Faye (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
said_scarlett) wrote2006-08-16 04:21 pm
said_scarlett) wrote2006-08-16 04:21 pm
All My Kingdoms, Turned To Sand - Scar/Lust
Title: All My Kingdoms, Turned To Sand
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theladyfeylene
Fandom: FMA
Pairing: Scar/Lust
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Episode 22-42
Word Count: 1123
Author's Notes: Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
scarlust Alternate Universe Challenge. Story takes place in ancient Egypt, and is essentially a retelling of episode 42.
Summary: The city of Menouthis had fallen, its people dead or scattered. Only one man remained, forsaken by the gods and clinging to the memory of his lost people...
Beneath the desert sun, along the banks of a sinuous river, there lay a city. Its monuments lay broken, cracked and fallen and sunk into ruin. Its doorways hung open, linen fluttering in the dry wind and giving way to empty homes and temples. Blank windows looked down upon deserted streets, debris and fallen stone scattered across roadways that bore no footprints. This was the city of Menouthis.
Through the toppled ruins a woman moved. Her hair was the black of a sun dried fig, long and thick and full. Funereal linens swathed her body in a gross mockery of a woman’s robe. Where the shroud-linens fell away from her clavicle, on her inhumanly pale skin, there was emblazoned a hieroglyphic of a jackal.
She flitted from broken column to broken column, her feet light and her ruby-red lips curved into a smile. It was as though she were searching for something, there in the ruined city on the banks of the Nile.
Suddenly, as she came upon a tiled square, she paused. She pressed her lithesome form against a piece of rubble, clinging to it as though it were a lover. In the square, kneeling among painted tiles and lines of gold, was a man. He knelt as though in prayer, hands stretched out to the crumbling edifice of a masked god. His white hair caught the sunlight, and the markings on his right arm drew the woman’s eyes. She knew this man.
“The gods have forsaken this place,” she said, her voice dancing across the open square like a summer breeze. The man jerked, hands dropping, and his eyes flashed in anger. His face turned towards her now, and the harsh edges of a crossed scar marred his handsome visage.
“You!” The word was spoken as a curse, and the dark skinned desert man rose to his feet as though pulled by strings.
“Your prayers fall on deaf ears, Scarred One.” The woman shifted, leaning against the toppled pillar like a hired temple girl.
“You lie,” the scarred man spoke, slashing his arm through the air as if it were a weapon. “Creature of Anubis, flee this place!”
“You have no power over me.” The woman tipped her head, aubergine eyes fixed on the scarred man. She spoke a lie, and both of them knew it. Though the mortal man who had called her into being had long since weighed his heart upon Osiris’ scales, the scarred man held power over her. Not the power of his priestly brother, but something far more ancient and human.
“Leave me to my prayers in peace.”
“They do you no good.” The woman moved, pushing off of her perch like a vulture. “Menouthis belongs to Anubis now. The gods have turned their back on this place. They will not listen to your prayers, let alone answer them.”
“If this place is now Anubis’ domain, I shall die with it.” The scarred man stood proud, broad shoulders squared beneath the relentless desert sun.
“Such loyalty to your people.” The woman’s voice was teasing, taunting. “And what of your loyalty to me?”
“I have no loyalty to you.” Again there was anger. “Though you once walked these lands as my brother’s beloved, you’re a creature of the underworld now. You have no heart.”
“Oh, I have one,” the woman said, shrugging. “It simply lies within Anubis’ keeping.” She dismissed the conversation immediately, having no desire to continue it. “Are you truly willing to die for the ties to your people? They’re gone, Scarred One. You and I are all that is left.”
“Do not count yourself among the people of Menouthis!”
“And why not?” She crossed the square now, bare white feet making no sound upon the tile. “I was born in the Temple of Osiris. A Menouthian man gave me life. I ask you again, are you truly willing to die?”
“If the gods have forsaken me, I have nothing left.”
“You have me.”
Silence spread across the tiled square. The silent stone god watched on, unmoving. Only the loose strips of linen that clothed the woman of Anubis stirred, caught by the afternoon winds. No birds sang, no herd beasts lowed. The city was dead.
Finally, the woman spoke again.
“You know what waits for you, in the afterlife. You know the scales will not tip in your favor. Are you so eager to meet the jaws of Ammit?”
“Silence.”
But it seemed as though the woman’s words had struck a chord in the scarred man. He scrubbed his hands across his face and his expression turned weary.
“Come with me, Scarred One. Abandon this place to the judgment of the gods. Come with me to Abydos. There is a place beneath the temple, an unused tomb, we can go there together…”
“And why delay the inevitable? My soul is damned no matter when I die.”
“You would deny me the pleasure of your life?”
“Your kind knows no pleasure.”
“That’s a lie.” She moved like a viper, suddenly before him, her cold hands grasping his face and her blood-tinted lips pressed against his. She clung to him as she had clung to the rubble before, at the edge of the square. Her kiss was hungry and desperate.
“Come with me to Abydos,” she repeated, her forehead pressed against his.
“I have given you the pleasure you so desired,” he said in turn, grasping her shoulders. He held her a moment and then pushed her away. “Leave this place. If you speak truth, the gods vengeance will come soon.”
He turned from her then, and she reached out a single hand to stop him.
“Before I go… tell me your name.”
He looked at her, expression a blank mask. He could have been another statue, somehow untouched by the ruin that visited Menouthis.
“I have no name any longer,” he said, and turned once more to the silent statue of Osiris. The woman bowed her head and whispered a word of parting before returning to the rubble, and then the desert beyond.
Before the sun sank, the city of Menouthis was swallowed by the waters of the river. Nothing remained but empty sand, and the memory of a scarred man.
