tushanshu_logs | I ain't made for a rivalry; I could never take the world alone

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I ain't made for a rivalry; I could never take the world alone

Characters: Solomon Wreath, Raine Sage, Bakura.
Date: Mid August, 2015 (2016 in-game).
Location: Raine and Sol's apartment.
Situation: Adopted famry gets together for its first famry dinner, because why not.
Warnings/Rating: Nothing thus far.

For all that Raine and Solomon had been in their apartment for a few months now, they hadn't actively had anyone 'come over'. Skulduggery squeezing in the door due to the fact he'd become slightly alive didn't really count, since it wasn't anything close to an invitation.

It was in some ways appropriate that it was Bakura. If Genis had been there, he'd have approved, almost certainly. Solomon at least was hoping the evening would ease Raine's mind somewhat, even though there hadn't been much said about Genis since he'd been sent home. There didn't really need to be.

The only upset was that Raine had wanted to help in the kitchen. To make it a special occasion, she said.

Solomon had to wonder what sort of revenge he was going to suffer for refusing. He hoped that the fact he was wearing the apron she'd bought him was suffering enough, because her voice always tightened when she saw him wearing it in that way he could by now recognise as amusement. It wasn't frilly, he knew that, but he had to wonder what else was on it.

But it was practical, and useful, and was indeed seeing quite a bit of use today, because Raine wasn't allowed in the kitchen and the kitchen, in lieu of Genis, was now Solomon's. Cooking wasn't something he ever thought he'd do on a regular basis, but it was one of the few things he'd started that was helpful right after his accident. It was vindicating.

By the time Raine got home and Bakura arrived, the apartment would be filled with lovely scents. Most traditional Irish food was a little too heavy for this weather and Solomon didn't know many recipes anyway; he unfortunately didn't know many Egyptian dishes, either. He settled for something Genis had taught him, which would hopefully be nice for Raine, with Irish colcannon as a side because it was simple enough and karkady as one of the refreshments.

Solomon himself was still in the kitchen, wearing his customised apron and moving around the kitchen with ease, shadows spread around the room, tinged blue and lurking, and ready to respond in a moment.

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Raine got home before Bakura arrived, called "I'm home" from the door and settled her staff in its accustomed corner. Solomon obviously had dinner preparations well underway, and it wasn't long before Raine was hovering just outside the kitchen, watching Solomon's movement and the play of his shadows.

It had hardly seemed fair to make Solomon do all the work in the kitchen, and in any case Bakura was friend to both of them, not solely one or the other, and a division of kitchen labor seemed both sensible and sentimentally appropriate. These arguments, Raine discovered, did not hold up with Solomon particularly well. She'd rather been hoping they'd have a bit more of an effect than her usual supporting points for not being chased out of the kitchen, but apparently Genis had managed to impress more than just cooking skills on Solomon.

So Raine was relegated to watching, and the corners of her mouth were curled up in amusement despite the disappointment, as Solomon was in fact making use of her gift. It had been equal measures petty and practical, she supposed, but he bore it gracefully and the sight never failed to inspire some lightness in her. "It smells wonderful," she told him, warm, and would have lingered there longer but for Bakura's arrival.

When Bakura arrived it would be Raine who answered the door, and she stepped aside to let him enter with a smile. "Come in."

Bakura had not visited the apartment before, although he'd known the address for some time. His interactions with Solomon and Raine (mostly Raine, up until recently) had all been in either neutral locations, or at the dojo. The Earth Sector neighbourhood was nice, and quiet, and he felt like it suited the pair of them.

He smiled at Raine when she answered the door, offering her an elegant bottle, the amber liquid inside of it having a faintly rosy tinge. "For after dinner," he said. It was something he thought Raine would like, given her reactions to their shared drinks the previous month, and he suspected Solomon might recognize it as being one of the premium vintages found on the turtle.

He could be a good guest when he tried, after all.

"Thank you for inviting me."

"Dear me, we're positively domestic," said Solomon from the kitchen doorway, but he was wearing a faint smile. "And people say we've no sense of courtesy." The last time Solomon had bothered to drink anything, that he could recall, had been ... quite some time ago. About when Skulduggery had forced that talk on him, perhaps.

