Flesh To Bone

The pyramids and the sphinx were old to him, legendary monoliths built by long dead men and far from the sight of his current lodgings. Sasori watched as an Ibis with its sickle beak waded through the thrushes of the oasis his room had a view of. It's head rose from the waters it had been prodding about, snake dangling from its bill as it warbled a victory call.

They were in the seventh month of the year; Paremhat. The waters of the great river were slowly receding and the fertile soil that kept his kingdom prosperous would soon be left behind for the growing season. The grain storages were full, the common people well fed and as a result peaceful and compliant. Gold, silver and spices flowed through his coffers in abundance and the provincial nomes were well in his hands despite a brutal conflict ten years ago. They had thought youth equated to weakness and found themselves disastrously wrong, the sands had run red as testament. [1]

Pharaoh in title since the age of five and in truth at the age of ten, Sasori was fast approaching his twentieth year of reign. His father died in an uprising that threatened to cleave the united lands into two once more and his mother followed soon after giving birth to a second son she barely had time to name. That boy had been raised by servants and administrators far from his sight, he hardly had time to involve himself with a brother when he was concerned with the running of a nation and the preservation of Ma'at. [2]

If one were to name a single failure when it came to his preserving of the universal order it would have been a lack of heir-or even a Great-Wife. 'A tree that bears no fruit promotes neither stability nor continuity...' Sasori knew that and yet he could not compel himself to correct his current dead-end. There were priests and nobles who offered their daughters and he had refused each one and took no concubines. He was of the opinion that a wife should match the husband and found every aspiring applicant to be lacking. 'Why should a god marry beneath himself?' Whatever children resulted from such a union would surely suffer from poor breeding.

The gods, when asked were seldom clear in answering inquiries, they much preferred to let one come to conclusions on their own. 'Or rather, they enjoy watching us fumble about and occasionally succeed.'

Not here.
Not now.
Someday.
Snake In the Reeds.
Danger.

It was uselessly oblique but well within their nature. 'Someday could be any day.' They might as well have said pick one particular grain of sand when they were essentially all the same.

Danger was everywhere, always. In every breath, step and bite. Death was simply the beginning of a second phase of existence but he despised it none-the-less. There was treachery and adversity on either side of the divide and in life he was at least the top, a spot he found himself reluctant to give up easily. Sasori had heard it said that there was an emptiness to him and it left him wondering how such a thing would tip the scales when his heart was weighed.

He did not do what was right by virtue of it being good but because it was advantageous and morality, he had found, was often counterproductive to effective ruling. 'Lies have their place in the scheme of things' It was odd how keeping order often required one to commit acts of disorder. Poisoning one man against another with a whisper simply to keep them both under his thumb or even making a whole family fall sick within a night would surely be considered as causing-harm. Yet the gods who spoke to him never offered rebuke on such actions.

It was easy to tell when he was faced with a charlatan of a diviner, their words opposing those that he could hear whispered in the rustling of the papyrus or at the back of his ear at some odd hour of night. Sasori had come to the conclusion as a child that the gods did not speak to everyone, nor did they bless all with the ability to do magic. They might know the words to a spell but speaking it did not mean the universe and its mysteries would comply. A talisman could be crafted by expert hands but that did not make it imbued with power. There were in fact very few walking the earth whom the gods had given the ability to pluck and pull at the fabric of creation.

They bestowed the few they found worthy with their knowledge and will but there were none living so favored as he. Descended from Horus, Isis and Osiris as his father and those before him had been, their blood was within him. Though some held him more closely than others. Sasori had been named in Serqet's honor and had never known the fear of venom's sting. When he was a boy Thoth had whispered secret things that were hidden beneath the heavens, even Set in his wayward nature took an unexpected interest. [3]

Or they had. In the last few months silence had persisted as he traveled the lands in the midst of conducting a biannual cattle-count. Sasori brought a smaller retinue of retainers with him than most would have but the more that accompanied him the longer the journey took and he despised waiting. Halfway through and the current assessment involved the nome his brother had taken hold of through marriage, counting the livestock and surveying the land as they calculated the oncoming tax cycle.

At a glance the people of the province were quiet, well kempt and orderly but there was something insidious at work. The numbers were clearly skewed-there were far more men of fighting age than reported and enough horses to outfit a regiment. Suspicion high, Sasori had sent Deidara to look over the record of grains. 'It's about time that one did something useful besides hold a fan aloft.' He'd been very clear about the need to do it in secrecy.

If his instincts were correct, fraud would be the least of Rasa's worries. 'If he's stealing, only he bears the brunt of the punishment.' But insurrection...the penalty for that would come down on the entire household including his nephew. The province would be stripped away, the boy and his mother cast out and Rasa would be put to death, name stricken from record and denied a proper burial. 'He'd be a fool.' And despite the vast distance between the two of them, Sasori liked to think his brother had a modicum of sense if only by virtue of their relation. They hardly knew one another, the blood between them meant nothing. 'That simply means he has a perfectly good reason to want me dead.' The words of his father echoed back to him. Be on your guard against all who are subordinate to you...Trust no brother, know no friend, make no intimates.

