-for PrincessAnck-

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c a n d l e l i g h t

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Twirling and playing, her feet glided across the sand, drawing gritty lines across the sun-heated expanse of golden powder. She hopped forward on one foot, the tiny silver bells that encircled her ankle jingling sweetly, and her arms flew out as the tender sole of her foot sank deeply into the sand, the grains pooling over her skin as though burying a part of her into its lukewarm depths.

The great, blazing eye of Ra was fixed on her back, casting a twisted shadow onto the tumbling sands that she was steadily climbing down- her waistline and hips were perfectly outlined, enveloping the sand’s fierce glitter in darkness as she moved from side to side to try and regain her balance, hair flying around her head and reaching for her eyes, brushing across her shoulders, lashing at the air like long coils of black leather.

Her linen dress hugged her fine waist, straining slightly over her moderately sized bosom. She had no jewellery save that cheap anklet, though how precious it was to her- she had not an aura of fragrant perfume drifting around her, she had no splotches of make-up staining the unblemished skin of her cheeks, nor her eyelids, nor those sweet plum-coloured lips. She needed nothing of the sort, anyway. All there was, in that moment, was her and her linen dress and her drifting hair, dancing with her shadow to the merry music that her anklet sang into the stuffy air.

Her honey-coloured arms uncurled from her belly and arched gracefully into the air around her, bending to form rough circles and then suddenly extending upwards, the tips of her gnawed nails scraping up her arms and then whisking upwards to stroke the sky, before dropping and cradling the top of her head, sliding down the shining black cascade of hair, falling, falling. Then it was her that was falling, like her dancing arms, letting her knees buckle and a sensual whisper escape from her lips, closing her eyes in a flutter of inky lashes as she dived into the side of the sand dune that she was descending.

Her hands trailed down across the grainy surface of the dune, slipping, sliding down as the entire ground began to shift and drag her downwards, faster, faster, ever accelerating- her hair was caught in the glittering mass of plummeting sand and like a black fish its corpulence bobbed in and out of view, swallowed greedily by the dune itself before being rudely regurgitated into the boiling air. She was laughing, her lips split open to let escape a feral sound like jagged crystal chimes clashing together- it wasn’t a soft laugh, it wasn’t something pleasant to the ears- it was like a cry of liberty, a cry, glorious cry, and it fit her dance so perfectly. She was wild. She was free. And she was tumbling down the sand dune, down, down to rejoin with the world of the mortals from whence she had run away.

- - -

The sticky, dark brown fruit rolled lazily between his fingers.

“If it is a dancer that he requires, then it is a dancer that we will find.”

Sombre eyes darted, the liquid reflection of a burning candlelight flickering in the hazel depths of the man’s gaze.

“He has more than enough wives, and I believe that they are all capable of a nice lengthy dance. And even if they are not particularly good at the actual acrobatics…” A flick of the finger later, the date had been pushed between grimy lips and was being mercilessly crushed between sharp, unclean teeth, its pulpous interior spilling out to fill the man’s hot mouth, making coherent speech rather difficult. “I’m sure that if their feminine forms are generous enough in their nudity, Pharaoh will be most pleased.”

The man’s partner scowled into the silence, which was solely animated by a thick, vulgar chewing sound. A bump bobbed down the eating man’s throat as he swallowed noisily before picking another date from the gold platter between them.

“He requires a dancer.” It seemed that the scowling man’s mind was set, and would not budge. “Find one. If you don’t, it won’t be a fine pair of breasts that I’ll be offering Pharaoh, it’ll be your head.”

The man copiously swallowed the next date with an awkward sound, groaning as he shifted into a more comfortable position, his oversized belly rolling between his legs as he heaved his knees up.

“Fine, fine.” He slicked back his ponytail, sliding his fat palm over his otherwise bald scalp, a frown pushing together his bushy eyebrows so that the black masses of bristly hairs almost knocked together. “I don’t see why he seeks a new dancer when he’s already got at least two dozen experienced young ladies that regularly perform at his banquets. Is the man constantly in arousal or something?”

The other man forced back a bark of laughter, trying to look serious and managing to plaster a mask of superiority on his hollow-cheeked face.

