(Before I started this story I will have to tell you the names of Rini and Hotaru will change. Rini well be known as Ramla and Hotaru will be known as Nakia. I thought of this story when it was raining, so a lot of the story will take place with in a rainstorm. Thanks for your time and now to the story... Black Rose)

 Ra’s Daughters

 By Black Rose

 Chapter One

 Rain of Ra

 Moonpower02@Hotmail.com

 

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 The rain drummed noisily outside the temple of the sun god Ra. The people were happy that the rain had come; that would mean a good year for crops, and the great river would have fish. A young woman with pink hair was watching the rain, as was the kitten she held in her arms. The young woman’s name was Ramla and she was the daughter of the Great Pharaoh, the ruler of all Egypt.

  Unlike her tyrannical father, Ramla was kind and caring… perhaps a little too much so. 

 

  Ramla kept her unusual, garnet coloured eyes fixed on the rain outside. The rain was such a strange thing to Ramla, especially as it almost never rained in Egypt. Maybe it was a gift from the gods, but maybe it was a curse. She had heard of times when, in the ancient past, the river had flooded Egypt and brought about the deaths of many, but that, Ramla reminded herself, was just anicent legend and nothing for her to worry about. 

 No, she had more pressing matters on her mind at that time than the rain; on her coming birthday she would have to marry the high priest of the god Anubis. To say that she didn’t like the high priest would have been a lie, 

 but she knew in her heart that she didn’t love him: no, she didn’t love him at all.  

 Ramla looked away from the rain and turned to face the interior of the temple in which she then stood. The temple was a temple of Ra, the god of the sun. Ramla had always seen him as her patron and protector, ever since her childhood when she had had those strange dreams… That was why she was there then; Ra had come to her in a dream the night before, just before the rains had come, and told her to come to him for the guidance she needed. 

 She walked slowly to the centre of the temple, set the kitten down on the floor, then kneeled down herself and began to pray. Why, with all the golden statues and the eye of Ra here, Ramla could almost swear that Ra himself was present in the temple. There was a raised dais at the end of the room, on which the eye itself stood, where only the priest and priestess of Ra would pray.

  Ramla looked once more at the eye of Ra, then bowed her head and began to pray.

 In her mid she chanted “Oh mighty Ra, please hear my call. I ask you to help me find the answers I seek. I do not know if it is my place to say, oh mighty lord, but I do not believe that either the high priest or my father do or shall rule fairly over your people as they should. Please, mighty Ra, send me guidance: send me one who will rule over us, your people, with a fair hand and a wise mind. I beg this of you, mighty Ra, please hear my call.”

  As Ramla finished her praying, she heard someone enter the temple. She quickly jumped to her feet and spun around to see a person standing near her. This person wore a strange, dark coloured, hooded cloak, so Ramla couldn’t see her face. At least Ramla assumed the person was a she, as they were little taller than she in height and even slighter in stature. It was obviously not one of her father’s guards, nor was it a slave… perhaps this person was not even from Egypt…

 *

 The storm was only getting worse, the young woman mused as the rain continued to pour down endlessly from the heavens. The rain scared her; it was so rare, she could not remember the last time it had rained in her own lands. She squinted her amethyst coloured eyes and tried to see where she was going. This was worse than sandstorms, much worse. The worst thing, she told herself, was the humidity in the air that was literally soaking into her black robes.

  The young woman had travelled far to look for work and with every step she took through the rain, she felt more and more drained, both in mind and soul. 

  “Goddess help me,” she said, speaking the tongue of the kingdom she was in but with a heavy, strange accent. She brushed her chin length black hair away from her eyes and pulled the hood of her robe closer over her face. She narrowed her eyes further against the torrential rain 

 and continued to swiftly walk along the great river that ran through the place they called ‘Egypt’, towards three great structures that dominated the skyline. 

 She had heard them mentioned before… pyramids they were called. They were the tombs of the past rulers of this kingdom, she knew. 

 Such grand tombs, she mused, it was almost as though the rulers of this place were the incarnations of the goddesses themselves. No, not the goddesses, the gods; this society was patriarchal; women had almost no value here.

 Soon she came to a building in which lights still blazed; she was not sure what the building was, but she knew that it was probably the only place where she could find shelter from the storm for a while. The wind had picked up and sand was now mixing with the puring rain, making it almost imnposible for her to see where she was going. 

 She quickly entered the building and realised she was in a temple; the temple of Ra. She could see the eye, the eye of the god Ra. The eye glowed red and then back to the way it was before, simply solid gold. 

 She blinked and looked at it again but nothing happend. 

 “What was that?” she asked herself as she walked into the temple. As she fully entered the prayer chamber, she saw a young woman with long pink hair kneeling in front of the dais above which the eye was held.  The young woman turned around, startled, and look at her in fear, her strange, garnet coloured eyes wide with amazement.