At least, he assumed it was a drink, rather mints or something like that. He'd heard something slosh.

"The table needs setting," he added, turning, "unless Raine beat me to it." He didn't think so, because he hadn't heard the cutlery thud. Like most kedanese cutlery, it was wooden rather than metal -- metal was too valuable to eat from, after all.

In the time he was standing in the doorway, his apron was more than well enough on display for Bakura to see it. Pink, with a unicorn running on a rainbow on the front. A somewhat sauce-specked unicorn.

"Domestic is the word typically used to describe things related to home and the keeping of a household," Raine pointed out, well aware how Solomon had meant it and choosing to take it with straight-faced blankness. She took the offered bottle from Bakura, holding it up toward the light to appreciate the color. "Thank you," she said in turn, with a little nod, and, "Bakura brought a beverage."

Solomon could likely assume as much himself, if he was paying close enough attention to their interaction, but when uncertainty could be eliminated in a few words, it was simpler to do so. Raine moved to set the bottle on the dining table, brisk.

The comment about table-setting made her hmph quietly, vaguely indignant, as she came back toward the kitchen. "If you're no longer protesting my presence in the kitchen, I'm happy to do so," she said, just a little pointedly, and slipped by Solomon, aiming for the drawer in which the tableware was kept. She paused briefly to consider the merits of forks and spoons versus chopsticks, followed the comparison to the idea that all three of them were versed enough in both, and finally picked out three settings of each, that the people in question might choose as they preferred.

Setting the table kept her hands busy but her mind empty, and she turned her focus to watching Solomon and Bakura. She hadn't seen them together since they'd reconciled, really.

"Don't use complex words about him, seba-rekhet," Bakura smirked, passing off the bottle to Raine and looking with interest around the room. "He can only focus on so many things at once, the cooking must already be taxing him."

Of course, the thief's humour only increased when he got a proper look at exactly what the apron was displaying, and he broke into laughter -- real laughter, not mocking or cold -- and only managing to wheeze out after a moment, "Heru-pa-khered menat-aai, mek habesew-tin!"

Though Solomon had turned to go back into the kitchen, Raine slipping in past him and Bakura breaking into laughter effectively curtailed him in the doorway. If Solomon had any doubts about the nature of the apron, they were erased then and there.

The fact he was being laughed at was hardly a deterrent. Solomon had been laughed at before. For Bakura to laugh like that? It was a rare enough occurrence to be practically priceless, and Solomon certainly wasn't going to shirk the event for some dignity he'd already lost anyway.

"Thank you, thank you," Solomon said with a self-mocking bow. "I'll be here all evening." He straightened up, smirking, and primly adjusted the straps over his shoulders. "And I think Horus would disapprove of whatever it is you just said." His knowledge of Egyptian was, generally, enough to figure out single words or phrases, like the nicknames Bakura used, but not quite enough to translate whole sentences. Something about Horus and clothing.

"Since I'm both cook and entertainment, I also object to the idea that I have to be responsible for anything else." He motioned toward the dining table, brought out only for the occasion of a guest and still alien enough that Solomon was liable to run into it if he wasn't careful. "Make yourself at home," he said. "Drinks will be out in a moment."

When was the last time she'd heard Bakura laugh like that? Had she ever? Raine paused mid-motion, giving all her attention to that moment and retaining the memory of it, before smiling to herself and continuing on to finish setting places. Before long she was back to the kitchen, nudging Solomon's elbow gently in passing as she slipped by and reaching up to get plates.

"I certainly hope you'll be here all evening," she said dryly as she did, "though you need handle nothing else. Horus?" The question for clarification was almost automatic by this point, though no less genuinely curious; she hadn't heard that name among Bakura's Egyptian, so evidently she had missed something. She set the plates down on the counter, pulled down cups as well since Solomon had cited that as the next priority.

Unaware of the accidental shock he was giving his companions, Bakura just shook his head at Solomon. "Horus would agree, right before the rest of the pesedjet came along for a look as well," he replied.

