The ultimate rule among men: Never touch another man's woman.
But it couldn't be helped. Atem's body was moving of its own accord and he was doing nothing at all to stop it.
Not that he could even if he wanted to.
His attention was already completely preoccupied just looking at Dreina...the way the gentle Egyptian breeze coaxed the silken wisps of her hair to sway all too enticingly, the length of her lashes swept against her upturned cheek, the shape of her slightly parted lips...
*fwsh* The rustle of silk...
Atem captured Dreina.
He held her as intimately as a connoisseur holds his most coveted piece of Dresden glass. Her head was cradled against the crook of his shoulder so that he could feel her breath against his skin, his arms holding her possessively close. He could also feel...
"Give me back my Dreina!"
Iseulder's voice barely assailed his senses. Atem opened his mouth to retort...
"Bakura..."
Atem's breath caught. He looked down to see Dreina's wine-colored eyes, filled with tears.
It was a hell of a nightmare.
Disfigured, maimed bodies jerking spasmodically on a bloodwashed floor...the looming shadow of a winged dragon...countless corridors to turn in the darkness...
It was a nightmare no longer.
...because Bakura was there, his silvery white hair the only beacon of light in the cavernous darkness. You fell into his arms and held on with desperation. You felt elevated with relief, and tears of implicit joy coursed unchecked down your cheeks. "Bakura..."
The veil of sleep lifted as quickly as it came. You opened your eyes.
Pharaoh Atem's face swam into focus.
You gasped. "Pharaoh Atem!" How did I end up in Atem's arms, with Bakura right next to me...? You squirmed around uncomfortably, the heat rising unbearably on your face. In response, Atem loosened his arms...though really slowly. You stared up at him, confused.
"Bakura? The King of Thieves?"
Your heart stopped. He couldn't have...
"A dream, Pharaoh. My Dreina was obviously having a dream." The smooth voice cutting in immediately raised all your defensive walls. It was definitely Bakura posed as Iseulder, making up pretty excuses with incredible skill. You dared not look at him, for then you would have to face the promise of being shown his wrath. "Now if you would give her back to--"
"A dream about Bakura?"
"Not the King of Thieves. My friend who I left at Kush." Your breath was bursting out too quickly.
"A male friend?"
"Yes." You blinked at him confusedly. The question was totally irrelevant in context.
"I see." Atem's voice was stoic, revealing nothing. Or did you see a trace of...?
Now you were getting even more confused, not to mention discomforted. Your head swam with fatigue. You couldn't understand why you were still feeling so tired, after all, you did manage to sleep a little. If this went on, you wouldn't be able to hold on any longer.
"Princess Dreina."
His face was starting to blot out into mist. "Yes, Pharaoh...?"
This was it. You were at your limit.
You swayed, tendrils of mistiness appearing in your line of vision.
Darkness.
"Dreina? DREINA!"
Atem had caught her before she had fallen.
It was as if she had fainted clean away. Her head fell back, and her entire body slackened imperceptibly. This type of effect could only take place in the occasion of a very powerful awakening and in this case was Ra's, thereby depriving the body of all energy in order to succeed in substance. Sora was no doubt feeling the expected symptom.
Atem faced Bakura furiously, a livid expression in his eyes. "Someone as unobservant to his own betrothed's health should hardly gain the right to be entrusted with her." And with that, Atem tightened his hold on Sora and immediately rushed off to the royal apothecary.
It appears that snake of a High Priest was correct in his inferences. The little pharaoh really has fallen for Sora.
It was a good thing for Sora that the pharaoh had fallen for her in time. If not, she would have had to face chastisement for nearly obliterating his years of ambition to nothingness by merely murmuring his name in her sleep. After all, if one of his men had made such a careless mistake, he would have torn out his guts and made him eat it. Literally.
To hell with it.
He was far too enraged at Sora to think clearly and not to mention that Atem, that groveling dog, would no doubt be staying with Sora for the duration of the night. It would improve the wastrel image he's trying to set as Sora's betrothed in the pharaoh's eyes by showing indifference to Sora's sudden illness. He would make sure that tomorrow, Sora remembered her wrongdoing for the rest of her slave-cum-queen life.
