Ch 1

Ch 1, House of Anubis, opowiadania, Paragon & Osirian, Surviving Ouroboros

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Surviving Ouroboros

Chapter 1: Prologue

"They're breath taking! What type of flower are they?" Amneris wondered aloud as she breathed in the scent the flowers gave off.

Amneris enjoyed many fine luxuries in life. Most of them gifts from the overreaching King who sought to lure her to his bed. She had rebuffed him since he set eyes on her at the tender age of twelve and yet the pugnacious man refused to accept her rejection and had done all but order her to lie with him.

She knew she should be thankful for what he gave her, and she would be if it were not for the fact that he only wanted her as a broodmare. His wife has already birthed two still born daughters and it was well known through the kingdom that he wanted the blonde girl in belief that her status as a 'blessed' would bear him strong sons.

"They are roses," Khai replied as he looked up thoughtfully at the shimmering night sky, "The seeds were a gift to the pharaoh. Your lover, if I am to believe the rumors."

Amneris shot a glare back at him, "The rumors are NOT to be believed. I would not lie with that incestuous bigot unless I was bound, gagged and drugged!"

Khai simply chuckled as if he expected such a rebuttal.

"What a lucky happenstance!"

"Lucky? What is lucky about my rebuffing the king's offer?" Amneris asked haughtily, "I'm not yet twenty and I am not so hideous that no one can look upon me without disgust!? "

With a summarizing glance around him, Khai checked the entrance to the temple courtyard for guards who might tell the king of his actions.

"Not lucky for him, lucky for me."

Khai pulled the lovely young priestess flush against his body with a hand on her waist and another on her neck.

Before she could protest his lips were pressed against hers.

The amorous king had on more than one occasion forced a kiss upon her.

This however was a very different experience.

None of the revulsion that she felt with the king's attacks was present, instead a languid heat had filled the pit of her stomach melting her body against him as his gentle, sensual kisses brought down her defenses.

She could barely think.

But she had sworn herself to Anubis as a priestess. Such a relationship was not an option for her.

It took everything she had to pull herself away from the intoxicating sensations he was invoking. She had had a crush on him since they were children. Why couldn't he have shown his preference before she had sworn herself a virgin?!

"Khai? We can't do this? I'm a priestess, I cannot be with a man in such a way unless the pharaoh permits it and I know for certain that the pharaoh will not allow anyone but himself to have me."

"Be damned the pharaoh, my love is permit enough!" Khai whispered as he pushed a blond curl behind her ear.

Her violet eyes widened in concern as she stepped back in surprise.

"Do not say such blasphemous things!" she scolded fearful that the gods would smite him where he stood.

His normally dark green eyes suddenly flashed the brilliant blue of the noon day sky.

"It is not blasphemous, love. What the pharaoh does not permit means nothing! For the gods forged us both, as two halves of the same whole. I am the night where the only light is that which the moon gives. You are the day and are darkened only by the fingers of shadows. Together we are the balance. Life and death, yin and yang, the push and pull of the tides! We are servants of Ma'at!"

Amneris took several steps back, this time for fear of the man with the glowing eyes. Not once in all the years that she had known him had he been anything other than cordial.

It was true she had fancied Khai for nearly as long as she had known him, but here he was with eyes like blue embers and a burning gaze. His words upset her more so. Such blasphemy would not go unpunished.

"Khai?! I do not know what game it is that you play or what magics you have dabbled so willfully in, but I implore you to desist!"

"Neri, please" Khai began, this time using the pet name he had given her within a week of their meeting nine years ago.

She had been eight the first time her father had brought her to the pharaoh's court.

It had still been under King Akhenaten's rule and his son Prince Tutankhamen had not yet usurped him.

Amneris had been presented to the king as one of the rare 'blessed' children. A cause for celebration in the society.

She had been born with golden hair, violet eyes and milk colored skin to parents entirely opposite in phenotype as the moon is to a tree. The priests had proclaimed her to be the blessed product of the goddess Isis, though no one knew why the goddess had done such a thing.

Like Amneris, Khai too was a 'blessed' child. Although different in appearance as he was born with eyes of emerald, burnished gold hair and skin the color of Saharan sand.

Unlike Amneris however, he had been made aware upon his sixteenth birthday nearly two years ago, who his divine parent was, as well as his purpose amongst the humans.

According to lore Osiris only had one son, Horus, whose mother was Isis. However this was untrue. Osiris had another son that only a select few were aware of. They were unaware simply because Osiris' wife Isis, was not the mother of his second son, her insidious sister Nephthys was.

Most humans believed that Anubis, the god of the dead, was the product of a union between the goddess Nephthys and the god Set.

This, however, was a lie crafted by Nephthys to protect her child, Anubis, until he was old enough to protect himself.

His true heritage would not be discovered for another five hundred years and then only by the most important of people.

And so it was that, Anubis, after nearly half a millennia of life, was told of his heritage.

