Flesh To Bone
Within the City of a Thousand Minarets, there was a mansion—perhaps it had been the home of a warlord or some such before the city's growth exploded, leaving it set at the dead end of an alleyway. Entombed behind those tall walls which had once offered privacy and protection the cramped streets of Cairo nearly engulfed the property's presence entirely. Cracked mosaics with missing tiles and fountains that had long run dry, what greenery there had been was left to the dominion of the weeds. Though time, as it did with all things, had left its mark there was little doubt that it had been a structure of grandeur in its day and age. From the stones that built it to the delicately carved, latticed mashrabiya that overhung the grounds, neither labor nor expense had been spared in the making. [1]
It would have stayed locked and barred, forgotten by most if Kankuro had resisted the pull of his own curiosity. He found it effortless at first, too busy flying from one place to another and when his feet were firmly fixed on the ground he was lost in a different sort of haze. No, the trouble really started when he began to sober up as if the set of keys seemed fit to burn a hole in his pocket whether they were on him or not. Those pieces of iron weighed on his mind even when he was an ocean away. 'Well, not so much them but rather what they went to.' Given their family's legacy, it could have been almost anything. Between the suspense and his own imagination, tempering his expectations had become difficult.
From the time that he'd been just a boy sitting at his granny's knee, Kankuro had heard it said that the noble blood of the Subaku's stretched all the back to the Pharaohs. It was a thought that had captivated him in the dreamy days of youth before the private tutors took history and battered his whimsy into the ground with it. 'Egypt's been conquered so many times over the centuries it's impossible.' From Alexander the Great and the Romans to the Mamluks and the Ottomans that his great grandfather several times over had once served, it was clear to him that their family didn't have a drop of pure blood from anywhere. 'Even our names aren't typical.' They were likely passed on from a foreign concubine somewhere down the line and while they garnered odd looks he supposed it was better than being one out of several million Muhammads.
Once the fanciful stories he'd been told in his youth were disregarded, their family origins became muddled and the further back he looked the harder they became to trace. What Kankuro knew with certainty was that his family had been vali's, khedives, and sultans. Possessed by an ambitious nature they seemed to be endlessly seeking a higher position with varying levels of success. Perhaps none more so than his father who took the leap from Sultan to King in under a decade. 'Not that it did him any good.' Advancement hadn't made Rasa a more pleasant person in life. 'Or death for that matter.'
British occupation had been a point of contention preceding The Great War. 'Things were rough even before the whole pigeon incident.' But it was in the aftermath when most empires were stitching themselves together again, struggling to maintain their place lest they, like their unfortunate contemporaries, were wiped from the maps that Rasa rose. World carnage brought what had been a pot of hot water to a fevered boil and, opportunistic as he was their father seized on the discontent and the violent revolts that heralded his enthronement.
Fighting to maintain direct control was simply not worth the cost in blood or coin for the Europeans, not when the western continent was already facing a long recovery but they couldn't abandon their interests within the country entirely. 'It was far easier to recognize Egypt as a sovereign state with a few caveats and an amenable figure at the helm than rushing into another conflict.' After all, they'd just had the war to end wars. [2]
Egyptian nationalists were disappointed to find that foreign powers continued to enjoy a measure of political sway despite their country's formal independence and British officials found themselves equally displeased when it became apparent that Rasa was not as accommodating as they had once hoped. He'd started out quite popular but that goodwill took a sudden plunge with the sly amending of their new constitution in a bid to assign himself more leverage. Parliament was useless when it hardly ever made it a full term before being dissolved by decree—nothing would be done unless Rasa approved of it. 'And he ran his family a lot like he ran the country.' A little less than five years on the throne and revolt had been on the cusp of breaking out for a second time when his health began to fail.
Stress, the doctors had said and as 1925 came to a close the king was dead. 'He wasn't even 50.' The swiftness of it was enough to make anyone raise a brow. Rasa had been a man who made himself no small number of enemies, foreign and domestic but the investigation that followed turned up nothing. The political vultures that had once circled over his head seemed to grieve the passing more openly than his own children until their attention shifted to matters of succession. Expectantly they had turned to him, all too eager to ingratiate themselves, since his ascension was a foregone conclusion in their scheming eyes. 'Like rats looking for a new ship.' Except for one, minuscule detail; Kankuro had no interest in following the script that had been laid out for him as soon as the midwives recognized that he was a boy.
