Ryou spent the rest of the afternoon in the child's hut, sleeping. He was exhausted from his trek into the desert, and the child, knowing this, just let him rest.

When Ryou finally did wake up, the moon had already risen, and the air had grown much colder. The little thief was sitting by the edge of the bed, watching his feet sway over the dirt floor.

Ryou sat up slowly.

"Bakura… aren't you cold?" he asked, shivering a little.

"You get used to it." He growled back, surprised that his guest had already woken up.

"Oh…"

"If you're going to travel, you should do it at night." Little Bakura added. "Unless you like passing out the desert."

Ryou sat up, and looked out the window. The scenery was different than before. The abandoned huts he saw earlier in the afternoon had candles burning in the windows. He could hear the sounds of laughter, of revelry.

He blinked, astonished. The child at the foot of the bed seemed oblivious to any of it.

"Bakura… I thought you said your entire village was killed."

"They were!" he shouted back.

Ryou turned his attention again to the window, where a fire was burning in the center of the town.

"Do you mind if I… if I go outside?"

"Do whatever you want. I don't really care." Bakura answered, fiddling with the knife in his hands. He nodded to the small boy, and pushed back the soiled curtain that separated this hut from the rest of Kul Elna.

Whatever the boy insisted, the rest of the village was quite alive and well. And even though it was the middle of the night, they were still awake. Ryou crept behind a group of men sitting by the side of the large bonfire. They were all dressed in similar rags, but a few of them were adorned with fine jewelry.

"You better be watching what you steal, Duras." One of the older men laughed. "You'll be sending the plight of the pharaoh down on all of us."

"It'll be gone by sunrise, father." The man replied. "And it will give us enough gold to buy ten days worth of food for my family."

"You enter the market place with even one piece of gold, and they'll chop off your hand!" another man shouted. He held up his right arm, which had been reduced to a mere stump. "They know we're not to be trusted."

"But most merchants would rather have gold than honor." The one called Duras replied, his grin revealing a mouthful of missing teeth.

"If none of the palace guards are in the marketplace." Another added. "Then, you best be watching your back."
"Arac, I'm a thief, not a fool." Duras answered haughtily. "But we have little choice. Ella is with child, and soon we will have two mouths to feed!"

"Let the runts starve, for all I care." Another man coughed, sharpening a dagger on a withered leather strap. He threw his head back, a long pony tail of black hair whipped his left shoulder.

"Tyrris!" another man shouted, slapping the man who just insulted what looked to be his friend. "You said that about my daughter four moons ago! And that is exactly what happened. She caught the fever…"

"And we should have burned her body…" Tyrris added, rubbing his cheek. "The fever's spreading like wildfire in the south end of the village. My brother and his two wives have already taken to their beds. You should be lucky you're still breathing."

"The pharaoh…"

"The pharaoh cares nothing about the lives of a few thieving peasants."

Duras took the necklace from his neck, and dropped it into the fire. An iron trough had been forged to collect the liquid gold. And by morning, he would have something to barter with, as long as no one else in the village stole it from him first.

Ryou shivered as he watched the men argue. From the looks of the fight, each of them wanted Duras' gold. He would probably be very lucky if he were still alive by morning.

Suddenly, another voice caught his attention. It sounded like little Bakura's.

"Daddy! Daddy!" an even younger boy ran from the edge of the village. He looked to be about five years old. His head was covered with a beige cloth, and his body was clad in a short tunic, much like the one Bakura had been wearing earlier. It was much cleaner, though, and not so torn.

As the boy came closer, Ryou realized that the scar on his eye was missing. He was also smiling, rather than scowling.

Tyrris turned his head.

"What is it, runt? Can't you see we're busy!" he shouted, causing the little boy to tremble. "Don't you know by now not to come between a man and his gold!"

"It's not your gold, Tyrris!" Duras sneered. "And if you lay one finger on it, I'll slice it off and stuff it down your conniving throat!"

"But Daddy!" the boy begged, reaching on to Tyrris' sleeve. He pulled on it, still jumping up and down.

"Bakura!" he shouted, yanking his arm from the child's grasp. "What the hell do you want this time? And it better not be food. You eat more than both of Arac's little runts combined!"

Ryou watched as the child pouted, and then pulled a huge gold pendant out from under his tunic.

"Looky what I got!" he proudly beamed, and held up the pendant for his father to see. The black haired man blinked, and then snatched the treasure from his little boy's hands. Bakura pouted when the pendant was taken from him, but hoped his father would at least praise him this time.

The rest of the men gathered closer.

"Don't even think about touching it, you scoundrels!" Tyrris growled, his knife still in his other hand. "Or I'll skin you alive!"

He turned his attention back to his little boy.

"Where'd you get this!"

The boy pointed towards the Valley of the Kings in the west. "From the pointy tomb where Ra hides."

Tyrris studied the pendant. It was emblazoned with the Eye of Horus, the symbol of the pharaoh himself. He blinked, stunned that his boy would bring home such a treasure. It could only have come from one of the former pharaoh's tombs.

"I said, where did you get this, runt." Tyrris growled, grabbing his son's tunic, and pulling him closer.

