Fic: Subtle
Apr. 26th, 2010 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanarillSo today was anti-stellar. I got up to a dry, itchy throat. Sometime about noon, someone replaced my head with a pumpkin. I managed to make it back to my room for sleeping, but instead of doing the sensible thing and skipping Polymers class, I forced myself to get up for it and spent the entire class dying and failed to learn anything anyway. Then I came back to my room and slept some more. I am fairly certain I had a fever, because right now I'm doing that post-fever lie-naked-a-think-cold-thoughts thing. I can't go to sleep since I woke up. And I have a headache consuming half my head.
If this has not gotten better by tomorrow evening, I am calling Dr. BZ and asking to drop the immunosuppressants for a few days to get over this.
Oh well. Have some fic.
Title: Subtle
Rating: PG
Warnings: Alluded-to violence, but nothing onscreen. Also, Fluff.
Set had been his - and he, Set's - for two months now, and he just kept finding new things to love.
There was the way Set came home in the morning, exhausted from the nightly battle and sticky with sweat. He always washed before crashing, of course, but the first thing he did, every day, was to come to their bedroom and just . . . watch him. Make sure he was still there, and still safe.
There was the way he had, two weeks in, asked him for the workshop-courtyard. Since then, he'd turned it into a miniature weaponry, complete with a blast furnace. What he had not known, at least before this, was that even if the things that Set made were, at their very essence, things to kill, he didn't do it by halves. He'd make as neat a sword as there ever was, but the hilt would be inlaid with real lapis lazuli and carnelian and malachite, the scabbard of fine lambs hide with a tooling of gold. "Killing is an ugly thing," he said, "but that is no reason to make an ugly tool."
There was the way that, a few days after every one of their relatives and their humans had begun to come see their world-home, he'd put the word out that guests, at least uninvited ones, were not welcome. It wasn't because he was particularly uncomfortable, since being known as the first murderer had stripped him of that luxury aeons ago. Instead, it was because he had, somehow, noticed that Horu was uncomfortable with others in this, their space, and done something about it.
And there was . . .
It had been a long, trying day. A horrible day too; murder was never pleasant, but killing in the heat of the moment was at least understandable. Killing just for the sake of it, twice, before Sekhmet's own hauled the pitiful excuse for a human before the law, was pure chaos. Neferka had sentenced the man to death, with his full support, but still. That it had happened in the first place was a hard weight on him, his failure as a leader, as a king.
And then Set was simply there, next to where he sat in the dimness of their storage room. He felt more than heard Neferka tell him to go, talk, be with his god of the Red Land; his wife was, after all, doing the same for him, and his presence was neither necessary nor particularly wanted. So aside from a token sense left to alert him should anything happen, he withdrew almost entirely from the human king's mind.
Set just held him, for the longest time, quiet and thoughtful, content simply to be there for him, until at last he said, "Shouldn't you be getting ready to fight the Apep?"
"I am," answered Set.
He was quiet again. Horu had never, himself, understood how any god could take more than one human at a time. Being in two places, and one of them incorporeal at best, was as far as he was willing to stretch himself. But Sekhmet consistently had three, and Thoth had every dedicated scribe in the kingdom. Compared to that, he supposed, being in five or six places at once was nothing. Which reminded him.
"Doesn't one of your humans belong to Sekhmet's own?"
"He wants to, certainly. She is right when she says that she has a duty."
Horu thought about the kind of person it would take to contain Sekhmet - wild, battle-hungry, beautiful Sekhmet - much less control her, and agreed. But.
"Duty doesn't mean there is no space for love."
"Hmm," agreed Set.
More quiet, but of a different quality altogether. And then he said, "I would like to come with, tonight." Killing the wild, destroy-the-world-to-watch-it-go-dark chaos at the source, rather than ineffectually fighting the results . . . well, the Apep always came back. But there would be time, in between.
Set didn't say anything immediately, but held him more tightly for a moment. "Sword, or mace?"
Hmm. Should I make a tag for this universe? There's lots more bunnies nomming on my ankles, so it is maybe a good idea.
As always, give me concrit!
If this has not gotten better by tomorrow evening, I am calling Dr. BZ and asking to drop the immunosuppressants for a few days to get over this.
Oh well. Have some fic.
Title: Subtle
Rating: PG
Warnings: Alluded-to violence, but nothing onscreen. Also, Fluff.
Set had been his - and he, Set's - for two months now, and he just kept finding new things to love.
There was the way Set came home in the morning, exhausted from the nightly battle and sticky with sweat. He always washed before crashing, of course, but the first thing he did, every day, was to come to their bedroom and just . . . watch him. Make sure he was still there, and still safe.
There was the way he had, two weeks in, asked him for the workshop-courtyard. Since then, he'd turned it into a miniature weaponry, complete with a blast furnace. What he had not known, at least before this, was that even if the things that Set made were, at their very essence, things to kill, he didn't do it by halves. He'd make as neat a sword as there ever was, but the hilt would be inlaid with real lapis lazuli and carnelian and malachite, the scabbard of fine lambs hide with a tooling of gold. "Killing is an ugly thing," he said, "but that is no reason to make an ugly tool."
There was the way that, a few days after every one of their relatives and their humans had begun to come see their world-home, he'd put the word out that guests, at least uninvited ones, were not welcome. It wasn't because he was particularly uncomfortable, since being known as the first murderer had stripped him of that luxury aeons ago. Instead, it was because he had, somehow, noticed that Horu was uncomfortable with others in this, their space, and done something about it.
And there was . . .
It had been a long, trying day. A horrible day too; murder was never pleasant, but killing in the heat of the moment was at least understandable. Killing just for the sake of it, twice, before Sekhmet's own hauled the pitiful excuse for a human before the law, was pure chaos. Neferka had sentenced the man to death, with his full support, but still. That it had happened in the first place was a hard weight on him, his failure as a leader, as a king.
And then Set was simply there, next to where he sat in the dimness of their storage room. He felt more than heard Neferka tell him to go, talk, be with his god of the Red Land; his wife was, after all, doing the same for him, and his presence was neither necessary nor particularly wanted. So aside from a token sense left to alert him should anything happen, he withdrew almost entirely from the human king's mind.
Set just held him, for the longest time, quiet and thoughtful, content simply to be there for him, until at last he said, "Shouldn't you be getting ready to fight the Apep?"
"I am," answered Set.
He was quiet again. Horu had never, himself, understood how any god could take more than one human at a time. Being in two places, and one of them incorporeal at best, was as far as he was willing to stretch himself. But Sekhmet consistently had three, and Thoth had every dedicated scribe in the kingdom. Compared to that, he supposed, being in five or six places at once was nothing. Which reminded him.
"Doesn't one of your humans belong to Sekhmet's own?"
"He wants to, certainly. She is right when she says that she has a duty."
Horu thought about the kind of person it would take to contain Sekhmet - wild, battle-hungry, beautiful Sekhmet - much less control her, and agreed. But.
"Duty doesn't mean there is no space for love."
"Hmm," agreed Set.
More quiet, but of a different quality altogether. And then he said, "I would like to come with, tonight." Killing the wild, destroy-the-world-to-watch-it-go-dark chaos at the source, rather than ineffectually fighting the results . . . well, the Apep always came back. But there would be time, in between.
Set didn't say anything immediately, but held him more tightly for a moment. "Sword, or mace?"
Hmm. Should I make a tag for this universe? There's lots more bunnies nomming on my ankles, so it is maybe a good idea.
As always, give me concrit!
