Hey guys, see down the bottom for possible changes in update schedule but chances are everything is as normal this week and next. Also… how many of you think I'm a guy? Cause my count has reached three which makes a coincidence a pattern~


Chapter 5: Aspirations

It was perhaps the most exposed and elaborate thing Anzu had ever seen though she spied it only from windows unwelcome. In Briton the heir apparent was not allowed to attend the funerals of anyone: not his children, not his mother, not his wife…because it would invite all those present to consider the death of the heir and the king which was, de-facto, treason. In the East however it seemed that the typical restraint of self was not at all the aim or intention.

The very proud, very bold, men and women Anzu had spied all these days led the procession, held aloft the coffin, sung the prayers and sobbed viciously. The heavily pregnant, beautiful, woman Atemu had introduced as his sister beat her fists on the ground in grief and with their heads down no man seemed to think her less a princess.

The black saris on the sand were multilayered; shimmers of blue, vermillion, deepest burgundy pressed with gold ornaments and plain ebony linen till they crowd seemed a splayed, glistening, peacock feather. It was intense and misleadingly simple upon the top layer but the core was colour.

Gem Faher Yugi, the white witch, was one of those holding the body up and sobbing as she walked with her face in one hiccupping hand seemingly barely able to stand. Anzu could see how men punctuated the tight throng of the lesser, gentler, sex and how beside Yugi the Prince Mahado had her waist and was bitter faced.

Anzu could only hear them all singing the pyre hymns, hear them crying, and watch Atemu flitter out of view among the armoured princes carrying their swords and lances along the rim of the throng. She supposed it was some pseudo-ceremonial tradition but with an underlying practical purpose. It made sense to her in a way to have the men armed to see their father to the grave, intimidating interfering spirits, and likewise it kept the hysterical gentler sex defended along the road.

Atemu had told her, gaunt and grey faced, that they would not be back for all of the night and most of the next day. The court, he said, would walk to the tomb of the Sultan, bury him, and revel the night away in hysterics before traipsing home in the morning. He said there would be songs and hymns the whole way there and back to cover their tracks from tomb-robbers or demons.

She understood she was not welcome, she could see good reason for the resentment towards her and she…

Atemu looked so horribly bitter faced, hardened, walking under the window almost out of view. She wanted to be crying beside him.


Mahado sat beside Atemu, to his silent relief, four days later. The Greater Council of men had left, destined for coronation preparations, with a signed abdication under their arms and a holy manuscript both princes had sworn against (despite Atemu's unmentioned conversion to Christianity). Behind them now came the Great Lesser Council.

They were the women most import in Atemu's court. The same who had kissed his father's coffin and said the last, secret, chants. Only the sex who could birth life could see it in or out safely to or from the gods it was believed here. To them, as always, fell the final issue.

Mana'jet struggled to take her seat, Kisara and Yugi assisted. The very sight of the white witch beside his sister, holding her arm, could've sent Atemu into a proxygasam from the tiny gesture of Yugi squeezing her fingers alone. The fact the great lesser council saw her still, after the burial of Qazzadara, as Gem Faher and as special somehow despite the fact the only man giving Yugi any legitimized authority was gone… Atemu clenched his teeth.

Atemu's younger sisters, wives of the important dukes and sub-warlords, his in-laws, a priestess or two and the Gem Faher took their seats before him more comfortably than any of their husbands had. To them Atemu was an apprentice in his expertise of romance, house-politics and the sort. Tradition said they were here to advise him as specialists.

In Britton things never would've been so. Atemu's upbringing clashed with his conversion in such a way that two senses of what was right, natural, in the world sizzled into each other. Anzu still couldn't fathom his explanation that the wives of the court were to order him about. She had never dared to raise her voice to any man after all.

"Kinsfolk," Mahado gestured as Atemu swallowed uncomfortably, "we are gathered as you know to discuss the matter of my brother's great marriage."

"What find you, dear ones, on the issue?" Atemu managed stiffly, not quite straight in his seat.

"We've weighed the candidates your Majesties but we are unresolved." Mana'jet shrugged unapologetically.

"You have no choice? No solution?" He cocked up one brow and greatly doubted as much. The wives of the East always had their minds made up. They would've decided days ago.

"Well we have our solution," Kisara illustrated a sweep of her hand, "but your Majesty's preference complicates the issue. You wish for us to consider, seriously, the Lady Anzu yes?"

"Most grievously and promptly."

