V.E.: Hello, I'm back again with the next chapter and our first interlude of Princess of Egypt. Now let me explain that last part, this is mostly a story focusing on what Kisara is doing, with side excursions into what is going with the pharaoh and priests, or Atem and his friends (which I haven't' done this yet, but I hope to).
What I meant by interlude, is that this is the first chapter that doesn't have Kisara in it at all. There's an indirect mention, but this chapter isn't focused her like the others have been. This is actually about Seto and where he is in all this at the moment. Since story will be leading into a romance with the two, a bunch of you have been constantly wondering, 'When are we going to see Seto?' I'm going by the anime, and he won't technically enter court for a couple of years, timeline wise. I feel it's important to build up Kisara's role at court and then reintroduced them.
As the story goes on, I have at least two more of these interlude chapters planned at the moment; one with Aknadin and Nephthys and one with Atem and his Council. I'll have to see what my brain goes on after that. So this might actually be shorter, we'll see.
Now without further ado, here is the quote for the chapter! If you're interested, just scroll after the page break.
"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination."-Nelson Mandela (RIP).
Seto kept his head bent down, his eyes focused on the text that he was currently reading and simultaneously translating the texts in front of him. The smell of incense that permeated the room that had been swung by the priests before class had started, had died off and didn't bother Seto as much as when he first started taking classes.
From behind him, he could hear the struggle of some of his other classmates as they were struggling to understand the confusing pictures before them. Most of them were training to be scribes for the priests, possibly for the army or even the Royal Court in the distant capital of Kemet. Still, most of the class was barely meeting the minimum amount of work most days not.
Not Seto though, as he finally sat back up straight and got out of his seat. Walking up to the front of the class, he found where Priest Luzige was and handed the scroll of completed worker.
The round, heavy set priest with crisp clean white robes, who was in charge of this particular class of young to teenage boys, took one look at the scroll with his dark brown eyes. His snort of pleasure echoed through his rather large nose, approvingly of the young brunet's work.
"Excellent as always, Seto."
Standing up straight and preening at the praise, the young boy was also aware of the not so nice looks that were shot at his back by his classmates. Ever since he came to the temple, Seto had excelled in several months what had taken some students several years to learn. While the priests had praised it as genius from the gods, he could hear the snickers of his classmate while he walked down the halls of the Temple.
"Look at him, thinks he's so smart."
"There's no way someone with his background is doing this well! It's just not right!"
"He's got to be cheating."
Seto didn't pay them any mind, though. Given that he was from a low background, it could only be expected people would talk. There were other lower class kids in class taken in on a charity cases, so he was nothing that unusual in that case.
What they really couldn't stand was his attitude with that genius. Most of the other lower background kids were humble to the extreme, often being pushed around by the upperclassman and other higher standing kids.
Seto was the exact opposite, when someone gave a snide comment, he mainly ignored them. When they tried pulling pranks on him, he just fixed them with a glare that shut a lot of them up. And when they punched him, he punched back. If there was one thing Seto was known for, it was his pride. regardless of who gave an offense, he would not take it lying down.
He could still remember his mother sighing at him after an instance with a fellow neighboring bully, to which he treated with a black eye and came back with only nominal bruises.
"You are certainly your father's son, same stubborn pride and everything. One of these days, that pride is going to get you in over your head."
He swallowed down the memory as the priest handed him a new scroll.
"Here's the next part of the assignment."
Seto bowed in acknowledgement and turned back to head to his seat. On the way, sensing he was about to be tripped, he lightly stepped over the obvious roadblock with his eyes closed. He smirked as he sensed the disbelief of the student that foot belonged to, they often wondered how we was able to sense things like that. His eyes reopened as he got back to his seat. He was about to sit down as his eyes wandered to a figure in the back of the classroom.
The strange priest that had arrived less than a week prior stood there, observing the room. The tan man looked almost like a government official, but Seto wasn't sure that was who the man was. His headdress was atop of a face with black facial hair and inquisitive black eyes that observed everything about the room with his arms crossed. But the most interesting thing about the man was the unusual golden rod he held in one of his hands, that had golden wings at the top for the golden eye center. For some reason, Seto had a hard time looking away from it, but he managed it.
