[✐fanfic] unnamed isis ficlet
Writing an application for Isis to a brand-new game on Dreamwidth, the third-person sample indicated I should write a scenario set in her own world. It was supposed to only be 250 words or so.
I wrote full-short-story-length museum fic.
Enjoy.
By the time she’d reached the top of the steps and been admitted to the Museum proper, Isis had recollected both her bearings and her poise. Her hair was smoothed back into its normal, impeccable state; the wrinkles in the manuscript she clutched had been straightened out.
A motorcycle engine revved behind her; she turned her head and nodded to the young man driving off, already bracing herself to face the gentlemen waiting inside the Museum’s doors.
“Miss Ishtar -“ one began, hopefully not about to voice what everyone else was thinking. Isis neglected to give him the chance.
“Gentlemen,” she cut in smoothly, nodding to the circle in sum. “Thank you for joining me here today. I’m certain you’ll find the new rotating exhibit on art in the Eighteenth Dynasty fascinating. Shall we begin?”
The men - an assortment of ages, an assortment of heights - glanced at each other uneasily, surprised this slip of a woman could so unflappably steer around her manner of arrival. One finally muttered some noncommittal agreement, and Isis breezed past them, ready to begin her tour.
“These pieces shall be used to illustrate the manuscript we’ve gathered to discuss,” Isis began, leading the men away from the collection of coins and papyri on the first floor to an antechamber housing the museum’s rotating special collections. “As editors and publishers of the piece, I thought it might prove enlightening to share them with you.”
“Ah, Miss Ishtar,” one man finally broke in, as Isis was halfway through the gallery pointing out the strange tablets depicted on stelae from a long-dead pharaoh’s mortuary temple. “It is the content and progress of the manuscript I’d hoped to discuss - the allegations that the magic of ancient Egypt worked as their scribes recorded -“
“Yes?” She turned to the man, listening, good-humored, a slight smile on her face. She’d known this was coming. In fact, she’d invited them here, to surround them with the world her family had sworn to protect, for that exact reason. “Is this hypothesis amiss?”
“Miss Ishtar, as well you know, the archaeological community are reasonable people,” the man continued. “While all reconstruction of long-lost history must involve some level of summary and conjecture, to interpret the writings and images found so literally indicates-“
He stopped, realizing he was about to critique the most powerful figure in Egyptian archaeology. Isis’s shoulders relaxed; she looked up at the stele before which she stood, depicting a Pharaoh whose name had been gauged from the stone. A hand went, absently, to her throat. Upon finding nothing resting there, she sighed.
“Your concern for my reputation is thoughtful,” Isis replied, wondering for a moment if publishing this account was indeed a wise choice. Yet the history long cloaked in darkness deserved, now that it had run at last to its destined conclusion, to be brought forth into the light. The last duty of the Ishtar family: protecting certain secrets yet enshrining their King’s memory. “And I assure you the final draft shall indeed include a logical interpretation of all events depicted.
“Yet look around you, gentlemen,” she implored. “You’re surrounded by a world we can only imagine, a world where Gods still walked the earth and man came face to face with his soul. Doesn’t our world, in which so many are lost and wandering, deserve a chance to believe in magic again? Doesn’t science fall short of any real truth?
“What happened in the past cannot be denied,” she concluded. “There is proof enough to satisfy the most scientific of minds. And that past, and the fates it’s wrought upon our own society, still holds sway. For that reason, we honor it. For that reason, we learn.”
No one seemed quite certain how to respond to this, which was just as well: a knock sounded on the door, and an intern poked his head into the chamber.
“Your next appointment has arrived, Miss Ishtar,” he informed her, so Isis bid the men good day, encouraged them to explore the exhibit at their leisure, and reentered the hallway. A clamoring throng of elementary school children greeted her.
“Was that you we saw, on the bus ride here?” one of them asked, tugging on her dress; the teacher looked scandalized but Isis didn’t seem to mind. “You were on a motorcycle and you were going so fast!”
“Traffic would have made me tardy for work otherwise,” Isis informed the child with a nod, her eyes now softer than when she’d stared down her publishers. “My little brother lent me a hand.”
“That’s so cool…” An awed murmur swept through the fidgeting crowd; one or two bold pairs of lips mimicked engine sounds.
Isis chuckled and led the children back out into the foyer. “Just as my brother and I look after each other, and I’m sure your families look after you, the ancient Egyptians cared deeply for their own siblings,” she informed them. Malik was still going to be scolded for speeding this morning, but at least he’d gotten her to work on time. She wouldn’t have missed this appointment for the world. “On that note, shall we begin?”
