logs | — i'll say a prayer, as i cast it to the flame

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— i'll say a prayer, as i cast it to the flame

WHO: set & others
WHERE: around the netherworld
WHEN: check headers for specific dates/times
WHAT: a catch-all for everything during his time in-game
WARNINGS: physical violence, mentions of sexual abuse, hanahaki syndrome, etc.

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[ The dragging warmth of Zagreus's presence is unlike the cold bite of the mirror's shard between his fingers; Set has stooped to pick the largest, the most jagged of the remnants up from the dirt, from where he'd shattered half the beautiful thing into the street and people had leapt away from his sudden violence. Deserved. Only proper. He can see faces in the gleaming fragments - judging, whispering, knowing, pitying - and among them, the somber eyes of --

The mirror slices again, through his fingertips. It cuts deep and he bleeds into the street like someone's just given him a killing blow; turning his hand over, the blood begins to fall in thin rivers, following the cupped shape of his hand until it pools in his palm. Until it begins to overfill and spill back into the dirt. The onlookers seem deeply concerned, perhaps frightened, of this redheaded creature that seems to be on the verge of destroying himself -- of collapsing into a fit of madness.

Zagreus calls him by name, with that lovely voice of him and Set thinks: I never wanted to be hated by you, of the other demigod, before he turns on his toes and flees the scene. Pushing sharply through the midst of the gathered crowd with a gasping, crunching sound pouring from his throat. It's pain, wrought of humiliation and raw fear; his bleeding hand slides across Zag's arm as he dives past him, intent on going somewhere else. On escaping.

( Zagreus ought to understand as much. ) ]

[He stares for a second at the red on his arm, blood that doesn't belong to him.

He hadn't expected a god to bleed red. To feel as slick as his own blood. The ichor of the gods was told to be gold, out of ambrosia itself, or black, if it spilled onto something dire, or made of something incorporeal. And that, in itself, feels like a calling. Alms towards his own mercy, towards a faith that doesn't exist.

' Perhaps consider that the underworld doesn't revolve around you, boy. Why would anyone offer their blood to you? What good would that bring?'

And Zagreus does understand, does understand as the coin he leaves the shopkeeper and a promise that he'd help do deliveries later would make up for the fact that he broke it. The shopkeeper merely shakes their head, obviously upset but really just concerned now that more than the price was paid for.

He understands, and he runs, he inhales sharply, the copper tang on his tongue finally not his own. His feet flaring as he rushes faster through the city. Set is fast, of course. Was there anyone in his pantheon faster, he vaguely wondered?]

Lord Set. [He calls out once he finds him still. It sounds so foreign, to call him with the same deference he reserves for his extended family. He has to swallow, as though the taste of it festered in his lips if he left it there too long—

—a sigh. The simmer in his blood is becoming familiar, but Zagreus is too tired to even think it, much less talk and act on it.] How— [Can he help?] What happened?

[ In Set's pantheon, he was the mightiest. The swift, the strong, the agile. The god of war had taken the throne and with it, had ensured that all other gods would bow their heads before him. It didn't matter if they were older, wiser because of their experiences, even Ra had conceded her right to rule to Osiris once. The gods of the Ennead were, each and every one of them, equal in all things. And then there was Set, who had lorded over them all. He remembers the taste of that power, day after day, night after night. He remembers what it felt like, to know that despite the independence and power of all of Kemet's gods, he was the best of them all.

And now, he was nothing. A fallen, evil thing cast out from his own home. Cast into this city of the presumed-dead, lost to Kemet and Kemet lost to him. The memory of the god he'd seen in the mirror -- the one who had curled up her blood-red mouth at the moment his eyes had met hers below her lioness-head mask -- incites him to wrath, to ruinous thoughts that push him beyond the crowds and far from Zagreus. However, Zagreus is a fleet-footed youth, who comes to him sooner rather than later.

Too soon, in fact, for Set rounds upon him the moment he hears his voice and snarls: ] Go on, then! Say your damned piece, Zagreus! I didn't ask you to follow me!

[ What follows is an array of heated, beautiful sounds; the tongue of the divine, the tongue of the Egyptian people mingling with it. Sharp, lyrical tones of a language that would one day die out, only to be uncovered and known for its purity. He curses at the demigod who dares approach him, with politeness on his tongue that wasn't once there. ]

What is it now? What ire of yours have I invoked? What insult did I make! Was that your shopkeeper, were they a friend of yours? Have I trod upon your burning toes somehow again? What did I do this time?

