That's A Real Life Bronze Age Priestess Sammy

Chapter 10

Where are you Muwatti?

Dean asked that question to himself for what felt like the millionth time. Why isn't she back yet? Is she even coming back? Between Sam and her, he's not sure who is currently causing him to age prematurely.

They were currently still on the tour of worst memories of her life. Which involved a lot more dead family members, a lot more dysfunctional family members, and a whole lot more bouts of insanity caused by years of isolation. The tablet was playing a starring role in this particular tour. For incredibly obvious reasons. Although it was impossible to tell if they were seeing them in any specific order or not, it didn't make seeing them it any easier. They got to see the moment when she finally began to make sense of the languages being spoken on the outside. Glad at first to finally understand what was being said, after slowly and painfully parroting word for word for years, when they were translating every Hittite word they could find. However her joy didn't last for long. Eventually when she understood enough, she finally realised how long she had been locked up for. With everything around her having already turned to ruin. Being left completely helpless, unable to do anything, except listen to people all around her talk over her, who couldn't even hear her.

"Don't think I would have been able to handle this Sammy. All alone in a barren and empty world. Just silent and dark everywhere around me. I'm not made for this."

However he never got to hear his younger brother's reply, because they got startled by a voice behind them. "No one is made for this. That's where the curse part comes in." Working on pure instincts both of them turned around, fully prepared to attack whoever was behind them. Except at the same moment the tablet world around them transitioned into the same courtyard they had been in, when this whole nightmare began, causing them to lose their balance and fall down on their asses. Hard. They looked up and saw that, as he had suspected, it was indeed Muwatti. She finally came back, and was looking incredibly cheery over the sight of the brothers on the floor.

He heard Sam shout at her that she did that on purpose. And he immediately wanted to smack him. Does he want her to disappear again? Thankfully she didn't. Instead she decided to join them on the floor and now all three of them were sitting on the ground. "You know what Sam, unless you have proof of my intent, you have to stop making baseless accusations about me." However Sam wasn't having it, since he continued shouting at her, asking her where she had gone.

"Nowhere. I was here the whole time. I needed peace and quiet to be able to think, but the voices in my head," she said while pointing towards the two of them. "were being too loud. So I wished that you'd go away. Just for while." She sheepishly added quickly. "I honestly didn't think it would work. Dreams are strange, aren't they?"

"Seriously." Now even Dean felt like shouting at her but resisted the urge. "That's your reason for sending us to the tablet world and making us see all of that?" Although he did want to continue voicing his frustrations to her, he stopped when he saw that she was clearly confused by this. "You were in the tablet world? And what do mean 'making you see'? What did you see?" She asked them.

Dean turned towards his brother and silently asked him if wanted to elaborate on her question. After receiving a silent hell no as his reply, he asked Muwatti about what did she need to think about without them. And at the same time Sam asked her what this place was, all those years ago. She looked from one brother to another, and they knew that she knew that they were hiding something, but decided to move on regardless and answered their questions.

"This is the temple complex of Ishtar. And these," she pointed towards the building behind her, "are my personal chambers and garden. I would spend hours sitting in this exact spot, whenever I needed to think about anything and everything. Or just wanted to be alone." She looked around, before speaking again, "When anni first brought me here to become the High Priestess, I hated this place and hated having to live here. But now….." She let out a heavy sigh. "After sending you away, I thought to myself, why would the Mark free me? The way both of you, and even the way Crowley and Castiel have talked about it, it's as if the Mark is an entity on its own. And the only things it seems to be interested in, are killing and self-preservation. So what does it gain by saving me and releasing me from the tablet? I'd argue that my presence is actually harmful to it, since somehow I ended up having some power over you and indirectly over it. Right? I'm right, aren't I?"

"What is this?" Sam asked her, with a perplexed look on his face.

"Oh, I understand why you're confused." She replied. "Whenever I want to know something from someone or anything about them, I use this tactic, called asking questions and then getting that information in form of answers from them. Instead of breaking into their minds without their permission by using magic that involves eating my hair."

Ouch. She certainly knows to hit where it hurts, now doesn't she? But it was true, and also funny. Dean could barely contain his laughter over the look on his brother's face. "Fine, guess I deserved that." Sam said with a defeated look on his face and Muwatti nodded in agreement. "And yes, you are right. It's not enough that we find out about your curse but also find out what happened that night at the museum between the two of you. Cause whatever happened, goes beyond just setting you free, what with you being able to command Dean and Dean being able to feel what you feel-"

"What? You can feel what I feel? Really? Since when?" She asked Dean, who could only sputter something along the lines of ending the dream and waking up right about now would be a swell idea. But judging by the glares she was giving him, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Sam didn't seem interested in their little interaction, as he hadn't even stopped to take a breath, after throwing his big brother under the bus. "It's like you said, all of this just seems to go against the Mark's basic programming, which is, as said by your brother Arnuwanda on his deathbed, survival at any cost." His voice fading out at the last part, when he realised that he had let the cat out of the bag.

