Samuel Mondschein/Thoth (egyptianlawyer) wrote in themoderngods, @ 2012-03-11 18:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, ♥ imogen francis : dropped, ♥ lucia flores : dropped, ♥ samuel mondschein, ♦ ma'at, ♦ seshet, ♦ thoth |
Who: Sam/Thoth, Lucia/Ma’at, and Imogen/Seshet
Where: Back room of the Museum, Egyptian Archives
When: Sunday Evening, after hours
Samuel felt guilty doing this, though he knew it was for the best to be honest. No matter what else he might think about the whole situation, just the fact she had a god-soul within her put Imogen in some danger from those that would abuse that knowledge. So waking up Seshet was in her best interest, no matter what else might go wrong. Even so, he felt just a little guilty at doing this behind the vessel’s back, knowing just what it was like to share a body and not always be in control.
But, he had asked her out, inviting her to come and see the Egyptian section of the museum. He had a friend working in the museum and could get the young librarian into the actual archives and see some of the exhibits that weren’t quite open to the public, the really old stuff that was protected all the time. He had other ways to get her there, but that made the most sense, and he was quite honestly surprised when she had agreed to come.
Once back there, he made a hand motion toward Lucia and he grinned at Imogen. “Imogen, I’d like you to meet Lucia. She’s an old friend from way back that I was pleasantly surprised to bump into recently. Ran into her at your café in fact.” He said with a soft chuckle.
----
Imogen turned to look at the girl being introduced. "Oh!" She smiled brightly' a low chuckle bubbling up from her chest. "I know you! Hangover girl!" The waitress stretched out a hand to shake the other young woman's, grinning. She wasn't completely sure why she'd agreed to come here - she wasn't really the type to go out with men she didn't really know. She didn't go out all that often at all really, but then again how often did you get a private look at the museum? Bits that hadn't been opened to everyone else yet? For the history geek in Imogen, it was a chance she couldn't refuse.
Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that something... odd was going on. She couldn't put her finger on it, but it was a feeling she'd been getting quite often these days. She put it down to stress. Imogen pushed it aside and tucked her hands back into her jacket pockets, still smiling warmly at Lucia. "Are you the friend who's letting us wander around after hours?"
----
Ma’at had spent the afternoon immersed in the archives, Lucia was still ignoring her for the large part and it was perfectly alright with Ma’at. It meant less harassment and less issues in general. The museum after hours was quiet and one of Ma’ats favourite places. She could be surrounded by reminders of her homeland and read the text of the Egyptians without worrying about what the mortals thought. She was looking forward to seeing Thoth and hopefully putting his plan in motion.
She smiled at Imogen, easily using her vessel’s actions. “Hello, Imogen. Samuel.” She pretended a sheepish expression at the hangover comment. “Not sure I really want to live up to that reputation but yeah, that’s me.” She closed the book of hieroglyphics she was reading and stood up to greet the pair of them. She smiled and nodded. “I practically live in this place. I’ve been working here since I was 18. Samuel was saying that he wanted to show you around.” The exhibit on the main floor contained most of the exciting stuff but it was behind glass and protected. The archives contained uncatalogued items and books that were only available to certain members of the staff.
------
One of those items wouldn’t be on any catalogue and really wasn’t part of the Egyptian exhibit. In fact, it had only been added for this particular evening, as it was the Book of Thoth sitting in all its metallic glory and tempting to touch. The metal covers protecting the papyrus pages within, though none of it would seem old enough to proclaim it part of Egypt. Once they were near the items, his fingers would run over the book itself and a small smile would touch his lips.
Sam didn’t like the deception, and in truth, Thoth wasn’t too thrilled with it either. But, as far as he could tell, and nobody had offered a different opinion, it seemed the best option to go with. The spell itself had already been mostly cast, she merely needed to read the last few lines of it off the cover of the Book of Thoth, and the sympathetic magic would be cast. The spell’s purpose to remind Seshet of her links, and to provide the magic lines to flow amongst the familiar to open her eyes. He could only hope it worked properly as this world fought his magic.