The memory of his parents was a distant, vague thing. His father's broad shoulders, sun caught in the gold of his wesekh. Hair as red as Set's land, like embers left in a brazier. His smiles were few but his expectations were high before he ever pressed a blade or bow into his son's small hands. The sly, grey eyes of his mother, her lilting voice and cunning words. The sound of her screaming as she labored to bring another life into the world. Dark hair spread over blood soaked linen. 'What a shame it is that one son will soon kill the other.' Sasori thought, watching as the ibis took flight after gobbling down its meal.

Power and control were always persuasive and siblings killing one another to obtain it was a tale that went back longer than humans had walked the world. Set, capricious like the tempests he was affiliated with, had torn his own brother to pieces and scattered them across the land out of slighted-pride and jealousy. Cast down by Horus, he had to earn his penance on Ra's barque. It was there that he overthrew the great devouring serpent and brought the longest period of peace the gods had seen from that accursed snake since the dawn of creation. Nevertheless the stain never quite left his name. A hero and a villain, as strange as the animal that depicted him. If Apep was chaos for the sake of destruction then Set was chaos and adversity in search of advancement.

Horus, The Distant One It was as apt a title as they came. If his forebear were to be seen it was in the flash of a golden wing, a quick shadow darting over the sands and the sharp cry of a falcon in the dive. The other gods felt closer, more present.

Time. That was what Sasori was in need of. He was cut off from soldiers and allies, even if he spoke his spells and leveled the whole territory there was no telling who else had sided with his brother. 'I want to rip them all out at once. It will have to be a spectacle.' Sandaled feet paced over stone as he thought. There was no attachment to his brother and thus no pain knowing of Rasa's betrayal, only disappointment in himself for not seeing it sooner, for not planning better and the bitter acknowledgement that his grandmother had been right in the end.

You'll come to regret your neglect. She'd said that shortly before her passing and Sasori despised that in some roundabout way she had been right. 'I'll fix that.' Plotting to overthrow the pharaoh was a crime against the state. 'And the punishment is Impalement in a public forum.' Where everyone would see and know what they were guilty of, if there was anyone else who shared his brother's inclinations it would likely be enough to scare them off course.

"We should leave this place." Sai spoke from where he had been kneeling, facing the western wall. "I can't see anything." It was the absolute absence that worried him, like a great void was stretching out before them. Blinking,ink dripped from his eyes, thick lines cascading down his ashen cheeks. He had tried to divine a glimmer of what would, what could come next and failed, there was something foul in the air.

"Fleeing would be suspicious," Sasori intoned, having considered that course of action. "And Deidara has not returned." Abandoning him and slinking out of the city in the middle of the night would be giving Rasa something to use against him. Originally the blonde had been no more than a scribe, a job that he performed with sloppy disinterest but Deidara was nothing if not industrious, prepossessing a low sort of cunning that Sasori appreciated-even if that was about the only thing they had in common. In spite of his boisterous nature he was particularly good at finding things others preferred to keep hidden. 'Like his eyes were made to see through lies.'

The pharaoh looked beyond the painted pillars that framed the horizon to where the sun was sinking, the waters of the oasis looked black beneath the crimson clouds.

Smearing the black ink over his lids and the bridge of his nose, Sai's lips pursued. He had risen from the lowest caste, sold into slavery by parents desperate to put bread in their own mouths. A common fate that took a sharp upward when it was found that he was more than the circumstances of his birth. He learned to write, but not by any human intercession.

Seshet guided his hands and spoke through the pictures that he drew with sticks in the sand and wet clay. Sometimes the images moved, sometimes the words Sai wrote came true. He was taken from the fields when he was 10, They put him in a temple, dressed in fine clothes and leopard skins. They gave him paints and papers, bade him to write. It was there that he met Sasori, golden eyed and looking right through him-he heard the gods even more clearly than Sai did. This one you are to follow the spilled ink had said and so he had. 'All the way to this godsforsaken place.'

"We carry on like we know nothing." Sasori said, turning his back to the setting sun. "We'll be late to the feast." Time was what he made it and he had a very stringent sense of it. Wasting time was the height of disrespect when there was so little of it to go around. 'Hours are more precious than gold and silver.' And he would be damned if he wasted them.

The winds coming in from the desert blew transparent curtains into his path, cloth brushing against his skin and for a moment it felt to him as if fingers had coiled around his arm but when he turned to look there was nothing. The few guards that he had brought with him on the journey fell into step behind him and they walked further through the manse, beyond the fresco's of papyrus and lotus to the center courtyard where torches and braziers had been lit to chase the night away. Harps were strummed, accompanied by singing voices and dancing women but the world fell to silence when Sasori strode into sight.

