of time to get bored. His ninth birthday came and went rather uneventfully. His father promised that his next birthday would mark his initiation into the ranks of the Millennium Guardians, a thought which sounded exciting to Shadi.
Shedsunefertum made the occasional attempt to thwart the Ishtar clan, but for the moment it was nothing drastic. He had plans forming and reshaping constantly in his head, though. He was also doing his best to teach Shadi all he could as fast as he could while still allowing the boy to keep up. He was searching for an opportunity to teach the Ankh and Scales' main uses, but so far an opportunity hadn't presented itself. And he had to take time out of every day to put the Items in their place. If he didn't scream his voice raw at them, at least mentally, they might start getting ideas… He was trying to teach his son the right way to deal with them, but they boy seemed rather slow in that area. He wasn't forceful enough. Shedsunefertum knew he confused Shadi with his alternate claims that the Items lacked minds and that they had minds to be beaten down, but he figured that his son would decide which one to believe when the time came. It didn't really matter either way… It had been done both ways over the years.
Shedsunefertum and Shadi were walking out to check on the Valley of the Kings one evening when a chance for Shadi to try using both Items appeared. The two saw a black-clad figure darting among the rocks and rubble near some unmarked tombs, and quickened their pace to see what the person was doing. They ran ahead to a rock overhand, and Shedsunefertum leapt down to grab the intruder as he passed. Shadi quickly slid down the side of the boulder to stand behind his father and watch.
"What do you think you're doing?" the elder guardian growled.
"I… That's none of your business!" the other man, who sounded younger, answered quickly.
Shedsunefertum was in no mood for extensive questioning, so he slammed the man into the rock with one hand and drew the Scales out from his belt with the other. "Tell me, or you won't live to regret it!"
The thief, if that's what he was, looked both frightened by the threat and confused by this odd choice of weapon. "What's that going to do?" he asked contemptuously.
Shedsunefertum stepped back and lifted the Scales up in front of him, but then thought better of it and looked back at Shadi.
"Time for another lesson," he said, and deftly struck the man on the head with the base of the Scales, making him groan and crumple to the ground.
Shadi was dumbstruck. "What… Why…" His father handed him the Scales as an answer.
"You don't want him running off while you're trying to judge his soul." Shadi nodded hesitantly, so he continued. "Just hold up the Scales and call up his soul. You usually ask an appropriate question and he'll give an answer, but you don't have to. And the Item does the rest. It'll take some of your energy, though. If it tries to resist, his it. And when he's guilty, Ammit or Anubis is usually summoned to take him away and devour him. I hear it's been Ma'at, Thoth, or even Osiris himself sometimes, though."
"What if he is innocent?" Shadi asked, looking at the unconscious man.
Shedsunefertum frowned. "It's obvious that he's a thief. If the Scales say he's innocent, they must be defective."
"All right…" Shadi said hesitantly. The Scales tingled expectantly in his hands as he held them up slowly. He looked uncertainly at his father. "How… do I call his soul out?"
"Draw on the Scales' power, and push it at him a little," his father said. "That'll suck it right out."
Shadi nodded nervously and turned back to the man. Reaching for the Scales' power, he gathered up a bit of it and carefully pushed it out towards the man. He didn't think it had worked, but after a moment a small cloud of off-white mist formed, drifting towards the Scales. A pure white feather suddenly materialized in one balance as the fog came to rest in the other. Shadi felt a pulling on his mind and blinked to clear his head. In the blue sphere atop the Scales he saw the monster Ammit growling. Then he saw the jackal-headed god Anubis turn his head to look at him. Next was the ibis-headed Thoth, who glanced at Shadi and wrote something down on his long scroll. Osiris, a man with skin so black that it shone green, glanced at him next. Finally, the goddess Ma'at with her red ostrich-feather crown smiled mysteriously and raised a hand as if passing something to him.
Shadi blinked again and shook his head as he saw the Scales glowing slightly in his hands. They seemed more subdued than usual. And their balance was exactly even. The cloud of mist dissipated, and the feather vanished. Shadi smiled slightly. He felt a little drained, but more at peace with the Scales than he ever had before.
