(A/N: In Ancient Egypt, they did not speak the real name of Apep/Apophis, the serpent of chaos. He was basically their "He Who Must Not Be Named". I reference Akhenaten, the 'heretic pharaoh' who banished the old gods in favour of Aten, the sun disk. Nephthys is the goddess of mourners, mourning, and guardian of souls entering Duat. Set is god of the desert and chaos, but also protected the pharaoh, and watched over soldiers in battle. The soul in Ancient Egypt was referred to as the "Ba"]

Let My Heart Be Hardened

You dare. You dare return after twenty-three years to tell me that you have come back only to free the Hebrew slaves, and not be a prince of Egypt again. Liberate the slaves! What a thought! They are beneath you, they are beneath us all! I see by your expression and voice that you are not joking. You are being completely serious in your dismissal of my desire to wipe away your past crimes and declare you a prince of Egypt.

I ask you, then, brother, then why did you bother to return to the palace, if not to me? Do you know how much I missed you when you were gone? Do you know how much it meant to me when I saw you walk through the door, and at that moment know my brother lived? The way my heart leaped in my chest! The way my sorrow evaporated like the darkness at dawn! How my jubilance exploded in my heart as I embraced you.

He is alive! I'd celebrated, Moses lives! He lives! My brother! He is well! His heart yet beats, he yet lives! It will be like the old days again! My heart rejoices for he is here! My brother whom I took for dead for twenty-three years!

Twenty-three 's a long time to believe a beloved brother dead, only for him to come back and then push all that aside like it's just a minor incident. I think perhaps you should put yourself in my sandals, Moses. How would you feel if you believed me dead twenty-three years, only for me to disregard all that like nothing ever happened? Like those twenty-three years were trivial and not full of sorrow. As though all that pain and sorrow did not matter. Imagine I returned after over twenty years only to say I won't return as your brother, but as liberator of some lowly slaves?

Would you understand why I'm so angry?

No, you would not understand would you? You hardened your heart to your own brother's grief, joy, and then renewed grief as terrible as the sorrow I felt when you'd run from Egypt into the desert. Over the last twenty-three years, the scab of sorrow had healed over, only to be ripped off by a few words and a single action: returning a gift to the gifter.

If you could have seen our mother and father's sorrow when you left Egypt, leaving us all behind to lament, would you still dismiss their sorrows? You never saw how desperately they had prayed to Nephthys and Set to watch over your ba while it wandered aimlessly outside Egypt's borders! The sacrifices they offered to Set to watch over your soul in his domain, and the prayers they offered to Nephthys in Isis's temple. We'd pleaded with the gods to return you to Egypt, safe and alive.

Then, when we were convinced you were dead, Egypt lamented seventy days as per tradition—but mourned an empty coffin bewailed by professional mourners as they crossed the Nile River to the tombs on the western bank of the river. The priests responsible for certain ceremonies then entered an empty tomb. None of the priests bothered to do the "Opening of the Mouth" ceremony on the coffin, simply allowing the coffin bearers to put the sarcophagus on the tomb floor. There was no body in the coffin to be privy to the "The Opening of the Mouth" ceremony, and your ba, we assumed then, was wandering around somewhere in the Red Land, utterly lost.

You did not ask after mother and father. Did you even think of them? Adopted you they may have, but they loved you, raised you as their own. No. You did not even mention them, like you'd forgotten them. I'm glad they're not alive—knowing you forgot them all together would be too terrible for them to know.

And now to add insult to injury, you return the ring I had gifted to you when I granted you the position of Chief Royal Architect twenty-three years before. Perhaps I should never have given it to you, if you would return such a gift. I don't care if you said "I'm sorry". That hurts—and I will punish you and the Hebrews for it. I will spill my fury upon your people, and my heart shall be hardened. I will make them work twice as hard to show I will not be swayed so easy.

I will not be the weak link, Moses!

I will uphold Ma'at! I will not allow the serpent of chaos, whose name we dare not speak, to overrule Egypt. If I allow this Hebrew God to rule over Egypt, Moses, then I open permission for the serpent who must not be named to arise and defeat Ma'at and topple the scales of justice and balance. If I allow this Hebrew god of yours to dominate Egypt, then I would be no better than Akhenaten, who banished all the gods in favour of the sun disk, Aten. Do you know who spent most of his reign restoring Egypt to her old traditions and gods again? Do you realise who it was that followed in the footsteps of pharaohs before him to remove every memory of Akhenaten? It was the man who raised you as his son. Seti. And you would have me undo all that my father had restored in his reign, in favour of your foreign god with no name?

Absolutely not. Akhenaten was the weak link—and I shall not do the same! To banish the gods is to banish Ma'at and invite in the serpent of chaos! I shall not do it! The gods will be furious!

Seti was wrong about just who was the weak link. Perhaps if he was alive today, then he would know who is really the weak link. Only a pharaoh who wanted to be seen as weak and easily manipulated would allow some foreign god domain over the land as Akhenaten allowed Aten.

I will not be Akhenaten!

I place my crown on my head, these thoughts screaming in my heart that is once again sorrowing for the brother who has not returned.

You have returned, but you are not the same Moses who left Egypt so many years ago. That Moses who left Egypt would have cared that I'd grieved twenty-three years. That Moses would not allow some god to take over Egypt while Pharaoh watches helplessly. That Moses would have cared that his adopted family had mourned for many years, and had tearfully begged the gods to return you safe and alive to Egypt.

Not you.

You're not the Moses I know anymore.

I don't even know my own brother anymore.

Do not step in my way as I strive to uphold Ma'at and banish the serpent of chaos back to Duat where it belongs.

Do not dare to force me to go against my father's legacy, nor to be the second Akhenaten.

Akhenaten was the weak link in his dynasty, and I will refuse to be him.

Do not think you can change my mind so easily, Moses, whom I care for despite knowing you're a Hebrew. Do not think that I would allow the entire economy to walk away just like that. Do you know who you're talking to? I am your brother, but perhaps you do not deserve to be called "brother".

I will punish you and your beloved Hebrews. Maybe you can join them. You don't deserve this palace, Moses. Oh, the Moses I knew before he ran out of Egypt deserved this palace.

Not you. I don't know you anymore.

Now get out of my sight and return to your people.

I hope your people enjoy their doubled workload, and don't try to stop me as I stop your god from unbalancing the scales of justice and tradition Seti had so carefully restored.

Remember, Moses: I am the morning and the evening star.

I. AM. PHARAOH.