A Few Notes On Mythology. Brief explanations of gods and places referenced in this fic.
Author:
theladyfeyleneFandom: FMA
Pairing: Scar/Lust
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Episode 22-42
Word Count: 1123
Author's Notes: Written for the
scarlust Alternate Universe Challenge. Story takes place in ancient Egypt, and is essentially a retelling of episode 42.Summary: The city of Menouthis had fallen, its people dead or scattered. Only one man remained, forsaken by the gods and clinging to the memory of his lost people...
Beneath the desert sun, along the banks of a sinuous river, there lay a city. Its monuments lay broken, cracked and fallen and sunk into ruin. Its doorways hung open, linen fluttering in the dry wind and giving way to empty homes and temples. Blank windows looked down upon deserted streets, debris and fallen stone scattered across roadways that bore no footprints. This was the city of Menouthis.
Through the toppled ruins a woman moved. Her hair was the black of a sun dried fig, long and thick and full. Funereal linens swathed her body in a gross mockery of a woman’s robe. Where the shroud-linens fell away from her clavicle, on her inhumanly pale skin, there was emblazoned a hieroglyphic of a jackal.
She flitted from broken column to broken column, her feet light and her ruby-red lips curved into a smile. It was as though she were searching for something, there in the ruined city on the banks of the Nile.
Suddenly, as she came upon a tiled square, she paused. She pressed her lithesome form against a piece of rubble, clinging to it as though it were a lover. In the square, kneeling among painted tiles and lines of gold, was a man. He knelt as though in prayer, hands stretched out to the crumbling edifice of a masked god. His white hair caught the sunlight, and the markings on his right arm drew the woman’s eyes. She knew this man.
“The gods have forsaken this place,” she said, her voice dancing across the open square like a summer breeze. The man jerked, hands dropping, and his eyes flashed in anger. His face turned towards her now, and the harsh edges of a crossed scar marred his handsome visage.
“You!” The word was spoken as a curse, and the dark skinned desert man rose to his feet as though pulled by strings.
“Your prayers fall on deaf ears, Scarred One.” The woman shifted, leaning against the toppled pillar like a hired temple girl.
“You lie,” the scarred man spoke, slashing his arm through the air as if it were a weapon. “Creature of Anubis, flee this place!”
“You have no power over me.” The woman tipped her head, aubergine eyes fixed on the scarred man. She spoke a lie, and both of them knew it. Though the mortal man who had called her into being had long since weighed his heart upon Osiris’ scales, the scarred man held power over her. Not the power of his priestly brother, but something far more ancient and human.
“Leave me to my prayers in peace.”
“They do you no good.” The woman moved, pushing off of her perch like a vulture. “Menouthis belongs to Anubis now. The gods have turned their back on this place. They will not listen to your prayers, let alone answer them.”
“If this place is now Anubis’ domain, I shall die with it.” The scarred man stood proud, broad shoulders squared beneath the relentless desert sun.
“Such loyalty to your people.” The woman’s voice was teasing, taunting. “And what of your loyalty to me?”
“I have no loyalty to you.” Again there was anger. “Though you once walked these lands as my brother’s beloved, you’re a creature of the underworld now. You have no heart.”
“Oh, I have one,” the woman said, shrugging. “It simply lies within Anubis’ keeping.” She dismissed the conversation immediately, having no desire to continue it. “Are you truly willing to die for the ties to your people? They’re gone, Scarred One. You and I are all that is left.”
“Do not count yourself among the people of Menouthis!”
“And why not?” She crossed the square now, bare white feet making no sound upon the tile. “I was born in the Temple of Osiris. A Menouthian man gave me life. I ask you again, are you truly willing to die?”
“If the gods have forsaken me, I have nothing left.”
“You have me.”
Silence spread across the tiled square. The silent stone god watched on, unmoving. Only the loose strips of linen that clothed the woman of Anubis stirred, caught by the afternoon winds. No birds sang, no herd beasts lowed. The city was dead.
Finally, the woman spoke again.
“You know what waits for you, in the afterlife. You know the scales will not tip in your favor. Are you so eager to meet the jaws of Ammit?”
“Silence.”
But it seemed as though the woman’s words had struck a chord in the scarred man. He scrubbed his hands across his face and his expression turned weary.
“Come with me, Scarred One. Abandon this place to the judgment of the gods. Come with me to Abydos. There is a place beneath the temple, an unused tomb, we can go there together…”
“And why delay the inevitable? My soul is damned no matter when I die.”
“You would deny me the pleasure of your life?”
“Your kind knows no pleasure.”
“That’s a lie.” She moved like a viper, suddenly before him, her cold hands grasping his face and her blood-tinted lips pressed against his. She clung to him as she had clung to the rubble before, at the edge of the square. Her kiss was hungry and desperate.
“Come with me to Abydos,” she repeated, her forehead pressed against his.
“I have given you the pleasure you so desired,” he said in turn, grasping her shoulders. He held her a moment and then pushed her away. “Leave this place. If you speak truth, the gods vengeance will come soon.”
He turned from her then, and she reached out a single hand to stop him.
“Before I go… tell me your name.”
He looked at her, expression a blank mask. He could have been another statue, somehow untouched by the ruin that visited Menouthis.
“I have no name any longer,” he said, and turned once more to the silent statue of Osiris. The woman bowed her head and whispered a word of parting before returning to the rubble, and then the desert beyond.
Before the sun sank, the city of Menouthis was swallowed by the waters of the river. Nothing remained but empty sand, and the memory of a scarred man.
A Few Notes On Mythology. Brief explanations of gods and places referenced in this fic.