I wrote this as a present for my friend Anne. I've never actually seen the show live, just heard the soundtrack and watched some stuff on youtube, but hopefully most of the details aren't too off. Merry Christmas Anne!
Sorry for the lack of line section seperation. I just noticed and fixed it.
"No, please! Leave them off!" Aida exclaimed as she saw the captain reach for the hated shackles again. She bit her tongue even as she said it, wishing she'd had more control. She refused to break like these Egyptians wanted; she would not grovel before them. But even scrubbing the dirt off of the hated captain's skin was preferable to the feel of metal tight around her wrists, the leaden weight of the chain dragging her hands down. That, as much as anything, had shocked her when she had been captured. It was so much harder to remember she was a daughter of Nubia when she couldn't even move freely.
Even as she regretted her outburst though, she kept her head high, eyes on his face. The captain met her eyes squarely, and she could tell what his answer would be before he said it and silently held out her hands.
"You're a slave now," he said harshly, stepping forward with the shackles ready, "If you want to survive, you'd better remember that."
Aida fought the urge to yank her arms back out of his reach. Hiding her hands behind her would do no good. This Egyptian captain had no pity for her. He has no pity for slaves, she reminded herself. It was easy not to really think about her state while she was busy putting on a strong face before these Egyptians. But the captain's words made her stomach curdle, even as her skin crawled from the first touch of the hated iron shackles. In one day, her entire future had altered, and she couldn't even call her life her own.
The click as the locks snapped into place hung between them, and for a split second the captain met Aida's eyes. Then he released his hold, and she allowed the iron to drag her arms down, stepping back away from him. There was nothing more to say. The captain turned and departed without another word.
The shackles bit and pulled at her skin, hidden rough edges pricking her. She shuddered, hating how the chains clinked in response. She was a princess. She may have been negligent of her station in the past, but it was her duty to be strong for her people now. They needed her to hold them together, to keep the spirit of Nubia alive. She pulled herself together, hiding her revulsion and shame. She would remain strong and keep her spirit alive.
She was strong for the entire voyage, even when the shackles bloodied her wrists from their endless rubbing.
Radames wrapped his arms around Aida and pulled her back against him. She resisted slightly, her smaller form stiff and unyielding, but he ran his hands down her arms and tugged until she gave in. Radames knew she didn't entirely trust him even as she admitted she had affection for him, but all that he could think about was how amazing it felt to be able to hold her here, where there was no one to see them. He allowed his hands to roam farther along her arms, savoring the touch.
Normally, it would not have been questioned had he decided to have his way with a pretty slave girl, but there had already been too many connections made between the two of them. Radames didn't want any more talk—more talk would lead to his father setting spies on him. He couldn't abide that. Such politics were why he had gone questing and conquering as soon as he was able. They might harm Aida too, and he couldn't live with that either.
"Aida," he said, nuzzling her hair. She smelled good, like the perfumes the ladies wore, but she didn't overpower his senses the way they tried to. His hand came along her waist again, creeping down over the smooth curve of her hip.
"Radames," she said, her hands grasping his wrist. She tried to pull away, attempting to keep her distance. Radames refused to let her—he knew she felt the same way he did, even if she hid it most of the time. "Radames, we can't do this."
"We can," he insisted, "There's no one here to see us. We can just be you and me. No complications."
"There are always complications," Aida insisted. Her hands pulled up on his arm, and Radames brought his other hand around and captured one of her wrists, pulling her more firmly against him.
He frowned as he felt a raised ridge circling her skin. Hooking his chin over her shoulder, he peered down, prying her hand off of his arm and raising it for his inspection. A thin, jagged scar ran most of the way around her wrist. Radames ran his thumb gently over it and felt Aida shudder. A quick look showed that a twin scar ran around her other wrist.
A chill frizzed down his spine. He knew what those marks were—he had seen them countless times after all. Shackle marks. They were glaringly obvious to his eyes, and they would forever show her to be one who had been enslaved. But what made the pit of his stomach hurt was that he had done this to her. He had personally put the chains on her when she had finished washing him the day of her capture. Had he even paused for a moment during that voyage to think about what they would do?
He captured her other wrist and glided his thumb over that mark too, feeling her shudder again with every fiber of his soul. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. He didn't stop her when she broke away from him this time. She was right. How could she love him when he had done that to her? How could she be with him with those marks forever before her eyes? She was the one person that made him feel accountable for his behavior, and he had scarred her from the first moment. But he couldn't give her up for all of that, even if just looking at those scars made him hurt too. She was the meaning in his life.
Aida wasn't looking at him now. She too was examining the marks on her wrists, holding them both up to her face as if she had never seen them before. She dropped her arms like they were weighted and turned to face slightly away from him, head averted. His stomach dropped. How many times had he seen her stand like that on the trip back to Egypt, only with his shackles on her arms?
