pandeities | [Horus and Astrate + NPCs] NYC

Entry tags:

horus

[Horus and Astrate + NPCs] NYC

Returning from Egypt, Heru hardly bothered to change his clothing as he pushed into his home in the Upper West Side. The beauty about living to high and isolated even in the city was no mortal was about to notice his sudden comings and goings, or the clothing he chose to wear.. It made him feel less...sullied by them. Even if he had reason enough, from his childhood, to be thankful to mortal men and women.

Making his way to the kitchen he found a bottle of wine and opened it in a lazy manner, pouring himself a glass. The light fabric of his shendyt was smooth against his skin and felt leagues more comfortable than the heavy, restrictive clothing of the mortal world. How Set put up with it daily he'd never understand.

He moved through the penthouse with a calm as he started pulling jewelry off and dropping them casually on tables. It was only when he'd stopped to look at the smudge of kohl on his left eye, the dim paleness staring back at him, did he notice something (or rather someone) that was out of place.

"Your presence is unexpected..."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Some of us weren't invited to the family reunion." Criminal, really, when you considered that she'd been married to Set for far too many thousands of years. "I really am insulted, you know."

She didn't look insulted, of course. Astarte looked as she always had, like a particularly elegant lioness prowling Heru's penthouse apartment as if she was looking for something to destroy. Perhaps someone to destroy, though, that had always been her favorite game. "Aren't you going to come kiss me hello, darling nephew?"

"You would not have come, either way." Heru said in a dry tone as he turned to look at Astarte. She was, he thought, ever the fitting wife for his uncle. Well, one of them at least.

"Will I be rewarded with a knife in my back if I do?" He asked, his tone almost bored as he moved closer to the other Goddess. The Sumerians were a tricky lot. They always had been.

She and Set would both disagree with that analysis. Never had they truly gotten on, except on rare occasions, and Astarte had been just as glad to see the back of him when he'd faded out of Egypt and moved East.

Except that he had moved straight into her territory. That had been irritating.

"I swear not a knife from my hand," she assured Heru with what was nearly a sweet smile. She leaned up and brushed her lips against his - there was no use in wasting an opportunity, after all - before she leaned back.

"Alas," she said, brushing her dark hair from her face. "I am not the only one here. Ninurta, Heru wants to meet Sharur.

Untrue, of course. No one ever wanted to meet Sharur.

Ishtar was not one that normally bothered Heru, or with Heru he would say. And before he could really say more to her, his attention had been firmly brought to one he had little to no love for- and for good reason he thought as he turned and caught sight of her father.

Quickly Heru back peddled, putting space between him and the other gods. There had always been some resentment there, there always were in the ancient pantheons.

"What are you doing?" He hissed at them both, a tension building in his arms and shoulders as he glanced from one to the other.

Astarte laughed as she stepped back. Not for long - she could never resist a battle for long - but her father had been simmering over the Egyptians for so many thousands of years. "Did you think we forgot?" She asked, raising her eyebrows. "What you and Set did to us? How my sister and I were given away as prizes? Would any of your sisters tolerate that, Horus?"

As if summoned, Anat came forward from the darkness, a vicious look on her face. "Really, Astarte, are you just going to talk all night, or help?"

"You're right, of course," Astarte said with a sparkling laugh. "What good did words ever do with this one?"

"I have no sisters..." Heru began, before finding himself dumbstruck by Astarte's sister arriving. For a brief moment he had to wonder- why on earth were Set's wives invading Heru's home? He didn't have time to think though as their father moved suddenly and heaved his heavy weapon at Heru's head.

Ducking the blow, he moved quickly to the side and pulled a pair of blades off a rack that displayed them. He would have preferred the bow or spear, but given the confines of his 'modern' home, there was no room for them now.

Three, he counted quickly, though his eyes searched quickly for any others that might have been lurking. Any one of them alone might have been difficult, but the three of them- together. It sent a ripple of concern down his spine as his fingers flexed and tightened on the hilt of his blades.

"Do you really wish to bring all of Egypt upon your head?" He asked, glaring at the three of them even as he brought his blades up to deflect another blow.

