Disclaimers: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, though I have several pieces of merchendise to my name.

Props to Shi-chan, who came up with the second and third forms of remembrancy for this fic.

A/N: It is my understanding that the ancient capitol of Egypt was not Cairo, as it is today near where the Nile splits and flows into the Medditeranian Sea, but it was Thebes, across the nile from modern Luxor in lower central Egypt. Of course, this was after Egypt was united. I don't know wether Egypt was still divided north-and-south or not when Yuugi was pharaoh, so I'm making the assumption that it was united, which will just make things a bit easier for me.

Vocabulary:

heka: Egyptian word for magic

majick: the way Tine recognizes heka

magic: the way Damais recognizes heka

diaha: Egyptian word for "duel start"

Ka: astral double; requires a place to dwell

Ba: the soul, or in YGO the HP

akhet: June 21 to Oct. 21, Nile overflows

peret: Oct. 21 to Feb. 21, Nile recedes

shemu: Feb. 21 to June 21, summer/spring (calendars add 5 days to the beginning of the year)

Brier, Bob, and Hoyt Hobbs. Daily Life of the Ancient
Egyptians. Conneticut: Greenwood P, 1999.

00000

Four days after the Egyptian king's announcement, and four days after she received an amulet infused with majick, Tine was dancing about in the halls of the palace, humming a gleeful tune. She was absolutely giddy, beside herself with joy. There were not words enough to convey just how happy she had been for four days, and how she could just burst now that the day had finally come. Her happiness was at its fullest. If anything else happened in her favor, she would implode, she was sure of it.

While she skipped and frolicked, she was completely unaware of Ankh's coming. The girl watched her for a while, wondering obviously at her curious behavior. By then Tine was aware of her presence, and twirled over to her, taking her hands and spinning wildly with her. Ankh tried desperately to stay on her feet after Tine released her, but she was spared the effort when Tine caught her up and spun her again. When she was released again, and once she had her dizziness under control, Ankh found her voice.

"What in the name of Ra has you so fired up?" she asked.

Continuing to spin a web of her delight with her dance - which was certainly contagious, if the smile tugging at Ankh's lips was any indication - she giggled in a singsong voice, "Well for one, I'm not going to die any time soon!"

Almost laughing at Tine's suddenly brightened outlook on a dreary subject, Ankh inquired further, "And for two?"

Not bothering to hold back her laughter at Ankh's joke, she continued, "For two and three, I've made a friend, and it's my birthday!" In her language, it was an amusing rhyme. It made her laugh more.

"You're nineteen now?"

"No, eighteen!"

Ankh looked utterly bewildered. "But Damais said you were eighteen."

"No-no!" Tine giggled. "I was too close to eighteen to bother correcting his assump-tion," she separated the word, making it lyrical in her language. "He never asked, so I never told! I am eighteen today!"

"That would make you an archer," Ankh mused aloud. Tine stood in one place and looked at her with a curious glee in her eyes, twisting at her waist and swinging her arms around her. She wanted further information. "I remember someone telling me that depending what stars a person is born under, that person has certain personality traits. The archer is one of the peret constellations."

The older girl stilled, looking at her friend with wide eyes. "So you've remembered something?"

Trying to hide a modest blush, Ankh said, "Only just now. I haven't remembered that much." At least, that was what she tried to say. All she got to was "remembered" when Tine caught her up again.

"Happy day, happy day!" she squealed. "Ankh has remembered, Ankh has remembered!" She proceeded to spin her around, and Ankh couldn't help but laugh at her enthusiastic... enthusiasticness.

000

Later that day, as the sun was setting, it was a far less happier scene. While the girls celebrated Tine's good fortune and anniversary of her birth, Damais sat with the king in one of the king's private chambers, discussing ways to deter Atlantian soldiers.

It was the king who thought of putting their defensive lines in waves. It was Damais that suggested that the fifth wave would be larger than the previous four, so as to be sure of Atlantian troop annihilation. The king quickly consented, all too eager to keep Atlantians away from Thebes. He himself, the great Son of Ra, who normally commanded from the front lines of battle, was deeply scalded that he would not be able to uphold the tradition. While he was wont to breaking traditions, not being able to personally lead his people and let them know they had his support was an abberation that defied all common logic. The king led the troops, that was it. Until now.