His father, however, was not so pleased. He plucked the Scales from Shadi's hands and banged them casually into the rock. "Stupid things don't work too well, do they?"
"I… think they were right," Shadi said quietly, looking at the golden Item. "And… I saw the gods!"
"Yeah, everybody sees the gods the first time they use the Scales. That's nothing, they just like to keep an eye on who's using their powers," Shedsunefertum said dismissively. "But you're wrong. Here, I'll show you." He dropped the Scales to the ground, where they lay shaking in the dust, and took the Ankh from around his neck. He frowned and sharply told it he'd shove it up Ishtar's ass if it even thought about talking back again, and turned back to Shadi.
"You can use the Ankh to go into peoples' minds, you know that. All you do is hold it up to their head like this," he said, pointing the Ankh at the unconscious man's temple, "and turn it ninety degrees. If you make a quick mental connection, you can take other people with you too. Like this." Shadi felt something like a mental lasso take hold of his mind. Then his father turned the Ankh, and he was pulled into a different realm.
*********************************************************************************************************************************
Shadi and his father stood in a short hallway. Their backs were to a dark passage, and there was another in front of them. And there was a gray door to the left.
"That's called his Soul Room," Shedsunefertum said, pointing to the door. "And in there's his subconscious." He pointed to the passage in front of them. "Most of the time memories are in there, though they can be in the Soul Room too. And that's where you can manipulate the mind. I'll show you how to do that after we see how guilty he is." He walked to the door and beckoned for Shadi to follow him inside.
As they stepped in, Shadi could feel almost tangible emotion. But it was more than just emotion, it was raw personality. It didn't feel bad really, just strong.
Shedsunefertum handed him the Ankh. "Tell me what you feel."
Shadi frowned slightly in concentration. "I don't feel very many bad things… There is no guilt, at least about this. I think he's been staying here, but not taking anything from the tombs. I really do think the Scales were right." He gave his father an almost admonishing look.
The older man frowned. "That may be, but if he's staying here, he's trespassing on the Pharaoh's sacred ground."
Shadi was about to concede the point, but the Ankh grew warmer in his hands and he felt compelled to speak more. "But he's not doing any harm. He isn't taking or damaging anything. Surely we can leave him alone… If he lives among the tombs, he would even drive away intruders. That would help our job of protecting the tombs," Shadi found himself saying in a placating, reasonable voice. It sounded like his own… but he knew he hadn't really said it himself.
"Fine, we'll leave this one," Shedsunefertum growled, taking the Ankh back. "That wasn't a good example to teach you on anyway. We'll find a better one. Let's go." Shadi felt the Ankh on his mind again and was suddenly pulled outside again. Shedsunefertum snatched up the Scales from the ground and walked off. Shadi glanced back at the man, who was beginning to wake up, before he followed. He watched the Ankh in his father's hand warily… He had always thought of it as friendly, but he didn't like being manipulated…
***********************************************************************************************************************************
On their way back to town, they had to stop for Shedsunefertum to scream at both Items again. Finally he turned his glare on Shadi.
"You're not being forceful enough with the Items again! They may go along with you now, but if you don't show them who's boss early, they'll end up controlling YOU! They're parasites in your mind! Never forget that," he said angrily.
"If they are so bad… then why do we keep them?" Shadi asked.
"Because it's our job. And they're useful. Useful tools, nothing more. Don't forget that," his father said.
"I… won't," Shadi answered hesitantly, gazing at the Ankh.
"Good. And I don't want to see any more of your spineless laziness. Bend them to your will!" he commanded, frowning.
"…Yes, Father," Shadi sighed. He didn't see the point, but he really had no choice but to go along with it. Still, he thought it would be far more trouble than it was worth. Although when he thought of the Ankh, he wondered whether just a little force might be helpful.
As they walked back through town, Shedsunefertum looked from side to side as if searching for something. Finally he found a boy a little younger than Shadi playing along in an alley, and used the Ankh to lay a sleeping spell over him. Shadi had been thinking that his father was unusually impatient today, but he decided to keep that to himself.
