Winter, Day 29 - Spireno

CW: blood, violence, self-harm, death

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Gotta go fast.

Seth raced down the road, a small box tucked protectively under one arm, and a long, ancient spear grasped in his right hand.  His usually ever-present trenchcoat was long gone, lost, and shredded, by his pursuer only minutes before near the border between Antium and Nicaea.  Blood ran into his eyes from a cut along his hair line, and streamed down his body from other wounds, drying quickly to his skin and clothes as he moved faster than lightening itself, as he used some of the last bits of his carefully hoarded power to propel himself toward his destination at faster speeds than his pursuer could follow.

As he turned down the stretch that would take him past Spireno, and on to Foxpoint, the chaos god stumbled.  Just barely, he managed to not go tumbling end over end.  Barely.  He was slowing down.  Not by much, but enough.  Seth was not going to make it.  Not all the way to Foxpoint, his wounds were too great, and his power, too little.  Time for Plan B.  He stretched his senses out, searching, as he ran along the borders of the angel’s orchard.

C’mon you furry little goth gump, where are you?

He trickled a bit more power into his speed, a touch more into the search.  The snake was catching up. He could feel the bastard, closing the distance, using Seth’s own power to do so.  Knowing his own godhead was being used against him infuriated Seth.  Every instinct screamed to stop, to turn, and face down this pale imitation of Apep that dared to hound his steps.  He could not, however.  He didn’t have the strength, and he didn’t have the power.

[5:41 PM] Scenemod: Where are y- THERE!

The chaos god veered slightly right, keeping close as possible to the farm’s border, even though it slowed him down. As he skidded to a stop, Seth dropped to his knees.  As he used the butt of his spear to stay mostly upright, he tried to catch his breath, panting hard as he stared into the two bright eyes of the black fox which studied him from just inside the Spireno boundary.

“I need your help, foxkin.”

Seth sat the box down so that it almost touched the wall. Reaching into his shirt, he pulled out two sealed envelopes, grimacing at the blood staining them.  Can’t be helped, now. The contents would still be readable.    Seth shoved the box forward until it bumped into… something that would not let it move further in his hands.

Kuro sniffed, twitched an ear toward Seth, noted his wounds, and pointedly looked at the chaos god’s spear, where a brilliant red jewel sat glowing in the eye of one of its sculpted foxes, the shining gem a sharp contrast to the weathered, ancient emerald that sat in the eye of the snake which was caught in the fennec’s jaws. 

“That isn’t for me.  Not… not really, and they know that.  Knew it when she gave it to me.  Come on Kuro, I am running out of time.  It’s not going to hurt the angel.  I swear it.  Please.”

The black fox gave a soft yip, before gently grasping the corner of the box with his teeth and dragged it backwards until the box was several feet inside of the orchard’s grounds.  “And these,” Seth insistently shoved the envelopes toward the fox, once Kuro slunk back to the boundary line.  “Give these to the angel.  I…”

[5:41 PM] Scenemod: A loud hissing echoed through the night air.  Kuro snatched the letters from Seth’s hand just before the desert god threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding a strike from the serpent, now grown impossibly large, that hunted him.  Kuro backed away, snarling, ears flat, the letters caught carefully between his teeth.

”Stay”

“There must be witness.”

The commands came from Seth, spoken in Japanese, as the God of Foreigners scrambled to his feet.  He flung out a hand, slinging his blood toward the snake in an arc.  A semi-circle of shimming glyphs formed around him, open only on the Spireno side.  Typhon hissed in anger and frustration as he slammed the side of his body against the magical barrier again and again.

It held- for now.  Seth knew it would not hold long.

The chaos god struck a match on air, raised a cigarette to his lips, and lit it, taking a long drag.  As he shook out the match, a feather replaced it in his hand.  He lay the feather against the spear, and the carved tail of the fennec fox curled around it, securing it tightly to the shaft.  The feather melded into the spear, seeming now a part of it. A myriad of tiny blue eyes blinked up at Seth, questioning, but Seth did not meet their gaze.

He took another drag from his smoke, as Typhon slammed into barrier again.  The tiniest of spiderweb cracks appeared.  Barely noticeable- but still there.  Thunder rumbled, and lightening flashed across a crystal-clear night sky, called by the power Seth was gathering around him.

“Well.” Seth crushed the cigarette in his hand.  Shimmering golden lightening spun around his clenched fist. “It’s been a good run.”  Seth adjusted his spear, the same one that had felled the serpent Apep, so that its point rested just under his left breast, took a deep breath- and impaled himself on the spear.

