Chibi-Malik: X(

WSJ: ^^; It's got to be the books... I'm currently in the middle of an Elizabeth Peters kick. ^^ Half-way through Children of the Storm and unable to put it down... ;_; Abdullah... *sniffle* ^^ None of you understood that, but what the hey...

Chibi-Malik: ?_?

WSJ: ^^ *cough* Yes, well, on to the chapter!

Notes: I completely made up Shaadi's last name. ^^; I honestly don't think he "officially" has one.

Vocabulary:
papyri - plural of papyrus. Usually refers to ancient scrolls made of parchment-like papyrus paper.

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Hot Sands, Warm Arms

Chapter 3 -- Fiasco at the Shepherd's Hotel

Shepherd's Hotel had changed very little in the years since its construction. It was one of the best hotels in Cairo, and the Bakuras regularly stayed there when in town, as did Sugoroku and Arthur. So it was really no surprise when Pegasus, silver hair cinched back into a high pony-tail to keep it off his neck, directed the driver of their bus to that hotel. All eight of the archaeologists plus Malik were in one bus, while their luggage and Pegasus's security men rode in the other. Really, there were only three extra people. Pegasus's cheif of security, Kemo, and his manservent, Croquet, as well as his personal body-guard.

It was a short ride to the hotel, but in the congested Cairo streets it seemed to take much longer. The rented buses had no air conditioning, and soon enough the foreigners were all sweaty and panting. Of course, they were all used to it to some degree, but the buses were packed tighter then sardine cans, had unopenable windows, and it was really hot.

Malik had begun to fidget on Isis's lap, until she finally allowed him to sit on the cool metal floor by her feet. Isis, Shen, Angeline, Cynthia, and Pegasus had all taken turns tying each others' long hair up out of the way of their sweaty backs. Sugoroku had unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt, and after quick glances at their wives Pegasus and Shen quickly followed suit. After about ten minutes, Rashiid rumbled something vulgar in Arabic and stripped off his outer cloak, which was dark blue to boot, leaving him bare-chested in a pair of dark purple pants. Isis hissed at him for that, but the near-bald Egyptian just shrugged and pretended not to notice the way Angeline and Cynthia kept sneaking him looks, despite the muted protests of their husbands.

Shaadi just sat in the corner and snickered.

That bus ride, seeing Pegasus and Cynthia sweating right along with them, did more to equalize them with the rest of their team then almost anything else would have done.

They arrived at the hotel at just after noon, and they piled out of the bus, sighing in relief at the marginally more cool air outside. Inside, with its modern air conditioning and ventalation system, it almost sent everyone shivering in shock. They quickly recovered, however, and began carting bags up to the rooms Pegasus had rented out for them. Pegasus and Cynthia would be sharing a suite with Angeline and Shen, two bedrooms going off of a common sittingroom. Across the hall Isis and Malik stayed in a room of their own, while Shaadi and Rashiid roomed together in a bigger, four-bedroom suite with Arthur and Sugoroku. Croquet, Kemo, and the body-guard had a small room to themselves next to the Crawfords' quarters.

"Shepherd's has an excellent resterant," Angeline was telling Cynthia a few minutes later. They were sitting together on the couch in their common room with the doors to the bedrooms open, so that Pegasus and Shen could listen in while they unpacked. "Shen and I make a point to stay here at least once every time we come to Egypt."

Shen coughed from his bedroom. "One word, honeymoon." Angeline blushed, and Cynthia giggled. "Oh my."

"Good food, you say?" Pegasus asked, hanging up one of his dun-colored digging shirts in the closet. "We should have supper there this evening."

"Wonderful!" Angeline said, clapping her hands in excitement. "We could all dress for dinner too."

Shen laughed suddenly, and his voice took on a deeper tone. "Confound it Peabody, what have you done with my cufflinks?"

Angeline leaned against the confused Cynthia, laughing so hard tears were streaming down her cheeks. "What?" Cynthia asked. "I thought your name was Angeline...."

"It is," Shen said, grinning as he folded a pair of Angeline's elastic-waisted maternity pants. "Never mind, it's a private joke."

Cynthia blinked, then shrugged. "Ah well, none of my business. Come on Angeline, let's go tell the others they're going to have to dig up some sort of semi-formal dress."

"Cynnie," Pegasus stopped her momentarily. "Tell Isis if she doesn't want to have to keep track of Malik all through dinner I can have Croquet and Kemo watch him."

Cynthia smothered a laugh at the thought of those two baby-sitting a roudy six-year-old and nodded. "The experience would do them a world of good."

The duo went first across the hall, where Isis and Malik's door stood open. Malik was curled up in a ball on the bed, fast asleep, and Isis was sitting by the window reading a book. "Knock knock," Cynthia said, sticking her head around the doorframe. "May we come in?"

"Of course," Isis smiled at them and put her book down, and the two walked in. Cynthia took a seat on the bed, careful not to disturb Malik, while Angeline took the other chair.

"Pegasus wants all of us to meet for dinner tonight," Angeline explained. "But that's moot. We came over to just talk, since as the only three women around we'll have to stick together."

"Unless that baby of yours is a little girl." Cynthia said.

Isis smiled and leaned back in her chair. "I remember when mother was pregnant with Malik. Poor Rashiid was always hovering over her shoulder and asking if there was anything he could do." She chuckled, if a little sadly. "My poor brothers..."

"You're related to Rashiid?" Angeline asked in surprise. "You don't look it."

"No, we don't," Isis agreed. "Because we aren't blood reletives. My mother adopted Rashiid when he was an infant, left abandoned in the desert by some prostitute or another." She sighed, and her eyes took on a far-away look. "My mother loved him like her own, but my father never saw him as anything more then a servent."

"How..." Cynthia hesitated a moment. "How did they die?"

