The Weighing of the Hearts
“Fair?” she purred, tracing her fingers down his chest. Several wisps of her auburn hair fell across her gentle face, catching the light, and she brushed them behind her ear with a hand, looking up into his eyes. He placed a hand on the nape of her neck and tilted her head upwards, gently scritching her neck with his fingertips.
“Isn’t that your job?” He asked as he placed the palm of his other hand against the soft skin on her cheek.
She rotated her head so that his fingers were gently tracing along her lips, the skin from his hand tingling along his arm as she kept her sideways gaze locked on his eyes.
She suddenly turned her head, breaking contact and backing away from him. They were in a secluded corner of the hovering island, hidden behind a wall and beneath the deck that suspended and held Ma’at’s living area. But despite their intricate hiding spot, behind a pillar stepped out the being they were both least excited to see. Anubis.
“Hello, children,” Anubis purred rubbing his furry paws together, glad to have bombarded the two in an awkward time, cutting the sexual tension.
Luke growled in response, his blood glowing lightly from beneath his translucent skin. He hated being called a child. Even when he was alive, it disturbed him - a nuisance reminding him he was too young to vote and too old to escape with not caring, too young to drink and too old to escape temptation, too young to live on his own and too old to escape wishing he could. Though he felt the title of teenager even more annoying - for the word simply, on its own, fit a stereotype of a hormonal dick head he could not escape. Preferring to be referred to, simply, as a person, he growled in response.
Ma’at feigned a polite smile tilting her head slightly in Anubis’s direction. “May I help you with something, Anubis?” She asked, an air of impatience wrapped around her words.
Anubis smiled to himself, tilting his head foreword to peer at them over his nonexistent spectacles. He placed his hands beneath his chin, furry fingers spread but connected at the tips in a precise archway that hinted superiority. As Luke watched the placement of Anubis’s hands, he couldn’t help being reminded of a fox, not wondering for a moment why he took the form of a jackal. It took all of Luke’s efforts to keep from growling again. Anubis first smiled at Ma’at, the words escaping his muzzle between his long tongue, “Yes, my lady. But mostly, my apprentice…” he jerked his head in Luke’s direction.
Stepping out into the daylight, the sun glistened against Luke’s bare chest, his pale skin shaping and clinging to his muscles and curves. His hands were balled into fists, his upper chest jutting out, his nose in the air as he inquired, not so politely, “What?”
“Ohh, fiesty!” Anubis purred, winking at Ma’at. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, as her mind screamed, Be fair, Ma’at… You are the Goddess of Justice. Do not hit him. Anubis broke the archway of his fingers and extended one long, furry black finger in Luke’s direction, curling it back in a beckoning manner. “We have a lovely customer awaiting.”
Luke shuddered at the thought and Anubis cackled. He hated the way Anubis referred to the dead as “customers”, as if they were buying immortality at the price of their history. When a death is expected, Anubis refers to it as “an appointment”, as if the “customer” is coming in to calmly discuss their future.
In reality, the procedure was merciless. Anubis owned his own isle where, much to his disgust, Luke inhabited. More often than not, he stayed on Ma’at’s couch, her castle oozing of warmth, and best of all, happiness. Anubis’s inhabitation was merely desolate - a dark mix of cascading stairwells leading to seemingly nothingness, bare and cold stone walls and floors, a lack of any color deviating from a shade of brown, and any sort of hope. When Luke stayed there, he felt lifeless, his remaining soul sucked through his pale skin into the dark walls, even his slight pink complexion losing all color. The idea of living there, in constant misery and sacrifice, caused a shudder to trickle down his spine. The outside of the castle, covered in black moss and dirt, made a U. The center, which Luke thought to himself would be perfect for a lively garden, contained dead grass, moans and screeches echoing from years of torture, the sleeping beast known as Ammit, and the ever perfect scale.
The scale was the happiest thing in the entire isle of Anubis, but Luke was not mistaken - it was purely neutral. The gold was thick, shining almost blindingly in the sunlight, a delicate sight. But the saucers attached by golden chain links to either side of the scale were menacing, glaring rather than shining in the sunlight.
To reach the scale was - for most godly beings - relatively easy. The idea of it caused Luke’s stomach to turn and his knees to buckle. All that was required as the being’s trust in the elements. With faith and determination, the clouds collided and gathered beneath their bare feet, pads, or claws and a simple thought of the necessary direction carried them wordlessly to the location. But as Luke stood on the edge of the firm ground that was Ma’at’s castle in the sky, Anubis already having disappeared towards his isle, he placed a toe into the air like a child testing cold water. An almost transparent, lightly tinted mist gathered beneath his toe, firming and turning whiter with the more pressure he pressed, and disseminating across the sky once he lifted his toe. With all of his effort, he suppressed a nervous whimper. As a human, heights had terrified him - and a fall to the endless bounds of eternity was something hard to even contemplate, let alone endure.
Ma’at stepped a few steps back, crouching as she picked up a run, her wings circulating the air which caused a gust of wind to shove Luke. As he stumbled backwards, almost falling on his ass, he stood in front of Ma’at’s flight. She was on the tips of her toes before she stopped, gracefully tiptoeing towards him. He stood idly, his hands behind his back as he kicked one foot foreword and back, upping the grass and marking a line in the dirt. As he looked down at her feet, he bit his lip and mumbled, “Ma’at? A favor?”