Damais had pointed out that the king was the only one that could summon the gods. If the Atlantians broke through their fifth wave, they would be defenseless. Damais suggested that the king and his priests defend the city from the palace, keeping guard, and when the time was right, leaving to provide a last stand against the enemy. Although he had a point, the king was not unhesitant about allowing this scandal to take place. Egypt was a place steeped in tradition, and even if her king delighted in breaking a few traditions, no tradition he had ever ignored, broken, or disavowed, even put together, had ever amounted to being even half the severity of this broken tradition.

The king thought Damais was being insensitive when he claimed that Maat would not matter in the ranks of command, but rather would be prominent on the battlefield itself. The king twitched at the unsurreptitious mention of the goddess of divine order. How would a non-Egyptian person possibly know what would soothe the gods? Giving Damais the benefit of the doubt, and most likely making him think that his comment regarding Maat was what persuaded him, the king consented, however reluctantly.

"The Atlantians will send in lines of one-hundred. They will come in more than one line at a time, most likely two from the front and two moving in on the side," Damais announced.

"Then we will compose the defense of five units," returned the king. Damais was well aware that each Egyptian unit of soldiers consisted of one-hundred people.

"Do you have enough people to make these numbers?" Damais asked, looking over a map.

"Of course," the king scoffed. "Do you really think I would suggest using so many and not be able to supply the demand?"

With a shrug, Damais continued studying the map.

000

The battlefield was black, dark clouds looming overhead. At a sound from behind her, she turned around, finding a small number of people, kneeling and obviously troubled. She didn't have to really check anyone to know their enemies were dead. As she approached the living people, she observed that the figure they were kneeling by was sick, injured internally from overusing her magic. Her light blue robes stained with blood, her headdress laying at her side by the valkyrie's helmet. Her long blond hair was matted with sweat and dirt, as if she had been actually fighting as well as providing defensive and healing magic. The valkyrie had removed her dark purple-and-yellow shoulder armor.

With wide, teary green eyes, the pink-haired valkyrie held the blond woman's hand, watching the magician expectantly.

'Am I a magician?'

"Rabiah," the soldier said at her shoulder, his hand touching her arm. He was still fully garbed in his bronze armor, though his spear lay on the ground. His sparkling blue eyes silently pleaded with her. "You can heal her."

Internally, she frowned, though she knew it did not show outwardly for some reason. She didn't know any healing spells. She didn't know how to heal internal injuries.

Yet her body moved of its own will, working through the motions of a spell by reflex, as though she knew the ritual by heart. Her father had performed this ritual, taught it to her. He was the clan healer. Fukanya, the blond woman, the present leader, could not heal herself. She was powerful, yes, but she was also vulnerable, and very precious to them all.

Fukanya stood, though how Rabiah knew her name, she couldn't even guess.

She heard soemthign behind her again. She turned to see a magicain garbed in black and red, holding a battle-ax that was curved like a scythe on one side. The magician cried out for her to return. After a quick glance to her clan to make sure she wasn't imagining things, she turned back to find that a young boy with orangish hair and clothed in a brown tunic and tan breeches had joined her.

Curious, Rabiah took a few steps closer. The boy and magician were joined by three looming figures that she instantly knew were gods. Her clan was shouting for her to return. She stood in the battlefield, halfway between her clan and the other mysterious group.

She was curious about these new people, yet she felt loyal to her clan. She didn't know which side to go to. She owed so much to both sides.

Her hesitation cost her, and she felt something strike her eye. She saw no more.

Ankh sprang up in bed, shaking. She had no idea what was going on. That couldn't have been her own dream.

Suddenly Damais entered her room, his expression stony and unreadable. "You saw it?" he asked. "The battlefield."

"I-" her voice didn't want to make any further sounds. She contemplated lying, but then remembered that he would be able to tell. "I... yes, I did."

"That was not a dream," he delivered harshly, clipping her sentence short. "It was a prophecy. I don't like that you were aware of it."

Aware. It was one of Damais' prophecies? She could be aware of what was going on inside his head? The thought scared her.

"What exactly did you see?" he demanded. He hadn't moved away from the door.

"I saw... creatures," she hesitated, not liking this cold, you-will-tell-me-NOW-or-else Damais. "Almost... almost as if they were... Ka."