"Here, I'll connect our minds and then you bring up in," the guardian said, holding the Ankh out so they could both hold it. Shadi nodded and put his hand on it. As he felt their minds connect, he noticed that the Ankh seemed a bit more on edge than usual. He pointed it at the boy's head and turned it ninety degrees, willing himself into the other's mind. For a moment he felt himself dangerously slipping, but then he felt some stronger force, probably his father or even the Ankh itself, correcting him. And then they were inside a mind that looked similar to the last one.
"We won't bother with the Soul Room this time. You're going to change something in his mind. You can change other things too, but the mind's the easiest and most useful," Shedsunefertum said, walking to the unconscious mind. "Any little thing can be changed." Shadi hurried to keep up as his father stepped through the veil of darkness into another room. It was large and full of columns of varying thickness, though none thicker than his head. Most ran from ceiling to floor, though a few stretched from one wall to another. The light was dim, but they could see a door on the wall near the entryway they had come from.
"That door leads to the memory," Shadi's father said, following his line of sight. "It's usually either a series of doors to separate memories or a swirling mass of them flying around. They're not hard to look at, so we won't bother. But these things in here are the strings of the mind. There's one for pretty much everything." He touched one. "This feels like happiness. It's pretty thick. And this one lying along the floor is the Soul String, I think. It crosses with the ones for Mind, Body, and Spirit, and they all work together for the person. Don't mess with those ones unless you have to. Your uncle Ahmed tried to change his hair color once, and all the fingers on his left hand fell off." He shook his head. "But he's just crazy. That's why he wasn't chosen to be the Guardian."
Shadi nodded wordlessly, still looking around. His father handed the Ankh to him.
"So pick one you want to change, or two you want to connect," he said. Shadi wasn't sure about this, but he took the Ankh and began to walk around. He found that he could tell what each mind-string was by touching them. His father followed him a little impatiently, making suggestions.
"Why don't you make him love pink? Or you could make him annoyed by all his friends. You could make him enjoy walking on the edge of cliffs."
Shadi didn't like any of those ideas, but he finally decided to make the boy more afraid of getting hurt than he had been, which wasn't much. His father told him how to use the Ankh to slice off a bit of each mind-string and connect them, but as he was about to do it, he felt himself stopping, though he didn't mean to. It seemed to be caused by the Ankh again, as if the Item was forbidding him from doing this. Thinking of what his father had told him, and resenting being controlled that way, Shadi frowned and sharply pushed back on the Ankh with his mind. The Item seemed surprised, but obeyed him without any resistance. Shadi sliced thin strips off of the fear and pain mind-strings, and twisted them together. Then he pressed the tip of the Ankh to each end to keep them from coming apart. When he was finished, his father quickly showed him how to exit the mind, and he did so. They stood behind a large crate while Shedsunefertum lifted the sleeping spell. The boy sat up slowly, looking around, then shrugged and picked up the rubber ball he had been playing with again, throwing it against the wall. When it bounced back to him though, he stifled a scream and ran away.
"Well, it looks like that was a little too much," the older guardian said. "But good for a first try."
"Shouldn't I go fix it, though?" Shadi asked. He was tired, but he felt bad leaving the other boy like that.
"Nah, he can live with it. It'll be good for him. Come on, that's all for today." Shedsunefertum turned and walked towards home, and Shadi quickly followed.
*********************************************************************************************************************************
Late that night, two voices had their customary meeting in the guardian's mind. One started to speak, but the other cut him off.
\\Ha, what did I tell you? He's no different than the others. Cooperate and he's okay, but as soon as you stop, he has no more of your 'kindness'.\\
//He… was following his father's orders…//
\\Tch, don't tell me you believe that crap.\\
//I don't know. But --//
\\But nothing! Open your eyes! I won't be destroyed by it like you, because I know what to expect. You've blinded yourself to it for millennia, and it'll just get you hurt!\\
//…You'd care?//
\\No! Don't deceive yourself so much. What were you about to say before, weakling?\\
//Oh. Well you saw what happened to that boy tonight. I… think I'm going to go fix it.//
\\WHAT!? What are you thinking, you moron!? You don't WANT to know what the meat-head will do if he finds out! You don't have the nerve to do it!\\
//I know… but I can't just sit here when I could do something. I'm going.//
\\Grr… I won't lift a finger to help you! If he finds out, you're on your own.\\
//I know. Don't worry, I'll handle it myself. I'll see you later.//
The Ankh glowed in the Millennium Item tablet, and a young man dressed in archaic green intermediate healers' robes appeared. He looked around cautiously before creeping outside…
Fifteen minutes later, the other heard an angry mental shout. :You! Where did the weak one in the Ankh go?:
\\Pfft, what are you talking about, loser!?\\
:I don't feel it! Tell me NOW!: The Guardian tried to exert his will over the insolent voice.
