In Plain Sight

"It's all so SHINY!"

Daniel rolled his eyes as Vala flung herself enthusiastically into a large pile of gold coins and started pouring them over her head. "How old are you again?"

She grinned at him. "A girl can never be too old for gold, darling."

"I noticed," he replied dryly, looking through the piles of very expensive artifacts. Most of it looked like decoration or novelties of the time. All the usual stuff you'd find in a treasure horde, or an Egyptian burial chamber. Speaking of which... He spied an Egyptian-style pendant in a small chest of men's jewelry, and picked it up. The obsidian jackal was overlaid with a gold ankh, something that Daniel found interesting. Symbols of death and immortality, he mused. Could be referring to Anubis, but something tells me it isn't.

He held it up and watched it spin slightly, then something just past it caught his eye. Lowering the pendant, he scanned the pile of treasure in front of him for what was so out of place. "Bingo!" he muttered in surprise, pocketing the amulet and reaching for his discovery. The book was big, heavy, and dusty, but he hardly noticed as he cracked it open to see pages and pages of Ancient. "Sweet."

He sat down on the stone steps to read, the pendant forgotten.