 The young woman smiled at the frightened looking girl in front of her and removed her hood so that the other could see her face.

 “Who are you?” the pink haired girl asked.

 The other woman didn’t answer at first; she simply looked back into the girl’s garnet eyes and saw her own amethyst ones reflected in them.

 “My name is Nakia”, the black haired one said, giving a slight smile that didn’t reach her cold eyes, trying to show the pink-haired one kindness even though she was nervous in her presence. “I was trying to get out of the storm. I sorry to disturb you; I didn’t knew someone was in here.”

 “Nice to meet you Nakia, my name is Ramla,” the pink haired girl said, returning Nakia’s smile.

 “I sorry about coming in here and bothiering you: I will leave” Nakia said, bowing to Ramla and turning around very slowly.

 “No! You don’t have to go; stay here and warm up,” Ramla yelled, running in front of her to stop her. For some reason she didn’t want the other woman to leave, and it wasn’t just because of the strom that was raging outside. No, there was something else…

  Nakia stopped and looked right at Ramla: she could see deep sadness in her eyes, and it was making her heart break. Nakia closed her eyes and then reopened them.

 “Thank you, Ramla” Nakia said, moving slowly to one of the fires in the temple.

 Ramla watched her, then walked over to a kitten and picked it up.

 “May I ask why you were outside in this weather?” she asked petting her kitten.

 Nakia looked over to her and then back to the fire.

 “I was heading to the next city to find work, but the rain started before I could get there.  Besides, it was night so I knew that I needed to find somewhere to sleep, though I’m nor familiar with this place so I didn’t know where else to go” she replied.

 “Then that is why you came here? Because it was a place out of the storm?”

 “Yes”

 The two women just stood there, one trying to get warm and the other watching her.

 The eye of Ra began once more to glow a deep shad of red. The kitten in the Ramla’s arms jumped down and started hissing at the eye. Ramla stared at the eye, her own red eyes wide; she had never seen it do this before, never, and it worried her. Ramla looked away from the eye and over to Nakia, who was also staring at the glowing eye. 

 “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” asked Ramla as she edged closer to it.

 “I believe I am” Nakia replied, also walking close to it.

 They both stopped in front of it and stared wide eyed. The thunder outside was get louder and closer. The wind started to pickup, and all the fire in the temple blown out. The only light in there was from the eye of Ra.

 The two women looked over to each other, their eyes meeting. They were both too afraid to move. They just looked into one anothers eyes and back at the eye of Ra.

 “Close your eyes,” Ramla heard a voice say, and she did so without even wondering who had said that or why. Nakia had heard the same thing.

 In their minds they saw man and a very beautiful bird with blazing red and gold wings. The bird flew next to the man, who was walking closer towards them. He stopped in front of Nakia and Ramla and smiled kindly.

 “Welcome my daughters; it is time for you to begin to find your destinies. It will not be easy, but know this, I will be watching over you at all times.”

 Nakia was about to say something but before she could he put his hands up to stop her.

 “My dear Nakia, in time you will see why you are here: you also, my dear Ramla.”

 Nakia and Ramla looked at each other and then back at him. He just smiled at them and then turned around walked back to his throne where he sat with the bird pearched on him shoulder.

 “I do not have time right now to tell you everything, but you will find out the truth in good time,” he said, laughing a little.

 Ramla could not take it any more; she was dying to ask him the one thig she needed to know.

 “Who are you, and are we dead?”

 The man smiled at her and thought about it for a while. He then look at the bird and nodded.

 “To answer your question I would have to say no, you are not: and you know who I am.”

 Ramla though about it for little awhile then it hit her like a rock. She put her hand to her mouth and gasped.

 “You’re Ra.”

 Ra smiled and nodded his head. He then looked over at Nakia, who looked about as shocked as Ramla was.

 “Now I believe you were asking for help: will here it is,” Ra said pointing at Nakia.

 “Me?” asked Nakia. “And what am I to help her with?”

 “Yes, you Nakia; I believe you will help the princess out very much.”

 Ramla looks at Nakia and smiles, thinking to herself, “If Ra says she can help me, it must be true.”

 Nakia just looked confusedly at Ra and then back at Ramla.

 “Mighty Ra, what can I do?” Nakia asked. “I would like to help but I am just a poor woman, I don’t know how much help I can be to Ramla, if any at all.”

 Ra stood up and walked over to them: then he smiled at both Nakia and Ramla.

 “Your time is up here, I am afraid that I must send you back now: but knew that I’m always here if you need me,” he said and he kissed them on the foreheads.

 The next then they knew they passed out. Inside the temple two females were laying on the floor with the symbols of the eye of Ra on their foreheads. Nakia and Ramla had been right; the rain had been a warning from the gods and goddesses, and things were soon to happen that no one on Earth could ever have expected.

 

 (AN: This was a lot of fun to write, I hope to have the next chapter done soon. - Black Rose)