The idea that he would willingly step down in favor of Gaara would have had their father turning in his grave if such things were possible, a thought that pleased Kankuro more than most would expect from a decent, grieving child. 'It's been about a year and a half, I cried.' He'd likely been drunk at the time, though given the quality of fathering he and his siblings had been exposed to his ability to muster any tears at all seemed generous. 'If we weren't overseas receiving the finest education we were being given silent, stern looks of disappointment and in some cases outright contempt.' He was almost positive that the most Rasa had ever said to him had been in the form of a letter and involved a scathing rebuke upon hearing of his friendly relations back at the academy.
I'd better hear no more news of that unseemly behavior of yours, boy. If anyone ever knew, do you know what it would do to our name? Being stoned in the streets would be the least of your worries. At least have the decency to be discreet if nothing else and stop painting your face like a western whore. Behind closed doors, his father had been a thoroughly undevout Muslim whose only god had been secular utilitarianism. 'It really was one of his few good qualities.' Kankuro waggled an unlit cigarette between his teeth and pondered where to wander next.
In the fine dust that habitually gathered in the absence of people, his feet left a map of the path he'd traveled to find that thus far every hall and corridor was bare but for the fluttering cobwebs strung beneath the archways. 'It was a mistake to expect anything more, a hollow house for an empty gesture.' Just as the throne had been intended for him, the abandoned structure had been the only thing willed to his brother.
It was Old-fashioned and outdated, lacking in every modern convenience—the second floor creaked so badly Kankuro had feared one misplaced foot would send him crashing down below. Not unlike gilding that peeled up from the carved wood with time and exposure to reveal what laid beneath the glamor, the longer he stood there taking into account everything he knew about his family the more the windows began to resemble the bars of a cage. 'It's a place to put what you don't want seen.'
Little wonder why Gaara had bordered on aggressive generosity after he'd made his desire for a simple swap plain. His little brother had felt guilty . 'He knew that nothing good would be waiting for him here.' Hadn't harbored hope nor curiosity about whatever it was that their father had left to be his inheritance. 'I expected too much.' Foolishly Kankuro had come seeking closure from the not-so-dearly departed; he'd hoped for a sign that Rasa regretted it all in the last hour and found himself feeling all the worse for it. 'No fuss, no muss, I said—little use in complaining now.' At least not out loud. Temari would never let him live it down. 'Not after I made a big stink about how I could make my own decisions and blew out of the country just as soon as things were settled.' In retrospect, it hadn't been his finest hour.
The flint of his lighter sputtered a flame, cigarette a brief point of red. 'There's no indoor plumbing and it'll probably cost a small fortune to renovate.' Which was all he currently possessed thanks to a year or more spent binging on expensive booze in the ritziest places. He might as well have been snorting gold dust straight up his nose trying to numb the stinging realization that while he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted, he was eminently purposeless. 'I would have been better served throwing my money out of the plane.' Between that, the bad investments, and even worse personal choices, all Kankuro found himself with by the end was a headache so bad it left him curled in a shivering ball for two days straight and nosebleed that seemed as if it would never end.
In the throbbing of his brain, it became quite clear that he needed to make a change of some sort, so home Kankuro went; the sound of his father's voice stuck on repeat between his ears. If this is all that you are capable of, what is the point of you? The thought had been going roundabout in his head for some time, no clear answer to be found. 'Gaara's a king, Temari's an unofficial ambassador on the crusade for women's rights.' More suited to hands-on, unprincely work, Kankuro hadn't excelled in academia and as he'd been told; being a patron of the arts was acceptable, being involved with them was not . 'Although if you ask me the film industry is booming,' And Talkies were going to be even bigger than silent films. 'Besides that, Lon Chaney is better known than I am and he's a notorious recluse.' Kankuro's feet scuffed up a drift of grime on his way around a corner. [3]
Built to emphasize privacy the places meant for hosting guests were separated from the more intimate spaces where the household would congregate by a subtle door. 'It just wouldn't do for a man to lay eyes on an unrelated female— not proper in the least.' If houses were reflections of those that owned them then as with any family there was the facade they allowed outsiders to see and then the face that they only showed to one another. 'Ours just happened to be as gloomy as this hall.' In that corridor, the light was less direct and the sighing, exhale of smoke Kankuro let loose only served to worsen it.
