A/N - Hey everyone! Sorry this took so long, but real life caught up with me, as did procrastination... :P
I might not be able to update during next week, as I'll be on holiday, but befre and after that I'll try and keep writing!
Thanks to Rae37 and WoNdY Alice for reviewing - I hope this, my longest chapter, makes up for the wait!
Enjoy! (And Review!)
CHAPTER 8.
It wasn't the most impressive thing in the world, the skull, but its aura was what made it magical.
Waves of energy poured off of the skull to those who had experienced the supernatural in large amounts – meaning all the gang could practically see the physical and colourful evidence of magic.
Yami, Bakura, Malik and Marik, especially were thrown aback by it. They had never seen something this powerful before – it was as if the gods themselves had made this man.
"Sensei, just who was this Orpheus?" Yami decided that the best way to get the information he needed was to be direct, "I do not suppose he was a normal musician?"
Yoshimori-Sensei laughed, in the gang's opinion he was far too happy with himself.
"Of course, he wasn't! In the myths, Orpheus was the favoured son of Apollo, who gave him his famous golden lyre; the musician who soothed both man and beast with his music, called by Pindar, an ancient poet, the 'Father of Songs'. The musician who drowned out the songs of the sirens with his music, upon the ship of Jason and the Argonauts. The man, who loved his wife so much, that he went into the Underworld, Hades, to bring her back, and when he failed to do so, he got himself killed by raging Maenads, beserkers of a sort, after he revoked his belief in all the gods, not only because he hoped that he'd see her in the after-life, but also because he felt that life without her was not worth living. Orpheus, was the man, who even in death had no peace; as his severed head and lyre was left to float upon the Hebrus, now the Maritsa river, until it found sanctuary in a cave, in Lesbos. And still he had no peace, as he spouted out prophecies to those that would listen, so he could spite his father, who then had to silence his son." he looked round the table to find blank stares, although Jou swore he heard Anzu swoon and say that Orpheus was, 'So, romantic!', "Well, of course, I got carried away a bit...but the fact of it is, that Orpheus was an important historical figure, and this skull leads us one step closer to turn myth into fact."
Even Bakura looked excited at this prospect – but probably only because he was imagining how much money he could make by stealing and then ransoming the skull off to the highest bidder.
Jou looked at the skull in nostalgia.
Orpheus had died so long ago, so it wasn't as if he was still chocked up about his son's death, but there was personal feelings that lingered upon seeing his child's bones before him – it wasn't as if he was completely heartless, but he also felt conflicted.
As nice as it would be to have his son recognised, thousands of years after his death – gaining very strong Kleos, reputation, from just having physical proof of his existence, it was also rather unsettling to see the dead being paraded about like this.
Especially, Orpheus, who only ever desired peace and rest.
Physically, Jou scratched his cheek to show his contemplation in a mortal manner.
"So, Sensei? When's it goin' back?"
Everyone turned or leaned over the table to stare at Jou, and he shifter uncomfortably.
"Well, ya know... these bodies have all sorts of curses and stuff... they always do, and y'know if this Orpheus guy was so great, wouldn't someone have purposefully hidden him. And wouldn't he, after all that shit with his wife, deserve some rest?...Just sayin'"
Yoshimori-Sensei was the first to snap out of the stupor.
"Yes, well, you are correct Jounouchi-kun. After we have gained all we can from the skull, it will be placed back on its podium, in its cave. Of course, if I know the Greek Government, and I do, they'll probably open the cave up for tourists on tours of the Classical world. For a rather large fee."
Yami seemed to be the only one who was on Jou's outraged wavelength. Bakura, as a tomb robber hardly cared what happened to some dead musician, while the others had no idea of the implications of what exactly Yoshimori-Sensei had said.
"You are telling me that the Grecian government would not only be willing, but excited at the prospect of parading one of their greatest men, as some cheap attraction? Thereby, desecrating his final resting place and wishes? The gods will never allow this!" Yami had never sounded so incredulous, Jou supposed it came from his upbringing, where tombs were to be kept sacred and untouched. However, he was right, the gods wouldn't. He wouldn't.
"I agree wit' Yami on this one. It just ain't right to do that to someone. Even if he has been dead for, like, ages. It's also probably illegal, I mean it's gotta be, otherwise there'd be bodies of dead kings, and stuff, all over the place."
Anzu, Honda, Yugi, Yami, Ryou and Bakura all looked to Jou in surprise.
"Wha' you all staring at?"
They soon all dissolved into chuckles, Yoshimori-sensei feeling rather out-of-the-loop.
"Nothing, Jou," Yugi was quick to calm his friend, "It's just... you're usually not this interested or knowledgeable about stuff like this."
"Yeah, man," Honda nudged Jou in the ribs with a friendly elbow, "What'ya do with the real Jou, eh?"
Jou frowned, "What's that s'posed to mean, Honda?"
Anzu quickly stepped in before Honda contracted the 'foot-in-mouth' disease, "Jou, you know Honda doesn't mean anything by it; all we mean is that, usually, you like to stay away from anything that involves work or reading."
"Yeah, I suppose...but remember when we were in Egypt," Jou waggled his eyebrows at the confused Yoshimori, to show that he was referring to their trip into the past, and could not speak of it in front of Yoshimori-Sensei, "And we saw all those mummies," a hand gesture followed this to signify the mummies he was referring to were the raised dead, "...I'm just being careful, ya' know how things like this can go."
It was, in the gang's opinion a good point.
'Besides, if we don't put him back, he'll start crying out prophecies again, and then all those fortune-tellers, psychics and spiritualists like; Rosanna Rogers and even Paul, the fucking, octopus, that I manage as the god of prophecies, would go out of business,(or be eaten) and then I'd start crying because of his crying, and then I'd, very shamefully, end up begging my dead son to just shut up! Again...By Zeus, my life is strange.'
"Well... rest assured Jou, while I said that's what the Greek government would like to do, considering their recent economical troubles, I also said 'probably', meaning that the World Archaeological Society, or WAS, will probably maintain the same ideas as you do Jou, especially the more ethical members."
Yoshimori-Sensei finished with a smile, and turned down to stare at the almost forgotten skull.
"But you know, it's a shame really," his smile turned melancholy, "Even if this isn't Orpheus, it has already been identified as the skull of a young man, barely in his twenties. And if you look at the base of his jaw, here," he pointed to a straight line that seemed to have been carved out of the jaw bone, "That is the mark of a knife wound, from a slash to the throat – right through the windpipe – it was either suicide or murder; possibly, even, assisted suicide, seeing as the wound shows no sign of struggle. It's so sad, that this young man, clearly in his prime, seems to have just...accepted his death."
The thoughtful silence in the room that had been prevalent throughout Yoshimori-Sensei's speech turned heavy and solemn.
"My apologies, I seem to have ruined the mood," Yoshimori-Sensei looked sheepishly at his watch, while he proceeded to put the skull back in its box and then back on its shelf, "And I do believe, you have to be getting back to the rest of your school group. Especially, when we factor in the long walk back upstairs," Yoshimori-Sensei's smile could only be called sadistic as the whole group groaned aloud at the thought of those stairs, "Come on, you're young and healthy – it should be your Grandfather you should be worried about, I do believe he may even be still asleep!"
They laughed, but they didn't really lose the gloom that the skull had set upon them.
In fact, as they walked back up the stairs, back into the main museum and back into reality; everyone of the gang left with something to think about.
Whether it was the strange energy that flowed off of the skull, or Jou's new, and surprising, appreciation for the dead, no one could deny that it was on this day that everything seemed to change.
A/N2 Reviews always keeps my muse happy and my fingers writing!