Sepdet has to go to meet the other Striders; Sebek and Joseph come with her as far as the hill and run into Nekheb. The old Strider reveals disturbing truths about Sebek's past.
Sebek shrinks back from the elder's anger instinctively, afraid and perplexed.
Joseph watches Nekheb with darkly glittering eyes and asks, perhaps out of turn, "What is it you know? It seems to me the time for Strider secrets is passed."
Sebek's fear passes and his brow wrinkles.
Sepdet turns her gaze fully on Nekheb, fixing him with fourteen years of waiting.
Nekheb spits out the secret he has kept silent for more than a dozen years. ~Mai'a gave his love hope that night in a sandy bower,~ he snarls. ~This is how he convinced her to break the litany. But he did not tell her all he knew.~ There is a pregnant pause. ~He gave her Hope and he gave her despair, and in the end he did not know which was which. There were two children to be born of this union. One child was light and one was darkness. One brought hope to our tribe and one brought despair, and the fool had the audacity to think he would be able to tell them apart in the end.~
Sebek blinks.
Sebek says, ~What was he going to do with the other one?~
Nekheb literally spits that final sentence out with disgust. ~You can guess the answer to that as well as I can tell it to you,~ he adds.
Sebek frowns. ~And you too think he was right, then?~
Sepdet holds up a hand. ~Stop.~ Her voice is soft and dry.
Nekheb snarls, his voice tight and his body taught with anger. ~If I were sure you would not be standing before me with blood still flowing through your veins.~
Sebek shakes his head and sighs. ~I have done nothing wrong.~
Sepdet raises her chin and suddenly stands up, facing Nekheb. ~You are my elder, but you will stop. You do not understand anymore than he does, or my foolish father.~ Her eyes are oddly lacking in rage or anger.
Sebek stands up as well, standing further away from the elder garou than his sister.
Nekheb only eyes Sepdet warily.
Sepdet gestures at her face and then shakes the hand, three fingers, in front of the jackal's nose before letting it fall. Her words fall over each other like rain in a cloudburst. ~Look at me. Look at him. Which is hope? What is despair? Have I not walked despair's knife edge? Has my brother not spoken words of hope more certain than my own heart can ever hold, worried as I am for the future? There is hope and despair in /each/ of us. We are like our tribe, defeated in our own battle before most tribes even began theirs, like our tribe, who can only be fools not to lay down and die after all we've seen. This is despair. This is hope. Hope itself the Wyrm can break. But not hope tempered by fire. Not hope tempered by the knowledge of what truly is. That was Phoenix message: hope in spite of knowing the truth. Not by hiding from it.~
Joseph shakes his head suddenly, adn asks another question of Nekheb, his tone oddly light. "How do you know what even Sekhmet was not told? How came you by this information?"
Sebek watches Nekheb. ~I have lived my life according to the sacred laws of our people. I have never hurt another Silent Strider, and I always tried to be strong, even when they beat me up and raped me in their torture hole. You have no right to accuse me of doing ill to my brothers and sisters.~
Sebek adds, ~Or wanting to do ill to them.~
Long distance to Nekheb, Joseph, and Sebek: Sepdet looks over her speech and wonders if I said any of that clearly, but I wanted to get it off before you had to sit there waiting for granny-fingers to type.
Sebek pages to Nekheb, Joseph, and Sepdet: I understood it clearly. Sorry I had to bombard you all with my own speech. :)
Nekheb answers each in turn. To Sepdet he repeats in a distant voice that reflects more than a hint of her own, ~Your cub, Sekhmet, will bring hope to our people. Hope to a dying tribe. Not just to our Caern but our people.~ And then other words echo in your heads, all three of you, though the older wolf does not move. And these words are in a voice that echoes Sepdet's tones though they are bitter. ~And Hope is not without Despair. As one is born so, too, does the balance call that Despair be borne of the same union. As Darkness and Light they will be.~ Nekheb speaks again, finishing the words with his own. ~Not light with darkness. Light *and* darkness.~
Sebek blinks.
