There is blood on Horus' hands: There would be, of course, after the battle they just fought – the last battle. It's done. Set is dead. Mother would be proud, there is no doubt of that. At last her desperate wish, the reason she bore a son, has been fulfilled.
It only feels like half of a victory to Horus: He would never have thought defeating his uncle could be so... tiresome, so exhausting, so leeching. As though with Set every emotion inside of him died as well; or at least one in particular. That fire of hatred, which had kept him going all those centuries, is now gone, and it feels strangely empty inside of him without it.
At first it's confusing: Who is he really, without the loathing of Set? Who is he when it comes down to it – when he has been victorious and there is nobody else to fight, to hate? The humans – so dirty and weak – would probably think it's funny. A god – and not only a god but their mighty Horus – with an identity crisis. Isn't he much too young? By god's standards, he's a teenager – barely.
Horus doesn't feel like going back down into the Duat to tell his mother and father about the battle. No doubt they'll already know. There is another reason he has to go back, though, and that's the Pharaoh. Now that Set is gone, Apep will be their next enemy to fight. Apep is stronger than Set. Apep won't go down as easily.
Horus snorts at the thought. He can still feel the prickling and tingling of his flesh where the wounds are healing. His body is still sore from the fight, and there are bruises, cuts, and gashes all over it – a finger deep slash on his shoulder, the palm of his left hand is slit, blood seeps from a wound on his cheek, and his bare feet burn where Set's sword tore across his ankles. If he were human, he would be dead by now.
There's still another thing he has to do, Horus thinks. He leans back, now sitting on his heels, waiting for the injuries to close. It won't take long and they'll be gone – there won't be anything to show for the battle, for all his life, for the victory that came after millennia of training and waiting for it.
Horus turns his palm upward, gazing at the small cut. He dips the fingers of his other hand into the flask standing on the ground beside of him, rubs them over the wound. It stings and burns fiercely, worse than any of the others, which he sustained it battle. Of course it would, seeing how it's poison meant to keep even a god's wounds open. Horus doesn't know how Set obtained it, though a shrewd idea is forming in his head: Apep.
Isis maintained that Set wasn't scared of anybody. That he needed to be taught to fear. And yet he had been terrified of Apep for some reason. Could this be the reason? Poison? Poison intended to destroy gods, which means its maker must have known secrets they didn't, because somehow Horus can't see Set developing such a strong venom.
Horus has to be careful. If he doesn't do this right, there might be consequences. He doesn't know how strong the venom is – he might die. And Thoth isn't around to keep him alive either. Thoth might know where the poison came from. Thoth is one of the oldest of the pantheon, younger only than Osiris and Isis, who lives above ground, which also means he keeps the secrets.
The stinging in his palm finally stops. He doesn't know if it'll work, or what else he can do to keep the scar, and it's essential that he should, because who is he really without the constant battle against his uncle? Who is he now that this is over?
Horus washes his hands in the Nile next to him, rubbing until the blood comes off. The venom still burns somewhat, and yet the flesh around it is almost healed now. He doesn't keep the wound because of its sentimental value, or because Set was his uncle, or because he finally did what he was made for, or anything human like that. He keeps it because it reminds him on who he was – who he is, though he's not so certain of the latter any more.
What is left now that Set is gone?
Your duty to the pharaoh, says a voice in his head.
Of course.
Horus gets back up onto his feet. The cut in his palm is smoking slightly now, causing tendrils of smoke to rise around him with a smell of roasted meat, and the rest of his body has ceased to twinge and tingle. There are no more wounds, not even scars. It makes one wonder why Set didn't use a poisoned sword. Perhaps that would have been too dangerous – what if the venom dripped into one of his open wounds meanwhile?
It doesn't matter now.
Horus looks at the small mound of earth beside him. It's not a proper funeral of course – not by the standards of their home country. And yet it doesn't matter – it's not as if Set cares, and even if, it's not as if Horus cares about what Set cares. Set could rot somewhere in the desert, be devoured by the animals... The only reason Horus buried his uncle is that – that he's afraid of what might happen if anybody came across the body. How much is a dead god's body on the bazaar? Horus laughs out loud at the thought. He doesn't think anybody has ever bartered with the remains of a deity, especially not one as lunatic as Set.
If Nef – it's difficult to think about the pharaoh by her human name – if she were on the throne right now, there would be a proper funeral. A ceremony to show respect, though Horus hardly thinks Set deserves any. On the other hand, under other – different – circumstances, he would return Set's body to his parents as proof, as... He doesn't know as what. As a gift? As proof? He dares not to consider what Isis would do, or what Osiris might. Their enemy is dead at last, at the hands of their son, and yet they can't be trusted with something as powerful and mighty as their brother's body.
Horus has accepted it a long time ago – that his parents aren't quite right. He has never asked why, though perhaps it had something to do with his father dying that drove his mother – them both – mad. He doesn't know whether to believe in those stories of the great battle they tell – those stories of another race, an older and more powerful race than the gods, those stories about Atlantis. Nef – the Pharaoh – doesn't think they are.
It's a tale told to divine children like yourself, her voice echoes inside of his head.
But there are indicators – indicators he hasn't noticed before this fight with Set. Before Set's last words. Apep can't be killed. Set was terrified of the other god, thought him invincible. What does that mean? The only time Horus' parents almost seem lucid (those times when they're not in one of their rages against Set or drooling about stories of a raging battle) is when they speak about the creators, the primordial folk.
Horus knows this: Creators were before the gods. The creators started the war in Atlantis. The creators caused the flood, the tidal wave that drowned the continent. The creators. Beautiful but cruel, callous and shrewd, calculating, aloof, terrible, proud, haughty, fallen to their own arrogance. How much of that is true? Horus recognized the terror in Set's eyes when he spoke about Apep. The same terror that lights up his parents eyes when they speak about the war that tore their home apart. How much can be taken for granted? How much of it is the truth, how much delusion?
There is nobody he can tell about his suspicions. Nobody he can talk to now that Set is gone. Not that he could have spoken to his uncle while the god was still alive – nor would he have wanted to. But what if Set was right? What if Apep can't be killed? What if there is something... something different about Apep? What if he really is a member of that old race which petrifies the older gods so?
Of course there is Thoth he could ask those questions, the god of wisdom, but Horus doesn't want to seem like a naïve child either. What if he is completely wrong, putting credit into those stories? What if Thoth isn't as trustworthy as he seems to be? Will it hurt their chances with Apep if he talks? If Apep finds out they know who – what – he (supposedly) is...
Horus decides it's best to keep quiet. That way, it won't be entirely humiliating should he be wrong. On top of that – if the stories are true – the creators all died in the floods. How could Apep be here now if he died in a flood more than a thousand – more than two thousand – years ago? All of that – if it's true – happened before Horus was even born. Nobody ever mentioned the creators were immortal or anything like that – surely the thought of one of them having survived is simply ludicrous.
Or is it? You thought time travel was ridiculous as well, and yet your parents and the other old gods and goddesses seemed convinced the creators were a highly advanced folk with the most miraculous technology... And who is Simon Walker? Another variable not accounted for. Another mystery.
This much thinking makes Horus' head hurt. It doesn't really matter what Apep is anyway – or who the human boy is. Horus won't go making a fool of himself, believing in those old tales like a petulant child. He's more than two and a half thousand years old already, that's not an age at which to contemplate children's stories. He has no business believing in legends and things that might have been at some point in another time, or perhaps in another world entirely. They'll force the creature that is Apep to its knees either way.