For now, he had some other business to take care of. The close-to-date Full Moon Harvest Festival, the grandest celebration of festivities, had not escaped his meticulous mind.
"Maius. Come out."
The slight difference in the movement of the air was not unnoticed.
A sultry chuckle sounded behind him, followed by a deep, seductive voice.
"It looks like you've got your hands tied with your missing puzzle piece, darling. Is she too much for the King of Thieves to handle?"
His expression darkened. "No woman is too much for me to handle. Though none of this concerns you. I have something for you to do."
"Oh? What of?"
"Ride to the kingdom of Kush, and procure for me a suitable 'Bakura'. And obtain the exact identities of the Kushites who are anticipating Egypt's Full Moon Harvest Festival."
"Your missing puzzle piece's little blunder will cost you a lot, if you're searching for someone with the prospects in appearance and manner to play the Kushite princess's childhood friend."
A cold, humorless smile stretched across Bakura's face. "A fact that my dear missing puzzle piece will never forget."
"Extreme exhaustion."
"Exhaustion?"
"Yes, my Pharaoh. By the palpable symptons, it is most definitely overuse of both the physicality and mentality though I myself have never witnessed fatigue of this degree before...it is quite astonishing, actually."
Dammit! How the hell can that rogue Iseulder not notice the direness of her condition?
"Even her heart rate has significantly slowed down, and her breathing is also noticeably very deep. All I can advise is prolonged bed rest."
"Thank you. You may take your leave."
"Thank you, my Pharaoh."
The physician, the best in all of Egypt, immediately took his exit...which left Atem alone in the infirmary with a sleeping Princess Dreina.
Not good.
Atem shot to his feet and, summoning all moral fibers in his body, left the infirmary. He must at least attempt to remember that he was Egypt's pharaoh, and Dreina a foreign ambassador...a sinfully beautiful foreign ambassador who perpetually invaded his thoughts. He would retire to his own private chambers though truthfully, he knew that he would not be able to sleep even for an instance tonight.
And neither could High Priest Seto.
But because of entirely different reasons.
A pair of deep blue eyes scintillated in the shadows created from the length of a nearby Corinthian column, the same Corinthian column which Pharaoh Atem had just passed by unknowingly so absorbed in his thoughts as he was.
That fool really has fallen in love with the decoy.
The second-in-command of Egypt never would have thought it possible. With such an unimaginatively dutiful head on the little prince's shoulders, the High Priest had always thought his unrelated cousin to be simply an honorbound little dolt whose thoughts dwelled only upon Egypt and her affairs and conditions.
This misconception of High Priest Seto's was to be admitted, however begrudgingly. And that was to say the least.
Seto had observed the undeniable look in Atem's eyes as he had gazed upon Sora, known to him as the Princess Dreina of Kush. The anxiety and concern was unmistakable, not to mention the searing emotion that Atem had bestowed upon Sora's sleeping form could not be defined as anything less than intense amour.
Sickening. But profitable.
High Priest Seto had never been one overly given to easing that fool Atem's countenance, to say the least. He wouldn't hesitate to provide more unwanted involvement in the unfolding drama, especially if his actions could prove to take down two birds with one stone by also prolonging Atem's ascension to being in the most stabilized position on the throne...the said position only possible if by Atem's side sat a queen that would be revered by all of Egypt.
He whipped around, his royal cloak billowing out behind him in deference as he lengthened the distance between him and the scene of observance. A random messenger loitering about in front of the servant quarters was beckoned over with an imperial flick of his wrist. Seto's mind quickly assessed what to do as the messenger, trembling from head to toe while babbling some useless words of acclaim from being directly called for by the well-known ruthless second-in-command of Egypt, made his way forward.
"Send for a scribe. Deliver my message in less than half-day's time when it's finished."
"Wh-Where to...? M-My lord?"
