Dark Horse

Phantom_Panther: Howdy, ya'll! XD Long time no see, huh? Well, I've been busy updating this fic discreetly for some time now, which means I have future chapters in the making. Hopefully you guys enjoy this one, too, though! ^_^ Thanks to all the reviewers, of course!

"Dark Horse"
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Hentai, drama, romance.
Anime: Yuugiou (or Yu-Gi-Oh!)
Written and edited by: Phantom_Panther
With the help of...: Two very good friends and various books and websites on the Ancient Egyptian world.
Warnings: Shoujo-ai and yuri follows. Yaoi and het in later chapters! ^^

Disclaimer: I own nada.


**~***~**

On the seventh day after the wet season had ended, Isis decided that this day might be dry enough to take Kisara down to the Nile for a practice run. She woke up early that morning, gathered her clothing and jewellery as usual, and made her way down to the baths. She was surprised, to say the least, to see Mana and Kisara sharing a bath together, being washed and rinsed by servant girls. Mana was making magic tricks with the water, wielding it at her command, resulting in an awed and fascinated reaction from Kisara.

Isis smiled and made her way down, beckoning another servant girl standing nearby to help her wash. Kisara and Mana greeted her good morning and shuffled along in the water to let her join them. Isis slipped off her thin linen wrap, revealing all her feminine splendor. She smirked inwardly as she noticed Kisara’s eyes become dewy. Mana’s lips parted slightly and she drew in a sharp breath, watching the striking priestess approach her in the silky water. She expelled her breath when Isis was submerged under the water, but couldn’t take her eyes off of her.

“Have you spoken to Mahado yet, Mana?” Isis asked as the servant began to wash her.

Mana shook her head, brunette locks rustling about her face. “I did not get a chance. I was asleep when he came back to our chamber; it was very late when he returned.” Then she turned to Kisara. “Was Seth late, too, Kisara?”

“Yes, he was also late.” She mumbled quietly, letting her servant girl rub plant extracts into foam in her hair to cleanse it.

Mana couldn’t help but wonder about the tense silence that followed.

**~***~**

“I don’t want her on one of those filthy beasts,” Seth said, folding his arms with a doubtful shadow cast across his face. “I want you both to take horses. They are smaller and safer than camels, not to mention more comfortable.”

Isis and Kisara were currently out the back of the palace where the camels and horses were kept. They belonged to the military, and the horses were very much cherished and looked after by the palace workers. Horses at this time in Egypt were rare, but were becoming more and more common as they migrated across the Sinai Peninsula from Saudi Arabia. The horses were a fine-boned breed called the Arab, and came in a colourful variety of shades: grey, speckled-grey, dappled-grey, bay, brown, chestnut, and more rarely, black. Isis and Kisara had to restrain themselves from rolling their eyes at Seth’s protectiveness over them.

“Really, Seth, you are starting to sound more and more like Pharaoh Amunamukanon.” Isis said, shaking her head, thinking of how Atemu’s father used to act just the same about anyone venturing outside the palace.

“I am just worried for you, Isis. That is all.” Seth replied sternly. He turned to Kisara. “Please be careful, Kisara. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you, now.”

Feeling Seth’s thumb against Kisara’s cheek felt like acid. “We will not go far.”

Seth nodded and turned to go as a young stable boy walked up between two geared-up horses. He held them still while Isis and Kisara mounted and attached their necessities to the saddles, and before long, they were off. They rode up to the palace gates, and the guards stepped aside to let them through. The young men smiled and nodded, blushing furiously as the two striking young women smiled down at them and thanked them on their way past. As soon as Isis heard the gates close behind them, a rush of adrenaline filled her.

“I have never felt so free before,” the priestess said once she knew they were out of hearing range. “being outside the palace walls on the back of a beautiful grey mare, riding down the riverbank. Have you ever ridden a horse before, Kisara?”

Kisara, who was heavily veiled in linen to hide her white skin, nodded. Although the most part of Kisara’s face was covered by her hijab*, Isis could tell by her eyes that she was smiling enthusiastically. “I bring up horse like my own child, back in my home country. When he got big enough, he let me ride on his back, like now. But he… he died. The same way as mother and father.”

