Shimun was shaky as he watched the Head Healer and her apprentice work to treat the young woman who had magically appeared in his study, where he had been working with his grandson on languages. He had not been able to work out who she was to start with, the magic of her disguise had been protecting her from his gaze. Even when her disguise had fallen, the damage the creature had done to her and the blood rushing down her face had stopped him from recognising her straight away.

It had not been until after she had slipped unconscious, causing her transformation to break, and he and his grandson had managed to stem the bleeding long enough for the healers to arrive, start working to treat her and they had cleaned her up that he had realised who she was.

He had never expected to see Jie again. He had met her over a year ago, when he had been seeing to some issues in a temple on the country's border. She and her people had been passing through on their way to Iberia and he had ended up involved in ensuring her safe passage through his Nephew's country after she had assisted him in catching the Greek Mage who had been trying to cause strife in the city.

When they had parted ways, it had been with the best of wishes and a hope for a brighter future.

Having her magically appear, grievously hurt, did not seem like a 'brighter future.'

Though the box that he had left with his grandson might say otherwise.

"High Priest Shimun?" Mesta, an older woman with short white hair and brown eyes and the palace's best healer, asked as her apprentice, a young woman with blue eyes and brown hair, which was tied back in a ponytail that allowed her bangs to fall forward and brushed her shoulders, finished bandaging their patient's upper head. When she nodded to the main room, he followed, wondering what the verdict was.

"I have good news and I have bad news." Mesta admitted, glancing around to check if there was anyone else in the room and wondering where the teenager who had been in the suite when she had gotten there was. "As long as the wounds don't get infected, she should make a… functional recovery."

"But?"

"Until she fully recovers and we can work with her, I don't know how much she'll be able to see." The Head Healer admitted with a wince.

Shimun let out a soft sigh and took off his head piece so he could run a hand through the slightly unruly grey hair underneath. His purple eyes gazed down at the floor, "How bad…?"

"One eye is a total loss, but the other might be okay, we can't know." Mesta admitted, feeling bad for the man, who clearly cared, not that she knew why. "Not until she's fully healed."

"I'll pay for any medicines she needs. Do not report her treatment to anyone but me." The older man ordered, "I want the best treatment for her possible, understand?"

"Yes sir." There was a moment's hesitation and then, "Are you hurt? Or Heba?"

"What?" Shimun glanced down at himself and huffed as he realised that his favourite shendyt was ruined. Too much blood had soaked into it when he had been trying to treat Jie. His grandson's clothes had probably looked just as bad. "No, no, we're fine."

"Alright. Let me know if you need anything from me."

"I will." At his promise, she headed back into his personal servant's room, which was now Jie's treatment room.

As Shimun headed for his study, he wished that she could be transferred to the infirmary, but he did not dare bring Jie into the public eye. Not yet. The lupine creature had reeked of Shadow magic and until he could be certain that it had not been someone who had been learning magic within the palace who had set it upon Jie, he did not want her presence to be common knowledge.

He just wished that he knew where she had been when the attack had happened, so he could send someone to check on the rest of the people she had been travelling with.

"Oh gosh, no. Memphis is huge compared to other cities, so you need to stay close to people in case you get lost." He paused in the doorway to take in the scene at the sound of his grandson's voice.

The tiny, palm sized brown and white horse that had appeared when Jie's disguise had fallen, was sat on the box Shimun had taken from Jie's hip, the magical jewel, a pair of eyeglasses, sat next to her, nibbling away at a piece of fruit that was almost as large as her head. Not too far away a teenage male, with wide, soft purple eyes and hair in the rather unusual colour combination of blonde bangs and black spikes with red tips, washed the blood from the floor.

"Uh…" The horse paused mid-reply and stared at Shimun, "How is she?"

At the creature's words, the teen straightened and turned to stare at the elderly priest. The man in question shut the door behind him and moved to sit his aching bones on the chest by the door. "We don't know yet, but there's hope."

"I'm glad. Mistress Jie might have fled from the field, but she did her best to stand and fight first. She is an honourable woman." Kaalki smiled, relief clear, "Heba here was just telling me more about your country. He's a smart kid."

The proud smile that elicited from the High Priest made the tiny horse chuckle. The teen in question smiled sheepishly. "Kaalki was curious about where she was, so I was filling her in while I was trying to…"

The boy gulped hard and gestured around. Shimun winced as he took in that he would probably need to replace some of his furniture and that Heba's tunic and blue and gold tabard was as ruined as his clothes were.