Men and women fell to their knees, eyes diverted as those of the lowest rank pressed their foreheads to the stone floor. Even on the ground Rasa looked up, eyes too proud for someone as close to death as he was. The needle tucked in its secret place beneath his left cuff seemed more present then before. 'One prick and it could all be over in a day or two.' They could blame it on some wayward scorpion and he could be on his way. Sasori waited a moment longer before giving them leave to rise.

Rasa was taller, broader, his skin bronze from days in the sun compared to his own. 'More Set than a son of Horus.' Sasori had heard it whispered about his pallor but they had the same red hair and topaz eyes that shone with virulent pride.

The priest that had attended and instructed Rasa since youth was there, ever at his side so that he might whisper into his ear. Lids painted purple, the color bleeding from the corner of his yellow eyes and down the length of his nose. The sly smile Orochimaru always wore made him eminently dislikable but even worse was the consistent sense that he knew more than anyone thought. 'If my brother had any sense he would have killed that one long ago.' The hush that had fallen over the room ended as he took his seat in the middle of the raised table, Sai was sat at the furthest end.

A woman came, hands full with the pitchers she carried and spilling not a drop, wine and beer were poured into bone carved cups in ample measure all around the room. Only the three soldiers Sasori had tasked as his last line of defense abstained, mingling around the room but never far from sight. Seeing that he delayed in touching his cup, Rasa pressed his brother's vessel to his lips and took a liberal drink. "Forgive my wife for not attending, my son is rambunctious and runs her ragged." The words may have seemed like idle chatter to the untrained ear but all Sasori heard were barbs, a reminder of what he lacked and how it endangered him. "To your long health." Rasa offered the cup back, his head bowed reverently.

"And to your family's. I pray that the gods keep them." Sasori replied, well versed in saying the opposite of what he felt. He took a conservative sip and then set the wine back upon the table.

Rasa nodded and took a much longer drawl from his own cup, beer judging from the color as it had been poured. "May the gods grant you a fruitful reign."

'Lying is just another thing we have in common.' Sasori turned the bone-white cup in his hand, in the dim lighting it seemed darker than blood. 'When I am finished with him I must commit myself to finding a wife...inferior or otherwise.' He'd delayed long enough on that front. As far as he could discern there was nothing out of the ordinary, the room was full of laughter and song, symbols chiming like bells in the background. 'And yet there is a pervasive sense of wrongness.' He drank no more than he already had and saw that Sai had chosen to do the same.

Sai looked beyond the table, watching the few house-guards that milled around the perimeter. 'They don't seem particularly alert.' not with the way that they were drinking, it surprised him that Rasa allowed such sloppy behavior in his home. 'Deidara should have been back by now...' he was waiting for the blonde to come strutting along at any moment. 'The sooner that he does, the quicker we can leave this place..' he watched as a guard offered a drink to the soldier Sai referred to as One-he had never been very good with names but the man ignored him, back to the wall as he stared forward resolutely.

"Those who live today will die tomorrow and those whom have died shall live again." A woman sang, gasping deeply at the end of the first verse. "Speak gently for those that are haughty shall be humbled." She coughed, clearing her throat.

"Your fan-bearer is missing from the festivities." Orochimaru spoke, head canted to the side, dark hair spilling down like the veil of oblivion. From behind him, Sasori watched as someone threw a bundle of incense into a brazier and the way that the flames grew hungry to consume it, burning brighter and higher as fragrant smoke began to plume. Orochimaru turned his head, motioning for someone to bring forth a platter covered in thick cloth.

There was an itching in the back of his throat but Sasori's attention was focused on the shadow the sudden influx of light had cast; it was not the reflection of a man but of a serpent, long tongue flicking as it spoke. He'd seen gods before, rare as it was for them to walk in physical form. 'They like speaking more than being seen.' but who, or what he was looking at was indiscernible other than the sensation that it simply should not be where it was. He was not a man prone to nerves but a chill worked its way down his spine.

"We travel swiftly and the pace has exhausted him." Sai followed the Pharaoh's line of sight and saw nothing even as the platter was placed in the center of the table.

Sasori grit his teeth, voices spilling into his head like the Nile at its worst flooding.

World Encircler
Discord Bringer
Devourer
Vilest of Serpents!

They cried the titles so loudly and all at once, Sasori's hands dug into the edges of the table, knuckles turning white as he breathed deeply only to find himself coughing. The clamour of the gods had faded into hurried whispering and a new sound rushed back to him; All around the room he could hear the wheezing and hacking that had taken place during the brief distraction and he knew that it was no coincidence. 'I suppose there is supposed to be justice in a poisoner getting a dose of his own medicine.' He thought bitterly, swallowing down the copper taste that filled his mouth. He would rather choke than let them see blood.

"I'm sure he will find himself well rested now." Rasa spoke as the cloth was pulled. The serving girl dropped the jugs that she had crowded herself into a corner with-not out of horror at seeing the blonde, severed head that laid on the table or even the men being slayed all across the room but from whatever substance she had consumed. Her body shook and seized as she clawed at her throat. Music had ceased, the harpist's fingers had stilled and the woman who had been singing died choking on her own breath.

There was a shout from the corner of the room, the house-guard who had offered his cup so cordially had pulled a sharp, pointed piece of bronze and rammed it into One's torso, the others soon followed his lead. The three guards that Sasori had brought were neither weak, nor slow and the blow had not been a killing one. One hefted a spear he had wrenched away and tossed it, watching with impassive eyes as it slid through the neck of another man and sent him stumbling back in death. Victory was brief, a khopesh cut the leg out from under him.

Sai had darted to his feet, hand over his mouth as he coughed, red splattering through his fingers and onto the floor. 'Now would be a very good time for some useful advice.' There was blood everywhere, not only his own but all of it had begun to pull to the center of the room where it shifted and swirled as though someone were stirring it. Hieratic and Hieroglyphics began to take shape, panicked writings scrunched together in a manner that made it difficult to read. He kicked a brazier over and hot coals went skittering, specks of golden-red in the dim.

Yellow eyes gleamed, pupils thinning as Orochimaru's lips stretched into an inhumanely wide grin, delighted by the flurry of violence he had long seeded. "I've waited so long for something interesting to happen…"

The sequence of events was clear and even in his dire circumstances Sasori could make the connections. 'Rasa drank the wine and then the beer.' But even if he could get his hands on some, the likelihood of escaping with his life that night was low. Sasori looked at the face so uncharacteristically slack in death. One empty blue eye stared back at him from the tangled mane, there were many times he had wished for the man's silence, but he could not find it in himself to feel grateful at the method. 'How long will it be until that is me?' His burial chamber had not yet been finished. 'Although I doubt my body would ever make it there even if it were.' he rolled his shoulders with a sigh and flung the table upward.

The head was launched in Rasa's direction, long hair tumbling as it went, in the brief distraction it had provided Sasori was on his feet, a line of smoking wafting between them. "If it is of any comfort, he fought quite hard for a former scribe. Killed three of my soldiers when they caught him sniffing around places he didn't belong but as you can see, I've evened the score."

A spell withered on Sasori's tongue, throat constricting as soon as he tried to speak it.

"Now, now, none of that." The snake's shadow coiled and loomed over them all. "They must be so noisy in there, shouting so loudly they broke my barrier," he tsked. "Just a tad too slow on the uptake this time."

All but one guard was dead and thinking he might receive praise he limped and kneeled at his would-be king's side, offering up the sword he had done his bloody task with. Rasa's hand grasped the blade and without so much as a nod of thanks, he parted the man's head from his body. 'No loose ends, it was always going to end this way.' Those words had plagued him since he was young, fed by every tense silence on the rare occasion that the two brothers met. The knowing grew stronger with every cold, empty look cast his way and it was solidified by how Sasori operated.

'Always so careful to keep his hands clean before the public while those who kick up the wrong sort of fuss or become a nuisance find themselves having an unfortunate accident at worst and a quiet death at best.' Rasa's brother prided himself on a peaceful, productive reign at all costs, even preemptive ones. 'And he looks at me like he does everyone else; expendable.' As a boy he had thought the fissure between them had been struck from the moment he stole their mother's life but the older he became, the more sure he was that Sasori was simply incapable of loving anyone but himself. He watched the way his brother's eyes flicked about the room, ever thinking.

Piece by piece, Sasori saw how Rasa intended the story to go. 'He'll probably cart our bodies out into the desert and then tell the story that I left his household with too few guards and was beset upon by bandits.' And anyone who contested the story would meet the forces his brother had gathered and waiting. It wasn't the worst plan he'd ever heard even if the execution was unbearably sloppy.

"I suppose it's only proper for brothers to attend one another, especially when they are from a family with such an illustrious history." Orochimaru sighed wistfully. "Personally I find repetition to be boring-I've lived with far too much of it but I wasn't here when Set cut his brother to pieces..." his fingers laced together as he watched the scene before them. "Although I suppose the situation is not entirely the same, no one slept with someone elses wife…Well, as far as we know." He only smiled wider at the heated glare Rasa sent him. "Pity, that would have made it all the more interesting."

"Hold your tongue!" Rasa snapped, baring his teeth. "Don't think you can speak how you please."

The good humor fled from Orochimaru's face as quickly as it came, eyes like venom he spoke. "I've been indulgent with you because it amused me but my interest only lasts so long."

The otherness of Orochimaru's face struck Rasa in that moment. He barely looked human and he faltered, taking a step back for just a moment. He had known the man his whole life, his only constant and never once had his words been spoken with such acid. 'And his eyes…' His stomach turned. 'It's only the light...it's only…'

Needle between his thumb and forefinger a truth became apparent to Sasori after glimpsing the surprise and confusion that flittered over his brother's face. "Oh...of course you don't know what that thing is." The laugh was brief and short, turning into a wet mess within his chest. "When you invite serpents into your bed don't be surprised to find yourself bitten. Pity it won't be just you. That one won't stop until everything around it is consumed into chaos." It was hard to breathe, he labored for it. 'What is it doing in the mortal realm to begin with, how did it get here without anyone knowing?'