Isis’ smile faded with Kisara’s tone of voice. When Kisara had first arrived at the palace, she had told her that her parents and tribe had been killed in a natural explosion of sorts – a mountain that had erupted with flames and smoke, and melted rock. She shook her head in trying to imagine it. She had heard from the Old Legends about mountains higher than the pyramids exploding from their tops, in lands faraway. During her meditation sessions with Mahado, she had seen visions of lands bathed in green, with lush valleys and high mountain peaks dusted in a cold white powder. She couldn’t help but wonder if Kisara was from a place like that.

“Do you remember the name of the land you are from, Kisara? Tell me where your home is. Tell me where you are from.” Isis said, guiding her horse gently with the reins.

Kisara sighed and began. “Stories were told to me as a young girl that my country was so big that nobody could travel to the other side of it in a lifetime…and if they did, they would not return alive. They call it ‘Russia’.”

The foreign word slipped out of Kisara’s mouth so swiftly and with such ease that Isis almost didn’t grasp it. She tried to repeat it. “Russ…Russia…? Where in the world…?”

Kisara smiled and nodded, chuckling at her lover’s confusion. “Russia.” She said again. “My home was a small village settled in the Caucasus Mountains,”

Now it was Isis who was confused. Kisara was using a lot of her native words, and though she was trying her mightiest to understand, she could not comprehend it to save herself. “Tell me more,” she said.

“Because we lived in the mountains, it was always so cold,” Kisara went on. “Our way of life was so different to here. We hunt steppe animals like mountain goat; highland cows… and birds, too. Sometimes fish, from the streams nearby. All around us were trees – forests. The trees gave us fruit and nuts, and we were grateful.” Kisara was looking off to some faraway place, eyes distant, looking, but not seeing. “…my people thought of one mountain in particular as sacred. They called it ‘Ash-Gamakho’, which means ‘Happiness-Bringing Mountain’.”

“It sounds like a beautiful place,” Isis said, closing her eyes momentarily to imagine this implausible, foreign land.

“It was…” Kisara said. “One morning, I woke to the ground moving beneath my village. We all looked up at Ash-Gamakho in the distance…fire and smoke, and melted rock coming out the top. The sky was black with ash…people were already starting to get sick. We felt so betrayed by this once-beautiful mountain that brought us so much joy…” Kisara said, her voice becoming dry and quiet. “At the time, I was happy with Yolanda… we were so happy. My mother was so proud I found somebody.”

Isis felt a twang of jealousy come from somewhere inside her at the mentioning of Yolanda’s name. She mentally waved it off and let the young woman continue her story. After all, Isis had been waiting to hear this since the mysterious girl had arrived.

“It did not take long for the molten rock to reach us,” Kisara said, looking down and gently stroking her mare’s silky flecked-grey coat. “People were screaming, fleeing from their homes with their crying children. My mother’s hut was situated at the far end of the village, closest to the mountain… The lava got to her first, and she and my father and my horse died soon after…” Kisara’s voice cracked as tears started to roll forth. Still she continued. “Yolanda and I fled with the other people, not knowing where we were heading, but not wanting to be killed, either. After running for what seemed days, we arrived at another village which had not been affected, and were taken in by the locals.”

Isis was listening to Kisara with rapt attention, notably impressed at how well her language skills had improved. She was speaking almost fluently now. “What happened then?”

“We stayed on at the village for a while…the men helped build a home for Yolanda and I…but shortly after, a young man captured her heart. I was already grieving for my mother and father…but to have Yolanda taken from me also was just too much.” Kisara said in a strong and bitter tone, lifting her chin stubbornly. “I packed up my things the next day, went to the local tradesman to ask for a map heading south, and left. Almost a year later, I end up here. That, Isis, is my story.”

Isis was dumbstruck. She never knew such a thing could be possible, that a young woman could make such a journey alone, and survive. She didn’t even know that such a place as ‘Russia’ existed, or that mountains higher than the clouds existed, and she couldn’t even picture what it would be like to live in a cold climate. Imagine having a desert-night temperature all through the day! She couldn’t bear it. Something inside her made her feel nostalgic and she was suddenly glad to be living in her beautiful, tropical motherland of Egypt.

“Let’s stop here,” Isis said after a while of riding, scanning the area with squinted eyes under the shade of her flattened palm. The ground beneath their horse’s hooves was solid, and a dense fig plantation smothered the riverbank, providing them with adequate protection from suspicious locals. From her view atop her steed, Isis could tell that the only people nearby were fishermen further upstream, mere dots in the distance. They posed no threat.