"We cannot properly," Kuli elaborated both laced hands resting on the table like a lawyer, "until we can inspect her properly. There is her fortune, her spiritual nature, and her physical condition all unapprised."

"That aside my Liege we like not her odds otherwise," old Lurek piped up casually leant back in her seat.

Mahado glanced, unhelpfully, to his younger brother as, across the rounded table, Yugi seemed to stare blankly at nothing with her hands folded. Atemu straightened.

"I can ready conditions for you to speak with her," he offered, "but I cannot guarantee she will consent to a physical inspection."

"Then we can't have her," Mana'jet spoke most readily, unafraid of even Atemu's temper. "Those are our laws. If she won't submit to them how can she preside over them? How are we to be sure she's a maiden?"

"She is," Atemu raised his fingers though his palm sat still on the rest of the seat, "I have her father's written assurance."

"That was months ago," Kisara threw up her hand, "and while I love your Majesty dearly you are young and journeys across the narrow sea are cold and lonely."

The others nodded, tutted, with the knowledge of marriage and experience of men. They were evidently unconvinced and unimpressed. Atemu's fingers tightened but he… he could not see himself raising his voice obscenely before his little sisters…

"We would consider her as a secondary wife readily, without issue," Sesset leant forward appealingly her elbows on the polished surface, "but not as a primary your Majesty. Surely you can see that much."

"I will not consent to a secondary wife at this point," Atemu spread his hands swiping demonstratively before him, "and before I could have a secondary you would have to offer me a primary regardless."

"We have candidates," Mana'jet tutted her fingers, "we just wish to settle this European issue being it seems closest to your heart."

"Show me a bride better suited, more available, than a properly educated British lady and I would be surprised." Atemu snorted.

"You mean to suggest your sisters and your cousins couldn't out reach any second removed daughter of a whose-their-name?" Mana'jet prickled sharply. "Brother I'm almost insulted. I only remain not so because I assume you mean better than you explain."

"I only meant," Atemu clarified, raising both hands to placate as the wives visibly rankled up towards him, "that the Lady Anzu is just as intelligent and well-bred as the ladies of our own proud sovereignty."

"I would argue the the details but that would be inevitably pointless," Kisara twisted with half a moan. "The point is we like her not Atemu."

"But I am your king and I like her, I have proofed her, I will testament to her." He grunted impatiently frustrated.

"You are not our king yet," Lurek checked him, "and we don't like her as a queen. You are no expert in this Majesty. This is our business. She will lead us, if Sultana, not you. We have to endure her authority, her ignorance, and we will all of us, children and husbands included, bear the cost."

Yugi was wringing her wrists and one knee crossed daintily over the other. Atemu found himself rubbed, itched, increasingly just as much by the fact the Gem Faher hadn't seized a dangling chance to mock him. The silence was as burdensome as the white witch's voice because the silence veiled whatever vengeance might be coming.

"My kinsfolk," Mahado sighed up finally, "what would you suggest? Excluding every issue of proving the Lady is of fine stock, what is your most reasonable proposal?"

They glanced, they hummed, and Kisara nodded wisely to Mana'jet who patted her belly as preparing for battle. Yugi glanced but seemed subtly uncertain.

"We would happily accept the Lady as his Majesty's second wife, sole bearer of his sons," Sesset nodded, "and we would recommend the Gem Faher for the primary and the politics. It solves our residual issues."

"What?" Atemu hissed up, wrenching forth in the seat like a kicked snake.

Yugi stiffened abruptly, head cocking to either side amazedly as hers own fingers curled, and in the briefest second wherein their eyes met Atemu perceived from the horror in the witch that she was not privy to this scheme nor partial to it. They were as riled as each other, as offended, aghast, as each other. That made it all worse actually.

"Yugi knows the business of the court, of running the house, of managing expenses; of queenship," Kisara shrugged mildly. "She is amicable with us. She has close alliances with the family and important figures. She has defendable honour and standing."

"She has less blood than the Lady Anzu does!" Atemu snapped. "She comes from no-name peasants!"

"The Sultan took her in as clan," Mana'jet seemed nonplussed by the issue, "and she needs be married. None in the high court would question it."

"Ha," Atemu managed a tense sound through his nose, bamboozled. "Well where the Lady Anzu may have a lesser dowry she has none."

"She knows our customs, our language," Lurek interjected. "The Lady doesn't."

"Besides I'd wager she has amassed a great personal fortune over the last five seasons, one your Majesty could assume co-regency of," Kisara nodded. "Regardless of those specifics the Sultan left conditions in the ledgers for a considerable yearly pension to the Gem Faher upon his death. It matches that of what he would afford one of your sisters. It's a good price. It would save the crown very good money to make her one of the household."

