Chapter Text
For someone born with the features of a ghost, nighttime felt like the most comfortable place to roam the desert sands of Egypt–both for lack of fear of burning his skin, and because most individuals were now fast asleep in their beds. Apart from those small boons, Ryou had always felt a strange sort of kinship with the darkness–a secret he kept safe to his heart, if just because he knew the blasphemy of it.
Usually, these nighttime walks would be made through the halls of the Palace, where no one would think to raise a word or a hand against him regardless–but the Pharaoh’s entourage had ventured out to the temples and burial grounds of prior rulers for what they could only assume to be Ryou’s ascension into adulthood.
It was a ceremony of paying respect–of asking for the protection of prior Pharaohs, of showing devotion to the gods that guided them still. A long, ancient rite by which Ryou would be tested again and again for the course of several weeks, to have his resolve pushed to its limits and the very fabric of his creation stretched thin and every fiber analyzed for fault. His uneasiness from the trip was already bleeding into his nerves; despite his endurance to the more punishing trials so far, he was known as a fragile boy. He knew it was the one disappointment the headstrong, powerful Pharaoh saw in him, despite his intelligence.
Even now, though, there were… problems.
”He doesn’t know the day he was born. That bodes ill for predictions of his future.”
“This would be easier, your majesty, if we could just take a look within his soul to witness if he even has a Ka–”
“No. For no reason will we ever use the Items like that again. Only the Rod and ”
The words, spoken earlier that day by one of the elder priests in quiet conversation with the Pharaoh, refused to leave Ryou’s mind for the rest of the afternoon. The man was from one of the few surviving temples in the city that hadn’t needed to be rebuilt following the attack that had led to the death of the last Pharaoh, just over fifteen years before. His wizened age made him an expert on matters of religion and the state, which had led to his ascension to looking over the temples in the Valley of the Kings.
As the current heir of the Pharaoh, Ryou’s uncomfortably mysterious past called into question just how auspicious of a choice the former Priest Seto may have been making when taking him under his wing. Without a known birth, his exact age was anyone’s guess apart from how old he had appeared to be when Seto had found him as a child, already malnourished and avoided as a foul omen on the streets of the kingdom’s capital. There was criticism behind closed doors for that, too–a suggestion that he would continue to serve as a bad omen despite their leader’s surprisingly and… strangely generous choice to take him in.
Ryou may have been meek at his worst of times, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew how to listen for those whispers, and he saw the gazes sent his way. How many of them had he caught just that day?
His rising frustration with each step finally boiled to a head, and he dragged his hands back through his hair, letting out a sound of distress, and the only thing that stopped Ryou from kicking a nearby rock was the fact that nearly all of these rocks were, in some part, part of the temples of the Pharaohs and to show such disrespect would be sacrosanct. It would also likely earn him no favors from the previous rulers of the land when and if he ever survived his shame long enough to outlive his adoptive father.
It’s a noise that echoes in the empty, dark valley; the sound bounced off of the distant rock cliffs as if it were running away from him. When it didn’t return again, he tried to imagine that it had been his fear leaving him, but that too was a futile effort. He was afraid of the morning, of the tests and the assessments, and whatever potential failures would chase him into the next day, too.
His melancholia lingered just long enough that he caught movement from the corner of his eye–from the otherwise straight stone walls of the valley, a small, grinding sound echoed out. Slowly but surely in the shadows, the scrape of sand on sand and stone on stone rang to the image of a chunk of the wall simply sinking in on itself, exposing a passage that would have been invisible to the naked eye of anyone traversing the wilderness. The deep passageway within was lined with torches every few feet, and from that passageway eventually stepped a figure wrapped in an ankle-length robe. Ryou couldn’t make out his features due to the hood also raised over his head, but realizing he likely did stand out in the moonlight against the shadows of the valley, he ducked quickly behind one of the larger boulders held already been near.
The figure carried both a shovel and a heavy-looking bag over one shoulder. The only distinguishing feature was the belt tied over the loose robe–from which hung a long, wicked looking sabre.
“A grave robber?” Ryou whispered, startled to see anyone in the valley, much less someone who had found his way out of one of the passageways that were clearly connected deeply to one of the graves. The shovel suggested that he’d likely worked his way in from somewhere up on the cliff sides, and that bag… full of stolen burial treasure? Part of him knew that he should turn back to the camp and rouse one of the guards or priests to take care of the issue, but had he not caused enough problems that day already?
Maybe if he scared the guy a little and made him think that he’d gotten caught, he’d drop the goods. Ryou would be able to return them as a sign of goodwill to the Pharaoh’s tombs the next day, and perhaps his luck would finally turn around…
A low hiss echoed out close to his ear, drawing his attention just in time to see a viper that had coiled through the craggy rock he’d ducked behind. Ryou couldn’t stop the startled, choked noise that left him as he jerked back, outing his observation spot to the very man that he’d been hiding from. The attention he drew was immediate, but before Ryou could hope to do anything about it, the robed man was approaching rapidly, moving uncannily quick across the pathway of the valley to where Ryou had hidden himself not too far away.
