Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Desert Aria ❯ II+Starry Night ( Chapter 2 )

Standard Disclaimers Apply.

 

+Desert Descant+

 

“A treacherous smiler

With teeth white as milk,

A savage beguiler,

In sheathings of silk…”

+Sea Lullaby, Elinor Wylie

 

 

 

 

 

Soft, rough, shifting; the first three sensations that Malik registered.

 

He opened an eye; almost giddily he realized that there was only a starry night sky starring back at him. He had never seen so many stars in the sky before. It seemed as if the night was unnaturally bright—not even the stars, as many as there were, could produce such light.

 

Finally, he took time to take in his surroundings. All around him, sand. Great hills of sand, valleys where the sand dipped inward, plains where the sand thinned out. Some grass stood out on the plains of sand, but it was in small tufts and most seemed to be withering.

 

When a sudden gust of wind from behind him blew sand into his hair, he frowned, coming out of his dream-like state. The blonde suddenly noticed that lying here in the sand had gotten nothing done—except, perhaps, for dirtying his hair and clothes. He stood up quickly, patting the sand out of his belly shirt and his khakis.

 

It wasn't cold, the teen realized. It was night, and he was in a desert—logic told him that it was supposed to be frigid. Instead, it was a pleasant warm, with gusts of slightly cold wind serving to jolt him awake even more than he already was. He turned towards the horizon, hoping to find something to guide him, like a brightly shining star.

 

He gasped.

 

`So this is why it's so bright!' Malik thought, staring in awe at the sky. Three moons hung in the sky, each one a different color. The first moon was huge, two times larger than his world's moon and a striking blue color. This one seemed to give off a gentle glow of calm. The second moon was about the same size as his world's moon, if not a bit bigger. It was a gold color, glowing brighter than the first moon by far. The final, and last moon, was almost so small he couldn't see it. It was glowing red, harsher than the first moon. Still, the bloody light of the smallest moon could not compare to the golden glow of the middle moon.

 

The flaxen-haired teen smiled, calmed by the moons. He didn't even panic when two figures, riding what appeared to be horses, appeared on the horizon.

 

No…he didn't feel panicked at all. In panic's place was an immense sense of calm, as if someone had administered some kind of sedative straight into his veins. He wondered, briefly, if those two people would come here and kill him while this emotion persisted. The thought made a cold kind of terror begin to bubble up. Abruptly, his head began to pound with a vicious force. All thoughts left his mind as the pain continued to worsen.

 

It was like a migraine, only much worse. Under all the layers of pain, he could hear something whispering viciously.

 

It stopped as suddenly as it had begun. There was still that too-calm feeling, but he had almost forgotten what he had thought about mere seconds ago. Whenever he tried to grasp onto scraps of his previous thoughts, they seemed to blink for a moment—as if he had just remembered—and then fade back into oblivion. He couldn't even get frustrated, for some reason.

 

And the two figures grew closer, and closer, and every time terror surfaced pain would immediately assault him. At one point when his fear grew strong, the pain came back ten fold, causing him to drop to the sandy floor and hold his head. He trembled a bit—partly from the subsiding pain, partly from the fact that he could now clearly hear the two figures approaching.

 

One of the figures dismounted, judging by the sound of shifting and a grunt. A warm, tanned hand grabbed his chin and forced him to look at the figures.

 

A torch was held close to his face. Malik's eye's slid over to the torch, wondering if any embers would burn him. The figure that was holding his face let go suddenly, sucking in a breath.

 

“Ra, he looks just like you.” One of them said, keeping his obviously male voice down. The man's voice was deep and cold and harsh. It reminded him of a quarry filled with sharp rocks.

 

“He does, doesn't he?” The man that had been holding him replied. If he had thought the other man's voice was bad, this one was worse. Malice seemed to lace the very words he spoke—the way he said them almost made them seem like an insult. This man's voice reminded him of death. Though the night was not cold, the teen on the ground shivered.

 

Almost frightened, he moved his eyes away from the torch that was still held close, and up to the two figures. He gasped.

 

Looming over him was almost an exact replica of himself. Where shoulder-length, flaxen hair should have been, in it's place stood a wild mess of platinum spikes. Harsh, blood red eyes replaced Malik's warm violet eyes. Compared to the stranger's eyes, that seemed to radiate an almost intense insanity, Malik seemed to be a saint. Instead of the blank expression the teen usually wore, features were twisted into a smile, no…smirk, of cruelty. From what he could see, the stranger was tall and lean, whereas he was thin and willowy.

