Author's Note

So... Time for Egypt's pantheon to join the fray...

9: Horus

Personally, Gilda was downright dumbfounded on how she could possibly sharing a body with a God. Sure, some things made sense now but it still came at her like a shock. Surprisingly, she was taking this rather well all things considered. Or maybe her brain had numb from all the rather stunning things that had gone on in her life as of late, so what was one more to add to the list eh?

“You know, you really don't have to treat this as such a bad thing you know!” Horus crowed. “You know you should be honored! Playing host to one of the mightiest of Egypt's pantheon! It was me who fought Seth hand to hand to avenge our fallen brother Osiris, after Seth had slaughtered him brutally so!”

Gilda vaguely remembered in some tellings of the legend Osiris was, in fact, Horus’ father and Seth’s as well. But in others, he was their brother by Nut and Geb. Egypt myths were funny in that way really Gilda mused. “Surprisingly, hosting people is looked down upon!” Gilda mentally screamed back at Horus even as she trudged along the sands of a beach, washed up Viking longboats littering the coastline. “So excuse me if I'm not so pleased to be playing host to your mind.” Gilda deadpanned. Horus could only chuckle.

Further on up the shoreline where the sand turned to dirt and grass and stone were various huts. These huts were glowing with fires alight within and songs sung of mourning were wafting out of them. The tunes of course, were for a certain brave Dragoness who dared challenge the mighty Sköll. Gilda’s eyebrow twitched when they dared mention Odin smiting her as the end result for the foolish dragon. She had half a mind to go in there and slice them all to pieces.

“Oh, you have such a fire within you. You almost admire me of my sister in some respects. You would make a great pharaoh. Trust me, it can be done! Just ask Hatshepsut. Oh, when she put on that fake beard I was stunned as the next God…” Horus began to ramble and to his credit, he quickly seemed to realize this and cleared his throat with a coughing sound. “But I'm veering off topic anyways. You would have realized you were playing a host body to my essence sooner or later. I'm glad you realized as soon as you did. Otherwise, that would make certain things particularly troublesome. Trust me Gilda, last thing either of us want is for us to be stuck in a battle against the forces of Chaos and you not be able to defend yourself with the proper combat magics. All because you didn't realize you didn't know I was here and thanks to me you can use them!” he stated. “Let's face it. I'm awesome aren't I?”

“Yeah… awesome. Always wanted to be possessed by a god!” Gilda ranted to herself throwing her forelegs skyward in frustration.

“Oh, you are hardly possessed! Hardly!” Horus laughed. “We gods can exist in many different places at once. I'm also inhabiting a few shrines to me as well amongst other places alongside you! And trust me, you will be grateful for my presence in the journeys to come!”

Gilda laughed bitterly. “Oh, if you were here… me? Grateful? Oh, now that is a laugh! Where were you when Odin smited Twilight with that damned spear of his?”

“I thought you didn't like her? That you only saw her as a means to an end? A sizeable reward?” Horus asked raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe at first, and maybe I still do in some ways. But she was still the closest thing I ever had to a friend and her mother entrusted her to me. And I broke that promise. The least I can do is make it up to her… somehow.”

“Like I said,” Horus nodded sagely. “You would make a fine pharaoh. Or at least a fine royal consort…” he mused and even as Gilda balked in indignation Horus continued on. “But I confess, the reason why I did not help you when I did was because I was scared. Scared of all the Allfather and his power. And… scared for you really.” he admitted and Gilda’s beak hang limply in stunned silence.

“Scared? Scared for me?” she asked.

“Yes, quite. And I mean this in the nicest way but you are a weak little vessel. Odin would kill you easily. And I… I would be banished deep into the Duat possibly taking years to claw my way back out again. If even that!” Horus explained to her and if Gilda felt any offense at being called a weak vessel she decided not to say anything. Best not to argue with a God in any form. She’d seen where that could lead.

“The… the Duat?” Gilda asked in confusion. “Um, Lord Horus? A little help here? What exactly is the Duat?” she asked showing as much respect to Horus as she possibly could.

“Lord Horus… I like the sound of that! Possibly even better than King Horus!” the god in question murmured to himself probably rubbing his beak in thought. “But yes… anyways. The Duat. How best to explain it to you in a way your mortal mind could comprehend… Ah! I know!” he cried. “Look out to the horizon. What do you see?”

And so Gilda did exactly as instructed looking out to the horizon and seeing as far as she possibly could. Mile after mile of ocean, mile after mile of water only broken up now and then by the odd island or so. “I see… water. Just endless water. Few islands here and there but mostly wate…” Gilda began before her eyes widened in realization as she slowly figured out what Horus was starting to get at. She might not have been the brightest griffon in the world, like classically book dumb if you will but given time she could figure certain things out. Just at times took her a minute, that was all.

