A few weeks after I arrived in Athens my house was finally in complete living order and I had everything I could possibly need to help and heal people. I went about daily life, but kept a feeler out in case the next teacher showed themselves. Isis had said that Horus wasn't going to teach me himself, which to me made no sense, but the gods have always had a sick sense of humor.
In the first week after healing little Elena of her severe stomach ulcer and infection, my name had been spread all throughout Athens it seemed. The Healer of Philae had come to live in their city. I was busy. And I seemed to have a little healer in training as well. Elena came to visit and help me almost every day. So I started to teach her some of what I knew of herbs and taught her how to use the mortar and pestle. One day she told me that she wanted to be a healer just like me. I asked what her parents thought about that, and her mother's voice rang out from my open doorway that she thought it was wonderful her little girl wanted to help people.
I looked up from the powder I was pouring into a glass bottle and smiled at the woman. I told her I would be happy to teach her all I could pass on and take the child under wing. I finished with the dried green powder and covered the top of the bottle and handed it to the woman. It was Elena's herbs for her stomach. She tried to pass me coin, but I held up my hand. I wasn't going to take money from that family under any circumstances.
Elena was excited to be my apprentice, and to be honest, I was a little bit myself. I had never been asked to pass on knowledge or to teach anyone anything. In Philae it just had been expected by the other priestesses, and not one of them had ever shown a fraction of the enthusiasm that Elena showed as just a child of ten years.
I took her out with me to gather herbs, showing her what each herb was, what it was called, and what it could be used for. Every day, I taught her a new herb, and asked her before she went home every day what she had learned. Several months went by and I was teaching her which herbs to mix with what and how much to mix. I spent weeks on each with her until she could make it from memory without messing up or forgetting an ingredient. Some days I gave her a list of what herbs I needed and sent her to gather for me while I either went to the market or took care of Indigo or bathed or helped someone who came to see me for help.
And the reasons people came to see me were endless. Headaches, bruises, wounds, powders to sleep, ointments, creams, skin care, hair care. Children came to me with splinters in their hands or scrapes on their knees and elbows. One person came in the middle of the day once after accidentally having amputated his thumb even.
Training Elena, who was the student I had been to Isis, was a pleasure. I looked forward to the girl's presence every day, watching her enthusiasm, watching her grow and flourish. Now and then though she would stay home, having trouble with her condition. On those days I went to see her, taking with me something for her to drink that was stronger than what she took every day.
People didn't hunt me for what I was. Five years went by and not a single bang on my door, not a single fire set to my home, my horse wasn't disemboweled in my yard. No one hunted me, no one feared me. I was welcome, magic and all. And there came a day where I actually stopped in the middle of the market and looked up at the sky. I couldn't understand the emotion I felt.
Rome was like a badly remembered nightmare. I knew it happened. I knew it had been horrible there. But my memory was mostly suppressed by then, and it allowed me to function as I never had. My father's expectations weren't on me here like they had been at home in Egypt. No one looked at me with contempt or fear or abjection or envy. Here, I was met with welcome and warmth and kindness the likes of which I had never experienced before in my life.
And on the day I stopped suddenly and looked at the sky and felt an emotion I never had before, I realized I was happy. So that is what that felt like. I thought something was very wrong with me, but I remembered vaguely a time before when I was small where I felt that feeling, and it felt as if my mother were standing with me in the square. Of course she wasn't, but I could feel her all the same.
I realized that I had been standing still doing nothing for several minutes now and turned back to the busy market around me. I had a basket of bread and cheeses and fruits for my meals, and enough to share with Elena as well. I had not touched meat of any kind since leaving Rome. I couldn't stomach the sight of it or any expectation that I actually consume it. I stuck to the watered down wine, water, milk, and the juice of apples, which I had begun to make for myself recently just out of curiosity. I'm sure other people knew about it, but I hadn't. I didn't need meat to thrive anyhow, the fruits and bread and cheeses and other such things were plenty and of variation. I didn't get bored. And there were foods here that were made of fruit that we hadn't had in Egypt and I enjoyed those as well.
