.:. Pharaoh Atemu couldn't sleep for some reason tonight, so he got out of bed and began walking around the palace, trying to sort out matters in his head that he thought might be the root of his insomnia tonight. None of the problems seemed large enough to cause him much distress though, so he was slightly baffled at why he could not seem to drop off into dreams. He ran over his nightly habits, trying to see if there had been something he'd forgotten to do, something that was off in his routine that his mind was requesting he do before it allowed itself to slip into a peaceful slumber. He couldn't find anything though, so he kept walking.

It was as he passed a room on the second level that he noticed her, surprised that he had at all. He did not usually come this way, and he had not glanced in the open doorways at all the rooms.

However, for some reason he had found himself in the doorway where the frame of a gently sleeping girl rose and fell with her breath. Alyssa was laid out on the floor in a puddle of water, her scrubbing brush still in her hands. By the way she looked he assumed that she had still been working when she had fallen asleep and her body merely let itself fall. Her one arm was stretched out entirely in a vertical line with her head, on it's side resting against the cold ground. Her other arm was bent at the elbow, the brush still grasped in her fingers. Her legs were bent at the knee, one resting atop the other, and the elbow of her one arm met the top one. Her hair fanned out behind her, some of the golden locks tangled and wet, but most of them fine and neat. The wet ones looked like they were corkscrews, and he imagined with a chuckle that the rest of her hair would look the same when she awoke in the morning.

Smiling he bent down and removed the brush from her hand, and placed it in the pail. He found someone in the halls and told them to take it to whoever was in charge of such things, and see that it was put in its proper place. The man nodded and went on his way as the Pharaoh returned to the room where his private musician lay sleeping.

He kneeled down and slipped an arm under her knees, the other under her tummy so that she rolled onto her back when he lifted her. She rested against him then, snuggling into the space between his arm and chest and giving a contented sigh in her sleep that made the Pharaoh's stomach give a little jump along with this feeling of butterflies that had suddenly possessed him.

He began walking towards her suite, noting some smaller details that he hadn't been able to before. She smelled like honey, and flowers maybe. Her eyelashes were long and dark, and her skin softer than the petals of precious flowers in his gardens. Her hair was quite thick, actually, but brushed well so that he imagined what it would be like to run his fingers through it.

He noticed other things as well. The brush he had given to the man was worn from long work. Her simple white dress was rough, and he could tell that it was of the lowest quality fabric. It made his skin itch where it rubbed against him, and he wondered how she could wear such a thing all day long. Her sandals were worn out, near to getting holes in them from such long use. She obviously hadn't bought them any time soon; in fact it looked as if she had tried to repair them on her own once or twice as well.

He came to the suite and went into it, expecting it to be dark and its residents sleeping. However he was met with the sight of an elderly lady, whom he expected must be her mother. "My Lord." She said, curtsying before him. "Hello," he said, bowing his own head politely in response. "She has the last room then, on the right?" he asked, as it had been the one he'd suggested for her. "Yes, I do believe so." She told him, leading the way.

He followed her (Though he well knew his way around, but he did not tell her that.) and gently set the still resting girl on her bed. Settling in, she rested her head on her arms. The Pharaoh took one of the pillows and lifted her head, gently easing the pillow under it. She felt it in her sleep and her arms reached up, pulling the pillow until it appeared as if she was hugging it, her head resting at the top as she snuggled into it as she had into the Pharaoh's chest.

His heart skipped a beat at the sight and he pushed her hair behind her ear and away from her neck as her mother pulled the blanket up to her chin. "I had been wondering where she was." Her mother remarked as she finished. "I told her she should have come home but," she sighed. "She can be so stubborn.

"I see." The pharaoh says to her. "I'm so sorry." She says, turning to him once more. "I'm her mother." She says. "And I'm sure I know who you are, Pharaoh Atemu." She said, smiling slightly.
"Yes, I am." He says with a light grin. "How astute of you to notice." She laughed lightly at this but quieted herself quickly as she saw Alyssa stir in her sleep. "Come now, let's leave her here so that we don't wake her." She says, opening the door for the Pharaoh as he follows. Slowly she closes it.

"Now, I'm assuming you are here because you couldn't sleep a wink either." She asked him as they went out into the living room. "So can I get you something to drink?" she asks. "We have some wine left that the servants left us. I'm sure we could spare you a glass." She says, taking two out and pouring a reddish purple liquid into two goblets before handing one to the Pharaoh who was seated on one of the sofas. "To your health." She says lightly, raising the glass and then taking a sip. "And likewise to yours." The Pharaoh says, mimicking her.