But she freaking heard it alright. Son of a bitch.

The force and speed at which she turned her head from him to Sam, Dean was amazed she didn't get whiplash. Yeah, she definitely wasn't going to wake up any time soon now, as she was going to have too much fun watching them squirm. "So, when I sent both of you away, you decided to go rummaging inside my head, to see one of the worst memories of my life." She turned back towards Dean, "Of course he would do it. I expect nothing less from him. This whole experience has taught me that he most definitely would do it," she said while pointing at Sam, "But, Dean, I don't know whether to be amazed, worried or strangely proud that you went along with Sam, when there are so many memories of orgies, all over the place that you could've walked into."

Three thousand year Bronze Age princess says what.

For a minute there, he hasn't sure if his ears were working. Or even if his brain was able to process any information being relayed to it.

But no. His ears and brains were working just fine, as he could see that Sam was also trying to process this new bit of information from her, with some difficulty and discomfort. And she was most definitely talking about exactly what he had heard her talk about. Because she was still talking about it. "Once every fortnight the priestesses and I would gather at this very temple to worship the goddess through our bodies. Along with war, strategy and justice, Ishtar was the goddess of love, sensual pleasure and desire after all, and sex was our way of praying to her and appealing to her." This woman was going to kill him. She's definitely trying to kill him. And Sam as well, considering his brother was opening and shutting his mouth like a fish in water. "Just imagine Dean, me and a dozen nubile priestesses losing control over ourselves in a haze of orgasmic bliss, our intertwined limbs glistening with a fine layer of sweat caused by our vigorous efforts, and our cries of absolute pleasure echoing in the winds." Yup, he's dead now. His soul has left his body. "Too bad you're never going to see any of that. And it's all Sam's fault."

"You're so annoying." He heard Sam say to her. At least he think it was Sam, cause his ears were still buzzing.

"I have naturally better hair than you. Without even doing anything to it." She retorted back, while flipping her waist long hair.

"At least I vaccinated as a child."

The whole hair thing might have really struck a nerve. Literally. He has had this little twitchy nerve right above his left eye that always, well, twitches, whenever he gets irritated. And he presses his lips together in frustration, till they almost disappear. Which he was also doing. He could see why, her hair really was shinier and thicker than his. Was it because of the cleaner water back then? Though he can't imagine why he was that irritated, since a Sammy without nice flowy long hair, would basically be a taller Dean.

"I don't know what that is, but is that reason why you're such a gassy man, Samuel?"

"Enough." Dean shouted at both of them, effectively silencing them. "Do the two of you enjoy giving me a headache? I mean come one, act your goddamn age. Both of you."

"It's brilliant how quickly you can go from being an absolute child to mothering everyone around you." Was her only reply, which even made Sam giggle a little.

He's surrounded by fucking idiots.

After they had all calmed down, at least Sam had the decency of looking ashamed. But not Muwatti, who was enjoying all of this way too much. Though in all honesty, unlike Sam and him, the power balance between Muwatti and him, wasn't really equal. In fact, it was terribly unbalanced in her favour. Because the simple truth was that he doesn't intimidate her. He may annoy her but she literally holds power over him to make him do whatever she wants. He's not winning anything against her. Though except for the duration he was a demon, she hadn't really made him do anything.

He attempted to bring the conversation back to the actual relevant things, "There's another thing about your last day. Can't believe I didn't realise this before." He pointed at her and said, "You were most probably cursed by a human." She asked how could he be so sure about that. But Sam understood what he was trying to say and both brothers exclaimed at the same time, "The warding."

"How do the two of you do that? I had five brothers, none of them behaved this way. Ever"

But he and his little brother were on a roll again, with Sam first saying, "No angel or demon could enter Hattusa. It could only be a human who could've done the spell to lock her up in that tablet."

"Can all twenty first century men read their siblings' minds now? Or is this more of a weird Winchester thing?"

"We know that angels and demons were interested in her, but why would a human want to lock her up?"

"Then you should read my Wikipedia page. Fratricide, ordering mass murders, planning assassinations, war in general. Not to mention, I had so many slaves."

"You had slaves?" Asked the Winchesters.

He had to keep reminding himself that just because she was princess, his first thought shouldn't be Disney.

