The Ten Commandments: "Midnight"
Category: The Ten Commandments (yes, the Charlton Heston movie)
Title: Midnight
Pairing: Bithia/Mered
Their gazes were full of suspicion and hatred, especially from little--little, listen to me, I sound like Memnet, calling everyone she nursed a child even when full-grown--Miriam. Miriam had never forgiven her for taking her brother, for issuing contemptuous orders like the princess she was, for making her mother into a wet nurse.
For the others, she was Egyptian, and royalty, and as alien to them as they were to her, from the fine linen and jewels she wore (still a princess, still the sister and aunt of Pharaoh, for all that she had been confined in a palatial prison these last years) to the six Nubians now huddling together in terror beneath the windows. How could she explain to this roomful of slaves seeking their freedom that she had offered the Nubians theirs, only to be told that they would not leave, for they had sworn oaths on their own gods to stay with her until death?
There was more to the tie of mother and son than mere blood, and Moses had let her in without thinking overmuch, but now he was facing the same roomful of relatives that she was, and he had far more to lose than she. Finally, he gently led her around the table, towards a seat at the far end. His relatives, conditioned by years in slavery, automatically backed away, pulling in their robes lest they commit the capital crime of touching royalty uninvited.
But not him.
The man who fetched a chair met her gaze evenly, and did not hesitate to help her into it as if she were a frail and beloved matriarch, not an enemy braving streets fogged with death to join a ragged nation of exiles. His hands were sure; though he did not smile--knowing, undoubtedly, what kind of reaction that would have earned him from Miriam’s quick temper--there was warm welcome in his eyes, welcome that cleared the last doubts from her mind.
Whatever horrors the Hebrew God might visit on Egypt this night, she, at least, had been given a gift.
Title: Midnight
Pairing: Bithia/Mered
Their gazes were full of suspicion and hatred, especially from little--little, listen to me, I sound like Memnet, calling everyone she nursed a child even when full-grown--Miriam. Miriam had never forgiven her for taking her brother, for issuing contemptuous orders like the princess she was, for making her mother into a wet nurse.
For the others, she was Egyptian, and royalty, and as alien to them as they were to her, from the fine linen and jewels she wore (still a princess, still the sister and aunt of Pharaoh, for all that she had been confined in a palatial prison these last years) to the six Nubians now huddling together in terror beneath the windows. How could she explain to this roomful of slaves seeking their freedom that she had offered the Nubians theirs, only to be told that they would not leave, for they had sworn oaths on their own gods to stay with her until death?
There was more to the tie of mother and son than mere blood, and Moses had let her in without thinking overmuch, but now he was facing the same roomful of relatives that she was, and he had far more to lose than she. Finally, he gently led her around the table, towards a seat at the far end. His relatives, conditioned by years in slavery, automatically backed away, pulling in their robes lest they commit the capital crime of touching royalty uninvited.
But not him.
The man who fetched a chair met her gaze evenly, and did not hesitate to help her into it as if she were a frail and beloved matriarch, not an enemy braving streets fogged with death to join a ragged nation of exiles. His hands were sure; though he did not smile--knowing, undoubtedly, what kind of reaction that would have earned him from Miriam’s quick temper--there was warm welcome in his eyes, welcome that cleared the last doubts from her mind.
Whatever horrors the Hebrew God might visit on Egypt this night, she, at least, had been given a gift.