text; un: 𓅃

[hor]

❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶

I am stuck in my inn room by this white plague.
My own jewelry is so cold it burns my skin.
Attempted to build a fire, but the circle box on the ceiling began to screech deafeningly.

Someone give me a proper burial when this is over.

Comments

[suetekh]

[As soon as he hears Horus, he's digging faster with his bowl and just trying to get enough space for the door. If he can manage that much then he can get inside and they can warm each other up. Body heat is always the best way to warm up.

But his hands are freezing, throbbing from the cold, and he is not built for this. He's the god of the desert. Set is used to unbearable heat. Not this.

Once he sees the door start to show, he's yelling louder.] I see the door! Open it!

[It'll get a lot of snow in but listen he's cold.]

[hor]

I'm doing it!

[ HE opens the door, the snow not really falling beyond a few chunks and leaving an imprint from the door. Horus reaches up for the top of the door, waving his fingers so that Set can see he's here, gold fingernails sticking over the top of the snow pile. ]

Hurry, it's colder with the door open, I can't hold my sheets up!

[suetekh]

[Set had been digging a tunnel and he is basically just trying to force himself through the small hole he's dug. As if he can just tackle his way through. ]

I'm down here!

[It had been easier to do this. Or so he'd thought.]

[hor]

[ Horus looks down at the redhead coming out of the snow between his legs. Somehow this was not a visual he had expected. Set, a hero coming from above in a dramatic but ultimately god-worthy entrance was more along the lines of what he had expected. Not... a child climbing out of a log. After a moment of shock, Horus gets down on his knees and begins to dig to make Set's hole bigger, his hands shaking from the cold but wanting to get Set in there faster and out of the snow. It would not be a noble death for him to perish in a collapsed snow tunnel. ]

I've never seen a king on his hands and knees before.

[ Though Horus is right down there with him now, so it's not too big of an insult. ]

[suetekh]

[At least there would be some Horus related death.

Once Set is out of the snow, and now freezing himself, he grabs onto Horus' hand. The room is a mess but that's the least of his concerns now.]

Don't be so cheeky when you were just crying like a little chick. [Set wasn't doing much better but at least he wasn't complaining.] To keep warm we need body heat. Stay close to me. We need a blanket.

[Time to cuddle, Horus.]

[hor]

[ This is the happiest day of his life so far. His grabs at both of Set's hands with his, not arguing with the little chick comment. He's not wrong. Horus is kind of being a baby right now, but he's cold af and it worked, Set has come over to baby him, so he has absolutely no reason to stop doing it. Set can be the boss today. ]

Got it!

[ He goes to go grab a blanket from his room. None of them are particularly heavy, but they are incredibly soft. ]

[suetekh]

[It's a blanket and it'll work. He takes it and sits down on the ground, opening his legs so he envelop Horus with his entire body. He's a big guy and Horus is smaller, this isn't so hard.

And wrapping the blanket around them, he hopes this should work. At least keep them warmer than what they had.]

Wrap your arms around my waist. Our skin needs to generate as much heat as it can.

[hor]

[ Horus is smaller, ready, and willing. Except instead of back-to-chest, he sits facing Set and wraps his arms around his waist, trying to bury his head underneath Set's chin. Even as he does this, he's shaking slightly. ]

I can put my wings out and cover us, will that help?

[ Falcons don't have much down though, so it's not as warm as if he were any other kind of bird. His feathers are stiffer so he can maintain speed. Fluffy down would send him all over the place when he tried to fight. u_u So for warmth, his wings aren't really that useful, but perhaps in combination with the blanket... ]

[suetekh]

Yeah, it might. Not as much if your feathers were thicker but it'd help. [Here he is talking like he knows anything about keeping warm in a snow storm. But the desert does get cold in the night and so he knows some about keeping warm when it's cold.

When he realizes that Horus is still shivering, he holds onto him tighter. Set himself is cold but he knows that him and Horus can keep each other warm if they hold onto each other like this. ]

We won't die like this. Body heat is always good when it's cold.

[hor]

I can't help the feathers I was born with.

[ Though he does just mean his wings, it's a statement with much broader implications in some ways. Horus rolls his shoulders back and his wings peel out of his back, flapping twice and getting any loose feathers out before he scoots as close as possible to Set, closing his wings over the both of them. Set is right, of course, but it's better than nothing. ]

I know. Neither of us can die here.

[ Plus, he knows Walter is already on the way to save both of them. But he's going to milk it while he can. ]

You won't let me die by any hand but yours, will you?

[ It's almost a tease. He doesn't think Set will kill him either, but he knows Set won't let anyone else. ]

[suetekh]

[The implications in that sentence completely roll right past Set but that is to no surprise to anybody. He is, after all, a very dense individual. They were talking about Horus' wings and feathers so of course that's what he means. Who would blame him for something he had no control over? That's stupid to say, Set thinks, and he doesn't bother to respond. There could be an argument but Set is not interested in arguments. It's too cold for that.

But he does roll his eyes and grumble:] The cold doesn't stop those lips of yours.

[hor]

If I stop, you'll worry, won't you?

[ His voice is quieter even as he asks it. He really is cold, but he is trying to keep talking to make sure they're both okay. Set's quiet enough that if he slipped into hypothermia, Horus might not notice until it's too late. It's important to keep him talking. ]

[suetekh]

Death would be the only thing that would shut you up.

[And of course he is not going to say that he would be worried about Horus in general. Set is not supposed to care and really, this Horus he is still getting used to. Still annoying and yet not a young child who constantly clung to Osiris.

No, this one hatesOsiris.

He sighs and keeps quiet about his thoughts.]

[hor]

You must like the sound of my voice then.

[ If Set won't compliment him, he'll compliment himself for Set. ]

[suetekh]

How did you even get that from what I said? You're either stupid or hard of hearing.

[And Set is not delicate with wording. But at least he's still holding him close.]

[hor]

Mother used to tell me stories of how you would kill the slaves for mild annoyances. I'm the biggest annoyance you've ever met, Set, if you didn't want to hear me talk, you would've let me freeze in here.

[ He does it on purpose, sometimes. Getting under Set's skin is a pleasure in its own right. ]

Who's stupid now?

[suetekh]

Still you. [He makes it a point to keep quiet about the other point. That was not something he looked on too fondly.

But without thinking:] I was hoping you'd be less annoying when you grew up with only Lord Sister. But I guess that woman was just as bad as Lord Brother.

[hor]

[ His throat sharpens just a little, ready to tell him off for comparing his mother to the ass in the underworld, before realizing this is another instance of Set saying something so strangely he can't ignore it.

He shuts down every time he asks directly, so Horus instead tries: ]

How was I when I grew up with Lord Father then?

[ Because that.. that's what his words imply. That somehow, he had grown up with his father, and that was what Set knew. It didn't make any sense, and yet sensible questions get him nowhere. ]

[suetekh]

Clung to him, cried over nothing, and always begging me to do something. [He says without thinking and then, a moment too late, he realizes he shouldn't have said that.]

It's how I imagined a child of his to be anyway.

[What a terrible lie.]

[hor]

[ He definitely knows something. A world in which father actually cared? Not likely, but Set's imagination isn't so great as to be able to create that on his own. Proceed with caution, Horus. Don't repeat the same mistakes despite wanting to interrogate him right here and now. ]

I'm very different. I cling to you, I haven't genuinely cried in a long time, and I strongarm you into doing things.

[ No crying or begging-- what was he, a puppy in Set's first life? ]

In my first life you were a standoffish prick who refused to give your darling nephew the time of day even though your nephew loves you and just wants you to know you're worth more than the people around you made you think so they could use you.

[ First and only life, anyway. ]

[suetekh]

[Set stills at thinking Horus might remember another life but he realizes what he means, relaxing. Sighing.]

So they could use me? Nobody has ever used me. There was never any worth or point in doing so.

[He'd always been relatively useless, no magical skills to speak out. All he could do was fight and that was that.]

I am sure you have cried recently. Probably when you were freezing to death.

[hor]

I'd still have tears frozen to my face if I were!

[ Set isn't closing off at this approach. He's going to push forward with it, even if there's a good chance Set's going to smack him upside the head for saying anything about Osiris. ]

I can tell you at least one case, but you have to promise not to get mad. Those being used usually can't see it. It's a lot easier to see from the outside when you know how the people involved are at their core. But I'm too cold to have a proper fight about it, so I don't want to say it right now if you're going to punch me. You can punch me when it's warmer.

[suetekh]

I won't punch you.

[Only because now he's curious. Who the hell had used him? He couldn't think of anything.

And also he is too cold to get into a fight.]

[hor]

[ Horus shifts slightly, letting his breath out in a puff against Set's neck and keeping his face close enough that the warm breath heats his nose just a little. He stays quiet, trying to think how he should say what he wants to, but if he pisses Set off, he pisses Set off. ]

Without military prowess at his side, Father's magnanimous attitude and the favor of his people would've been pointless. He needed people to fear you and love him, and have people know that he was the only one who could control you or else enemies would've come to take Egypt because he wasn't enough to handle them. Peace was only possible if he could make absolutely certain that you didn't think anyone else could care for you, to make sure you wouldn't act for anyone else. I was taught from a young age the stories of my father and you and the more I learned of him, the more obvious it became.

[ A beat before he cuts in with a reminder: ] You promised not to get mad.

[suetekh]

[Set listens and he isn't mad. Really, it sounds mostly impossible from Set's point of view.]

Nobody liked me from the moment I was born. I knew that without any of his doing. It isn't as if he needed to do anything to make me aware of that fact. [Set doesn't sound so bothered by this because he isn't. He had long since gotten used to the fact that he would always, always never be liked.]

I did well enough to make people dislike me anyway. [And he knows that about himself as well.] Lord brother, though...[He shakes his head.]

You don't understand because you know of only stories.