“Pharaoh craves originality. His dancers may be skilled, but he wants something new, something fresh. And you perfectly know that we are in no position to question his will.” The yellow flame rippled lazily, hot wax dripping down the candle’s stem to splatter onto the table’s wooden surface in a wheeze of heat.

“Go.”

- - -

Her wrists extended, hands bent at an elegant angle, the tender skin exposed to the solemn atmosphere, trembling ever so slightly as her articulations strained. Her eyes were shut, her shapely legs set a little distance apart, fingers curled inwards and lips cracked open.

The imposing Anubis statue stood face to face with her, its long stone snout sniffing at the long incense wisps that drifted along in the heavy air. Its glass eyes protruding from beneath an austere brow of stone, it stared straight at the girl before it, fists stuck to its sides and one foot behind the other, as was the Gods’ custom.

She outstretched both arms, letting her head fall back as she saluted the statue, then as her arms dropped limply to her sides, she let out a low breath and tucked her chin in. She was in such a meditative state that her hidden ears didn’t even register the soft slap of bare feet on the sacred ground behind her. The temple hall itself was wide and circular, its walls hosting altars and niches where devotees would place offerings and salute the Gods in hopes that their prayers would somehow reach those stone ears and seep down into those equally hard hearts. She wasn’t the only one here, praying to the great jackal-headed god, so she simply assumed that a mundane mortal was coming up behind her to pray to the same statue at a respectful distance from her.

But then a grotesque hand descended onto her shoulder, slipping a little due to the moistness of its large palm, and completely shattered her calm state of mind- she whirled around, her hair whipping around her face and her eyes flashing to capture those of the one who dared interrupt a devotee’s prayer-

“You have a strange way of praying, girl.”

The words sounded like foul water dripping down a gutter- it was as though his throat was clogged up, making his voice a horrid gurgle, and the sound of it matched his face quite nicely. He was a large man, eyes glittering behind veritable forests of eyebrows, a great many chins wagging beneath glistening lips that were stretched into a sardonic smile.

“I’ve been watching you from the doorway. You have been saluting Anubis in absolute elegance.” The words were sugar-coated and seemed misplaced somehow, emerging from that dung hole of a mouth- she practically winced as his stale breath made the skin on her cheeks tingle. “Are you a dancer?”

It seemed that her voice had been robbed by a malicious temple sprite, and besides it wasn’t like she wanted her voice to grace the hairy ears of a man who had clearly overstepped his place, coming into a temple with his sword in his belt and crumbs still littering his fat face. No respect whatsoever, be it for her or for the temple.

She hated people like that. So it wasn’t because she was afraid that she leapt forwards, pushing past him and sprinting out of the temple like a cheetah from a flame-infested lair- it was wholly due to revulsion.

She didn’t care that the man had been Pharaoh’s guard- the marks on his cheeks had been rather blatant, seeing as the plumpness blew the pretty tattoos way out of proportion. She didn’t care that maybe she was getting herself into trouble by ignoring someone of such a high rank- she didn’t care that maybe she was sweeping aside a chance for a new life.

She didn’t care, she kept telling herself that as she whisked around a corner of the street, sandaled feet lifting clouds of dirty sand as she ran till her breaths were but ragged gasps and her legs were soiled with grains of flying sand and her lungs felt as dry and crumpled as wasted papyrus parchments.

She didn’t care.

- - -

“Yes… she sounds perfect.”

The boney man leaned back against the wall, crossing his wrinkly arms over his chest and disturbing the roughly cut stones that hung around his neck on slender black threads. His beady eyes contemplated his fat companion from their place above those white cheekbones, the sore corners of his chapped lips curling upwards.

“You say that she regularly goes to pray at various temples around the city? Has she no home?”

A short, wicked blade glittered between the man’s chubby fingers as he turned its sharp edge in the candlelight.

“I think… I think she is a street child. Or perhaps an orphan. I read on her lips the prayers that she offers to the Gods- it seems to me that she is always asking for safe passage into the reed plains of the Afterlife. She’s probably praying for the departed; she prefers to linger in the temples of Osiris and Anubis and… my friend, I starve.”