\\If you could think for yourself, mold-head, you'd know that you and your mud-brained son wore him out today. Did it ever occur to you, in your abysmal stupidity, that he might just be weak, as usual, and asleep!?\\
There was much growling and matching of wills, but finally the Guardian went back to his own Soul Room after lashing out at the insubordinate spirit.
About twenty minutes afterwards, the pale young man in green returned, nearly tripping over the steps in his hurry. He glowed and became a stream of light that flowed back into the Ankh.
\\Idiot! What took you so long?\\
//I'm sorry, I couldn't find the boy at first. Does… he know?//
\\Tch, the fool thinks you're just asleep.\\
//Thank you… I'll try to make it up to you.//
\\Who said I had anything to do with it? You'd better go back to your own room before he comes back! Or I may get sick of you and kick you out myself!\\
//Well, thank you anyway. I'm sorry you had to deal with him, but I really appreciate it.//
\\Stay out of my head! Get lost, pest!\\
//I will… See you tomorrow!//
\\Yeah, unfortunately.\\
A door closed quietly. The second almost slammed, but its owner thought better of it and shut it more carefully.
-
Endnotes: So, was this up to my usual writing level? Not the most fun chapter, I know, but I think it'll do. What do you think?
Oh, and if the mention and appearance of Egyptian gods offends you, you may want to skim over the part with the Scales.
Shadi: Indigo has not obtained Yu-Gi-Oh yet, though she may plan an excursion to hold Kazuki Takahashi hostage…
-
Millennial Inheritance
-
After the "transportation spell incident," Shadi's father took a month or two just getting Shadi to practice things he had already learned. It included a lot of gathering and focusing and gathering power in varied amounts, and meditation exercises. In short, Shadi had plenty of time to get bored. His ninth birthday came and went rather uneventfully. His father promised that his next birthday would mark his initiation into the ranks of the Millennium Guardians, a thought which sounded exciting to Shadi.
Shedsunefertum made the occasional attempt to thwart the Ishtar clan, but for the moment it was nothing drastic. He had plans forming and reshaping constantly in his head, though. He was also doing his best to teach Shadi all he could as fast as he could while still allowing the boy to keep up. He was searching for an opportunity to teach the Ankh and Scales' main uses, but so far an opportunity hadn't presented itself. And he had to take time out of every day to put the Items in their place. If he didn't scream his voice raw at them, at least mentally, they might start getting ideas… He was trying to teach his son the right way to deal with them, but they boy seemed rather slow in that area. He wasn't forceful enough. Shedsunefertum knew he confused Shadi with his alternate claims that the Items lacked minds and that they had minds to be beaten down, but he figured that his son would decide which one to believe when the time came. It didn't really matter either way… It had been done both ways over the years.
Shedsunefertum and Shadi were walking out to check on the Valley of the Kings one evening when a chance for Shadi to try using both Items appeared. The two saw a black-clad figure darting among the rocks and rubble near some unmarked tombs, and quickened their pace to see what the person was doing. They ran ahead to a rock overhand, and Shedsunefertum leapt down to grab the intruder as he passed. Shadi quickly slid down the side of the boulder to stand behind his father and watch.
"What do you think you're doing?" the elder guardian growled.
"I… That's none of your business!" the other man, who sounded younger, answered quickly.
Shedsunefertum was in no mood for extensive questioning, so he slammed the man into the rock with one hand and drew the Scales out from his belt with the other. "Tell me, or you won't live to regret it!"
The thief, if that's what he was, looked both frightened by the threat and confused by this odd choice of weapon. "What's that going to do?" he asked contemptuously.