A laugh escaped her lips as she watched him nervously stand in front of her. “Awww. Lemme guess. You’re scared?”
He nodded slowly, pouting a little.
She shook her head smiling and grabbed him by the waist. “C’mere.”
He approached, a slight bounce in his few steps as he positioned himself to her right and wrapped his arm around Ma’at’s shoulders, her biege dress clinging to her beneath his fingertips. She then slid both of her hands around his waist, clutching him close. The motions they then performed where exacted, fully practiced by now. Three steps back, one, two, three, crouch, jump.
Luke breathed a sigh as they soared. “I could fly with you forever…” he whispered, Ma’at giggling in response. For him, flying was more than a mean of transportation - it was a liberating reason for existence. He felt the wind tangle through his chin-length blonde hair, kissing the crevices of his face, carrying his shoulders. He tucked his legs bag, curving his entire body, his chest pushed forward and his free arm spread along the waves of the air, even his fingers spread into a star to catch the wisps and turrets. He felt genuinely at one with the air, slipping between its pockets. He felt beneath his left arm Ma’at’s shoulders fluctuating in a perfect pace as the wings spurting from her back folded and extended, catching the billows of air. In this realm there was no wind factor, nothing to alter their course, to ruin this perfect moment of freedom. Every pore in his skin was illuminated, his blood pulsing. He could hear music echoing with Ma’at’s wings’ beating whir as the beat and he sighed, the entire experience over too quickly as she neared the ground and whispered their eminent descent, toes grazing the ground as they went from a run to a gentle walk to a complete stop.
Anubis stood off to their left side with a look of plain contempt and superiority, and Luke glared at him with eyes that said nothing other than “bite me”. They approached the castle and the U-shaped patch of dead grass, the scale glistening both beautifying and intimidating.
This time, next to the scale hovered a weak dark-skinned woman in a lace white night gown, her brown locks curling and wrapping around her as her figure blinked and swayed in front of them - an unfully formed being glistening as momentary and delicate as a smile in Anubis’s dark realm.
Luke didn’t want to think about what he had to do as Anubis’s apprentice, but with the soul and the scale in front of him, he couldn’t help imagine it as he slowly mentally prepared himself. The fateful yet nonchalant words of Anubis, when they’d met earlier, rang through his mind…
It’s simple, really. All you must do is remove the soul’s heart and place it on the left side of the scale. Ma’at will place her feather on the right side, and you must keep watch as the scale sways back and forth. This is the weighing of the heart ceremony, so the heavier object will be noted and recorded. Should the heavier object be the heart, the demons here
, (and the impish beast had growled) will devour the heart. Should the heavier object be the feather, the soul will be granted access to heaven, and immortality.
Luke shuddered, the words the demons here will devour the heart haunting him. That was the reason for the blue and black circles beneath his eyes, the reason for his shaking hands as he approached the soul and the scale. She pushed hair gently from her face as she began to speak to Luke, something the spirits rarely did.
“I killed myself,” she said, turning her arms upright to show open wounds along her wrists.
“Oh?” Luke asked, his eyebrows raising.
“He left me.” She turned her head to the side, closing her eyes and tipping her nose in the air smugly. “So I said, fine. I hope you deal with the guilt forever.”
She turned toward Luke, her eyebrows crossing in a worried manner as she began to frown. “Do you think that makes me spiteful?”
Luke stuttered a bit and fidgeted as he tried to think of an answer. He felt Ma’at behind him, tilting her head, watching his response. “He promised he’d never leave me,” the soul spoke defensively, seeing the struggle Luke had at answering her question. “Promised.”
Nodding, Luke began to realize she didn’t need feedback - she just needed someone to listen. He noticed Anubis stood off to the side, his arms crossed and his foot pad tapping impatiently, but ignored him. His punishment for stalling the ceremony could wait. This soul did not deserve to continue, or discontinue, her existence in such a manner.
“I would have done the same, miss,” Luke lied.
She smiled. “Bless your heart, young one,” and Luke sucked the air through his teeth at the reminder that he was stuck, for possibly ever, in his sixteen year old body. He could be three thousand years old and people would still call him “kid” and “child”. Fabulous.
She stood in front of him smiling, and he awkwardly stepped forward. “D-do…you mind if I borrow your heart for a second?”
Blinking, she asked, “What? Will it hurt?”
“Not at all! It’ll only take a second,” he repeated as he came even closer to her.
“Sure thing. Go ahead…” and she jutted her chest forward. Luke hated this part. It was always sufficiently awkward, let alone the fact that she was a woman. He reached his thin, pale hand into her chest and pulled through her shuddering skin a full, bright red heart. It wasn’t beating beneath his fingertips - he doubted he would be able to endure that - and he carefully, in both hands, carried it to the scale where he placed it down. Immediately the scale became imbalanced, the left side dropping to the floor and the empty side dangling in the air. Ma’at stepped forward from behind him and brushed her fingers through her hair, where an entwined string with a holding connecting it to the feather. Turning it in her fingertips, it disconnected and she gently placed the feather on the scale.
Breaths held as the scale shook back and forth, finally settling.
The heart was heavier.
The demons raced from separate rooms of Anubis’s house, Ammit growling, devouring the shrieking lady whole, leaving scraps of her nightgown on their cheeks, one hopping on the scale.
Ma’at shook her head. “She killed herself.”