Again he started just as the words left her mouth. "Then your mind translated it into something it could understand," he said. "You must have known them." Ankh protested the accusation, but Damais brushed it aside, saying that it mattered not. "You saw what you understood, and I saw what I understood. I saw the actual people, since it was my prophecy." His gaze narrowed. "Now, from this moment on, would you kindly stay out of my head?"

He was gone before Ankh could tell him that she hadn't meant to be in his head.

000

The morning after Damais' uncharacteristic coldness, he acted as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't scared Ankh nearly witless. Two days afterward, Ankh was worried. Since then, she had been doing her best to be unaware of Damais, trying to keep her defenses down so as not to make him angry again. She had started immediately after he left on that morning two days ago, but since then, she had been seeing those Ka in her mind's eye, even during the day.

It was starting to scare her, even more than Damais, knowing that her awareness had sent up a reflexive barrier against these visions that put her in a daze. It just so happened that the most recent vision - of the soldier and the others beckoning to her, pleading silently - occured when Tine was with her.

"Are you alright?" Tine asked once Ankh came back to reality.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she brushed off, though she held her head as it throbbed a few times and died down.

She did not miss the look Tine gave her. It was as if she knew she was lying, she understood why, but still didn't like it. Ankh decided she didn't like Tine's new I-now-you're-hiding-something-from-me-and-I-understand-but-I'm-going-to-badger-the-hell-out-of-you-anyway look. "I may not have Damais' power of knowing when someone's lying," she stared, "but I know you're lying."

"I am not," Ankh said firmly.

"You told me you were fine way too fast," Tine announced smoothly. Her look turned to one of concern at breakneck speeds. "You know you can tell me if something's wrong." Ankh was surprised. Tine sounded hurt.

After a few hearbeats of hesitation, she finally told her, "It's just I - I don't - I can't remember as much as you think I remember. And I've been having these weird... visions, I guess. They only came at night before, when I was sleeping, but now they've... they're coming during the day now, and I don't know what they mean."

There was silence in the space it took for the two girls to enter the gardens, having just eaten their midday meal, courtesy the of the king's catering.

"I am a remembrancer, you know," Tine said finally. "I could look back for you if you want."

"You'd do that for me?" Ankh asked, shocked. Tine smiled and nodded.

"Of course," she chuckled lightly. "We're friends, right?" Ankh nodded, following Tine to her room, where she said she would be able to look back properly.

Once they were there, Tine pulled out a mirror and a small dagger.

"Now," she said, "describe one of these dreams to me."

"Well..." Ankh stammered, uncertain of how to phrase her explanation. "I see the Ka, not the people."

"Doesn't matter," Tine shrugged. "I'll be able to see the people, no problem."

Skeptical though she was, Ankh forged ahead, determined to know what the meaning of these visions were. "It's like they're calling to me now... the Ka, I mean. But before, we were on a battlefield, and I didn't know what I was doing. I was snatched up by something with talons, and this... soldier and a valkyrie were coming after me, trying to save me, I guess." Shifting uncomfortably, she continued. "I did something with my powers, and I was released. I fell toward the soldeir, who was going to catch me, but I woke up before I landed."

Tine had pricked her finger, and was holding the mirror before her, dripping blood onto the surface. "That's all I need," she delivered, her eyes drooping and her voice lowering with each word. "Now I need you to be very... very... quiet."

When the seventh drop of blood landed on the mirror, the blood spread out of its own occord, creating a thin layer of red. That was all Ankh saw. Tine saw the mirror go black. Focusing on the story Ankh had told her, she searched.

The sun rose in the mirror, then it set, then came the rise and fall of the moon, followed by the sun again. Again the moon, the sun, the moon, the sun, and the moon agian, and again and again until they were nothing but a blur. Finally they slowed, Tine having found what she was looking for, or so she hoped.

She saw the same battlefield that Ankh had told her about, though she had gone into no great detail. She walked around, avoiding the fights, though she knew they would pass right through her. She could not affect the past, and everything would carry on as if she was not there, since she wasn't there when it actually happened. She found Ankh, looking well and human, though covered in blood.