The gods had a job and it seemed that they were as derelict in their duties as he had been. Something beneath him shifted, red-black sand welled up from the stone floor until there was a mound of it at Sasori's feet. It was quiet and went unnoticed in the darkness.

Here and there
It shed its skin
biting free
a piece
slipping loose
from its tether.

'It must have been a very small piece.' But then, Sasori supposed even a small piece of a massive snake was nothing to scoff at.

"If you think your words will delay the inevitable you're mistaken." It always had to be this way, one of them was going to kill the other. Orochimaru had always said it was meant to be.

The words had become clear to him; Divide and distract. "You should look into the maw waiting to swallow you whole." Sai rasped, pointing to the floor. The blood glittered darkly, black enough in the low light that it looked like still wet ink and the ashes and stone floor were stark white in comparison. The head of a snake, eight loops of its long body stretched from Orochimaru to Rasa, its mouth opened wide beneath the man.

"What trick is this?" Rasa scowled and stepped beyond the fangs that dripped with phantom venom. He recognized the familiar formation with its many coils and loops that had always been used to denote Apophis within the temples. "That thing cannot be here!"

"Well…" Orochimaru sighed, eyes bright. "Now you've gone and ruined the surprise, haven't you?" He moved so quick, faster than a striking asp his tongue lashed out and wrapped around the priest's neck. From his robes Sai had pulled the sharpened reed he used for writing and stabbed it into the fleshy appendage. The snake thought even less of that and flung him into a wall head first, the crunching noise enough to tell anyone he would not be getting up again. Slurping the tongue back into its mouth with a squelch he hissed and shuddered, bones shifting beneath skin like it wanted to shed loose from something too tight to contain it.

"What are you?" There was a tremor in Rasa's voice but his hand held fast to the sword, unsure where to point it. The gods were distant concepts to him, he had only ever known them from myth and legend, ceremonies and practices passed from one generation to the next.

"I was going to wait until you'd killed your brother to devour you but I'm not sure I can tolerate your voice much longer." Orochimaru paused and tilted his head. "And when the two of you are dead and gone I'll be sure you're kept company by the would be princling…Oh, don't look so appalled, he whines incessantly! Father like son..." he trailed off, fingers against his lips.

The trembling ceased and something akin to fury crossed Rasa's face, teeth bared as he barked a threat he could never follow through on.

Reach down.
It too can
Be bound
For a time.

The voice was strong and self assured, he knew it at once to be Set's.

Sasori's hand sunk into the sand, going deeper than should have been possible. Grains so hot they might have scorched his skin sizzled as he reached and pulled free what had been given for the task. Curved sharper than the thinnest crescent of the moon and unlike any weapon he'd welded, the blade was as black as ebony. It was like no metal he had ever touched before. 'Bronze, copper, gold and silver...none are so sharp.' The power in his hand trickled through his veins, he saw clearer, the world more in focus. A scarlet gem was embedded in the hilt and it pulsed to the beat of his heart, slower with every second. Pain flew far from thought in the thrall of it. 'As though it was made for my hand…' And it was a hungry thing, desirous of cutting.

"Are you hurt that you've been lied to and used your whole life?" The question came out as a patronizing coo. "I told you since you were a boy that one day I would just gobble you up~ You don't know how boring it was up there, eon after eon trying to swallow the sun...This world though…" Sighing euphorically, Orochimaru raised his arms high as if basking in glory. "It's so much fun. How easy it is to turn one against the other! There is so much strife and chaos, I will never grow hungry or tired of it and the best part is that the gods have their hands so full with the original, they can hardly spare the time to come down here." He was finally going to get what he wanted; everything. The sun could wait, he had all the time there was that one could fathom.

'I could kill him.' Sasori thought, peering through his lashes at the man who stood between him and a monster. He had intended to all night, wanted to for longer if he were honest with himself. He moved, the world a blur around him.

From the corner of his eye Rasa saw Sasori rising, turning something over in his hand and then he was gone. Heart in his throat as the wind rushed past, a deep red line opened along his arm and the sword fell. It would serve as a reminder for the rest of his days that his life could have been ended that night and only by reasoning that would be forever unknown to him had it been spared.

The crook of the knife whistled as it cleaved air, coming down in a swift arc. It was only by jerking and twisting away that Orochimaru to avoid losing his own head, his eyes took in the blade and his lips stretched back into a snarl, fangs on full display. "Set." He had a special sort of hatred for that god in particular. They had traded barbs and blows, the pain of the cuts he had delivered could never be forgotten and what Sasori now held was a piece of that god cast down into the mortal realm. It was dangerous and the man wielding it no less so. 'This body is clumsy.' Orochimaru had never noticed it before, he had never been in peril within it before either.