Strict, aniconic patterns of abstract flowers stamped the walls, each faded tile had precisely cut, cemented by a regimental hand to serve in the architect's grand design. 'Even a piece of molded clay has more direction than I do.' He didn't miss the heaping burden of expectation but feeling rootless was hardly a comfort.
For Rasa, almost everything had been about purpose, viewed in the most unkind light one might conclude that even his marriage had been calculated to reap public approval. Karura's father and brother had both been vocal, influential proponents for an independent Egypt and the fair looks indicative of her distant Circassian ancestry had earned adoring gazes even as her un-renounced Christianity elicited disapproving murmurs. Ultimately the union had been a personal and political success until its abrupt, unpleasant end. To the Copts it had offered hope that their days of persecution would soon be over, bridging the divide between two religious factions that wanted the same thing; national sovereignty. [4]
'A peasant into an aspiring queen, how romantic that must have been.' If she'd lived it would have been a fairytale instead of a tragedy but that just wasn't how life worked out for them. No one had ever dared to say it out loud but Kankuro was sure with what little memory that he had of her, that the most popular thing about their father had been his mother. In her death whatever soft endearments Rasa possessed hardened in his heart and while he and Temari had been held to high standards, the blame for it all had been placed squarely on Gaara's head before his eyes had ever opened to the world.
Unfair as it was, in the opinion of their father nothing could ever wash the red sin of murder from those clenched fists, and though it would come to shame them neither he nor Temari provided any resistance to that view. When Kankuro looked back upon his childhood it filled him mostly with a sense of regret. 'All the wasted time and misplaced disgust...' They had lacked neither wealth nor privilege but there had been little sweetness to be found. 'I got by on daydreams and stories.' But it had been easier for him, being the firstborn son.
Disfavored as Gaara was back then, there wasn't a soul who would risk their livelihood to provide him with more than the basics. His clothes and toys came second hand, at every meal he dined alone and the only real care the servants gave to his whereabouts was in keeping him out of sight. By the age of four, he'd begun throwing violent, unpredictable fits that had the few people around him walking on eggshells. Biting, kicking, scratching he'd do whatever it took to become the sole focus of his unlucky target's attention, and soon enough there was no pleasing him before he saw blood.
The staff had no recourse but to take whatever was thrown at them, even if he was unloved—and he was, Gaara's status made defending themselves unthinkable. Servants didn't strike their master, it was against the social order. 'Not that it would have mattered.' Having had both his nose broken and several baby teeth knocked out at the age of 8 Kankuro knew first hand that when his little brother fell into those states it was as if pain was some foreign concept he'd yet to conceive of. He was nigh unstoppable until he'd exhausted himself and the bigger Gaara got, the more energy and force he had to spare.
Shayṭān—demon, the servants would whisper in the dark corridors where they so often thought themselves unheard as Gaara zealously applied himself to the moniker, dead set on being the nightmare the world so desired. In that swelling noise there came a threat that Rasa couldn't ignore any longer. Though the path to kingship had yet to materialize it had always been within his mind's eye like a fixed point he could not deviate from. If word reached the wrong ears that he couldn't handle his own son the odds were high that he'd be dismissed as a suitable candidate. After spending a lifetime crafting the image of a capable, confident leader, allowing all his work to be undone by one unruly little boy was never an option.
Whatever they may have been, the alternative solutions Rasa considered before arriving at a decision were probably best left undiscovered. 'There were times that the way he looked at Gaara would raise the hair on my neck.' He had certainly never intended for it to be the case but the choice that their father did make would become the keystone that transformed everything. It was common enough for rich and influential families around the world to send their children to be educated in the west as a sign of prestige and prosperity. Adding his own son to the trend would hardly raise brows. Boarding schools, particularly the militarily inclined ones expected young men to be rambunctious, if the teachers and headmaster couldn't tame a student's wild behavior, the war of attrition with their fellow pupils would—eventually.