"Do you have a name that I might address you by?" the Pharaoh asks her. "Oh, just call me Mom." She tells him. "It's a word I never get tired of hearing." She says. "All right then…Mom." He says. "There, that's nice, see?" she laughs with him. "You'll have to forgive an old woman for her nightly manners when she is drinking, my boy." She tells him. "So long as you'll do the same for me." He jokes back with her and she laughs again.

"I must say, you are nothing like your daughter." He remarks, looking at her with a smile. "Oh really?" she jests with him. "I do think she got my nose, and thank the heavens for that because if she'd have gotten her father's…" she said.

"No, not like that at all." The Pharaoh began. "How come you are so easy going and she is so…" "Timid and reserved?" she asks him. "Yes." He blurts out. "She will never look me in the eye, much less lay here drinking wine and joke with me in such hours." "Ah yes." Her mother sighs. "I guess that's probably my fault." She says. "But know this now, she is not as timid as she seems. There is real fire hidden behind those eyes, if only you can break through to it." "What do you mean? About her timidity and reservation being your fault, that is." the Pharaoh asks, taking another sip from his cup.

"You see, it was when she was little. You were just a little prince then. You can't be much older than her, I don't believe. What are you, seventeen? Eighteen?" "Eighteen." The Pharaoh replies as he takes another sip. "Ah, yes. Just two years. She's only seen sixteen summers, you see." The Pharaoh made a mental note about that. "Anyway, when she was…I'd say four, maybe five years old. Couldn't have been more than six." She said shaking her head. "She used to come with me to the palace. I used to work here, you see." She said, gesturing around her. "Doing the same thing she does now. Anyway, I used to bring her with me and she used to help. Now, work is work, no matter what size the person is who does it, so she would sit next to me and we would work together. At the end of the day, we'd both be paid, and if we were doing well, I'd even let her buy a treat at the market."

"What did she usually get?" The Pharaoh asked, genuinely interested. "Oh, just little things." "Beads and such?" he asked her. "Oh no. She never did get ordinary things. They were always something different." "Such as?" "Well, sometimes she'd get some small pipe or reed or something. She always has loved music, but I'm sure you know that." She says as he nods. "Sometimes she would trade someone to teach her how to write something in the sand. Neither her father or I write, but she probably knows quite a bit if you were to ask her. Though, I'm sure, she'd be hesitant since she really isn't supposed to know." She says. "That reminds me of another story I'll have to tell you sometime. But I digress." She said, looking at him and he smiled. He liked this warm, chatty woman.

"Anyway, we were walking through the halls on break one day, you see. She used to love coming to the palace and looking around. Anyway, one day we saw you, and yes, I'm sure it was you, sitting down at one of the tables. Oh, you were so cute, your feet swinging in the air since you weren't quite tall enough for them to reach the ground yet." He smiled. "And you were sitting there, putting together a puzzle. It might have even been that very one you hold around your neck now." She said, nodding at it. "Or maybe it was one similar to it. I don't know, but it was no ordinary puzzle. Not one of those flat things that the children in the market usually buy. But you were sittin there and you had the oddest look on your face. Like all of a sudden this plus that didn't equal what it was supposed to. And, if I might add, you were getting rather frustrated."

"Well, she sat there, watching you, and when I wasn't even paying attention I heard her little voice. 'No, that one goes here.' she said, taking the piece out of your hand, 'and that one goes there, and then you twist it.' She said happily as the pieces interlocked."

"You looked at the puzzle, Alyssa, and at the puzzle again. I think you might have been a little irritated that she figured it out before you did, and, if you'll forgive me again, because she was a girl. Now I know my daughter, and when I looked over I could see she was already putting more pieces of that puzzle together in her head. She was reaching for another when I noticed how you looked and your father behind you looked and I tell you I jumped the length of twelve men across that room and grabbed her little hand before she could touch another bit of it."

"Suffice to say I apologized for her and rushed her away before anything more could happen. I was much like she is now, you see, and when I got her home I gave her the sternest talking to that a little girl could receive and didn't take her back with me for a good number of days. To be quite honest I'm surprised she even says a word when you are around now. Ever since she's tried to keep out of the way."

"What kind of things did you tell her?" the Pharaoh asks, puzzled. "Oh, just this and that." She says. "But it carries meaning to her to this day?" he asks her. "Yes, I suppose it does. Do not some things from your own childhood imprint onto you that you will never forget, no matter how trivial someone else might view them?" He supposed she was right. "Think back, Pharaoh. Do you remember that day?" she asked him. He searched the recesses of his memory but wasn't sure if he did or didn't. "No, I can't say that I do. Though I can't say that I don't either." He adds. "It's okay." She says to him. "I say that I do or don't remember things sometimes myself." They laugh and each take another sip of their wine. "So you used to work here before, but not anymore then?" "Yes, I did." She begins. "In fact, I do believe that was that other story I meant to tell you about. Oddly enough, we usually were told to clean the room you studied in. That's one of the reasons I'm so sure it was you. I'm quite sure she was listening in on your lessons." She told him. "You know, you could get her into a lot of trouble by telling me that." He tells her. "But if she wasn't in your social graces I wouldn't be sitting here able to tell you that, now would I?" she challenged him. "You are a very different old woman, Mom." He told her. "And I'll thank you for that." She says, raising her glass to him.