 

He turned his head to look at the other stranger. This man was also tall and muscled, more so than the man leaning over him. He wore an opened red robe, a cream robe under that, and a navy blue skirt. The stranger's hair was white and also shoulder-length. But Malik's hair was more relaxed—the white haired stranger's seemed to gather in a chaotic mess around his head. He had same red eyes as the other stranger, radiating the same insanity but at a lower level. A fat vertical scar ran down the bottom of his left eye, with two short horizontal lines crisscrossing it. It looked like a double-dashed T.

 

And while the blonde stranger's face was a mask of spite, the white haired stranger's expression was more of curiosity than anything else. The same eyes, the same skin, almost the demeanor …Apart from looks, he seemed like a milder version of the blonde stranger. He also noticed that the blonde one was wearing the same robe. Purple in color, though, and the cut was higher up so that you could see the beginnings of a cream skirt peek out from under the hem of the closed robe.

 

Too busy taking in the strangers, the blonde teen came back to reality in enough time to catch the last bit of a conversation the two were having.

 

“Too much trouble—“

 

“Not if we keep him at—“

 

“By Ra, Bakura, do we really—“

 

“He's weak, he won't cause that much trouble.”

 

Malik frowned, as the last comment was obviously addressed to him.

 

“So, it's settled.” The blonde stranger said.

 

The white-haired stranger moved closer, and once again his chin was grabbed. He found himself looking directly into hypnotizing garnet eyes, unable to look away.

 

“Tell me your name,” the stranger holding him demanded.

 

“Malik.” He said, confidently. Something about these two seemed to scratch him in a strange, unknown way. He didn't like it.

 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the wilder one smirked, looking over to the white-haired man. Eyes connected in a silent agreement and both smirked.

 

“Where do you come from?” The platinum blonde man asked, no less demanding than the other stranger.

 

The words rolled easily off his tongue, once again coming off fearless and confident. “Egypt.”

 

A confused glance was shared. Then the blonde stranger shrugged, and the white haired man spoke.

 

“You're coming with us.”

to watch

 

Where had it all gone wrong?

 

Perhaps he should have stayed home, back in that hellhole where no future awaited him. Anything was better than this. Being led on, a rope wrapped jointly about his neck and wrists, like some kind of disobedient dog. Every time he fell behind, the blonde would give a sharp yank of the rope, cutting off his breathing.

 

He had tried to fight them.

 

mirar

 

“You're coming with us.”

 

“Coming with you?” Malik said distastefully. He had forgotten the danger, his mind going back to thinking he was in his home world. Thinking he was safe, that these two people couldn't hurt him.

 

“Yes, with us.” The blonde stranger snarled in reply. He grabbed the teen's wrist with a bruising force, hauling him to his feet.

 

Malik wrenched his wrist out of his grasp. He stepped backwards, into the other stranger, before turning around again so that he was facing both of them clearly.

 

The blonde teen stepped back. “I'm not going anywhere with a couple of strangers.” And he turned to walk away.

 

That was his mistake.

 

He got a couple of feet before something tackled him, sending him crashing into the ground. He could feel the person above him bury their face into his back. He felt, rather than heard, the person covering him chuckle before wrenching him in a standing position again.

 

“You're coming with us,” The white-haired male stated. “Whether you like it or not.”

 

“You can't—“ Malik's hiss was cut short when the blonde-haired stranger's hand came down to hit him.

 

The force of the slap caused the teen's head to snap to the side painfully. He fell to the ground, stunned, and his body jolted when he felt the blonde man deliver a vicious kick to his ribs.

 

The white-haired man spoke, amused. “You could have just punched him, Marik.”

 

The other stranger—Marik, replied, “What? And ruin his jaw…?”

 

From his position on the ground, the Egyptian boy shuddered. Something lurked beneath the depths of those words, something he did not know of. He held a hand to his cheek, which felt as if there would be nasty bruise from the slap.

 

“Bind his wrists and his neck. We'll lead him there like a dog,” The white haired male leered.

 

He was hauled to his feet—again—and rope was placed about his neck and wrists. Malik was caught between despair and anger. Anger at the two captors having thought that they could treat him like this, despair at the thought that this life may be worse than his last.