Following that logic, their father got it into his head that allowing his other two children to miss out on such an auspicious opportunity would be doing a disservice. 'To himself.' Being ground under the colonial thumb was contemptuous, but becoming the thumb pressing down on others was the story that Rasa demanded their help in writing. Learning from those who had nearly mastered the craft was the first step. 'The second was all about making connections.' Their childhood friends were only ever meant to be tools trotted out for future gain. 'And since he found the likelihood of Gaara making any friends to be exceedingly low, it was all down to Temari and me.' In spiteful fashion, they would each go on to subvert those expectations.
To Kankuro it was just as probable that they were simply in Rasa's way, ugly reminders of a time and a woman he couldn't return to. 'Out of sight and out of mind. If only forgetting were that easy. ' The same year that the Titanic sunk into the Atlantic the three of them sailed across the Mediterranean with a single chaperone assigned to handle their affairs abroad. "Poor Baki." The former general turned manservant had plenty of reasons to feel aggrieved. 'Between Gaara's moods and my own attention-seeking, Temari probably seemed heaven-sent in his eyes.' It was not that she'd been happier with the arrangement than they but rather that she knew to focus her anger on the less authoritative, a fact that her bruised knuckles and fellow preparatory pupils would attest to.
Their weekends and holidays were spent together in some posh London townhouse where they invested a lot of effort into walking around Gaara with the same care one might treat an explosive minefield. 'And then the war broke out.' Going home by sea was perilous, the waters off the coast were under increasing threat by U-boats and naval mines set on sinking passenger and merchant ships alike and the long way around by land presented too many challenges to list. North, south, east, and west, everything between and below ended up being thrown into combat.
While the schools they attended and the area of London they resided in were cosmopolitan they began to realize— begrudgingly, that they were stranded and practically alone on foreign shores at the tender ages of 14,12, and ten. If the worst came to pass they truly only had one another to rely on. 'Gaara getting his head kicked in once or twice might have helped a smidge too.' A fateful brawl with the son of some British-Japanese officer had made their younger brother more approachable, the sudden display of vulnerability forcing them to look at him less like a beast and more as the person he had been all along.
It didn't happen at once, no one rolled out of bed one foggy morning determined to be nice but the uncertainty of the future saw them taking little steps such as splitting a piece of toast and jam or reading the dailies over one another's shoulder, each act of basic camaraderie more than they would have dared back home. Whatever importance they might have placed on the approval of a cold and distant parental figure was eroded when the Germans started dropping bombs out of zeppelins and rationing kicked into effect. 'On especially quiet nights I swear I could hear the shelling that the western front was taking.' And then there was the sight of the men, grievously wounded in body and mind streaming into the city only to be churned out as soon as they looked well enough.
Missives and telegrams were rare and mostly consigned to Baki as dictates he forwarded to them on Rasa's behalf, the contents had the nasty habit of dampening their spirits worse than any bad news from the war front did. Their own replies were rarely penned and half of those that were ended up in a rubbish bin instead of an envelope. Whether they were hereditary traits or necessities gleaned from their surroundings, it was stoicism and fortitude that saw them through the turmoil and the eventual return home.
It was hard to exalt in peace treaties of ink, paper, and promises or the shared spoils of victory when they each had their own preoccupation in regards to what their personal futures would bring; Temari was well past the age where she'd be pressured into a political marriage and Gaara feared everyone, especially himself slipping into bad old habits. 'Some worries turned out to be more valid than others.' Namely Kankuro's own.
Maybe it was cunning, or just desperation, either way Temari had managed to negotiate herself more time via an advanced education. 'And since he died, she never had to follow through with marrying whatever dud he picked.' Rasa, in an effort to modernize—or in the views of the more orthodox, westernize the country had opened a public university, using his own children as attractions.
Unlike his sister who'd wanted to be there despite the quiet scorn her gender's inclusion garnered, Kankuro's own time at the Egyptian University had been fraught with internal struggle; The automobile magazines he'd hidden between the pages of his Latin book were far more interesting than proper forms of conjugation listed therein and whether he had tried and failed on his own merits or not tried at all, it didn't matter when looking at his marks. Even the option of failure had been removed. From lecture halls to high society balls, he was everywhere he didn't want to be, pretending to be interested in things he wasn't. 'A little puppet prince.' And when the strings were suddenly cut Kankuro had gone a bit willy-nilly, [5]
A sudden influx of nostalgia was certainly not what had Kankuro stumbling and reaching for the wall to steady himself. While he'd been busy reminiscing his surroundings had slowly deteriorated and looking back the way he'd come there were spots along the wall where the ever passing days had worn away at the plaster, allowing for tiles to shift or fall out altogether. First, it was a piece here or there and then entire bald patches, bits of ceramic were strewn across the floor, half-buried by the dust like seashells in sand. He'd had the great luck to go tripping over one. "Blegh." He'd bitten through the cigarette in the slip and the gritty, acrid filling was spilling out into his mouth.
