Disclaimer: Scorchingly not mine.

A/N: I set a challenge on LiveJournal: if you would provide me with a piece of fanart, I would write a short ficlet for/based on it. Dragon Dancer asked for something based on didip (dot) deviantart (dot) com (slash) art (slash) Undercover (dash) 62878325. If you get the chance, you should check out all of Didip's art, because it's fecking gorgeous.

What Once Was Lost

© Scribbler, January 2011,

'The purpose of life is a life of purpose' ~ Robert Byrne

It started with a whooshing noise and a rapidly shrinking circle of light. Mana's head whipped back and her spine arched as she was yanked bodily through the void. It was so cold in that place where no light penetrated and there was no air to breathe, but she was pulled through it so fast she barely had time to register where she was before she wasn't there anymore.

In comparison, the sand dune was blessedly warm. She dropped into it with a 'whumph' noise. Her body even left an impression when she raised her head and pushed herself up on her elbows.

"What the –?"

She was surrounded by wilderness; endless hummocks of gold and brown as far as the eye could see. Above her the sky was a resolute blue speckled with flecks of white too small to merit the name 'clouds'. The air was so hot it almost crackled like dried out parchment.

"Oh no. Not again. I did not mess up again."

But she had.

Mana got to her feet slowly, feeling herself all over for injuries. There were none, though her hair was damp from the crystals of frozen sweat that had formed in it during her short time in the void. She had gone into the void before, never willingly or because she planned to. Some of her worst nightmares were set in that place. Each time she returned, she tried to explain about the hard water, which Mahaad called 'ice'. Everyone had greeted her claims sceptically. Why wouldn't they? It was only Mana with another one of her crazy stories.

This would make one more brilliant story, once again with her cast in the main role of screw-up. How had she managed to screw up a perfectly simple spell for keeping cool on a hot day? One moment she had been standing next to Atem in the gardens, willing a palm leaf to get up and fan them by itself, the next she was here. She would never hear the end of it. Mahaad would have her copying scrolls for a week until she learned the incantation properly.

If she ever got home, that was.

Her staff was missing. She could perform spells without it, but as Mahaad had explained, her staff was a focus to stop magic leaking out and doing things it wasn't supposed to. For all her faults, Mana had an overabundance of energy at her disposal. It was one of the reasons she had been brought to the palace to train as Prince Atem's magical bodyguard in the first place. Her father had made noises about her also becoming part of his haram when Atem assumed the throne, but Mana chose to concentrate on her role as his protector.

"Some protector," she muttered, her lips already drying out.

She cast about for shelter, maybe a tree she could use for shade, but there was none. Did she dare try a spell without her staff? She opted to crest the nearest dune first to get the lay of the land. If things looked grim, she would chance it. Too long out here in the hot sun was dangerous for anyone. She had no idea where she was, so transferring herself home magically could drain her before she got anywhere near the palace – or even the city. If she picked the wrong direction she could put herself in an even worse position. Plus, she had no desire to go back into the void. She nursed a secret fear that one day she would go into it and not come out again.

The top of the dune showed her a scene similar to the view from the bottom: sand, sand and more sand, with no handy band of nomads or travellers she could ask for help. She had mastered the spell for turning rocks into precious gems, which wasn't helpful if you were dying of thirst, but would at least buy her passage home.

She hunkered down, made a tiny cone of sand with her hands, poked a hole in the front and hollowed out the inside with her finger. The cone collapsed immediately. Cursing, she had to try twice more before one stayed intact. With the sun beating her back like hundreds of hot little fists, Mana muttered the words to make small things big and jumped backwards as the little cone trembled and expanded. Once it was giant-sized she set about laying fortifying magic all over it, so it wouldn't fall down and bury her the moment she stepped inside. Ropes of invisible magic latched on and pulled tight until she was satisfied she hadn't just created an elaborate death trap. She retreated gratefully inside and sat in the little bit of shade it provided.

She was exhausted from the effort. The sun sapped strength faster than blood loss and she had expanded herself a lot today. Peering out, she tried to recall how to extract even the tiniest Amount of moisture from sand. Some people thought it was a spell to actually turn sand into water, but it was much more subtle than that. Spells of Mahaad's invention were usually quite but effective and this one was his proudest achievement. Mana had tried desperately to learn it, but they were complicated and she always seemed to get something wrong. The last time she tried, she had somehow summoned a hippo into the palace. The guards had been forced to spear it before it killed someone. Hippos killed people every day on the Nile, and gruesomely, but Mana had still regretted the animal's confused bellows as it died.

