So I'm eleven chapters through the new fic. It, uni and visiting family have eaten up my week. How was your week guys?


Chapter 16: Epiphanies

There was something staunch in Yugi's shoulders as she ambled up the dais from the dance-floor under the illusion of speaking amicably with her husband… Atemu didn't like it.

"I'm off to bed," she informed languidly with a tap at Atemu's shoulder, bending to place a kiss to the Sultan's cheek without any heat or desire. The illusion up and half concerned by the how stiff Yugi was in lieu of his final dance with the Frenchman Atemu patted his knee, demanding with his eyes that Yugi fall into place.

"And what do you think my little savage?" Atemu whispered pulling Yugi into his lap for cover so the Sultana could twist in his arms and pretend they were cooing at each other. Had he offended the Westerner? Had something been said?

"I disapprove of him already," Yugi cupped Atemu's cheek, smiling luxuriously at him.

Atemu tutted with a sincerity that surprised him as he hefted Yugi a little closer in his arms, their noses butting, utterly enrapt in each other under the observation of an untrained eye.

"Whatever did the poor man do? What did you do?" He sighed.

"I was lovely, he assumed I'd help lure into you endorsing a crusade against our in-laws." Yugi murmured as Atemu held the wince from spreading across his face. "Now I hope he dies of gout."

"You are the foulest snipe to ever walk the earth."

"Imagine what I used to say about you," Yugi teased relentlessly.

"Oh I've no doubt," Atemu promised. "Don't you still?"

Yugi paused, poignantly, thumb brushing Atem's cheekbone as momentarily the ruse seemed to twang close to falling. The Sultana became, just under the surface, sombre.

"I'm reassessing you slightly."

"Oh?" Atem rasped darkly, becoming uncomfortable. His temper, his guilt and his expectations split into each other.

"Yes." Yugi answered tartly refusing to elaborate but almost challenging Atem to force her further. "Now, how long is he here for?"

"A month at most."

"Christ almighty," the Queen spat against his cheek, nuzzling against it as she became unable to hide her distain. "If that insufferable cad continues to ask me to dance I won't be held responsible for my actions."

"You'll be deliciously charming," Atem warned, bitter all at once. "You'll dance till you're dizzy. You'll give him all the ruse you don't save for me."

Stiffening against him Yugi became quiet. Slowly, as if languid, the Queen sat back in his arms as a perfectly serene smile etched across her face as if the winds of the whole world had changed to mould it. A face that belonged at the end of ten happy years but was disastrously artificial under the weight of those deep old eyes.

"And you," Yugi whispered, slithering to stand, "will ask him if he has any sisters you can marry."

Shoulders down, step light, Yugi sauntered off the dais towards her chambers with an altogether entrancing cock of the confident hips. Power, rage, dislike where hiding inside but Atem saw the ghosts of them in the Sultana's shadow. Such faces she could magic up, illusions… that complete control of self Atem had never quite mastered with all his passion.

It didn't inspire as much loathing as it once had or as much paranoia. As Yugi passed so did Atem's brief resentment. He had miss-stepped, he sighed resting back into the throne. He had faltered in his attempts to be gentle yet again. What was worse was how Yugi seemed to arch toward his kindness one second and spit at it, disgusted, the next. Her saunter now, how she plucked up a glass for a heavy swig, didn't anger him as it might've. Guilt, curiosity, all the sourness inside him turned Atem yet again to that uncomfortable itching feeling of desire. Yugi was beautiful angry, a tempest in the rawest, most Antiquate, sense.


Yugi moaned, sliding her bare hands across her tender waist as she managed at last to exhale. The lacing of the gown hugged what little shape she had to strangulation and left beads of sweat trapped along her skin. How had any woman ever endured the heat? Even with the style slightly altered, the hidden layers of insulation removed, Yugi felt then that sickly headache that came from a cocktail of pressure, exhaustion and dehydration.

The maid took the skirts from her, those long blue scoops of shinning fabric, and tossing the corset upon the chair in her night clothes Yugi slumped across the vanity seat to begin the tedious process of unpinning her hair.