----
“Sure,” Imogen smiled at Lucia. “Thanks for letting us visit. I’d love a look around.” She was quite excited to get going - the place seemed very different at this time, in comparison to when she normally visiting, when it was busy with school parties and families. She glanced over at Samuel, her smile softening awkwardly. “What did you want to show me?”
She thought she’d known this part of the museum quite well. Since Sam had first mentioned Egyptians to her that time at the diner, she’d started reading up on them again, and that of course meant coming to the museum a couple of times. Only for an hour or so at a time, of course - she didn’t have that much free time - and never with access to separate areas like this. She wasn’t sure why her interest had been piped by a random comment from a customer at work, but there it was. It was interesting, and she was enjoying herself.
----
Ma’at offered Imogen a smile as she led them across the room to the area that held an extensive selection including the Book of Thoth. Lucia had a few objections to what Ma’at and Thoth were doing. She thought that Imogen should be told ahead of time what they were planning. Ma’at ignored the objections as usual and went along with Thoth’s plan. She had faith in his ability to control the magic that would be used even if their powers were muted in this world. She was going to be quiet in the whole encounter and follow Thoth’s lead. He had done most of the work for the awakening. She was only providing a way to do it near relics from their past.
----
It was perhaps the moral thing to do, and much like Lucia, Sam was objecting as well. Thoth frowned for a moment before he just shook his head once as if to clear his head from some of the distraction. He held his hand out toward Imogen and made a motion for her to approach him. “You believe in gods, Imogen?” he asked. If she took his hand, he would pull her over to stand in front of the Book, and one hand would go to rest on her waist as he stood behind her. “Do you think the old gods were ever real or do you think the ancient people all just made up divine beings to explain away things they couldn’t?”
-----
Imogen hesitated, then slipped a small hand into Sam’s and let him pull her over to stand in front of one particular architect. “Hm?” she asked, momentarily thrown by the feeling on him stood just behind her. ”Oh. No, not really. I always thought that if there were all-powerful beings out there they’d have more things to worry about than what a bunch of animals who happen to have mastered talking and walking get up to...” She trailed off, distracted from the moment of conversation and the man stood close to her back by the item that was laid out before them.
It was a book. Beautiful, by all accounts - the kind of beautiful that almost made you feel guilty for looking at it - but it seemed too new to be here, surrounded by all the ancient Egyptian treasures that littered the cases and stages around them. Imogen frowned, ducking a little closer, pushing her sheet of dark curls back off her forehead and face. She was curious. Of course, Imogen was always curious about something, but this seemed to be pulling at her. “What is it?” she asked softly.
----
“It’s an easy thing to say, isn’t it?” he said as he stood behind her. “But you feel it even now, don’t you?” Thoth said as he shifted behind Imogen. His hands reached out to rest on her shoulders, a light touch, though it was meant to keep her in place with that gentle touch. “You felt it the first time you saw me. The first time you saw Lucia here. A connection.” His gaze turned toward Ma’at for a moment before it turned back to Imogen. “You feel it in this room as well, I bet. That energy you can’t place, a connection or desire for things that seem to come out of nowhere.”
“You have inside of you, a goddess, Imogen.” He let his hands drop down to rest on her waist now as he watched her for her reactions. The spell only required a phrase to finish, there was no harm in warning her beforehand. “You’re not going to believe me, I know, until you see for yourself. But.. I also know you can feel the truth in my words. How they’re just right.. You are one of us, Imogen. Let us prove it to you.”
----
Imogen froze. She couldn’t help it. They were mad. They had to be. She was stuck in an empty part of the museum with a bunch of insane people. They’d probably find her dead and shoved into one of the display cabinets. But then, underneath the sudden upsurge of panic that ran through her, there was something else. A connection to whatever had called her here in the first place, the book in front of her and the people who had brought her to it.
