happy New Year!
son of Ra
.
There is a sort of desolate beauty in sand clocks, for the way that time is encased. Time cannot be encased, it is all an infirm structure.
When he awakes, he cannot tell where, or when, a thousand scorpions dash back to the silent solitude of their crevice-lairs; and he is well aware of the tiny wounds left by their tiny insect teeth, and as he sits up, he finds that pain is not so good as he remembered it;
he stops to think, to rationalize, and he concludes he must be hungry, he must be thirsty, he must be...
Lost. He is lost.
By the trail of blurred steps he's left behind he thinks, he must have stumbled, he must have fainted, by the bloodied soles of his feet he knows he has walked far, but he does not know if he has walked good, and he knows something else. He will come to die, eventually.
He rolls to a side. He finds the vision of the sky refreshing as an old memory or two come to him like a quiet butterfly, a childhood of stone walls, dreams-that-were-not-his-own picturing a world of freedom and discovery; as he sees the sky, he would like to think of his failures and all the debts he has left behind.
But Ra has called, and he is not able not to answer; yet, his bones tell him, he will die.
And, shrouded in sand and the chants of the jackal, he will come to kneel before Ammit again, to await a judgement for the redemption he did not attempt.
Knowing this, I cannot remain a bystander.
The young man closes his eyes against the afternoon light and thinks he might smile and give his last thought to the Sun God, the only being to ever wish him good- soon to be let down. Going down? Yes, Dark Malik goes down without a struggle this time. Reborn in the dead of night, crawled to sacred ground to beg the mercy of a new death he was not granted. Unseen, never thought of.
After three days of search and three of lostness, he gives up.
.
"Rishid," I say, and the man turns to assess me with a face of stone and clear conscience, and I would smile, but I never, when I tell him it is not for his judgement that I am come, but for his mercy.
I am not expecting him to fully understand, and he never will, because what he ignores is that I, in some way, am trying to atone too.
"The Gods make and do what they see fit, and I..." I am selfless, so it is not selfishness that stops me, but I am half soul and half divine wish; so beyond my purpose there remain emotions I have no power over, "...It is for you to judge."
We are two figures riding through the desert, him and I. Like ghosts, or like roaming souls- flickering behind his eyes, I see Karim, and I wonder where it was I failed.
Where it was I lost my chance of reencarnation.
A new night makes the desert aglow with silverlight and dormant spells, the celestial lover of Geb weaves a spiderweb of starshine around the dying figure on the sand.
Incorruptible like a colossus, Rishid watches, eyes uncomprehending, still. A whisper escapes him, full of emotion, his voice betrays...
"Master Malik..."
I must shake my head, no, Rishid, that is not the man you would call Malik. You know him, but do not know his name, and he, he does not know it either, even if he owns it.
"It is for you to judge..."
He looks at me, serenely enough to unsettle me when he says, "Master Shadi, he dies, doesn't he?", and I nod; and he closes his eyes and lets Fate in.
He dismounts, he takes off his cloak, draping it over the naked body of a man with a beautiful tattoo of the Sun God Ra. He takes him in his arms, with ease, with care like he would hold a child and brushes sand off of a bony face.
.
.
On the seventh day, he wakes up.
.
.
.
A/N: Shadi is still the narrator in this chapter.
I had this idea a while ago, for another fic of mine, 'Story of an Encounter'... if Yami Malik didn't have the tattoo any more, he would be free. ... This chapter explores two questions: first, what if Yami Malik replaced his tattoo by another one he does not need to hide anymore? Second, what if it were in Rishid's power to decide if Yami Malik lives or dies? As you see, I think he'd have him live, because he is a good man.
What do you think?
I deeply thank you for reviewing!
To "nobody": as you didn't leave me a username to reply to, I'll write a response to your awesome review here:
well... first things first thanks for making me notice the typo in last chapter. Fixed that immediately. As you said, "reflect current feelings and most recent experiences"... absolutely. You're also right in that we can't know whereto this fic is going, because I make it on the go, and it's absolutely reflecting personal experiences and thoughts. It initially began with the introduction, it was really the first I wrote, and it's supposed to be Ryou, though I didn't bother saying it because I'm planning to go back to that later. The relationship between Ryou and Bakura is really what had me writing this fic in the first place, and I'm doing Malik first only because it's in cronological order...
So, well, as you took time to write that beautiful review, I took mine to reply to it, and so shall be (:P ) for any other you write (I hope you do!). Stay well!