It was all viciously practical and yet instantly close knit. Atemu saw on their wily and contented faces that to have Yugi as their ring leader would give the council of the great lesser exactly what they wanted. For them things would be unchanged from one Sultan to the next, a smooth transition, a quick progress and while that was all good for the nation…

"And what can you say of her honour? Her physicality and spirituality?" Atemu quoted, utterly offended and quickly becoming venomous.

The Gem Faher, who had turned deathly pallid, darkened four shades and moaning behind her sewn lips buried her face in her face palms exasperatedly.

"She will consent to our inspection and that of a physician," Lurek grunted solidly convinced. "Besides that she is nothing if not a spiritual authority among us, as a good queen should be, so I could say nothing ill of her fortune."

"I doubt your Lady could lead a mass in the temple," Mana'jet nodded, patting her belly.

"This is absolutely ridiculous," Atemu spat, "I won't have it, it's utterly incomprehensible; out of the question!"

"What of your Majesty?" Kisara turned, sighing, to Mahado.

Atemu rounded on him and stiffening slightly the elder heaved cautiously.

"I can see your illustration," he consented, "the Gem Faher is a suited candidate. Still it seems inconsolable to my brother's constitution."

"Oh think of it this way," Atemu's fifth sister Briga piped impatiently from the fringe, "Yugi is here. That marriage could be swift. You could hurry onto the second one within the month. It makes no difference so long as one of them has princes or some third bride!"

"It makes every difference!" Atemu boomed standing.

If he had been a king in Britton they would've cowered. The lesser sex would've quivered back from him and at the abrupt rise of their soon-to-be king would've risen themselves on matter of sacred etiquette. Here however his aunts, his siblings, his cousin, his in-laws only looked impatient and embarrassed by him. They had no fear of men. They knew their business. They would not be bullied.

"I won't consent to that," Atemu dismissed trying to regain some face as sighing he swiped his hand again. "We will need to find another solution."

"Ah milord," Mana'jet groaned into her fingers as they messaged her temple, "be reasonable. We will meet you halfway! Compromise with us!"

"My friends," Mahado raised his voice smoothly with his calming hands, "for today let us leave this. Let us meet again in a week or so. If you, dear ones, would review your options we would greatly appreciate it. Atemu and I shall review ours."

"Majesties," Mana'jet sighed, waving her hand in consent as the party rose to the dismissal of the abdicated prince like perfect dolls. They were utterly reasonable creatures for Mahado.


Yugi took some rustling, a tap from Kuli, to even know to rise and then she was the first one out on brisk leather bound feet.

"Oh halt!" Kisara cawed striding after her to grab her arm. "Halt, halt, friend."

"You gave me no warning on that!" Yugi twisted as the doors shut behind them and the light bellowed through the windows and Atemu could be heard raging beyond the wood.

"Aye," Kisara nodded, "we knew you'd not go for it. Tis a good prospect though, a solution, and like him you ought to be more reasonable to it."

"Aye, she be right," Mana agreed waddling to reach them.

"It's madness!" Yugi grunted. "Rife madness! He'd rather gut me so much as look at me! It's a miserable prospect. You know he hates me."

"He's a fool, he's a boy," Lurek moaned eyes rolling. "You are a fine option. Someone ought make that apparent to him. He'll see it if he's forced to settle with it eventually."

There was a general clamour of sagely nods and clucks throughout the Great Lesser Council.

"You've all lost your minds," Yugi wheezed, astounded as she shook her head into her hand.

"What's he to do?" Sesset grunted. "He'll nary marry that Lady without our consent. It would make him a laughing stock to everyone. It would be to disrespect every man at court by disrespecting the word of their mothers, their wives, their sisters and daughters."

"I know not what he'll do," Yugi retorted with a curt gesture still softly hot, "but I want not to know. Marry me somewhere else, anywhere else, I shudder at the thought of having him."

"Marriage tis a curse, to bear sons is a curse," Mana'jet recited with her eldest brother's calm. "We do it not for pleasure. He's stubborn as devils after his ambassadorship; tis the duty of us to straighten him out and tis your duty as well."

"No one marries for pleasure save fools," Lurek scoffed hands on hips, "he needs quality or else we'll all go down with him. I'd marry him but I already have a hopeless man of my own. It's your turn to care for one now the poor Sultan, rest him, is gone. You're the only one hard enough to endure without shuddering at his tantrums."