There was something alluring about the architecture and the way that it decayed, like the Parthenon atop the acropolis, it maintained a dignified air. 'Time is the ultimate artist.' It took everything that existed and transformed it into something new, leaving only the faint traces of an underpainting—a legacy of what had once been. Looking at it as one would a work of art, Kankuro's eyes sought out every detail, drawn to the repeating patterns and the sporadic gaps inserting discord within the carefully planned sequence.
It was there that he saw it and strange as it might have been, the tawny little scorpion with it's shiny-bright exoskeleton didn't seem out of place scuttling amongst the man-made flowers. The melding of the organic against the inanimate. "You look like you belong here more than I do." Indifferent to both his commentary and companionship the creature carried on and in the time that it took him to replace his ruined cigarette with a fresh one just the tail of it could be seen disappearing over the ridge of a doorway.
"Going my way I see." Prior to their clandestine encounter, Kankuro hadn't seen nor heard another living creature—not even the bustle of the city beyond the walls and gate. In a way, its appearance was a comfort and he was happy enough to follow it. 'But at a distance.' Fat-Tail scorpions were known to be man-killers.
Unlike the rooms before it was not exactly empty. Sitting between the shafts of light that pierced through the stone eyelets of the exterior wall was a simple clay pot. It looked old, that much he could tell from a distance. Only the ghost of paint remained and when he picked it up trying to decipher the splotchy remnants it flaked beneath his hands. It was the scalloped, fluted shapes of stylized lotus and papyrus that gave its identity away. Since the discovery of King Tut's tomb, Egyptomania had taken the world by storm and certain iconography were unmistakable in their origin. 'Scarabs and Ankh, the Eye of Horus…' The list went on.
That piece of pottery was likely the oldest thing he'd ever touched and the mere ability to hold something molded by ancient hands was an exhilaration that went beyond whatever unknown monetary value it might have had. "You must be my lucky charm." Kankuro had turned to address the only other occupant of the room but as the words were leaving his mouth the world decided that he needed a good pummeling for one reason or another. It started with a low rumbling in the distance and a faint tremor that followed.
'A thunderstorm?' Was Kankuro's first thought as they occasionally cropped up when winter bled into spring, usually along the coast, miles and more away from where he was. The ground undulating beneath him like a rising wave tossed the theory out as surely as it sent him teetering on his heels, vase clutched to his chest. Even the walls shook, pounding as if they were his heart, cracks fissured through them and one panicked step forward quickly turned into two but before he could get through the door there was a great crack from above his head. "Oh no..." It was with terror that his head jerked up to see that the upper floor he had so feared falling through was falling in on him.
There was a gap between the sound of something thunking against Kankuro's head and the pain dripping into it, weight and force fell against his back, pressing him to the floor as black spots burst and expanded within his mind's eye. At the mercy of that onslaught, all he could do was bemoan his awful fate and fight the urge to shutter his eyes. 'So much for turning my life around.' If he'd known it would be so short he would have done more with it. Instead, he was lying crumpled on the ground, bits of pottery and stone digging into his belly.
'This is exactly my luck.' Egypt's last earthquake had been in 1856 and coincidentally the very same day Kankuro had gone off without telling anyone he'd found himself in the midst of its newest one. 'I'm going to die alone, buried under a ruined fucking house.' With his forehead pressed into the protective cradle of his arms, he bitterly clung to a semi-lucid, conscious state waffling between blaming himself and cursing his father. 'Some archeologist hundreds of years from now will dig up my bones and come up with all sorts of bizarre theories of how and why.' And they'd never know that the why was simply because he was an idiot.