“I told you.” An irritated sigh. “You have ravaged my entire stock of dates. And, try to focus on the girl rather than your oversized stomach. So she prays for her dead family, you say? Hm… interesting. This makes things much easier. All that is left to do now is find her and seduce her into starting a dancer’s career in the Pharaoh’s halls. Any girl her age and in her position would be mentally deranged to defer such an offer.” His fingers extended to scratch the hairy length of his leg with blackened, serrated nails.

The fat man guffawed, chins bobbing to and fro.

“Seduce her? What in the two kingdoms do you mean by that? You can’t possibly mean me…”

“As a matter of fact I don’t. I’m going to try and find someone who is not obese and who doesn’t scare away every girl he meets with his uneven teeth and rotting breath.” The strict man didn’t even care to react to his companion’s stricken expression. “The banquet is scheduled to take place rather soon… too soon for my liking… and Pharaoh still has no dancer for the finale. I will find someone capable of reaching her. You are dismissed.”

The curtain in the doorway was already flapping behind the fat man’s departure, making the candle flame blow backwards and twist around itself angrily. A gob of hot wax dripped onto the table, disturbing the remaining man’s meditation.

He was going to get that girl, at any cost.

- - -

It held all the elegance of a dance, really.

The way her back arched upwards, his hand traveling down the valley between her breasts, down, down, gliding across the tender skin of her belly, descending ever lower over her body. His lips were moving with silken precision over her neck, her lips, her eyelids. And she rocked her hips in time with his, long, drawn-out strokes, choked gasps emerging from her lotus bud lips as he caressed her, heart-wrenchingly slowly, his thumbs grazing her nipples and his dark eyes savouring the sight of her, the way her hands were at times covering her face, teeth biting down on her fingers as she restrained disgraceful cries of wanton pleasure, and other times were around his neck, around his shoulders, around him, trying to pull him down further into her, further into her possession. Because he belonged to her, in that moment, and it was the first time she did something like this- the first time she’d danced this kind of dance.

And it was most beautiful dance she had ever performed- and it wasn’t like she was ready to stop any time soon. She knew it was unallowed, and it made everything all the more exhilarating, all the more exciting and new and wonderful. She didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to stop.

And then suddenly it was all over, all of it, the sensation and the feeling and the painful banging of her heart against her ribcage- she was naked on his bed with her arms around herself and her knees tucked beneath her, staring at his back as he stood up and slid a black cloak onto his bare, candlelit shoulders.

He was shaking his head as the folds of black fabric slid down his arms, covering him up, swallowing his bronze skin into its obscure ripples.

“What are we doing? What are we doing?”

She was struggling not to scream at him, trying as hard as she possibly could to not leap up and embrace that broad back, to hold him all to herself just once more. Just one more time.

“What possessed me to…?”

He regretted it, she realized. He wished that this had never occurred- he wanted her to slip out of the room, to slip out of his memory. He didn’t want this to endure. It occurred to her. He didn’t want her here.

It occurred to her… that he didn’t want to love her. Not any more. Not like this.

But then just as the dagger of realization was sinking ever further into her heart, he turned around and fell to his knees before the low bed, reaching out to gather her into his arms and pulled her forwards roughly, holding her, holding her as possessively as she had just moments ago.

“You know. You know we can’t do this. You… you’re just a child, and I…”

“You’re a priest. I know.” Her voice was trembling, but her eyes were as dry and resolute as glass. She rocked backward to sit on her heels, gently easing herself out of his embrace, and he heaved himself up onto the bed to sit right beside her, glowing golden in the firelight.

“We can just keep it in the dark. It’s not so hard.”

His thumb was under her eye, collecting the tears that had surreptitiously gathered there.

“We could try.”

“No one’s watching us, anyway,” she insisted, sounding so stubborn that he found himself smiling. “Imhotep…”

But then she was on her back again, and he was looming over her, his head ducked forwards so that his lips brushed against the sensitive skin of her ear. Shivers trickled down her spine as she felt his breath against her throat, the black of his cloak pouring obscurity over the corners of her peripheral vision. She could see nothing, feel nothing save the movement of his mouth against the shell of her ear, that breath, this heart pounding despairingly against her chest.

“Then if you’re serious… I want us to do this properly. As properly as we can.”

She closed her eyes.

“I want this to be as pure as we can make it…”

Her lips parted in something like a sob.

