1.
Abdullah El-Faouly gardens. It’s how she spends most of her days off from school, forearms dusted with dark earth and fresh greens in her small wicker basket. Layla learns how to grow from her father, both the fruit and herself, and flourishes like the fig trees on their land. His hands are rough, courtesy of his work, but they are always soft when he holds her's to guide her trowel through the dirt.
She falls in love with archaeology on a trip to his dig site in Karnak. The columns and pillars tower above her; even on her father’s shoulders Layla has never felt so small. My little scarab, her father calls her. She feels little now.
They spend their summer there; Layla’s mother dead since her birth. It is just the two of them for most of Layla's childhood, them and her father’s enormous family that make her comfortable and loved. None of them know her like her father does, though.
Layla loves to dig. It’s something she discovers in that garden, something that is only reinforced by their frequent visits to ancient temples and her father’s dig sites. One day her father helps her lift an entire skull from the ground, his quiet words guiding her shaking hands. She will never forget the joy and pride on his face when the bone comes free, the jaw remaining firmly in the dirt below. It’s a feeling she will carry with her forever. Layla swears that moment, her father grinning down at her, that she will spend the rest of her life doing this, with him. There is nothing else that she can do.
When she tells her father this, he just smiles and ruffles his fingers through her. He will love her whatever she chooses but his daughter is not fickle. When she wants something, she gets it.
“There is nothing more perfect than doing what you are born to do, Hayati.”
My life. She dedicates hers to him, studying archaeology and learning to respect the ground they dig. So when Abdulluh sends her the location of a dig and tells her to book a ticket to Cairo, Layla listens. There she meets you, and she is so glad that she does.
2.
The scarab is blindingly beautiful. Layla almost can’t drag her eyes away from it, but then you laugh and all she can see is you. The scarab hasn’t got a chance when compared with the light in your eyes.
I won’t lose her, is Layla’s first thought when she kisses you. Because she does kiss you, you are too distracted with the dig to know what to do with your lips but she doesn’t mind. Gods, she doesn’t mind at all. Even if I do, I will find her again.
It’s a promise she makes to herself. She won’t break it, can’t imagine being without you. You take her back to your place and the two of you kiss on the couch like teens until you both pass out from exhaustion. The next few days are like nothing Layla has experienced before and the two of you spend all of your time down inside of the temple photographing walls and cataloguing artefacts. It’s all a sham, she knows, but she can't bear to think of the look on your face so she just… goes along with it. Pretends that the dig will be publicised, enjoys your unbound joy and when it comes time to steal the scarab, she does so with a sickened sob.
Saying goodbye to you is harder. You’re collapsed on the sand and sobbing, hard. It breaks Layla’s heart but she tells you what she can and doesn’t expect you to forgive her. You tell her as much. When she leaves, she knows that she won’t forgive herself either. Not for hurting you, or for breaking the promise she made to herself. But right now, she needs to get back to her father and ensure the safety of the scarab. You might be her past, but this small package is her future and she has to keep moving forward. Otherwise the sands will drag her down, down, down like her mother.
3.
Marc is everything that she needs and she loves him for it. Strong, reliable, steady Marc who never once questions her past or why he can never meet her father. Never asks her to explain and backs her up on every single one of her decisions. Who says yes when she asks him to marry her after their one year anniversary. Both of them are covered in dirt and a little bit of blood and they fuck in the back of their stolen jeep but it doesn’t matter to them. That’s just who they are. He grins, his eyes crinkling in the corners as he nods quickly and bites at her lips until they bleed. Yes, yes. Of course.
They have a Nisuin and Nikah, morphed together so that they can honour their childhoods whilst still honouring each other. It’s not a big wedding, mostly attended by friends and the sparse family either of them have remaining. Well. Her family. Only a couple of Marc’s cousins turn up and his father, though he leaves after the ceremony without more than a few words to either of them.
You are there. Layla almost doesn’t believe you’ll come until you appear, tucked away at the back of the small registry building. She spots you mid-vow and has to pretend she doesn’t fumble, doesn’t imagine you standing in front of her, grinning with white teeth and those eyes. Marc frowns for a split second and it’s enough to shock her back to movement. She smiles, and tells Marc that she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. Something settles in her heart when she realises it isn’t a lie. You are— you are you. Some part of her will always love you, but that part of her isn’t important anymore. She loves the man in front of her and won’t change this for the world.