Fortunately, Kankuro didn't die. How long he laid there until the seismic convulsions ceased and the crippling dread receded was beyond him but as sensations other than pain and mortal fear worked their way back into his perception a tickling that bordered on an overwhelming itch could be felt at the back of his neck. Squirming, he pushed himself up, relieved to find that the weight of what turned out to be a wooden beam was light enough to roll off-though it took a bit of a struggle. By the time he'd finished that odd feeling had crept to his ear and cheek. Just as he was going to scratch at it at the very edge of his vision, Kankuro saw the arched tail and the sharp stinger hooked beneath it. Clawed pincers nudging against his nose made him rear, violently whipping his head to the side as he fell back on his ass and slinging the scorpion to the ground in the process.
"Damn it!" Kankuro cried, picking himself up. Taking a good look at the mess around him as he dragged a hand through his mussed hair, picking out bits of rotted wood and stone. "What a waste." He mourned that the one, tangible thing of value that he could hold and brag about discovering had been smashed to smithereens and set the insect within his cautious sight. 'These things can withstand the winds of a sandstorm.' The scorpion had popped right off his face and landed among the remnants of the clay vessel, performing a backwards sort of dance in and out of the graveyard of shards until it had crawled out of view. It was in following the path that it had taken that he spied a metallic gleaming in the low light.
Kankuro hesitated to reach for it, if only for a second before giving in to the same temptation that often led him into troubled waters. The weight of the metal was deceptively light in his hand. Dark, tarnished gold had been cast in an octagonal shape and weathered by time. Faint shapes and grooves were engraved into the sides and front and as he turned it over in his hands, trying to investigate more thoroughly the ground gave another brief, ominous rumble that had him sprinting through the halls newest discovery clenched in his fist. Over rubble and cracks, he went through the Qa'a and courtyard without stopping.
Beyond the iron gate, the sound of braying donkeys and chaos heralded his return to the modern world. A few overturned carts and wagons with their goods spilled out on the main street had him hustling, treasure tucked securely away in his breast pocket as a new worry was seeded in his mind. 'God, anything but that!' He couldn't possibly ride a horse back to the palace, or worse a camel of all things. 'And I'll really die if something's happened to Black Ant.' None of the structural damage Kankuro saw on his short jaunt came close to what he'd witnessed within the old manor though, arguably worse than that there were a plethora of agitated people milling about, shouting back and forth as they struggled to adapt their day to the unexpected.
Blessedly, the object of his ardent affections was unscathed in every way. "Ant, you're as beautiful as ever." Kankuro crooned, throwing his arms over the glossy black automobile hood as he gave it a quick, discreet smooch before clamoring inside and coaxing the engine into a purr. Coming down from that high of adrenaline the tremor of his hands only smoothed when they were laid over the steering wheel. Driving back through the cramped streets took twice as long as it had when he set out early that morning, it was well past mid-afternoon when the tires touched the main royal residence.
Abdeen Palace was a behemoth that possessed over 500 rooms and corridors, 5 acres were devoted to the building alone and another twenty had been eaten by the lush, emerald lawn and gardens. 'Going from bed to breakfast is a daunting task in and of itself.' Even when there wasn't some big, obligatory function underway it was always busy with ministers and politicians coming and going at nearly every hour of the day, and Kankuro, having that forethought slunk in through one of the less ostentatious staff entrances. 'No need to make a bigger spectacle of myself.' The gawking eyes of little kitchen maids and manservants alike was more than enough for Kankuro knowing that they would return to noisy, baseless chatter as soon as he was out of earshot.
As a matter of necessity, Kankuro had gotten pretty good at sneaking over the years, a feat that had been largely aided by his nondescript appearance. He made a point to dress plainly but well and almost always in dark clothing. On the best of days-of which it was not, he could only be more inconspicuous if he forewent the eyeliner. 'all indulgences come at a price.' Still, given his sore muscles and disheveled appearance, it was more of a miracle rather than a testament to skill that he managed to navigate his way out of the well-trafficked salamlek and into the haremlik without being seen. In the private household wing, he allowed himself to relax, tugging loose the constricting necktie as he went. [6]
Byzantine figures stared down from the wall as Kankuro tossed his suit jacket onto one of the many coffee tables, the sheer quantity of them were heirlooms from a time when their family tree had been several times more prolific. Water trickling down into the marble fountain at the center of the sitting room drowned out whatever auxiliary noise the rest of the palace was prone to making during the day. His hand dove into the pocket he'd stored the metal curio in, eager to admire it. 'This place feels more like a church than anything else.' From his painted icon Moses the Black looked at him with firm, unwavering eyes. "It's not like I stole it or anything," Kankuro grumbled-as if the saint was one to judge such a moral failing. 'The real thief was probably an ancestor of mine.' The ethics of owning something that had already been stolen by someone else was, to his mind, surely a morally grey area. [7]
"Stole what?" A voice piped up from across the way.