"All of Egypt?" Astarte's eyebrows went up. "You must be kidding, darling. All of Egypt does not care about you. Nor my husband." Who wasn't home when she'd called, the bloody pain in the ass, which was why Horus had won the lottery here. "Ra might bestir himself to care, but you and your pantheon have never been ones for action when you could just watch the world go by."

She drew a small bow from within the folds of her dress and cocked an arrow. "What do you think, Father? Death, or pain first?"

As if any needed to ask what the answer would be. Death wasn't much fun unless you'd played a little first.

She...had somewhat of a point, he thought. His birth had been out of a desire to have someone else fight Set, after all. Trends like that didn't change over night. Or over a few thousand years, for that matter. "You lack..." He started, when one of his swords caught the mace but the power of the blow still sent him across the room.

Damn, he thought, mentally cursing at Set. This was, he thought, his uncle's fault.

"Death," Ninurta said, his voice low and rough as he smiled. "He is too weak for an honorable battle, too unskilled."

Heru righted himself against the wall he'd landed against, eyes narrowing. "Too weak? You do not know me well."

"I know you well," Astarte said in an arch tone as she fired her first arrow. It went into Heru's left shoulder, and she smiled as she pierced the skin.

"I do as well," Anat said as she turned from Heru's wall with one of his swords in hand. "Pretty weapons, and so little use of them. Even when he fought our husband - you remember, sister?" She asked Astarte. "It was more like...foreplay than true war." There was a sneer in the Sumerian war goddess' voice.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Astarte said with a laugh as she approached. "Though I did often wonder when the Egyptians did not just stop playing games and marry you and Set to each other." She shrugged. It mattered little. "Now, Horus, I promised I would not knife you, did I not?"

"Amusing." Heru said with a grunt. He did not bother to pull the arrow out, and instead crossed his blades and snapped the shaft off cleanly. The wound could be dealt with later.

"I am so weak, and yet it takes....three of you bravest and most noble of warriors?" A dark smile crept across his features. "I did always think of you both as nothing more than kittens, though. No wonder you've brought you father. He might get you out of this alive."

In a sudden movement, he rushed Anat, one blade cutting low while the other came down as if to take off her head.

"Kittens?" It was said that one could hear lions roar when Astarte spoke in anger, and it was certainly true now. "Yiou mistake me for one of your own," she snarled, and he had no opportunity to behead her sister, as she withdrew a whip and cracked it.

A pretty affectation, some thought it, but Astarte never carried a weapon she wasn't skilled it. The tail of it slashed across Heru's collarbone, barely missing it's mark. Still, the line of blood was satisfying, and Astarte's lips curled into a smirk.

"I am looking forward to you breathing your last," she purred. "I believe that particular moment has been a long time coming. A shame our husband could never quite manage to end you as you so deserve. But if you want anything done properly, you really must depend on a woman, mm?"

This was not good, he thought, as Astarte's whip snapped at him, and then their father's mace again was flying- this time caught him in the shoulder, across the still weeping wound from the embedded arrowhead.

This is not a fight I can win, he realized, even as he fell into a table and chairs. The white linen of his skirt was already stained with blood, but the rather hoped he could avoid getting blood everywhere else.

"Women are such weak creatures," he said, even as he moved to avoid another hit from Ninurta's mace. The problem, he realized, was there were too many people to watch out for in this.

Anat turned and gave Astarte a curious look. "Does he think insulting us will cede him victory?" She asked, and Astarte laughed.

"Of course he does. He is but a boy," she sneered at him, "and he knows his chances are poor, so he lashes out with the one weapon he has. It is sadly unaffective," she said, snapping her wrist and sending the whip hissing towards Horus again. "But what can he do? He is only a man, after all. Hardly our match. An almost disappointing prey, hmm?"

"We will have to find something better once we have killed him," Anat said reflectively. "Perhaps a Greek."

"You speak as if you've already won. You haven't." He sneered back at them, kicking a side table out at Ninurta as a distraction before he moved with such speed and grace.

Anat was too busy, distracted by her sister as the vase came at her. She was even, in truth, almost childish in her annoyance as she swept the object away. But it had been enough, enough that Heru's blades crossed over her flesh as he appeared behind her and held her for a moment against his body.