“You are now my husband,” she says and when they kiss, everything feels right.
4.
Taweret is nothing like Khonshu. Somehow Layla knows this without ever having to be told; perhaps it is in the kindness of the Goddess’ words or the natural way she takes over Layla’s body. The way her power surrounds Layla is so gentle in contrast to the violence with which Khonshu puppets Marc. His suit was his best feature, wasn’t it? Layla wishes she could take back her words and make sure that neither ever heard them.
Marc has been struggling alone for his entire life. She doesn’t know why, their conversation on the boat was the opposite of productive, but she doubts that he has been dealing with it on his own either. Burying his head in the sand is a Marc specialty.
Cairo hasn’t changed in the ten years since she left you here. She has though, irreversibly. Not worried you might’ve burned too many bridges? Maybe. She hopes not. When all of this is over, she wants to find you again and… explain. Or try to, at least.
But right now she has lives to save and a husband to find. Whether he remains one for long is a decision to make later. Preferably with you at her side. So she accepts Taweret and when the suit slips over her skin, Layla’s blood sings with power. As the wings slide out, she grins.
Yes. Her father is going to be so proud. My little scarab. Watch how she flies.
5.
Raoul Bushman is a greedy man. The problem with greedy men, however, is that they are easy to find. It only takes a few weeks of sniffing around to catch wind of an American searching for artefacts in Cairo and then, Layla has him. When her father dies, when Marc tells her what had happened, she swears that she will see Bushman dead if it kills her. She desperately hopes it won’t.
She hasn’t told you her plan yet; you’re tucked away peacefully in bed with absolutely no idea that Layla has even left your side. She intends to keep it that way. Even though she knows you wouldn’t mind, knows you would volunteer your help taking Bushman down, she’s not quite sure if she is ready to face this side of herself yet. Or if she even wants you to know about it.
So yes, she finds Bushman because he is an idiot and he doesn’t bother hiding his tracks. She follows him to a bar and watches him through the crowd as he flirts and shouts and pushes people out of his way. He’s drunk. If Layla cared, if she didn’t want this man bleeding out as soon as possible, she might wait for him to put up more of a fight. But no. Dead is dead and by the end of the hour Raoul Bushman will certainly be that. She waits for a woman more interested in the thick wad of cash in Bushman’s pocket than him to approach and after several nauseating minutes, he stumbles out of the bar with her in hand. Because he’s a drunken slob, Bushman takes the woman into an alley nearby to spend a couple of minutes breathing into her mouth and pawing at her body. He’s too drunk on beer and skin to hear Layla’s wings snap out across the opening. His partner does though, and she screeches loud enough to wake the dead.
“Who the fuck are you?” She asks.
“Go. I’m not here for you.” Layla replies. She actually looks as if she is going to argue, but the words fall silent when she notes the look Bushman is giving Layla. His eyes have darkened and his muscles tighten. Layla can see that even in his drunken state he would be a tough fight for anyone. Well, anyone without a supersuit. She can’t imagine the terror her father must have felt that night. Her fists clench tighter at her sides and her teeth grate so firmly they creak.
“Wait, is this your fucking wife or something?” The woman asks, in Egyptian Arabic this time, but Bushman just shakes his head.
“You heard the woman. Get lost.”
She lets out a squeak but gathers her purse from where it had fallen on the ground and stomps all the way down the alleyway, cursing both of them under her breath. Then, it’s just the two of them and Layla is alone with the man who killed her father. Who killed Marc, for all intents and purposes. Bushman grins sharply and tips his head back so that Layla can see light reflect off of his dark eyes.
“You know, I thought you looked familiar.”
Layla’s head ticks to the side. “Spend a lot of time looking at my father before you shot him in the head?”
Raoul smiles. “Problem with you El-Faouly’s is you’re like bed bugs. You might kill one but without burning the mattress, they’ll keep coming back.” he snorts at his joke. Layla remains still as stone.
“You should never have come back to Cairo. I might not have even found you if you hadn’t.”
“And now you’re gonna…. What?” Bushman raises his eyebrows, drawing his expression into fake shock. “Kill me? Good luck. Even with the fancy dress, you haven’t got a chance, darlin’.”
It’s Layla’s turn to smile, but it doesn’t feel much like one. There are tears building behind her eyes but she won’t do Bushman the pleasure of crying in front of him. “Why? Why did you kill him?”
Raoul’s eyes harden and whatever grin was on his face falls. He looks dead like this. “Because he was in the way.”
It’s horrific to hear. Even with Marc’s warnings, Layla hadn’t— she hadn’t quite believed it. Her father was killed and, for what? Greed? A little extra money? She lets Taweret’s power seep into her, drop by drop, and flicks the knives out to let their familiar weight rest in her palms.
“I hope you were happy with those words. They’ll be your last.”
Bushman grins and reaches back to pull his gun from the waistband of his jeans, cocking it as he moves-
He’s too slow. Layla’s at his chest before he even has the gun in his hand and her knife makes its home between his ribs, driven deep to sever his spine. A shot goes off, the gun pointed at the floor. Bushman gapes like a fish on the end of her blade, his legs flapping about uselessly beneath him. She leans in and relishes in the blood that speckles his lips, her own pulled tight to show him her teeth.
“Enjoy eternity.”
Bushman’s face contorts once, twice, then he falls slack. Layla lets him slide off of the blade and stares at the body once it hits the ground. Promise kept. None of this has made her feel better, she knew it wouldn’t. But a great, Godly hand lands on her shoulder and it’s like all of the tension in Layla’s spine relaxes so that she can finally breathe.
“You have done well, Layla,” Taweret says, only her voice changes at the end and that’s Abdullah, that’s her father. “My little Scarab, you have done so well.”
She thinks of all of the things she wants to say. I love you, I miss you. I don’t know how to live without you. Are you proud of me? But in the end she can’t, so she settles for saying nothing at all. Whatever it is, he already knows.
+1
The moment that she sees you, all dressed up in white, red and gold, Layla thinks of Ammit’s scarab. You have one on your necklace and another in ink at the base of your neck but nothing sets her off like seeing you in her colours. And it is all of you, miles and miles of skin that she cannot wait to kiss and worship, once you’re her wife.
“What are you doing?” you laugh as she sweeps you into her arms. You are tucked away in the study of their home and Layla’s been waiting ages, really, so she pouts as she tries to kiss you.
“Wanted to see you.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be bad luck?” you ask, but let her kiss you anyway. She loves how you open up to her, how sweetly you melt in her arms. It’s enough to make her drunk on you.
“Only to sexist old men. You look phenomenal, Habibti.” she replies and you smirk, breath ghosting over her lips.
“Hmm? I thought you’d like it. You have no idea how many people tried to talk me out of the red.”
Layla’s lip curls a little and she pulls you closer to her so that you’re pressed completely to her front. She doesn't have time to do more than steal a few kisses though it makes them all the sweeter. No doubt Steven is having an aneurysm outside because she didn’t tell anyone where she was going and you’re due out there in less than ten minutes. “Fuck them. I like you in my colours.”
You smile and expose bright white teeth. Layla melts. “Good! What does She think?”
Layla jolts and then Taweret stretches her mouth into a grin, grasping your hands so that she can spin you around. “Oh darling, you look magnificent! And in our style, I see. I told you, Layla, the outfit is fabulous so it’s no surprise that your wife took inspiration.”
You laugh and it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. Layla is so lucky that she will be able to hear it forever. “Not her wife yet. We sort of need to get married for that to happen. Not that it’s not lovely to see you, Taweret, but could I have my wife back, please?”
The Goddess huffs but slips from Layla’s body. She shudders; it’s still slimy and violating, but at least she knows when it’s coming now. “Steven’s probably given himself an ulcer,” she whispers and leans down to kiss you again. “I should go.”
You smile against her lips, your gaze loving. “I’ll see you out there, ya amar. We’ll leave early, yeah? We can bless the house as a newly married couple.”
Heat licks up Layla’s spine. “Of course. You sure you’re ready for this?”
“Layla,” you huff, and kiss her forehead ever so softly. “I’m going to go out there and marry you. And then I am going to spend the rest of my life with you, convincing you that I want to be with you. Because I do, and I don't care what it takes. I want everything, Layla.”
She can’t help the raging anxiety in her chest, can’t help the way her voice trembles as she lifts her hand, pinky first. “Pinky swear?”
Your eyes crinkle at the corners. Layla is blinded. “Pinky swear.”