To Kankuro's shame, he not only flailed but screamed at the unexpected company, trinket flying out of his grasp, over the fountain into the embrace of a new pair of hands. "Naruto!" He howled, knees practically drawn up to his chest in fright. "What in the blazes are you doing here?"
"Here as in this room, or here as in Egypt?" Naruto asked and then, deciding that it was better to carry on as if the answer to his question was both, he continued to talk. "Gaara got wrapped up with some Italian delegation," His lips twisted into a sneer, finding the words unpleasant in his mouth. He had no love for Musolinni nor his regime. "and sent me up here..." Likely to keep him from offending anyone. "As for the rest, I'm looking for an old friend, or two." He said, looking up from whatever it was that his reflexes had bid him catch. "I'd say it's great to see you and all, but you look like you've seen better days-believe it." He'd never quite been able to shake off the verbal tick, in English or otherwise. The man on the other side of the fountain was covered in grit to the point that his hair looked nearly grey. "Did you get trampled by a team of horses?"
"No, a house fell on me." Kankuro received a pensive, incredulous glance at that statement but then Naruto nodded as if it made perfect sense. "And I'd wager that friend is Sasuke." It was a bet he was sure to win, as it was always that way between the two.
Naruto snickered to himself. "Were Dorothy and Toto riding in it?" Was asked beneath his breath. "Still, if that's the case, you actually look better than usual." He turned the object over in his hands and the light from the glass dome above them was caught in the grooves he'd been chasing with his fingers, illuminating their distinct shapes. "Huh..." He squinted, brow scrunched low.
"Ha. Ha," Kankuro huffed, linking his arms over his chest as he thrust his nose into the air. "I'm amazed you could even read a children's book with your attention span." Only silence followed the jab, which wasn't in Naruto's nature at all, and so he cracked open an eye, catching the look of intense concentration on the other man's face. "What?" It was such an uncharacteristically serious countenance that he slithered out of his seat, legs feeling like wiggly eels as he walked across the room.
Naruto tapped a spot on one of the sides. "Hippogryphs." he said with much gravity as if it explained anything at all.
Completely befuddled at the mention of an obscure mythological creature, Kankuro could only stare, first at the blonde and then at space he had so emphatically gestured to. "That's a Hieroglyph, not a Hippogryph." Idiot, was left unsaid as he pried Naruto's fingers off to see that there was indeed a bird, a feather and other, less recognizable shapes. Shut behind a rusty, cobweb-covered door the memory of an old woman's story began to stir. The tale of a city, rich in gold and silver that sank beneath the plains of the western desert. "I'll have to find someone who can translate them..." Maybe what he found was nothing at all. 'Then again, Troy was relegated to a fiction of Homer's until Heinrich Schliemann dug it up.'
A sly smile worked over Naruto's face. "What a coincidence, I just so happen to know a person who can tell you exactly what it says," He snapped his fingers for effect. "As soon as tomorrow." he slung an arm around his old school chum's shoulder. "One of those friends I was talking about. Ridiculously smart works at the Museum of Antiquities."
Kankuro believed him for the simple fact that Naruto had friends everywhere. 'He could charm a cobra.' If only for a little while. "Tomorrow then."
"Perfect!"Naruto gave the man a good-natured slap on the back, watching as Kankuro staggered and draped himself over the ledge of the fountain like a swooning maiden. "You should have gone into theater."
Kankuro wished that he had. 'People pay to watch them suffer.' And theirs had the virtue of being fake.
The lions carved above, locked in their eternal roars of triumph looked on.
Setting the background for "When" this story takes place became a necessity for me, for some godforsaken reason. (Have I mentioned the 1920s are my least favorite in history? I don't like the clothes, the hair or the music. Hate. So that's been a struggle.)
(semi) Full disclosure, things were atypically hectic for me this year so this took way longer than I would have liked which means all the other things I wanted to write have also been pushed back and I am extremely frustrated by that.