"But you forget, Kitten. I am vengeance." He said, before releasing the goddess to let her fall. She laid at his feet, dying though not yet dead- there as still time to save her, as there always was with their kind.

"I think...it might be a bit unfair for you, now." He said, looking from Astarte to her father. Ninurta face screwed up in anger as he hurled the mace, Heru deftly avoiding it.

"I will rend your limbs from your corpse! I will send them to your Ra and mother as you slowly die the death of a thousand men!"

Her eyes went to her sister, just briefly, before her eyes went back to Heru. There was no fear in her eyes, only excitement. They would have to be quick, Astarte thought. There was little time if she did not wish to lose Anat.

And she did not. Astarte was called cruel, and it was not a lie, but family was paramount.

"And you forget," she said with an odd sort of serenity, "I have escaped the underworld before and sent a man back in my place." Heru was as good as Dumuzi, where she was concerned.

She moved faster than she had since she had unleashed this, lasting out with weapons and feet and fists, matching Ninurta in grace and speed. They had always been a pair in battle, and Heru would do well to remember that his victory had not been an easy one.

Perhaps he did remember, she thought as she stepped away from him, smiling at the sight of him in his own blood, before she turned to take her sister into her arms.

"Who will save you now, vengeance?" She asked, and laughed as she led her father out.

Heru was pressed hard to hold his ground, and eventually he found he could not keep their blows from landing. He could only laugh, even if softly at Astarte, whispering softly even though she could not hear- vengeance never dies.

But as the silence of the empty pent house began to fall around him like a cold blanket, Heru had to wonder if his own words were true. He wasn't even sure if anyone would hear if he called out to them, like a summons. Egypt was so far away.

"Set..." He said, breath hard for him to catch. "Set...Thoth...." Though Thoth, he knew was too far to hear- or would ignore it as an annoyance even if he did. "Please. Set...."

Please be back from Egypt.

He was unsure why he had stayed so long in Egypt. Perhaps the homesickness, so easy to ignore when he was far away. But it mattered not, except that he did not return until the hour was late, and Clarissa was long gone for the day.

The way he preferred it right now, truthfully.

He was at his window, looking out when he heard the voice. Too thin to be Horus, and yet - he had known the other god too long to convince himself that it was not. It took him only a moment to set down the drink he had poured himself.

Another to be in Heru's home, where he found himself in the aftermath of a battle. The question of who was answered, mostly, by the indent of a mace in the wall.

"You look terrible," he said a bit gruffly as he bent down. "I just cannot leave you anywhere."

Heru rasped for air, his eyes barely focusing on Set as the other god appeared. It was only then that a sudden panic fluttered into his mind, that Set would...just end everything, and despite it all he did not wish to die like this.

"Your..." He started, struggling for air. "Wives. Came to...to...visit...with...." He trailed off, his eyes lids dipping low.

"With my father-in-law, I daresay," Set said. He did not hesitate as he concentrated his power to find where Heru's injuries were worst.

He was not a healing god, not by any stretch of the imagination. Sekhmet had always been better at this, and Set's brow furrowed as he pushed himself. "They did quite a number," he said, glancing up at Heru's face.

"Relax," he said. "All will be well." It was strange how often they reassured each other in these times, he thought.

"Your wives..." he started, before he paused as he blinked slowly. "Your wives are too much trouble." And he thought that a good enough reason for him to never marry. It was all too much trouble.

"They hold....quite the grudge." He said after a moment, his eyes shutting for good this time. It was too much effort to keep them open any longer. "Against you."

And Ra, he supposed.

"I have never excelled at husbanding," Set said a bit dryly after he had done what he could. Heru would see to the rest, when he had recovered his strength.

But he could not stay here tonight, Set thought, and he looped one of Heru's arms over his shoulders. "Astarte is a bitter one," he added as he lifted Heru up with some effort. "I daresay after dealing with the pair of them, it may be a good evening for television and pad thai."

Heru protested a little as Set got him to his feet, his limbs and bruised body screaming in pain. He would still need to dig the arrow head out of his shoulder, before long.

