Accidents Happen - Part 3
#6 of Scrolls for a Lifetime
Story & Writing (c) me, Assassin
Characters Khaliset & Rahotep belongs to me.
This short story ties in to several other small stories, ultimately turning into an event that will change and shape Khaliset's life for all of eternity. Part 3 of at least one more to come!
Khaliset watched the boy watching the gladiators. After the death of his parents and destruction of the farm, learning to fight seemed to consume the growing child. Rahotep studied every move of the top fighters, and with time and age his adoptive caretaker allowed him to train.
The goddess found the training rather amusing. So frail humans were. By about age twenty, the boy could hold his own inside the arena as Khaliset watched from above. He was tall and lanky, though light on his feet he lacked raw power of the larger gladiators.
So many times the boy had escaped death. It seemed the poor man child was destined for an early end to life.
A pull from outside the Duat led the goddess onto a scene of pure carnage. What had happened? Where was she? Boddies and blood lay strewn everywhere, but the location made it obvious. A well trod road practically funneled any passerbys into a deep ravine. This was the scene of an ambush.
Ahead several men were picking over the bodies of the dead, looting their pockets for goods. Splayed out in the desert sun, a familiar face gasped for air. A roar of anger split the stench of death as Khaliset charged forward, glowing with rage as she bared her sicle sword.
The remaining men were in awe and shock as her body transformed mid air. From beneath the pastel fur ripped out a devouring beast, scared from head to toe and blazing with fury. Her skin, her eyes, her gaping mouth and long slender tongue reeked of death and destruction. She was upon them in seconds, dodging blows and skewering them with swords. She made sure to disfigure the bodies, flinging limbs as far as she could throw them. Their ka would have a time entering the Duat if the body wasn't intact.
With no man left standing, Khaliset raced to Rahotep's side, once again a rainbow of colors. There was no way he could survive, not more than another moment or two. From the tender middle section between his neck and shoulder, diagonally down to his torso a violently deep cut nearly seemed to split him in two. Blood was everywhere, but Khaliset never noticed as she cradled Rahotep's head with her fleshy hands.
*"I've saved you before, I've watched over you your whole life. I turned my back once and your parents died. I turned it twice and now you're..." * She trailed off, choked by tears. Her body glowed in anger and sadness, but holding the young male was about the most she could do. Willing a feeling of calm over the child, the goddess wept tears of gold as he stared on, trying to gargle out words.
*"I... remember." * Rahotep sputtered, blood erupting from his mouth. Khaliset reached with her other hand to grab his, remembering the years earlier when she led him across the desert. Kneeling her head down closer to his, she rested her tear soaked muzzed close to his ears. His agony was her own, and the goddess never realized her tears were sinking into his wound, as was her blood from a cut she had endured slaying his to-be-killers.