Moving on Out
Apr. 23rd, 2010 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanarillI don't want to move to California, but my desires often bear little resemblance to what is actually happening.
As a result, yesterday two huge guys with beards showed up to do the work of putting the house into boxes. In another week or so, these boxes will be loaded on to a truck and driven cross-country, to the castle of my fadda, in California.
Meanwhile, Set and Horu have been poking me, so here is a short. It is mostly characterization.
Title: The Best of Friends
Rating: G
Warnings: There's a divorce in here, if you don't like those.
A week after it happened - long enough for the news to sink in, but not long enough that everyone and their human could have come to see - Nebt-het showed up at their front door. Or at least in the front courtyard; they had found that it was absolutely impossible to separate the house from its own miniature word, and so setting it up meant that, while visible from the outside, only those who could travel to invisible worlds could get in. Nebt-het, of course, could, but she waited politely in the courtyard until one of them came out.
It was Horu who did so first, which was perhaps a bad thing.
"Hell-oh, it is you, Aunty Nebt-het."
Things could have gone very badly, then, had Set not come to see who it was.
"Nebt-het," he said.
She smiled, then, and it was real enough to break the frozen knife-edge of the moment. "You could have just told me, you silly man."
"I-honestly I had no idea what I might have said. 'I'm sorry, but marrying you was a mistake?' 'I love you, but I'm not attracted to you?' 'There will not be any children?' What?"
Nebt-het snorted. "Any one of those would have been preferable to the wondering. Especially before my pregnancy, when we didn't know if I was fertile and that might have been a reason. And then during-"
"Nebt-het-"
"Horu, you are very lucky. He's not very loud about it, but he is the most caring husband possible. When I was heavy with Inpu, there wasn't a request I could make that he wouldn't fill, and I tried." She turned her attention back to Set. "And it wasn't anything of an act. You did love me."
"I still do," said Set. "And I am sorry that it took me so long to realize that it will never be in the way you want."
"Hm," said Nebt-het, a small sound, but full of humor. "Well, I suppose better late than never. And I do own you forgiveness, after Inpu."
"No," said Set. "No debts."
"No debts," repeated Nebt-het. "I like it." Then she seemed to pull herself up, and said, "But there is still this. Set, I divorce you. Set, I divorce you. Set, I divorce you."
All three of them felt it as the bond dissolved. But it wasn't any kind of painful, the way it would have been if either side had any true regrets. It was simply a cessation of a tension so small and ancient that it became noticeable only it its absence.
Set smiled, and said, "Well, that's done.
"And well finished," agreed Nebt-het. "You should invite me in for some beer, nephew. Or has Set already managed to erode your manners so far?"
Horu grinned; Nebt-het had always been the one to amuse him when they moved house, Ise watching over her shoulder for a sign of Set every step of the way. "Aunty Nebt-het, won't you come have some beer? We've a wonderful senet table, too, and I would love a game."
"Senet and beer, hmm? How could I resist?"
Pander to my inner comment-whore, please! I do not like this no-feedback thing.
And now, since the house has been packed up and that unfortunately means the router . . . there will probably be little to no me this weekend :
As a result, yesterday two huge guys with beards showed up to do the work of putting the house into boxes. In another week or so, these boxes will be loaded on to a truck and driven cross-country, to the castle of my fadda, in California.
Meanwhile, Set and Horu have been poking me, so here is a short. It is mostly characterization.
Title: The Best of Friends
Rating: G
Warnings: There's a divorce in here, if you don't like those.
A week after it happened - long enough for the news to sink in, but not long enough that everyone and their human could have come to see - Nebt-het showed up at their front door. Or at least in the front courtyard; they had found that it was absolutely impossible to separate the house from its own miniature word, and so setting it up meant that, while visible from the outside, only those who could travel to invisible worlds could get in. Nebt-het, of course, could, but she waited politely in the courtyard until one of them came out.
It was Horu who did so first, which was perhaps a bad thing.
"Hell-oh, it is you, Aunty Nebt-het."
Things could have gone very badly, then, had Set not come to see who it was.
"Nebt-het," he said.
She smiled, then, and it was real enough to break the frozen knife-edge of the moment. "You could have just told me, you silly man."
"I-honestly I had no idea what I might have said. 'I'm sorry, but marrying you was a mistake?' 'I love you, but I'm not attracted to you?' 'There will not be any children?' What?"
Nebt-het snorted. "Any one of those would have been preferable to the wondering. Especially before my pregnancy, when we didn't know if I was fertile and that might have been a reason. And then during-"
"Nebt-het-"
"Horu, you are very lucky. He's not very loud about it, but he is the most caring husband possible. When I was heavy with Inpu, there wasn't a request I could make that he wouldn't fill, and I tried." She turned her attention back to Set. "And it wasn't anything of an act. You did love me."
"I still do," said Set. "And I am sorry that it took me so long to realize that it will never be in the way you want."
"Hm," said Nebt-het, a small sound, but full of humor. "Well, I suppose better late than never. And I do own you forgiveness, after Inpu."
"No," said Set. "No debts."
"No debts," repeated Nebt-het. "I like it." Then she seemed to pull herself up, and said, "But there is still this. Set, I divorce you. Set, I divorce you. Set, I divorce you."
All three of them felt it as the bond dissolved. But it wasn't any kind of painful, the way it would have been if either side had any true regrets. It was simply a cessation of a tension so small and ancient that it became noticeable only it its absence.
Set smiled, and said, "Well, that's done.
"And well finished," agreed Nebt-het. "You should invite me in for some beer, nephew. Or has Set already managed to erode your manners so far?"
Horu grinned; Nebt-het had always been the one to amuse him when they moved house, Ise watching over her shoulder for a sign of Set every step of the way. "Aunty Nebt-het, won't you come have some beer? We've a wonderful senet table, too, and I would love a game."
"Senet and beer, hmm? How could I resist?"
Pander to my inner comment-whore, please! I do not like this no-feedback thing.
And now, since the house has been packed up and that unfortunately means the router . . . there will probably be little to no me this weekend :
