29. Best Laid Plans

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Last chapter…

Some Bad Things went down at Osiris when Jahi got (not so) mysteriously bonked on the head and kidnapped, then had to room share with a verbose stranger (who he may or may not be mad at).

Raet was spared from an awkward (dub-con on both sides) deflowering by the only male in her general vicinity, after the arrival of a mysterious (and possibly treasonous) sibling pair that were not good buds with Caris, but seemed like they might wanna be good buds with Raet?

P.S. Raet leveled up to Queen (see fully evolved form above).

Onward!

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Mr. Scholar had gone missing!  They’d went downstairs to see why Mrs. Scholar was waking Pili up so early in the day; she’d looked pretty upset when she came back inside after checking the garden.

Pili tried to cheer her up, cuz he’s a nice guy, but he said he couldn’t go outside until it got dark, and Mrs. Scholar seemed to think that was a normal thing to say, so Cassie supposed that maybe it was because of Pili’s medical condition?

Anyhow…Mrs. Scholar was super upset, and she even started crying.

Pili said that it would be okay and that he’d get right on it as soon as it was night time, and he tried his best to make her feel better.

But Cassie didn’t have a medical condition that kept her from going outside in the day time!  And she decided that there was only one thing to do when you had a mystery on your hands; investigate.

Jackie and Terry came to help, but they were super bummed out because their dad was missing (duh).

Nafi and The Biter came to help too, but they mostly just sat there because they’re still pretty much babies and they didn’t really understand what was going on.

Cassie knew she was pretty much on her own for solving this thing, but the best place to start was gonna be by looking for clues!

That’s what the CSI people always did; examine the the crime scene.

Terry: “But who are the CSI people, Cass?”

Cassie: “I don’t even know, man, alls I know is they examine the crap outta crime scenes, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

There wasn’t much to go on…yet, but they had some abandoned gardening tools (that Mr. Scholar would have def put away because that man was scary anal about putting stuff “in its rightful place”), and some footprints, and some other scuffy marks.

Cassie: “You think that big sort of sand mark there could be from a body laying down?”

Jackie: “Umm…”

Cassie: “Not, like, a dead body…hehe, no def not that!”  She gave her friend what she hoped was a reassuring smile, “like, maybe if someone slipped and fell or something?”

Jackie: “I guess so?”

Cassie: “Dope!”

Cassie: “I mean, er…I’m sure your dad is fine,” that was a close one.

Cassie was actually pretty sure that Mr. Scholar was not fine; there was definitely a lot of scuffy marks in the sand…and also one big long one leading away from the pyramid where it looked like something heavy had been dragged off.

Mr. Scholar was probably the heavy thing that was dragged off.

Cassie left Jackie and Terry back at the pyramid to ‘watch the babies’, and followed in the direction of the drag marks.

Wow…that was a pretty good stalking rock right there; perfect view of the garden and everything.

Pretty good for stalking, and a bunch of other stuff too, by the looks of it; there was totally lots going on here, but Cassie wasn’t sure how much of it was important to The Case of the Missing Dad, and how much was just general rock shenanigans.

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There was nothing left she could do on her own; the time had come to go and seek help before it was too late for Sima-Mighdall.

Kalvin had proved himself to be utterly useless in the defense of the tribe against the traitor…he reasoned that if the Queen allowed the witch to stay, it was not his place to act against her.

The Shaman supposed it was not his fault; like any good Themysimran slave, Kalvin had been taught to obey the highest ranking Amazon in his holding, and Caris had long suspected him of harbouring tender feelings toward the Queen he nearly got to impregnate.

‘Yet another travesty born from the influence of the witch.’

Persephone had insisted to Queen Raet that she needn’t follow the Amazon Laws at all, and counseled the young monarch to wait until she felt ready before having children.

Utter nonsense of course; it was a Queen’s duty to produce offspring as soon as she had flowered into womanhood.

Caris knew the true reason, of course, for the traitor’s advice; the witch wanted to put forth her own kin as the father for Sima-Mighdall’s future Queen.

While both men were pleasant to look upon, Kalvin lacked Khafre’s air of confidence and strong bearing; no doubt a common thing among slaves that were allowed to run amok and think themselves the equal of womankind!

The last straw, of course, was when the sorceress convinced the Queen to fill in the Offering Pool…that sort of blasphemy could not stand!

The witch wanted to dig a well (or some nonsense) on the site, as a tribute to the slaves who had lost their lives there; Caris had hoped her sovereign would listen to reason, but the traitor’s honeyed words of encouragement had gone right to the young Queen’s tender heart.

Caris travelled along an unknown path, guided by the remnants of a map she’d found in the Scholar Temulun’s old quarters…it seemed to suggest a quicker route back towards Themysimra, and time was of the essence!

The Shaman scolded herself once more for her weakness in not leaving sooner; there was no excuse for it to offer the Goddess, and she only hoped that it hadn’t cost her the time she needed to right the wrongs in Sima-Mighdall.

Caris had born the son she’d intended, shortly before the arrival of the witch.

It wasn’t tenderness she felt for the child, she didn’t think; he was a thing that was hers, and she owed him her care while he was young.

Still, it had been harder than she’d thought to tear herself away from little Nkosi.

The boy was fine, no doubt; she’d left him with Kalvin, who was at least competent enough to look after a baby for some weeks.

Temulun’s map was proving a marvel; the journey had taken her out of the desert and into an oasis of greenery that reminded her of where she’d been raised.

Eventually, she came upon a tall rock that showed signs of habitation.

‘Who would even be living here?”  She wondered.

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Jahi did his very best to feign sleep…

…despite the myriad of noises in the room.

The first time she’d come, he’d recognized the woman who had taken his ‘roommate’; one of the Themysimrans that had, presumably, followed Queen Maat to Apep.

It seemed they were guests of Sima-Mighdall’s firstborn daughter.

The stocks, in Nobuya’s case, were completely unnecessary of course; the chatty man went freely enough when the buxom ginger came for his services.

That he was not given to the Queen bode well for his chances of survival.

Jahi suspected that he himself would not be quite so fortunate.

Maat: “Will you come to my bed willingly, slave?  Or should Kenza fetch us some irons?”

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Instead of footnotes, today you get some picspam from my “unused” folder; enjoy!

Jahi is not amused by the recent turn of events in this story.

Aw, it’ll be fine Jahi!…Maybe.

We’ll soften the blow and end with a nice A/U dream moment?

HAPPY SIMMING!