Disclaimer: Aida is... well, it's probably part Elton John and Tim Rice's, part Verdi's, but it's not mine. I'm just writing for fun.

The summer I turned eight, my sister Dua and I liked to play in the palace courtyard. I can't say why; maybe because it had four walls and a tree and a pool so that at any given moment there was at least a spot of shade. Maybe because even Dua, who was quite possibly the stupidest person in the world (a quality largely influenced by the fact that she was five years old) sensed the importance of the place. Or perhaps, perhaps we chose the place because every day for the past eight years first I then we had watched Father make his way down the sandy paths to the glorious job that allowed our family to enjoy an easy life.

That day, Dua was sitting on the steps of our home, fastening on her sandals. I leapt the stairs, sandals in hand, and ran a few paces to stop from falling. I might've kept going had Dua not called to me: "Mereb, Mereb!"

I stopped and whirled. "What?"

"Do it again, Mereb!"

In her small repertoire of phrases, this one featured prominently. She pointed to the stairs. "Do it again!" the brat demanded. I ran with all haste back towards her, leapt up the steps, then turned and leapt down them again. Dua laughed and clapped her hands.

"Come on," I murmured. I knelt and hurriedly sandaled her feet. "Come on, come on!" I said. It wasn't late but it was hot. I wanted to go play. I grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. Dua could run almost nearly half as fast as I could, by which I mean she ran very slowly. I would have broken ahead of her and run the entire way, but she kept a tight hold on my hand, and anyway she was trying.

When we reached the courtyard, I handed her my little toy boat to play with. She put it in the pool and knelt beside it, narrating stories in her head. I used to nag her to tell me the stories. I would poke her ribs and say something like, 'tell me where you sailed to today or I'm eating your dessert'. Dua didn't do normal people things, like talk.

I scrambled up into the tree while she played with her boat. I climbed into the branches. Three formed a nice seat where I could sit in the shade. It was still hot, but not directly hot, just a sort of enveloping heat. I closed my eyes and sighed, and did not wake until I hit the ground.

"Oh, dear."

Someone stood above me, a girl a few years older than myself with two thick braids and a pretty smile, even though she wasn't smiling. Her face swam amid the shifting leaves. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"I… think so."

"Can you stand?"

"Stand what?" I asked. "The heat? Clearly, no." I stood and brushed myself off. My body hurt everywhere, but I wasn't about to let her know that. She was a girl—and what's more, she was pretty.

She laughed. "You're Henu's son, aren't you?" she asked, and I nodded. "It's nice to meet you. He's always talking about you. I'm Aida."

"Aida Amosnero's so—daughter?"

"The same."

"Mereb, Mereb!" Dua was standing behind Aida, hiding from her. "Mereb," she said, when I was paying attention to her, "do it again!"

Aida smiled, and I smiled at her, thinking this might just be one of the best days in a long time.

And that was when a handmaiden rushed in. "My lady… you must come with me."

Aida looked at me, then at the handmaiden. "What's happening?"

"Come," the handmaiden insisted. She took Aida's arm and hustled her out of the courtyard. And then we heard shouting. We had probably heard it before and thought nothing of it, but in my memory the day was silent until that moment. Then it was shouting and strangers boiled into courtyard. I pulled my sister into a far corner and crouched low.

"What are they?" Dua asked. I put my hand over her mouth.

"Shh." Maybe they would pass us by. They were military, I could tell that much from their identical uniforms, but not our military.

Suddenly all the quiet talks my parents had after Dua and I were put to bed made more sense. Suddenly I was curled close against the stone walls of the palace, listening to shouts and the sounds of things being broken, the sound of footsteps. Then a hand tightened around my arm. "Captain!" someone called.

Dua was pulled away from me. "No!" I struggled, wrenched at my arm, but the soldier just grabbed my shoulder. "You'll only hurt yourself," he warned.

"Mereb!" Dua yelped. Another man held her off the ground. She kicked at thin air and cried. "Mereb!"

And at that moment I thought nothing was worse than the fact that I couldn't help her.

The captain emerged from the palace. This was not the decent Captain the army would have years later – and even I call him decent and damn all Egyptians to the worst punishment the gods can imagine – but a cold man who took one look at me, one look at Dua, and said, "For this one, the copper mines. Kill the other."

"No!" I screamed, and I kicked out, this time landing a solid one against my captor's shin. He swore and released me; I ran to the man who held a knife against my sister's throat—but time did not stop, it did not wait for me. I reached the soldier as he flung my sister's body to the ground. And then I kicked him, hard. I kicked his shins and pummeled his stomach with my fists.

He cracked me on the head with the butt of his knife, and I woke up on a ship bound for Egypt.

to be contiued!

...reviews are awesome. Please review?