Turn Away the Darkness

The scarab on my pillow whispers vespers as I sleep
You saved me from the sparrows, now my soul is yours to keep
Come morning we awaken to a garnet colored sky
The mirror cracked and broken making X's of my eyes

*

Consciousness came back to Rath more slowly than she might have liked -- particularly when she heard the familiar buzzing of beetle wings. But Scarab didn't sound very close by, and when she opened her eyes, only more darkness greeted her.

She looked up, orienting onto the sound as being above her. There was no sunlight there, not even distant and unable to reach her; it was as if the earth had swallowed her up, and in retrospect that was certainly exactly what had happened. Geb's temper was mercurial, and while he didn't seem to hold grudges, his lasting gratitude seemed similarly lacking. Unhappy with Scarab for waking him again, and unhappy with the Guardians for trying to stop him from causing immense damage with his unhappiness, the ground had opened underneath them and Ja-Kal had not been able to respond fast enough to catch Rath when she'd fallen in.

Scarab seemed to have suffered a similar fate. If any of the others were here, Rath couldn't hear them, and certainly couldn't see them. Whoever was down here, though, they were lucky that Geb hadn't simply decided to crush them.

...Still, that fall had been a bad one. Dead or not, Rath still inhabited her physical body, and it was still very possible to be sore.

"Ja-Kal?" She attempted to call softly, to not get Scarab's attention immediately. "Nefer-Tina? Armon--? Agh!"

That had been a bit louder than she had planned. She'd been pushing herself up gingerly as she called out, but attempting to put her weight on her right leg had made it much more than sore, and she sank back down to the ground again with a hiss, face twisting with pain.

After a moment, the buzzing drew closer, and she closed her eyes, leaning her head against the stone at her back.

"Well, well," she said at a more normal volume. "Something wicked this way comes."

"I'm surprised you know the reference." Scarab's familiar voice came from the dark, a confirmation she didn't need, and a confusing one, frankly. She didn't ask what he meant; it wasn't important. "Your friends aren't here, Rath."

It wasn't said in a particularly threatening way. Rath didn't try to move, in any case. "It's better that they aren't. I take it you couldn't find a way out up there?"

"No." Scarab's voice soured. "That enormous lummox closed the fissure after us. We're fortunate he didn't crush us completely."

Rath refrained from saying anything about how closely her own thoughts had hewed to that same logic. Now that she felt more alert, she was listening, and somewhere nearby she heard water. Which meant... "We must have fallen into some cavern system. There may be a way out of here, but I doubt you'll find it by flying."

Scarab wasn't attacking her; he was more likely to leave her here than anything, she suspected. So she was able to relax, allow her armor to disappear again, and she raised her hands until they were in front of her chest, poised as if cupping a small flame and sheltering it from the elements. "Oh, Ra, give us light," she intoned, and her amulet complied, glowing with a green light as if it were made of emerald rather than gold.

It wasn't that bright, but it did show that they were in a reasonably sized cave. Unlike her, Scarab hadn't dismissed his own armor, and was frowning down at her.

And unlike the situation with Sekhmet, she had very little to offer Scarab, and she suspected they both knew it. Best to act like that wasn't an issue, however, and she lifted her chin. "Help me up, will you? I'd rather not sit here all day."

"Landed badly, did you?" But Scarab did approach her, and Rath was almost surprised when he leaned down to slip his arm under hers, around her back, to help guide her up. The pain still flared, but she straightened her leg slowly, carefully, and Scarab didn't say anything about it. "Is that actually broken?"

"Seems to be," Rath said tightly.

"This will be faster, then," he said decisively, and she yelped as he lifted her.

"Be careful!"

"I am!" To be fair to him, he did seem to be, and Rath subsided with a grumble, still awkwardly tense.

"You could have asked first."

"If you'd rather hobble along, I can put you back down and walk ahead."

"No, by all means, use me as a flashlight."

The sound Scarab made then was amused, and despite herself, despite her complaining and their enmity, Rath smiled.

It wasn't actually that uncomfortable to be carried; Scarab wasn't being overly gentle, but neither was he going out of his way to cause Rath any discomfort, and while her leg still hurt that would have been the case whatever the situation.

The problem was that they were walking at random, with neither stars nor sun to guide themselves, and seemed to be going nowhere. They could be walking in circles for all that Rath knew, and seemed no closer to daylight. Enough time had passed that it might not be daylight any longer.

After what must have been over an hour, when they'd reached another large open cavern with no exit in sight, Scarab had walked over to a rock and deposited Rath onto it, sinking down to sit himself on the rocks and the dirt, crossing his legs.

"We're getting nowhere," he growled. He seemed to be in a more foul mood than before, and Rath couldn't blame him, honestly.

"Come now," she said anyway. "They can't go on forever. We're getting somewhere, even if the end isn't in sight."

"We should have stayed where we were and waited for your blasted friends to break a hole in the ceiling," Scarab disagreed, stubbornly dedicated to his pessimism.

"It's not as if we're in any danger down here. Or even particularly inconvenienced." Though Rath was convincing herself of that last part, somewhat. It was annoying to be unable to access her books or scrolls. Still... "At least it's keeping you out of trouble."

"Very funny."

Something about Scarab's words, though... They were sour, but not only that, they were tense. Rath shifted on the rock, trying to find a sitting position that was marginally less unpleasant for her leg, but kept her eyes on Scarab, assessing. He wasn't getting rid of that armor, even now that he'd stopped to rest. And he really had seemed on edge this whole time...

"I'm not going to attack you. Surely even you need a rest from that armor?" True, he wouldn't need to recharge it with a sarcophagus, like them, but there was no way he could use it indefinitely without trouble.

He didn't answer, looking away from her. Despite herself, Rath felt a stirring of concern along with her curiosity. Something was off here, and it was starting to feel like it was more than that: something was actually wrong.

"Scarab...?"

Scarab actually turned, scooting in a semi-circle on the ground so that he was facing away from her entirely. Rath's huff was somewhere between exasperated and amused.

"Well, that's just childish," she said under her breath, then raised her voice again. "Scarab, if something's wrong, it would be better for both of us if you'd just tell me. We're in this situation together, after all."

"It's nothing you can fight with Wadjet's magic," Scarab said, not glancing back at her, not budging. After a moment, though, and a quiet sound that Rath was pretty sure was him sighing, his own armor glistened and disappeared, leaving him in his robes. Smaller, scrawnier, less protected, and suddenly a bit more slumped.

It felt like a show of trust. Rath wasn't certain if it was or not, but she kept quiet, waiting for Scarab to speak further or not -- if nothing else was coming, this at least felt like progress of a sort, though even she wasn't certain where it was meant to be progressing to.

"Being closed in underground," Scarab did speak after a moment, almost too low for her to hear, and Rath leaned forward despite the pain that caused, "brings back unpleasant memories." His voice rose and firmed again, brisk. "Nothing more than that."

"I don't follow," Rath said honestly, but it didn't take much more of an explanation:

"Your great Pharaoh Amenhotep."

For another moment she was blank; no explanation really presented itself. Then something clicked, a more metaphorical flicker of light in the dark, and her eyes widened.

"You were-- entombed?"

"Alive."

"Obviously!" But it wasn't snapped at him; there was still a horror in her voice that she couldn't disguise. "We thought you had escaped."

"Would that I had been so lucky."

"How long?" She had to ask. "You were free before we awoke, I know that much..."

"Thirty-five hundred years. I counted."

Her silence then was frankly just a lack of swearing, a lack of actually saying Amenhotep, what did you do? Her loyalty, her servitude, they could not be broken with this revelation, but they were forced to sit uncomfortably beside one another, and she reeled from it.

Scarab turned, more gingerly, to face her again; his expression seemed a bit more relaxed, more musing. "You really had no idea."

"We must have already been dead by the time they found you," Rath said, and regretted it immediately.

"The shabtis didn't kill you," Scarab noted. "Surely you weren't so badly injured in that fight? I did wonder why none of you look a day older."

It was another outrage that had to coexist alongside everything else; Rath usually allowed that by simply not thinking about it.

"No," she said, with dignity. "We were given a second chance to guard our prince's spirit in his next life."

Scarab looked astonished, and it was Rath's turn to avert her gaze; she refused to turn her head away, her eyes instead darting to one side. "You mean you were executed? You tried to save the boy!"

"Ritually sacrificed," Rath corrected, voice tight. "It was an honor."

"You can't possibly believe that."

"Whereas you can believe what you like." Her leg hurt, her head hurt, and her heart hurt -- one organ that had been left in her, unbeating in her chest. She felt sick to her stomach when her stomach was in a jar miles away.

Scarab stood, she could see that in her peripheral vision, and summoned up his armor again. He didn't argue with her further when he approached her, and she didn't protest as he leaned down to lift her once more. She tried to ignore the impression that he held her a bit more securely that time around, and if she closed her eyes as he carried her, it was only that she was weary.