"Thank you, Heba."

"It's not a…" Heba cut off when there was a knock on the door. Shimun rose to his feet and moved over, opening it just enough to see who was on the other side.

"Please excuse me, Sir." The young man on the other side, who had straight brown hair and blue eyes and donned gold jewellery and a long robe, looked embarrassed, "But Crown Prince Atem sent me to collect Heba. He was supposed to come and assist with letters almost an hour ago."

"Ah, Mahad, I held him up and I'm afraid I need Heba for just a little longer. Please pass on my apology to the young Prince and I promise he will be there shortly… maybe give us an hour or so."

"Yes sir." Mahad, Shimun's priestly apprentice and Atem's bodyguard, nodded, then paused, his expression thoughtful, "By that time his highness will be in the training yard for combat practise… perhaps this evening would be better?"

"Yes, much." Shimun relaxed, relieved to have gotten Heba time to clean up. "Thank you for your understanding."

He was not sure what Mahad grumbled as he headed out, but he honestly did not care in that moment. Instead he shut the door again and turned around to find Kaalki had vanished and Heba had darted out of sight of the doorway.

"She dove into her thing." Heba explained as he came out from his hiding place, gesturing to the odd eyewear that lay on top of the box.

Shimun grimaced as he picked them up and they shifted forms slightly, turning into a set of golden frames with glass in. When he put them to his face, he was surprised to find the world around him, which had grown slightly blurry in more recent years, sharpened drastically.

The temptation to keep them was high, but he took them back off before turning to his grandson. "Heba, you need to keep this a secret for now, even from Atem. Someone tried to take these from Jie and she travelled a very long way to recover them so she could return them to her country. It would be unfair of us to lose them now because we could not keep our mouths shut."

"I… I understand, grandfather." Shimun knew his grandson did. Heba had grown up in the palace. He had been around enough secrets to understand the importance of them.

"Good. Now, go get cleaned up. Your cousin will require your assistance this evening and I don't want to have to explain why you're covered in blood. You can use my washroom."

As Heba scurried out, Shimun turned to the box he had taken from Jie and opened it. Once the lid was open, several drawers slid open too. As he beheld the Miracle Jewels within, Kaalki emerged from the glasses and paused for a moment before asking, "Master Shimun, are you going to be our Guardian until Jie is well again?"

"It seems that way, yes." He turned to look at the nervous horse, "What of it?"

"If I can make a suggestion?" The man nodded, giving the horse permission, "Take the Turtle Miraculous. It will protect you and Wayzz is one of the most knowledgeable of us Kwami. He'll be able to teach you how to look after us properly."

Shimun paused to consider the items within the box with an amused smile. Turtles were one of the animals associated with Set, the God whose temples he administrated. It amused him that the Miraculous that was being suggested was so fitting. Finding one that looked like a turtle shell made of jade, he picked it up carefully. From it emerged a green light, which took the form of an entirely vibrant green humanoid figure, no bigger than the length of his wrist to tip of his biggest finger, who had a shell on their back.

"Kaalki said your name was Wayzz?" Shimun asked, putting the glasses down in the spot with a tiny painted horse head and looking at the new Kwami.

"Indeed, and you are?"

"Shimun, and I need your help."

"I suppose it can't be helped." The Crown Prince sighed when Mahad returned to him, grimacing at the paperwork sprawled across his desk, "None of these are urgent anyway. They can go out later."

"Or you could write the letters yourself." Mahad's teasing comment earned him a raised eyebrow from the prince.

"I could." Atem allowed with a huff, his sharp purple eyes narrowing as he considered whether any of them were urgent enough to justify him sending them himself. "But you know as well as I do, that I don't just work with Heba because he's useful."

His bodyguard nodded. The Prince's second cousin, Heba, was not only a rather resourceful translator and scribe who was fluent in several languages, more in fact than Atem himself, but he made for an impressive body double. The Prince and his cousin had the same colour eyes, though Atem's were narrower than Heba's. Their hair was also almost identical. The Crown Prince had the same blonde bangs as his cousin, as well as very similar spiked black hair, with red tips. However the blonde expanded into his spikes, unlike Heba's.