 

mirar

 

Seconds drifted to minutes, and minutes into hours.

 

Noon had been unbearably hot. At the beginning of the evening, it seemed to get even hotter—if possible—like the dying flame of a candle. `A candle burns brightest before it goes out.' Malik reminded himself.

 

They had ridden (or, for him, walked) for what seemed to be forever. The smaller blonde hadn't even noticed night change to early morning or the morning change to noon. Only when he felt the heat begin to reach a highpoint did he finally take notice of his surroundings. Throughout the ride he had been forced to suffer in silence; neither of his captives had spoken since they had bound him.

 

His mouth hung open as he rasped for air. His throat was so dry…he couldn't remember the last time he took a sip of water. His feet ached terribly and his eyes drooped with exhaustion. Finally, unable to take anymore of the heat or the exhaustion or the pain he collapsed.

 

He lay there, face buried in the sand, not moving even when the “collar” around his neck tightened with the yanking of the “leash”. As the “collar” tightened even more he began to choke.

 

This caught the taller blonde's attention; the horse in front of him stopped and backed up a little. Malik coughed again as his lungs frantically brought in air.

 

The blonde stranger gave a sharp yank, causing the “collar” to restrict around the neck of his captive once more. Malik nearly gagged when the crueler of the two strangers yanked on the “leash” again.

 

“Get up!” He yelled, giving a succession of sharp yanks.

 

Finally, the milder of his two captors stepped in, taking pity on the boy in the sand.

 

. “Marik, it's obvious he's far too exhausted to move another step.”

 

The blonde frowned, but allowed the white-haired man to take the “leash” away and unbind Malik. Even the teen was too exhausted to use this as a chance to escape. The blond-haired Egyptian was gathered into the arms of his white-haired captor.

 

The weak boy was placed in the front of the saddle, so that he could rest against the chest of his captor as they rode on.

 

“Water…?” Malik asked weakly.

 

The white-haired stranger consented, bringing a strange leathery pouch to his lips. The weaker blonde drank gratefully from what seemed to be a water skin.

 

They set off once more. At one point, the exhausted teen looked backward towards Marik. The darker of the two wore a sneer on his face, one that seemed to shout how disgusted he was with his weakness.

 

Malik turned back to the wide expanse of desert and let his head fall back against his captor's chest.

 

The blonde captor was not the only one disgusted with his weakness; Malik was disgusted with himself. But even the pure self-loathing he harbored could not stop him from closing his eyes to get some well-needed rest.

 

Maybe he would be back in the attic when he awoke.

 

 

 

+A/N+

Chapter written to:

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - Yae - Starry Moonlit Night,

Final Fantasy X - Scorching Desert

 

I was very hesitant in posting this; I am thinking that this is the absolute WORST piece-of-crap-for-a-chapter ever. But don't pity me. I hate pity >O

 

Anyone who noticed I reworded the title (Descant still means “melody”) wins. The Internet. For a day. And when it comes to it, I changed Marik and Bakura's eye color because I am powerful like that. Also, there will be more dialogue as soon as Bakura and Marik warm up to Malik. Finally, This is not a “back to ancient Egypt!” fic. Nope, it's in a completely different world D:

 

 

By the way, I originally send by email, but I think my computer has a virus, and I don't really want to spread “the love”. X_x;

SnowIce - You give me too much credit, I dare not give myself such a title as an “authoress”! [/melodrama] Sorry if it was too long of a wait…Em-tan(proofreader/beta reader) got her Internet connection shut off. ^_^ I'm ecstatic that you actually took time out of your day to review my bad story…@_@

Misoka - :o Thank you so much! @_@ I can't believe I caught your attention. Thankyou for the spelling correction! (the mistake will be fixed by the time this is uploaded). [Throws bouquet] I shall never trust Em-tan again \_/

AmethystRoze - Thank you so much for reviewing. :D It makes me so happy that one of the authoresses I read stories from ACTUALLY WROTE to this insignificant little person. ;_; Thank you for reminding me—I completely forgot about anonymous reviews. Such kind words for such a lousy writer! ^_^;;

Seductive Extinction - ;_; Another one of my favorite authors reviewed [sniff] You are the greatest. Hugs and cookies. :D You make me feel like I have skill.