“Exactly. You see the sea. And in some ways, that is exactly what the Duat is really! Just a sea of magic and realms, or islands if you will in this analogy. You pick things up fast little hatching!” Horus appraised. “Anyways, these realms could be various things. Places where the gods could exist in their true forms incomprehensible to man or deep dark chasms of Chaos where demons dwell and we are too afraid to venture. It exists beneath the waking world with many layers and regions, like the Land of the Dead for instance. Cultures all over the world have different names for it. The Norse, for instance, calling it Muspelheim and the Greeks know it as Tartarus. You starting to get the picture?”

Gilda felt a headache coming on from all this new information. “Ugh… yeah… sorta…”

Horus ‘hmmed' to himself before speaking once more. Gilda thought he also made mention of the glory of his precious Amaterasu, her dwelling Takamagahara and a place between worlds called Ashihara no Nakatsukuni that humans also knew to be the Duat but she suspected she might have been imagining things. Horus and his ramblings had all become a bit of a blur honestly.

“Yes, I do admit it is a lot to take in at once. I hate having to explain everything so quickly. But time is of the essence now. Now that you are aware of your status the forces of those loyal to Chaos will be after you.”

“Great… wonderful. Fans,” Gilda stated dryly. “I’ve never felt so loved in all my life…”

“Oh, it could be worse…” Horus trailed off. “You could be in Sobekneferu’s position.”

“...Er, I dare to ask, but who is…?” Gilda trailed off not sure she really wanted to know given the tone in Horus’ voice.

“Sobekneferu,” Horus repeated. “Final pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. Also a woman. Name meant the beauty of Sobek, although why anyone would consider that reptile beautiful is beyond me…” he murmured to himself. “Anyways, my sister Nephthys played host to her, and sadly Sobekneferu was a woman of fire like yourself while Nephthys was a water goddess. As you can probably imagine, it did not end well trying to teach her the ways of the gods and the forces of chaos were soon to overwhelm Sobekneferu and end the Twelfth Dynasty. Met a ghastly end she did, ghastly… I do not want the same fate to meet you hatchling, understand? Sadly, time is limited if we want to save your mate’s spirit.”

“She… Twilight is not my mate!” Gilda screeched out.

“She isn’t?” Horus blinked in confused. “Funny, I must have been mistaken given your interactions… Ah well, it happens I suppose…”

“And what do you mean time is limited?” Gilda inquired.

“Ah… Right. I suppose I should have mentioned this… Silly me! Maʽat, I’m getting as absent-minded as Thoth, the old bird!” Horus muttered mentally facepalming. “Yes, her spirit rests in Niflheim but it does not have long before it is impossible to retrieve. 48 hours I believe if I remember correctly…”

“And you couldn’t have told me this before?” Gilda screeched out at Horus. “You… You… GAH!” she growled out too angry at Horus for words.

“It slipped my mind okay?” Horus said trying to sooth the raging griffon. “I’m not perfect! Anyways, she can be retrieved. It won’t be easy, heroic deeds never are of course, but it can be done! All we need to do is slip into the Duat and use it as a shortcut to Niflheim, that’s all.”

“Why would she be in Niflheim?” Gilda had to ask.

“From my understanding, that is where Hel rules correct?” Horus asked and Gilda nodded in return. “Okay, it’s basically the homeland of primordial darkness, cold, mist, and ice. Not a very nice place to be by any stretch of the imagination. Ever heard of the phrase “A cold day in Hell?” ...Well, now you know where it came from. Normally, warriors who die in battle in Odin’s domain are sent to Valhalla, and normally Twilight would fit these criteria,” Horus continued to explain. “However, given she ‘defied’ him obviously she would not be sent there. No, he would send her to the worse possible place he can imagine and for him, that would be the birthplace of one of his mortal enemies. Ymir. Plus, Hel is not a nice woman even at the best of times. She’s of both fire and ice, literally a split-personality. Met her Niflheim side once and… Well, needless to say, I’d rather not meet it again…”

“So basically, Twilight’s being tormented by the Gods knows what…” Gilda murmured her wings flaring out in anger and the ground beneath her glowing in green hieroglyphs. Only briefly did her eyes change to both gold and silver. If Horus took notice -which he undoubtedly did- he made no comment on the subject.

“Anyways, first things first… we need to find a river. That is the only way to the Land of the Dead. Or we could have someone create one for us, but most of the Gods here do not like other pantheons intruding on their lands so… Uh, doubtful they’d be willing to help us especially if they were to learn what we plan to do,” Horus grumbled before muttering something under his breath about unhelpful old fogeys who really needed to get up off their backsides. “If I was in a more powerful vessel, I’d use my awesome abilities to split the earth in two and make a river erupt but sadly we are not in that position. So, we must find a river and then take a longboat down it into the realm of magic.”

Gilda looked around the beach and gestured to the many smashed longboats around them. “Well, thank the Gods that we are not short of those!” she told Horus who didn’t seem to particularly care that they were all smashed to ruins.