She pulled away from the hands on her waist. No matter the connection, there was something deep in her head that seemed to shift, confused, then stir restlessly. Like someone waking from a great sleep. Despite herself, Imogen glanced back to the book, the last few lines of text written in a foreign tongue on the pages. Then, desperately, she forced herself to look away, to ignore it. She had a family.... She had people who she loved who depended on her. Imogen gritted her jaw, ignoring the weird stirring in her head, and met Sam’s gaze head on.
“I need to leave now,” she told him, a hard defiance set in her voice that didn’t sound like her. In fact, it rather sounded like whoever was stirring deep in her mind right now. The slow shifting like someone important waking from a deep sleep. Imogen felt fear slip down her spine, spreading across her until she was ice old.
----
He watched her, he could see the strings moving within her, and he could sense the power within her shift as well. Was it enough? Or did he just mess up a spell? When testing unknown magic even the God of Magic could make a mistake. But in this case, as he watched the strings move he didn’t think he had. But, he knew at least one thing.
There was no way that the vessel would know what was going on or even believe a word he said without a demonstration. He returned her gaze for a long moment before he gave her a slow nod of his head. “You don’t want to leave.” He said as he took a step to the side, and closer to the Book of Thoth on its pedestal. “You have questions, I have answers.” But he was no longer standing between her and the hallway out.
“Have you ever wondered why the library feels so much like home to you?” he didn’t know if it actually did, but he knew his wife, and his wife considered the library her second home. “Have you ever wondered why just mentioning Ancient Egypt that it seemed to come alive for you?” He tilted his head as he took another step back, and giving her that much more space. “You feel it even now, don’t you?”
----
Seshet woke. It was slow at first, a shift in Imogen’s conscience. An ancient wisdom that woke somewhere deep inside her and stretched lazily before taking a look around. Imogen blinked, fear obvious in her face as she felt someone deep in her head. Not her. Someone else who took in the scene around her, put two and two together as easily as blinking and rolled her eyes. Imogen shrank back back from the people watching her, her hip knocking against the display Sam had led her to. What had they done to her? What was happening?
Seshet, never one to wait around for mortals, pushed her way to the surface. Imogen’s spine straightened, confidence pushing her shoulders back so she seemed taller, forcing her expression from terror into one of serene acceptance. The goddess failed at keeping the rolling of her eyes from her husband. She would recognise Thoth if he was inhabiting a teapot, for the Nile’s sake. The same way she would always know Ma’at, where she stood a few feet behind. Seshet shook the foreign hair from her face and fixed her husband’s vessel with a stony stare.
“You are too impatient, my dear, “ she informed him coolly. “You’ve terrified the poor girl.”
----
Thoth’s first reaction wasn’t joy at the sound of his wife’s voice. It wasn’t a smile or anything of that sort. Instead, it was a frown as he considered her for the longest moment and then he shook his head a little. “That was not supposed to happen.” He said in a soft voice, as much to himself as to the others. “You awoke far too fast. It was supposed to be slower than this.” The look that crossed over Samuel’s expression the two of them would recognize as him looking over his spell again and thinking back to things.
He accepted the rolling of her eyes with the results of the spell and he gave a slow sigh. “Damn this world and its restrictions, it warped the spell somewhere and I do not know where.” His fingers reached up to run through his hair before he shrugged his shoulders. “What happened happened. You have been missed, my wife.” He said as he gave a soft smile to her.
“But, despite Imogen’s fear, this is for the best. I can only imagine what would her reaction been had you stirred without anyone else around. I could only watch over her and you for so long at a time. You do need to watch over her family as well, Seshet. I know she cares for her siblings a bit.”
----
“You should know I wouldn’t let a mortal have control before I could converse with you,” Seshet countered her husband. “She’s too emotional. Strong, but overruled by human instinct. It makes her foolish.” Seshet was the kind to be ruled by her head over her heart, as opposed to Imogen, who was quite the opposite. A shame, the Goddess considered, because the girl was very bright, with great potential. Even if right now she was cowering in the corner of her own head. It was making the body they shared shake unpleasantly.