"Remind me to behead her." Heru muttered as they left his home and appeared rather abruptly in Set's home. "Nad what....is pad thai?" Or television, really. Heru had yet to really experience the mortal world.

"Be a man about it, Heru. We've put each other into worse shape over the years." Well, perhaps not. In the end, at least once there ceased to be any chance that he would be allowed to be Egypt's protector - the two of them had pulled their punches, so subtly that only the two of them knew.

"It is a food dish. Noodles, vegetables, and spices. Not quite like our food," Set added as they disappeared from the wrecked penthouse and reappeared downtown. "But it reminds me of it, somehow. The heat of it."

He set Heru on the couch and picked up his unfinished scotch. "You will want that later, I believe."

"....She wanted to torture me to death, and I need to be man about it?" Heru asked, skeptical as he fell onto the couch with a slump. As for the food, he just nodded. There wasn't much point in saying anything one way or the other. Not at the moment.

"Thank you," he mumbled, though, as he took the scotch and lifted it to his lips. With luck, the alcohol would dull the pain. If he drank enough of it.

"I hope you don't plan to have guest."

"Astarte wants to torture everyone to one degree or another. It is her way." Part of the reason they had never meshed well as man and wife, really; he might be a chaos and storm god, but one wanted a certain degree of peace when one went home.

Occasionally.

"Clarissa has the next few days off," he added as he sat on the arm of the couch to get a closer look at the arrowhead underneath Heru's skin. One of the barbed ones, no doubt. Astarte was fond of those particularly. He withrdrew one of his daggers to slice the wound back open. "And I generally prefer a few days alone after subjecting myself to the loving attentions of our pantheon."

Heru cried out, more in surprise than anything else as Set's knife cut into his flesh. Though, to be honest, he didn't know what was more irritating. The lack of warning, or the way in which Set defended his wife.

"If she has a wish to kill one of us," He said through gritted teeth, "that one should be you, not I. Or Ra. Ra was the one that gave them as a prize."

"Do not be ridiculous, Heru," Set said as he pushed on the other god's flesh to bring the arrowhead to the surface. "She wishes us both dead. Truth be told, she wishes us all dead, and she merely began with you.

"Could she possibly use a more archaic weapon?" He scowled as the arrowhead fought to stay buried. "She was always an unparalleled bitch."

Having someone dig about in his shoulder, even if it was to pull a barbed arrow head. If there had been more of a shaft left, he thought it would have been less painful to just push it through.

"Ah, you fucking bastard..." He groaned, feeling the barbs of the arrowhead digging in even more. "Fucking hell! Stop!"

"If someone had not broken the entire shaft off," Set pointed out in a tight voice, "this would be easier." He did not stop, though, and as Heru cursed him, and his mother, and his father, he narrowed his eyes on the metal he could see close to the surface.

"I have it," he said, and finally pulled it free, dropping it carelessly in a blown glass bowl on the table, where the blood blended in with the fiery reds and oranges of the glass.

"Drink," he told Heru, as he placed his palm over the wound again, closing it once more. "You have survived to curse me another day."

He drink, draining the glass before he took the bottle and poured more as Set sat next to him again. He didn't feel victorious in serving to curse at Set another day, but it might have just been Heru's contrary manner at the moment.

"I really hate you," he said as he drained the second round of whiskey, and slumped on the couch. "I really hate you." It was the least he could point out at the moment, sighing a little as he let his eyes drift close. Between his family and...Set's wives, he was exhausted.

Set gave Heru a sidelong look as he used his phone to order dinner for two, and despite the stress of the last few days, not to mention the last hour.

"Darling," he said dryly. "There really is no reason to sweet talk me. It will go straight to my head."

"Which one?" He asked, a barely there smile on his lips before he shook his head. This was a quiet moment that few others had the privilege of witnessing out of them.

"You never change in some ways."

"Oh, both, really," Set said with an amused sort of tone to his voice. He knew what he was - and embraced it in a way that their brethren often disapproved of.

"Neither do you," he pointed out, though, as he set his phone aside and leaned back. He wasn't in the simple linens he had worn home any longer, though the loose cotton trousers and shirt were far more casual than what he usually wore. "In some ways, we are not capable of it."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Horus and Astrate + NPCs] NYC

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject