| Fan Fiction |
by Aelk
Anzu read to Helke the statement which can now be found all over the country. Without any books or poems as an example, she could only rely on the free texts available as a source of teaching material.
It has been three months since their running away from Marduk, the self-proclaimed king to rule over all humans. And though it was less than a hundred days, the world has changed drastically.
Even among the different races, the people were divided into those who had the strange new power, and those who do not. This power was now known as Mu, which meant ‘bequest’ in the ancient tongue. Indeed, Mus are thought to be an extra gift for a selected few whom can merge with the divine being’s blood.
It was due to the conceiving of this idea, however, that those with Mu have begun to think of themselves to be more worthy of the leadership position. Not only the humans, but many other tribes are now having serious internal conflicts.
“Anzu had Mu too, right?,” Helke asked smilingly.
Ever since the day she saved his bro (Shamash’s) life, the children have accepted her into their group as one of them. Rather than being scared of her powers, they had always held her in high regards, almost like another divine being herself.
“Yeah…” Anzu thought in silence, keeping the worries inside of her. With the new power, she might be targeted in this turmoil. But fortunately, Marduk does not yet know about this.
And the fact that Ishtar, the one deity of Mesopia left when Anu was destroyed, did not talk to her at all did not help too.
“She must still be grieving,” the priestess mumbled.
“Who?”
A surprise emerged from behind her, and as she turned around, Shamash gave her a blank look as usual. A semi-conscious antelope was tied at the neck and dragged forcibly with the rope in his hands --- Looks like the dinner tonight could be a feast.
“N-nothing…” she lied, knowing that the answer was very obviously written on her face.
”I’ll go cook it.”
“Do you dare to?”
He reminded her on how a fortnight ago she was terrified to fullest when she watched the slaughtering of their would-be-dinner wild boar.
“W-well… I don’t. “
“…”
Shamash smirked at her, and drags the animal away to process it.
As she watched his leaving, she searched into her pockets to find the carved pair of ear rings made of the pearl white azurite.
She liked how peaceful their life is going on now, and though it will most probably be temporary before returning to face the world, she wished selfishly that it could last forever.
“If I am not a priestess, and you are not a phantom thief…”
“Wow, what’s that?! It’s sparkly white!”
Whilst lost in her thoughts, the crafted rings were stolen on her without warning, as expected from well-trained thieve such as Helke.
“It’s…”
“Gosh, a marriage token! Aren’t you the priestess, Anzu?”
“I-I am…”
“So who’s this for?”
“No one…really.”
As one who has roamed all kinds of streets and seen all sorts of people, Helke could tell her heart straightaway.
“Wah, it’s for Bro!!”
”Helke, keep it quiet!!”
Ignoring her poor pleas, the boy jumped in excitement, and then twirled around with the exquisite rings. And as he ran his fingers round both of them, he noticed how the texture of one was a little different. And upon close scrutiny, a word could be seen on it.
“What is this word? It’s very complicated.”
“Of course, I have not taught you this word yet. Helke, please keep it a secret okay?”
“Nope! You are to become our sister-in-law!”
Anzu’s feet felt numb for a moment and almost fell.
“But,” she paused for a moment before staring at the grass beneath her feet, “He does not feel the same way as I do…”
“That’s crap.”
Helke’s unrefined way of talking no longer surprised her, but what he was trying to say did.
“Bro has never been so willing to cook for a lady, and let alone truly smile at one. You are the first, no doubt. If you ain’t stuck in his mind all these while, he wouldn’t have brought you along with us.”
“… …”
While dumbstruck, she has never felt her cheeks to be so hot all her life.
“Trust me, or at least the bunch of us little brats, we have lived with Bro since young.”
Other than Helke, Hanna, Ea, Jhero and all other children whom Shamash picked up from the streets nodded reassuringly.
“Listen, the usual rule was that a lady should not reveal her feelings until the man does, but Bro is a total amateur in this because he had to look after us. So we will lure him here tonight and you can continue from there!”
The children returned the ear rings to her and rushed away whispering to one another.
“Continue?”
She is an amateur too, did they not know?
***************************************************************************************************
“Your Majesty, we have found their traces!”