The dark house steward Yugi had called up rapped the other side of the screen with her calloused knuckles and, glancing, Yugi beckoned her nervous old form round.

"How are you this evening dear?" She asked turning back to the mirror and the pins.

"Mighty fine yer' Highness," the crone hunched up tightly in her shadow, "those lords of yours be eatin' up a right storm tonight."

"Drinking us out of house and home no doubt," Yugi added frivolously. "Now about them," she glanced back across her shoulder to the crone, one of the senior most heads of the palace slaves. "I have a favour to ask."

"Anythin' yer Highness," the spinster tucked her head down, the maid pressing out Yugi's clothes for the joust in the morning.

"I want everyone listening to our guests." She ordered gently, softly, under the perception of the keen ears of the pitch-black guards at the doors (not that it truly mattered given Yugi had taken the liberty of stationing his old tongueless co-conspirator there daily). "I want to know who the French king is writing to, when he's meeting his men, when he's up and down from bed…"

"'course Majesty," she nodded chin batting her clavicle given she was unwilling to raise her face to the light. "Might be some difficulty on account of none of the boys speakin' their tongue ye' see."

"I expect," Yugi nodded pearled pins down and brush slipping into her hand. "Do you expect you can find a way around that?"

"As best I can I will Milady," she promised sincerely. Yugi gave generous extensions to her wage for tasks such as this, little things Atemu didn't need to know about and which Yugi kept in place should the Sultan ever start looking for pitchfork again.

"Thank you," she dismissed, "I trust I can rely on you."

"Always yer' Highness."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight Mistress."

Crusades…

Yugi rolled the word over between her temples. That was the one plague which the West translated over the seas to the East, the one thing they were quite generous in gifting their savage neighbours; crop burnings, town sieges, slaughtered sons, stolen lands… Was Dartz here totally for business or to garner papal preference by assuring himself a successful crusade? The Pope, in Yugi's youth, had given an indulgence to all knights off to the second crusade effectively assuring them of entrance into heaven. They served at times as a way to direct continental violence off into the foreign distance, relieving national pressures by having marauding sons rape, pillage and plunder exotic shores. Yugi's shores…

She disliked the Western archetype, she had spent most of her adult life fleeing it, but such a petty prejudice fell secondary to assuring this beautiful nation she called her homestead was secure from vagabonds.

Slipping her necklace off onto the vanity, spreading the gold weave across the wood, the diamonds twinkled back at him. Starlight, sparks, embers…Her fingers traced the arch of one stone. Fire, always fire…


Atemu had no time to breakfast with the Sultana in the morning, though to say they would've eaten together privately was ridiculous. It was perhaps more apt to say Atemu had been restricted from feasting at court that morning.

In the pitch hours before dawn slaves had been pitching stands along the cool expanse of the river nearest the delta-palace. Upon soft grass and nearest the best sea breezes a tournament field had been organized for their guests.

The Westerners were exuberant to break out their lances, Atemu's lords keen for a chance to make a new game of warfare, but in order to best make use of their time the festivities were forced to begin at seven in the morning. It would be far too hot to joust or indulge in other more European pastimes towards the midday when the sun would squat on its zenith. In the afternoon as the sun began to set they'd be brave enough to fight with their swords on foot but far too drunk to stay on their horses.

So the men had woken at four, after drinking till twelve the night before, and the ladies were at the field, in the stands, plastering sleepy smiles upon their tired faces despite being thoroughly displeased with all the nonsense. Rolling his shoulders up in his saddle, Atemu turned his horse; adjusting to the way the armour shifted his weight in motion. A little worse for wear the French were taking their time, late as they always were, while the ladies allowed themselves some ghost of a breakfast in the wooden stands. The banners lay flat spare the occasional breeze which subtly ruffled the tented shade and sleeping against each other amongst their masters' feet the slaves were ready with their fans making week motions.

There was an uproar of trumpets as the French entourage finally burst, haphazardly, onto the field and laughing Atemu's brothers clapped at their already aching white cousins. Laughing the French cawed back driving their horses closer, catcalls sailing between them with the aid of the few representatives of either troupe who could speak or translate. Snorting Atemu rested into the neck of his mount and, behind him, Kisara called for Seth.