"Was there a reason why you stopped working for us, or was it merely too much for you as time went by?" he asked, trying to pose the question's last half politely. "Oh…no, it wasn't anything like that." She says, and sighs again. "An unpleasant reason perhaps? You needn't tell me, if you don't want to." He tells her. "No, no…it's not that." She sighs again. "When…When Alyssa was four years old," she began. "Her father got in a terrible work accident. He was on the building crew for one of the monuments, you see, and unfortunately one day a few of the stone pillars fell. Well, they all decided to roll their way right on over him." She says. "That's horrible." The Pharaoh says. "Oh yes." She continues. "Luckily his injuries weren't life threatening, though we were concerned about him for a while. Unfortunately, one of his arms became mangled by one of the pillars. Not so much that they had to amputate it, but still, he can never use it again. It hangs onto life strangely enough. I've seen other's husbands who ended up cutting their arms after it began rotting on them while they were alive. Alyssa, oddly enough, tells me that it is because there is no blood flow to the arms anymore because something inside them cuts off or twists or something so that it can't give it to the arm anymore, so the arm just dies while the person lives. She tells me that if it isn't removed though it can be dangerous for the entire body though."

"She seems to know a lot about many things." The Pharaoh went on to say. "Oh yes, you'd be surprised. She seems to have some kind of passion for learning and the arts. Slowly but surely she makes her way along." "I can see." The Pharaoh says. "But that isn't why you stopped working, it would be a cause for you to work more, wouldn't it?"

"Well yes, it would. And it did." She began. "With his one arm mangled and no real strength from the waist up, he couldn't do much. The builders wouldn't hire him, and his hand was too clumsy for weaving and other activities. He couldn't seem to find a place to work anywhere." She tells him.

"Now, to finish this story to tell you mine to tell you Alyssa's, if you can follow all that, I first have to tell you another one." She says. "Yes I can, and I've got the time." He says, amused. "When we first moved to this city, for we used to live in another one, we went searching for a nice house. We did plan on having kids, as every man and wife do, and so we were looking for a house. Well, we came across this man who had a wonderful house and all her charged us was a small amount of money each day. Well, we were on top of the world with our wedding gifts and he had a job and I had a job, we had plenty of money to spare. It was nothing. So we agreed. Well, pretty soon we had this darling baby girl, so I stayed home to take care of her for a while. It wasn't bad; we still had plenty to go around. True it was a little stretched, but we always had bread on the table. But then he began raising the price, piece by piece over the years. Sometimes it goes up, and sometimes it goes down. But we had made a deal that we could pay him or that very day he could evict us from the home. Not bright in hindsight, but we were new at the game and had no idea what we ought to do. We were keeping up just fine, so we weren't worried either."

"Well, then my husband had his accident and that removed a great portion of income. Yes, we could take what I made, but that didn't leave much for daily things. Ra help us if Alyssa grew out of her clothes or needed new shoes. Though for as small as she was she seemed to have an incredible concept when it came to our income; she never asked for anything after the accident and instead began coming with me to work at the palace. I didn't mind. We'd laugh and tell jokes throughout the day as we worked and I'm sure she leeched some kind of an education off of you. Maybe not the best, but I'm sure she knows something."

"It went well for about two years before the trouble really began to pick up. With both I and my child working, we were once again able to make ends meet decently. Again, stretched, but we had what we needed. It didn't help that our landlord kept raising his prices, which we had agreed to meet, but we were able to meet his little payments that he requested of us." She sighs.

"Then one day I took ill, a grave illness. The doctor's couldn't seem to cure me. Now, even if you don't remember how she played with your puzzle, I'm sure you remember this. There was a plague upon Egypt at the time; many fell sick and died, others went blind or paralyzed. There were many after effects." He nodded his head as he recalled that terrible time. He had been kept inside, his father and caretakers worried that whatever was out there would get him unless he was tucked safely away inside a room. It had been a while before the sickness had passed. His own advisor had fallen ill to it; he had escaped without any kind of lingering effects. One of the lucky few.