A young warrior reported confidently to his king.
“Great, I will go there myself this time.”
“But your majesty, someone as important as yourself should…”
“Did I not make myself clear?”
“A-as you wished.”
The warrior knew that no one in the kingdom could match their king in terms of strength, due to his Mu. Sometimes one would wonder why did the almighty deity Anu chose such a person to inherit his blood, but the answer could only be found by contacting the priestess who was assumed to be with the person they are going to kill off now.
Meanwhile, the inner mind of Marduk continued to remain suspicious. The only way for one to be able to defeat his machina could only be that…
“Either he, or she, or anyone who was with them had the power…”
***************************************************************************************************
“Bro!! Anzu wants to prepare soup for us, go stop her!! We will take over the cooking from here!!” Helke snatched a wooden spatula carved and polished from a branch of an apple tree from Shamash.
“Lady Anzu should not be cooking; we are still suffering from the aftershocks of her soup from that time…” Hanna added a little trembling to her sweet, childish voice typical of a small girl.
“Yeah, only you can stop her!” the twins Ea and Jhero shouted in despair.
“…”
Surprised and unbelieving, Shamash skeptically retreated to their temporary lodgings. Although he could tell that the children were just acting the scene out, he understood from their message that Anzu is looking for him.
“How indirect.”
As he walked towards the horizon where the night sky and the grasslands beyond met, the hasty wind blowing from behind of him seemed to force him to walk faster.
Not long after, he found Anzu sitting beside a fire started by Helke to catch some warmth due to the chill air from the snowy foothills a mile away.
“What was it?”
He asked bewilderedly, wondering what was wrong with her.
The lady did not answer at first, and his sudden intrusion to the silence around her made her heart skip a beat.
“N-nothing…”
”Really? Then I’ll be going,” Shamash taunted her while turning around and began to make a first step back to the cooking grounds.
“N-no, wait!”
“So you ARE hiding something?”
He has successfully lured her into admitting.
“Forgive me, Ishtar of benevolence, Anzu bids farewell now…” Anzu prayed in her heart to ask for the forgiveness of the one deity left. The feeling she was experiencing now was too strong for her to keep it a forever secret.
“I hide, because it was a must,” the priestess’ voice was shivering initially, and she dared not look at Shamash straightly.
“Nobody’s forcing you?”
“The society is.”
“?”
“I am bound by a golden rule, a chain that binds a priestess to her deity.”
Shamash searched his mind for a moment to recall what it was.
And he got it.
He noticed how she was biting he lips hard now, as if she was afraid of what she was going to say.
“But it’s too late, for me.”
Gathering her courage, she turned around and grabbed his hands. He could have retracted, but he did not since she was not an enemy.
Her face seemed pale as a ghost, and her hands were cold.
”You will get sick from this cold, go back…”
”No.”
While forced to remain awkwardly silent due to her determination, she reached into her pockets once more to get the carved ear ring and placed it on his opened palm.
When another gust of chill breeze brushed her long hair hither, Shamash then noticed that she has worn the other half of it on her right ear.
Finally, her feelings had been conveyed.
“I don’t know if this is right, but I can’t hold back my heart’s aching every time I think about us.”
The difference in their identities.
But what she did not know was that he looked forward to stealing her from the Temple every time.
Even for a fearsome and skilled thief like him, the gush of heat towards his face could not be hidden. Anzu did not notice though; and she continued.
“If this pain is a form of affection, then let me be sinned with it.”
A serious offense for a priestess.
There were tears at the rims of her eyes, telling of how afraid she was to reveal this.
She was afraid that her feelings were unrequited.
Shamash was speechless. What Anzu told him just now seemed to be too surreal, and he wondered how he felt as well.
When they first met, he had found her presence mesmerizing.
When she saved him and returned to the temple, he had the urge to steal from it again.
And when she was by his side, he felt invincible.
Although his face continued to express calmness, his heart was actually hammering against his chest.
“You will no longer be a priestess anymore. You will defy the faith, the devotees who trusted you, and the deities themselves,” he revealed her doubts to her once more, but;
“I... don’t care.”