Dragging his beast close to the barring rail of the stands Seth stood in his stirrups, up to his wife leaning over the edge, as if he very much expected to be shouted at for something but he wasn't sure what. Atemu chuckled, joined by Falker and Abraxas. Inclining herself closer Kisara caught his neck, kissed him, and hefting a particularly excited babe of theirs over the rails presented him for Seth's kiss likewise.

The young prince seemed quite relieved, tickled, to receive the doting and bustling himself up came back to the fray smug. Zarzak huffed at the expression, so exasperated with Seth he used his still seathed sword to hit the elder prince's arm. In just a short second they seemed ready to slap each other, swearing thick and fast, trudging up nursery brawls.

Another clap, another call from a wife, and the Duke of Nusfar went to receive whatever whispers his lady had for him which seemed to include a swig of drink from her cup and much needed bit hunk of bread. Hands still gloved the Duke squeezed the ladies neck and called her, Atemu was sure, Ruskuyla.

A harsh whistle sliced the cool morning air, Atemu ignored it at first in the general clamour of the first rounds being organized-

"Majesty!" Another whistle, he turned clumsily. "Atemu!"

Yugi beckoned from the rails, impatient but in good enough spirits it seemed as Atemu… He stalled. Sticking two fingers in her mouth, whistling hard with their eyes locked Yugi summoned him a fourth time, bending slightly into the rails with obvious exasperation. Mana'jet laughed just over Yugi's shoulder and round her fingers Yugi almost seemed to as well.

"What?" Atemu brought himself closer.

"Here you great oaf," Yugi ordered arm extending for him till Atemu was up alongside the railing standing in his saddle to reach the Sultana. Yugi tutted, shaking her head, "for god's sake man you'd think I was going to hit you."

"They all think they're in trouble!" Mana laughed delightedly heading back to her seat.

"What?" He murmured over, unsettled after last night's bitter row.

"Here, for luck," Yugi presented something to him. "Its tradition isn't it?"

Atemu took the favour, bamboozled, not really looking at it. "But…?"

"Hmm," their latest row sat between them but this morning Yugi was strangely forgiving, "we have to play nice for the guest don't we?" She folded her arms along the bar between them.

"Aye," Atemu grunted cautiously.

"Knock him off his horse," Yugi whispered, peeling back and away towards her seat.

Snorting, sighing, supposing he should take whatever he could get Atemu flipped the handkerchief over in his hand to stuff down his neck and stalled.

He stammered, throat drying; "Yugi!" He cawed outraged but the Sultana had already taken her seat and was shooing him with her milky hands. "Yugi!" Atemu hissed lower, insistently, only to be waved off again by the Sultana turning to company for conversation.

Sinking back into his saddle Atemu swore, temper and guilt twisting over each other. It wasn't any favour of Yugi's; it was one of Anzu's.

Atemu swallowed, unsure if he should be insulted by the rejection, the refusal, of his wife to present him with anything of her own or if he should be touched by the thought the creature had given to his wanting something from the wife who had loved him. It was almost kind, thoughtful, and unsure how to respond, never certain what made Yugi like or loathe him and unsure himself where his considerations sat with the pretty witch…


Over the next fortnight there was an amicable, polite, air of general revelry amidst the actual practicalities of the occasion. The French King was shown the city, the court went hunting, boating up the river…

To Atemu's subtle amusement while the Sultana seemed quite discomforted in Dartz presence, for Atemu could literally feel her joints grinding across the dinner table as he and Atemu discussed politics or religion in the private of the sultan's chambers, the French King was fond enough of her.

Yugi had yet to properly offend him, though his tendency to turn to her for discussion, for dancing, appeared to exhaust her. Eventually Yugi made the excuse of being indisposed to scamper away for three days when it all became too much, patience and temper riling. Yugi was, Atemu trusted, skilled at holding her tongue at the appropriate moments but she did not at all appear to like to do so and as Sultana it had been quiet some time since she had been forced to quiet her voice for any man.