Sasori's eyes were unblinking, a faint gold sheen ringing the pupils. He was more god than human in that moment and he felt nothing when Orochimaru's tongue flew out once more, edged and dripping in venom as it bit into his waist. 'Mistake.' He thought, cutting through the appendage. An awful, garbled scream came from the serpent's throat as the dismembered flesh writhed on the floor. His vision pulsed, growing dark at the edges he tasted death and noted it with cool detachment. 'Such a pity.' But nothing could be done about it, with what little time he had left, he thrust the blade through one yellow eye as deep as it would go. Exalting in the sound of bone grating and then gave the knife a good wrench upwards just to be sure.

The cold was creeping on, the unnatural warmth cooling in his veins. Rasa's face filled his sight for a moment, the question of why ringing in his ears. 'Even as I lay dying you have to be a nuisance? Killing you...that would have been low hanging fruit.' If Sasori was going to die it might as well have been in pursuit of something great but the words did not fall from his lips, nothing did.

Unseen, a single white snake slithered off into the shadows.

Hours passed as Rasa sat in the dark, confused and alone. In the end he knew, there was nothing to do but commit himself to the lie that he had already concocted, to the plan he had from the start. Bodies were moved, servants called to scrub and wash the evidence away and then they too, would be executed quietly later in time. 'No loose ends.' he repeated to himself weeks after his brother's death had been so conveniently discovered, the wound on his arm would have healed faster if he refrained from chaffing it every time he thought of the man, of what he had done. 'Of that awful night…' And now he was Pharaoh and hardly slept.

The Nile did not flood that year, crops failed and the people went hungry, feeding themselves on anger until there were riots in the street. A sickness fell over the land soon after and none were spared. His wife died and his son grew ill with one foot in Anubis' domain and Rasa did what any man without hope did. He prayed, on his knees with his head bowed. Incense at the altar drifted lazily and then began to ripple as if caught in a current.

Something growled in the dark and the hair at the back of his neck rose, his pulse lept. "Who are you?" he wondered, because in truth he had prayed to every god he could think of, such was his desperation.

What audacity
this one has!
You call out
names and know
not of whom answers?

It was hard to know when it sounded like more than one voice. Sighing echoed from every corner of the room and it felt as though the very walls expanded with it. A scorpion the size of his hand skittered down the shoulder of Sekhmet's carved visage, a carapace of gold glimmering in the lantern light as it moved. "We are all listening." It said, tail arched high.

There was a moment of speechless gapping as Rasa attempted to rationalize what he was seeing and hearing, broken only when a rattling breath escaped his son's lips. "Serqet."

"You have very little time to gawk." The scorpion said, pincers cutting through smoke. "Especially if you want to save your child, at the very least."

"You'll save his life?"

It will be spared.
All things come

At a price.

"Sekhmet has breathed a plague over these lands and will not cease until amends are made. Your child has little time but I can prolong him." If anyone were to ask, Serqet was personally infuriated by the events and found herself rather reticent to be helpful. 'But they are the last of their line…' and she supposed that was worth preserving. "What you should be asking is what you have to do to receive such a favor. This is after all a direct result of your labors. You've let a pest into the garden and like a weed takes root eradicating it will prove quite the task." he had been so blind to have sheltered it at his side for so long. "You watered it with greed and jealousy, letting it grow fat on your fear."

"Orochi-Whatever that thing was is dead, Sasori made sure of that." The words were bitter as they left his lips, like sand rubbing open wounds. "He would have killed me, what was so wrong with defending my life? How was I to know..."

And yet he stayed
his hand when the
chance arose.
Lies are a cold comfort.

The truth was just as frigid, a heavy weight that Rasa would carry.

"That was a piece of Apophis poured into the mortal world and If it's anything like its origin... eternal destruction remains elusive." Serqet's feet trekked over the prone body placed at the altar like some offering, he had the same red hair as the other boy she once knew. 'The one who looked and saw, always such a curious thing.' And always so unsatisfied with what he saw. Her stinger arched. "You ought to know that from the stories."

It is abated,
Diminished
But not
Vanquished.
In time It will seek
A return to what was lost.

"And what am I to do?" His head had begun to ache, ringing with voices and whispers. "The blade that Sasori used turned to sand when I touched it," Black sand after burning his hand. " And I doubt that any conventional weapon would be of much use."

"I see you have some sense." Serqet replied primly. "It cannot be taken, it must be given...It is a finicky thing as you have well learned.."

Laughing, he pressed his palm to his eyes. "Then it is lost, for Sasori is dead and can give nothing." It was too much, all of it. Rasa longed for the days when the gods were distant, obscure creations he only half believed in. 'I was jealous of him once, for the favor I thought they showed him.' But now in the dark, he began to think it may have been a burden all along.

Death Is not an end.
When the moment
Is at hand
He will rise again.