From the High Priest's nefarious lips elicited scornful laughter with the knowledge that the unfortunate messenger would probably have to rely on the guidance of the gods to cover such a distance in half-day's time or run the risk of being beheaded for defiance.
"Make all haste to the royal court of Nubia."
Bakura could see the pharaoh making towards him from far away.
How amusing.
At the same time, both pairs of feet stopped.
"Lord Iseulder. I had just been wanting to talk to you."
A courtesan smile as genial as a friend's but as empty as the Cheschire cat's appeared instantly on Bakura's face. "Of course, I presume it is about the situation back there, my Pharaoh?"
"Precisely. May I be blunt?"
"By all means, my Pharaoh."
"I am in love with Dreina."
Bakura feigned shock, then smoldering anger. "You tell me this though you yourself know that Dreina is betrothed to me and, as a matter of fact, has been even before neither of us were born?"
A light of resentment flickered in Atem's eyes at that distasteful nuance. "I don't deny that you're betrothed with Dreina. However--"
"You do realize that by declaring this, you've just stepped over the very boundary forbidden by unspoken avowals?"
"I--"
"I've already laid claims on Dreina if not through my own right but also through the Kushite government. You can't have her, even if you love her. Your inability to comprehend this can and will result in the foreign relations between Egypt and Kush thrown to the winds."
Atem's voice rasped out in a torrent the moment Bakura pronounced the last syllable. "I had been content to watch from afar. I would have been content to watch from afar the one woman that I've found myself in love with in my entire life of regality in the arms of another man, a man who would treasure and behold the one existence that I may never have. However--" A touch of irrepressible anger sprang into his voice, "I will never be content to find the very last requirements slighted. By your conduct today, it is obvious that you have absolutely no right to claim her as yours because not only is your attention and administration lacking, but also your obscene manner which is in perforce completely unfit to even approach her."
Bakura narrowed his eyes, matching the arisen occasion with his voice. "Kush's royal house legalized the future conjugation between me and Dreina--"
"That matters nothing to me." It burst from Atem's lips.
"Nothing? How can it not, with your Egypt and my Kush at a new and imbalanced alliance? Your Eminence is upsetting the entire authorization of Kush; this could catalyze a war between our two nations--"
"It will not, for Egypt is the strongest and most powerful nation in the world right now."
"What of it?"
"I've warned you that I would speak bluntly, so you should know that I no longer intend to hold off where Dreina is concerned. I have no doubt that your Kushite government will immediately retract the rights of nuptial agreement between you and Dreina if I expressed my interest in her, for this would be the perfect opportunity for Kush to rise to the top along with Egypt if Dreina becomes my queen."
Perfect, little prince.
"You use vulgar tactics."
Atem met Bakura's gaze head on. "I confess. Though I show compassion as pharaoh, the price of royalty has instilled in me the inevitable truth that what I want, I get."
Bakura smiled a mock-dangerous smile. "Then I hope you can understand also the type of even more vulgar tactics that I would utilize to follow up your attack."
Atem was abruptly on alert. "Exactly how vulgar?"
"I trust we're both in the knowledge of the ultimate unbreakable law concerning engagement and marriage?"
"You don't mean--"
"Without doubt. The law that dictates that a woman would have to marry the man whom she had lost her virginity to."
"You wouldn't." A nearly uncontrollable fury was evident on Atem's face now, steadily growing more and more uncontrollable by the seconds.
"But I would. It is true that I, as an official guest at Egypt's royal palace, cannot coerce to be in the same room as another guest no matter the circumstances. However, don't forget that you're not the only man here who would resort to such underdealings in order to obtain a future with someone he loves."
And with that Bakura strode past, leaving the pharaoh steeped in a miasmic aura of murderous intent knowing that by his words, from now on Atem would never let Sora out of his sight.
For some reason, Bakura no longer felt amused.
You opened your eyes, and for an instant you were back in the storage closet of Jorenman's estate. Then your eyes adjusted, and you noticed the marble whiteness of the ceiling, the gold lining against the carved scupturing, and you remembered that you were in the royal palace.
Wait...