When Atemu joined them at the head feasting table one evening, turning the third week, he found Yugi tracing the rim of her cup and looking for an escape.

"Sir I assure you, you're missing nothing of great interest," Yugi laughed generously as if nothing at all were riling him. If Atemu hadn't known Yugi as a creature who never fidgeted he would've suspected nothing like the ignorant Frenchman evidently did as he pressed on.

"Oh but my dear you've told me that twice already and I am still dying to know," he chuckled, "where in continent do you hail from traditionally?"

Yugi scoffed, ambivalently, into her glass and drank deep, circling away from the question. It was embarrassing for them to say the Sultan had married what, in the West, amounted to a nobody. Meanwhile, on the other hand, Yugi quite obviously disliked the idea of tying herself publicly to the gypsies at least in front of Dartz of all people. Tying the Sultana to a strict nationality didn't appear to please either given whatever new doors it might open for stereotyping or manipulation. Yugi was in a spot, a corner they had no decided lie out of.

"Well Sir, does it matter?" She laughed. "I am Easterner now. I have been for so long I scarcely remember anything else."

"Why yes, it does," Dartz however softened the command into a joke; "I wish to know if you have any sisters left."

"Ha!" Yugi tossed her drink down. "Sir what would your wife say?"

"Oh she's given me a princess," Dartz dismissed playfully, "she doesn't at all count with me today."

"Who says my sisters could give you better?" The Sultana alluded just as brazenly to her own, supposed, infertility. They were quite good at dark jokes the pair of them, insulting themselves while circling.

"Well whatever they gave me would be pretty," the Frenchman consoled, laughing.

"You should take a second wife," Yugi joked nonchalantly, "settles the whole business of worrying about boys."

"Oh no! No," Dartz shook his head as if the silliness was truly that, patting Yugi's hand. "God does not expect good Christian women to share which is why, of course, I'm sure his Majesty…" The Frenchman glanced coyly to Atemu who raised his glass in acknowledgement before back to Yugi.

He had gotten neither of them to admit to Christianity yet but the Westerner did not lack effort. Yugi chortled, coquettishly, not amused yet not insulted, unreadable, which only seemed to drive the man to dig further. Dartz, rather than disenfranchised, evidently found clever women fascinating pass times while Atemu found them frustrating.

In the lapse, as Dartz prepared his next move, Yugi took a strong swig glancing covertly to the windows as she did when trapped at meal tables with Atemu and taking pity the Sultan tapped the table.

"Come dance with me Dear," he ordered.

"Hmm?" Yugi piked. A brief flourish of uncertain eye contact evaporated. "No, not now Sire, I am off to bed I think."

"Oh no," Dartz moaned appealingly. "Come now milady, a little longer. Give us each a dance and we'll release you."

"No," Yugi laughed tightly, standing. "I will release you both of the trouble of a woman's ears and leave you to play. I say goodnight to you sirs."

Evidently Yugi was too tired from playing nice with the Frenchman to bear the effort of having to farce adoration with Atemu. Lifting her cup to take it with her, she inclined it to both men, and kissing neither of them nor allowing herself to be kissed dissipated.

"God she's hard to get," Dartz sighed, watching the Sultana fade into mystery before turning sympathetically to Atemu, "how does one get a woman like that to do anything?"

"You don't." Atemu scoffed with a little less of the usual illusion he manufactured.

"I commend you on the pick but I give my condolences on the trouble," he nodded just as stroppy. "My wife is…pretty enough, an average face, but solid breasts. She'll roll over at anything, will kiss you all the same if you come home smelling of twelve strumpets, but sometimes I wish she'd kick up a fuss, damn thing." He groaned. "Now a bloody girl I've got to sell off…"

Atemu sighed sympathetically.

"What we will do for boys," he supposed raising his glass in offer of a tired toast Dartz took with an eager 'amen'. "Still a girl is enough of a start. How long did you say you'd been married milord?"

"A decade," Dartz bemoaned under his breath, "and she's managed nothing but this girl and a string of near misses."

