Genesis [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

Set agreed.

No surprise there.

He hadn't done it gracefully, and not without a reassurance of my getting some sort of punishment should I fail to solve his life's problems within a month. Offering him the option of keeping me and using me anyway he pleased was a good way to placate him, because he liked the idea of feeding my corpse to his crocodiles.

And so the first day of shadowing Set had begun.

I was given quarters right beside Set's, three stories up. The room was gorgeous to say in the least. Walls painted gold with sparkling white floors, a wide open window leaving to a balcony that overlooked the city beyond. The bed was massive, put against an accent wall of gold etched with hieroglyphics, the bed posts themselves about as thick as my waist, and sheets made of precious soft silks and cotton. A private bath opened up across from the bed, an open doorway leading to a clean facility with a chamber pot, a large round bathing pool with bathing oils and soaps sitting in a tray beside it. Thankfully there were no mirrors within. The only mirror was tucked away in a pot beside a tray of face paints.

Not wanting to deal with the trivial royal suite, I immediately set to work and found Set back in his throne room, looking down at a scroll. His long black hair fell over his shoulder like a black curtain, his eyes narrowed in serious concentration upon the inscriptions. Beside him in the pool, a crocodile had come to the surface, peering up at him with an eyeball that only blinked once for the duration of my stay in the doorway to watch him.

Something about the scene was beautiful. Set was a beautiful representation of his Egyptian bloodline, a desert god, a god of chaos, violence, bloodshed. If he was true to the curse of a god of chaos, however, he would be temperamental. It was a temperament that he wouldn't be able to control. Most fits of anger could be quelled with meditation, medicines, even sex.

However, a god of chaos could not be calmed once he was raged. His vision became red, his instincts animalistic. They became beasts, slaves to their rage and their predatory urges. He would see nothing, but enemy, prey, food even. It was a great power, but a painful curse. Gods of chaos could unintentionally kill those closest to them without even realizing it.

And yet here he was, a god of chaos, capable of immense violence, rumored to have taken advantage of such a thing, sitting peacefully at his pool side with a crocodile for a pet, of all things. Even I was wary of the reptiles. While they were among my favorite creatures, even I knew they could be fickle.

"If you are going to watch me, uncloak yourself. I do not want you sneaking about in my palace," Set said suddenly without looking up. I smiled briefly, dropping the cloak on my powers, not quite sure how he sensed me standing there. I came into the room quietly, my robes barely a whisper across the floor.

Set blinked, then looked up as I approached, but kept a good distance to respect his space and the privacy of his message.

"You remind me of Haket," he said abruptly, making me arch a brow, and he pointed into the water, "The albino crocodile I was gifted with by one of my children." As if reacting to his name being said, a white snout appeared above the water, followed by a pair of pink eyes blinking. I came over and sat on the edge of the pool, waited to see if Set would shoo me, but he didn't.

"You have a beautiful palace, and pets," I added, glancing at the crocs that eyed me suspiciously. Set looked back down at his scroll with a frown.

"They are not pets," he answered.

"Oh? Are they friends?"

"That's foolish. They are animals."

"Do Egyptians not value the creatures of their land?"