It took you a while to figure out that though you were in the royal palace, you weren't in your assigned private chambers.
Where am I?
You sat up. Or, you tried to.
There was something pinning you down.
Th...The pharaoh!?!
He was asleep in a low chaise. Hair in a tousled disarray, his head was just so against your leg so that you couldn't quite shake it off. Gold earrings of the structure of falcon wings adorning his ears tilted slightly at an angle, his arms cushioning his head as his lashes fluttered imperceptibly.
You couldn't ignore the fact that he was VERY good-looking.
Why am I here? More importantly, why am I here in the same room with a sleeping pharaoh?
Your mind nearly going haywire with this unaccepted fact, you pondered your options. Should you go back to sleep, or try to patiently wait for him to wake up, or wake him up yourself? You dreaded the last option.
Suddenly, you froze.
His left arm had moved and draped itself across your waist, unbeknownst to himself.
You couldn't stand it anymore. If you didn't wake him up, the sheets would singe with the fire that was burning in your flushed cheeks.
You reached out with one unsure hand, trembling a bit even as you did so. "Pharaoh...Pharaoh!"
He was a light sleeper. As soon as the tips of your fingers touched him, his eyelids automatically lifted without even the lingering mist of sleep to obscure his direct violet gaze which you found yourself staring into.
"Pharaoh, why am I--"
You gasped. Without any warning both his arms shot out and caught your wrists with a power that you could only submit tremulously to.
"Did someone enter this room last night?"
You blinked confusedly at him. "Obviously. What are you insinuating..." Your voice trailed off as the strength applied to your wrists increased. You squirmed uncomfortably; the pain was starting to lance deeper in.
"Who?"
...ow ow ow ow ow!!!
"Of course you entered this room!" You panted out, biting your lower lip in the hurt he was inflicting unknowingly on you.
The anxiety faded from his eyes. "Yes. Of course."
Suddenly, he glanced down and realized with a start that he had unconsciously grabbed your wrists. He also realized, once he had reluctantly released you, that there were now bruises imprinted on where he had touched you.
A stream of guttural curses escaped from his lips, and you could see he felt like kicking himself for what he had done. "Dreina, I'm so sorry. I can't believe--I mean, I'm so sorry--"
"It's alright." You looked at him with a preoccupied expression on your face, not confused with your friendly neighbor called pain but with the fact that he had addressed you with only your fake name, not your fake name with a "Princess" or "Lady" in front.
Suddenly, you were swept into his arms. You were completely enveloped against him, his arms clasping you to him with a ferocity that scared you. There wasn't a millimeter of space between you and the pharaoh.
What's going on? How can this...No!
"Ph-Pharaoh!?! No, this is wrong! No! Stop! Please..."
His only response was to hold you tighter against him, so that your head was forced onto his shoulder. "I know that right now you probably don't want this. I know that right now it's probably wrong. But I'm sorry, because I don't want to stop. I can't stop."
"I'm betrothed! What you're doing...you're the pharaoh of Egypt! You can't--"
"Dreina." Much to your relief, his grip lessened so that now you were only at his arm length. However, your relief was short-lived.
His violet eyes assaulted yours, your faces so close that you could distinguish the length of his lashes, the intensity of his eyes. His mouth parted in preparation to say something that you knew would shatter all the rules of the known world, make all that was unchangeable before changeable.
"Dreina, I have something to tell you. I--"
"Hold it right there."
The voice of command abruptly stopped Pharaoh Atem's words. In unison, both heads swiveled around and saw...
YOUR MOM. o_0
High Court Advisor Siamun's grizzly gray eyebrows seemed to bristle with disbelief at the inappropriateness of the situation.
"Atem, what in the name of Ra are you doing to the Princess Dreina!"
"Good morning, Siamun. You're up early. Why are you here?" His pharaoh's pleasantly complacent reply only seemed to catalyze yet another outburst, one which totally disregarded the pharaoh and the fact that you were in the same room.
"Atem, I know that you suffer from atrocious weaknesses where the Princess Dreina is involved, but that doesn't mean that you should behave so boorishly towards her! My boy, have you forgotten you're the PHARAOH OF EGYPT!?!"
