Title: Through Divine Eyes
Characters: Osiris, Ra, Obelisk
Chapters: 1-1||Words: 1,581
Genre: General||Rated: G
Prompts: GX Month 2022, day #7, free day
Notes: This takes place in early season one.
Summary: The attention of gods can be caught when one calls their name - or when something comparable to them walks on their ground, even unknowing.
They slept for a time after the Pharaoh departed for the afterlife. The cards that currently linked them to the mortal world no longer existed, but they remained Gods. They did not need cards to observe. The cards only made it easier to interact, and to stand beside their chosen when these modern battles needed to be joined.
None of them were certain how much time had passed since then, but slowly, ever so slowly, they became aware again. Power flowed through the world, subtle and hidden. Power that none of them hd seen or sensed since the dawn of the cosmos itself.
Obelisk tilted his head, focusing his attention on the source of that power. It took very little for him to be aware of it - and he was not surprised at all.
"The Light of Ruin," he murmured, voice deep and rumbling. If he'd spoken in the human realm, it would have shaken the earth to its core.
Ra flicked a wing; he and the Light had never gotten along. Nor would they ever. It wasn't possible. "What is it doing now?"
"Destroying." Osiris snorted faintly, tail shifting against ground that existed only for them. "What else would you expect it to do?"
Ra's feathers flickered again, gleaming bright as the sunlight. "I would expect the Gentle Darkness to keep it in check."
"It will." Obelisk pointed out. He peered into the human world. "Look. There it is."
All three turned their gaze through the barriers that divided the dimension. Any of them could easily see the incarnations or vessels that the four high forces of creation and destruction, hope and justice, became or used. There they saw the current incarnation of Darkness - a boy of scant years, not even as old as the Pharaoh had been.
"The Gentle Darkness," Osiris murmured, observing from all angles. "Where is their guardian?"
All of them cast about for a few moments, until Obelisk finally shook his head slowly. "Not there. There." He gestured with one great hand and all attention now turned elsewhere.
"This isn't good," Osiris said after a few moments. "Why are they so far apart?"
Ra snarled, wings flicking faster and faster. "The Light of Ruin!" The great god hissed the words between their beak. "They've touched the guardian!"
Obelisk focused back on the guardian and winced. That was more true than he would have wanted it to be. He couldn't be at all certain that the Gentle Darkness would find the guardian. What he could be certain was that the new incarnation would try. Those two belonged together in every lifetime.
He glanced once again towards the incarnation, as the boy raced headlong through the streets of a modern city. The boy gave off no indications that he knew his destined guardian from times long past had been taken by his mortal enemy - nor that said mortal enemy even existed.
How could he not know? Though - it might not be such a surprise that he didn't. While the Gentle Darkness wasn't human, when it took on human form, it became vulnerable to certain human issues. Those included not being able to remember details from one life to the next.
Very annoying, that had to be. Obelisk couldn't quite be certain what it might be like to not know who and what he was all times. But that was, perhaps, the peril of being human. It did give advantages on some levels, but with drawbacks as well.
Osiris arced his head and stared down once more, a deep purr rumbling in the depths of his throats. "Look," he murmured, and the other two joined him in examining what was going on in the mortal realm.
The Gentle Darkness's human incarnation dueled another human. Obelisk recalled that the reincarnation of the Pharaoh-Priest Set had built a school for duelists, with each of the areas named after one of them. He couldn't help but be a little smug that the highest of those was named after him.
"I want him," Osiris said at last. "I like him."
"You've always liked him," Ra pointed out. "But you want him in that - dorm of yours?"
Obelisk tilted his own head at that, mildly curious. "He's more than talented enough to be in my dorm."
"Maybe. But he doesn't have his guardian and he is not suited for your dorm. It wouldn't be good for him." Osiris stared down to the mortal realm, tail sliding back and forth ever so slowly. "Remember what happened the last time he was pushed too hard?"
All three of them winced at the memory. It had happened thousands of years ago and many worlds away - the incarnate Darkness and the Light of Ruin fought one another in many different ways throughout the realms of existence. Not all of those battles went well for the Gentle Darkness.
"You may be right," Ra finally agreed. "How do you intend to be certain that he joins your dorm?"
Osiris considered for several long moments, before he slid a bit of his awareness through the dimensions and brushed up against the one who governed the school. Not the reincarnate of the Phaaoh-Priest,but one he'd seen near the Gentle Darkness in other lives. Samejima, the name was, at least now.
He brushed his tail over Samejima's head, influencing just the tiniest bit, enough to gain his desire. No matter what the results of that duel, the Gentle Darkness's incarnation would end up in the Red dorm.
"What if he decides he wishes to change dorms?" Obelisk wondered. "That does happen on occasion." They'd slept, but they were gods. Almost no effort at all was required to gain information about what they'd missed in the scant handful of years that had passed.
"That's his decision," Osiris declared, coiling back up onto himself. "But this is where he can begin."
Ra grumbled a little but said nothing in opposition. Obelisk suspected that the Herald of Gentle Darkness would not worry about rising in ranks. Whether he knew it or not, he held the strongest connection to the spirits of his deck, and no human could ever beat that.
Time itself would tell the truth on that.
Now it would be time to go back to sleep. Matters could unfold without their interference or watchfulness, and usually did. Obelisk prepared to slide back into rest, when Ra's shifting of claws and wings caught onto his attention.
"What is it?"
"They have one of those false cards of me still," Ra muttered, staring somewhere in the mortal world. "Someone did something to it and I could feel it."
That wasn't surprising, not that a great deal could surprise any of them. Those false cards might not be the ones their spirits were linked to, but any representation of them provided a connection of some kind, no matter how weak. Even a weak connection could be strong enough to channel power through if need be. It had happened before, and Obelisk would not be surprised if it happened again.
A quick flick of his own attention revealed that there weren't any copies of those cards for himself or Osiris. Exactly why they wanted a copy of Ra's card Obelisk didn't know. He'd never tried to understand how humans thought in the first place.
"If it bothers you that much, kill them," he suggested, settling himself back down in comfort. Whatever dangers the world faced, it was the time of the Herald of Gentle Darkness to handle it. They had done their duty. Let him save the world this time around - it wouldn't be the first time he'd done it. Nor would it likely be the last. Unfortunately so.
Ra ruffled his feathers and clicked his beak. "Not yet. I want to know what they're trying to do - see if it's a threat to all of us."
That would be like humans. Always meddling into things that they didn't understand and probably couldn't control, and if they could control it, they probably shouldn't and wouldn't be able to for very long. At times Obelisk wondered why they'd even survived this long to begin with. It probably had something to do with having the blessings of various gods all over the world. By themselves, humans were far too likely to do things even he would prefer not to consider.
He waved one hand, getting comfortable again. "Do as you will. Let us know if there's anything that we need to do." Not that he thought there would be.
Obelisk did send a tiny tendril of awareness over the world, though. Other gods slept in other places - some having sent themselves to sleep, others having been bound by those who defeated them in ages past. So far as he could tell - and he was not a god who could see the future - they would all remain sleeping for now. Only the Herald moved about in the world, and the Light of Ruin.
Which wasn't a God, but frequently considered itself such, and as such took on a host instead of investing in an Avatar, as the Gentle Darkness did. Obelisk had encountered it before and remained astounded by how ridiculous it was. Life always came back. That was what life did, in some form of another.
But again, that would be the Herald's task to deal with. Obelisk wanted to go back to his nap. And so he did.
The End
Notes: Slowly - and I do mean slowly - getting caught up on GX Month. I'll post at least twice a day, if not more, until I'm where I should be. Then it'll be daily.