| Homecoming (Tag: Isis) |
[08 Dec 2008|04:48pm] |
Long past exhaustion, Nephthys flew.
She'd hidden for over ten years at the top of the world. Burrowed into the tiniest village she could find, on the furthest mountainside in Tibet, Nepthys had closed her eyes, swathed herself in furs, and imagined that she'd never known any world but Tibet. It had worked, at least until Set arrived. As usual, he left her uprooted and devastated, half-naked and weeping, whispering in her ear the command to return home, which was somewhere between an invitation and a threat. Reunions with her husband had been predictably going like that for several hundred years by now. Fifteen years ago, he'd found her on a bridge in Bosnia. Before that, it was Ireland.
Each time, she fled, and he hung around to cause a bit of bloody chaos in her wake.
Taking the form of a falcon, she flew on and on, pushing herself until her wings faltered from exhaustion, threatening to plummet her to the ground. It was time to go home. She needed home, needed Isis, needed the haven that her sister could provide. It might not last. A decade or two would be all she could bear, and then she'd be gone again, disappearing to the jungles of the Congo, or forgetting herself in the Australian outback.
Soon enough she'd flee. For now, it was time to regain her title, to stand once more at her sister's side. Egypt ran in every drop of her blood. Her very bones thrummed with longing for home.
Set wouldn't know she'd come back, not yet. The longer she could keep him from finding out, the better. She needed time with her sister, time to cope with the reassumed weight of godhood, before she would be ready to face her husband's temper again. Would he be glad she'd come home?
It had been near two thousand years since she left him, and had been running ever since. He'd done nothing to deserve her abandonment--well, nothing more than he'd been doing for thousands of years before that. She'd just left, in a quest to find herself. He didn't understand. Perhaps he couldn't understand. He'd never liked the fact that she had a mind of her own, even if it was much of the reason he loved her. She still wasn't sure if she was ready to return to him. It would be easier to be permanently estranged. Easier to pretend she wasn't hollow with longing for the love of her life. Nothing left her more fulfilled and more drained than spending time with Set.
Weary muscles blazing with pain, Nephthys flew, one wingbeat at a time. The Nile unraveled beneath her, hot desert winds lifting her wings. Only a little further. Her wings guttered, faltering, but she didn't want to stop and rest, not when she was so near. So close now.
Spiraling dangerously downwards, she pulled up twice, only barely dampening her speed. She needed no direction to find her sister's home. Isis might not be there, but someone would be, and anyone in the goddess' employ would have enough sense to recognize Nephthys. Braking one last time, Nephthys spread her wings fully, aching with the effort it took to slow her descent. She slowed only enough to keep herself from breaking any bones, then folded, and crashed.
Half-dead, tiny heart pounding at lightspeed, divine Nephthys collapsed upon a lounge on Isis' balcony, like a wounded bird. Not even bothering to return to her human form, she slept, lost in the healing darkness of dreams.
Nephthys was home.
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