Bloodied Sands

He wanted to murder someone. Several someones. A lot of someones. Unfortunately, he'd spent several days strapped to a bed in the hospital and sedated while he was getting patched up from his little fight with Anubis. Possibly he shouldn't have given into the temptation to antagonize the jackal so easily but... well, he knew better than to think he wouldn't do it again, given the opportunity. Only the next time he'd do it on his own turf. He wouldn't have been in the hospital even this long, though, if Anubis hadn't used his fucking teeth. Mostly, the hospital flunkies had seemed worried about infection as opposed to any actual injuries -- which hadn't been so terribly bad. Of course, when he'd shown no signs of infection setting in, he'd bee summarily transferred to prison while they figured out what to do with him. His record was longer than his own arm -- and that almost wasn't an exaggeration -- not to mention the part where he was still wanted on a few outstanding charges in various parts of the country. That was going to make getting out...difficult. Even with a good lawyer.

Which he didn't have.

And likely wouldn't get.

They were still stalling him, anyway.

He paced in his cell like any caged animal. At least they'd put him in solitary. At least prison was a place where he could hold his own. It wasn't the other prisoners who bothered him. Being locked up though, that bothered him. Not knowing what happened to his Star, that bothered him. Being jerked around by some monkey from the feds in a bad suit really bothered him.

He growled to himself. Somehow, he was getting out of here. And then there'd be hell to pay.

For once, he gets to be the hero, rushing in to save the damsel in distress. Nevermind that she'd have a few choice words on being described as a "damsel".

There she is, sitting in a corner, arms around knees pulled up to her chest. She's not wearing any clothes. The thought that they have touched her like that, have turned her into this small, shivering thing only inflames his rage even more. He's no longer what he once was, but he doesn't need to be able to destroy cities with a thought to destroy these so-called slavers with his bare hands.

After a few minutes, there's only one of them left, and her. Seth is a nightmare to behold, spattered in blood and gore and heedless of it. His final target is already gibbering in fear, pissing himself, backed into a corner.

Seth smiles.

The interesting thing about having so much brute strength at his disposal is what it means for the ease in which he can crack a person's chest cavity open. By the time he's finished and approaching her corner, there isn't a part of him not covered in crimson.

She looks up at him and it's Ishtar there, not her mortal host, looking up at him. He smiles again and kneels beside her as he holds his cupped hands out to her. In them, he holds a still beating heart, steaming a little in the chill of the room.

"Happy Valentine's Day, my love."

With most of the goddesses Set consorted with, arguments were epic things. Anyone within a one hundred mile radius of them would have known there was a fight happening. Set tended to favor consorts who knew of passion, after all. And he, himself, had always been more full of hot emotion than good sense. Fights with Nepthys, however, were different. He hadn't chosen her for his own wife, to begin with. Certainly, she was beautiful -- like Isis -- and certainly he would have slept with her with less than a little encouragement. But wed? That hadn't been his idea and yet he still found himself roped into it.

From the outset, then, Set didn't invest much feeling in her, or passion. She was chattel to be used when it was convenient for him and other than that, she had best simply stay out of his way. He knew, after all, that her sympathies didn't lie with him in the least. She was only meant to rein him in, tame him, break him.

Over his dead body.

But she was a pretty thing, and usually inoffensive company, and so he did not make it habit to antagonize her. Quite often it was the other way around. Her trying, trying so very hard, to change his mind on so many things that he was, quite frankly, determined to be obstinate about. It did not help she played nursemaid to the Horus-brat and spoke so glowingly of him Set more than once mockingly suggested she go let the babe suckle some other part of her body as well and to give him peace. She hadn't spoken to him for days after that, at least.

Oh, she'd come back and play the doting wife. She'd kiss and pet him and apologize for offending him. She'd expect the same in return. He never did give her that. He never felt he should.

That was when the fights would generally begin in earnest, if one could call them that. She, picking at him every chance she got but twisting her words to sound as if she genuinely wanted to help him. And he...well, that was usually about the time he grew tired of her, even if she was comely, and disappeared into the wilds for months at a time. Eventually, he'd return, she'd act as if nothing ever happened, as if he had never been gone, and the cycle would begin anew.

He started to wonder if he could short-circuit the whole process by coming back, fucking her, then leaving again just as quickly. In fact, he tried that tactic for a while and it only took one iteration before she wouldn't even shut up in the bed. After that, he just never bothered returning to her and found new places to stay when he tired of wandering.

In public, after that, she was always formal to him. Rarely were they ever in private. He'd always assumed, but never asked, that she preferred it that way.

And yet again Set slipped his leash and walked on his own.

If one were to look back through the mists of years gone by, back to a time before anyone had ever thought of building the great pyramids at Giza and to a place on the threshold between the wilds of the desert and the order of civilization, one might find a tent located there. That tent might just have been constructed facing the west, it's open flap aligned perfectly for the red rays of the setting sun to provide that bloody glow to everything within. There might just have been a man sitting just outside of that tent watching the sun sink slowly toward the horizon.

( To just look at him... )

[originally posted here]

A prelude, that's what it was, a promise of what was to come. It was just the beginning but nothing could occur without it.

Just the prelude.

But it was everything.

In the beginning, there was warmth. Respect. Admiration. Adoration. There was him. And there were the others and they were his, by right of his own strength. But then the change came and his life was-

-shattered.

No longer was respected, admired, adored. Not warm now, but hot, angry. The fires of wrath. Relegated to the fringe, skulking on the edge. Bitter.

Just the prelude, but everything came after was written in it. Would always be.

[originally posted here]