Chapter 4 Family History Part 1

Atem moved Akefia into a bedroom next to his. Sheetal watched him "Humans are very interesting" she said calmly "Do they usually do these kinds of things?"

"Only Seth. He has a couple lackeys who work with him, but not many people are like that" Atem covered Akefia up with a blanket the best he could, considering that he had wings and was lying on his stomach. Is he going to be okay?" he asked, picking up a bowl of soup and a bread roll.

"He should be fine. The only serious wound is the one on his wing" Sheetal fished an herb out of her pocket and started the chew it. Taking it out after a minute she rubbed it on the injured wing.

Atem watched this then helped Akefia up and forced him to drink the soup, after this he handed him the bread. He ate the bread on his own. "Are you feeling okay?" Akefia just stared at him loathingly. "Don't want to talk to me, huh? Fine just go to bed, Ra knows you need rest"

When he lay Akefia back down the thief-angel tried to stay awake but blood loss from the recent experiments proved to be enough to put him to sleep.

OOOOO

Akefia stood on the balcony, letting his wings fan out. He knew how to do two things now, spread them out, in which together they were only about 45 degrees short of a full circle, or let them droop, making them about 90 degrees put together.

It had been a week since he got captured and he wasn't sure which was worse. The humiliation of having Atem nurse him back to health or the torture that Seth put him through. He was actually pretty sure that Atem was worse

"Oh, you're up today" Akefia glanced back at the pharaoh who'd just walked in and growled. How he wished he could actually fly, then he could leap of the balcony and take off, never returning. Instead he just played with a ball of cold, magical, white fire.

"You must have a lot of your energy back…" Atem observed "That's good. I didn't think Sheetal was telling the truth when she said you'd recover that fast. She offered to grow our finger back."

Akefia scowled and looked at his right hand. He hated Sheetal, seeing her as the reason he had to be an angel. He'd been perfectly human before he first met her. Still… it looked strange… having a hand with only four fingers on it. Seth had been a proper idiot to think that he might be able to regenerate body parts. "I'm fine without having her mess up my body, thank you very much"

"But… she'd be…" Atem shook his head "Never mind, if you're going to be that way about it you deserve to be missing a finger" Akefia's scowl deepened and he clenched his right hand in a fist. "I don't get why you have to act like everyone's against you"

"No. You really wouldn't get it" Akefia said. He was beginning to get annoyed. So what if Atem had nursed him back to health? He was still…

Akefia's wings flapped on there own, it was the most the thief-angel could do to keep from screaming as he lost his balance and toppled over the edge of the balcony. Atem rushed up and grabbed his arm "You have wings! Fly!" He ordered

Akefia stared up at him like he was stupid "If I could don't you think I would have already?"

"What does that mean?"

"I. Can't. Fly." Akefia said slowly

Atem just looked at him for a minute, then pulled him up "What, can't control your wings? Sheetal did say something about that" Akefia glared at him "Well if you can pull that then I order you to stay away from the edge of the balcony!"

Akefia snorted "Yeah, like I'm actually going to obey tha-" he stopped in the middle of his sentence. He'd been going back to lean on the balcony again but once he'd gotten close enough he'd found that his body didn't obey his mind

"Didn't Sheetal tell you?" Atem asked when he noticed the confused look on the thief-angel's face "You're my angel. Your magically bond to obey my commands" Akefia swore in Babylon. "Nice… but really, you didn't think I'd let you stay here if you could just get up, slit my throat and run away did you?"

Akefia stared at Atem for a minute, then walked over to his bed and began to scream into his pillow "Maybe if you could explain to me why this is so horrible-?" Akefia chucked the pillow at Atem "Okay, now you're just being immature"

"YOU WOULDN'T GET IT!" Akefia snarled "I-… My parents, my friends, everyone I knew. They were all killed just so you could sit your butt on that stupid thrown! While people worshiped you for being lucky enough to be born into some stupid royal family I had to live on the streets just because the royal family couldn't stand the thought of having a different family that actually knew what they were doing take over! My life was stolen so you could have everything! And you know what, your stupid family covered it up by claiming that all those people they killed, my friends and family, were a bunch of scum who'd deserved what they got! And Kimi…" Akefia looked down at his bed sheets, tears forming around his eyes "My mom was always away, and my father was a drunken idiot, but my little sister… she… I saw it. All of them, killed right in front of me… on the pharaoh's orders… that night…."

Atem tried to take in what Akefia had said. He really couldn't understand. Obviously the thief-angel was upset that people close to him had been killed, but his whole family and all his friends? Try as he might Atem couldn't really imagine losing them all in one foul swoop.

Hi mother was always away? When he thought about it he remembered Siamun had told him that his father had had a woman who worked for him, but vanished every now and then to be with her family that lived outside the palace and that one time she'd been there at the wrong time. He'd called the woman 'unusual' being an angel was something passed from one parent to the oldest child according to Sheetal. Had that woman been Akefia's mother? He'd have to ask Siamun more about her.

No one spoke for a while. Atem stared out over the balcony thinking about all these things while Akefia examined his right hand. Both of them knowing that this wouldn't be easy.