"No room for hippos in here," she murmured, encircling her knees with her arms. She started to rock back and forth, but stopped when gains of sand tumbled from the ceiling. Her knees felt gritty under her chin. Or maybe her chin felt gritty on her knees. She had landed face-first, after all. "Gods, I'm so thirsty."

What would Atem say about her latest screw-up? He never ridiculed her, nor did he radiate disapproval like Mahaad, but she always felt like she was letting him down when she got things wrong. Why couldn't she be an instant success like Mahaad?

Mahaad had been a child prodigy. Everything he attempted, he excelled at, usually on his first try. He had admitted that in terms of raw power Mana had the advantage over him, but she had no fine control, so her advantage became her downfall more often than not. She would have given up all but the merest hint of magic, if only she could be good at it.

She caught her eyes trying to close. "No!" she told herself. "Don't go to sleep. You have to think of a way out of this." Her brain felt gummed up and exhausted.

She could wait until nightfall, when things got cooler, and then strike out for home. She sort of remembered the spell to summon birds and animals. Maybe she could send a message to the palace that way. It would be embarrassing, but it was better than dying out here, alone and useless. At least she could try and get a bird to show her which direction to travel.

"I have to invent a spell to transform into a bird," she said, even though it was a showy, preposterous idea. Knowing her luck, she would change into a bird and be unable to change back. Then she would have to spend her days sitting on a perch, waiting for someone to let her fly, or scrabbling in the wild for whatever scraps she could catch. Neither option was appealing. "Correction: I have to invent a spell that makes me better at spell-casting."

The air inside the sand-cone was close and thick. It felt like she was breathing in the sand itself; grains lining her throat and mouth until they stuck together and rubbed uncomfortably. She coughed. Her mind fogged with the need to rest. She shook it, but her thoughts just jumbled more.

"Not good. Definitely not good."

She felt weak. She had used too much power. Or was it just heat-exhaustion? Isis had warned her about that. Isis was the most intelligent woman Mana had ever met. Maybe someday, when one of the other Millennium Guardians retired, Mana would inherit their Item and get to work alongside Isis. By then Mana would have mastered her craft and not show herself up nearly as much as she did now. No more accidentally making an entire banquet into rotten food when she tried to cool down a piece of hot meat, or reverting the stuffed birds to terrible, pain-wracked life when testing for poisons. No more clearing a room with the smell of a thousand dollops of horse manure when she tried to turn crushed leaves into fragrant unguent. No more having to justify her tiny exposed breasts to leery men when she accidentally transmuted her clothes into the gauzy scarves of a harem dancer.

"I'm … such a screw-up …" she yawned.

Why did Atem keep her around? Because his father told him to, maybe. Pharaoh Akhenamkhanen had decreed that she be brought to the palace when her talents first manifested, after all. If he had picked her to be a wife of his son, he was probably really disappointed right now. No king wanted his only child married to a screw-up – even if she would only be a lesser wife. Atem's Great Wife would be some princess or foreign noble. That was the way things always went. Isis was one of Akhenamkhanen's lesser wives – the only one who didn't have to stay in the women's chambers all the time unless she was called for. Perhaps Atem would let Mana still run around instead of locking her away with the rest of the harem. Perhaps he really would let her be his bodyguard. Perhaps he would even think her screw-ups were entertaining. Perhaps …

Perhaps …

Per … haps …

Per …

Mana was aware of voices and of someone touching her, but she didn't have the strength to open her eyes. Her mind refused to make the necessary connections. Her neck stayed loose as someone cradled her and called her name. Her throat was exposed, but there was nothing she could do about it. Even flickering her eyelids was too much.

"Mana! Mana, please wake up! Mahaad, do something! Please!"

"Do not beg me, your majesty. You are the prince. You do not need to ask me as if we are equals –"

"Do not start that now, Mahaad. Just do something. She is still breathing."

Cool hands touched Mana's face. At once, heat seemed to seep out of her so fast she was left hollow and empty. Her insides knocked together like bones on a nomad shaman's staff. She was intimately aware of every rib, every sinew, every nerve and every strand of hair as they separated from her, numbed like she was back in the void, and then came crashing back in a wave of sensation. Lightning bolted down her spine.