Still, she returned his soft smile with one of her own, glancing down at herself and dragging her hands down the body of her own vessel to work out the proportions. Slim, but not without curves. At childbearing age. She supposed it would do well enough. She glanced back up at Thoth, considering her husbands form. It was rather pleasing. “I will look out for them all,” she said, finally. “It is sensible to keep one’s vessel happy, considering the situation. I will speak with her privately later.”
She stepped forward, small hand coming to rest on her husbands’ shoulder as she turned her attention to Ma’at. “And how are you, Ma’at?” she asked, pleasantly enough. She had no major problem concerning Thoth’s relationship with the other Goddess. Seshet’s realm was on the cerebral, not the physical. She put very little weighting in such things. “Thank you for your help. I imagine it has been trying.”
----
Ma’at stood back, watching the pair of them with something akin to cool and dispassionate observation. She felt little emotion at the fact that he was waking up his wife and ignored Lucia in her head trying to put emotion into the encounter. She was silent through the exchange, arms crossed over her chest as she watched the awakening. It was completely different from the way Neptune had awoken, almost anit climatic. Ma’at was both relieved by the ease and disappointed that it had been so easy for Imogen when Lucia had struggled for so long.
“Welcome back, Seshet.” Ma’at inclined her head, speaking to them in the old language. “It has been a long journey and we have so much further to go.” Ma’at looked at Thoth, a small frown as she tried to figure out what had gone wrong. She had thought the spell was supposed to wake her slowly. She felt annoyance at the fact that their powers were so broken amongst the mortals that even the God of Magic had problems preforming spells now. “Your vessel is going to be very confused. Coexisting with them is a challenge but it can be done.” Lucia was not happy and Ma’at knew that they would have words later. Mortals were complicated.
-----
“It will not be as easy as you think, Seshet.” Thoth said with a shake of his head. “The spell is active right now, but it should fade in the next few minutes since you have awoken. Once you don’t have that backing, you will learn just how strong mortal souls are.” His hand came up to rest on the hand she put on his shoulder. But, it didn’t last a moment before he stepped forward and wrapped his arm around Seshet’s vessel in a warm embrace. She might be more cerebral, and Thoth might not be as emotional as Samuel, but together, they had some emotion.
“I awoke in this vessel while it was still in childhood, a few decades ago, and I still have yet to manage to entirely co-exist with Samuel. We normally get along, but there are times when things are very trying.” He took a deep breath at that before he gave his wife a light kiss on the cheek, and he took a step back. “Isis has found us, she is awake. And we have found Osiris, though he is still slumbering within his vessel. But much has changed in this world, and in how everything works together, Seshet. I suspect we will need your wisdom in very short order.”
----
“Yes…” She tilted her head, listening for something. “I think she’s too surprised to put up much of a fight right now. But she’s stronger than she thinks. And bright. Very bright.” She sounded pleased. She couldn’t abide being stuck sharing with an unintelligent being for whoever knew how many years, although she suspected Imogen’s mind was more or less untapped. They would have to change that. “I don’t doubt she won’t always allow me to speak so freely.”
She returned her husband’s embrace tightly, her arms wrapping around the unfamiliar form even as the touch itself rekindled some old memories. She did care a great deal for her husband. They had been together for almost as long as creation, after all, and she was glad to have him here beside her. Their disciplines would always create the greatest results when combined, and she had a feeling that it would be needed here in this new place. And Ma’at. She was pleased to see her sister Goddess as well – they had always got on well, and she held the other woman in high esteem. Together she had a lot more faith in this whole situation reaching an effective conclusion. She smiled gently at the other Goddess over her husband’s shoulder, accepting the kiss to her cheek before stepping back.