“So close your heart to every love but mine…”

And then they were dancing… one last dance.

- - -

A hand leapt out of the darkness, glowing eerie white as it clamped almost painfully around her shoulder. Her blind stumble through the twilit streets of Thebes was wrenched to a halt as she was rudely stopped, dragged back into the pitch black shadows of a side street and pressed hard against a wall, another one of those ghost hands wrapping around her entire lower face, holding her jaw in an iron grip and twisting her lips uncomfortably against a rugged palm.

“You are the dancer girl that has been slipping through our fingers for a month, now, aren’t you?”
All she could see of the voice’s host were two glinting eyes, sparking out of the darkness like twin flames. She hardly even had the time to register what was happening and wriggle desperately against his hold, pushing against him, screaming muted screams into his fingers, but he held on tight to her slippery form, pressing himself against her. She couldn’t even see his face, it was so dark- it was so cold-

“We’ve been looking for you, you know. We’ve been searching for you for a month. Did you honestly not notice anything? Footsteps on the street, too near to the doorstep where you sleep, near enough for you to scarper into the shadows? Voices speaking of a beautiful dancer sought by Pharaoh himself?”

His breath smelled horrendously of raw meat, and it filled her nostrils, making her eyes water- yet she persisted in her silent screaming though she didn’t quite know why, didn’t quite know what she was doing out on this street in the heart of night anyway. Didn’t quite know why she’d been running.

Running from what, after all?

“The banquet is tomorrow night, and I’m damn lucky to have found you since I don’t know what we would’ve done if Pharaoh would’ve had to finish his banquet without you.” He pressed her up against the wall even harder, the length of his muscular body crushing her, squeezing the life out of her lungs so that she saw stars in her reeling eyes.

Yes, she knew that Pharaoh’s servants sought her out. But it wasn’t like she’d let them catch her. No one could catch her- she had become good enough at running, after all this time. Good enough at running away.

“You’ll be coming with me, girl. And even if it’s in golden chains that you’ll dance, you will perform for the Pharaoh.”

A single question burned on her tongue as he carefully peeled his hand off of her lower face, enabling her to speak- and as soon as her mouth was usable again the words burst from her tongue, surprising even herself at the urgency of her tone;

“Why? Why me?”

The man smirked.

“Because… the Pharaoh wants something fresh. Something young. Something that burns. Like you. We’ve been watching you… and you’re absolutely perfect. We’ve seen you dance.” Here, the man curled his large hand around both of her wrists, imprisoning her, twisting her arms so that she was pulled towards him, pulled against his chest-

“We’ve seen every single dance that you’ve ever performed,” he whispered to her, making her start violently; “Every single one.

And you’re perfect.”

- - -

She stood on the wooden platform, stone still and beautiful.
She was surrounded. Low tables drew a rectangle around her dancing spot, all of them glistening with greasy platters hosting piled up meats and fruits sprinkled with all kinds of rich juices. Behind the tables, men, women, all were sitting and laughing and knocking against one another and spilling food and liquor all over the grubby surface of the tables, drunkenly lurching to and fro and throwing out their arms as they told each other their mundane tales in loud, obtrusive voices.

Kneeling at the table directly in front of her was the Pharaoh in person- the son of the Horus in all his glittering splendor. The crown sprouting up from his skull shone imperiously in the firelight, a stark symbol of his superiority- the corners of his eyes were creased up as he looked fixedly at her, smiling with a gem-studded goblet in his hand and completely ignoring the two impossibly attractive women who were at either side of him, arms draped over his shoulders and plump lips curled back to form crooked smiles.

He lifted his goblet her way, a sign for the musicians who were stationed behind her to stop playing in order to adapt their music to the dance she would perform. As the music died, a general hush fell like a veil on the guests and their extravagant women.

“Well, here is tonight’s jewel.” The Pharaoh took a swig of wine, still pretending not to notice the two women who were still crawling all over him. He nodded at the girl on the dance platform with an eager spark in his eye.

“Dance for me.”

A hand stroked the taught skin of a drum, offering a hesitant rhythm, and she kept her eyes on the ground, shoulders slightly turned, feet planted firmly to the ground. She was still motionless as the sistrums sounded, jangling steadily, joining the drum with a slightly ethereal quality.