"Well clever or essential as it may be my loves," Yugi laughed breathlessly, "he shall never permit it. You'd have to drag him there."

"We might, or I might," Kisara snapped, "if he keeps sprouting off like a petulant sand-sucker."


Atemu, without consulting anyone, formally invited the Lady Anzu to court and to dinner that evening. He propped her next to him on the high table and as nervous as she rightfully looked he kept his chin high.

Kisara, Mana and the others were livid under their breaths. They would not speak to her. They pretended, very coyly, to not understand her attempts at either British or their own tongue when she bravely once wandered to them. Yugi presumed somehow by the incline of her spine that she had meant to apologise. She would get no chances however. The great wives were inconsolably offended by Atemu yet again. Another wall had been built when under any other circumstance, any other day, and they would've welcomed her openly.

The men sniffed it out, saw it in eyes, and next to Atemu on his opposing side, over Mahado, Seth pointedly refused to make eye contact with or speak to his elder brother for the duration of the evening. All of Atemu's brother's in fact refused to speak with him save Mahado who tried valiantly to move amicably between all groups softening things. It may not have been so bad if the Lady weren't a form of disrespect to Qazzadara's memory as well as the wives. So while the lesser men of court were forced by rank to acknowledge the prince but they did so with such a shuffling air of discomfort that it was tangible to the most uneducated observer.

Their wives had been offended and hence the men of court were offended.

Atemu pretended to be ignorant by how little he demonstrated to care about the fiasco. Cut out from speaking with his brothers, or his sisters, he passed the night with Mahado and Anzu flouting them all out of spite.

Yugi could've twisted all her hair out bemoaning it. The great stubborn fool would have himself ruined before long. Unable it seemed to stop shaking her head with every heavy exhalation Yugi was forced to attempt to entertain herself with the children and questioning younger courtiers who sought her out. She made a game of reading their fortunes, consulted with one young maid on her new marriage and bounced a babe of Sesset's in her lap.


The men rushed the coronation with Mahado's backing. The wives, now rankled, refused to change their stance on the main issue of contention being that Atemu ought to have more than one wife. Atemu hurried after one council and languished unable to reason with the other.

In an effort to organize the transition before Mahado left to the sanctuary of Juras, his trip being once already waylaid, the coronation was staged for within the month.

There was no way either to deny the subtle aggression of Atemu towards the Gem Faher.

The Lady Anzu, on the morning of the grand event, was still morally aghast at communal baths and not invited to them regardless. For Yugi however the morning was a hectic shared mumble between thirty others.

Kisara sat bare chested on the rim of one enormous tub, before the sun had risen, dragging an ivory brush in hard yanking motions through the hair of others. Mana soaked her feet in the hottest pool trying to ready her uncomfortable body for a day of work.

They didn't believe in lying-ins for those heavy with child here. To an extent perhaps; the week before the due date perhaps, a date they calculated with effortless precision, the pregnant individual might sit aside at home. For weeks before duties would lessen too but unlike the Europeans of the continent they did not believe in the East of putting their foal bearers to one side. Yes afterbirth was polluting and dangerous to all, including the contaminated mother, but exercise and use of the mind was productive in growing a healthy child and they never could completely withdraw from social life. The few days they would be without Mana when her babe dropped would be exhausting enough without months of ritualistic containment.

Lurek scrubbed Yugi's back thoroughly, not as gently as was their regular route either, and insisted upon checking under her nails.

Hair was pinned still wet, able bodied slaves rushed round with beads and feathers for the arrangement of ornaments into soft locks. On the edges of the tubs every woman was slapped and rubbed down by their companions with sweet smelling fumes and things to lessen the sour bite of the sun.

Kohl came after the donning of ceremonial garbs. Sorting whose fabric was whose from family crests, colours, and a million tiny straps and stripes of identification which clarified status took much less time than it should've. The symbols were familiar however and the great wives very skilled. They were rushed, viciously businesslike about the endeavour and insistent that they would be punctual.

Yugi licked her fingers, held the tip of the tiny brush tight and lined Kuli's eyes as well as Yasil's before Kisara grabbed her chin and turned her about for her turn.

How was the Lady faring she wondered? Gazing up toward the ceiling at Kisara's order she could picture Anzu in her room with a few sloppy caramel maids trying to ready herself for what was expected. She could never be ready properly without assistance. Yugi had struggled alone to try and present herself to court in her first days within the palace. It was isolating, confusing, and shaming to do as much. She pitied her, she ached for her, she- Kisara ordered Yugi closed her eyes.