Shedsunefertum stepped back and lifted the Scales up in front of him, but then thought better of it and looked back at Shadi.
"Time for another lesson," he said, and deftly struck the man on the head with the base of the Scales, making him groan and crumple to the ground.
Shadi was dumbstruck. "What… Why…" His father handed him the Scales as an answer.
"You don't want him running off while you're trying to judge his soul." Shadi nodded hesitantly, so he continued. "Just hold up the Scales and call up his soul. You usually ask an appropriate question and he'll give an answer, but you don't have to. And the Item does the rest. It'll take some of your energy, though. If it tries to resist, his it. And when he's guilty, Ammit or Anubis is usually summoned to take him away and devour him. I hear it's been Ma'at, Thoth, or even Osiris himself sometimes, though."
"What if he is innocent?" Shadi asked, looking at the unconscious man.
Shedsunefertum frowned. "It's obvious that he's a thief. If the Scales say he's innocent, they must be defective."
"All right…" Shadi said hesitantly. The Scales tingled expectantly in his hands as he held them up slowly. He looked uncertainly at his father. "How… do I call his soul out?"
"Draw on the Scales' power, and push it at him a little," his father said. "That'll suck it right out."
Shadi nodded nervously and turned back to the man. Reaching for the Scales' power, he gathered up a bit of it and carefully pushed it out towards the man. He didn't think it had worked, but after a moment a small cloud of off-white mist formed, drifting towards the Scales. A pure white feather suddenly materialized in one balance as the fog came to rest in the other. Shadi felt a pulling on his mind and blinked to clear his head. In the blue sphere atop the Scales he saw the monster Ammit growling. Then he saw the jackal-headed god Anubis turn his head to look at him. Next was the ibis-headed Thoth, who glanced at Shadi and wrote something down on his long scroll. Osiris, a man with skin so black that it shone green, glanced at him next. Finally, the goddess Ma'at with her red ostrich-feather crown smiled mysteriously and raised a hand as if passing something to him.
Shadi blinked again and shook his head as he saw the Scales glowing slightly in his hands. They seemed more subdued than usual. And their balance was exactly even. The cloud of mist dissipated, and the feather vanished. Shadi smiled slightly. He felt a little drained, but more at peace with the Scales than he ever had before.
His father, however, was not so pleased. He plucked the Scales from Shadi's hands and banged them casually into the rock. "Stupid things don't work too well, do they?"
"I… think they were right," Shadi said quietly, looking at the golden Item. "And… I saw the gods!"
"Yeah, everybody sees the gods the first time they use the Scales. That's nothing, they just like to keep an eye on who's using their powers," Shedsunefertum said dismissively. "But you're wrong. Here, I'll show you." He dropped the Scales to the ground, where they lay shaking in the dust, and took the Ankh from around his neck. He frowned and sharply told it he'd shove it up Ishtar's ass if it even thought about talking back again, and turned back to Shadi.
"You can use the Ankh to go into peoples' minds, you know that. All you do is hold it up to their head like this," he said, pointing the Ankh at the unconscious man's temple, "and turn it ninety degrees. If you make a quick mental connection, you can take other people with you too. Like this." Shadi felt something like a mental lasso take hold of his mind. Then his father turned the Ankh, and he was pulled into a different realm.
*********************************************************************************************************************************
Shadi and his father stood in a short hallway. Their backs were to a dark passage, and there was another in front of them. And there was a gray door to the left.
"That's called his Soul Room," Shedsunefertum said, pointing to the door. "And in there's his subconscious." He pointed to the passage in front of them. "Most of the time memories are in there, though they can be in the Soul Room too. And that's where you can manipulate the mind. I'll show you how to do that after we see how guilty he is." He walked to the door and beckoned for Shadi to follow him inside.
As they stepped in, Shadi could feel almost tangible emotion. But it was more than just emotion, it was raw personality. It didn't feel bad really, just strong.
Shedsunefertum handed him the Ankh. "Tell me what you feel."
Shadi frowned slightly in concentration. "I don't feel very many bad things… There is no guilt, at least about this. I think he's been staying here, but not taking anything from the tombs. I really do think the Scales were right." He gave his father an almost admonishing look.
The older man frowned. "That may be, but if he's staying here, he's trespassing on the Pharaoh's sacred ground."
Shadi was about to concede the point, but the Ankh grew warmer in his hands and he felt compelled to speak more. "But he's not doing any harm. He isn't taking or damaging anything. Surely we can leave him alone… If he lives among the tombs, he would even drive away intruders. That would help our job of protecting the tombs," Shadi found himself saying in a placating, reasonable voice. It sounded like his own… but he knew he hadn't really said it himself.
"Fine, we'll leave this one," Shedsunefertum growled, taking the Ankh back. "That wasn't a good example to teach you on anyway. We'll find a better one. Let's go." Shadi felt the Ankh on his mind again and was suddenly pulled outside again. Shedsunefertum snatched up the Scales from the ground and walked off. Shadi glanced back at the man, who was beginning to wake up, before he followed. He watched the Ankh in his father's hand warily… He had always thought of it as friendly, but he didn't like being manipulated…
***********************************************************************************************************************************
On their way back to town, they had to stop for Shedsunefertum to scream at both Items again. Finally he turned his glare on Shadi.
"You're not being forceful enough with the Items again! They may go along with you now, but if you don't show them who's boss early, they'll end up controlling YOU! They're parasites in your mind! Never forget that," he said angrily.
"If they are so bad… then why do we keep them?" Shadi asked.
"Because it's our job. And they're useful. Useful tools, nothing more. Don't forget that," his father said.
"I… won't," Shadi answered hesitantly, gazing at the Ankh.
"Good. And I don't want to see any more of your spineless laziness. Bend them to your will!" he commanded, frowning.
"…Yes, Father," Shadi sighed. He didn't see the point, but he really had no choice but to go along with it. Still, he thought it would be far more trouble than it was worth. Although when he thought of the Ankh, he wondered whether just a little force might be helpful.
As they walked back through town, Shedsunefertum looked from side to side as if searching for something. Finally he found a boy a little younger than Shadi playing along in an alley, and used the Ankh to lay a sleeping spell over him. Shadi had been thinking that his father was unusually impatient today, but he decided to keep that to himself.
"Here, I'll connect our minds and then you bring up in," the guardian said, holding the Ankh out so they could both hold it. Shadi nodded and put his hand on it. As he felt their minds connect, he noticed that the Ankh seemed a bit more on edge than usual. He pointed it at the boy's head and turned it ninety degrees, willing himself into the other's mind. For a moment he felt himself dangerously slipping, but then he felt some stronger force, probably his father or even the Ankh itself, correcting him. And then they were inside a mind that looked similar to the last one.
"We won't bother with the Soul Room this time. You're going to change something in his mind. You can change other things too, but the mind's the easiest and most useful," Shedsunefertum said, walking to the unconscious mind. "Any little thing can be changed." Shadi hurried to keep up as his father stepped through the veil of darkness into another room. It was large and full of columns of varying thickness, though none thicker than his head. Most ran from ceiling to floor, though a few stretched from one wall to another. The light was dim, but they could see a door on the wall near the entryway they had come from.
"That door leads to the memory," Shadi's father said, following his line of sight. "It's usually either a series of doors to separate memories or a swirling mass of them flying around. They're not hard to look at, so we won't bother. But these things in here are the strings of the mind. There's one for pretty much everything." He touched one. "This feels like happiness. It's pretty thick. And this one lying along the floor is the Soul String, I think. It crosses with the ones for Mind, Body, and Spirit, and they all work together for the person. Don't mess with those ones unless you have to. Your uncle Ahmed tried to change his hair color once, and all the fingers on his left hand fell off." He shook his head. "But he's just crazy. That's why he wasn't chosen to be the Guardian."
Shadi nodded wordlessly, still looking around. His father handed the Ankh to him.
"So pick one you want to change, or two you want to connect," he said. Shadi wasn't sure about this, but he took the Ankh and began to walk around. He found that he could tell what each mind-string was by touching them. His father followed him a little impatiently, making suggestions.