Without hesitation, the robed man drew his sword, the cold metal glinting in the light of the moon. “You have chosen the wrong grave to rob.”
Ryou choked, stumbling back from this new threat immediately to get some distance between the two of them. ”I’m not a grave robber!” he blurted, though it seemed the steady advance of the cloaked figure wouldn’t be deterred from that quick admission. When that failed to stop those silent footsteps forward, and his backward advance hit a rock that sent him spiraling down to the sands below, he flinched with both hands lifted. “I’m traveling with the Pharaoh’s retinue! I was just taking a walk!”
It was the only thing he could think to say that wouldn’t implicate this embarrassing vulnerability as a sign of his weakness as the heir apparent. He should have brought a sword–maybe even a guard . Any of the Pharaoh’s priests at his right hand would be mortified that Ryou had slipped out into the desert night alone.
But it worked.
Ryou hated that invoking the Pharaoh’s name called for an instant respect when he felt as if he’d done nothing to deserve that level of influence. This was only a handful of times he had ever done so; he could not tell if Pharaoh Seto was disappointed in the humility to avoid wielding that power, or if he was simply waiting still for Ryou to grow into his own.
The figure stopped just short of where he’d stumbled onto the sands, reaching up to peel his hood back, exposing his own features under the moonlight just for the sake of getting a better look at Ryou’s. Like spun gold, the man’s hair was his most noticeable feature under the moonlight, and next was the striking nature of vivid, lavender eyes. They were softer than the fabrics made deeper purples traded from nations to the north, precious in the palace, and giving away a color that Ryou had only seen in rare purple pomegranate blossoms.
They were set above two sweeping marks that seemed too permanent to simply be kohl like the rest of the darkness that lined his gaze. “You’re a Tomb Keeper,” Ryou blurted out in realization and recognition of those marks–he had seen them only a handful of times. The Tomb Keeper families were private and reported only to the Pharaoh and the highest of priests directly. His familiarity with them was fleeting, given their rarity and his inexperience with dealing with the kingdom’s problems himself so far.
With a small, incredulous snort, the blond’s brows rose.
“As opposed to…?”
The fact he’d come from the wall now made much more sense–Ryou hated the fact that his near-sickly pallor meant that the heat of shame was rapidly reddening his own cheeks. “I thought that you were a graverobber.”
At least the man didn’t look offended. If anything, Ryou’s assumption only made him look even more bemused. This was becoming a greater humiliation by the second. The man spoke again, though Ryou could already feel a shrewdly analytical gaze scraping over every inch of the poor presentation of a would-be hero had Ryou tried to interrupt him. “And were you going to stop me if I was?” He asked, sheathing his sword and reaching out to offer his hand.
Sheepishly, Ryou took it. Despite the blade that had occupied it only moments before, the palm was surprisingly soft–enough to rival his own, embarrassingly enough. Now that he was on his own two feet, he could get a better look at him. To his surprise, the face close up seemed closer in his own age in comparison than a wizened Keeper; he’d heard once that it took a considerable, proven devotion to the Pharaohs to be assigned such an honored role, or it would have to be inherited. Surely, at this stranger’s age, he was the son of one and being raised into the role. “Maybe I was,” Ryou suggested, as if he could not dig himself any deeper into the embarrassing pit he had started to shovel out for himself.
The Tomb Keeper had kept his hand. Ryou only realized it when he began pulling at him, guiding him somewhere. It took only one glance back for him to realize that it was further away from the snake that was still very angry with him for growing so close. Fortunately, it seemed to show no intention of chasing them through the sands. “With what?” The man asked, giving him another gaze over. “Your bare hands?”
Ryou opened his mouth–and then closed it again before he could embarrass himself further by answering that particular question. They both knew he wasn’t going to win a fistfight with a Tomb Keeper with a sword. Though he’d been conventionally trained with a sword since going under the tutelage of the Pharaoh… it didn’t mean he was very good at it. Not that many were aware, but he was far more interested in magic.
When Ryou didn’t answer, the Tomb Keeper simply scoffed under his breath. “You can at least help me with this, given you interrupted what I was doing. I’ll send you back on your way afterwards, and maybe I won’t tell your Master that you were skulking around the Valley without permission.” A loaded bargain, he extended the bag he’d been carrying out to the other with his other hand.
This Tomb Keeper was mistaking him for a simple, odd servant of the Pharaoh’s expedition party. It was such a far cry from how he’d been treated by the servants of the palace–by anyone since his unlikely adoption. The stranger’s abrupt, near commanding nature startled him, but he jerked forward at the words that followed.
“Please,” he started, moving to take the bag–though he nearly dropped it at the unexpected, bottom heavy nature of it before he realized he was overcompensating and that it wasn’t that difficult to lift if he just braced himself. “His Majesty would be… very disappointed in me if he were to learn that I wandered away from the camp.”