He's back again.
Seto took his seat as he tried to focus on his work, but ultimately found his mind wandering back to the unexpected guest. Earlier in the week, the priests had gone to welcome the stern looking man into the Temple of Thoth. The high priest didn't mention what the man was here for, but he stressed that everyone should be respectful to the man visiting from the capital.
Having lived in the temple for over half of the year, Seto took the news in and just went on with his day to day work. It most likely had nothing to do with him and thinking about it wouldn't help him anymore. At first, he had only seen the priest passing by him in the opposite direction in the hall. Recently however, he had seen the priest often in the back of the classrooms and at supper. Once or twice, he could have sworn he caught the man's eye on him.
Shaking these thoughts out of his head even more swiftly, he observed the new scroll and got ready the new sheet of papyrus to continue the day's work. Once again he felt his being concentrated on the work at hand.
After what seemed like only a couple of moments, Priest Luzige called all their attention to the front of the room.
"Alright, you can all go to your lunch now, but don't forget to come back in an hour!"
All of the students got up with that, in the quick speed they exited the door along with carrying on the conversations that had begun n the morning before class. Even Priest Luzige exited the room with great anticipation of the roasted duck that was no doubt today's special at the speed he was going. In other words, the room was quickly emptied.
Well, almost.
Seto stayed in his seat, not even looking up at the announcement for lunch. He often stayed in the class during lunch, it was a great time to work in peace without his classmate's muttering. He was so concentrated on his work, he almost didn't hear someone approaching behind him.
The brunet sighed, sure it was Priest Luzige back by a reminder to get him out, and turned to find his eyes go wide at the sight of the stern priest form earlier standing right there with an appraising look on his face.
The older man was the first to speak, the golden rod still gleaming in his hand.
"Shouldn't you be getting lunch with the rest of your classmates?"
Resisting the urge to scoff at the man, Seto went back to his work.
"I don't need it, I had a full breakfast."
The priest only 'hmmed' at this thoughtfully, as the young boy continued to work.
"You're quite dedicated for one so young."
Seto answered without looking up from his writing on the scroll.
"That's what the priests tell me."
One of the man's dark eyebrows lifted in a quizzical question way.
"And your classmates?"
The young man's reply was brusque.
"It doesn't matter what they think."
The nameless priest was silent after that, looking over boy's shoulder at the work he was doing.
"You're doing some quite advanced work. I would expect this out of the upper students of this class or the minor ones at court."
Seto didn't like the tone in the man's voice, but nonetheless kept the irritation out of his voice as much as he could.
"Is there a problem with that?"
The man's voice seemed even, but also had a hint of something Seto couldn't identify.
"It's quite astonishing considering how an orphan from a poor farming village that was destroyed is mastering this writing that takes years so easily."
Seto visibly flinched that time, this man was able to hone in on the thing that bothered people about his progress in this particular field. The looks on their faces as they wondered, How on earth is a nobody like him doing this well?
The truth of the matter was that it wasn't his first time learning how to write. His mother had taught him how to write some, aside from him working on the farms nearby to get a better sense of skill. At day, he helped their neighbors prepare for the harvest, but at night his mother showed him how to write in the sand in the light of their lamp. He hadn't questioned it at the time, but his mother had sworn him to keep quiet about it.
But now that his mother was gone, Seto had to wonder, how did a simple solider's wife know how to write hieroglyphics? From his understanding, only the incredibly wealthy and privileged of Egypt could do so. It nagged at his mind at times, but he kept the knowledge to himself as it would no doubt raise questions that his mother hadn't want brought up.
Making his face blank in spite of this thoughts, his voice turned hard as he answered.
"I work hard. A lot of the others are pretty lazy and it shows in their work. I take this seriously."
For the first time, the man's lips twitched into a half second smile.
"I wasn't trying to insult you. I can tell you work hard. You remind of another young person who excelled so well in a short period of time."
Seto's eyes widened in moderate surprise as he realized something the man had said earlier, but still kept his face blank.
