[Choice C (TeenFiction): The servants bully you and mock your strange customs, but you decide to show them you're one-of-a-kind.]

"So you are the one the sphinxes call 'The Woman Out of Time'."

Tarah groaned and levered herself onto one elbow. Her head felt muzzy. Blinking against the harsh sunlight, she looked up at a woman reclining on a long couch with bronze handles jutting from each corner. Four large, burly men wearing small loincloths stood nearby. The woman cocked her head to the side, red lips pursed in displeasure.

"I'm sorry?" Tarah whispered, slowly pushing herself into a sitting position. Where was she now? Looking around, it appeared to be some sort of outdoor garden.

"Answer Pharaoh!" a different woman's voice snapped. There was a whistle and a crack and Tarah jumped as a stinging blow lashed down on the back of her neck.

Instinct took over. Tarah swung around and grabbed the flail by its head, jerking the older woman off-balance. Tarah bore her to the tiled floor, shoving her knee between the woman's shoulder blades.

Almost immediately, six muscular men emerged from the shadows of the garden. Sharp bronze swords gleamed in their hands.

Tarah's eyes shot to the woman on the bed. The regal woman had olive skin, red-brown hair that was curled tight against her head and tucked into a bun at the back. A thin sapphire diadem rested on her brow. She had dark, intelligent eyes that peered down at Tarah from behind a strong, aquiline nose. Dark green fabric clung to her ample figure.

"Impressive," the woman remarked with a slight curve of her lips, waving a bangled hand at the soldiers. Quiet as mice, the men slipped back into the shadows. "It must not be comfortable for poor To-meri."

Tarah's brow furrowed, which caused the regal woman's mouth to resume its pursed expression. Oh. She wants me to let this old broad up. Tarah released the woman's arm and stood up, brushing off her trousers. "Hit me again and I'll break your arm," she hissed as To-meri scrambled to her feet.

Eyes wide, the woman ran towards the bed and threw herself down in supplication. "Do you hear how she threatened your most loyal servant, my Pharaoh?" the woman wailed, shooting Tarah a deadly glare under her arm.

Tarah folded her arms and smirked.

The royal woman tsked and waved her hand. "Get up, To-meri. This is beneath you."

Gasping, To-meri scrambled to her feet, smoothing her grey-streaked black hair.

"As for you, Woman Out of Time," the Pharaoh declared, "you will be made presentable for my celebratory banquet. I will have you tell me of the future." With a click of her tongue, she summoned the massive men; they each took up a pole, lifted the bed from the ground, and walked out.

Tarah stared after her, thoughts spinning like a wheel.

I know her ... Cleo-Cleopatra?

A pretentious sniff snapped Tarah's concentration. She looked up to see the reddened face of the servant To-meri staring down at her, indentations of the tile still present on her cheek. "Only the gods could make a creature like you presentable," she said, picking up a thin, jointed baton from the ground.

"Do you want to eat the floor again?" Tarah growled, cracking her knuckles.

To-meri jabbed the baton up at Tarah's nose. "Pharaoh may have allowed you to lay hands on me once, but do not try her patience. Now, follow me."

------------

Tarah's fingers gripped the edges of the wooden tub until her nails protested. A gaggle of women fluttered around her, some digging their hands into her hair, others getting too friendly with washcloths. If she had to listen to them berate her figure one more time, she was going to drown a bitch.

Annabelle Zhao's body was far superior to Tarah's own, yet these women felt the need to be as petty about the pirate queen's appearance as the girls back home. Maybe they hated Tarah's borrowed boobs.

"These lower garments are so odd," one of the girls remarked, holding up Tarah's trousers like it was a plastic bag of dog shit. "Air must circulate around one's privates."

"Not my privates," Tarah groused.

"So unladylike," To-meri sang from her perch in the bathing room, conducting Tarah's humiliation like a grand orchestra. "So uncouth."

After being hauled out of the tub like a prized fish, Tarah was rubbed down so thoroughly that her hair crackled and puffed out behind her. She then had to sit on a stool while two women jerked her from side to side and nearly ripped half of her hair out.

At last, wrapped in a pale blue gown that stretched to her ankles, Tarah was deemed "presentable" and led through a maze of a palace until they reached a grand banquet hall.

Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last pharaoh of Egypt, sat on a raised dais surrounded by dozens of tables and twice as many people. Girls in gauzy fabrics and men in long loincloths performed in different corners of the room, but no one seemed to be paying them much attention.

The woman pharaoh's brown eyes lit up as Tarah entered. "Ah, all polished and pretty. Tell my guests, strange woman, what news do you bear from the future?"

Tarah knew little about the doomed Egyptian queen, Annabelle even less. But what she did know would not please Cleopatra. With Annabelle's eyes, Tarah looked around the room, gauging the best way to escape should her words fall on unhappy ears.

"Well?" Cleopatra prompted, causing To-meri to snigger quietly behind Tarah.

"Caesar Augustus will invade Egypt," Tarah began to the gasps of the gathered crowd. To-meri let loose a shriek and fell to the ground, crying out to the gods. "He will defeat your armies and you will commit suicide with an asp." She lifted her chin and stared at the queen, daring Cleopatra to strike first.

But the woman pharaoh smiled; a slow smile that did not touch her eyes. "That," she said, "is exactly what I wanted to hear."

[Purchased a lime at the Port Market to combat scurvy.]