“Do you often care very deeply about His Majesty’s opinion of you?” the blond asked, brows rising as he took his shovel again, taking a few steps away before digging the tip of it into the earth. Ryou followed, lingering nearby as he tried not to let the flippant thoughts of the stranger possibly digging his grave persist in his mind for too long.
“Doesn’t everyone?” Ryou retorted, startled by the thought of worrying about anything other than Pharaoh Seto’s disappointment in him.
“...where you’re from, perhaps.”
Ah, if only Ryou truly knew where he was from. “What’s that supposed to mean? Why do you get to ask those sorts of questions without even telling me your name first?”
The smile he received in return to that question was strangely catlike. “Marik.”
Ryou blinked. “What?”
“My name. It’s Marik.”
No surname–it offered him no chance to try and recognize if the other was from some influential or familiar family. “Oh,” he murmured, blinking his way.
The dip of the shovel into the ground paused, and Marik lifted his gaze to him with a pause. “Oh?”
“I…” Ryou felt his cheeks warm a little, and he shifted the bag in his hands. “I suppose that I thought there would be some longer, more mysterious title for a Tomb Keeper.”
Marik let out another laugh–though this one seemed baffled and perhaps a little caught in misbelief. Even if it was a sound more meant to fill the air because he might not have any idea how to respond to that, he soon gave a wry smile. “If that’s the case, you must have a mysterious title for someone so confident as to question a Tomb Keeper.”
Here, Ryou could no longer stop the red from creeping to his face. “Ryou.”
“...Ryou?”
“Just… Ryou.”
“‘Just’ Ryou, then.” The clang of the shovel finally hit a harder surface under the sands, and here, he reached for the bag in Ryou’s hold.
“Not ‘just’ Ryou. Just call me Ryou.” Almost reluctantly, feeling as if he wasn’t helping with anything in particular at all, Ryou handed the sack back over. Only then did he realize what it was when Marik turned it over and began to fill the hole he’d dug with what seemed to be incense ash. Ryou could pick up the scent of it still clinging to his fingers now that he was no longer holding the back. There were countless incense burned at the graves and tombs of the Pharaohs. It seemed that the responsibility of disposing of the ash in a discreet place to avoid suspicion of where those tombs were located fell to this particular Tomb Keeper.
“So you have no room to criticize my name,” Marik offered, unable to hide his nearly sarcastic amusement as he poured that ash out. "Your name is shorter than mine."
“That, or we’re both hiding something,” Ryou offered quietly, determined to prove he wasn’t as clueless or easily teased as the Tomb Keeper might think he was so far.
This brought Marik’s hands to a pause, and he looked over with something too clever in his gaze. “Or that,” he agreed, though he emptied the bag, soon beginning to cover the sand once more. “But that’s why I should verify your identity with the Pharaoh to prove you aren’t lying, isn’t it?”
“Wait-!” Ryou choked, startled by the question. “You said you wouldn’t!”
“I said maybe I wouldn’t. Do you have anything to convince me otherwise?”
“You’re extorting me,” Ryou whispered, more than offended. If he were to be honest, if he were to admit that he was the Pharaoh’s heir, then… then Tomb Keeper would have his tongue cut out for using such words against him, or his hand taken for trying to overreach his position. But Ryou would be seen as needing to call for the Pharaoh to defend his honor once again.
“I’m simply bargaining for information. Even Tomb Keepers like keeping secrets if the price for them is right–after all, what if one of the Pharaoh’s own retinue was secretly a graverobber right under his nose? Are you telling me you have nothing?” Marik asked, a single brow raising.
Ryou took a step back, inhaling sharply. “Tomorrow. The same time, here at this same place. I’ll… bring you some of the fruits we brought with us.” It was clear that it would be his own share of said fruits, something so rare in this part of the desert that he was already dismayed to no longer be able to have them.
He expected Marik’s laugh of disbelief at such a paltry offer to ring out again, but instead, the man covered up the last of the scented ashes in their sandy grave.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” There was certainty to that, and Ryou nodded in agreement, though he realized that Marik was seemingly waiting for him to leave… which made sense, given it would undoubtedly reveal access to the same secret passage that he’d seen Marik come from if he stayed around any longer.
“Right,” Ryou agreed, as if he couldn’t make it any more awkward by doing so–and succeeded immediately in doing so when he folded his hands against his own robes and turned, darting back off towards the camp. He’d never been more embarrassed in his life.
The catch of reporting a Tomb Keeper trying to extort him would be, in fact, telling the Pharaoh… but despite this humiliating event, he didn’t wish to see the Tomb Keeper punished, either. His adoptive father could be… volatile and stern in ways that were terrifying, even if they were never turned Ryou’s way.
Under the cover of night, he slipped back into camp using the same unguarded blind spot he’d snuck out through and moved to his own tent to catch his breath after such a hard run. The moon was higher in the sky than it had been when he’d left, telling him he’d lost more time than he’d expected in his excursion; he’d be tired in the morning. Yet…
Even after the shame of that meeting, the only thing he could think of as he drifted off to sleep on his cot was the strange shade of lavender that those bemused yet wary eyes had been.