"I did get well…eventually." She went on to say. "It was a while, but I came out of it. I was very weak though, and still am. I can not stay in the sun very long before falling ill and dizzy. I cannot even stand for long or I grow ill and must lie down. The conditions persist to this very day. And, as you can see, that would leave me-"

"Unable to hold a job." He finishes for her. "Precisely." She says. "I could keep up the house, but there is no way I would be able to work in the palace, scrubbing floors to earn money. She had been there for almost two years by that point, so they allowed her to keep on. She worked harder than many of the grown women. And I'll bet she still does." She said. "You saw her yourself." She told the Pharaoh. "She's been working so hard trying to make enough money to keep up with the payments. She'd been taking days off work lately and, well, we didn't know why at first. She hasn't slept much because she's been trying to work both night and day to make enough to get us by. What she had yesterday was probably the first meal she's had in days. She was working tonight, in fact, hoping to make some more money so that we could leave sooner."

"I thought she enjoyed it here." The Pharaoh says, shocked. "Oh, she does. Did you not see her happy face when you laid her down on that bed, boy? These past few weeks…they're the happiest I've seen her since she was a child. She loves it here. She loves to play for you at night. It makes all the problems she faces in the day worthwhile. Can't you see that?"

"I can. But if it's so wonderful why doesn't she wish to stay?" "She's worried that you won't want to hear her music forever. She's worried that one day you'll up and tell us to leave, and she doesn't want her father or me to be out on the street without a house when you do."

"But you are all welcome to stay as long as you wish." The Pharaoh says, seriously. "I don't mind, really." He repeats. "Have you told her that?" she says, looking at him over the rim of her glass. "It all goes back to that day where I told her not to get in your way and to leave you alone. Childhood imprints go a long way. It is when you are little that you are made to believe the things you hold tightest to in life."

"And what other things does she hold to?" he asks her. "Loneliness. Worry. And happiness. A thrill for trying new things and perfecting those of old. And hope. Most of all hope. She was six, Pharaoh, six when she took on the burden of running a household, taking care of her aging parents, and making the rent. She was six when she would get up at dawn and run on legs that couldn't reach over most of the counters in the market to fetch water for the day before going off to her job. She was six, and not a soul spoke to her or gave her the time of day when she went around trying to earn more money to buy her father and I some of the finer things in life to make our stay at home more pleasant because she thought we were bored. She was six when she gave up thinking for herself and more towards other people. She was six when people cheated her left and right, and when they needed help she'd help them anyway, knowing that she'd probably be cheated again in the end. She was six when she was forced to grow up, and denied the chance at ever being a child."

The Pharaoh remained quiet after this. "She has never lead an easy life." The woman went on. "She's happy, but scared. She's been hurt so many times she doesn't want to allow herself to be hurt again. And yet she knows that she's also leaving herself wide open for another blow. She is not a simple, stupid woman that is content to stay at home and weave cloths for a man that cares nothing for her. She wants to allow herself to breathe, but every time she's even tried to speak to someone, especially people her own age, she is turned away. Unless, of course, they want to cheat her, which they do quite frequently. You wonder why she never asked for help. I can see it in your eyes. Quite frankly, it's never been there. Her father and I could do nothing. Words can only go so far. Every time she's been in desperate need she's had to deal with it on her own. And now that it's there, now that she has someone she can count on, she doesn't want to ask because she's afraid of disappointing that person, just as much as she's afraid that the help she requires would suddenly be taken away."

She took a sip of her wine as she looked at him. "I don't know if this will surprise you, Pharaoh, but you are probably the first person that's ever offered a bit of kindness to her. Quite frankly, I don't think she knows what she's supposed to do."

"I see." The Pharaoh says, as he finishes his glass and stands up, a million thoughts in his head. "Well, I think I'll be returning to my own bed now." He says, glancing at the doorway to Alyssa's room. He'd never have guessed…and now, he'd received all sorts of things to think about. "It's melodramatic, I know." She told the Pharaoh as she stood. "But I assure you, she's happy. Odd you must think for one who has been given so many bad lots in life. But she is."

"One of a kind." He said in agreement to this woman whom he had bonded with. "I'm sure she'd say the same about you." She said. She walked him to the front of the hall. "I wonder." She started, as he was walking through the doorway. "You wonder what?" he asked. "I wonder…if all those ears ago…that day when you were sitting there, trying to make sense of that puzzle…I wonder what would have happened if I'd never pulled her away." She paused for a moment. "Or maybe if we'd never had that little chat when we'd gotten home that day. Mm." she says, shrugging. "Good night, Pharaoh." She tells him. "Goodnight, Mom." He says in return, walking off.

Later he lay in his bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about all he had learned that night. Both her parents had been unable to work when she was a surprisingly young age, so she had taken on the burden herself. Apparently, for all her talents she'd been cast out of society and utterly isolated. Apparently she trusted that he'd help her enough that she would never ask, and in some odd way that led her to believe that he wouldn't help her. He sighed and rolled over, falling into a deep dreamless sleep.