Hieroglyphshipping (Pegasus J Crawford/Priest Set)

. . .

It wasn't raining yet, but it would be in a minute.

There's, I suppose, one good thing about all these aches and pains, Pegasus thought with a wry smile. I've become quite the meteorologist.

He leaned in closer to the mirror, fixing the light frizz in his hair. His eye panged softly—or rather, the hole where his eye had once been. He wore an eye patch over it now. It didn't usually bother him, but there was something about seeing a gaping hole in your own head that was bothersome on a primal level. Besides, it worried the children when he went to events. Wearing an eye patch made him look like a pirate, and that always went over very well with the little ones.

Hm, he thought as he leaned back from the vanity. Perhaps a series of pirate cards could be the next archetype? What kind of play style would they have? Probably lots of stealing cards—oh, perhaps effects that let you use your opponent's set cards?

The thoughts of work swirled around in his head as he stood up and brushed his hair off his shoulders, wandering across the bedroom towards his canopied bed. The drapes over the large, floor length windows were still drawn back, so that he could see the dark gray sky and the wind tousling the trees in the garden.

Once again, his aches reminded him that there was a storm coming. His knee groaned where he had twisted it during a dig; his shoulder where he had struck it after turning the Solid Vision too high during a test and getting thrown across the floor, his eye, of course, where an ancient Egyptian ghost had carved it out and replaced with a cursed artifact.

That would certainly be quite the story to tell the biographer.

He chuckled under his breath—the story he had actually told the wide-eyed, brightly curious young journalist was that he had lost it in an archaeological accident when a rock had stabbed him in the eye. "The resulting infection required me to remove the whole thing," he had said. For her part, at least, the journalist hadn't flinched—instead, she had seemed rather fascinated by his "Indiana Jones style adventures." He was glad he had picked her out of all the other journalists and writers clamoring for interviews to write their own biographies—she was new blood, anxious to get out her first works, but devoted to her craft and the portrayal of the truth. It was always good to promote people like that.

He settled onto the bed with a groan. Really, he acted like he was twice his age. He had too many aches for a twenty-nine-year-old man.

Thunder rumbled softly in the distance, as his one remaining eye slid over to the papers on his nightstand—papers that he had been trying to get his mind off of with all his other inane thoughts.

I really shouldn't,he thought. And, I should really tell Kaiba-boy that I have these.

But his hands didn't not pay any attention to either thought, and he reached over to pull the sheaves towards him. It was a thick stack, and he only lifted up a couple. White, unlined pages with scribbled writing—some his own, some from the other researchers. Photos were clipped to each page to show the wall where he had transcribed the hieroglyphics from. How many years had it been since he had propped himself up in a dusty old tomb with only a flashlight, painstakingly copying each hieroglyph even though, at the time, he hadn't understood a single one?

Underneath his black ink transcription were translation notes in red, from another scholar that he had sent it to. He had forgotten all about it until the pages came back in the mail two weeks ago. At the time he had transcribed these, he thought they might have more information about resurrection, or at the very least about the Duel Monsters game that he was only just beginning to recreate from old Egyptian inscriptions. Sent them off to a translator and forgot all about them.

Got them back to find that they had nothing to do with Duel Monsters.

They were more important than that.

Let this be an account of the last pharaoh of the Nameless Dynasty.

Pegasus' fingers tightened around the sheet.

It was like reading someone's diary, he thought. Albeit a diary that someone had then transferred to the wall of a tomb for the grave keepers to learn their history from while they were trapped underground.

The red writing was a bit messy, with crossed out bits and question marks inserted above questionable translations. But it was enough. Enough for Pegasus to see himleaking through the words.

I wonder if I will ever be strong enough to take up the burden that he left for me.

I would give anything for just one more moment with him. Just to ask him what I should do. He was...always wiser than I was, somehow. Or perhaps it is only the time and space that makes me believe so. Either way...I trust his judgment more than my own, even now.

This was never something I wanted.

Even when I was a boy, ambitious and driven, leading is not what I wanted. I don't know what to do. I was trained to support him, not to lead without him.

Sometimes, I feel that I am not enough. I remember his last words to me: "Take care of them." Who? His kingdom? His people? Or us, those who knew him and lost him? Take care of his friends he left behind? I don't know. I don't think I can do any of those things as well as I should.

I must, somehow, learn to be a leader like him.

I must find a way back to him.

Pegasus put the papers back down on his nightstand. He pressed his hands into the bed beside him, staring at the words on the page.

"You did, you know," Pegasus murmured. "You learned how to lead. If not then, well...now, in this life, you certainly did."

He sighed, leaning his head back towards the ceiling.

"And you found him again," he murmured. "So...I hope you learned not to worry as much."

Thunder rumbled in the distance. His eyes could only see the bottom line of the page from his position.

Let this have been an account of the last pharaoh of the Nameless Dynasty, the one called Set.

He sighed, closing his eyes.

I should really tell Kaiba-boy that I have these.

. . .

A/N: idk it wasn't really shippy at all, more introspective, I guess. I'm not sure. I enjoyed writing it though, so I hope you enjoyed reading it! Next is Hideshipping (Pegasus x Yugi).