It was rather easy for both teens to be mistaken for each other by those who did look carefully enough and the Crown Prince was not above using that fact to escape his duties occasionally and go out into the city so he could find out how the people were and what needed to be done.

Outside of that though, Heba was the only person who could give Atem a challenge when it came to games. Almost no one else could even slightly match up to the Crown Prince and work sessions with the other teen very often ended in a senet game, or a round of Hounds and Jackels.

Mahad suddenly got why Atem had been so insistent that Heba had come to work with him before his combat training session. The Prince had wanted to unwind after the hard session of court that his father had made him sit in on.

"Still, Shimun wouldn't have kept him unless it was important." The Prince sighed, "So I suppose I'll have to wait. There's not really time now anyway."

There was not much that could be said to that and as the Prince slipped from his formal tunic, with his golden collar, wrist and ankle bands and earrings, into a more practical shendyt, his bodyguard moved over to the balcony, planning to shut the doors, only to find a girl with long brown hair and blue eyes, who was dressed in a short cotton dress and a gold and cotton head piece, was hiding out there, watching the world go past below her.

He coughed lightly and the girl in question startled and turned to look at him, sheepishly grinning when she realised who was stood there. "Mahad, hi."

"Mana." His bland acknowledgement of her greeting made her flinch, anticipating a lecture. "Aren't you supposed to be learning how to run a household from Lord Ahi's wife right now?"

The slightly stubborn and frustrated look that his friend got at the question did not bode well. "I had to take a break after Akela decided to drop ink on me or I was going to do something drastic."

The In-Training Priest let out a heavy sigh. As Atem's future wife, Mana was often harassed by the daughters of the various Lords that attended the court of Pharaoh Akhenemkhanon. Lord Ahi's wife, Auset, was a wonderful woman, who the Pharaoh had trusted to run his household ever since his wife had passed away. His daughter, Akela, however, was a spiteful girl of Atem and Mana's age. She was firmly of the opinion that she was a better match for the Crown Prince than the daughter of a harem woman, despite the fact Mana had royal blood and hence was exactly what was needed to keep the royal line going.

Plus Atem and Mana had been friends since childhood, while Akela had never quite managed to attach herself to the Prince's friend group, but WAS an active and vocal part of the political group that Atem had to deal with on a regular basis. After all, the children of the current Lords and Ladies were likely to be the Lords and Ladies in charge of their domains when Atem was sat on the throne.

"I won't tell her where you are." Mahad promised, noting the way his words made Mana's entire frame relax, "And I can have words with…"

"Atem's already offered to talk to Lady Auset, but I need to be able to handle Akela myself or she'll never respect me." Mana shook her head, "Thanks though."

"If you need me, I'm here." He promised, offering her a hug that Mana accepted easily.

"Thanks."

"Any time."

As they pulled apart, Mana gave him a small grin, "In brighter news, I nearly have that colour change spell down."

"So if I see people wandering around with green hair, I'll know who to blame?" The smile on his face made a lie of his stern tone.

"I mean it would be silly of me to make it pink, everyone knows I like pink."

"If you're going to change people's hair colours," The Prince looked amused as he joined them, "It would be interesting to see how people would react if I had a more normal hair colour, rather than this."

When he tugged on his bangs, the other two understood perfectly. Atem's hair was rather distinctive and made it easy to pick him out from the crowd. Some were of the opinion that the distinctive colouring was a gift from the gods to show the Prince had been picked for some special destiny. Others, less charitably, pointed out that Heba had the same colouration and clearly it was just a matter of something going oddly before birth.

Or that Atem's mother had slept with Heba's father, though that rumour was only whispered in the corridors and had been rather vehemently denied in front of the Millennium Scales, in front of which no one could lie.

"I could make it something MORE interesting." Mana teased, earning herself a dour look from the Prince, "What? You don't like the idea of blue and green?"

"Make it blue and purple and I'll consider it." Atem let out an amused snort, "Mahad, we need to…"

"Of course, my Prince." The Priest-in-training nodded and turned away for a moment before looking back over his shoulder at Mana, "Should I bring you up anything on our return?"

"Maybe some fruit?" At her shrug, he nodded and followed the Prince off of the balcony and out towards the training yard, understanding that Mana just needed some quiet time.

"She'll be okay, Mahad." Atem patted his friend on the arm, smiling reassuringly, "She's strong and you're teaching her well."

"I hope so."