"Of course that's the part you two weird assholes don't bloody ignore." She muttered with frustration. "Yes Dean, I had slaves because the slave mode of production was an integral part of any agrarian based Bronze Age economy. And because I owned human beings as chattel and did a bunch of other horrendous stuff, I have now ended up in the underworld and being stuck with you and your brother is my punishment." She let out a long breath. "I am not a good person. Never have been. Safe to say the list of people who would've wanted to curse me both within the empire and without, may just be too long."

"The only way we'll know anything for sure about what happened that day is whenever you remember." said Sam. "Are you sure you can't remember anything? I mean your whole life and all of your memories are right here in your head, clearly whatever you're missing has to be here."

He could feel the apprehension in his brother's voice, and he understood that. Because he, too was worried she would send them away once again. But she didn't. Thank god. He did not want to visit the memory of her and her father shouting at each and fighting, over whether or not to send her twin to Egypt, all over again.

"I do want to remember." Though she didn't look all that confident and quickly added. "At least I'm pretty sure that I do. How can I even know if I want to remember something, when I have no idea what that something is? I wouldn't even know where to start. I don't have any control over what I see in here with Dean. I just slip in and out of the different memories. The only amount of control I've had is in waking up. How would I even be able to navigate through…all of the stuff? Do I just think really hard?" She closed her eyes for a moment with a look of concentration on her face. Dean was preparing himself to be thrown into another memory. But nothing happened. They were still in the temple's courtyard. Without opening her eyes, she asked them if something had happened. He replied in negative and she opened her eyes. At least maybe now she will wake up and they all could leave. Please. He just wants to leave.

Except Sam pointed at something behind Muwatti and said, "Does that count?" Both Dean and Muwatti looked towards where he was pointing and saw her younger self sitting there, with a blank look on her face.

"How could it? I remember myself when I was," she took a closer look at her doppelgänger. "fourteen maybe fifteen. Must be after anni disappeared, as those are the ceremonial robes of the Tawananna." She gave her younger self another hard look, "No. Definitely fourteen. Though I can't remember why she is in such a despondent mood. I mean, she has still all the advantages and benefits of an absolute monarchy at her fingertips. Lives in a lap of complete luxury. Still has her family and all of that gold. So maybe the stupid little slut should be sad when she actually loses everything, now shouldn't she?"

Wow. Where did that come from, he found himself thinking aloud.

"I'm not sure. It felt it came from somewhere deep. But it's fine. I'm ignoring it."

Yeah. Cause that's the healthy thing to do. Can't believe she is actually making him say these things. But to be fair she does seem to be repressing just as much as him. You know, with the Mark and the overall general mess that is their life. But it's fine. He's ignoring it.

The younger Muwatti was now joined by her twin, who offered her a flagon, a gesture to which she replied, "I hope you're offering that to me, so that I could bash it on your head, Zannanza. Alcohol does nothing for me, or did you forget, you idiot?"

"No, alil, I didn't forget about your stupid and useless blessing. However I was hoping that at least today Ishtar would allow you to get a drink. How are you doing alhuesra?"

Dream Muwatti replied with a chuckle, "Alhuesragal actually. And absolutely horrid. But it's fine. I'm ignoring it."

"We were raised by the same emotionally repressed people, but even I know that's not healthy." said her twin.

Dean couldn't help but chuckle and their Muwatti asked him what was so funny. "It's funny because the level of emotional maturity you had at fourteen, has remained unchanged even at… Hold on, how old are you?"

"Twenty-eight." She replied. "No. Wait. I was born in 1340 B.C. if we are to believe the dating system by Dr. Trevor Bryce, which means I am now 3354 years old," she quickly calculated on her fingertips, "and that means I was in the tablet for 3326 years in total."

Wow, again. They all knew it would be around that number, they have been saying it enough. But to get the exact number of years, to be able to calculate it, was another matter. She was once again lost in thought. Sam, too, was silent. In fact it appeared he was listening to the twins, who were now talking about her first royal ceremony, as the Tawananna.

Her twin continued talking, "And stop saying 'it's fine', because I know you're not fine. You and Zuwa have been in love with each other since you were children, and now you have to go out there and solemnise his marriage with our half-sister."