[ For there must be something that brings Zagreus around, again. Their first meeting had been so ugly, colored by Set's incompetent display of playfulness and some deep anger it instilled in Zagreus. It isn't surprising, not to Set; he is a god of many domains, many more to come, and the most prominent of them now is disorder. It is chaos, the invitation to allow one's worse aspects to possess them.

There is heat pricking in his throat and in his eyes. Sekhmet's face swims in the tears that have begun to build. Her smile, her destructive whispering. Lonely. Sad. Abandoned. Vilified. As if it wasn't her fault --! ]

[There's an angle, as that mane of red whips around in stripes of fury and lashes as the God steps closer and starts spouting beautiful anger at him, where Zagreus' neck locks as he looks up, as if it falls home, so used to watching those closest to him tower over him, even more so as they near. Suddenly in his anger, desperate and ravenous for something, Set seems close, closest than he'd ever been, even more so than the moment where he almost manhandled Zag into joining him fruit-picking, had they not bickered like they weren't complete strangers.

And something in his chest surges, as quick and as easy, well-practiced, from the times he'd throw arguments and snipes over the large desk in the main Hall of the House. He's about to open his mouth while watching this god of turbulence become a storm instead, all reds and wetness, the seething curl of his full mouth, and the burning gaze of a predator flashing in the dark.

And he suddenly misses blue, wishes the straps of red hair to be a stripe of heliotrope instead, those red eyes to become gold. And ah, he'd feel relief. He'd feel relief if they would seethe and rage at him instead of their overarching tendency to err on the side of caution regardless of their divinity.

So with lips parted, his chest clenches, his throat becomes a vice, and he winces, his hand snapping to his mouth to stop the untimely burst of a ruddy bloom, broken stem and thorns and all, out of his lips. He clenches his fist around it, coughing and wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, and he needs to take a deep breath before he realizes that he can speak.]

Nothing.

[If anything, he wishes those who are causing this to him would have unleashed their wrath before, would have shunned him straight away. The shadow of hope casts starker than doubt's, making the barbs of the vines around his lungs start to crawl through in search of new grounds to hold onto. He'd rather face the release of longing than hold on to the fraying thread of faith.

(He wouldn't. He wouldn't. He would hold on to it even if the Fates started to shred each line in a weave; he'd clutch at the next like it were his own skin.)

Forget bleeding; he's never watched a god cry.

That's a bad omen, somewhere, somehow. And yet, this time, he does step closer, shaking the flowers to the floor. ] You didn't do anything wrong.

[He never really did.]

Then, why -- !

[ Innately, he knows 'why'. To be cast out of the Ennead, branded an evil god and stripped of his divinity? Such an act leaves a mark, a stain, a scarlet symbol that must be obvious to anyone who looks upon him; what he is for, now, is to be the bearer of others' anger, their hatred and misery. Set had tormented and abused the people of Egypt, for so many years, and the effect he'd had on his own lands had bled beyond its borders -- Stygia suffered from it, he believed. Those who ended up in the Shadowlands may not have been slaughtered by his hand, but that they were trapped in this so-called 'purgatory' must have been another consequence of his sinful deeds.

Zagreus, too, must know it. It must come to him naturally, that the origin of his agonies are the evil god, Set. That is why his reactions are that of anger, of disdain. And that is why Set, overwhelmed by the vision of the goddess of destruction in the reflection, had both destroyed the item, and was now seeking to destroy this moment in time. His voice runs thick with the tears that begin to swell in his eyes, bursting past his lashes to run clear and slow down his cheek. ]

I have, though! Why else would you hate me like you do? Did the weight of my crimes against Duat reach the river Styx, as well? Has Aidoneus denounced me in your memory?

[ He is panic-ridden, lashing out with incoherant thought and uncontrollable word. Somewhere, his hands reach for Zagreus's neck as the demigod chokes up a horrible, blood-slick bloom -- only to abort the violently wayward gesture in order to grab his shoulders. Set's own hand is still carved open, bleeding down the bare plane of Zagreus's arm now as he gives him a shake. ]

Even you are choking on unspoken things! These damnable flowers -- ! Why don't you just say what you mean, and be free of your own torment! Do you think I cannot handle your hatred, too? What do you want? Do you want me to suffer what I've done to you? Make up your mind!