But his pharaoh wasn't listening; for once in his life he ignored his trusted court advisor to bestow his attention on you. His next words impaled your heart with thorns. "Dreina. I love you."
A scandalous gasp ensued from Siamun's disapproving lips. "Atem!"
"Dreina, what do you---why are you crying? Dreina?" His arms enfolded you with a tenderness that could only be recognized as love. In all the sixteen years of your life, you've never experienced such kindness from someone else before and that in itself rendered you incapable of resistance.
You couldn't answer his question. I can't tell him that the Dreina he loves doesn't exist. I can't tell him that by just saying those words, he's marked his own demise. Oh, Ra... A dry sob tore from your throat.What have I done? Bakura will be ecstatic, but the Pharaoh has just marked Egypt's doom with those three words...
Siamun would not let anything deter him from setting his pharaoh back into line. "Atem, what dark kheft has stolen your common sense? You may love the Princess Dreina, but that matters naught! Have you forgotten that she's betrothed? Have you forgotten--"
"Siamun, let's be honest here. With Egypt being the most powerful empire in the world, nobody can object to being in wedlock with the pharaoh of Egypt."
Siamun's ruddy face blustered with what Atem was implying. "Atem...what has happened to you? You've never been one to abuse your power as pharaoh of Egypt!"
"You're right." Atem's face looked pensive, and some of his nobility of being pharaoh of Upper and Lower Egypt returned. He bent his head low, so that it rested on your shoulder, his hair flitting against your neck. He sighed, and you could feel the tingling of his breath against your skin. "I wonder what you're doing to me, Dreina."
Suddenly he drew you away, only to assault you with his royal-violet eyes.
"Dreina. Marry me."
What?
Siamun echoed your thoughts. "What?"
What the CRAZY!?!
*THWAK*
Your conditioned reflexes instanteously shot you out of bed from the loud disturbance, causing Atem's hands to fall from your shoulders. With mounting trepidation, you lifted your eyes to the sharply-outlined figure framing the doorway as a sudden wave of anemia hit you, though you willed yourself not to succumb to it.
Who else can it be?
"Dreina." Bakura--Lord Iseulder swept his gaze across the room before boring into your eyes, the strength of resolve seen in his eyes making you at loose ends. It was without a doubt that Bakura the King of Thieves was just under Lord Iseulder's skin surface. "I trust you are now well enough?"
Without waiting for an answer, he stalked over to you and, with one swiftly-executed motion, swept you into his arms. You gasped at the sudden weightlessness, shocked. But no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't stop the sudden feeling of euphoric ecstasy from invading your heart. Bakura, with calm control, practically strolled out the infirmary doors with you in his arms.
But Atem stopped him.
"Where do you think you're going?"
The cold fury in Atem's voice surprised you, though it didn't seem to faze Bakura down a single notch at all. Why is the pharaoh being so condemning with Bakura all of a sudden? This isn't how a host and his guest are supposed to behave towards each other at all! The lack of civility was astonishing.
"We're going to our private chambers."
Atem's eyes narrowed. "You've already been issued a separate room which my advisor Siamun has shown you. As your host, I forbid--"
"My Pharaoh." With a note of finality in his voice, the King of Thieves silenced even the King of Egypt if only for an instant. "If your concern is so thus, you could always listen with one ear plastered on our door for the betraying sounds of passionate love-making. As my host, I of course have not the power to deprive the pharaoh of Egypt from stooping to such a level."
Checkmate.
Wait, what just happened? And what in Upper and Lower Egypt is going on?
*cough cough*
You watched a vein throb lightly on Bakura's neck, the squareness of his jaw. Even if you were not in such close proximity to him as he had you in his arms walking down innumberable corridors, there was no way to miss the fact that he was enraged. And, as you knew from past experiences, his wrath is the most terrible out of all that you've witnessed, throwing even Jorenman's into shadow. You were growing steadily more and more afraid.
And, as being afraid dictates of your character, it set you immediately on the defensive.