“Meh, this isn’t exactly a problem. An absence of rivers is one thing, but broken boats? Please, you don’t know how many pharaohs were poor sailors! Oh, trust me Ramses the Great may have been a powerful king, but sailor he was hardly so ‘great’. There’s a reason he always kept a court magician on his boats. ...I do hope he paid him overtime. Alright, crash course in Egyptian magic! First, think of a crook and a frail. Classic tools for magic this! Are you thinking of them?”

“Y-Yes…” Gilda murmured and Horus smiled.

“Good! Now summon them to your grasp! These are your wands for lack of a better term.”

Gilda thought up the image of a classic pharaoh’s crook and flail, and soon found them within her paws. “Now… Now what?” she asked aloud.

“Hi-nehm! Join those two boats, over there!” Horus ordered briefly taking control and Gilda’s eyes turned that odd silver and gold combination once more. Releasing his control over Gilda, she could only guess Horus’ first word was a spell of some sort.

“Hi-nehm.” she said pointing the crook and the frail at two longboats and to her shock she watched as they slowly lit up with hieroglyphs before merging together into a restored version of themselves.

“Needs a sail if you ask me, but I think we can work with what we have…” Horus muttered. “Maybe a few dashes of paint, eyes on its bow to keep the demons away. My eyes are very powerful protection glyphs you know…”

“Yeah yeah… Will you stop talking about yourself for a minute and actually-”

“Find you a river, or tell you how to split the earth?” Horus stated cutting Gilda off. “Well now! I can’t do everything for you. Otherwise, how will you learn?” he asked and Gilda was forced to concede his point.

“You do realize we are on an island, and therefore there would no point to a river geologically speaking right?”

“So? Continents are islands aren’t they, and yet they have rivers…” Horus replied.

“Yeah, much larger islands. This place is puny really,” Gilda argued in return growing quite fed up with Horus’ attitude. Horus, in turn, was sorta fed up with hers as well.

“Must you complain about everything?” he asked. “Now, go ahead and fly around this place. You have wings remember, use them!” Horus remarked. Gilda wanted to scream. Having a God in her head making snide remarks, useful as they were at times was going to get old really quickly she decided. Especially when that god was quite arrogant and talked about nothing but himself at times.

“You know I can hear you right?” Horus commented as Gilda flew over the island, past some rocky cragged hills and over a ruined village that had been partially submerged by powerful floodwaters. “If you’re thinking on insulting me, you might want to keep your thoughts to yourself. Just sayin’.” Horus remarked.

Ignoring him, Gilda continued to explore the island. Eventually, she did stumble across a tiny river that seemed to trickle down into the earth itself presumably into some underwater cavern somewhere.

“Well, that wasn’t so hard now was it?” Horus remarked. “Granted, getting that boat over here might require a bit of effort but you’re a strong enough griffon so I presume pulling something isn’t that hard for you is it?”

Gilda grumpily grabbed or possibly stole a bit of rope and tied it to one end of the longboat, wrapping it tightly around the dragon figurehead. Gilda smiled slightly in a sad manner as she looked upon the figurehead noting how much it looked like Twilight before giving the rope a sharp tug gently pulling the longboat forwards. Inch by inch, minute by minute she slowly pulled the longboat up to the river. While she did this, she noticed a familiar chariot with a familiar figure made of flame commanding it.

“Oh, it’s Sól,” Horus commented. “Haven’t seen her in ages, not since the last godly basketball game. Won with quite a free throw, I might add. So she got to be the sun goddess for the next few thousand years.”

Pulling to a halt up alongside Gilda making sure to diminish her flames as she did so Sól then stepped out of her chariot. Striding over to Gilda she waved her hand over the griffon, and Gilda then felt the magic of the Æsir flowing through her as her veins began to glow a burning yellow.

“Any particular reason why you’re doing this?” Horus had to ask. “My magic is perfectly strong enough for Gilda as it is!” he commented briefly taking control again. Gilda was really beginning to hate that.

“Way I figure it,” Sól commented. “A member of my family did this to Gilda, so I must help make it right. Besides, the mists of Niflheim are very treacherous, and as that is where you are presumably going I figure you must have the power to light the way.”

“Seems fair enough I suppose…” Horus agreed his silver eye glimmering dangerously in the sunlight. “I’d just rather you didn’t fill my host with too much magic and blow her up!”

Gilda’s jaw dropped at this possibility.

“Relax Horus, I know what I’m doing… This old fogey as you call me hasn’t been alive this long by being stupid!” Sól returned cheerfully and Gilda cackled at the remark and Horus’ annoyance at being caught. “Probably going to face Hel from Odin after this, but I owe Twilight a grave debt for helping me with my husband. I intend to repay that in full. If that means helping her mate, then so be it…”

“I’M NOT HER MATE!!!” Gilda screeched stamping her foot with wings flared out in anger again as both Horus and Sól laughed their asses off.

“Fare thee well, Gilda Grimfeathers, and may the Gods be with you…” Sól said before returning to the skies once more. Needless to say, Gilda hoped those Gods were of the Egyptian variety.