Dean and Sam then got to witness how differently both the Muwattis' reacted to that. The older one was clearly in a state of shock and had now turn around completely to face the teenagers. While the younger one let out a snort of frustration, saying, "Well, of course I'd love nothing more than to go out there and marry him myself. But you seem to be forgetting that the evening my betrothal to Zuwa was to be made official, our esteemed anni dragged me to this very temple and made me the High Priestess. And I have no choice but to give both, Zuwa and Supilka, my blessing for a long and prosperous marriage, because six months ago, you and the other four blond bastards made me the Tawananna. Why? Because our seventeen years old stepmother scares all of you." Zannanza looked like he was going to say something, but she interrupted him, "This isn't me blaming you, any of you. I mean, after anni's disappearance, what choice did I have. But this marriage has to happen. We need Zuwa's father as an ally and his only condition is a royal marriage. Yes, they wanted me first, and even I would've wanted it to be me, but that's pretty much impossible now, isn't it? And atti doesn't care which one of his daughters actually gets married off, as long as his gets an alliance with the most powerful aristocratic and military family in the empire."

"Aren't both of you tempted?" He asked her sister. "To run away? Leave Hattusa behind."

"Of course we are. But Zuwa can't turn his back on his own family anymore than I can on all of you. Besides, you're telling me if atti ever told you to do something, you wouldn't do it, even if it would only harm you in the end?"

"Of course I would. He's my emperor."

"And anni was my Tawananna. I'm only doing what she expected of me."

And what would turn out to be the second last time for the night, everything around them started melting all over again. The courtyard disappeared and all three of them were now sitting in her chambers in the palace. The memory of her last day. As always, dream Muwatti entered the room and was now resting on the bed. Their Muwatti, who was still had her back towards them and was facing the giant windows, stood up, as did they, and said, "Congratulations Sam. You got your wish. I remembered what I'd forgotten." She finally turned around and walked ahead of them, closer to the centre of the room, "No. I never really forgot. Rather I always knew what was missing, I just didn't want to remember."

They had reached the point in the memory, when all of them could hear the loud bang behind the other door. The Winchesters turned around, towards the source of the noise. Dean half expected everything to start dissolving around them, like always. But it didn't. The memory continued on. The noise had woken up dream Muwatti and she decided to investigate it, by walking towards the door. However just as she was about to reach it, the door opened and a man stepped out. His was taller than Muwatti and had dark hair and dark eyes, and looked way too pleased with himself.

"General Zuwa, were you trying to frighten me?" The other Muwatti said. "If you were any other man, I would've had no choice but to have you punished for such impertinence." She tried to look angry but the smile on her face said otherwise. The man simply laughed and said, "Good thing I'm not any other man, princess." He picked her up, and then threw both of them on the bed. Muwatti, through her giggles attempted to admonish him for coming to her chambers and what if someone had seen him. "I think it's safe to say that we are beyond such worries. We are the worst kept secret of the capital, my love. No one, not even your brother or my wife, actually believes that the reason behind my nightly visits to the temple is because I just have to venerate the goddess." The couple on the bed then proceeded to passionately kiss each other, while the rest of them could only stand there and stare at them.

"What's with those faces?" Muwatti asked the brothers, when she turned around towards them. "We've already established that I'm not a good person. The fact that I was sleeping with my half-sister's husband shouldn't be that much of a shock, to either of you."

Dean saw that his brother was, indeed, just as shocked as him, with the turns of events. What the hell just happened and wasn't the person who was going to lock her up in the tablet supposed to be inside the other room, he heard him ask. To which Dean could only say, "I don't know about that, but he's certainly doing something to her." Zuwa had by now slid his hand underneath her dress and by the way she was whimpering, he had a pretty good idea what was happening. So could Sam, since he immediately looked away from the bed, which greatly amused him and Muwatti. She cheekily asked him why was he turning away, when in fact the whole reason he was here, was so that he could see what happened to her on that day.

"This was obviously not what I had intended." His brother spluttered out, with the other Muwatti's moans still in the background. "Do you really want us to see you like this?" He turned towards Dean, who hadn't turned away, "Will you please stop staring. Why the fuck are you smirking so much anyways?" But that only ended up making him smirk even more.

"Being naked in front of other people has never been a problem for me. Besides I've had sex with Zuwa, with people watching us plenty of times. Usually my handmaidens, though, but you get the point." She chuckled one last time, before turning serious again. "You can relax, Sam. My modesty is safe from you and your brother. Because it's about to happen now."

What had been a bright sunny day in ancient Turkey, rapidly descended into darkness. The eclipse. All five of them were now in complete darkness. Dean could barely make out Muwatti get up from the bed and head towards a tiny table in the corner to light up one of the oil lamps. He heard a door opening from behind him, when he saw that on the tiny table were a bunch of clay tablets. He wanted to ask if her tablet, the one she will get locked inside of was there, when dream Muwatti was attacked from behind by someone, making her fall on the ground. Zuwa, who after hearing the thud of her fall, had started moving towards Muwatti and the table. But the attacker walked over Muwatti's unconscious body and slit his throat with the knife she had been holding. Probably had used the hilt of the same knife to attack Muwatti.