"Put me down. I am quite capable of walking, as I hope you know." Your sullen words were jerked out, annoyance masking fear.
A forced smile appeared on the Tozokuou's face, far more terrifying than violence. "I do know." His footsteps stopped, and you realized that you had reached your private chambers. Your breath caught. Bakura immediately moved in, every footstep of his stabbing fear into your heart.
*fwsh*
You were flung on the bed. Then pinned all four limbs down.
The Tozokuou's lips curved without mirth, his faces mere millimeters from yours. "I hope you understand that you've been testing my patience by your being extremely disobedient the past day."
"I don't know what you mean, and I don't think I care." You said flippantly and tried to get up, but your effort produced absolutely no fruition. None at all. It was then that you realized with something of terror that Bakura had forgotten his strength.
"You very nearly obliterated what I have been striving for for my entire life with a single word on your part. Or have you forgotten how you spoke my name in your sleep?"
"I haven't forgotten." You gazed steadily back at him, trying not to expose your fear.
" Or all the other numerous offenses you've committed against me. Tell me, Sora..." Bakura's voice dropped to an all-too-congenial purr. "Are you being defiant, or just simply reckless?"
You met his eyes with equal ferocity. "I don't see how it matters to you when--"
"But of course."
Bakura's weight suddenly lifted off you as fast as he had incarcerated you. You struggled to sit up, confused, as he stalked to the lounging chaise and flung himself on it, his hair in disarray. His long, bronzed fingers gripped the armrest lightly. Then his ruby eyes flicked to you.
"But of course you're right. None of this matters to me, since whatever the reason your deeds warrant unmerciful punishment."
You laughed derisively. "You're going to have to find a whip as big as a tree limb to give yourself the satisfaction, Bakura."
"Are you trying to challenge me?"
You tilted your chin and gave a demeaning smile to invoke your now hopelessly lost confidence. "You need not resort to rhetorics when conversing with me."
The cold smirk that spread agross the Tozokuou's face sunk your awareness into greater suspicion and fear. "When are you going to get it through your head that you're my slave, Sora? By Egyptian law, you're not a person. You're a thing. A number on my slave inventory chart. It seems I haven't exercised proper restraint over your tongue and actions regarding that fact. I'll just have to begin doing so, starting now."
You were in his grasp before you had even begun to comprehend the underlying current in his verbiage. You were molded against him with absolute static, his arm tightening across your waist, pinning your arms to the sides so that your air supply was diminished to breathlessness. His strong fingers tangled ruthlessly in your hair, forcing your face to slant against his, your body to arch against his. You couldn't even react.
Your eyes widened in desperation upon beholding the piratical angles and rakish contours of his face. His bloodstained eyes -- all the more arresting with the jagged white scars slashed across his face -- penetrated your very mentality with the unmerciless glint of fury.
Bakura's mouth descended upon yours.
It was a kiss meant to distinguish who wielded dominance. You could taste the searing hot anger, hard, brutal, and with just a lacing of violence. His lips bruised yours with overpowering control, every vestige of gentleness gone. It took your breath away, and your strength for struggle with it. You could only bend to his will, your feeble attempts at resisting naught but a ripple in torrential rapids.
You didn't know when the transition occurred. His hot, clever mouth knew the art of masterful manipulation, lips teasing and tormenting. With his tongue leisurely tracing the shape of your mouth, flicking against your lips in light, feathery touches, Bakura bestowed upon you a sensation so foreign to you that it had you quavering in confusion and shock.
Suddenly, you found that your back was pressed against the bed. And that his lips were no longer on yours.
Yet you were still taken prisoner.
Go to the results for more before I get too red from blushing...
You could barely hear Bakura's gutteral utterance over your erratic heartbeat.
"You are such a brat."
"I..." You tried again. "I hate--"
"You hate me? If I were not certain that that fool Atem is making haste to separate me from you right now, I would enjoy making a hypocritical liar out of you. It would serve you right if I made love to you all night until you were blind, deaf, and dumb."