She sat up, gasping. Someone had hold of her shoulders. All around her was a terrible keening noise that made her ears ring – and her throat sore? With a jolt, Mana realised the one making the noise was her.

"Mana," Atem was saying. "Be still. We're here."

"M-M-Ma-" she stuttered. "Maj-jeh-jeh-jes-" Finally she gave up and brokenly whimpered, "Atem." She was trembling so uncontrollably that she couldn't have pushed away his embrace if she tried.

"It is all right," he soothed. She took comfort in the familiarity of his refined voice and manner of speaking, which she had always made fun of before.

"You c-came for me." She blinked. Her eyeballs felt like someone had replaced them with dried figs while she was unconscious. "H-How did you f-find me?"

"Mahaad," Atem said simply.

"Against my better judgement," Mahaad said stiffly, but Mana could tell he was just as relieved to have found her. They were both swaddled in cloaks so ragged they could only be disguises. There was no way the crown prince would wear something so threadbare and dirty.

Mana's brain started to click pieces together again – slowly, but surely. Mahaad's magic had leeched out the fog that made it difficult to think. "You … you're in disguise?"

"My father would not have been pleased to know I wished to rescue you myself," Atem replied. "He would have insisted upon sending guards, none of which could have found you as fast as Mahaad's magic." Atem held her tighter, as if trying to force her trembling muscles to behave themselves with the sheer power and authority of a prince. "We were barely in time ourselves. When you transport yourself to places unknown, Mana, you excel at choosing the truly unknown."

"We're in bandit territory," Mahaad said, his voice tight. He was obviously conflicted about their situation: relieved to have located and rescued her, but worried at the precariousness they now found themselves in. "And your shelter is not exactly inconspicuous, Mana."

"S-sorry," she tried to apologise.

Mahaad's manner softened. It was so rare for her to apologise instead of naming the thousand reasons she was right and the rest of the world was wrong. She was badly shaken and felt too rotten to argue with him. "You survived. That is enough. We can refine your skills another day. For now it is enough that you still live."

"Come," Atem said. "We have to get her to the horses."

Mana didn't fight or try to stand on her own when, between them, they dressed her in more rags they had brought and carried her outside to where two strong stallions pawed the sand. Or rather, pawed the air just above the sand. Another one of Mahaad's quiet but effective spells, which allowed horses to travel up and down dunes as if they were hard-packed earth or stone. There was a lot to be said for those little bits of magic, as opposed to the flashy things she kept trying. Maybe she should listen more and try to keep things simpler.

"Hold tight to me," Atem ordered, sitting her behind him and tying a linen scarf around their waists to lock her into place.

"I should ride with Mahaad," she said. "If anyone sees me manhandling you like this –"

"I thought I had lost you, Mana," Atem said softly, but so seriously that she was silenced. "Please allow me this."

This? This what? Mana pondered his words as they set off. Her body found the rolling gait of the horse, though every step jarred her insides and made her joints ache. She would never underestimate the power of the open desert again. Anyone who went into it without plans or provisions was suicidal.

Mahaad and Atem had run into it to save her. The crown prince and the most eminent sorcerer in the land had risked everything to rescue a know-it-all screw-up like her. Emotion swelled in her and clogged her throat.

"Mana?" Atem turned his head to look at her. "What's wrong?"

"Don't cry," Mahaad said sharply. "You need the fluid. Here." He handed her a rock of hardened salt. Anyone from outside the desert would think it ridiculous, but Mahaad knew that sweating as much as she had would have lost most the life-preserving salt from her body.

"Thank you," she said, fisting the little whitish block. "For everything."

Mahaad grunted and rode on ahead of them. Atem didn't try to take the lead. Instead, he hoisted some of the flapping fabric to cover his face and pulled Mana's arms tighter around his waist.

"Hold on," he said softly. "I do not wish to lose you again."

As they rode, Mana nestled into his back in a way she would cease before they reached the city. Atem felt warm and solid. She was supposed to be the one who guarded him, but right now she allowed herself to be grateful at his strength and loyalty even to a commoner like her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be one of his wives. Provided he let her run around outside the harem, of course. How else was she supposed to use her magic to keep him safe?

I'll get stronger so I can protect you, she thought. I'll never let anyone hurt you or take you away from me. I'd die first.

Above them, the hot desert sun shone without judging their petty human lives – or warning of how their story would end.

Fin.

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