Something heavy slid from the shadows, gliding smoothly over stone. A tome came forth to rest before him, bound shut with gold and made of green stone, the hewn Hieroglyphs had been poured with electrum. "This is…" Rasa's hands shook at the touch of it. His skin tingled, he ached to open it...It longed to be opened. It wanted to be read. It had such things it could teach, so much to tell... The key that was meant to unlock it caught his eye as it too was rolled from the darkest corner and he scrambled to catch it like a man in the throes of an overwhelming thirst. [4]

"Resist that temptation you feel taking hold, It may only be a fragment of Thoth's Book but it can still drive the wrong sort of person mad." The right person was thousands of years away by her calculations-Thoth had a more precise date in mind. It was someone wise enough to know that just because they could do something didn't mean that they should. 'A strong moral compass and stubborn personality.' As she had been prophesied. 'A little odd but not unlovely to look upon.' Isis had quipped after a scrying.

Serqet words were a pointed as the star-shaped key in his hand. They cleaved through the mire but it was her stinger striking and sinking into his son's flesh that made his heart throb, that made all thought of the book flee from his head. Insidious desire gave way to love in that moment and his grip loosened.

"Wipe that look off your face, I've prolonged his life not ended it." She tsked, eight little legs chiming like bells as she clamored over boy and book in a wink of golden light. "Now listen closely, I despise repeating myself."

It would be best to keep her instructions simple, the man was at his wits end and it was plain as day to Serqet. "Take the book, gather the bodies-Your brother, his vassals and the remnants of that snake. Take and place a canopic jar from the other two among Sasori's-it warms us to know that you at least followed that tradition." The embalming had not taken place and the tomb that had been meant for the late pharaoh lay empty. "All of it will be taken to Ahket and buried. The city will be vacated and never entered again in many lifetimes and you will pass that key to your son and so on and so forth."

Ahket was their western most city, built by the last oasis before the world was eaten by unending sand and thirst. 'The place where the veil between the mortal realm and the divine is thinnest.' But it was a difficult place to reach and had dangers of its own. The greatest of Egypt's relics were stored there, more wealth than any state treasure had ever seen had been given as tribute to the gods in that place. 'A steep price.' And one he was more than willing to pay, it seemed that in the end Sasori would have a grand tomb after all. "As you say so shall it be...and what of the robbers and bandits that will eventually come to call?" [5]

When everything is
placed, it shall sink
beneath the sands
And be lost for a time.
When the stars
Are right and the events
aligned, what was promised
will be fulfilled.

"When everything is finished Sekhmet will breath back the plague and perfumed winds will sweep away what ails this land." Serqet said,climbing over the back of Rasa's hand. "I will be with you until then. Do not delay in your tasks. My treatment will not last forever and neither will my patience."

The rattling breaths that marked each in take of air his son had struggled for had cleared, even in the dim he could see a hint of color return to his features. "Yes," He would send a servant to fetch and tend to the child while he set himself to work. The book whispered in his hands but Rasa focused wholly on the feet, on the threat of the goddess on his shoulder should he fail. As soon as he could he wrapped the tome in thick linen and placed it in a gilded chest, far from sight and mind.

Details became more concise the closer Rasa came to finishing his end of the bargain; where to bury who and what, how things should be placed and what traps were to be laid. "We do not wish for it to be easy." Serqet had laughed when he asked why the jars were placed so far from the bodies they belonged to. "We must confound our foe and whatever allies he dredges up next time, no?" The emerald book was placed beneath the likeness of the god who had authored it, key strung around his neck like a yoke.

The deceased pharaoh and his servants were laid to rest in the center of a great hallway because as he had been told, a king needed attendants. They were surrounded by the watchful gaze of Egypt mightiest gods and Ahket was the only place in all the land where each of their likenesses congregated in one space. The sarcophagus that Sasori had been interred in was plain in comparison to his contemporaries, wrought of heavy black stone its only ornamentation was his name, the depiction of his namesake and a promise.

Death is not the end.

The city was vacated and as foretold it sunk beneath the sands. Serqet, whose company he had grown used to was gone and the gods were silent once more. The plague abated, the Nile flooded and he ruled the realm a haunted man who never spoke of his brother or the night that ended his life again. To his son Rasa passed the kingdom and the key he had been entrusted with, time ate away at the memory of those who came after them. Names were lost, powers waxed and waned, empires crumbled and the world marched on.

Memory however, was a persistent thing and though the story may have been corrupted and missing bits and pieces it passed from word of mouth, from father to son and mother to daughter, from the lips of old stooped grandmothers and the tale-tales of uncles until it was told to three little children of a particular family thousands of years after the fact. Who, for the most part considered it to be a silly old tale that would never play any importance in their lives whatsoever.

[1] Paremhat is a part of the Season of Emergence in the Egyptian calendar-the seventh month and it lays between March 10th to April 8th. Egypt was divided into 42 provinces/Nomes.

[2] Ma'at was both a goddess and a concept. She was truth, order, justice and harmony, present at the weighing of the heart. A king, or pharaoh was meant to promote Ma'at, which means that he had to keep and protect justice and harmony by destroying Isfet-her opposite; injustice, chaos and over all "evil". A responsible kingship meant that Egypt would be prosperous but if Isfet were to rise, humanity would decay and return to a primordial state and in general bad things would happen.