"Radames, don't you see that this is why we'll never work?" she said after a moment. She didn't sound angry, or upset, only resigned. She finally looked him in the eyes. "You are an Egyptian. I am Nubian." She thrust a wrist at him and he flinched. "A slave. There is too much between us."
He took a breath and grasped her hand gently in his. The scars were carving themselves into his heart, but he would not lose her because of them. There had to be a way to make this right, and if there wasn't, he would ignore it. "There's not," he said, cupping her cheek gently with his other hand, "I love you, and if you love me, despite these, there will never be too much between us. I will find a way to make it work."
Aida seemed transfixed, mirroring him to raise her hand to his face. Radames thrilled at the touch of her skin on his as her fingers gently feathered over his features and down his neck, coming to rest on his chest. "But Radames," she began, faltering when he entwined his fingers with hers and pulled her closer.
"Do you love me?" he asked softly, his lips brushing the marks, "Or does my earlier arrogance ruin everything we could have?"
"You only did what you did to every other slave," she said softly, turning her head away again. But she looked back a second later. "Gods help me, I love you anyway. But there's still too much—"
Radames silenced her by kissing her. He couldn't help it—he didn't want to hear about all the problems he knew were there, he only wanted to be with her.
When the kiss ended, Radames didn't pull away, instead he whispered, "Don't think about anything else. Just enjoy this—being together like this."
Aida leaned her head against his chest, and Radames tightened his arms around her. Resting his chin lightly on the top of her head, he tried simply to enjoy the feel of holding her and not think about the scars on her wrists, or the wider problems they faced.
The dark tomb was more frightening than Aida had though it would be. She thought she was prepared for death, because Radames was with her, but the complete absence of light was a scary thing. She could feel her eyes straining to see anything, and her lungs seemed to be measuring the air. How long would it last? How long would they linger here before death came for them? They were both going to die here in the dark, for the sin of having loved. She had failed everyone, her people, her father, she had even failed to keep Radames from sharing her fate. As glad as she was that he was near, she would have felt better knowing he lived. The tears she had held back for so long poured down her face, and she jumped slightly at Radames' touch on her shoulder. She reached up to cover his hand with hers.
"Aida, I'm sorry," he began, running his hand down her arm and thumbing her scar. The familiar gesture allowed her to regain some control.
"Don't!" she said, turning to face where he was. Stepping forward, she found he was closer than she had thought and she ran into him, feeling his arms go around her to steady her. "Don't waste our time on that. Just hold me."
So he did. Slowly he backed them up until he found a wall. He slid down it, drawing her down after him and arranging her so that she sat between his legs, her back against his chest. Aida leaned her head back on his shoulder. "I love you more than anything," she said. She had said it so many times, but now, at the end, it felt like more important. "I wish we had more time."
Radames' tightened his arms around her. "I love you more than life. I swear to you I will find you again in the next life."
Aida gave a hollow laugh. "You sound pretty sure of that. We haven't had any of the rituals. What if there'sno next life for us?"
She felt Radames' lips graze her neck. "Not even the gods can keep a love like ours apart, Aida," he whispered, "I'll find you, if it takes a thousand lifetimes." He almost sounded like the arrogant captain she had first met, and she knew he was being strong for her sake.
"And what if I find you instead?" she asked hoarsely, trying to play along. His touch and his voice were the only things keeping her from screaming.
"We'd still be together." His fingers circled her scars again. Funny how he always thought more about them than she did. She really had forgiven him for them—she had a long time ago. But he seemed to think they symbolized everything he ever did wrong. "Maybe you can give me a matching set of these," he said roughly.
Aida wrapped his arms around her waist. "I'd rather pick off right where we left off," she whispered.
The tomb was silent for a long moment. "We will," Radames promised, holding her tightly, "No matter what."
Adam stopped in front of the main exhibit in this room of the Egyptian Wing of the museum. It was a model of a chariot. He stared at it and the replica weapons around it in fascination. No matter how many times he came, he could never get enough of trying to see every little detail of the exhibits. Ancient civilizations had always interested him. What would it have felt like to go into battle only protected by the flimsy-looking shields? How had armies ever conquered as much as some had armed only with those weapons? Adam tried to imagine it, and, for a moment, he could picture himself at the head of an army. More than just picture himself: it felt like he was actually there. He felt the urge to lead, could see the open land spread out before him, could hear the men at his back. He could even feel the leather that was wrapped around the sword hilt under his palm. Up ahead he could see a group of people by the river's edge, and he signaled his men to circle around them.
Then he blinked and he was back in the museum. He wasn't in Egypt, and he wasn't some military nut. He was just Adam Rame, grad student and history buff extraordinaire. He didn't own a sword, although he was reaching out towards the one in the exhibit. He dropped his arm in embarrassment and glanced around to see if anyone had noticed his freaky flashback.
