Chapter Text
Seth couldn’t believe the plan worked. He pushed himself up from the blue tile floor of the room where Sea King Osiris typically kept Seth prisoner for 40 years. As prisons went, it wasn’t the worst it could be, with wide open spaces, cushions everywhere for Osiris to use Seth at his own leisure, a large, comfortable bed that stank of Osiris, large, one-way thick windows where fish and merfolk occasionally swam past to remind Seth of where he couldn’t go, and a ceiling that could be spelled to look like the water surface at night or daytime. The room was far beneath Osiris’ main palace, and Seth’s typical pastime when he wasn’t doing what exercises he could, brushing his hair, or reading in order to do something with himself, was to watch fish swim by and resist the urge to try, again, to smash the thick and spelled glass to break.
On rare occasions, Osiris would take Seth out of the room on a leash made of adamant, attached to a collar which could contain even the most powerful of merfolk, like Seth once had been before Osiris locked him away. Seth still had scars from the times he’d been in the collar, but he knew if he misbehaved, he’d be returned to his prison, and face worse punishment than being treated publicly as a pet. So he sat at Osiris’ feet and listened to court proceedings. And sometimes Osiris fed him sea grapes or shrimp. Seth had grown past being embarrassed this way. It had been too many years, and his early attempts at escape had all been failures.
Rather than seething about his captivity, he focused on gaining information to help him escape in the future. In particular, he focused on the courtiers who spoke of Isis’ growing forces. Isis, the former consort of Osiris, who had left under mysterious circumstances. Rumor was that she’d wanted to share the throne, and Osiris had refused. Uglier rumors were that she wanted to rule alongside a new lover from abroad. Seth didn’t know the real answer, and it hardly mattered, since she’d been gone as long as he’d been imprisoned. She certainly hadn’t contacted him before or after his imprisonment, or at least not in a way that had reached him.
It was one of rare court sessions Seth attended that a servant brought Seth a tray of food, and Seth – as he glanced briefly at the servant’s mostly covered face – saw something gleaming gold in their eyes. A look of mischief. But they quickly left. Seth casually checked the food over while Osiris leaned back on his seaweed green throne and listened to farming reports. And when Seth noted something off about the pastry on the tray, he secreted it on his person, in the expensive, flowy, and opaque garments Osiris insisted on clothing him in to make him prettier while keeping the “best” parts of him hidden from others (Osiris was jealous like that, which was why Seth always wore a dark mask to cover his upper face whenever they were in public), and finished off the rest of the meal.
After Osiris fell asleep in their bed that night, Seth pulled himself off of Osiris, letting Osiris’ seed drip out of his ass as he walked to the bathroom. He was used to that, too, and Osiris would enjoy seeing the mess anyway. Osiris saw it as proof of his own affection. Or his claim. Osiris thought similarly of the collar scars on Seth’s pale neck, and sometimes Osiris would pull Seth’s long red hair aside to kiss them, during which Seth struggling not to grit his teeth and snarl. He was supposed to be grateful Osiris didn’t leave it on all the time, largely because once it nearly strangled him to death when Osiris was a bit too ecstatic in bed and overloaded the spells on it. Then it only came out for special occasions, when they left Seth’s prison together.
Seth dug through the dinner roll in the bathroom, and discovered, hidden inside, a tiny vial of blue liquid, and a small rolled up piece of parchment in military script Seth had developed for his officers in his youth, back when Osiris let him lead the army. This was a message from Sekhmet, his former sort of ally, whom he hadn’t heard from since before his captivity. Apparently she had some ideas of her own.
Seth scanned the paper, and then swallowed it. He gazed at the vial in awe, and planned. He couldn’t act immediately, of course. He had to wait until Osiris woke up. Seth later swallowed the vial’s contents before Osiris had seen, walked out to where Osiris was sitting, and said he was going to kill himself.
Osiris watched Seth fall in alarm, and saw Seth’s pale body begin to take on signs of rotting. Osiris had wailed and vainly attempted to heal him, but his magics were useless. In desperation, he’d said, “I’ll be there with you, my love.” And then he’d taken some poison he’d squirrelled away, and fallen at Seth’s side, his arms wrapped around Seth’s torso.
Seth pushed himself up a short while later, a bit disoriented from the faux death state created by the vial’s contents, but otherwise hale. The purple and blue marks on his skin – purely aesthetic to fool the overwrought – were fading. He was conscious while Osiris wailed, and was glad the potion kept him from laughing. The sight of Osiris laying on the floor at Seth’s feet, dead and already rotting away, as merfolk bodies did on death, was at once everything Seth had dreamed of for years… and also empty.