"Why don't you make him love pink? Or you could make him annoyed by all his friends. You could make him enjoy walking on the edge of cliffs."
Shadi didn't like any of those ideas, but he finally decided to make the boy more afraid of getting hurt than he had been, which wasn't much. His father told him how to use the Ankh to slice off a bit of each mind-string and connect them, but as he was about to do it, he felt himself stopping, though he didn't mean to. It seemed to be caused by the Ankh again, as if the Item was forbidding him from doing this. Thinking of what his father had told him, and resenting being controlled that way, Shadi frowned and sharply pushed back on the Ankh with his mind. The Item seemed surprised, but obeyed him without any resistance. Shadi sliced thin strips off of the fear and pain mind-strings, and twisted them together. Then he pressed the tip of the Ankh to each end to keep them from coming apart. When he was finished, his father quickly showed him how to exit the mind, and he did so. They stood behind a large crate while Shedsunefertum lifted the sleeping spell. The boy sat up slowly, looking around, then shrugged and picked up the rubber ball he had been playing with again, throwing it against the wall. When it bounced back to him though, he stifled a scream and ran away.
"Well, it looks like that was a little too much," the older guardian said. "But good for a first try."
"Shouldn't I go fix it, though?" Shadi asked. He was tired, but he felt bad leaving the other boy like that.
"Nah, he can live with it. It'll be good for him. Come on, that's all for today." Shedsunefertum turned and walked towards home, and Shadi quickly followed.
*********************************************************************************************************************************
Late that night, two voices had their customary meeting in the guardian's mind. One started to speak, but the other cut him off.
\\Ha, what did I tell you? He's no different than the others. Cooperate and he's okay, but as soon as you stop, he has no more of your 'kindness'.\\
//He… was following his father's orders…//
\\Tch, don't tell me you believe that crap.\\
//I don't know. But --//
\\But nothing! Open your eyes! I won't be destroyed by it like you, because I know what to expect. You've blinded yourself to it for millennia, and it'll just get you hurt!\\
//…You'd care?//
\\No! Don't deceive yourself so much. What were you about to say before, weakling?\\
//Oh. Well you saw what happened to that boy tonight. I… think I'm going to go fix it.//
\\WHAT!? What are you thinking, you moron!? You don't WANT to know what the meat-head will do if he finds out! You don't have the nerve to do it!\\
//I know… but I can't just sit here when I could do something. I'm going.//
\\Grr… I won't lift a finger to help you! If he finds out, you're on your own.\\
//I know. Don't worry, I'll handle it myself. I'll see you later.//
The Ankh glowed in the Millennium Item tablet, and a young man dressed in archaic green intermediate healers' robes appeared. He looked around cautiously before creeping outside…
Fifteen minutes later, the other heard an angry mental shout. :You! Where did the weak one in the Ankh go?:
\\Pfft, what are you talking about, loser!?\\
:I don't feel it! Tell me NOW!: The Guardian tried to exert his will over the insolent voice.
\\If you could think for yourself, mold-head, you'd know that you and your mud-brained son wore him out today. Did it ever occur to you, in your abysmal stupidity, that he might just be weak, as usual, and asleep!?\\
There was much growling and matching of wills, but finally the Guardian went back to his own Soul Room after lashing out at the insubordinate spirit.
About twenty minutes afterwards, the pale young man in green returned, nearly tripping over the steps in his hurry. He glowed and became a stream of light that flowed back into the Ankh.
\\Idiot! What took you so long?\\
//I'm sorry, I couldn't find the boy at first. Does… he know?//
\\Tch, the fool thinks you're just asleep.\\
//Thank you… I'll try to make it up to you.//
\\Who said I had anything to do with it? You'd better go back to your own room before he comes back! Or I may get sick of you and kick you out myself!\\
//Well, thank you anyway. I'm sorry you had to deal with him, but I really appreciate it.//
\\Stay out of my head! Get lost, pest!\\
//I will… See you tomorrow!//
\\Yeah, unfortunately.\\
A door closed quietly. The second almost slammed, but its owner thought better of it and shut it more carefully.
-
Endnotes: So, was this up to my usual writing level? Not the most fun chapter, I know, but I think it'll do. What do you think?