If she keeps the feeling in her heart any longer, she will be betraying herself.
But as she saw how Shamash remained composed, she realized that it may all have been one-sided all along.
The rimming tears finally reached the brink of her eyes, and then glided down her cheeks like a tailed star across the sky.
Shamash was not an articulate person. But he understood what he really wanted. Feeling the texture of the ring in his hands, he shone it with the moonlight and examined the word on it.
“I carved a word on that other one…” Anzu tried to explain, but was stopped by him.
“Destiny…” Shamash read the word with a faint and transient smile.
He may not be worthy enough for her instead, but he too wants to believe in destiny.
“And unfortunately,” he took a deep breath before concluding his thoughts, “I am sinking deeper in it too.”
While looking away from her embarrassingly, he clipped the ring she gave on his left ear.
“Will this do…Anzu?”
For once, his voice returned to be of a young man’s, and not of someone who was tormented by the cruel society.
And though it was not the first time, but the name that Shamash called out to became special tonight.
“Yes…yes!” Anzu broke into a blissful sob.
***************************************************************************************************
”What do you think will happen to Bro and Anzu?”
Helke asked his other family members as he added more firewood beneath the stew.
“They will get married, and expand this family!” Hanna joyfully laid out the table to prepare for the dinner. “Isn’t that so, Ea??”
No one answered her.
“Ea? Jhero??”
“Rhea!! Tia!!!”
The rest of the children who were watching the progress of their Bro outside of the kitchen never answered again.
Little did Hanna and Helke know that it will soon be their turn.
***************************************************************************************************
“Did you see that star? A loner and yet, it sparkles ever so brightly that makes people want to come closer. It represents you…”
Anzu pointed to a lone stellar glimmering in the night skies while tightening the grip on her clothings.
“Then that star would have to be you, always hovering around the loner.”
Anzu snickered. As always, she thought, he is not very skilled with words. But she was glad that she chose him to be the man she could be with forever.
“Let’s go!”
She grabbed him by his wrists, leaving him embarrassed and surprised at the same time, and ran across the grasslands they were standing at.
Then, merging her palms to his, she stopped suddenly and announced, “By this promise…”
“No, wait…let me…”
Shamash was now seriously red, yet Anzu was unrelentingly chanting away.
“By this promise, we’ll never to ever… part again------- !”
He never gave her a chance to continue with her speech, and her waist was seized by his sudden tug.
She did not have the time to react, and was shocked. Even though she had appeared to be the more extroverted one, she understood that actions spoke the best for Shamash.
“Let me be the lead this time, will you?”
He had allowed her head to lay at eased by his chest, and then locked her tight with his forceful arms, allowing his shy heartbeats to be listened clearly.
“You are hopeless…” Anzu grinned widely as she, too, cordoned his torso tight.
Their faces were burning from their shyness and lack of experience, and yet something drew them closer even though they tried to let go.
The two engaged in a short moment of their own, forgetting about their destinies and the world.
Yet ---
“BRO!!!!!!!!!”
A grave scream coming from the other side where Helke was separated them apart.
Someone has been hurting the children, Shamash’s mind thought in an instant. And without a doubt, he knew it was Marduk and his soldiers who sought after their lives.
If they are holding the children hostage, he would have no chance of winning.
“Anzu, hide here!”
”No!!”
“Please!! They must not know of your Mu!”
He knew Marduk would have the strange power too, as he had seen him drenched in the blood rain, but he must keep Anzu’s a secret, for the fear of her getting killed instead of exiled.
“Please… I don’t want to lose the person whom I stole; her and her heart.”
Shamash planted a quick peck on her forehead, and signaled for her to run while he ran towards where Helke’s scream came from.
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A/N
After much delay, i gave you all a long, cheesy chapter
perhaps it wasn't, but i guess i wasnted used to writing
romantic scenes D:
Anyway, "To destiny" was referenced from the pendant
Napoleon gave to his wife. It's very sweet aint it?
This story is finally ending soon, or so i hope
honestly i havent started on the next chapter
but heck, i will push on!
(anyway i'm wondering if it should have a happy or
tragic ending? anyway wanna give suggestions?)