I hefted what normally would have been a heavy basket when a man took it away from me. I was ready to fight for my purchases, but the male wasn't stealing them. He offered to carry my things home for me. He was tall, with dark hair and eyes like midnight. I thought there was something familiar about him, but I couldn't quite place it. I thanked him and pointed in the direction of my home before I started to walk. I thought this male might be someone who needed my help, but he didn't ask for anything while he walked. He was silent, though it wasn't an awkward silence. I couldn't place the feeling.
He made no indication that the basket was heavy, and I knew for a fact it had to weigh at least fifty pounds. I was stronger than normal humans anyhow, and most of the people around that knew me had seen me carry things that weighed the same as people did under one arm. So this male either was quite strong as some men tended to be, or he wasn't human.
I had the distinct feeling he wasn't human. But he didn't seem threatening or anything other than familiar to me. Indigo was sticking his head over the gate to my house and whinnying a welcome to me since I had been gone several hours. I opened the gate and Indigo nudged me in the chest while I stroked his neck and mane. I pushed Indigo out of the way so that the male could get past him with my basket. I led the way into the house, leaving Indigo to wander the yards freely as always.
I shut the door after the male entered the entryway. I told him the kitchen was this way. I called out to see if Elena was back from gathering the day's herbs yet, but there was no answer. I had given her quite a long list that day as we were running low on some of the more rare herbs and leaves.
I led the way into the kitchen and asked him to set the basket down on the table and thanked him again for deciding to carry it. I was surprised he hadn't had any trouble, and had carried it even easier than I did. He set the basket down and I went to reach for the basket he grabbed my wrist and pulled me around the table and against him. It was oddly familiar, and somehow I didn't feel as though I were in danger, even though at the same time I was in a lot of it. But it was different from the kind of danger I had been in in the past.
I looked up at him, a little more closely than before, trying to put my finger on how I knew him. I knew I had seen this man before. He smelled like the woods and of horse. Then it clicked. This was the same person who in Philae had followed me, and who had left me breathless without even giving me a name. Now he was in front of me with a grip on my wrist and around my waist that both frightened and thrilled me.
He seemed to see that I recognized him even though it had been nearly thirty years, and the little smile that crept up his face might have sent someone running, and I admit that it sent a shiver up my spine. He leaned down and whispered in my ear in Greek that he had heard I was in Athens and he'd thought to drop in on me. I didn't realize I was holding my breath until I breathed in again.
I remembered how I had felt when he had kissed me twenty five years prior, and I had not since experienced anything similar. I also hadn't looked for it either. It was obvious what his intentions were, and I wasn't sure if I could let it happen. I had only ever had forced encounters. He held me against him and another shiver went up my spine that followed his hand as it trailed up and into my hair, and when he leaned down this time it was to kiss me.
He had hardly said anything aside from offering to carry the basket for me, just as last time he had said nothing, and I deemed him a male of few words. I had not expected to ever see him again, but it seemed that he was keeping tabs on me. I felt like I had known him for eons, but I knew it couldn't be so.
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He grasped my hair, just enough to use it as a way of steering and tilted my head back as he kissed me with the same enthusiasm he had the last time. He let go of my wrist and wrapped his arm around my back, and with my hands free now they seemed to wrap around his neck all on their own, possibly to keep myself upright. I forgot that Elena could be back any moment, or that I was in my kitchen.
He backed me up into a wall and winded me, but he didn't relent, and I heard what sounded like a growl come out of him. It probably should have frightened me, but it had the opposite effect entirely. He let go of my hair and brought his hands to grasp mine and remove them from him, and I wondered why until I felt him pulling the shoulders of my dress down and I would be bare from the waist up aside from my mother's pendant that I never took off.