Seth and Osiris had been raised together, and Seth had become leader of Osiris’ military at a young age. They’d even been friends, until one night when Osiris had drugged Seth, and Seth had woken up a prisoner, and Seth’s trust had been shattered forever.
Now, Seth didn’t mind the stench of rotting flesh for the few moments he took to bask in the reality of it. He told himself that Osiris’ green skin and long, dark hair looked better as it dissolved. It was all evidence that Osiris was dead at last, despite being the most powerful member of their race. In the past, Osiris was too strong to kill, and used his spells and poisons to keep Seth weak. No more, though.
Now Seth got to work. He didn’t bother grabbing any of the useless drapes Osiris gave him for clothes, and refused to touch any of the doctored food or drinks. He’d hunt with his bare hands if he had to, particularly since there wasn’t anything here he could use as a weapon. He did grab the collar and put it in a pack for his back, to destroy later, along with the empty vial, which was the only evidence of what he’d done. Then he worked his way out of the room, easily passing the numerous previously locked doors. The spells keyed to Osiris were gone now that he was dead, and here, with all of them open at Seth’s touch, was more proof of that fact.
Oddly, there were no guards around. As Seth went up through the levels of the underwater palace, he heard shouting in the distance. Seth’s magical skills were rusty, but he was able to slowly and carefully dissolve his body into sand when he heard approaching footsteps. Everyone who passed him was too preoccupied to notice more sand on the usually pristine palace floors, and it had been decades since anyone had seen him do it anyway, so they weren’t even thinking to look for it. The guards were harried and angry. Courtiers ran. It was chaos.
Seth knew they couldn’t know Osiris was dead yet. The smell wouldn’t reach this far yet, and Osiris’ magic was important, but this had to be something else. Someone would have gone to check on Osiris if the missing spells were the issue, and they hadn’t yet, because Seth would have passed them.
“They’ve broken through the front gates!” someone shouted.
Seth blinked and realized the palace was under attack. He assumed it was Isis, since few others would dare. His instincts warred with him to go help. He’d been a soldier in Osiris’ military for 62 years, defending their kingdom from attackers, and had badly missed that life during his captivity. People would get hurt, no matter what Isis’ plans were. She’d been a fair and generous leader in her time, but it had been decades. People changed.
…But he’d been trapped here for decades, too, and only one person had helped him. He owed these people nothing.
So he ran from wherever he sensed soldiers.
He managed to sneak out one of the exits while guards were busy elsewhere, and the first moment he managed to jump into the ocean proper and transform into his true form, he nearly cried in relief. His long bright red tail – unusual for merfolk – moved quickly behind him, as if he’d never stopped swimming. Osiris hadn’t let him shapeshift at all in captivity, and it felt like stretching muscles desperate for it. He could have swum for days, but knew he wasn’t free yet.
He sped away, heading towards open waters, somewhere far from whatever was happening.
But the potion he took – the one in the vial – despite not actually killing him, made him weak, and he was rusty at moving unseen in open water. He ran into a patrol of enemy soldiers, and by their armor colors – bright green, gold, and blue – he knew they belonged to Isis. Isis’ soldiers. The warriors blinked in surprise at him, until their leader said, “It’s Osiris’ pet general! Don’t let him get away!”
Seth had heard worse over the years, so he didn't bristle. He could have stayed to fight them, but he was in no shape to do so. He fled in the opposite direction.
Isis’ soldiers were good, though. His back prickled from their spell arrows.
In desperation, he went for more open waters, hoping to surprise them. They’d have expected him to dive downward, and could corner him in some nook, and killed or captured him that way. He refused to do that. He wouldn’t die here and he wouldn’t be captured again!
A hand caught his, startling him, and he heard laughter, “This is one you owe me now.”
He lost consciousness.
When he next woke, he was laying on a beach, with hot sand heating his pained back, and sunlight blinding him. He’d been on land a few times in his youth, but that had been ages ago. Still, he knew to try and turn his head and shut his eyes against the light. It hurt a lot, and his head felt heavy.
As his vision adjusted, he saw, above him, a dark-skinned, handsome male face with bright blue eyes and short, dark hair looked down at him in concern.
Seth glared, ready to fight anyone who demanded it. “I’m Seth, the God of War…” An old moniker people gave him based on his success in combat. It usually spooked people, at least, before people began calling him Osiris' pet, anyway. “If you dare… I’ll kill you.” A surge of pain swept over him and he shut his eyes again.
“I’m Horus, son of Isis,” an unfamiliar voice said nearby. “It’s good to meet you.”
And with that, Seth fell again into the dark.