Luckily either most people hadn't seen, or had decided the leave the weirdo alone—the area was clear. He stepped back and turned to leave, only to collide with someone behind him. "Oh! Sorry," he said immediately, almost tripping over his own feet while trying to keep his balance and not further entangle himself with the other person.
The other person, a young woman, had rebounded off of him and looked to be having similar difficulties. Adam steadied himself and then reached down to pick up some papers that she'd dropped. "I'm sorry," he said as he handed them back, "I should watch where I'm going." He looked up and stopped talking, completely bowled over by the girl in front of him. She was beautiful, regal-looking despite the blush staining the dark skin of her cheeks. Adam only just stopped his mouth from falling open like an idiot. Their eyes met for an instant and broke away.
"No, it's my fault," she said, "It's not like the area is full—I shouldn't have walked right behind you."
"Are you alright?" he asked, collecting one final stray paper.
"Yes, I'm fine," she said, a bit breathlessly, "Thank you, you don't have to do that."
"I'm the reason it's on the floor," Adam said with a bit of a grin. It was a struggle not to just stare, or say something stupid, like how pretty she was. He smoothed a wrinkled corner, glancing at the paper as he handed it back. It was notebook paper, covered in handwritten notes. "Are you a student?" he asked.
She broke into a smile. "Yes," she replied, still a bit shyly, "I'm in an arts management program, and we're supposed to write about a part of this museum, so I picked the Egyptian Wing. How about you?" She nodded towards his satchel that had several notebooks protruding from it.
"I'm a history grad student. I don't have anything specific to do, I'm just here to look," Adam said, feeling like the biggest dork in the history of dorky history grad students. He laughed, a tad nervously in his opinion. "Adam Rame, the biggest Egyptian history nerd ever, at your service," he said, "I heard they had a couple of new artifacts, so I came to check them out." He held out his hand.
The girl shook it, her hand looking very small and dark in his. Adam was suddenly glad he hadn't given in to the temptation to stop working out this semester, even though it had meant less sleep overall. If he was an unrepentant nerd, at least he didn't have to look like one. "Alia Dae. I was a history major in undergrad, so I completely understand," she said in return, releasing his hand slowly and reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. It was done up in a multitude of tiny braids, most of which were confined with a clip.
The gesture caused Adam to notice the small, thin scar circling her wrist. He looked from it to the nearly identical one around his own wrist. He'd had it since he could remember, and he'd assumed it was either something that had happened to him as a baby or a birthmark. He'd never seen another person with anything like it.
"It's good to find someone that understands, then," he said, his gaze going back to her scar.
Alia followed his look and lowered her wrist with a blush. "No, I'm sorry," Adam said, blushing also, "I didn't mean to stare, it's just that it looks like mine." He held out his own wrist as proof.
Alia looked between the two marks, eyes wide. "That's so weird! Is yours a birthmark too, or a scar?"
"Birthmark."
Their eyes met, longer this time, and then broke away again.
Adam broke the silence before it could get awkward. "History nerds with identical scars don't meet everyday. Would you like to get some coffee at that place by the gift shop?" he asked before he could think about it too hard. Alia just looked at him, and Adam hurried on. "Call it a sign from the Egyptian gods," he said, pointing to nearby statue of Anubis, "We wouldn't want them to smite us for disobeying them." He put on his best winning grin.
Now she laughed. "No, we wouldn't want any smiting," she said, looking up at him without blushing this time. "Okay, I accept."
"Excellent." Adam felt like shouting, but instead he offered her his arm with an overly gallant bow. "If I may?" She laughed at him again, but she linked her arm through his. Even though they'd just met, it didn't feel awkward at all, having her arm wrapped around his. He sensed she felt the same way, her posture at his side was relaxed, her walk easy. It felt like he was goofing around with an old friend.
He shot another grin at her as they started out of the Egyptian Wing. "Since our scars match and we met in the Egyptian room, maybe it's more than a sign," he said in a teasing voice, "Maybe we were meant to meet, because we knew each other in a past life!"
Alia raised an eyebrow at him. "So we're reincarnated lovers? Are we someone famous? Can I be Cleopatra?" she said, a great deal of suppressed laughter in her voice.
"I don't appreciate someone laughing at my great ideas," he said with such exaggerated mock-offense that she giggled. "And for your information, Cleopatra's current reincarnation lives down my block, sorry."
Alia was laughing outright at him now, and it warmed him that he could make her laugh so easily. She had to cling to him with both arms for a moment, she was giggling that hard. "Why are you in history with such an imagination? You should be an author."
Adam replied glibly back. He had no idea when he'd become so adept at meeting people, or why he felt such chemistry with Alia, but he wasn't going to question his luck. He gave another statue of Anubis a nod as they passed it—just in case.