And with that, Tozokuou Bakura had unlatched the door, and was gone in a flurry of robes.
Six year's work.
Ra's radiance dazzled the translucent blue of the pharaoh of Egypt's private lotus mere, courted on all sides by efflorescing birds of paradise and shy bellflowers. Star clusters hid away in quaint little corners in jealousy of the blossoming belladonnas. Yet Pharaoh Atem's attention was riveted elsewhere as he pored over the gold-trimmed papyrus scroll that was the written treaty of the alliance between Egypt and Kush, leaning unconsciously over the marble balustrade overlooking his lotus mere. The morning's victuals of dates and figs were left forgotten in a basket on his warm-hued Persian rug.
"My Pharaoh, you must partake in the breaking of the fast."
Atem glanced up at the sound of his advisor Siamun's admonishment. His eyes gradually drifted down yet again to the papyrus scroll he was perusing. "Thank you. I'll just be a moment."
"Your inspection of Egypt's trade market is today, and you'll need some vittles in you for that." Exasperated, the grizzled old man motioned over a manservant and removed from his salver a flagon of cold milk with gold lotuses entwined around the neck. "At the very least drink this."
Atem took the flagon of milk absently...until his fingers touched the lotus petals intertwining around it. His eyes focused on the gold lotuses, and his lips curved into a soft smile, a sudden gentleness in his eyes. The sultry gold of the lotuses echoed Dreina's eyes. Does she know that her skin has the same texture as the petals of a lotus?
"Ah!"
Siamun had rapped his pharaoh smartly on the head with the neglected treaty scroll that he had extracted from Atem's hand. "Stop thinking indecent thoughts of the Lady Dreina. It isn't proper."
Atem's brows lifted in confusion. "How did you--"
"You were looking at the lotuses with such warmth in your eyes even an idiot could figure as much. I haven't failed to compare the color of the lotuses to Lady Dreina's startling eyes, either. It troubles me alarmingly, Atem..." here High Councillor Siamun sighed with a heaving release of regret, "that though as determined you are to restrain your thoughts to only your duty as pharaoh, you still cannot resist your attachment to Lady Dreina. Of course, I had expressed my wish for you to find a suitable queen for Egypt to revere, but I had not anticipated that you would become so enamored with someone of the utmost restriction. It is an unfortunate thing, and you must conduct yourself properly knowing that the Lady Dreina has already been contracted into a betrothal with the Lord Iseulder. I feel that I have failed somehow in my tutelage when you were naught but a lad--"
"Do not so ensign yourself. You have not failed in tutoring me." Atem turned to regard his old mentor. "Yet think not that I haven't attempted at halting my ardency toward the Lady Dreina. With every facet of my mind I have endeavored on this impossible task, and I had found my striving to be wanting."
Atem laughed wryly to himself. "I cannot help loving Dreina. Nor can I extinguish my desire to obtain her; I have to honestly promulgate that I am willing to sacrifice everything for her. Do not be mistakened: this is a reality foreign and fearful for me as well."
"You're willing to sacrifice everything?"
"Yes."
"Even Egypt?"
Atem's eyes darkened perceptibly. He opened his mouth, and the look in his eyes destroyed all duty-bound honors and righteous declarations.
"Ye--"
"Your Eminence!"
Both the pharaoh and his advisor looked up just as a manservant skidded to a halt and collapsed with his forehead to the floor. "Forgive the intrusion. A noble has just arrived from the royal court of--"
"Your Eminence! It has been far too long!"
It couldn't be...
Atem's heartbeat stopped. It just can't be... That voice. He could recognize it anywhere.
My nightmares have been transmogrified into a living hell.
With impending doom, the pharaoh of Egypt slowly...slowly...oh so slowly swiveled his head to smile an empty courtesan's smile to mask the absolute despair at beholding the personage of utter terror.
And that's a wrap, folks! How was it? Good? Bad?
Rate and message, please! Or at least drop a line? Much appreciated!
See you next time! XD
< !-- BEGIN CBOX - http://www.cbox.ws -->
< !-- END CBOX -->
