Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Love Is Not Blind ❯ Weaving and Dancing ( Chapter 2 )

—Here's the 2nd Chapter of Love Is Not Blind. Whether you like it or not, I'll continue with it. I post my fanfics because I would like to share my fanfics with everybody else. Well, duh, that's what Mediaminer is for, right?

 

Chapter 2 - Weaving and Dancing

 

“Sew faster, girl!” snapped a young dancing girl who stood over Sagira's shoulder. The girl annoyed Sagira to no end. She sounded like a cat that had gotten its tail stepped on. The mistress in charge of the palace dancers was an unkindly woman who made sure each dancer was perfect in every way. Her name meant “gentle,” but Dalila was never gentle.

 

When she first heard of Sagira's problem, however, Dalila took pity on her. Dalila had told Sagira that she, too, had run away from an arranged marriage that she did not want. Even though Sagira demonstrated her excellent dancing abilities, Dalila had given the blind girl a job as a weaver. Her job as a weaver was to mend and make the erotic clothing that the palace dancers wore.

 

“I told you to sew faster, blind girl!” snapped the dancing girl still standing over Sagira.

 

Sagira held up the skirt that she had been mending and said, “Here you are, miss.” The dancing girl snatched the skirt from Sagira's hands and walked away. Sagira was alone, because she heard silence around her.

 

She heard the slight, soft pat pat of footsteps coming toward her. Sagira looked up and said, “Yes? Who is there?”

 

A voice she could not place said, “Where is Dalila?” It was a female voice and it sounded kindly and as soft as the person's footsteps.

 

Sagira turned around, remembering where everything was and pointed to where she knew the doorway was. It was an arched doorway, which Sagira had never seen before. The dancing girls laughed themselves to tears when they caught Sagira standing on her tiptoes, fingering for each stone of the doorway.

 

“Are you a dancer?” asked the soft voice.

 

Sagira longed to see the owner of this voice. She pictured a lady as beautiful as Hathor, goddess of love. “I am not, my lady. I am only a weaver. My name is Sagira.”

 

A hand touched her shoulder and the smell of fragrant oils that only those of great wealth and high ranks wore flew passed. The soft footsteps were distant now and Sagira was alone again. Sagira wondered what had happened to her mother. Had Luzige punished Rehema and Badru for Sagira's running away? Did Luzige beat Rehema and Badru? Luzige could not have taken away Badru's grooming job. Just two sunrises ago, Sagira had heard her brother's voice in the stables. She had fled before he caught her. Badru would have surely told Rehema if he had seen her.

 

Sagira stood and felt her way through the arched doorway and to the room where the girls slept when they weren't dancing or in the Pharaoh's throne room. Since she was not a dancing girl, Sagira had been forbidden to go to the throne room. She had not even heard Pharaoh Atemu's voice. Perhaps it was all a mere fantasy she had dreamt of. Dancing at the palace and hearing the Pharaoh applaud her and praise her dance…it was all a folly.

 

The dancing girls were cruel to her. They hated her not because of her blindness, but because of the fact that Dalila showed sympathy towards her. Dalila never showed much sympathy towards any of them. She always spoke to them in a dangerous, angry voice, but her voice always softened when she spoke to Sagira. The girls used Sagira's blindness to trick and confuse her. Once, they took Sagira's pallet and extra dress and hid them where Sagira wouldn't find them.

 

Sagira wept when she went looking for her pallet and dress. When she found out that the girls had done this horrible deed, she refused to sew and mend until her things were returned to her. The girls did not return her things for three days and therefore, Sagira refused to sew for three days. Someone did eventually return her things to her, but it was not a dancing girl or Dalila. Sagira never found out who it was.

 

After that incident, the dancing girls never played tricks on Sagira again. They feared for their silks and finely made dresses. Sagira used this fear to her advantage. If they ever cursed at her or teased her, she would threat to rip their beautiful clothing if they did not shut up. They would leave her alone after such a threat. But she let them get away with calling her “blind girl” since they didn't know her name.

 

Sagira sat on her pallet and felt sleep try to take over her. She wanted to sleep, but her mind was too active to let her.

 

“Sagira!” shouted a familiar voice. Sagira immediately turned towards the doorway.

 

“B-Badru?!” Sagira's voice was in a high squeak now. What was he doing back here? Stable boys were only allowed to go as far as the kitchen and the stables.

 

Suddenly she felt arms encircle her and hug her tightly. She heard Badru weeping and she hugged him. “Oh Badru…do not cry.”

