Usually, car rides are boring creatures filled with Mr. Morioko speaking in low tones on his cell as their car crawls its way through morning traffic. This morning though, Sasha gets to tap her foot to the cool beat of the bouncy tune on the radio. At the end of every verse, she taps her toes against the back of the car seat ahead. When her mother looks back over her shoulder, the girl smiles brightly; and, it isn't long before her mother's stern look vanishes with a sign and a roll of the eyes.

Dad would have totally kept that up for longer.

And Mr. Morioko's stare wouldn't have been an obvious attempt to hide exasperation and amusement at his daughter's antics. No siree, he would have just kept staring and staring until the light turned green or Sasha mumbled an apology.

Instead of frowning, the girl blows the light brown bangs out of her eyes and leans forward in her seat to snatch her mother's coffee from the cup holder.

"Sasha!" Her mother's voice doesn't even cause the girl to flinch as she takes a sip. "What are you doing?!"

The girl wrinkles her nose at the strong taste of the sugarless drink. "Waking up. I got up bright and early to see this exhibit and I'm not falling asleep before I even get there." She called in sick to school too; but, whereas her parents would usually be on her case about that...Well, its for Archeology, skipping a little P.E. and high school math is okay if you're doing it for a Good Cause.

She giggles as the drink hits her nerves. "Thanks, Mom."

Her mother sighs a quiet "oh, what am I going to do with you?", which barely pings on Sasha's attention before the museum catches her gaze. It isn't much to look at compared to, say, the Smithsonian, and its size is rather small for a city like Domino, but...She remembers toddling up those steps for the first time and looking up and up and up as those Roman columns loomed over her.

This is her museum, her home-away-from-home.

The second the car stops, Sasha is out. She doesn't skip past the few trees like she did when she was seven, but she does hum the song that got cut off when the car shut down.

Her mother does not even try to call after her. She only sighs as she grabs the stack of folders from the other front seat.

At the sound of a clatter, Sasha stops and looks back over her shoulder to see her mother staring accusingly at the three folders on the ground while trying to hold on to the rest.

"Mommm." Sasha jogs back to her mother and kneels down to snatch the few folders out of the dirt. "What did Dad say about bringing all of your work home?"

"I think he said 'no kicking the seat.'" Her mother shoots back.

Sasha shrugs and falls in line with her mother as they both make their way to the museum doors. It doesn't take too long to drop everything off at her mother's office in the back, but still, by the time Sasha is free, the pent-up energy and coffee have her practically buzzing.

The artifacts stretch out before her, each one a spark of fascination as she walks by the exhibits. She almost gets caught on the illustrated 15th century manuscript detailing the Christian Genesis, but she forces her attention away before she gets stuck studying the gem-colored pages for the next hour.

There is one treasure that she came to see first, one that no other museum or private collector in the world has.

Out of the corner of her eye, it is the blue that catches her attention first. Drawing her in like a magpie to silver, the pull is so consuming that only by chance does she not bump against the other person viewing the exhibit.

The tablet behind the glass is more than blue-it is the color of a still lake at twilight, catching the last deep blue of the sky as a few of the brightest stars twinkle within its depths.

It burns, the need to run her fingers along its near smooth surface and to trace the cuneiform carvings inlaid with gold. She wants to hold the lapis lazuli tablet in her hands and to be the first one in thousands of years that reads out loud the tale it tells.

It pings, somewhere deep in her subconscious, that the other person there is staring at her.

"Are you reading that?" The voice borders on incredulous.

Sasha jolts upward. In a blur, she pulls her hand back away from the glass and to her chest. She looks to the other person, a boy her age with hair whiter than snow, and meets his eyes. They are a pale, soft green.

"Ummm..." Words flutter into her head only to evaporate under his stare.

"Your eyes," He says slowly. "They looked like they were tracking the words." His expression is not empty, but no kindness or scorn slip through. "And you were mumbling something."

"Oh, yeah, um..." Some rational thought coalesces within the jumbled mess. "My mom's the linguist here. I kinda was, like, raised on this stuff." Sasha is surprised when he doesn't wince at her winning sentence and instead nods thoughtfully.

"Ms. Morioko, I've read some of her work." The boy holds out his hand like the English do. "My father, Dr. Bakura, mentioned her a few times, but he never said that she had a daughter. It's nice to meet you."

There's a part, a very small but smart part, of Sasha that realizes if she shakes that delicate, almost feminine hand that she will lose every scrap of composure she has left. So, she half bows.

"Name is Morioko, Sasha." See, there, a totally raised in Japan girl. "It's nice to meet you Bakura...?"

"Ryo." He says after a short pause. "Ryo Bakura."

Ryo Bakura...there's a ton of kanji that could be making up that name. Ryo alone can mean anything from "light" to "dragon" to "spirit."

"So, what does your name mean?" And her wonderings are out of her mouth before Sasha can think to stop them. "I mean, if you don't mind me asking." Embarrassment prickles under her skin but she manages to prevent it from squeaking into her voice.

Bakura stares at her, almost as if he can't quite process her weird, stupid question.

Now he's thinking that I'm a complete dork. Oh, hi random stranger, what's the etymology of your name. Yeah, that's a great icebreaker Sasha, just great.

"It's an old name." His voice is steady, but not quite calm. "Older than the Japanese kanji that my family has chosen to represent it with."

Sasha stills as the boy before her stares right through her with green eyes that seem sharper around the edges than before.

"A few of my...ancestors fled from Egypt a long time ago, and with them they carried this name. It was said to have been created among the ruins of an old kingdom, one that had forgotten the sun god that they served." There's something that's not a smile that sharpens the upward tilt of Bakura's mouth. "A name made to remind those who possessed it of the shadow of the mountain under which generations of their people had been born and under which they had died."

"Oh!" Sasha's pulse races under her skin. "The Bakhu mountain, right?! That's supposed to be the Eastern Mountain that Ra rose from every day." The name is easy to place, the details for most mythological legends have resided in her head almost as long as her own name.

"So, your last name essentially says the Mountain of Ra." She's never heard of a name created in the ruins of an Egyptian kingdom before. But if it's a family myth, then of course she would have never come across something as personal as that. Nor something as cool. His name sounds Japanese enough that Sasha would have felt confident guessing at the kanji if someone asked. But this foreign name in disguise is way better.

Bakura watches her as the seconds tingle across her skin. And then, a slight smile slips onto his face. "I suppose you could say that. The true meaning isn't apparent, though, unless you combine both parts of the name."

Sasha leans in closer, her eyes bright with curiosity. "And what does 'Ryo' mean then."

He grins at her as his next words slip past teeth with canines that seem too sharp. "Oh, but you'll have to guess that one."

What?!

"You can't do that! There's, like, a ton of 'ryo's.' How am I supposed to know the correct one?!" The words burst out of Sasha as she pulls back away from the mean boy with the cruel smirk...But then the smirk slips away, and he glances to the side. For a heartbeat, he is completely still until he looks back and focuses on her again. That almost empty expression of his has returned.

Her false indignation (because, it would have been fun guessing the boy's strange name even if he's teasing her about it) dims into disappointment.

"Bakura?"

His eyes flicker before he bows slightly. "I apologize, it seems that there's a matter I must attend to." But before turning from Sasha and slipping away among the exhibits, he stares at her and says,

"Just think of this parting as the beginning of a little game. If you can guess my name before we run into each other again, then you'll get a prize. If not...well, we can discuss the consequences of that then."