[And would Zagreus know of this, he probably would wonder. If it wouldn't be better to be outright cast away, deemed a burden and shunned, expelled to some other realm, to outright find a penalty with which to pay your dues. A goal, a purpose towards an existence, a consequence of acceptance if he reached it. Surely it would be better, for he's stepped forward confidently only to backtrack, find himself shunned, find doubt instead of support, hesitance instead of reception. Zagreus had been given tasks only to find himself fumbling at them, finding scorn over a gigantic desk and his own red eye looking back at him with disdain. Perhaps, he'd even feel some jealousy. As those who surely care, care enough to bloom hatred?]

I... [Set's blood touches him again, divine still, regardless of their circumstances, its temperature and weight on his arm make him wish for home. Making his wish to be entirely engulfed in it, a moment where a spark of unrelenting pain would strike him, and he'd close his eyes, and then he'd come back home, blanketed by its warmth. He looks down at his own arm and finds red; there's red everywhere, blood, fabric, eyes.

And, of course, it still sings; it whispers to Zagreus' ears as though slipping into the hinges of his jaw and egging his lips to part, wide enough to scream in Set's face, about how not everything is about him that he's stuck here, too. That he shouldn't care enough to hate him, that he—

—that he—] I don't.

[He croaks. Clears his throat, spits his own red blood—shunned, uncertain, rumors milling about with the shades in the halls, echoing whispers, his mentor's hand on his shoulder, exactly where Set's fingers are, and the care with which he calls him 'lad' instead of his Father's 'boy'.

'Why do you care so much, Zagreus?'
'Can't always trust what feelings say.'

Blood and—

—His slightly parted mouth closes with a snap of his teeth.

He winces when a thorn gets stuck between his teeth. He swallows it down, and sure, he's used to pain. He's already been beaten, stabbed, burned, and poisoned countless times.

His hand comes up over the bloodied one. The voices in his head hiss. He imagines the glare of their owners.

They're not there.

He can take it.] I don't hate you. I thought you hated me.

[ Set's blood is as warm as a dune that has been beaten by the rays of the sun; it scalds, without cooling, wherever it is left. A brand, a divine mark that smears across Zagreus's body like a pledge to him, an offering. A god of violence and chaos, who pours his essence as a plea upon an unknowable demigod of blood and other unyielding, stubborn things. They are not the loveliest of the divine. Not gods of love and peace, nor heroes of the people, but dark, troubling elements of the natural world. Blood and storms, revelry and war. His hands skate up Zagreus's shoulders, sleek and scarlet trails left along one side of his body, his throat, the youthful angle of his jaw.

Set holds his face, even as the young god takes his hand. ]

Why would I hate you?

[ He whispers it, the pour of his own tears heavy on the fine line of his nose, falling messily from the fullness of his bottom lip. ( It is a beautiful thing, someone might think, to see the half-feral god of battle sobbing like a heartbroken maiden. Weak, frail. And lovely for his overwhelming gift of feeling, in ways that betray the remoteness of divinity. The Ennead are independent, yet Set craves eyes upon him. Warm eyes, fond eyes. ) ]

Zagreus, son of the darkest river, Aidoneus's imprisoned child--

[ He does not know what this youth is a god of. The epithets he would use for any other god ( red queen of the heavens / tireless bull of bronze and earth / the mountain who carries the western sky ), he must create from what little he knows. ]

I have never known hate in my heart for you.

[It stings his skin and he craves it further. The first-ever glimpse of the Sun as it rose through and over the horizon had blinded him, slapped his unaccustomed skin with its heating rays despite only being the soft herald of dawn. Underneath him, the snow had sizzled into a pool, and the grass had turned brown. He had taken a breath as though it was the very first time, his eyes prickling at the sight of gold scattering on the sea, Eos' rosy fingers.

The breathes in sharply now, too, as those hands skate further high, eyes wide. He takes in the scent of the blood, the burn against his cheek, and the gooseflesh on his skin from how his own thaws the parts of him that had seized, and he's so much more aware of the cold around them.