At least it was clearer now why Scarab was helping her, despite the fact that she had little to offer him down here besides a light. He didn't want to be alone, shut away underground in the dark. It was a very human thing, one which Rath could relate to a little too well. She wondered if he thought his own emotions treacherous, wanting even an enemy's presence to keep the memories feeling just a bit more distant. She tried not to think back to her final moments herself, not because they were terribly painful, but because of the fear and the guilt that came with that fear, the way she had voluntarily knelt and accepted the honor that was service to her prince even in the afterlife and not said don't do this, please reconsider, I don't want to die.

The life she had now was good; she didn't regret it at all. That was what she focused on, but her own memories had been stirred up, and yes, she felt that her emotions betrayed her, remembering that damned fear and the way it made her feel about her Pharaoh, and how being held soothed her, even it was by an enemy who was only carrying her due to... complicated circumstances.

"At least your presence in that armor should keep the predators at bay," she muttered, unable to keep completely silent forever, and more restless than usual. If she wasn't so aware of Scarab's presence right there, she'd probably be talking to herself.

Scarab snorted. "Predators? In San Francisco? This isn't Egypt; I doubt there's even a bear hibernating in here. No, these caves contain worse than predators."

Rath frowned, wondering if Scarab was teasing her somehow. "What, then?"

From the distaste in his voice, he wasn't. "Lakes. We were near the water; if we've headed towards the bay, swimming may be our only way out."

Rath opened her eyes and looked at Scarab, but she could already tell he wasn't joking. "This is ridiculous!"

"Wasn't I saying that only ten minutes ago?" Scarab asked dryly.

"Has it only been ten minutes?"

"I've gotten good at tracking the passage of time."

Rath tried not to think, suddenly, of Scarab in a tomb counting the minutes, the days... the centuries. She couldn't force it from her mind, so she forced it into the background to sit with all the rest instead. "Even if we do find a lake, how would we know that swimming would lead us out?"

"We wouldn't," Scarab said. "So I hope you can tell me your friends are capable of tracking you somehow even without the help of your magic."

"Yes, that shouldn't be a problem. Our amulets..." Rath reached up absently to touch hers, and her fingers cast wild shadows over the walls of the cavern, making her lower her hand again hurriedly. "Well. Suffice to say we can find one another if needed. They must still be busy with Geb."

"Of all the gods," Scarab grumbled, "he is... perhaps not the most inconvenient..."

Despite their circumstances and her growing unrest and unease, Rath smirked at how she could note him visibly and audibly reassessing. "Who would that be, Scarab? Set? Bes? Sekhmet? At least Nuhn mostly listened to you."

"Oh, be quiet."

Rath decided to have mercy on him, only commenting, "It's fortunate that, even if they must be fighting Geb, we haven't had any more--"

Even from Scarab's arms she was able to feel the rumbling before it became audible, and rocks, small ones at first, began to fall from the cave ceiling above them.

"You jinx," Scarab grumbled, and with the buzzing of wings he took to the air.

"Don't fly!" Rath exclaimed. "There's no room, they could knock you out of the air!"

"I can maneuver better like this."

"Land again and put me down!"

Scarab growled slightly, and Rath half expected him to drop her. Instead, to her surprise, he did lower to the ground again and set her -- almost gingerly onto her feet. She was careful to put as little weight as possible on her broken leg, wincing as she called out:

"With the strength of Ra!"

Her transformation was hurried; she didn't bother with any poses, and she could tell that Wadjet felt her distress. "Now pick me back up!"

Scarab didn't say anything about her bossing him, catching on this time and lifting her. She was herself less maneuverable just then if she was trying to move under her own power, and in his armor Scarab was a good deal taller than her, but like this she could have her sword ready to cut any rocks that were dangerously large in half before they could reach them.

The earthquake wasn't nearly as strong as it could have been, and it didn't last very long either. They must have been some distance away from the epicenter -- away from Geb -- which was both a blessing and a curse in ways she didn't try to communicate until a couple of boulders lay in pieces around them and the earth's trembling had ceased.

"Geb must not be very close," she observed. "Which means it will take the others some time to reach us, once they've finished. But we may not need them to."

"What do you mean?" Scarab shifted his grip on her, seemingly curious.

"I'm certain they've tried to lure Geb back towards the Western Gate," Rath explained. "Which means we must have been moving away from the bay this whole time."

Understanding dawned quickly for Scarab. "Which means we may reach sunlight after all. Of course."

Rath smiled, her spirit lighter than it had been in some time. "You're very welcome."

Scarab's amusement that time was plain; he must have been in a better mood himself with the prospect of escape not far away. "Oh, you can't take credit for that. You hardly led the way."

Rath leaned her head back so that Scarab could see her roll her eyes. "You're welcome for being your voice of reason," she specified, "in Heka's absence. And I'll do it again: If you put me down, you can check if anything's loosened in the ceiling that may allow a way through."

Scarab tsked at her. "Bossy, for someone in your position. And speaking of your position, you'll need to let go if you want to be let down."

"'Let go' in what--?"

At some point when being lifted to more easily slice the falling rocks in half, Rath's tail had wrapped around Scarab's arm. She would have flushed as soon as she noticed if blood still moved through her veins; as it was, she lowered her head again so that maybe Scarab wouldn't catch her mortified look. "Oh-- of... course."

She untangled the metal of her armor from around Scarab's own, and he sat her once again on a nearby rock (well, in this case, half-rock), this time with what seemed to her to be unnecessary, exaggerated politeness. Then he was up in the air, heading towards the ceiling and the hopefully loosened stone, leaving her head spinning with too many thoughts.

Unhelpful thoughts. Scarab had been a grouch, of course, but she'd had her moments as well, and all this time he had been polite enough, and fine company; they had sniped at one another -- minimally -- but it had been more banter than anything, hadn't it? It hadn't felt any different, any worse, than the times that she and the other Guardians had gotten snippy with one another.

But Scarab was not a Guardian. Scarab was who they were all guarding against. He wanted the spirit of Prince Rapses, and while that didn't actually threaten the life of their young ward -- Presley could continue his life safely and normally without that spirit -- he had killed Rapses once already and the boy deserved a happy afterlife with his family, not to be used as-- as a battery for immortality.

It was a shame. There was something to him that was... likable. There was something Rath saw in him that didn't seem all bad. But it was something she didn't know if she could reach, and it was a shame to think that after this they would go back to fighting one another as if it hadn't happened. Wasn't it a waste? Could he not see that it was a waste, thirty-five hundred years spent on -- this -- and on an animosity that didn't have to be?

And most of it, her mind supplied, spent trapped in the dark.

...Unhelpful thoughts. She reminded herself that if Scarab did find a way out up there, he would almost certainly just leave. That was fine, honestly; it would be far safer than abandoning them all to handle Sekhmet themselves, she'd just have to sit here until the others arrived. But this sympathy, this odd connection she was feeling, it couldn't be used for anything, it could go nowhere.

She sighed, and was a moment away from letting her armor disappear again when she heard the growl.

Her head snapped up. Out of the shadows of the entrance to the next cave, one detached itself and padded forward, golden eyes glinting in the green light.

A lion! For a moment she was struck with how inaccurate Scarab's claim that there would be no predators here had proven, but then she noticed that the beast looked underfed, realized that it should not be alone, and remembered that when they had fought Bastet, several lions that had been accompanying her had scattered. Apparently not all of them had been recaptured and returned to the zoo.

"Stay back..." She raised her sword in warning, tried to rise up herself to present a greater height and nearly fell, staggering under the agony that shot through her leg. She waved the blade to ward it off, to keep it from taking immediate instinctive advantage of her off-balance state, though she saw it bunching up in preparation for a leap anyway. Wadjet's love sometimes she hated cats... "I mean it! Stay back!"

She had a moment to hope against hope that the lion would simply drive itself onto her sword before Scarab swooped out of the air, meeting the lion as it had just begun its leap and body-checking it into a sprawl. Rath lowered her sword, gaping as Scarab pulled a surprisingly tight circle in the cave and came back around to scoop her up.

She couldn't help crying out as that jarred her leg again, but her arms went around his shoulders as soon as his arms found her, and they flew through the cave into the space that the lion had come from.

"You--" Rath was speechless besides being temporarily winded from the pain. She hadn't been expecting Scarab to come back at all unless he absolutely had to; him tackling a lion would have seemed out of the question.

"It came from here? We must be close to the way out!"

"Good thinking," Rath admitted, and managed, instead of literally anything else she was thinking herself, "You usually don't fly that well."

"Needs must."

The caves were illuminated with green until, ahead of them, they suddenly weren't anymore; it was sunlight, finally, and Scarab zeroed in on it like a beacon. He didn't fly especially fast, nowhere near the speed Ja-Kal could reach; if the lion had bothered expending energy on prey that could both fight and flight, it might have actually caught them. Instead, their cavernous surroundings gave way to greenery and a garnet colored sky, and Rath sighed with completely unnecessary air as her entire body relaxed in Scarab's grip.

He slowed, hovered in the air for a moment and then lowered until his feet gingerly pressed to the grass. He didn't let her down immediately, nor did she insist that he do so. She needed a moment to gather herself anyway.

She laughed, after a moment, but it was only a short laugh. "Well done, Scarab."

He did set her down then, carefully enough that she could keep the weight off her broken leg. "Please don't mention it," he said dryly.

"Do you think I'm going to let that go so easily?" Rath was incredulous more than anything. "You saved me."

"Yes, well. It was my job to-- 'keep the predators at bay', was it?"

"You difficult--"

An engine revved in the near distance, and both Rath and Scarab looked over automatically. She could recognize the sound of the Hot Ra easily by now, and apparently so could he, because he frowned.

"I should go before they bring their fight to me."

"I would explain," Rath said, though she knew he really should. To avoid unpleasantness and explanations both.

His wings buzzed against the back of his armor, and she expected him to lift off the ground again. Instead he fixed her with a look that was several degrees more intent than she would have expected. "You were wasted on Amenhotep," he said quietly. "Remember that."

She knew how she should feel about that, but she didn't know how she felt. "And we wouldn't have been wasted on you?" she managed, resisting the urge to cross her arms defensively. Defense from what?

"You specifically."

He lifted a hand; after a moment's uncertainty, he placed it on her shoulder. The touch was incredibly light, she could tell that even with two layers of armor, and only lasted for a second before he was taking off. She had felt the earth shaking twice today, and felt the ghosts of aftershocks watching him leave.

That tremulous feeling alchemized into the nearing sound of the Hot Ra, and it came into view on a nearby path; Nefer was leaping out almost before the car had even stopped, despite being the driver, and Rath raised a hand weakly as she leaned back against a tree.

"Rath! Are you okay?"

"We saw Scarab flying away from here." Ja-Kal was only a short distance behind Nefer, Armon bringing up the rear, and all three's worry was visible. She almost wanted to laugh.

"I'm all right." She winced a bit, glancing down at her leg. "...Mostly."

"I bet you kicked his tut," Armon said loyally.

"No, I didn't have to fight him." The fact that she was still in her armor was probably worrying, though, and she let it vanish into nothingness, gesturing towards the cave and adding quickly, "There is a lion somewhere in there -- a straggler from that mess with Bastet, I think. I'm sure it hasn't gone far."

"Poor thing. I'll find it," Nefer volunteered.

"I'll help," Ja-Kal said, and nodded to Rath. "Rath, will you show us where you last saw it?"

She had to demur. "I'm afraid I'll need to sit down... I think I've broken this leg. It was only, oh, three or four rooms back, and I don't think it will go further in."

"All right," Nefer agreed. "You go wait in the Hot Ra, okay?" She hesitated, then added, "I'm really glad you're safe, Rath."

"We all are," Ja-Kal agreed, as solemn and open as he ever was.

It was Armon who moved over to lift her, that time. "I gotcha."

"All right, be careful--" Rath only fussed lightly, though, then settled; the other two moved to head into the caves, but paused when she spoke up again. "I'm... glad you're all safe, as well." In a fight with Geb, that wouldn't have been a guarantee.

They both smiled before turning back again, and Armon was cheerful as he carried her to the Hot Ra. "It is good to have you back," he said as he opened up the car and settled her carefully inside. "You'll have to tell us what happened."

Rath didn't know how she was going to explain that. It wasn't that she thought they wouldn't believe her, she just wasn't sure what she thought or felt about it all herself. She decided to sidestep it at least for the moment. "And you'll have to tell me what happened. How on earth did you handle Geb? Did you lead him back through the Western Gate?"

"Oh, yeah, he was a real pain! See, after you fell, Ja-Kal got really mad..."

Rath fell to listening, but not all of her attention was on her fellow Guardian. You were wasted on Amenhotep, Scarab had said. Remember that.

Well, she was hardly going to be able to forget any of it, was she? Scarab had made sure of that.

This was going to be trouble. She could feel it.

She just wasn't certain she cared about it as much as she should.

*

Can't turn away the darkness so instead I hold you tight
Yeah, ever since you found me I'm afraid that I might die