Ankh was pressed back-to-back with a boy about Tine's age, with short black hair that formed wild bangs in front of his eyes. Tine heard Ankh call him Gahiji, and she told him to watch out. Just then, a large bird, a monster of some sort, dive-bombed Ankh. She landed quite a distance away, and Gahiji cried out a name.

"Rabiah!" he yelled.

'So,' Tine said to herself. 'Ankh's real name is Rabiah?'

The scene continued before her, Ankh, as Tine knew her, standing, dazed, looking around. Had that been when she lost her memory? No, it couldn't have been, because when she was snatched up by that same bird, when she was released and fell toward Gahiji, Tine heard her say his name before she fell to her knees. She had injured her ankle.

Was this a clan war? There were Ka all over the place, but there were many people, too. As many people as there were Ka. The season seemed to be sometime around the beginning of the Egyptian akhet, though she couldn't be sure.

A young woman with short, chin-length black hair loosed an arrow at the bird, the last of their enemies on the field. The woman, accompanied by another woman garbed in red armor and sporting pinkish hair and a winged helmet, ran to Ankh and Gahiji. A burly man approached them as well. He took one look at Ankh's ankle and hoisted her over his shoulder. Ankh squwaked indignantly, but the others laughed. Apparently Ankh was the youngest in the clan, and was so treated as such.

With a huff when the man did not release her, Ankh folded her arms and rested her chin in her hand, supremely ruffled. Though she was covered with dirt and blood - as the others were - she was not disturbed by it in the least, and seemed comfortable. Tine was certain it had been a clan war, and that Ankh had become used to it.

Suddenly she was ripped from the battlefield, the scenery blurring and spinning into one black mess, which grew smaller and became the surface of the mirror again, which thinned and became blood that dripped on the ground.

Damais had wrenched her arm, dragging her out of the mirror. "Just what were you doing?" he demanded. The unguarded anger in his eyes startled her. "You never told me you could do that kind of remembrancy!"

"Y-you never asked," Tine studdered. "I was doing something for Ankh!"

"How much remembrancy can you do?" he asked. When she didn't reply fast enough, he shook her by her arm, demanding again, "How much?"

"A-all of it!" Tine found herself shouting. "All three kinds! I'm sorry! I didn't know it was such a-"

She was cut off by Damais abruptly dragging her into the throne room, where the king and his priests were preparing to leave.

"Damais?" the king asked, noting quickly the Atlantian's angry glower. Tine winced as Damais' fingers dug into her upper arm. She still held her mirror in her hand. A second later, Ankh appeared at her side, though she said nothing.

"Tine can do remembrancy," he growled.

"We know," the king replied in a bored, tired tone. "She showed us by telling us how Isis-"

"No," Damais interrupted. "Forgive me, sir, but she can do all three kinds of remembrancy." He snatched the mirror away from Tine, and held it up so the king and the priests could see. The blood ran down the mirror, dripping onto Damais' fingers. "She was using this to do remembrancy. And she has just told me she can do the third remembrancy ritual."

00000

At the end of this chapter, it would be somewhere along the lines of November 14th. Dija notice it was still dusk when the chapter ended? No night-time scene and ending at dawn. Naw, didn't think anyone would notice.

Anyway, I really liked writing that opening scene, especially the "happy day" part. Nyah. I kinda liked the drastic switch between that and then Damais and Phary (my nickname for the pharaoh, pronounced like "fairy" and stemming from my reading too fast while reading out loud) planning their warfare stuff. I think I exaggerated the whole Phary-leading-the-troops thing, but oh well.

I have also realized that, now that I have changed DD to T, things have mellowed out plot-wise. (Grr.) That's precisely why I described Tine's "look" the way I did. Expect to see that pop up a lot.

Damais is being an ass lately, ne? Trust me, it'll get better. (Nyah!)

On a final note, the Harry Potter books (6! Nyeah!) kept me straight on the 2nd form of remembrancy. You can get a better image of what I was going for by reading any of the books where Harry encounters Dumbledore's "pensive" thingy. The swirly-memory-player-doodad. Yeah.

Thanks to:

Everyone's Anti-Valentine (the only one that has reviewed ch4.)

Shi-chan, I KNOW YOU'RE READING THIS! To those that haven't reviewed... Oooh, just you wait 'til I get my paper fan repaired. (I sorta gave my sister the beat-down with it yesterday morning...)