ygoficchallenge fic - Ishtars, gen, K
Challenge: Introductions
Title: History of the Prophecy
Characters: Let's just call 'em Mummy and Daddy Ishtar. If people can write about Lucius Malfoy (never mind portray him in a flattering light!), I can write about Daddy Ishtar!
Genre: General
Canon: Any
Length: 495 words
Rating: G
Summary: Generally, it's the converts who are the biggest crazies.
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! was created by Kazuki Takahashi. I have no claims to it or profits from this story.
They were deep into the desert when he saw a brightly-coloured smudge against the sand; it slowly turned into a group of people in opulent formal clothing. He almost fell out of the car when it finally stopped, looking eagerly for the woman among them.
Her head was uncovered, black hair free under the noonday sun.
Such immodesty from his soon-to-be wife almost enraged him - then anticipation slammed the feeling away. Those thoughts belonged to a culture he was about to leave behind. He gazed at the wide open doors in the sand, and told himself that she would be the one who led him down into that place, where he would begin the fulfilment of his life's purpose. The wind shifted and he squinted against the sand blowing into his face, and suddenly caught the scent of fruity perfumes.
"You look eager to enter the Tomb." It was a tentative, hopeful voice, like the morning fluting of small birds.
He looked up. Her hair shone black-red around her face, and he wanted to feel its fineness … it was strange to think that she would be his soon.
"I have heard of it all my life," he said. "I have had to study this history, I have been told of it, and now I will see it - it's like I've been dreaming of something true for years!"
"I can tell you will serve the Pharaoh's will and the Ishtar clan dutifully."
"I will," he promised. "I wonder, though - shouldn't we do this down there? Would the magic not work better where it is strongest?"
She shook her head, her smile flashing as bright as her jewellery. "We consider certain rituals to be strengthened by Ra," she said, looking to the sun.
"Of course," he murmured, and awaited the moment when these gods would be made his.
*
The Ishtar clan had more to teach him than he'd dreamed.
He learned its history until he felt each age through which the tablets had survived, and felt he could wait just as long for the prophecy to be fulfilled. He learned the intricacies of the clan, of magic and devotion … and it had felt like choking to learn that he was subject to the one who bore the Pharaoh's Memory - his own wife! A woman…
He learned of Ishtars who complained of the taste of dust in the Tomb's air, and practically lived in the nearby village. He learned that his words were worth little - he was a "half-blood", from the lineage of one of those Ishtars who had gone above ground to raise a family.
He kissed his wife's back and begged to share her burden with such conviction and passion that she agreed. He would undergo the ritual and receive the Pharaoh's Memory, and he would show them how to be a true Tomb Keeper…
There, they later judged, was where the madness began; but that was merely where it became more overt.