"How did you know about where I come from?"
"High Priest Aiemapt mentioned you in a conversation we had the day after I arrived. Your presence in the temple is rather common knowledge."
Seto almost flushed, knowing the man's truth as he went back to his work.
"So what are you doing here?"
To be honest, I was rather curious."
That got Seto to turn back around at the man whose dark eyes carried some indescribable emotion within. He felt only inclined to ask.
"Curious about what?"
"Why is such a young boy so dedicated to this? What is it are you searching for?"
The young man's mind flashed back to the night his village burned, something that often haunted his dreams.
The White Dragon howling in the night….a power and beauty he had never experienced before….
He came back out of his phase out, his teacher having a surveying look. No doubt the older man had noticed the young man had flashed to something of importance to him. He felt his face redden as he directed his head down.
A small smile made itself on to the way of the man's face, his eyes closed as he turned away from the young man.
"Alright, keep your secret. I suppose everyone is entitled to them."
The unnamed priest took a moderate pace to walking which Seto was about to tune out before the utter 'CLANG!' rang in his ear.
He turned around sharply to find the golden rod the man had been holding had fallen to the floor with the man turned around and walking away, with seemingly no intention of going back to pick up the strange thing.
Before Seto knew what he was doing, he shot up out of his and seat and bent down to pick up the golden rod. He griped the handle firmly and raised it up to an extent before stopping to notice something.
The eye, the thing that his own eyes had been drawn to the most about the rod, was currently glowing. As he stood up straight with the wand like thing in his hand, his mind suddenly felt….different. Holding this strange instrument made him feel like he was holding so much power in his hand. And the Item, in some strange way, seemed to be accepting his touch.
The center of his forehead burned for a moment, but that passed into pleasure as he openly admired the golden thing with a reverence. There was a beauty to it and at the same time he felt a almost a dangerous quality about the presence.
It felt just like when he had seen the White Dragon that night.
Eventually after a few minutes of simply standing there admiring the Rod, he reminded himself what was going on and snapped himself back to reality to find a curious sight.
The priest stood there with a smile as he looked at the youth handling his golden rod, and a great spark of brightness in his eyes.
Seto then slowly held the Rod up, to have it be taken by the priest. It felt horrible letting it go, still he could manage it. But then as the Rod was out of his hands, he focused on the incredible satisfied look on the man's face.
Seto then realized something strange with that look; not only did he drop the Rod on purpose, he wanted Seto to pick it up.
It was in that quiet moment of time between the two, that Priest Luzige came back into the classroom. His voice broke the silence, before turning confused at the pair before him.
"Master Khalid, the High Priest was wondering whether you would be inclined to attend lunch in the hall. It seems there's….um...is there something the matter?"
The man know known as Master Khalid waved the man off, not taking his eyes off the young man in front of him.
"Oh no, not at all. As a matter of fact, I've finally found what I've been looking for."
Luzige's face seemed to twist in confusion until Khalid went on in his authoritative way.
"Priest Luzige, do you mind if I borrow your young pupil for a while? If it's no trouble."
Luzige's face was still bewildered, but somewhat accepting of what was going on.
"Well, no…it wouldn't be. If that is what you wish, Master Khalid."
Khalid gave a curt nod with a voice that cut to the point.
"Good."
The priest then started to resume his walk out of the room, stopping at the doorway to look back at the young boy that was still in place. The Rod gleamed as if knowing something.
"Well, aren't you coming? You'll need to be quick if you're to keep up with me."
Seto frowned at the tone of the older man's voice, finding it somewhat presumptuous of the man to just expect him to follow him. Nonetheless, he started to walk to the doorway, finally stopping next to Priest Khalid and the two exited the temple's classroom together to disappear into the halls.
V.E.: I did mention this would be relatively short, right? Anyway, I did have other stuff I wanted to do, but I cut it out to get this flowing. Process of editing and reworking.
Why did Seto's mother know how to read and write? Well it's an interesting background I've created for her, but that won't be explored until further down the line.
Please review as this is an update that hasn't been done in a long time.