don't say you never lied Who: Setekh Where: Streets of S.O. --> corner of E Main St & Hamilton St When: Late afternoon
‘I really don’t think this is ethical.’
Ra waited a moment, half-expecting his borrowed-fae to drop him to the floor in irritation (again), relaxing only when there were no signs of such a thing happening at all. Having thrown in his own, no doubt worthless opinion, he curled up tighter in the crook of the elbow that carried him, trying to push his head further between arm and torso to block out the noise of all that... traffic.
“When did you imagine ethics would become involved?” Yet another street sign was glamoured into hieroglyphs before he simply moved onto the next one. That the people around him may not be able to read them had occurred to him, yes. Did it matter? He was quite positive that his grandfather could recall a time when most of Egypt was illiterate, so why should it not be so here? Why did they need schooling? Besides, Setekh found the English language agonisingly dull when written down. Similarly, he found Ra’s hysteria surrounding noise both tedious and annoying. They had been to three continents so far and the fennec fox had not yet found himself a new mortal to attach himself to - no, he did not care that he might still be grieving for his deceased witch. It would just be far easier for the both of them if they parted ways.
‘You know I can hear you.’
“You know I don’t care,” Setekh replied lazily, turning his gaze to the road and changing the colours of several cars in succession. Red became white, yellow became blue, and black became gold. He rather liked the latter the best. The way the vehicles behind swerved a little as if surprised -- so he had to assume the drivers were -- turned the corners of his mouth up in an entertained smile. If they weren’t careful they would do themselves a mischief. He flicked another sign, watching a confused jogger try to stare at the changed writing for too long before she nearly fell over. Well, that was pathetic. An overgrown gnat tripping over itself. His hands went up to rub his neck, moving straight through the tie he wasn’t actually wearing, and he ignored the fact the skin of his hands seemed so dull on this plane. Tanned, but dull. He was just going to pretend he had not noticed the ridiculous squirming coming from under his arm.
Ra just about managed to turn and stick his head back into the big, loud world he had been hiding from. ‘If you’re going to keep up with those childish games, I want to go back to the tree,’ he stated with an authority that wasn’t entirely sure it belonged there. As if Setekh could feel the familiar’s uncertainty, he dropped his arm out from underneath him, reclaiming it to dust off his arm -- an action that to everyone else would have looked like he was brushing off or smoothing his shirt.
“Go on, then. No doubt you remember the way.” It really made no difference to the fae. He knew there was only so much of that noise the fennec could take before he ran back to hide again. Meanwhile, he was... improving the horizon as he saw it. Since he was stood on the sidewalk by the corner of East Main Street and Hamilton Street, the horizon he was ‘improving’ was more or less the immediate view up the road towards West Main Street. It had started with a bluer sky, fluffier clouds, the odd glimmer of greenery poking out further up the road even though, to his knowledge, there was none. He was even touching up the paint on the doors of the nearest buildings when he felt a weight on his right foot that was becoming irritatingly familiar.
‘You really can’t do that.’
Oh, but he really could, and his silence said as much.
‘You can’t just mess about with their environment like that.’
Setekh snorted. “Have you told them that? I’ll stop when they do.” Well no. No, he wouldn’t stop. Those ridiculous terms and conditions were hardly binding by virtue of them being ridiculous and the very fact that agreement would never happen. Mortals just delighted in destruction. Give them their toys and if they did not break them then they used them to break something else. Case in point: these absurd vehicles. They broke and they crashed and they rather frequently ran someone over. It was the iron, he had decided -- and he didn’t like them. That annoying nattering in the back of his head -- the source of which was going to get kicked into the road if it didn’t shut up -- went unanswered once it began its protestations all over again. But the squeak Ra made as the centrepiece of Setekh’s glamour seemed to unfold in the middle of the road, a carbon copy of the backdrop he had created plus his own alterations, that was entertaining. Even more so was the fennec’s realisation that the fae’s glamour was hiding all the traffic coming from that direction. The cars seemingly emerged out of nowhere.
‘You’ll cause an accident!’
Picking the little fox up, Setekh chuckled. “If I do, it won’t have been an accident, will it?” Despite anything the familiar currently attached to him had to say, he could find nothing extreme or irrational in his trail of thought regarding the matter. If they really needed to speak of extreme or irrational, then let them speak of Ra’s little outbursts when faced with the fact he was going to be living in a tree. Tomorrow, perhaps, he could ward himself more thoroughly and set up more of those glamours.