Third chapter is mostly finished, but I'll wait a few days before posting while I focus on speed-running a few Sasosaku month prompts...stealth edits in the meantime are to be expected.
Me: -checking schedule- Time to drag (another) Rasa (again.)
Striving to be as "historically" accurate as possible AkA, Putting way more effort into things than necessary as usual. I practically tore my hair out trying to find sourcing for Abdeen Palace. There are a few videos, some pictures but sadly for me, very little detailed information. (Yay, Artistic liberties?) The Byzantine hall apparently does have Coptic saints within it-I just couldn't pinpoint which ones.
The inherited house is based on two existing ones; Bayt al-Razzaz and Bayt Al-Sinnari
[1] Cairo has been poetically termed "The City of A Thousand Minarets" because the towers are basically everywhere. Visually, they were to remind people that the area was under Muslim dominion, or that there was a mosque nearby-but the also had the purpose of being a vantage point from which the Muslim call to prayer would be made.
Mashrabiya are protruding square-shaped windows with ornate latticework that are designed to catch and passively cool the air as it flows into the home. Think bay windows but with more holes.
[2] Super condensed history: Egypt has changed hands A LOT. The Hyksos took about half of it at one point (they brought with them horses and chariots) the Libyans, the Nubians, and Assyrians. Then the Persians, Alexander the Great followed by the Ptolemaic dynasty that ended with Cleopatra VII. Egypt then came under the rule of Rome followed by the Byzantines. Around the 1st century A.D Christianity would gain a foothold via Mark the Evangelist at a time when Rome was not big fans of the Jesus lovers.
Following that were the Muslim conquests, the caliphate, the mamluks & the Ottoman Empire/ Muhammad Ali Dynasty. Under Muhammad Ali and his descendants, Egypt would become an autonomous state apart from the Ottoman empire a "Khedivate" as it was titled in 1867, shortly after that in 1869 the Suez Canal was completed and by 1875 Egypt would basically sell its soul to the British. When the Ottomans allied with the central empires in 1914 the British removed the hostile leader of the time & replaced him with someone who was easier to control.
During the first world war, Egypt's head of state rebranded themselves as Sultans & then in 1922 following their "independence" from the United Kingdom they took a step up and became Kings. The "pigeon Incident" Kankuro referenced is historically known as the Denshawai incident and it's considered a key moment in turning Egyptian public sentiment against British occupation.
In this completely ridiculous story Rasa and Gaara have essentially taken the place of Fuad I and Farouk I. Somewhere in their lineage they've got a Japanese ancestor because given all the other bastardization I've committed, why the hell not?
[3] Circassians were an ethnic group that resided in Russia until the 17th century where they faced genocide in the Russo-Circassian war. Survivors fled south towards Anatolia and other territories of the Ottoman empire. The women were thought to be unusually beautiful, they had a reputation for blue/green eyes, pale skin, auburn/fair hair, thin waists, & extremely good posture. They were highly prized slaves for a harem, many Ottoman and by extension Egyptian elites would end up with some measure of Circassian blood due to that popularity.
[4] The Titanic sank in 1912, WWI broke out in 1914 (ending in 1918) in 1915 as a precursor to their totally dick move of menacing Britain from the skies in WW2, Germany would send big ass HOT AIR BALLOONS over London to drop bombs to try and terrorize them out of the war. ( They also stalked the seas around the U.K with submarines+naval mines, sinking merchant ships and occasionally passenger liners such as the RMS Lusitania-were those ships carrying supplies? Yes. Were they also carrying innocent passengers? Yes. Did Germany care? ...)
[5] Now known as Cairo University.
[6] The salamlek were the public places of the house, where receptions and business (by men) were conducted. Haremlek were the sections of a residence set aside for the family. (contrary to what one might think when they see the word "harem")
[7] Moses The Black, also known as Moses the Strong or Moses the Robber, was a slave, turned thief who converted to Christianity. As you might imagine, he lived a really rough life prior to that.
There is a particular story in which years after he'd become a monk he's asked to come judge the wrongdoings of another, so instead, he shows up with a leaky jug saying "My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, but today I am coming to judge the errors of another." Because, given all that he'd done in his life, repentant as he was he really had no room to cast judgment upon others.
Notes: