Omens of the Nile
Title: Omens of the Nile
Author: LediShae
Series/Verse: Transformers AU
Kink OP and/or Prompt: 's Egypt prompt and WOI #19: 2. AU
Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly not even the idea.
Summary: Akhetaton, capitol of Egypt, prays with each rising sun for a terrible curse upon Pharaoh’s sons to break. A prophecy from their birth tells of an idol the white and red colors of the Dual Crown that offers their only hope of salvation. With the time before their curse is complete running like the sands of the Sahara, will a slave of Knossos save them before it is too late? Quasi-human-formers, AU, slight OOC, historical fiction.
A/N: Historical fiction as in a lot of things happening at the same time that were really centuries or millinea apart in reality.
A/N: I own nothing, not even the idea. Everything belongs to someone else, and I'm just having fun with it.
Akhetaton, capitol of Egypt, prays with each rising sun for a terrible curse upon Pharaoh's sons to break. A prophecy from their birth tells of an idol the white and red colors of the Dual Crown that offers their only hope of salvation. With the time before their curse is complete running like the sands of the Sahara, will a slave of Knossos save them before it is too late? Quasi-human-formers, AU, slight OOC, historical fantasy.
Prompted by deathmustang on lj
Omen of the Boar
Akhetaton, city of pharaohs, capitol of Egypt, land of the living gods incarnate glowed like polished amber in the unrelenting sunlight glimmering with all the glory of the pharos. Like the buildings that housed them the people of Akhetaton glimmered with the many trappings of their wealth. Talismans of gemstones and shell, gold and silver, and hand crafted polished beads tinkled as the regal forms walked creating the audible pulse of the city. Gemstones of blue and red, green and yellow lie against skin hued the color of river mud: clay red, soil black, moist earth brown and chalk white; the peoples of Egypt as striated as the silt's of the Nile after the flood.
The jangling discord of a million talismans and trinkets filled the humid air. Their jingling matched the nearby rushing of the great Nile that dictated the lives of all of Egypt from the lowliest slave to the great God Pharaoh high in his temple palace. Sounding loudly over the jingling and rushing that was the eternal backdrop to their lives was the calls of merchants, the hammering of stonemasons and chanting of the Priests that created the harmony of the changing moods of the Gods. Despite the raucous hymnal they created disquiet lay heavy over the land like the hush of night before the Hippo strikes.
In the royal temple spiring high above the palace main the Great Royal Wife, chief wife and queen to the Pharaoh, lay in her birthing chamber surrounded by healing priests and midwives. Her wearied labor protected by her virgin maidens, the ladies in waiting and fiercely loyal body guards that protected all the wives of the pharaoh who stood fiercely just inside her chamber and outside her door.
On this day, one that should be joyous the pharaoh, ruler of all Lower and Upper Egypt, brooded in the temple sanctuary. Here, within the shady inner sanctum a viewing pool rippled with the erratic drifting of the sacred fish colored red and white of the Double Crown that sat proudly upon Pharaoh's brow. Mesmerized as ever by their fluid motions he let his mind follow the many portends that had brought his chief wife to her current state.
Signs and portends ruled the lives of all in Egypt. Charms of the hippo, crocodile, boar and turtle warded off their evil. Figures of the Gods gave the wearer their protection, or their strength. These portends ruled all from the lowliest man of slave birth to the God Pharaoh high in the palace. The expectant jackal-headed queen in her sunlit chamber was no exception. Despite the imminent birth of the twins she carried within her swollen womb the pharaoh could only count the evil portends that hung heavily over their unborn heads.
No one had feared for the Great Royal Wife when the healers announced her expectant state. The kingdoms had rejoiced, and doubly so when news came she carried twins. All hoped for the twins to be brother and sister destined by the Gods' will to become pharaoh and his sister-wife, much as Osiris and his twin sister-wife Isis had been, two beings borne from one destined to be one in life until death.
Their excitement for the coming births had grown with each rising sun as her body had swelled as the Nile in flood. Prayers rose in the temples and incense burned richly late into the night as all prepared in jubilant anticipation for the Queen's delivery. Then the buzzards, portends of impending slaughter, began to circle the empty, waiting nursery. Their dark ever present forms had cast a pall across all of Egypt.
Circling buzzards bespoke of death and slaughter to come. Those circling defilers of the dead had chosen the nursery of the royal palace as their prophesied location of impending destruction. The priests had dismissed the queen's concerns, after all by the buzzards' very appearance the slaughter was destined to take place within the week and the queen still had a whole month before her children were to be born. That had been one week ago, one week to the hour and by their portend the twins would arrive before the hour of Ra. Overhead a cry of pain from the birthing room rang through the palace, the buzzards' portend was coming true.
The eagle, the lady of victory had cried her fierce challenge to the Gods just that morning over the Queen. A sign of victory, of the pups she carried becoming the next great Pharaoh and his sister-wife. Such a pairing as twins, initially one being within the womb rejoined once more as wedded husband and wife, rulers of both kingdoms would be fortuitous indeed.
Yet ere before the fading of the eagle's cry from the cloudless heavens the winged goddess had been dashed upon the ground. A great horned raven sent by the dark Gods had knocked her from the skies and sounded his terrible croak directly over the expecting queen, just as the eagle had been dashed upon the ground, splattering the queen with her still warm blood. Such portends of evil and death had forced the queen into early labor, buzzards ever circling the nursery and leaving all of Akhetaton lost within their terrible pall.
The pharaoh focused once more upon the fish swimming in the viewing pool, his eyes momentarily meeting the fierce amber eyes of his reflection. The somber jackal in the reflection had short fur of Nile blue, his high, pointed ears and long snout showed his pure lineage descending from Anubis at the beginning of the Jackal-God dynasty one hundred dry seasons ago. He sighed, letting his wandering mind focus once more on the motions of the lazy fish beneath his reflection. Both swam, encircling one another agitatedly as if sensing the turmoil growing within the Pharaoh's chest.
Suddenly, the palace erupted in yells and wailing cries that destroyed the midday calm. Grimly, the pharaoh rose, heading to the birthing chamber to see the form the buzzards' prophecy had taken. For, as all children of Akhetaton knew, all foretold by the Gods was destined to come true. He rounded the turn of the corridor with only the clicking of his ebony claws on stone reaching his ears and passed the guardian maidens from the mortal city beyond all having skin the colors of earthen clay and black wigs woven from the hair of the ox and ass. He passed unchallenged and nodded to others within, these maidens were the daughters of earlier dynasties all having the heads and features of the osprey, hawk, ibis, camel and cat.
He looked to the bustling priests and midwives finally spotting his beloved sister-wife lying in relaxed glory, resting easily with her newborns lying flat against her chest like the basking crocodile worshiping the new born sun as they suckled. He looked closely at his infants their delicate skin seemed to glow in the diffused sunlight reaching through the windows. They were identical, small bodies perfectly formed, tiny replicas of him and his chief wife, only one would eventually be the red of the sun disk and the other the vibrant yellow of the Nile lily. Their miniature frames were perfect, as were their softly wrinkled muzzles, tiny ebony claws and sharply pointed ears.
"They are both males, my pharoh." The queen's strong, but tired voice rose from where she lay, "They cannot be as husband and wife."
"That matters not," the pharaoh replied as he turned to his chief priest standing at the queen's bed side. "What do the signs portend, Mirage?"
"My pharaoh," The priest bowed his crimson osprey head low over his bare skinned, blue chest, "They were born under the sign of the boar." He leaned in closer, "They will suffer the Fury of the Red Sands."
Worried, and saddened, Pharaoh bowed his head. The boar, cast by the Gods as evil incarnate, had sent its mindless rage to infect his newborn sons. Like the angered breath of the Gods casting the burning sands into a wall of death they would bring only destruction in their wake.
"They will suffer onto others the wrath of Seth unto Osiris, and all in their path shall be rent into fourteen sections and cast to the corners of Egypt." Mirage spoke gently, beak clicking in his distress to bring such news to his pharaoh.
Pharaoh knew the litany, how Seth, jealous of his brother had killed him once, then twice and cast him to the furthest reaches of the kingdoms. "How long?" Pharaoh finally asked, looking somberly at his chief wife and holding her proud, fierce wolf-like gaze.
The priest looked beyond the birthing chamber window out onto the swollen Nile. "Egypt welcomes her newest sons with high waters and time of plenty. Eighteen times shall they be greeted thus until the boar's rage turns them upon each other and they become the destruction of the breath of the gods scouring the land." Mirage looked to bone chips, feathers and gemstones scattered across a small table nearby. His divining tools were studied and bypassed as the priest moved to the window pulling an intricately carved ironwood and ivory star reader from his simple robes and read the position of the sun in the sky and the depth of the Nile. "The signs speak of only one means of salvation. Be it for one or both I know not. Find the hare, ivory white of the hippo tusk and red of the cornelian stone."
Pharaoh nodded, he understood. His sons would have all the talismans of the swift and keen dune runner with its shape protecting them. Maybe they too, like the swift desert hare, could outrun their prophesized fates.
Upon the raised pallet the chief wife looked up at him, delicate pink hand outstretched imploringly. "We can do nothing for now, my husband. Come, sit with me and welcome your new sons, Optimus."
"As you command, Elita," He knelt by her bed and smiled upon her and their sons. Within his chest his heart was heavy with the tumultuous thoughts that bore heavily upon him. These were his first-born sons, the heirs to his throne and only another child born of Elita's womb would be suitable to inherit. Only time and the will of the Gods' would tell if his sons were to be slaughtered - or spared.
Also on FF.net
Author: LediShae
Series/Verse: Transformers AU
Kink OP and/or Prompt: 's Egypt prompt and WOI #19: 2. AU
Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly not even the idea.
Summary: Akhetaton, capitol of Egypt, prays with each rising sun for a terrible curse upon Pharaoh’s sons to break. A prophecy from their birth tells of an idol the white and red colors of the Dual Crown that offers their only hope of salvation. With the time before their curse is complete running like the sands of the Sahara, will a slave of Knossos save them before it is too late? Quasi-human-formers, AU, slight OOC, historical fiction.
A/N: Historical fiction as in a lot of things happening at the same time that were really centuries or millinea apart in reality.
A/N: I own nothing, not even the idea. Everything belongs to someone else, and I'm just having fun with it.
Akhetaton, capitol of Egypt, prays with each rising sun for a terrible curse upon Pharaoh's sons to break. A prophecy from their birth tells of an idol the white and red colors of the Dual Crown that offers their only hope of salvation. With the time before their curse is complete running like the sands of the Sahara, will a slave of Knossos save them before it is too late? Quasi-human-formers, AU, slight OOC, historical fantasy.
Prompted by deathmustang on lj
Omen of the Boar
Akhetaton, city of pharaohs, capitol of Egypt, land of the living gods incarnate glowed like polished amber in the unrelenting sunlight glimmering with all the glory of the pharos. Like the buildings that housed them the people of Akhetaton glimmered with the many trappings of their wealth. Talismans of gemstones and shell, gold and silver, and hand crafted polished beads tinkled as the regal forms walked creating the audible pulse of the city. Gemstones of blue and red, green and yellow lie against skin hued the color of river mud: clay red, soil black, moist earth brown and chalk white; the peoples of Egypt as striated as the silt's of the Nile after the flood.
The jangling discord of a million talismans and trinkets filled the humid air. Their jingling matched the nearby rushing of the great Nile that dictated the lives of all of Egypt from the lowliest slave to the great God Pharaoh high in his temple palace. Sounding loudly over the jingling and rushing that was the eternal backdrop to their lives was the calls of merchants, the hammering of stonemasons and chanting of the Priests that created the harmony of the changing moods of the Gods. Despite the raucous hymnal they created disquiet lay heavy over the land like the hush of night before the Hippo strikes.
In the royal temple spiring high above the palace main the Great Royal Wife, chief wife and queen to the Pharaoh, lay in her birthing chamber surrounded by healing priests and midwives. Her wearied labor protected by her virgin maidens, the ladies in waiting and fiercely loyal body guards that protected all the wives of the pharaoh who stood fiercely just inside her chamber and outside her door.
On this day, one that should be joyous the pharaoh, ruler of all Lower and Upper Egypt, brooded in the temple sanctuary. Here, within the shady inner sanctum a viewing pool rippled with the erratic drifting of the sacred fish colored red and white of the Double Crown that sat proudly upon Pharaoh's brow. Mesmerized as ever by their fluid motions he let his mind follow the many portends that had brought his chief wife to her current state.
Signs and portends ruled the lives of all in Egypt. Charms of the hippo, crocodile, boar and turtle warded off their evil. Figures of the Gods gave the wearer their protection, or their strength. These portends ruled all from the lowliest man of slave birth to the God Pharaoh high in the palace. The expectant jackal-headed queen in her sunlit chamber was no exception. Despite the imminent birth of the twins she carried within her swollen womb the pharaoh could only count the evil portends that hung heavily over their unborn heads.
No one had feared for the Great Royal Wife when the healers announced her expectant state. The kingdoms had rejoiced, and doubly so when news came she carried twins. All hoped for the twins to be brother and sister destined by the Gods' will to become pharaoh and his sister-wife, much as Osiris and his twin sister-wife Isis had been, two beings borne from one destined to be one in life until death.
Their excitement for the coming births had grown with each rising sun as her body had swelled as the Nile in flood. Prayers rose in the temples and incense burned richly late into the night as all prepared in jubilant anticipation for the Queen's delivery. Then the buzzards, portends of impending slaughter, began to circle the empty, waiting nursery. Their dark ever present forms had cast a pall across all of Egypt.
Circling buzzards bespoke of death and slaughter to come. Those circling defilers of the dead had chosen the nursery of the royal palace as their prophesied location of impending destruction. The priests had dismissed the queen's concerns, after all by the buzzards' very appearance the slaughter was destined to take place within the week and the queen still had a whole month before her children were to be born. That had been one week ago, one week to the hour and by their portend the twins would arrive before the hour of Ra. Overhead a cry of pain from the birthing room rang through the palace, the buzzards' portend was coming true.
The eagle, the lady of victory had cried her fierce challenge to the Gods just that morning over the Queen. A sign of victory, of the pups she carried becoming the next great Pharaoh and his sister-wife. Such a pairing as twins, initially one being within the womb rejoined once more as wedded husband and wife, rulers of both kingdoms would be fortuitous indeed.
Yet ere before the fading of the eagle's cry from the cloudless heavens the winged goddess had been dashed upon the ground. A great horned raven sent by the dark Gods had knocked her from the skies and sounded his terrible croak directly over the expecting queen, just as the eagle had been dashed upon the ground, splattering the queen with her still warm blood. Such portends of evil and death had forced the queen into early labor, buzzards ever circling the nursery and leaving all of Akhetaton lost within their terrible pall.
The pharaoh focused once more upon the fish swimming in the viewing pool, his eyes momentarily meeting the fierce amber eyes of his reflection. The somber jackal in the reflection had short fur of Nile blue, his high, pointed ears and long snout showed his pure lineage descending from Anubis at the beginning of the Jackal-God dynasty one hundred dry seasons ago. He sighed, letting his wandering mind focus once more on the motions of the lazy fish beneath his reflection. Both swam, encircling one another agitatedly as if sensing the turmoil growing within the Pharaoh's chest.
Suddenly, the palace erupted in yells and wailing cries that destroyed the midday calm. Grimly, the pharaoh rose, heading to the birthing chamber to see the form the buzzards' prophecy had taken. For, as all children of Akhetaton knew, all foretold by the Gods was destined to come true. He rounded the turn of the corridor with only the clicking of his ebony claws on stone reaching his ears and passed the guardian maidens from the mortal city beyond all having skin the colors of earthen clay and black wigs woven from the hair of the ox and ass. He passed unchallenged and nodded to others within, these maidens were the daughters of earlier dynasties all having the heads and features of the osprey, hawk, ibis, camel and cat.
He looked to the bustling priests and midwives finally spotting his beloved sister-wife lying in relaxed glory, resting easily with her newborns lying flat against her chest like the basking crocodile worshiping the new born sun as they suckled. He looked closely at his infants their delicate skin seemed to glow in the diffused sunlight reaching through the windows. They were identical, small bodies perfectly formed, tiny replicas of him and his chief wife, only one would eventually be the red of the sun disk and the other the vibrant yellow of the Nile lily. Their miniature frames were perfect, as were their softly wrinkled muzzles, tiny ebony claws and sharply pointed ears.
"They are both males, my pharoh." The queen's strong, but tired voice rose from where she lay, "They cannot be as husband and wife."
"That matters not," the pharaoh replied as he turned to his chief priest standing at the queen's bed side. "What do the signs portend, Mirage?"
"My pharaoh," The priest bowed his crimson osprey head low over his bare skinned, blue chest, "They were born under the sign of the boar." He leaned in closer, "They will suffer the Fury of the Red Sands."
Worried, and saddened, Pharaoh bowed his head. The boar, cast by the Gods as evil incarnate, had sent its mindless rage to infect his newborn sons. Like the angered breath of the Gods casting the burning sands into a wall of death they would bring only destruction in their wake.
"They will suffer onto others the wrath of Seth unto Osiris, and all in their path shall be rent into fourteen sections and cast to the corners of Egypt." Mirage spoke gently, beak clicking in his distress to bring such news to his pharaoh.
Pharaoh knew the litany, how Seth, jealous of his brother had killed him once, then twice and cast him to the furthest reaches of the kingdoms. "How long?" Pharaoh finally asked, looking somberly at his chief wife and holding her proud, fierce wolf-like gaze.
The priest looked beyond the birthing chamber window out onto the swollen Nile. "Egypt welcomes her newest sons with high waters and time of plenty. Eighteen times shall they be greeted thus until the boar's rage turns them upon each other and they become the destruction of the breath of the gods scouring the land." Mirage looked to bone chips, feathers and gemstones scattered across a small table nearby. His divining tools were studied and bypassed as the priest moved to the window pulling an intricately carved ironwood and ivory star reader from his simple robes and read the position of the sun in the sky and the depth of the Nile. "The signs speak of only one means of salvation. Be it for one or both I know not. Find the hare, ivory white of the hippo tusk and red of the cornelian stone."
Pharaoh nodded, he understood. His sons would have all the talismans of the swift and keen dune runner with its shape protecting them. Maybe they too, like the swift desert hare, could outrun their prophesized fates.
Upon the raised pallet the chief wife looked up at him, delicate pink hand outstretched imploringly. "We can do nothing for now, my husband. Come, sit with me and welcome your new sons, Optimus."
"As you command, Elita," He knelt by her bed and smiled upon her and their sons. Within his chest his heart was heavy with the tumultuous thoughts that bore heavily upon him. These were his first-born sons, the heirs to his throne and only another child born of Elita's womb would be suitable to inherit. Only time and the will of the Gods' would tell if his sons were to be slaughtered - or spared.
Also on FF.net