I wrote full-short-story-length museum fic.
Enjoy.
By the time she’d reached the top of the steps and been admitted to the Museum proper, Isis had recollected both her bearings and her poise. Her hair was smoothed back into its normal, impeccable state; the wrinkles in the manuscript she clutched had been straightened out.
A motorcycle engine revved behind her; she turned her head and nodded to the young man driving off, already bracing herself to face the gentlemen waiting inside the Museum’s doors.
“Miss Ishtar -“ one began, hopefully not about to voice what everyone else was thinking. Isis neglected to give him the chance.
“Gentlemen,” she cut in smoothly, nodding to the circle in sum. “Thank you for joining me here today. I’m certain you’ll find the new rotating exhibit on art in the Eighteenth Dynasty fascinating. Shall we begin?”
The men - an assortment of ages, an assortment of heights - glanced at each other uneasily, surprised this slip of a woman could so unflappably steer around her manner of arrival. One finally muttered some noncommittal agreement, and Isis breezed past them, ready to begin her tour.
“These pieces shall be used to illustrate the manuscript we’ve gathered to discuss,” Isis began, leading the men away from the collection of coins and papyri on the first floor to an antechamber housing the museum’s rotating special collections. “As editors and publishers of the piece, I thought it might prove enlightening to share them with you.”
“Ah, Miss Ishtar,” one man finally broke in, as Isis was halfway through the gallery pointing out the strange tablets depicted on stelae from a long-dead pharaoh’s mortuary temple. “It is the content and progress of the manuscript I’d hoped to discuss - the allegations that the magic of ancient Egypt worked as their scribes recorded -“
“Yes?” She turned to the man, listening, good-humored, a slight smile on her face. She’d known this was coming. In fact, she’d invited them here, to surround them with the world her family had sworn to protect, for that exact reason. “Is this hypothesis amiss?”
“Miss Ishtar, as well you know, the archaeological community are reasonable people,” the man continued. “While all reconstruction of long-lost history must involve some level of summary and conjecture, to interpret the writings and images found so literally indicates-“
He stopped, realizing he was about to critique the most powerful figure in Egyptian archaeology. Isis’s shoulders relaxed; she looked up at the stele before which she stood, depicting a Pharaoh whose name had been gauged from the stone. A hand went, absently, to her throat. Upon finding nothing resting there, she sighed.
“Your concern for my reputation is thoughtful,” Isis replied, wondering for a moment if publishing this account was indeed a wise choice. Yet the history long cloaked in darkness deserved, now that it had run at last to its destined conclusion, to be brought forth into the light. The last duty of the Ishtar family: protecting certain secrets yet enshrining their King’s memory. “And I assure you the final draft shall indeed include a logical interpretation of all events depicted.
“Yet look around you, gentlemen,” she implored. “You’re surrounded by a world we can only imagine, a world where Gods still walked the earth and man came face to face with his soul. Doesn’t our world, in which so many are lost and wandering, deserve a chance to believe in magic again? Doesn’t science fall short of any real truth?
“What happened in the past cannot be denied,” she concluded. “There is proof enough to satisfy the most scientific of minds. And that past, and the fates it’s wrought upon our own society, still holds sway. For that reason, we honor it. For that reason, we learn.”
No one seemed quite certain how to respond to this, which was just as well: a knock sounded on the door, and an intern poked his head into the chamber.
“Your next appointment has arrived, Miss Ishtar,” he informed her, so Isis bid the men good day, encouraged them to explore the exhibit at their leisure, and reentered the hallway. A clamoring throng of elementary school children greeted her.
“Was that you we saw, on the bus ride here?” one of them asked, tugging on her dress; the teacher looked scandalized but Isis didn’t seem to mind. “You were on a motorcycle and you were going so fast!”
“Traffic would have made me tardy for work otherwise,” Isis informed the child with a nod, her eyes now softer than when she’d stared down her publishers. “My little brother lent me a hand.”
“That’s so cool…” An awed murmur swept through the fidgeting crowd; one or two bold pairs of lips mimicked engine sounds.
Isis chuckled and led the children back out into the foyer. “Just as my brother and I look after each other, and I’m sure your families look after you, the ancient Egyptians cared deeply for their own siblings,” she informed them. Malik was still going to be scolded for speeding this morning, but at least he’d gotten her to work on time. She wouldn’t have missed this appointment for the world. “On that note, shall we begin?”