Then the attacker moved closer to the light and now all three of them could make out that it was a woman. She seemed to be looking for something, standing over the table. Dean asked Muwatti if she knew who she was. She had been staring with a blank look on her face at Zuwa, who was quickly losing blood and slowly dying. "That's Ninshubur. My head handmaid and also a priestess of Ishtar. She wasn't even supposed to be in Hattusa. She had left last night to visit her mother in a village few kilometres away."

Sam, who had moved towards the other woman and was watching her, pointed towards her and added, "Dean, look at her. Both of you just come over and look at her. Look at what she is doing." He moved closer towards the woman who was still standing at the table. She had dropped the knife and was now holding a tablet, the tablet, in her hand. But at the same time it seemed that she was trying to force herself drop the tablet using her other hand. They could make out, her muttering over and over again 'bind her and bring her'. "That's what you remembered as chanting." said Sam. "I think she is being compelled to do it. Whoever did that to her, wanted her to bring you to them."

Muwatti finally tore her eyes away from her dying lover and asked, "You mean someone is making - I mean, made her do all of this. Who?"

The other Muwatti on the floor had now woken up and after seeing a dying Zuwa, started moving towards him by crawling on the floor. She was clearly still disorientated from the hit on her head, as she was struggling to move. Ninshubur had by now lost the fight of control over herself against whatever spell she was under and started moving towards the still crawling Muwatti, with the tablet and the knife. Dean wanted to stop her, it was his first instinct to jump in front of this other woman, but was stopped by his brother, who said that he can't change anything. All of it had already happened. Ninshubur placed both the tablet and the knife on the ground next to her, and turned Muwatti over, to press her hands on her stomach.

Dean was still overwhelmed with the need to save someone or something. But Sam was right, he can't change any of this. No one could. The only thing he could do was stand there and helplessly watch. She was still muttering 'bind her and bring her', and suddenly they were momentarily blinded by a bright white light, just like the one he saw at that night in the museum, when he accidentally released her from the tablet. Dean could make out the form of Muwatti slowly disappearing and fading away, when Ninshubur grabbed the knife and plunged it in her abdomen. Even though it all happened too fast for him, he knew that it was deep enough that she wasn't going to go anywhere, and was going to die in a few moments. Muwatti had by now completely disappeared, with the sun coming back and enveloping the whole room with light once again. And for the last time that night, everything around them started melting and fading away. They were once more surrounded in momentary darkness, before landing in the temple courtyard. Right where they had started.

Now that explains a few things. And at the same time raised even more questions for them.

"Whoever or whatever did all of that to you" Dean said while pointing towards her, "wanted you to be smuggled out of the city, cause-"

But was interrupted by Sam. "Cause they couldn't get in. That means it really was either angels or demons behind this. But why didn't they come after you again? I mean they could've sent someone else to-."

This time Muwatti interrupted Sam. "Because they didn't know where I was. Can't you see? Ninshubur picked up the tablet by complete chance. It was a random choice by her. They must've just said to her to pick any object and lock me in it. They never saw where she put me, because the warding prevented the angels or the demons or whatever else from seeing anything happening inside the capital. Even if they did sent another person, they still couldn't get to me, because they didn't know it was that tablet they had to look for."

Dean agreed with that and could see that Sam agreed as well. "They wanted you bound and brought to them, and their biggest mistake turned out to be never specifying in what. And also I think that Ninshubur gained enough control over herself to take her own life rather than bring you over to them. Guess they didn't count on that happening either." Now if only they could figure out who these 'they' were. He couldn't even be sure about their fucking species. Or even what the binding spell actually was. They had reached the end of the road, as far as them using her memories to figure out what happened to her and also what happened between him and her that night in the museum. Cause they now have a whole other series of questions that needed answering. Just like the one she had pointed out earlier, why would the Mark save her?

All three of them were standing in complete silence. The other two probably asking the same question as he was. He and Sam had a silent conversation about who was going to be the first to speak, but both of them chickened out after seeing the look of her face. It was the same blank expression she had while staring at the dying Zuwa. But as it turned out, it was Muwatti who spoke out first, that it was time to wake up.

Dean opened his eyes and saw the faded paint of the cheap motel's ceiling. He heard the rustling of sheets beside him, Sam on the other bed, and in front of him, Muwatti on the pull out. He checked the time and saw that it was barely fifteen minutes since they had all gone to bed. Safe to say none of them went back to sleep that night. All three of them spent the whole night in dark silence. Just like the one in that damn tablet.