In which Anubis has the most epic battle of his life so far at a dinner table.
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Spaghetti
Anubis had never thought his greatest opponent would be a dish called "spaghetti". Cleo said it was an Italian food. Well, whoever invented it must have been mad. The sauce made of meat and tomato was alright, but those long lines of pasta were a pain. He just couldn't grab them right neither with hands nor with that thing called "fork". Man, it was hard to eat like this.
Cleo realized maybe it wasn't the best idea to start with spaghetti, since the god had never used fork and spoon before and that dish wasn't the easiest to eat either. But she couldn't really do anything to help him. She tried to show him how to eat it, but it seemed Anubis needed more than that. Gramps chuckled at the scene, and the jackal god did something he rarely did: blushed. In front of a mortal.
He couldn't really focus on the meal since he was worrying over the storm. Those clouds were the sign of bad luck and when they showed, nothing good would happen. And he knew the future events will be worse than this big pile of spaghetti, even though right now it seemed impossible to happen.
Even Tut had smaller problems with the food, though he didn't need to eat it. But it would have been very impolite not to attend to it. So after half an hour of endless fighting he finally started to get a hang of it, and managed to finish the meal.
- Gramps, wanna watch horror movies with us? – asked Cleo.
- Sure, honey! – he laughed. – I remember my first horror movie. It was about Frankenstein… or was it Dracula?
Anubis glanced at Cleo who smiled and shepherd everyone to the living-room. They sat down on the sofa, in front of that magic picture box, called "TV".
After ten minutes, he was totally confused. The others around him were shivering, laughing and screaming, but all he could see was a bunch of miniature humans running around in a miniature desert from a miniature, hungry mummy. He tried to recall the face of the mummy (he could remember almost every patient he had over the centuries) but he didn't find it familiar. Hm, maybe the Sleeping erased his memories a little bit, or this wasn't an Egyptian mummy. After a couple of minutes he gave up.
The movie was quite long (or at least it was for Anubis) and when it was over, he looked out on the window and saw that the storm had passed without rain or anything. He sighed heavily. Maybe he was getting too paranoid. Yes, it must be it.
- How was the film? - Cleo asked him.
- I… did not really understand – Anubis had to admit it.
- Don't worry – she waved. – It was the same with Tut. You'll get used to it soon.
-… Maybe.
Cleo had to admit he was right. Anubis wasn't like Tut. He wasn't a child, barely living 10 or so years. He was a thousands of years old god, who had a very different mind, but more importantly the customs of the ancient world soaked in more deeply. But it looked like it was her mission to look after lost and/or resurrected ancient Egyptian spirits/mummies/gods so she decided she wouldn't give up so easily. Anubis needed help like a little kid lost in a big place.
- What should we do? – she pondered. – Tomorrow it's school.
- He can stay with me – said Tut.
- At the museum? – asked Anubis.
- That's not a good idea – mumbled Luxor.
- Hey kiddo, how about staying with me? – asked Gramps cheerfully. – We can spend a day in the center, eh?
Cleo tried to say something against it, but she realized it was the best idea so far. At least Anubis would see more of Nashville.
The jackal wasn't very fond of the idea. He would have been happy with simply staying here alone but he knew that was very unlikely to happen.
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- Any news, Thoth? – asked Bastet.
- I will not be able to create the anti-ink faster if you keep bothering me every hour – mumbled Thoth.
He was exhausted. Examining the ink was much harder than creating it. All he had to do was mixing a few spells together and voila! But now he had to look into it and figure out how this new magic worked. This was a very hard task even for the wisdom god.
And to make things worse he had to hurry. The balance has been stripped and no one could possibly tell how long the City will last without it. Isis had already reported a giant crack running across the ceiling of the main temple, the home of her family. This was getting serious. And it all started with a simple prank.