Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
A/N: Sometimes I ponder merging the chapters together... cuz they're SO MANY CHAPTERS...
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Seto what did we do so wrong? What did we do to make you hate us so much? If only...
Regret and resignation hung in the air between each word. Strange sounds that he didn't recognize as any type of language he knew. Yet his mind said otherwise, as he laid there in his bedroom watching the ceiling. Ra was approaching, dawn was coming, and he could see a hint of more to the ceiling than he had through out the night.
His new bed was nice, the same type of bed that Mahaado had that Set had always wanted. Now he could order himself a new proper bed and got one to his liking. But the multiple summers had turned Mahaado's bed into his. He knew that bed better than this strange new one. The dips and slight lumps, and the bitter scent of old dried blood that was never fully washed out.
Nor was it the bed he slept in back at the barracks, with its stiff board style, but Anubis would take him before he went back into Mahaado's room. Resentment festered hot in his chest as he thought about Mahaado's cold behavior. Unable to put his finger on the reason, all Set could tell was that something had happened prior to the Pharaoh's death.
Now he was shut out of the lives of the two people who meant the greatest to him. The Prince was now set to ascend the throne as Ruler of Kemet. On the heels of his fathers death and yet there was something that he knew. His behavior had become lonesome and fearful when the Pharaoh took ill. Now he withdrew into himself, no longer speaking to Set beyond basic civility. If there was any chance that Mahaado would discuss the Princes' change in demeanor. It was clear it wouldn't be with Set.
No, even the magician was shutting him out without a word of explanation. 'Something happened, the rumors speak of an assignment. One bestowed by the Pharaoh seasons prior to his passing. Yet what could that assignment have been? No one even knows what the Pharaoh ordered Mahaado to do. That Mahaado would keep that a secret even after the Pharaoh's passing. He's not just withholding information either. He's acting almost subservient...'
Set wanted, needed, to sleep. The prince would be crowned soon enough that day and Set had yet to fall asleep. Only how could someone sleep with a heart so heavy? 'I wanted this position, I earned it and its mine by right. Yet now that I am to be granted it, I would give it away just to know what happened. Just to have my brave little prince back and my best friend.'
No one was speaking to him or even around him. Well, no one save Mana, and she was a blessing for that one small respite from the surrounding silence. But even she had been at her limit of finding out anything from the Prince. All she knew was 'the Pharaoh took the Prince out on a trip and when they came back. They were both like this,' but what that trip was? She couldn't find out. The guards were kept outside of a temple, and the Pharaoh and Prince went in together.
Deep blue of slowly retreating night painted the walls of his room. He could now see a bit of the pottery and furniture that he had been given. Curtains drifted lightly in the predawn air giving him a slight chill that made him pull up the blanket about him. A random thought to speak with Shimon drifted through his mind, as the man was one of two remaining High Priests of the Princes' father. Shimon was formally stepping down as a High Priest, so that he could provide the Prince with his wisdom and insight.
But also having the Prince's grandfather go and be laid to rest with the Pharaoh was incredibly cruel on its own. So Shimon would stay, and become the Royal Adviser. Though High Priest Aknadin was retaining his position of power and place. Leaving Set, Mahaado, Isis, Kalim, and Shada as the new High Priests to serve under the new Pharaoh.
'Finally we can all eat at the same table and spend time together as friends should. Only two of us just won't talk to anyone around them...' Set thought in bitter irony. 'They have to talk eventually,' he told himself as he watched the dawn continue slipping across the land. Until his eyelids grew heavy and he finally found himself asleep.
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Cool to the touch, while it reflected the light of Ra, the Sennen Rod was a strange thing. While Set had held it on a rare occasion while in service to his master. It had ever felt more like a weight to hold down papyrus rather than a sacred magical item. Now cool, the moment he held the weighted Item he found himself incredibly calm. The suppressed excitement he felt at this coronation was suddenly gone and he felt no more attached to his surroundings that if it was a routine work out.
Their gazes were lifted up to the top of the throne where the Prince now Pharaoh sat when everything became a mixture of black and white. Hissing filled his ears as his vision became lost to this bizarre world of white and black. He could only liken it to a bag of white seeds with a mixture of black seeds mixed in all of it moving.
But why?
He covered his ears in protest of the overwhelming noise, even as he looked around to see if someone else saw any of this. But he was alone, along with only the Sennen Rod tucked under one arm as he tried to block out that noise. Slowly the hissing slithered away, draining the strange field of colors away from his vision.
