Henti-Heti.
His ghost is somewhat more… insistent than the others. I may not have the leisure to only do one of these a day.
Het-het—
Henti-Heti was My older brother by a few years. Loud and pushy even though his body was thin and wiry, and his health wasn't the best. He got sick often; despite our age difference we were a fair match when we fought. We annoyed the hell out of each other, of course, as siblings do, but he also taught Me some of the important basics to Thieving, the things the adults didn't think to mention. He put the two of us in danger more than once, and he would have been punished for both our sakes if My father wasn't afraid of accidentally just snapping the child in two.
Come to think of it, he showed Me the right place to hide when the soldiers came… though he was too tall to fit there…
Ahem.
We weren't too close to the river in Kul Elna, being on the outskirts of Kemet, so we didn't get to play in the reeds or throw stones at fish like most boys our age. Instead we satisfied ourselves with exploring our village stone by stone, wandering off into the desert—once we were lost there for several days and assumed dead, actually—and, of course, fighting each other.
Unlike modern day families, ours approved of our fighting to a degree. Just like cubs and kits tear at each other's throats in their play to prepare them for real fights, Het-het and I played rougher with each other than with any other Thieves. We learned the dirty tricks by figuring them out ourselves, just as we learned to deal with pain without letting it cripple us. It was rare that we were truly being mean-spirited, so most arguments ended before the day's end according to who was left standing.
The last year of his life, though, I was forbidden from playing with Het-het at all, besides simple board games and pretending. He stayed inside most of the time from that point on. I admit, I thought it was My fault since it was a particularly harsh fight of ours that first made him bedridden. Looking back, I realize it was some sort of malady… I wonder if he'd have even survived long if the Items had never been made.
I miss the days when he wasn't always angry and fierce. Though he nagged and ordered at me incessantly even when he was living.