[5:41 PM] Scenemod: Behind him, Typhon roared in anger, ramming the shimmering wall again and again.  Painfully, hand over hand, Set walked himself off the spear’s head, gasping, as his still-beating heart, pulled free from his chest, and remained impaled upon it.  Behind him, the cracks in the barrier spread like wildfire with each blow from the Titan-spawn.  With a single, seamless motion, Set flipped the spear in his hand, and readied it for a throw.  Golden lightening flowed along its length- flowed into the red wishing gem he’d been given- as the god of storms muttered, once more in Japanese.

“Inari, I really hope you’re listening, because I have a very big wish to make!”

Set launched the spear.  It arched through the air, that freely-given angel feather and the familiarity of Inari’s power allowing the heart of a chaos god to pass through the barrier around Spireno.  The spear struck true as it always did, pinning through the box Kuro had helped him position.  Set fell to his knees, one hand shoved back toward the barrier, palm out, forcing almost every last bit of power he had into keeping it intact.

Lightning struck the spear, setting the box full of a thousand carefully-folded cranes- and the heart of a god- on fire.

“Hurry Inari.  That’s enough will and sacrifice to power a godsdamn cataclysm- and call the angel here. You know he will try to interfere.  Please… hurry.” 

Whether by his call or Kuro’s mattered not. Inari was simply there in the next breath, though she looked only marginally like the Inari he had seen at the party. A swirl of gold and silver replaced amber eyes, and a rainbow of foxfire was lit at the tip of each of her nine tails. “Speak your wish, desert kin,” she said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “I cannot grant what I do not know.”

[5:41 PM] Scenemod: “My wish…”  Seth gasped out.  The glowing glyphs that made up his barrier seemed to fade slightly, before flaring brightly again.  “The tie.  Between myself and the mortal Anja.  I wish it cut.” He didn’t, not really, but it must be done.  “And if there is enough power here to do it, I wish my immortality to be cut away with it, and passed to her.”

It was a big wish. An enormous one, in fact. But there was power there to fuel it. Inari inhaled, and the thousand cranes, still alight, burst forth from the box and surrounded the kami like a whirlwind, the energy of a thousand papyrus sheets carefully crafted, carefully lined in ink he had labored over… that would have been enough for his first wish alone.

It was his sacrifice that powered the rest.

A slim tanto appeared in Inari’s hand as she leaned over him, reaching for his hand… and the string that trailed from it. “You are certain?” she asked - a wish like this she had to know he was sure, though she could sense it even now.

He held out his hand to her, the opposite hand still pouring the last dregs of his power into keeping the serpent at bay.  “I have never been so certain in all of my existence.”

“She is worth the sacrifice.”

A single nod, and she carefully lifted the string in her free hand, traveling until she could sense a weak point. He had almost made it impossible. Cut it too close. But there it was, a sliver of weakness, and it was there she raised the knife and sliced. The cranes flared up in a flash of white and gold, their power flowing into Inari even as she split the string, severing the bond between Set and Anja fully.

[5:41 PM] Scenemod: “I am sorry, desert kin,” she said, sadly. “For the loss you are enduring.” His final wish, granting his immortality to Anja. She took the heart - it appeared in her hands, cupped carefully between them. “Your life for hers. Granted, desert kin.”

The heart then, too, lit up in the swirl of Inari’s magic, stealing from him the immortality he had given freely to one he loved. The ultimate sacrifice.

Seth fell forward as Inari severed the string, jerking his hand back to clutch at the hole where his heart used to be.  The cut… the cut hurt more than he expected.  More than removing his heart.  In these, his last moments, as the connection between he and Anja died, he let himself feel what he’d been denying for too long, the full scope of not just her love for him- but his love for her.  Rain began to fall from a clear sky- the tears of a god falling softly upon the hallowed grounds of Sprireno Farms.

A sweep of his other hand, and the barrier at his back shifted to his front, between himself and the kami.

Protecting her.

“Tell Ana… she was... right about me, won’t you?” Set murmured. Behind him the serpent Typhon loomed, hissing softly, wary of trickery from the desert god.

[5:41 PM] Scenemod: “Get on with it, you impotent Greek bastard.”

Typhon struck, mouth wide, snatching the fallen god up.  In two quick undulations of the serpent’s throat, Set, God of Chaos and Storms, was no more.  Magic pulsed around the snake, and it shifted and thrashed- before reforming into the familiar form of Seth Tyler, unharmed, complete with the ever- present leather trench.  The only difference to be seen were the eyes, no longer emerald green, but yellow, and split with an elliptical pupil.

Reaching into his coat, Typhon, pulled out a pair of dark glasses, flipped them open, and slipped them on.  He gave the kami- and the angel who had appeared just in time to witness Seth’s wishes- a little wave, before snapping his fingers, and disappearing.