“Take yourself in hand… where I cannot,” I said, and lapped again at his nipples and nipped with my teeth to distract him—and myself—from our barely-there friction, “and know… that only one man’s seed will ever fill you.”
Horus’s expression when he met my gaze was not that of a predator in pursuit, but one of prey surrendered, of someone lost to the whim’s of fate and the choices of another. He wanted to believe in Seth, but in the end, Seth needed to save himself, and all Horus could do was wait.
I knew that plight well.
“If I, as a mortal,” I said, “can traverse the Duat for even the chance at reuniting with my beloved, surely, you can be strong enough to wait for yours.”
Ready tears flooded Horus's eyes, but he nodded. Gripping himself tight as he had been told, he ground down against the root of my length, rocking me into the bark of the tree with firmer and firmer thrusts. I didn’t worry about the state of my roughened skin, for it was my truest pleasure to bring someone else to rapture, even if our hearts and loins were irrevocably bound to others.
I could still barely move, so I focused on my fingers playing inside his heat like one might pluck the strings of an arched harp, giving him that promised taste of what I knew he would one day be granted in full.
The wind from Horus’s wings forever cooled our heated skin, and he kept one hand tangled in my hair, with the other stroking his cock. The tanned member was as normal looking as it had felt, so human compared to others in these trials, and it made this winged god with feathers in his hair and longing in his heart, feel the most human too, young and so full of promise despite all the centuries behind him.
The harder and faster he rutted against me, pumping himself to completion, the more I noticed the glint of his tears. They were so similar to Seth’s. Sudden, full of anguish, and yet…hopeful, like Seth had looked when he’d smiled at the end of it all as we flew out of view, knowing Horus was still waiting for him.
Just like Meryt was waiting for me.
“Seth!” Horus cried as he came, the heat from his release striking my stomach just beneath my dancer’s top.
I felt no injury from the exclamation, for my mind was on another too, and knowing Horus was thinking of his beloved only filled me with joy.
I spurted out into the open air beyond the tree with Meryt’s endearment on my tongue.
Dusk to my dawn.
Horus pulled us from the tree, startling me at first, but I realized why as we slowly began to sink toward the ground. If we had remained in that position, my back would have been shredded with our descent. He slid his hands around my back, holding me close, his mess still between us, and brought my mouth to his neck as if urging me to bite him again.
“The man who killed your Meryt will never know justice.”
I bit down on instinct, nearly letting go of Horus in my shock as my blood ran cold.
“He escaped,” Horus said with a whine, “and will live a long life in service to the one who planned the coup, a man who will also never know justice for his wrongs. They will never succeed in their plans to take the throne, but in life, they will not know retribution for their acts either.”
Now I knew how tears could come so quickly to his eyes, for they were instantly filling mine. I pried my teeth from the deeper marks I had made, feeling Horus shudder from the pain he clearly craved, what only Seth could offer him. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because if you wish it,” he whispered, “I can offer you vengeance.”
As my feet touched the ground, my knees nearly buckled, but Horus continued to be my anchor. He unwound his legs from my waist and touched down too. I felt the stickiness from his release vanish from my skin, along with my sweat, but being cleansed did not rid me of the twist in my gut.
I leaned away from him and fell back against the tree.
Horus spread his wings, wide and tall as far as they could reach, and his disheveled-ness was swept away the same as how he had purified me, but also with his armor returning and loincloth readjusting to show him in all his splendor. Even without his headdress, he was a warrior just like Seth, a hunter and tool of retribution, but the headdress too returned, and as soon as he had summoned back all that impressive prowess, he bestowed it on me.
I felt it as weight upon my shoulders and across my chest, the similarly styled leather armor covering my dancer’s attire.
“You could have vengeance against your beloved's killer,” Horus offered. “You would become a true hunter, better than any the world has ever known, to carry out your wrath upon the deserving beyond even the men who wronged you, but also any whom you might deem worthy of falling by your blade.”
A spear appeared in my hand, just there, same as the armor, held tightly in my grasp.
“And through it all,Iwould be by your side.”
I looked away from the spear, at first at Horus and his beseeching expression, but then past him into the trees, thinking of how I had seen Meryt, as if he had been here with me instead of only seen through an archway, closer again, so close. I somehow sensed him still near, and though I could no longer see him, I imagined him just behind one of those trees, maybe even the one at my back, waiting for me to finish this.
I had to finish this.
I opened my fingers and let the spear drop to the ground.
The very idea of Meryt slipping farther away from me again made my answer easy, much as it pained me both in knowing that those men would not see justice in their lifetimes and to refuse this broken-hearted god, as broken as Seth was, who equally longed for their reunion and was so… so lonely.