“You could always overpower him,” she suggested to Thoth, stated coolly and with an entirely logical mind. It would solve any problem of conflict, although she suspected it would also throw some new obstacles into the pot. She raised her eyebrows, a pleased expression flashing over her features at the news that others of them had been found. “That’s is very good news,” she nodded. “I will do my best to be of any help I can. There seems to be a great deal to be doing.” She frowned suddenly, one hand coming up to massage her temple as Imogen stirred angrily. “I think the spell might be fading.”
---
Ma’at was watchful but didn’t really interfere in the whole process. Her job had been to get them into the Museum and then Thoth did his work. She put away the tome she had been studying when they came in, looked around the area and decided it was put back as she had found it.
She returned the smile, pleased to have another of their Pantheon back but feeling out of sorts. She wasn’t sure if the spell or magic had changed the air around them but she was feeling unlike herself. She schooled her features to show indifference. It wasn’t about her or the disturbance she was feeling but about Seshet and her awakening. “Thoth, you should take Seshet home. Imogen is going to protest loudly and this area is protected by monitoring devices.” Plus, Ma’at really wanted to leave Thoth to deal with Imogen. It was his spell and idea.
----
“Ma’at is right. This is not the place for your vessel to scream and yell at me for my arrogance.” And he had been arrogant, but then he had decided this was the best course for better or worse. Though, at the very least, Thoth wasn’t one to turn away from accepting responsibility for his actions. Even those that others do not approve of, or perhaps especially those.
A hand went out to pick up his Book, a quick spell being cast over it to give it the illusion of being just another notebook, and a boring one at that. Then, as he tucked that into a small bag, he moved to take Seshet by the arm and begin to lead her out of the museum. “Till next time, Ma’at. And don’t pick on Lucia too much.” He said with a grin toward her, before he began to walk out, tugging Seshet/Imogen along with him.
“I could overpower Samuel, but we have been awake so often he is but a more ethical reflection of myself. More concerned with right and wrong and less about balance. It is rare that we have real disagreements, just minor theological ones.” He shook his head a little bit at the thought, no he didn’t like suppressing his vessel’s spirit, though he had done it occasion.
----
Seshet allowed herself to be steered towards the exit, too busy getting used to the sensation of having a very angry woman in her head to object to whatever it was Thoth was saying to her. It was very odd, she thought. You could do a lot with it, having two minds working together, if only Imogen would calm down and stop swearing. It was most distracting.
“I see…” she said vaguely. Seshet held some mortals in high esteem, but only really those who had some potential and didn’t just seem to waste their lives away copulating and eating. Sadly, the majority did just that, and Seshet had very little interest in them. Hopefully Imogen and Samuel would turn out to be the former.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to keep the girl quiet much longer,” Seshet decided, turning to face the figure of her husband once they were stood outside. “She really is very angry with you.” The Goddess sighed and leaned forward to press her lips briefly against Thoth’s. She was shorter than she used to be – she wasn’t used to having to lift herself up onto her toes to reach him. “Thank you for your efforts, dear.”
---
There was a reason why even the mortals thought they were married for nearly all of the written history of the world. Thoth and Seshet really were from the same cloth, after all, and enjoyed many of the same things. Her opinion of mortals was often the same as his. After all, he was the one who taught mortals language, and so many other things that were actually her creations.
That brief kiss brought a smile to his lips. “Let her out. You have much to learn and catch up on, it would be as easy to sit back and watch and sift through her memories and ask questions.” He said as he looked down and into her expression. “She will understand. It might take a few days, and she will be very confused at first, and you know how mortals often react to what they do not understand, but in time she will understand.”
He shifted to stand straight as he turned fully toward her. “There has already been one divine attack on this city. Some god of chaos causing a riot in one of the mortal districts. Even if waking you so quickly was not my intent, she and her family are better served by you being aware. Much like I did, the other gods can sense your presence, and I fear the time to choose sides again is soon coming upon us.”