"Any of them…?"

"Too early to tell."

"How many?"

"Five," he hissed softly. "You milord?"

"Nothing," he shrugged, "with my first wife there was a boy but he died when he was three days old."

"Oh but you've only had a touch over a year with the little lady now," he dismissed, "and you're young. You had the start of a strapping lad once too, so tis not your failings at any rate. That's the worst though, knowing; have a string of strong bastards myself. I know tis my sighing wife who's keeping us waiting."

"Hmm…" Atemu nodded bitterly. "Does she love you?"

"In her own way," he decided uncertainly, "she comes to bed but I don't think she knows how to be interested."

Atemu laughed, barked, abruptly tapping his cup into Dartz' with a pointed grimace. Understanding.

Glancing back across the tiles together, as if they were brothers sitting on a farm fence, Dartz muttered over the women. Kisara, Mana, Lurek, Sesset… the ladies had clustered to say goodnight to Yugi, a process which was always extended by ten or twenty minutes of whispering and clarifying.

"Lord the ladies here love to socialize!" Dartz tutted. "I would've thought in a country where they have to share their men they'd be intent on fighting each other for attention but it appears they've given up entirely and have turned to enjoying each other's company instead. I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse."

"Oh Sir they don't gossip," Atemu laughed, "they never gossip; they scheme. They're organizing whole households and futures this very second so we can enjoy a moment of peace."

"Lord," the Frenchman murmured, "dangerous creatures."

"Undoubtedly."


Upon the next day Atemu was quaking before dinner. It was such a little thing to rankle him but the afternoon had stirred a chord impossibly deep. The very centre of himself twanged sharply.

The slaves had set up, as part of the day's entertainment, a set of targets for the kings to compare weaponry across. Atemu had been elaborating, languidly in his element, the practical specifics of the Eastern spear. Their men threw the weapons to hunt, to do combat at close and long ranges for a laundry list of completely understandable reasons.

Dartz had been particularly fascinated with how the very roman weapon could be employed in close hand to hand and long range and especially in the upper body strength necessary to wield one appropriately. They had spent some time lingering with them. Atemu had demonstrated, Dartz had attempted to mimic the motion and like two easily amused young men had laughed for a while about the romans.

The King, their guest, had convinced Atemu to move on to a demonstration of the European bows Dartz was very fond of but which Atemu's people used very little historically. Wishing to illustrate properly the mechanics of the weapon to Atemu, excited and amused, Dartz had supposed to make more of a game out of it by beckoning Yugi over.

"If I may?" He supposed, pausing briefly in the gesture he had already made to the Sultana up the knoll, on the grass, with a table of ladies.

"By all means!" Atemu had permitted in far too good a mood to be fickly jealous over a woman who hardly liked him at all.

"What trouble are you two conspiring?" Yugi crossed her arms lazily in approach. "Did you just wish to make me walk?"

"I wondered if your Majesty has ever handled a bow?" Dartz offered. "I'd like to show your husband if you'd help me demonstrate with your own lesson."

"I have actually your Grace," Yugi countered extending her dainty hands to Dartz's mildly stupefied face. "I'll let you lecture if you'll let me shoot."

"Of course," the King chuckled amusedly as he recovered, passing the bow.

Yugi wielded the weapon into her hands utterly unbefitting her image in the floral green stomacher and the embroidered rosettes covering her breasts. She took it up as easily as she'd pick up a babe, unaided and needless of aid, and as she raised the bow and hooking the arrow drew the string Dartz began once more to speak to Atemu. He gestured over the form of the Sultana.

"-yes, you see the straightness of the posture, you aim there along the ridge and-" Dartz laughed, distracted. "I must say your wife is always a surprise!"

"I should hope that's a compliment Sir," Yugi snorted coyly. "Shall I shot?"

"Can a man ever stop a woman from shooting?" Dartz joked.

"Not my woman," Atemu rasped.

A coy grin stretched subtly across Yugi's face and letting go, sighing, posture falling as the arrow flung itself off seemed transformed suddenly back into a woman.

Thwack.

