[closed]

[pregames]

Who: Atem and Vector
When: backdated to 01/26
Where: somewhere in ViViD
What: Two old "friends" decided to go all Indiana Jonesing
Rating/Warning: Comic violence?



After and hour or two -- it was hard to tell when the day and night cycle literally reset itself in the span of a few battles -- Atem can tell they're finally nearing the end of their session. The creatures that started as a mild annoyance have grown in strength and frequency to pose a much more considerable threat now and the lush crush of the jungle is slowly thinning as they continue their upward trek. But more than anything, he can feel it in his limbs and counts it in the scrapes and cuts accumulated.

A disembodied chirping first alerts the pharaoh and his companion to the appearance of something up ahead, then they clear the crest of another hill and the not quite sun breaks through the foliage to bath the valley before them in its manufactured light. Rising up from the very middle, a stepped pyramid, so large that it's almost a wonder that anything had obscured it from them before now.

Atem is promptly awe struck for a myriad of reasons, and judging by the sympathy he seeks from Vector, not all of them are good. "Is this supposed to be a joke?"

Comments

[pregames]

"Not at all. That takes a certain courage that plenty of men cannot claim to possess." If there's one thing Atem can be sure of, Vector has left behind much of the clumsy bumbling kid he once had to entertain on their visits to Egypt -- although it had been just as much to the entertainment of the hawk in the nest as well. Something had happened in those few short years, a shared experience spanning thousands of leagues, the results of which remain to be seen. "I guess we both had to grow up."

It soon becomes clear that the the path wasn't not quite so long as it first appeared. Rather, the ceiling slopes downward at an angle responsible for the clever illusion and the tiles above are soon pressing down, practically on top of their heads. Atem's brow furrows, although it's not clear whether the cause is his words or the situation.

[jyajyaaan]

"Mmmmh. Sucks to be a king, huh?" The last comment is offered in jest. Vector ducks instinctively as they progress and the ceiling becomes lower, tensing his jaws at the feeling of restriction every part of him rejects. He has wings, he should fly. Not crawl through spaces where he couldn't even properly spread them. (Although how long has he not done that recently? He misses it.)

Chasing the thought away with a shake of his head, he turns his attention back to Atem. "What happened after the last time we parted? I heard some things, but I'd rather hear it from you than blindly trust gossip."

[pregames]

Atem isn't particularly pleased to find them stuffed into such a small space as well. If anything were to happen to them, there's barely enough space to summon so much as Kuriboh, let along engage in any practical defense. Before long they're reduced to a crawl, with a few choice words to follow and the sound of disgust reserved for the dirt and debris into which they find themselves descending.

"I wouldn't let that get out," he says, but he also understands. They can't exactly complain about their lives but that hardly made it a prize. Even without...

Admitting as much, even to Vector, signals a budding rapport he felt with the other. "Quite a bit as I am sure you can imagine." Thinking back on the time when they last saw one another, before finding themselves here, he smirks.

"You remember the tablets we went to the trouble of organizing for the shrine keepers? Well, lets just say the whole of Egypt had never before witnessed such entertaining duels. At least until one of the priests nearly lost another eye." He shakes his head, knowing it wasn't funny, but fond of the memory all the same. "It was a full month before they sorted it all out again."

[jyajyaaan]

The memory makes Vector involuntarily laugh. To his surprise it's an honest, cheerfully amused sound with just the tiniest bit of impishness in it. He couldn't tell when the last time he made such a noise was, which sends a faint tingle of worry down his spine. His eyes dart to Atem, wondering if it is the other's influence that is getting to him.

"I remember." A coy smile flashes over his face as he brushes an amalgamation of a spider's web and the dust of times out of his way. "I'm sad I couldn't stay to see the results of our hard work. That priest, was that Akh- Akh-" he frowns, trying to recall the name. "Akh-nana?"

[pregames]

"Akhenaden," he offers, without hesitation though it pains him to say so, dredging up the past and how things once were and how they could have been if it all hadn't gone so wrong. All of that, he keeps to himself so as not to tarnish what remains of the memory.

"Be glad you weren't around for the punishment. It was a whole month before Mahaad would let me out of his sight." And if Vector remembers anything about that name, he'll know it meant more than just having a nanny, but a real taskmaster to boot. But even that hardly seems like a chore in retrospect.

[jyajyaaan]

He nods. "Right. Aknaden." He never got that name right even then, as he remembers now. Ahhh, the beauty of a fragmented memory and the most minor, inane details coming back to you in bits and pieces first. Like... "You liked Falafel."

Discarding the thought, he grins as he disables another trap with a gesture that is that casual that it's hard not to miss it. "I did something similar on my own to one of our temples not that long after I got back. It got me a two years ban." Stopping for a heartbeat, he flashes Atem a smile. "Needless to say, I was back in after a month. They had no chance against a royal child who knows all the secret pathways and shortcuts."

[pregames]

"Huh?" While it may have been true on it's own, it's such a strange interjection in context that Atem has to stop to marvel at it. So much that he almost misses the rest of it; the subtle sleights of hand, the too easy way with which his companion seems to skirt the edge of danger. It's not that it's been lost on him so much as he was willing to let it slide in lieu of holding on to something familiar.

"Vector..." What happened to you? Is what he wants to ask. The question that has been on the tip of his tongue ever since it was first shot down when he first arrived; only he hadn't realized it until now. But it will have to wait until who knows how long as another question surges to the front.

"Do you hear that?" In the time that they had been talking, a rumbling had been growing from deep in the heart of the vast stone edifice, a sound that has slowly increased in volume and condensed into a kind of dull, distant chanting. Up ahead, the pharaoh makes additional note of the glow that's appeared at what he takes to be the end of the tunnel.

[jyajyaaan]

"Hm?" Vector looks confused for a moment before he realizes that while they might technically be more alike than he could possibly have been with most others, there are still things that distinctly set them apart. One of them are Vector's good ears, which have already caught more than most expected from him before his senses had been upgraded to a Barian's.

"The chant? I think it could be something like your burial rites, or at least they seem to have oriented the texts on them vaguely. I can't make out everything," that's a lie, "but it's about a great king and his journey to the 'river below'." He shrugs his shoulders. "I know it's silly, but each time I hear that part all I can think about is that taking a bath in an underground river has to be really chilly. Silly, huh?"

He chuckles awkwardly at his own joke. In truth the text has him think of a certain god whose sanctuary was submerged deep down in a certain sea, but he won't ever mention that to Atem.