Osiris at this time, was beginning to notice untoward changes in the human world, and saw a means to fix it in his ill begotten son.

Upon first meeting with his true father, Anubis was given orders by Osiris to create a human blood line.

So in an attempt to win his father's favor, Anubis sired a demi-god with Ma'at the goddess of truth and balance. Their child was destined to act as the pantheons champion in the mortal realm.

A realm with which the gods could not directly interact, without the direst of consequences.

And so Khai was born on the second day, of the second month, of the second year of the century, having been placed into the body of a mortal woman, who had prayed for a child for many years.

Khai was the grandson of Osiris and as the gods mandated the first True Osirian marked not just as all 'blessed' were with ethereal beauty and coloring but also with the mark of the gods.

A black Ankh emblazed with magic across his back.

Loved by both his divine and mortal parents, the godling lived a 'blessed' life.

Less than a moon cycle after his first birthday, Isis learned of the Osirian. Fortunately, instead of anger as her husband had expected, as well as the death of the infant, the wise goddess took pity on the child. Knowing the import of his survival, she instead crafted an equal for him.

Her reason was simple enough. She too wanted a hand in the future of mankind.

Isis created a beautiful baby girl, whose skin was molded from the whitest of marble with hair formed from filaments of the finest gold and eyes from sparkling amethysts.

To mark the child's importance she branded her with the black Ankh of the gods and animated her with her own blood.

Ma'at fearing treachery from the betrayed Isis blessed the goddess' of magics daughter with purity, morals, and an unbreakable love for her own son, to prevent Isis from using her daughter as a weapon against Khai.

And so Amneris was born on the seventh day, of the seventh month, one year after Khai had been born.

The priestess attending her birth recognized her as a daughter of Isis the moment the eye of Horus pendant appeared around her neck, mere minutes after birth. That, along with the mark of the god and the features of the 'blessed', made her a special child indeed.

Among the gods Isis mandated that her daughter would be the Paragon, the Chosen one, with magics of her own.

The Paragon and the Osirian would be two total opposites, working in harmony to bring peace and balance to the supernatural aspects of the world.

The memory of his father's explanation finished running through his head as he took a step towards the frightened girl.

"Neri, please let me explain," Khai implored, "I'll stand right here, so you do not have keep backing up."

Amneris stopped backing up and took in his concerned face, "A-alright. Explain."

"Anubis is my real father, he was ordered to sire me so that the gods would have a mortal agent in the human world. When Isis found out she created you so that she too would have a hand in the world. Isis and my mother Ma'at worked together and made you to be my other half, my equal and mandated that as soul mates we would bring balance to the world. I was born to love you and whether you have realized it or not, you were born to love me."

She simply stared wide eyed at her friend.

It was true that she had always felt this unknown connection with him. Could it also be true, that the gods had made her with such a purpose as to bring balance to the world?

She took an involuntary step towards him.

Khai smiled as relief washed over him. He didn't know what he would have done if she had rejected him. He was hardwired to love her and only her. To live without her would have been excruciating.

"I feel it," Neri whispered, "I do love you…I'm just…afraid."

"There is nothing to be afraid of. We were literally made for each other."

"I'm not afraid of us…I'm afraid of the pharaoh. He's vindictive. If he learns that you've so much as patted my hand in a non-platonic fashion, he'll have us both killed," Neri explained.

"Damn the consequences," Khai announced with a grin. Once more he pulled her in for a heated kissing session that did not end until the moon had set and the sun tinged the eastern horizon pink.

Eddie woke with a start as the dream abruptly ended at the sound of his alarm clock beeping.

'Why did Nina keep calling me Khai?' he thought to himself, 'and WOW, kissing Nina was incredible, even if it was only a dream.'

He sighed as he pulled aside the blankets and slowly rose from the bed, stretching as he went.

'Damn,' Eddie sighed mentally, 'stupid dreams.'

His boxers were tented from memory of him pushing dream Nina up against the garden wall.

"Uuug," came a noise from Fabian's bed as the boy started waking up.

Guilt suddenly flooded through him as he realized that it wasn't just a wet dream he had. It had been a wet dream about his best friend's girlfriend.

Grabbing his towel, Eddie slipped out of the room and made a bee line for the bathroom, intent on fixing his problem with a cold shower.

Nina stood in front of the girls' bathroom mirror, brushing her teeth vigorously as she tried to forcibly forget the image of Eddie, with his flashing blue eyes and the way his lips felt against her neck as he pushed her against the garden wall.

"Damn you, Khai," Nina muttered to herself absentmindedly. The fact that she had just referred to Eddie as Khai didn't even register as abnormal in her hormone riddled mind.

Damn dreams.

She felt guilty for mentally cheating on Fabian with his best friend. What was wrong with her?!

Spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing her mouth out, Nina quickly dressed and headed down the stairs.

By the Gods, breakfast was going to be awkward.

The thought stopped her short.

By the Gods?

Shaking her head of the mental typo Nina continued on, trying to forget the weird thought.

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