Nekheb answers to Joseph in meaningless words. ~I know who you are,~ he says, ~and the time is not yet come.~
Nekheb answers to Sebek, with a last look at Sepdet. ~And which of you is Hope, then?~
Joseph frowns, deeply, disturbed by everything Nekheb has said. His gaze travels to the twins and remains ther.
Sebek says, ~To Duat with our father's foolishness. We are both Hope, I don't care what he thinks.~
Sepdet slips her hands in her pockets. ~Father's prophecy did not forsee this, that Hope is foolish that has no despair in it. I am Hope. I am despair. So is he.~ She looks at Sebek. ~Both raped and burned like the Mother herself. Both capable of fulfilling what needs to be done, in spite of it.~
Sebek puts his arm around Sepdet's shoulders.
Sebek says, ~I know what I have seen. I have seen my sister's love for me and her hope for her tribe, and I know of my own hopes for our tribe and my love for my sister. My father has seen none of it, save in a prophesy. A prophesy that made him condemn me without proof.~
Sepdet touches Sebek's cheek gently. ~You were meant to be Despair, Sen. And your rage will burn us yet. But I will face it with you.~ She glances back at Nekheb. ~For as I said to my second mentor, a long, long time ago, trust is a kind of hope. I am not blind. I saw the taint in him, just as I see it in Sebek. I also see the Star in him.~
Nekheb chuffs, not liking this answer one bit. ~A prophecy without which neither of you would have been born, little Crocodile. I am no Seer. But I have seen what your father saw.~ To Sepdet he says, ~You see what your heart wishes you to see, Little Star, not what your spirit does.~ Back to Sebek, ~Or you do. One of you is wrong.~
From afar, to Joseph, Sepdet, and Sebek, Nekheb whips his head back and forth, getting whiplash.
You paged Nekheb, Joseph, and Sebek with 'Nekheb's confused us often enough with words. We're getting revenge. :)'.
Sebek reaches up and holds his sister's hand. ~Must one of us be wrong? Does the prophecy apply only when we are apart, like our father would have had it? Or will be both become the Hope when together?~
Nekheb scowls. ~I cannot change what I have seen. Phoenix also said 'This is as it will be, not as it should be.' -- she could not either.~ He looks from one to another.
Sebek shakes his head. ~Life is not as simple as you would have it. I refuse to have my sister or I called evil just because of a vision our father had.~
Sepdet smiles a little at Nekheb's words, oddly enough.
Long distance to Nekheb, Joseph, and Sebek: Sepdet is good and stops giving the codger whiplash, much as she wants to reply to his analysis of her favorite prophecy.
Nekheb replies that ~You can turn a blind eye to blowing sand. It does not mean the storm will not erase your hopes just as cleanly as it scours the face of the sphinx.~ And with that he turns cleanly about and starts to lope off into the distance.
Sepdet calls after him, ~You are like all our wise elders, Rhya. Looking at the signs. Seeing what is coming. Looking ahead. Never turning about in your skin, and trying to see it through different eyes. The signs of despair are not everything in the Prophecy. Phoenix is there too.~
Sepdet's voice is a tired blessing. ~Hope, and the Phoenix, will be with you.~
Nekheb meets this last with silence as he tops the crest of the hill and disappears over the other side, leaving the unshakeable feeling that he has not left your lives forever.
Sebek says, ~You have taken more hope from me than anything else, rhya, save the loss of my sister. I hope it gave you satisfaction.~
Sebek turns away from the departing Silent Strider, his shoulders slumped. His breathing is ragged and he seems on the verge of tears.
Sepdet takes Sebek's hands in her own, turning him away from Nekheb. ~He said...what I have feared, since first you told me how you were found by Khonsu. I knew that was not all. I knew your rage was not mother's, nor father's, and that something had touched you long ago. It did not matter. You are my brother, and I see in your face the Star that is my own. Do not forget you have the rage in you--and danger too, for you know as well as I that the Wyrm's taint sits on your back. But if you are strong, you will prove Wyrm, father, and everyone wrong. And I will help you. You have restored /my/ hope.~
Joseph pages to Nekheb, Sepdet, and Sebek: Sorry for long idles. Work calls.