Kisara and Isis threw a leg over their mounts and slipped down onto the compacted sandy ground. They tied their horses onto a long rope attached to a fig tree, and let them graze the riverbank plants and grasses while they untied their haversacks and water-bags. They each took a long drink to quench their thirst, and leaned back on the tree trunks behind them. The warmth of the midday sun was comforting to Isis, but she could tell that Kisara was bothered by it. She was tempted to just rip off all Kisara’s layers right there and then, but knew it would be inappropriate. She decided to ask Kisara a few more questions to keep her mind occupied.

“Perhaps we can have something to eat, and you can tell me about what happened after you left.” Isis suggested, opening her haversack to search for some traveling food which she knew she had brought with her.

“If you tell me about you, I’ll tell you about me.” Kisara said with a smile. “You have not told me a lot – I want to know what your life was like before you became a priestess…”

“You first,” Isis smirked, handing Kisara some grapes and bread.

“Well…where should I start? I went through a lot before I got to Egypt…” Kisara said, peeling the skin off of the grapes, then gingerly popping them into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed, and then spoke. “For those first few days after I left…I was…overcome with grief, and despair. I was not my real self, and after a few days of traveling I debated whether to turn back or not. The feeling of betrayal and heartbreak was so fresh, and I thought the further away I was from Caucasus, the better off I would be.”

“That must have been so hard on you,” Isis said, reaching out to touch Isis’ arm.

“Only for a while.” Kisara replied. “I survived by sleeping in caves or inside my cowhide tent, and I ate the raw resources which the land had to offer. I hunted animals and butchered them myself, roasting their meat over fire. I stopped at many villages on the way, and the longer I was gone, memories of Yolanda and my home became more and more dull. I was enjoying traveling, fulfilling my dream – it was wonderful. I knew I would not stop until I found the hot land with the dark people.”

“And what happened when you did?” Isis asked curiously. She wanted to know if people beyond Egypt’s borders treated her the same as her people had when Kisara had first arrived.

“I followed the coast around top of the Sinai Peninsula and into the Nile Delta. Shortly after, I arrived in a town called…how do you say? Al-Mansurah?” in seeing Isis nod, the pale-haired woman continued. “They asked me who I was, where I was from, and what my trade was. I said to them I was a nomad from the north – my people died out and so I left. I had no trade, but was prepared to work for them.” Kisara chuckled quietly to herself, as if remembering some fond recollection. “They were so nice to me, but told me that I would have a better chance of finding work here in Memphis, so that is where I headed. I caught a boat heading to Aswan, and got off at Memphis. You already know the rest.”

Isis mentally winced as she noticed the aggrieved expression on the young woman’s features. “That’s something I will never understand…” Isis said. “The people of northern Egypt treated you as one of their own, but as soon as you got to Memphis, everyone thought you were… bad luck.”

“It’s alright, Isis -”

“No, it’s not alright!” Isis exploded. “They tried to kill you, Kisara! I’m ashamed of my people.” Isis was full of disgrace, and she didn’t know how to make it up to her. “Kisara, when we escape, we will have to flee Memphis for good. There is no other way we will survive. We may even have to change our names, get jobs. Do you understand?”

Kisara nodded her head vigorously. “Isis…after we find your brother…can we go back to Russia?”

Isis was mute. Leaving Egypt was a heartbreaking thought, and she had not considered what Kisara might have had in mind. Traveling to Russia might not take as long as one year on horseback, but Isis did not know a word of Kisara’s native tongue. She would prefer to stay in Egypt, find Malik, and make a life for herself and Kisara with him, where she could train into a different trade and look after him and Kisara. Perhaps she should stop being so selfish. How bad could traveling to Russia be, anyway…? Perhaps it was their best option – who knew what they would be faced with once they escaped? Word would travel like wildfire. Isis now realized that there was more she had to think about than she first thought.

“We’ll see, Kisara.” The priestess finally answered. “For now, let’s get on with some work to show Seth and the others when we return, as proof.”

**~***~**

* Hijab: A hijab, according to an Arabic website that I researched, is the piece of cloth that covers a woman's face due to Middle Eastern customs.