The sight of those tears is terrifying. Hauntingly beautiful as he is like this, Set looks perfect in the jagged edges of his vulnerability, in the deep red chasm of his essence. Water pools under his tongue, but he dares not wonder of the salt in those tears or the tang of that blood. Instead, he doesn't want it. Doesn't want those tears, doesn't want the grip with which Set's throat seems to claw at his own voice, trying to draw it back, stop him from saying such things.

He'd much rather see the loud and obnoxious god he first met; he seemed happier.

Beings like them aren't laureled with high oaths and bright depictions, no matter how harrowing one such as an Olympian could be. War and blood incarnate alike, they're known as unwavering, unbreaking, unbiased.

Instead, he shakes. He's shaken to the core. Why did he reject it so if it's not hatred that he's felt?

('Why would you worship those who are Unshaken?' his childhood friend had once scoffed when, with Zag's fingers in silver strands, asked why mortals wouldn't raise temples and worship him. Zag had continued brushing his friend's then-long hair but felt a little sad in his still-young chest.)

He knows he shouldn't walk over the fine thread of hope again, not in this world, not with this deity—

—does he, though?

He draws breath again. His fingers squeeze around the bloodied hand on his cheek as though that's a thread. Unblemished, but the grip of someone who's held too many a weapon for his princely status.] Allow me to assist you, Lord Set.

[He'll be unwavering.] Please.

[ ( -- her mouth was a slash of red, the crux of her a thing that existed to enrage and destroy; goddess of destruction, sekhmet, her lioness-headed mantle and throaty whisper in his ears, mouthing words as she stood behind him in the reflection of the mirror. she never lied, not she. there was no need to lie, for it was only the hidden, bitter truths of the heart that would urge walls to crumble, minds to shatter, hearts to fold -- ) ]

You'll think less of me.

[ If he allows anyone to help, if he allows them to see beyond his wrath and his messiness, they will see him for what he is. Zagreus, scion of the underworld, will come to laugh at him; the gods of Helles were formidable entities, he had known them in battle countless times, known how readily they would come for Egypt if he did not stand in their way and thwart them every time. If they knew he was weak, barely a god anymore, they would --

Egypt would --

Ah, but Egypt had already fallen into decay. Because of him. Only now, with his removal, would it begin to recover. He had taken it from Osiris and consigned it to darkness, and now, the rightful King would rebuild it from the ruins Set had left behind. There was no need for him, really. ]

When we met, [ he utters, speaking back to their first coming-together; to the notice board and the scrap of paper and how readily Zagreus had snapped at him. ]

I had only wanted to play.

[ Like a child incapable of properly expressing himself. ]

['Play? Play?! Was dangling about a piece of paper like he were some animal with a chase instinct considered play in Egypt, making a fool of an—'

Zagreus sighs. Enough.

It wouldn't matter what Zagreus would think of Set. It shouldn't matter to Set himself or Greece or Egypt. Zagreus is no god, despite being born from who he was born.

Here's the same prideful entity, storms, and chaos that have been translated into tales by the shades of a great hundred-headed being that went against Zeus, that fathered the frightening hound that guards the gates of hell, that sends the most ferocious volcano into a frenzy. From fire to sandstorms, suffocation, and… despair.

And yet.

Here is that same god cradling his face the same way his mother had when she found out he lived. He trembles as if he's not made of divinity and jerks at it as though he wants to stop himself from doing so, tears staining his cheeks and chin, blood smearing over Zagreus' own skin, painting him with the same shade of his eyes and hair. He feels like wearing his colors, becoming one of his own.

(And wouldn't that be nice, becoming one of anything or anyone else?)

Regret and amends lather his tongue despite how he says he'd think less of him.

But how can he, when he's doing what no other god would even phantom doing, which is to live amongst their people and to want to redress?]

I know. [He nods, tries to at least bring a smile to war's face. A ridiculous endeavor, he knows, but he at least is trying, a tentative quirk of his lips.] I will never think less of you than I had back then if that helps. But I know I was also in the wrong for acting and thinking the way I did. I have passed it, that moment.

[His hand on Set's slides over his arm to reach his shoulder. Squeezes there, slowly, gently. After all, he has not requested permission to touch him, so if he shakes it off, it's easy to do.] Consider my aid an offering to the Red Lord of the Red Land. It's up to you if you wish to accept it or not.

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— i'll say a prayer, as i cast it to the flame

god of messiness........

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