Once more he was in the throne room, surrounded by people and objects he knew. From the throne and dais to the stories written on the pillars and walls. The rugs and guards with the servants discreetly off to the side. All of these things he knew and recognized, only the color of all of it had been sapped away. Everything was a shade of gray, from the bright gold jewelry that they had been wearing down to the white linen they wore.
It was also deathly still.
Down to the eternal motion of the candles, nothing moved through out the room. His skin prickled for some sign of a breeze or other sign of motion. While his ears strained for a noise other than that baleful hiss.
It felt wrong, he should have been worried, looking around, doing something. Physical touch was absent on all sides, his vision could only validate the absence of movement but not explain the lack of sensation. Even the flavors of smoke, sweat, and the distant banquet that awaited them were absent from his sense of smell. Yet for all that, he couldn't move past this incredible calm feeling that he felt it was off, but he wasn't alarmed. If he just waited, everything would go back to normal...
In front of him where the throne of the Pharaoh rested, the image faded from his sight, replaced with a vision of people hovering over a table. He could see it was the Pharaoh resting there on it, with all these strangers looming over him. Some part of his mind, nonchalantly noted 'Oh its his funeral'. For what other reason could a group of people be hovering over someone with such invested interest?
Well, besides birthings but that was hovering over the lower half of a woman's body and she was often awake and very much aware.
Around them were strange boards with lines and images that would change fluidly on their own untouched by hands. A distant, stray thought considered calling them 'screens', but he couldn't grasp where that voice came from. Or if it was even right. So he pulled his vision back from the idle wanderings of someone getting rather bored. Allowing that strange vision to wash away and return him back to the ceremony.
Bit by bit, the world returned to the way it was, save the lack of color, sound, or motion. Then, just like that, a spasm of motion caught his eye. Kalim was now before the Pharaoh, kneeling in obedience as he was being presented with the Sennen Scales. Already Mahaado had received the Rings that once was worn by his, now dead, Master. With Shada about to receive the Sennen Ankh from Shimon, as the elder High Priest would step complete the process of stepping down.
'Now with this Item I can summon my own Ka,' Set thought to himself as he waited for the feasting part of the ceremony to start. 'But this feels wrong all the same... I should be excited shouldn't I?' He thought in passing as the room rolled into motion, in the way the waves of the Nile would lap against the shore. At the crest of each wave, the room moved a little more with arms slowly moving, flames tilting in motion.
Each wave came faster, no different than the increasing movement of leaves on a tree in the wind really. Stationary, yet starting to be lifted by the breath of life back into motion.
'I should throw this damn rod into the Nile. I can summon Dios on my own. I don't need cursed gold filled with the melted down remains of the dead.' Seto thought as he watched the proceedings. Regret began weighing down in his heart as he thought about what all this was. How he didn't understand the poison of the Rod back then. Why Mahaado was standing there in quiet deferral obedience, having shut Seto out of his life.
Aknadin stood to the side of the throne, the Sennen Eye silently studying the whole of the room. The creator of the Sennen Items, he had cracked the book that held the secrets after many seasons of study. With the Eye he could see beyond the limits of the Sennen Scales which could only judge the innocence of a person's heart. Within its presence he could read the thoughts, and more over could see the Ka within a person's heart.
Save for Mahaado who had bore the power to summon a Ka since he was a child, and the Pharaoh himself. No one else really knew what their Ka's would be until it was summoned. Even at that moment the three Ka's of the Pharaoh resided, installed behind the throne of the Pharaoh himself, the Saint Soldier of Stone Obelisk, the Saint Sky Dragon Osiris, and the Winged Dragon of Ra. The three Ka's were not impressive in their crude carved designs upon stone.
Not when Set could see them even with his eyes open, yet at least now they had all been named and titled. But even those names paled in comparison to the majesty that had been revealed before his eyes. Hands large enough to easily a house into the sky, or fling a person to Ra's divine barge, a dragon who could turn the sky dark and strike the ground with red lightning, long enough to encircle the royal city with its serpentine body and have room to spare. With Ra who shone brilliance as He stepped off his barge to answer the Pharaoh's call.
'So what does he need me for? I can't cast spells like Mahaado, and any fool who brings an army before us would be destroyed in an instant. Any one of them can brush aside an army with all the disregard of brushing sand off a table. So what can I do? What good is a General or an army when their forces are vastly inferior to the natural power of the one they are meant to protect?' Set ignored the rest of the speeches and conversations as he began to work over the very real problem before him.