Would Anzu be wearing the dress of a European princess or an Eastern queen?


They went through the city to the grand temple in open topped carriages lined with footmen and guards down the processional way where the peasants clamoured up on the bases of statues to spy a look.

Yugi spotted children on the anthropomorphic marbled head of the sun god waving and cooing towards the colours. She snorted, rather amicable with the sight, and between the feet of the seated one of Kuli's elder daughters, about five, waved back proudly.

They were directed inside the temple with all the pomp imaginable and in the two front pews, nearest the centre aisle, sat Mahado and the Lady Anzu. She had made it at least, Yugi lessened the knit of her shoulders relieved, but she was wearing the dress of a continental princess and not that of a native. For that, among other nit-picks, the other guests along her row turned their chins away to one cocked side, fanning themselves.

Yugi was, as she expected, along the same row as the Lady however on the extreme opposing end against the temple wall. Atemu would've organised that as some new, quiet, demonstration of protest and dislike for Yugi's continued existence.

The only amicable thing Atemu managed to do upon arriving was wear the traditional garb of his nation rather than something foreign. Given Yugi, and not naming several others, suspected the prince of conversion to the bizarre one-god nonsense of the Britons it was probably Atemu's wisest decision. If the masses perceived their Sultan as a heathen…Still it failed to make the day any less tenuous however with the Lady Anzu put in a place of honour and sticking out brazenly though she kept her head down and her smiles soft.

Yugi didn't dislike her, she knew that in her heart, and she had a depth of sentiment for her truthfully. The Lady was trapped in an uneasy and uncomfortable position unable to make her own moves. She was compelled to follow Atemu's instruction and unfortunately the prince had not been wise about anything yet.


Atemu seemed to expect, or hope at any rate, that after the coronation the feast which spanned the whole of the city would prove more fortuitous for his aims.

It didn't.

There was revelry Yugi observed and participated in but the freshly crowned Sultan could still not yet convince any of his siblings to acknowledge the Lady Anzu for longer than a few insufferably tense words. She circulated the room with him, trying her best at their tongue, and left a shadow of grumbles and amusement. Yugi took a heavier gulp of the sweet mead and resolved to stay firmly aside from it. For once she was quite lucky the prince considered her existence so outrageously insulting.

Atemu was Sultan now.

Yugi took another, heavier, gulp till she'd tilted the whole goblet back. Gods protect and preserve her.

She twisted a fastened bracelet, fingers swiping over a set of heavy pendants clinking round her clavicle. Many of her favourite conversationalists were dancing and among the rest the night had gone on so long that they were a little too heavy headed to talk politics or religion.

Seth had turned her through two dances, Mahado likewise, as had two of Atemu's other brothers, Zarzak and Abraxas, and if Yugi had wanted to she would've had no shortage of such options. She decided however to linger along the far wall feeling the cold stone against the bare back of her neck.

Yugi lifted one delicate construction off her clavicle. She had more than a dozen pieces of personal jewellery in her quarters that she'd amassed over the last five years. She thumbed this one with particular fondness however. Beautiful thing it was too with the precise gold flowers and the tiny dark pearls.

"And where pray-tell did you find that?"

Yugi startled but turned her head as she made the mutual, instinctive, motion to seal her fingers round the pendant. It saved it from Atemu's almost snatching fingers.

"Excuse me Majesty?" She cocked her head coyly. Her fingers were almost white knuckled as Atemu turned his hand from reaching for the piece to open up his palm flat asking for it.

"That lovely necklace," Atemu specified, "where ever did you get it?"

"A gift Majesty." Yugi refused to uncoil her grasp round the item as Atemu's hand lay still waiting for her to forfeit it for inspection.

"From my father?" He supposed tensely. Apparently the night's shunning of his new sweetheart had embittered that standard temper of his.

"From your brother," the Gem Faher corrected.

"That belonged to our mother I believe," Atemu informed very curt about it all. He wanted it. Yugi would not relinquish it. "Which brother gave that to you?"

"Mahado," Yugi retorted with her chin high, "your Majesty can ask him. I know not where he got it but he assured me it was his to give."

"It looks much like his inheritance," the Sultan frowned, "yet I doubt he would give something precious to outside the family. Surely you understand mother's things should pass to their children?"

"You'll have to ask him Majesty," Yugi insisted unwaveringly. "If he's made some mistake he's wronged us both."

She refused to let it go for fear of never seeing it again. It was precious to her and as precious as it might've been to Atemu she would not return something the man wanted only now out of spite. If he had asked for sentiment she would've consented but for the sake of bitterness she would not bend.

"When did he give that to you?" Atemu demanded his hand finally slumping to his side though Yugi's did not leave about her neck.

"During my first new year here Majesty," She answered, they called it Christmastide in the continent or the Solstice of the Last Day in the East.

Atemu seemed to consider asking for it directly, Yugi's eyes skimmed him waiting for it, and if the Sultan did ask plainly Yugi may have had to surrender it. She wouldn't if she could avoid it though and for now Atemu seemed to think better of it.

He grunted, flicked his wrist and was gone without a proper greeting or farewell.

Shuddering Yugi eased her grasp round the docile little thing to regard it with her hair in her face. It seemed Atemu's policy for averting personal misery was to inflict some upon Yugi…

Her fingers flexed in over the pendant viciously tight. Her eyes trailed up to the unoccupied throne Mahado sat smiling next to.

Yugi… she inhaled. In the morning Mahado would leave.

In the morning…


Mahado would leave today, to the sanctuary, to become a great man of ghosts and mysteries and Yugi would be left under the protection of the wives and greater lesser. Unmarried and kinless without the Sultan her chances of weathering Atemu were declining rapidly. She didn't like the turn of the waves at all.

Yugi's kinsfolk, her blood family, back upon the continent had called her mad for coming to this place but before that they had endeavoured her whole life to teach her the exact details of survival. Gypsies were favoured folk, they carried superstitions, and there was to every spat, nasty, myth a granule of truth. The truth of Yugi's heritage was that amongst mysticism and practicalities her kin had taught her how to watch the turn of a conversation and the vibrations of an atmosphere. After centuries of determining when best to leave a village before they were burnt or lynched the gypsy in Yugi knew her fortune was turning sharply. She needed to hide from the storm

She found Mahado, in the stables, as the prince readied up his horse.

Yugi had come through the back, head down, as a crowd gathered toward the gate and knowing time was short snuck closer. She should've dragged herself from the baths sooner but had been unable to with Mana'jet taking her hand so tightly and insisting she put her hair right for the farewell. Finally free after the encounter Man was walking in the sun on the upper veranda and Yugi had her last chance.

"Majesty," she whispered coming round into the stall.

Mahado turned, smiled, and glancing seemed to scan for onlookers outside the stable in the yard. With most of them busy with themselves he seemed to decide no one would notice as he dipped carefully to a crouch so both he and Yugi were hidden by the half walls of the hut structure.

"What is it?" He offered his hand to take Yugi's to kiss. "Come to see me off?"

"Oh more than that," Yugi whispered, slinking in closer. "Come to beg you to take me with you."

"You?" The prince blinked, taken aback. "Why I couldn't!"

"Please," Yugi rasped squeezing his hand tight, "please. Dirty me up. I'll be your page. Just let me leave with you."

"We'd have to paint you with soot." Mahado snorted. "Even then little one the shamans would never let you within the walls. It's a sanctuary for men. To have you there would distract and pervert the minds."

"Then take me to the city for a while," she prayed, hands coiled insistently round Mahado's. "I beg you. Please."

"None of this," the prince snorted patient but stern. "You are part of my father's family, you are part of this court, and you will stay here where you are needed."

"But Atemu-"

"The great wives will have you married off before the year is out," Mahado sighed, "you know it. Trust them to that. You'll marry a brother of ours and all will be well. Father's fifth son is single still. Likely they'll put you there."

"Atemu will have me hanged before then," Yugi snapped. "He'll never approve it."

"Marriages are not his to approve," Mahado retorted. "Now calm this nonsense. You think Atemu more a tyrant than he is. Go back to the wives, they'll be missing you."

With that order Mahado dragged Yugi close, kissed her brow, and releasing her hand turned gently but strictly away. It wasn't hateful no, worse than that, it was the stubborn leadership and kindness of an older sibling set to make a younger one reasonable.

Yugi had lost that line, that quick line, out to freedom.

Damn.


1 there is a slight chance next week I will post the first chapter for "Tale of Two Apartments" and that would mean that next chapter for "In the East" will be in a fortnight rather than a week. I'm not sure yet so we'll see! Don't panic; either way there will be an update next week

Next Time: Atem pulls the final straw, Anzu fosters more ill will than good relations, Mana comes close the birthing the babe, and Yugi is forced to make a deal with the Sultan.