Sebek holds Sepdet. ~I am a good boy and I love you very much. He is wrong, as is father. We are both the givers of hope.~
From afar, to Joseph, Sepdet, and Sebek, Nekheb retches at the outpouring of love and hope he's fostered.
Sebek says, ~I don't know where my anger comes from, whether it was the bastards who stole me or the hatred of our father. It doesn't matter anymore. They cannot hurt me now that I'm with you and we're together.~
Joseph, for his part, remains detached from the twins, his face troubled, not only by Nekheb's revelation, but the many questions that the Strider Elders words brought with them, and were not answered.
From afar, to Joseph, Sepdet, and Sebek, Nekheb retches even more at Sebek. :P
Sepdet tugs at Sebek's chin. ~Look at me,~ she says urgently. ~You were hiding from yourself, too. You still are, a little. I did not want to challenge you--to say, you smell of Wyrm, and I love you, but there is a part of you I fear and do not trust. You mustn't just pretend it isn't there. It /is/ there. I need Anubis to judge you, and perhaps me, too. We can hope all we want, but we had better be prepared to face this also.~
From afar, to Nekheb, Joseph, and Sepdet, Sebek sticks his tongue out at Nekheb. "Evil evil elder."
Long distance to Nekheb, Joseph, and Sebek: Sepdet looks apologetically at Nekheb. Sepdet is still an innocent, even after all this, and her brother tries to be so much it hurts. They spent a month gooing at each other.
Sebek looks straight into Sepdet's eyes. ~I'm not perfect, I admit, but I am not evil, and I'm not a bringer of Despair. I don't know why I have the rage that makes me smell, but I do have it. And I'm not pretending that there's nothing within me I'm afraid of. Everyone is afraid of doing bad things, and I'm afraid too, but that doesn't make me bad.~
Joseph continues to look disturbed as his eyes follow the older wolf's departure, farther than most would guess he could.
Sepdet squeezes his shoulders. ~No. It doesn't. But the taint on you is more than just your brave anger, my brother. That is what we must worry about, you and I. That is one of the things we much watch, fight, and beware of.~ She kisses his forehead. ~And I'm here now to help you. And you are here now to keep me from worrying so much I lose hope.~
Sebek nods. ~We must watch each other so one will not become despair.~
Joseph spares a glance back to Sepdet and her brother. He tries to keep his face impassive, yet a dark wariness pervades his watchful look.
Long distance to Joseph and Sebek: Sepdet looks fretful. This is where we need Anubis as Judge. Yeeeeha.
Sebek shrugs. ~I don't know. The Dancers in their torture pit put many needles in me and many liquids. Maybe it's from that. I cannot say.~ He kisses Sepdet on the forehead, looking exhausted.
Sepdet looks up at the wet dripping off the trees now that the biting rain has stopped. ~Here. I was going to leave you and Joseph to rest, and feel the trees, while I went to meet the tribe. I was going to bring you before them all tonight, so that they could meet you. But there is time for that. You need to rest, and think about what has been said here. I need to go tend my cubs. But we will not be apart. Never again.~
Sebek nods. ~No. Never again.~
Sepdet suggests gently, ~Go back with Joseph, so that I know you will be safe. I will join you later tonight, and get Joseph of one of the Striders to come with me to the city too.~
Sebek nods. ~Okay. Be safe, sister. I love you very much.~
Sepdet hugs him tightly. ~Ankh 'm Ma'at, my brother. I love you too.~
Sebek hugs you back.
Sepdet sighs, tugs her hat down over her ears, and flashes Joseph a reassuring tight smile before slipping down the hill, a glance that promises silently she will talk to him later too.
Sebek heads into the woods, still looking disturbed from the Elder's words.