She lifted a foot. Spun slowly around on one foot, rising so that she was on tiptoe, reaching upwards, up, up- her hand reached for the ceiling, her head tipped back, ebony hair falling in a black torrent and brushing her shoulder blades, golden beads clinking together as the slow movement unfurled itself as beautifully as a bird opening its wings-

Then the drums accentuated their rhythm in one sharp slap of the palm, and her hands plummeted down, her upper body soon following as she rippled downwards, eyes averted and lips parted in concentration. She was side-stepping and twisting and letting her body absorb the beat of the drums, slapping the hard platform with the soles of her feet, her legs crossing over one another under the crisp, transparent garment that hung loosely over her lithe form. Everyone was looking at her, eyes fixed on her and mouths not daring to articulate a word that might shatter the heartbreaking image that she was creating; thrusting her chest forwards she let a sigh escape her lips as her entire body followed the movement and snaked forwards smoothly, hands high above her head, eyes closed, the candlelight making the golden ornaments on her skin come alive with fierce, scarlet glitter- the drums accelerated, mercilessly dragging her into somewhat of a violent dance, and then she was moving in a blur with her hair flying out and her hands everywhere and nowhere and her eyes were taking in all of their shocked expressions as she spun around and around and around and-

Her knee came crashing down, almost splintering the wooden platform as she fell to the ground. Her hands were out, holding her up, and her shoulders shook as she gasped for breath, strands of hair sticking to the perspiration on her forehead. The drums had abruptly stopped- but the sistrums continued their metallic hiss, keeping the audience silent, banishing all sound except their insistent, steely whisper.

Her shaking hands slowly caressed the wooden platform, drawing a circle around her seated form, before sweeping out behind her so that she had to sit back on her heels and lean back till the back of her head touched the ground in order to follow the impossibly sensual movement, her hair pooling around her and her back arching up to the high ceilings.

The sistrums’ songs died on their metallic tongues, and then there was a silence, sweet silence that lasted as many beats as she could count before a twang of pain in her back made her recollect herself, tipping forwards so that her forehead was on the ground and she was bowing to the man for whom she had danced. The man who owned her, now.

But… why?

“That was… rather spectacular.”

Why did you dance for him?

Then, since the silence had been broken, the guests allowed themselves to applaud the peculiar dance that she had performed for them- no, not for them, never for them- but it was a shy applause, a shy appraisal for something that they clearly saw had not been destined for their eyes. She had performed a passionate choreography of some emotion that most did not even know the name of- something like desperation and anguish and fury and longing and it was all meshed together with a wanton grace, a grace that perhaps they should not have seen, that perhaps they should not have witnessed. They felt disturbed- well, the women did, at least. The men, on the other hand, were staring at her as though she had just climbed into their nuptial bed, naked and glowing like a nymph.

She was still shaking when the Pharaoh told her she could get up- shaking when she rose to her feet, throwing back her disheveled hair and trying to straighten herself out. Shaking when her gaze suddenly crossed that of a person she had not been expecting to see at all- and she thought she heard her heart falter as she realized that her dance had not been for the Pharaoh after all, but for this man, the one who bore the disbelieving look in his eyes as he sat on the Pharaoh’s right, his food untouched and his fingers clutching his knife a little too tightly.

She closed her eyes against it all, closing her ears to the applause, closing her mouth against the words of thanks she should’ve been uttering as the Pharaoh congratulated her. They were just empty words, after all- she was empty, empty of all feeling; it felt like she’d just splayed herself out before the world, and now her hands curled into fists as she realized where this was going to take her. Realized how damnably foolish she had been.

But it was all too late to think about that, now.

- - -

Standing before the Pharaoh’s bed, dressed in gold and beads and seashell necklaces.

Feeling his fingers trailing up her arm as he spoke words of love to her, words that meant nothing, words of deceit and emptiness.

“Won’t you dance for me once more…?”

Closing her eyes as he brought her down with him.

Feeling a tear dripping silently down her cheek.

…it was all too late, now.

- - -

a&n: You never get tired of this kind of thing, do you? Ah, I know it's a little on the speedy side, but hey, I just wrote it on a whim. Tell me what you think!