Gnawing at it from all angles as he tried to come up with some strategy that would insure his continued importance to the Pharaoh. Granted he was smart, he surpassed Asim in strategy and planning after all. 'I wonder how I can gauge my Ka, find out how strong it is. Clearly I can not compete against the three Gods. But I need to be strong enough to be of use in my position.'
Already he had seen how Mahaado used the Illusionary Magician to great effect, the robed being served to amplify Mahaado's own arcane arts. Either in the act of double casting the same spell, or casting different ones. Where as the Kurrs... One of whom he could now see hovering ghost like behind one of the banners, peeking out.
Blue Eyes...
If he could only find that one Dragon again, regardless of Set's own strength, a dragon of that potency would be of great benefit to the army. Yet there was no stories of a massive white dragon amid the merchants or the rumor mills of the city. A dragon the size of a small village and with the power to slaughter all who came before it would easily gain the attention of the merchants. That only left the possibility of it being a Ka Beast.
Someone with that type of beast inside their hearts, while it would explain why the dragon never appeared again. Also raised the question of where that person was on the night his village was destroyed. If it was a survivor, why didn't they return to the village after they wiped out the slavers? If it was a slaver, why kill their own men?
It was plain to Set by then, he needed that dragon. Even if he was weaker than the Pharaoh, the duty before him was to insure the Pharaoh not be bothered by would be conquerors. 'I need to be the strongest wall around the palace there is. So that the Pharaoh never needs to call forth the Three Gods...'
Aknadin would be a vast help in this search. Though how would he convince the Priest not to return to his temple? That was the question, since the priests often spent their time at their respective temples. But if he could be persuaded into staying at the palace for a while...
'That's a stupid plan, Set. What am I going to do? Round up people and pass them across him to view like he's a merchant. I need to figure out what constitutes a strong Ka, figure out the type of people who may have one and then call upon him.'
Yet before him upon the dais was proof that such power could be in any form, true the Pharaoh was of divine blood. But he had been incredibly young when he had summoned his Ka. Mahaado was also young, more over he had been a slave... A slave that... Well apparently Mahaado had been stolen from another slave owner. The slavers who had Mahaado had in fact stolen him from another man, a magician in fact.
But the trio knew nothing of the man and there was no telling where he found or took Mahaado from. As the slavers had killed him, but as to why they would kill 'him', well the one who would have known Mahaado had killed. So there was no telling when Mahaado developed his first Ka, or if it was the result of the treatment he received as a slave.
Since he wasn't quite sure when 'he' started summoning his Ka.
'After all someone's Master was a complete monster who stripped it from him. I can only assume it would result in some form of damage.' He thought in annoyance because there was one little thing that remained. Until the Sennen Items were created, no one had the ability to summon Ka. Only those who had Sennen Items could summon them... So how in the name of all the Gods did Mahaado pull off summoning a Ka?!
Given their ages, Mahaado was clearly younger than when Set saw the Blue Eyed White Dragon. So he was summoning before he even had an Item, and now the Pharaoh did the same thing as he had yet to receive the Sennen Pyramid. So did the Items release the ability to the world and Mahaado was just receptive to it and used it? Or was it something that people always had, but never used?
If it was one, than the world could be filled with others who carried such might and they could be harnessed and used for the Pharaoh's benefit. But on the other hand, if other nations learned of this ability and it 'was' not restricted to the use of the Sennen Items. Then armies of such people could be set against the kingdom.
'I need the dragon. Both that and an army at my disposal of summonable Ka Beasts in the event that someone sets an army upon us. But the results of removing a Ka can cripple people and I don't want to subject the innocent subjects of our kingdom to such a thing...' Set thought to himself as the last of the Ceremony finally ended. Now he was free to attend the celebratory dinner and possibly get High Priest Aknadin's attention.
By the time the Pharaoh stood up, the world seemed to return to full life, with color blooming into the room with the gentle flow of a lotus awakening at dawn. Yet while the expressions on the faces of the guests and witnesses seemed to be lively and hopeful. Piles of gifts from gold to fine spices lined the walls and were still being carried out by quiet servants. Performers were fairly itching to ply their gifts for some coin.
While his fellow priests seemed weighed down by something. Some wordless weight that seemed to take the pride of their new positions out of them. Though perhaps it was because Kalim and Isis both lost their respective parents. Both priests had taken their own lives so they could attend to their Pharaoh in the Field of Reeds.
Though Set could only assume it was the loss of family that soured the others...
'We were all so happy until that day... these thrice damned Items stole that from us too.'
Seto fumed as he continued to fight against Set's 'fond memories' so that he could regain control of his body... He needed to be in control!