It had been years since I had had any sort of real modesty, and this didn't really phase me, though I was self conscious even though I couldn't understand why. He finally relented his assault on my mouth and let me breathe. I gasped for air, leaning against the wall with him pressed up against my entire body. I looked up at him but he was eyeing me as if I were a rich man's meal. I had never been looked at as if there was nothing else around.
He leaned down again, but this time his kiss was quick but fiery before he tilted my head back again. I closed my eyes at the soft feel of his mouth on my throat and a little sound escaped me at the sudden warmth of his hand on my breast. His hands were rough feeling, but soft at the same time, and they didn't hesitate in their attentions. His thumb pressed on a spot beneath my ear and it made me lightheaded as his mouth trailed its way down to my collarbone and below and I held my breath once more, not knowing what he was going to actually do but having an inkling.
My guess was correct, and it was the strangest sensation I had ever experienced. In all the times I had been raped I had not been touched in any way other than violently. His mouth latched onto me and my back arched involuntarily as a gasp of surprise escaped me. He seemed to not be concerned about it though and continued. My head fell back against the wall he had pushed me up against and a soft moan came out of me. I don't think I had ever had such a sound come out of me up until that point. Something about everything felt volatile, urgent.
I didn't notice he had slipped a hand under the skirt of my dress until I felt his hand sliding up my thigh and drawing my dress up to my hip with it. His mouth released me and he leaned back up to kiss me again, distracting me while his hand slipped between my legs. My body jolted back against the wall with a pronounced thud without instruction from me, and I didn't know if it was from sensation or if it was my body trying to get away.
He didn't let me get away though, and it wasn't the painful feeling I thought it would be when he slipped a digit into me. All I had known was pain in this area of things, and with everything he was doing I was learning something much, much different and better than anything I had known. He repeated the motion of removing his finger almost entirely from me before pressing it back in up to the knuckle, and the moans that escaped me into his mouth were so strange to me, but it seemed to be what he wanted to hear, because I heard him make that growling sound again, and it sounded self satisfied while his actions got quicker, though not rougher.
My legs trembled, I was breathless and clinging to him just to stay upright. He added another digit and I thought I was going to actually faint. There was a pressure in my belly and it built from his attentions until my body seemed to explode, my cries rang out in my kitchen.
He stopped finally, and I leaned against the wall to try and catch my breath, and I thought he was through with me, but after a short moment he was picking me up so that my legs wrapped around him. I yelped, surprised, and wrapped my arms around hick neck for stability. He pressed my back into the wall, and my dress was around my hips, his hands holding my rear.
This time I didn't need to guess what he was going to do. My body tensed, anticipating pain as his length pressed against me before the head of him slipped past my entrance. He told me to relax, the first words he had spoken since the marketplace, he said that if I relaxed it wouldn't be painful. Somehow, I trusted his word and tried to relax as he said. As I calmed down and relaxed little by little, he pressed more of himself into me. He was uncomfortable, but I can't describe the sensation as pain.
I was entirely out of breath when he seemed to not be able to press any further into me, and as he started to pull back out, a moan escaped me before I knew it had. I had never imagined that this could be pleasurable. And while my memories of Rome had been repressed until I couldn't remember anything, I did still remember what my first experience with sex had been, and it had nearly caused my death.
But this, this was so vastly different. He pressed back into me more firmly, and this time it wasn't uncomfortable. My body had relaxed aside from my arms and legs being wrapped around him. I don't know when he had removed his shirt, but it was sometime before he had picked me up. His skin was warm against me, and he was firm. There was nothing soft about him. His movements within me were measured, and while not rough, not gentle either, and my body was trembling again, more than before.
I felt lost in all of it. I didn't know what volume of sound was coming out of me, I couldn't think of anything. All I could do was feel what he was doing and then that unfamiliar pressure built once more until I almost literally saw stars as me body seemed to shake and spasm around the length of him. He didn't stop this time either, and the sensations running rampant simply intensified. I didn't realize until later on that I had raked my nails over the tops of his shoulders so sharply that I had drawn blood, and a short indeterminable time later he shoved himself into me in such a way that it hurt a little, and I could feel him pulsing as warmth filled me.
