Ascension [A Yu-Gi-Oh! FanFiction]

8: Impression

Whenever Ibi laughed, Atem was in heaven.

Her voice had an almost musical quality to it, like a minstrel holding a decadent vibrato. He had spent the last hour listening to her laugh and talk while entangled in her arms, delightedly following the low notes of her tenor and the breathiness in her whispers. Never had his bed felt so warm, even in the dead of the desert night. He was so content with Ibi lying beside him, he didn't even care that she was currently grilling him about Satiah.

"Come on," Ibi sighed, leaning up and resting her head on her hand. "You must have some opinion about her. What does she look like?"

Atem smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "She's...appealing, I guess," he said. "Thick hair. Nice skin. Brown eyes."

Ibi gave him a wry look. "How descriptive," she said flatly.

Atem laughed. "Well, what can I say? I didn't even get close enough to throw a stone at her."

"But she must have made you feel something."

Atem's smile fell, and he reached out to hold her upper arm, running his thumb across the smooth skin. "To be honest, I didn't even really think about her until she spoke."

Ibi peered down at him. "And then?"

"And then...she left an impression," Atem admitted.

"How so?"

Atem took a deep breath, Ibi's arm rising and falling with the swell of his chest. "She was incredibly confident," he said. "So sure of herself and everything around her. As if she already knew me better than I knew myself."

Ibi looked different just then, but not altogether jealous as Atem had suspected. Simply curious — attentive. It made him want to keep going, even though a smarter man wouldn't have.

"Her ka was the same," he said. "Surprisingly fierce. I'll never forget the way it stopped the hammerblow from my brother's ka as if it weighed no more than a feather."

"Sounds like you have quite the woman on your hands," Ibi teased, and Atem laughed.

A quiet stillness fell over his bedchamber, and from the open window he could hear the cicadas droning endlessly in the garden below. He took hold of her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the top of it. Gently, Ibi pulled away, brushing one finger across his cheek and tucking a lock of hair behind his ear.

"So," she said, smiling. "Have you thought about what kind of gift you could give such a woman on her wedding day?"

Atem felt his heart drop into his stomach. He'd almost forgotten about the matrimonial gift rite, which mandated an offering to the gods, as well as to his wife.

Ibi laughed at the expression on his face, then sat up. "I'll take that as a no."

Atem also drew himself up against a pillow. "Well... I was just hoping my teacher could help me," he said, giving her an entreating look.

Ibi narrowed her eyes. "Is that so?" she said, leaving the bed and retrieving her gown from the corner poster. Atem was mournful to see her leave, but delighted in watching her slip back into her clothes. "Well, you're in luck," she went on, moving back toward him. "I have just the idea."

Ibi leaned in for a kiss, and Atem closed his eyes at the feel of her lips brushing his.

"Meet me in the west market tomorrow at noon."

~~~

Satiah sighed as she closed the lid on her last trunk of belongings. She turned around and sat on it, casting her eyes around her all-but empty room. The only things that remained were a chair with two dresses folded neatly on it, and her bed, in which she would sleep just one more night before boarding the ship to Thebes — to her future.