Isis smiled bitterly. "Thank you for asking that, really. Malik was too young to remember, and Rashiid won't speak to me about it. I - I need to confide in someone, and you two, I would hope, are my friends."

"Of course we are," Angeline said firmly, and Cynthia nodded her agreement.

After a moment Isis nodded and continued. "My family, as you know, is a very old one. Our roots can be traced back to the time of the Unknown Pharoah. My father thought that we were supposed to be the guardians of something, something we had somehow lost a long time ago. He dedicated his life to scouring all the ancient papyri he could find for clues as to what it was we were supposed to be protecting.

"Finally, just after I was born (or so Rashiid told me once, several years ago) he found something that said the Ishtar family were supposed to be guardians of 'the tomb of the gods and the Mystic Items Rod and Tauk'. Of course, he had no idea of what that meant, and that enraged him even more. My father always had a big obsession with tradition, and finding out that he might be breaking it made him angry like nothing else could. By the time Malik was born, when I was eighteen, he had worked himself into such a state that it bordered on psycotic.

"When he found out that my mother had had a boy, he stopped even pretending to treat Rashiid as a son, and declared before our entire clan that Malik would be the one to find the 'Mystic Items' again and return to Ishtar tradition. He swore that on the eve of Malik's tenth birthday he would carve the scriptures into Malik's back to make sure he never forgot them.

"That was too much for my mother, and she begged Rashiid and I to take Malik and run, that she would handle my father." Isis stopped a moment to swallow her tears. "Rashiid's friend Shaadi, yes, the same Shaadi that is working with us here, offered to take us in. We agreed, so late one night just after Malik's second birthday we ran, and my mother stopped my father by making our underground home collapse in on both of them. That was four years ago, and we've been staying with Shaadi ever since."

"How awful..." Angeline said sincerly, leaning over to lay a hand on Isis's arm. "Is there anything we can..."

Isis shook her head, and smiled dispite the tears running down her cheeks. "No, but thank you. Listening was the very most you could ever give me."

"Listening and friendship." Cynthia agreed, leaning over to hug Isis. "Don't forget, we're always here."

Isis nodded, looking at the younger woman and then over to the older one. Although really, all three of them were close in age. Cynthia, as earlier noted, was twenty, Isis was twenty-four, and Angeline was only twenty-seven. A friendship was indeed forming, one that would last for a long time. But I'm skipping ahead of myself. Allow me to back up just a bit.

Everyone else was delighted at the suggestion of dinner (except Croquet and Kemo, of course). So promptly at six o'clock that night they all met in the lobby of the hotel and went into the connected resturant. They were shown to a large, circular booth in a shadowed corner that Cynthia had reserved earlier that afternoon. Soon enough everyone was laughing and talking and getting to know one another.

The three women were discussing children and the care thereof, while Shen and Pegasus bemoaned married life and dodged the occational good-natured whack from their wives. Shaadi and Sugoroku were deep into a discussion of some sort, and Arthur and Rashiid had started up a lively argument about some facet of ancient Egyptian religion. All was going well until about the third course, when a loud shreik came from the table nearest the door.

"What in the-" Shaadi and Shen both stood up, craning their necks to see over the sudden froth of people. Shen's eyes widened as he spotted it first, and even Shaadi's mouth twitched a little in surpressed laughter. A moment later the cause for the comotion broke through the crowd and ran to Isis. "'Sis!"

Isis's eyes nearly popped out of her skull, as she observed her little brother buck naked and dipping sudsy water. Quickly she lifted him onto her lap, wet or no, and wrapped her arms around him in a vain attempt to hide, er, him. When Rashiid offered his cloak, she quickly snatched it and bundled the giggling little boy up in it. She was just about to give him a stern lecture and ask him why in the world he was down here, when someone else stumbled up to their table.

It was Croquet, also dripping wet but thankfully still fully clothed, and seemingly out of breath. Pegasus raised an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched upward as he asked in as stern a voice possible, "Croquet, what has happened?"

"A thousand pardons, Master Pegasus," the manservent said, bowing several times in sucession, first to Pegasus, then to Isis, then to Pegasus again. "I honestly do not know how he got away from me. Kemo and I were bathing him in our bathroom, but we then realized that all his clothes were across the hall in his and Mistress Isis's room. I was carrying him across the hall, but somehow he got away from me and ran off. What was I to do but follow him? Oh please Master, I am so sorry!"

Pegasus's lips twitched again as he struggled to keep a serious face. "No harm done Croquet, I suppose. But why are you so dripping wet?"

Croquet sweatdropped minutely, and Isis started laughing. "Don't be embarrassed Mister Croquet," she assured him. "It happens to me too. Malik doesn't like to take baths," she said, trying to ignore the tuneless (and rather vulgar) Arabic song Malik was singing in her ear as he played with her long hair. "He tends to splash and, if he can manage it, pull said bather into the water with him."

The frown Croquet gave Malik seemed to indicate that that was what happened. Chuckling, Isis stood up and hoisted Malik, cloak and all, up with her. "Well, I'd better go finish the little guy's bath and get some clothes on him before the management decides to throw us out."

"I'll come too," Angeline said, rising to her feet and stretching her arms over her head. "I'm starting to get tired..." The two women left the dining hall together, and after a moment the dripping and sulky Croquet followed them.

Shen blinked. "And this is what my child will grow up with...?"

Sugoroku snorted, and the table burst into laughter.

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WSJ: ^^; Next chapter they actually get out to the dig, I promise! XD I'm sorry, I couldn't help but have Croquet attempt baby-sitting... *snicker* Mwaha. And now you know the Ishtars' altered past. ^~ Sorry all you Yami-Malik fans, he won't be showing up in this. :p No trama, no yami. Sowwey! ^^

God bless minna-san!