 

Badru released her and said, “Sag, what are you doing here? How long have you been here? Mother has been so worried about you. When Luzige found out that—”

 

“Luzige! Oh Badru, please tell me he did not hurt Mother. If he did, I will beg Ra for forgiveness.”

 

“You can thank Hathor that Mother is well and unharmed.” Badru said. He sat down on her pallet and she sat next to him. “Mother found out that you were missing and she wept. I stayed home that day to comfort her and be there for her. She regrets forcing you to marry Luzige. Luzige thinks you probably drowned yourself or else became a whore. I wanted to kill him for thinking that you would become one of his bedmates.”

 

“What did Luzige do when he found out I was gone?”

 

“He told Mother that he would weed go to every whore he could find until he found you. I told him not bother. I told him that you would eventually come back. He smacked me aside and told me to stifle my flapping lips.”

 

“I am sorry, Badru. But this is the only place where I am truly safe from him. I beg you not to say anything. Please, I would rather live here than go back and wed that awful man.” Sagira said.

 

“But you're not happy here, sister!” Badru complained. “You hate it here, I know you do. I can read you just as easily as you can read me.”

 

He was concerned for her. She felt it in his voice and in the way he held her hands. He was becoming a man more quickly than she had thought. Sagira tightened her grip on his hands. “Badru, I want to stay here. If I go back and become Luzige's wife, then I will be even worse than I am here.”

 

Badru sighed. “I will not say anything, sister. But if Luzige becomes restless and tries to attack Mother or myself, then I'll have to bring you home.”

 

Sagira's blood ran cold. “He would not dare try to hurt Mother, would he? Despite how big of a locust he is, Luzige would not really attack Mother.”

 

“I do not know for sure, Sag.” Badru replied. He gave her a quick hug and said, “By the way, I saw you run from me near the stables. That was how I knew you were here. I asked the lady who watches over the dancing girls. When I explained that I was your brother, she let me come to see you.”

 

“Dalila let you see me? Has she given you permission to visit me daily?”

 

“No. She says she cannot do that. She let me see you this one time, but she said that you could come to see me in the stables whenever you want.” Badru replied.

 

“Then I will.”

 

“Sagira?!” Dalila's voice echoed through the hall and into the room.

 

“She sounds angry. I should go, sister.” Badru gave her another quick hug and Sagira heard his hurried footsteps leave the room.

 

“Sagira?! Sagira?!” called Dalila. Sagira sighed heavily and stood. She felt her way out of the room and down the dimly lit hall to the changing room where the dancing girls dressed for the throne room.

 

“There you are, child.” said Dalila's screeching, piercing voice. Sagira felt the woman's spongy hand on her arm. The woman led Sagira through the room, passed the throngs of perfumed, half-naked dancers. Dalila sat Sagira down on something hard and said, “Sagira, one of my dancers has run away.”

 

“Run away, madam? To where?”

 

“She ran off with some young man who was paying her like a whore. Good luck to her, I say! It'll be brutal nights and horrible mornings for her.” Dalila snapped harshly.

 

“I am sorry for the loss you have, madam.” Sagira said, quietly.

 

Dalila snorted and Sagira felt silks drop in her lap. “Get dressed, Sagira. You're going to take her place.” Cries of protest and whines of begging from the other dancing girls followed this statement.

 

“Quiet all of you!” Dalila shouted. “You dance with her or you go back on the streets where I found most of you! Now get dressed. You have one more practice before tonight. We dance in the court of the Pharaoh.”

 

Sagira felt her heart take wings and fly. She would be dancing in the throne room before the Pharaoh. Sagira did not mind anymore that she would be wearing erotic clothing or that she would have only until sunset to learn the right dance moves. She was only thinking about dancing in front of the Pharaoh. She thought only of how he would praise her and applaud for her.

 

———————

 

Priestess Isis was puzzled at the vision the Millennium Necklace had shown her. It had showed her the blind girl washing Pharaoh Atemu's clothing and polishing his Millennium Puzzle. What did this mean? How would she end up like that? She mended the dancing girls' dresses.

 

“My Necklace knows this girl is important. But why?” Isis asked herself, still puzzled. Suddenly her Necklace began to glow again. Isis consulted its power and gasped at what she saw.

 

“She will be in great danger…” Isis blinked. “What should I do?”

 

—I'll leave it there. I won't update for a while since my mom and I are going on a little vacation together. So I'll update Stealing My Heart and Love Is Not Blind when I return.