He was still now, me entirely out of breath and visibly trembling all over and he, he was still and while not gasping for breath as I was, he was breathing a little heavily. I had never thought that sex could be like that up to that point, and I admit that that single experience changed my life.
Slowly he removed himself from me, but he didn't set me down. He carried me up my stairs and found my bedroom and brought me inside. I was surprised, but he set me on my bed and drew me a bath, and I noticed that, like me, he could heat the water without fire. He returned to me and removed my dress entirely before giving me a hand into the steaming tub. The hot water was like heaven to my aching body as always. He left me then, and I thought he was leaving the house entirely. But I was wrong.
A few minutes later he returned, fully dressed, to inform me that Elena had only just returned with the herbs I had asked her for. I started to get up but he put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. I looked at him confused, but he just smiled a little and left the room, telling me not to worry about it. I felt strange. I wasn't used to that kind of treatment from people. True, everyone I met or spoke to was kind and welcoming, but this was different, and I couldn't understand why.
I soaked in the bath, washed, and stepped out and wrapped in a linen to dry myself with. I got out a clean dress and put it on, braided my hair, and magically evaporated the water in my tub in my bedroom before going downstairs again. Elena had gone home it seemed, but the basket she had brought with her was empty and when I looked at the stock on my shelves, everything was full. I remembered my groceries in the kitchen, and went there to put them away. That basket too was empty on the table and my things put away. But there wasn't another soul in the house. I went out to the yard in the setting sun and saw him.
He was brushing down Indigo, and I went in my bare feet to join him. His eyes looked black in the lighting, but I knew they weren't. I asked him what he was doing here, and his answer shocked me. He said he came to see me since he had heard I left Philae finally. Athens wasn't as boring as a temple of sequestered priestesses and minimal living. I was surprised. Was that why he had left the way he did? I couldn't begin to guess. But somehow this seemed different. He was calmly brushing my horse, and talking with me companionably. Men didn't really do that with me, never had.
I realized that I was hungrier than usual after putting Indigo in his stall for the night. I thought that now he was going to leave since the sun had all but disappeared, but he seemed intent on staying. I wasn't sure what to do. I had never been in that situation before in my life, and I didn't know how to handle it.
He seemed to. He walked in front of me to the door into the kitchen and sent me in before him. I didn't know what he could want from me that he hadn't already gotten, but he seemed intent on pulling out food. I didn't know how to word the many thoughts and confusion rushing through my head as I watched him. He asked if I was going to sit down or stay by the door, and I moved to sit at the table.
There was not a speck of meat in the house, as I could not stomach the sight or smell of it, nevermind the taste. There were fruits and vegetables and bread and cheese and eggs and things, but no meat or fish. He said something under his breath about not being surprised about that. I asked him what he meant by that, but he didn't answer me. He pulled out eggs and bread and cheese and fruit and I realized that he was going to actually cook. I started to get up to take over for him but he gave me a look so stern I didn't even get halfway out of my chair before I sat down again.
I was entirely out of my comfort zone. I hadn't been treated like this by someone before who wasn't a servant. He got the fire going to cook just as quickly as I always did, and he started boiling some of the eggs while he set out the rest on the table, obviously intent on eating with me.
The rest of the evening was strange but pleasant. I was used to being alone at night, but every time I thought he was going to leave he didn't. It was by far the most pleasant night I had ever had, and when it became obvious that he was planning to stay the night I was surprised. He took me by the wrist and led me up to my bedroom, fully undressed me before shedding his own clothes and took me to bed, inflicting the same pleasures he had that afternoon and new ones that left me feeling euphoric. I don't think I slept so well in my entire life as I did that night with him beside me and feeling real contentment.