"I… I said from… from one of the… pointy tombs… I… I forgot which one…"

"Your kid went in the pharaoh's tomb?" one of the men asked.

"And didn't get caught?" another jumped in.

Several more leaned in, attempting to snatch the pendant.

Tyrris pulled his knife out, and slashed at each one of them.

"I said don't touch it!" he shouted, and pulled his son even closer. "And keep your filthy hands off my little boy. Just because your runts are worthless pigs…"

Bakura looked up, with a big smile on his face.

"Yeah!" he smirked, mimicking his father's expression as best he could. "Did I do good, Daddy?"

"You did very good." Tyrris smiled. He leaned down. "Now, just between you and me… How'd you get in there?"

Little Bakura backed away.

"No, Daddy. You told me… A… a good thief… never reveals his path…" he repeated, timidly, word for word. The rest of the older thieves laughed.

"You're smarter than you look under that damn white hair." Tyrris smiled again, and slapped his boy on the back. He laughed, watching as the boy laughed too. "If you want food, come on. The inn in the next village will give us more than we could ever eat in exchange for just a piece of this."

His little stomach growled.

"You just keep bringing home things like that… and I think we're gonna' make it after all!"

Ryou watched the two walk away from the bonfire, towards the north end of the village. A few moments after they left, Duras started screaming again.

"Where the fuck is my gold?" he shouted, jumping on Arac with a knife unsheathed. "I know you took it!"

"You're mad!" the other man shouted back, wrestling him to the ground.

Ryou turned away from them, and started to follow his yami instead.

"I will Daddy!" Bakura grinned, grabbing onto his father's hand. Ryou noticed the child had placed something in his father's hand. It was the small bar of gold Duras had forged. He was amazed. He didn't even see Bakura take it!

The elder man patted his son on the head.

"You keep this up, Bakura, and one day you're gonna' be the king of thieves!" Tyrris laughed.

"Really?"

"Would I lie?" the father smiled.

"Yes. All the time!" the child smirked back. Ryou watched as they walked off into the distance.

"A chip off the old stone." He grinned.

When Ryou turned back around, the village was deserted again. The bonfire pit was long dead, and there were no men wrestling by it. All the huts were empty, except for the one with little Bakura peeking out of the doorway with his one eye.

It was just another memory.

"You stand out there like that, you're gonna' catch the fever." The child shouted, catching Ryou's attention.

He nodded, and walked back towards the house. He wondered if perhaps the child could take him to see more memories.

"Bakura…" Ryou began, sitting uneasily on the bed. "Do you know what the… the Valley of the Kings is."

The little boy nodded.

"That's where they keep the bodies of dead pharaohs." He snarled. "Why do you want to know that?"

"I… I was looking up at the stars… and I remembered it. That's all…" Ryou feigned his innocence once more. "I… I think that's where I was supposed to be going…"

"I knew it!" he shouted. "I knew you were trying to trick me!"

Ryou backed away carefully.

"You're one of the pharaoh's men! Why else would you want to go there? Unless…"

"I… What if I'm a… a thief… just… just like you?"

Little Bakura lowered his guard again. The stranger was barely sure of his own name. He could be a thief from a far away land lusting after treasure. But given his smooth skin and utter incompetence, if he was a thief, he would have been caught and killed long ago.

"You'd be a lousy thief." The child replied, poking at Ryou again. "I think you're a slave."

"Maybe… maybe I am a slave… I… I don't know…" he sighed. "Could you… please help me get to the Valley of the Kings? Do you know where it is?"

"Of course I know where it is." Bakura sneered. "There's lots of gold there. And gold buys food."

"… Do you steal from there often?"

"Does Ra come back every morning?" he scoffed. "And I'm good at it too. I'm small enough to crawl through the hidden passageways, so that the guards never notice me. And sometimes, I practice sneaking up behind them, and killing them. So I'll be good at it when I get too big to crawl like that."

The frank explanation from the little thief scared Ryou.

"So you can take me there?"

Bakura nodded.

"But once you're there, you're on your own. I'm not stupid enough to go sticking my nose in the pharaoh's graveyard for very long."

Ryou nodded. He understood. If he didn't need the help so badly, he would rather have left the child behind in the safety of his own village. That is, if it could even be considered safe anymore.

He watched the child with such tender eyes. His yami might have been a cold thief, but Ryou was starting to feel pity for the darker spirit. He could scarcely imagine it, to be orphaned by the pharaoh's guards at such a young age. To grow up cold, constantly hungry, and always alone. Afraid that if someone, anyone, could get their hands on you that they only wanted to kill you. It was logical that he would harbor such hatred for the pharaoh.

And Ryou knew very well how hard it was to be alone. With his father away on business, and his mother and sister gone, it was a feeling he knew often. If it wouldn't have resulted in being stabbed, he probably would have broken down, and simply hugged the child. But as he discovered earlier that day, it was safer to keep his sympathy to himself.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when little Bakura brushed past.

"You gonna' stand there, or are we leaving?"

Ryou turned around quickly.

"Right now?"

"If we're lucky, you'll be there before sunrise. And I can be long gone."

Ryou only nodded, and followed the child out the door.