"What an aim!" Dartz clapped. It was a joke to him.

Yugi handed back the weapon as if it were a toy to give to children and…

Something, something tangible, came over Atemu as the shadow of Yugi's arm touched the ground. He felt it hit him as suddenly and pierce him as deeply as the arrow in the target. He was overcome, drowned, shocked and gutted inside himself as some dreadful recognition slid into place. An epiphany…

"You quite alright my liege?" Dartz nudged him chumming. "You've gone quite pallid. Has your wife struck you too?"

"As always," Yugi joked, turning already with a flourish of her hand and half a kiss blown. "I shall leave you both with your manhood and games majesties."

The moment passed but the wound in Atemu pulled itself open all afternoon, growing, itching till he was sure he was going to go mad.


Yugi seemed unsurprised to see him once the meal was over and when in the queen's chambers Atemu's sisters helped Yugi out of the evening's dress still chattering. They had each other behind a screen when Atemu entered announced and standing beside the screen Mana'jet tutted;

"Can't wait another moment brother?"

"I fear not," Atemu played along dryly, agonised. "Will you be long dear?"

"No, I suppose not, unless the Sultana wishes us to be." Mana'jet grinned chin cocking over her shoulder to behind the screen where Yugi's shadow played.

"You can leave me now if you like," Yugi allowed out of sight, "I can manage myself into a dressing gown at least."

"Can you manage his Majesty into one?"

"We'll see." Yugi snorted a little tighter, displeased at the image.

Sensing the illusion had gone too far Mana'jet blew a kiss to the Sultana and bowed kindly to her brother. Atemu smiled as he watched her spin to part with the two littler ladies waiting doe-eyed and shy by the curtains leading to the ante-space before the doorway. To the wives it must've been unsettling to see Yugi and Atemu so thick out in the hall and so cold in the bedroom. Atemu inhaled deeply as he heard the heavy oak shutter shut behind lightly fleeing feet.

"Have I offended you all over again?" Yugi grunted, emerging finally with a book in one hand and the double dressing gown tied tightly shut hooped round her narrow waist. "What colour did I use to do it tonight?"

"No," Atemu shook his head sickly, "rather you've given me a revelation. I do wonder if you take pleasure in unlacing me so but it seems this time you didn't know you did it."

"And what have I done?" Yugi sighed, folding her arms lazily with the book dangling lopsidedly in her fingers.

"I've realized, I think, why I've hated you so for so long." Atemu fumbled, swallowing, eyes finding his feet. "I don't know if hearing my theory, if humiliating myself further, will do anything to assuage you but I supposed I could appeal to your curiosity."

There was a pause.

"You have it then," Yugi murmured, "if only to test this theory."

"I have always wanted, ever since I was a boy, to have certain things." Atemu spread his hands to observe them. Saying it made it real. "I longed for the approval of my father, for my brother to think me wise, for my family to respect me. That's all any man, any second son, wants."

Yugi did not speak, Atemu couldn't look at her.

"You are a woman but you don't have the heart of one- No, that's wrong, you do but to me I never see it. When I do see it it frightens me or delights me. I…" He laughed weakly, sad. "You have been everything I wished to be. When my father presented you to us he already approved of you. My brother still thinks you wise. My family respects you, your authority, your judgement and they seek you out. You highlight my failures. You hold an uncomfortable mirror to myself."

The fire crackled, the smell of something dark and sweet carried on the smoke but the Sultana did not speak. Swallowing Atemu found courage at least to spy her face but… there was nothing there but a kind of expectant patience. Yugi wanted something more or, rather, perhaps Atemu wanted something more from himself.

"When you are a woman with me," he continued, "when you cry at me or when you glow like you did over my son…" he couldn't speak for a moment, hand curling to a fist as he caught his air and the taste in the back of his throat. "How much I desire you, how much I repulse myself, all frightens me. Yet…when…when I treat you like one," he shrugged loosely, "you seem to dislike me more but with half the passion."


Next time: Yugi gives her answer, Atemu takes one step back and three forward, Yugi learns to her great surprise what butterflies feel like…