[3] Serqet: The scorpion goddess, she was connected to nature, animals, medicine, magic, and healing venomous stings and bites. As the protector against venom and snakebite, Serket often was said to protect the deities from Apophis, the great snake-demon of evil, sometimes being depicted as the guard when he was captured.

Thoth: Depicted with the head of an Ibis and sometimes a babon, He was the god of wisdom, writing, hieroglyphs, science, magic, art, judgment, and the dead. He was closely identified with Seshat, with whom he shared some overlapping functions. At times she was identified as his daughter and at other times as his wife. He was the reckoner of time and seasons, the master of divine and physical law. A god of many means.

Set: The god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion. He had a positive role where he accompanied Ra on his solar boat to repel Apep, the serpent of Chaos. Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant. He was lord of the red (desert) land, where he was the balance to Horus' role as lord of the black (soil) land. Nephthys was his wife and some stories say the contention that led him to murdering Osiris was not simply out of greed but because she slept with his brother which resulted in her giving birth to Anubis

Even the animal he is depicted as is chaotic. In ancient Egypt those with red hair were highly associated with Set, Seti I's name meant "Follower of Set" and he was the father of Ramses II. He has never been wholly evil though he did fall out of favor with the Egyptians throughout time.

Seshat: She was the goddess of writing, books, notations, and measurements. She also became identified as the goddess of accounting, architecture, astronomy, astrology, building, mathematics, and surveying. As the divine measurer and scribe, Seshat was believed to appear to assist the pharaoh in both of these practices. It was she who recorded, by notching her palm, the time allotted to the pharaoh for his stay on earth.

Apep/Apophis: The Celestial serpent that assaulted the sun barge of Ra as it navigated through the darkness of night, it was attacked by Apophis who sought to kill Ra and prevent sunrise. Gods and the justified dead would help Ra fend the serprent off but he was never gone for long.

Sekhmet: depicted as a woman with the head of a lion. Her name means "Powerful" and is usually interpreted as "The Female Powerful One". She was a goddess of destruction and healing, of desert winds and cool breeze...Plagues were known as "Messengers of Sekhmet" or "Slaughterers of Sekhmet". In the same way that she could bring the desert winds, she could deflect them, and the same with pestilence; just as she had brought the plague, she could cure it and was known as "Mistress of Life" in this capacity. She was not a goddess you wanted to be on the wrong side of.

[4] Thoth was said to have authored a book that contained all the secrets of the universe and an untold number of spells, two of which were identified as "Allowing one to commune with animals." and the other as "Allowing one to perceive the gods." It could make the reader the greatest magician that ever lived but narutally, that sort of power could drive a human mad and it was sealed away where no one could ever reach it.

[5] Ahket is a purely fictional place meaning "Horizon" but the Egyptians did believe the underworld was in the west where the sun set, and the western desert to them was where the world seemed to end because there was not much water available for drinking.

Whew...This is my second story concerning ancient mythology, damn...

This thing is so research heavy I could cry-more research went into this thing than any college paper I ever wrote. I just wanted to write a nice funny mummy fic and this is somehow where we ended up because lmao, I am OCD about the weirdest things. Put my papers in order? Nah. Do endless research for a fic because I'm scared some egyptologist is going to come along and wreck my whole life? Yup, you betcha.

If you have additional questions I am happy to answer them because I understand all to well what a fucking pain this thing is.

There is a period in the 13th dynasty that is missing the names of several pharaohs and so I have somewhat imagined that is the time in which Sasori lived but I am naturally playing fast and loose with history and mythology here. ( Among other things.)

Some fun facts; There were 2 kings in Egyptian history named "Scorpion."
Also, Ramses II had natural red hair in his youth and in his elder years dyed it with henna. In fact, there is a surprising amount of mummies with red or even blonde/fair hair.

People always talk about how the Greeks and the Romans were like, super debauched but lemme tell you something, the Egyptians? Kinky. How did the world come into being? Masturbation. How did Horus finally conquer Set? Semen battle. There was a whole festival where the pharaoh would go to the Nile and ceremonially masturbate into it apparently…Also, their clothes were sheer and uhm, being topless? A-ok. Of course there were also massive amounts of incest going around both in mythology and IRL…-coughs- Not that different from the Greeks there I guess.

That being said they were pretty liberal when it came to women's rights. It was rare but women could be doctors, pursue divorces, keep their own lands and occasionally ruled as heads of state. Egyptians deeply frowned upon adultery-a punishable offense in fact!

It occurred to me very late that the title is essentially an innuendo…hm.

Edit: I just want to say that for whatever reason, Gmail and have a massive lag/hole and I go weeks without getting alerts about reviews/follows/favs. For those of you who have done those things I am immensely grateful. Honestly there are times where i just want to stop posting on FF because its such a hassle, but then i think of you all and do it anyways c: don't feel put out by my lack of response...I really do try.