Seeing Raine set the table, he offered to take the plates from her so she could get the drinks.

"Horus the Younger, Isis' son," he answered. "Who was legendarily spoiled. I was just teasing Solomon for it."

"A god," Solomon added, moving back into the kitchen. He had already gathered the drinks -- juice and karkady, depending on taste and desire -- but he put them on a tray and used a shadow to buoy it across to Raine, leaning around Bakura, where it slid easily onto the counter by her elbow. "Who became, if I recall, the king of the gods?" The last was a question directed at Bakura to confirm or correct. "Or was that Heru-ur?"

Since Bakura was offering, Raine set the plates in his hands with a brief nod of thanks, before turning back for the glasses she'd taken down. She paused as the tray slid onto the counter next to her, making sure there was room for it to settle, then set the glasses on it as well and lifted the entire thing to bring to the table. "I'd like to know a good deal more of the context," she admitted as she did, "but that might keep you here far later than you'd hoped." Bakura, at least, since Solomon lived here. "Pesedjet?"

When she straightened her eyes fell on Solomon again, and some combination of him and the apron he wore made her smile yet again. She glanced over at Bakura, and the smile turned a little wry. Surely he had to guess she'd been responsible. "Is there anything else, save the food itself?"

"There were two Horuses. Heru-ur, or Har-wer for those of us who didn't learn our vocabulary from the cushy Delta region," he needled with a smirk, "is Horus the Elder, who yes, ruled the other gods. Heru-pa-khered -- Horus the Younger, also called Heru-sa-Aset, was the one who avenged his father against Set."

Bakura distributes out the plates to the table before answering Raine. "Pesedjet is a group of gods, like a... group, or a union."

It was imprecise, as so many words in his native language, although he looked to Solomon to see if he might have a better synonym.

"That should be all," Solomon answered Raine, but he was already back at the stove, smelling and checking the pots. "Won't be too much longer." He turned and nodded in Bakura's general direction, while moving to a cupboard to feel for some mats to lay down beneath the dishes for the hot food.

"Pantheon," he supplied. "It's used these days to mean more of a hierarchy, but it used to have--and still does, to the discerning--the overtone of an inseparable collective as well. Gods in a pantheon never exist in a vacuum, in stories, but in concert and opposition to one another. They aren't the same as a set of gods who are interconnected by blood and circumstance. Gods in Egypt and Greece are pantheons, but Irish gods aren't generally considered so, for instance."

They had their cycles, their connections, their crossovers, it was true, and people these days called them a pantheon; but they were more akin to a series of peoples, who fought and hated and loved and could exist without each other even while they clung to their kin. Heroes deified whose acts had defined history, rather than deities who defined the heroes of men.

"I see. And the Irish gods are then connected, but not necessarily." The concept of a pantheon still occasionally threw Raine for a loop; even knowing Martel had been a manufactured concept, polytheism was still an odd thing to consider. But then-- concert and opposition, and something shifted in her considerations, and she paused, hands on the empty glasses. "I wonder," she said aloud, though it was half to herself. "Perhaps there was, or would have been, a time when the summon spirits were considered such. If the summoner's line died out..."

And then she shook herself, and was back to the thought of dinner, setting the glasses and drinks out and taking the empty tray back to the kitchen. With everything else handled she leaned against the counter, out of Solomon's way and out of range of the food, only waiting and watching for the most part.

Bakura made a noise of thanks to Solomon for expanding on the explanation, moving out of the way to allow Raine through once she had the drinks. It was fascinating to watch Solomon navigate the kitchen -- not just the room, but the tasks -- with the consistency that he did. Even with the shadows to help him, and Bakura did not miss their blue tinge, it was extraordinary. The thief doubted that had he lost one of his senses, he'd have not even done half as well.

"You'll have put her onto theories about it now," he teased.

A flick of Solomon's wrist sent the mats out on tiny flying carpets of shadow, landing neatly in the middle of the table. Could he have done that with the rest of the dinnerware? Absolutely. But that wouldn't have been as much fun, and before Genis had lured him into the kitchen the most Solomon remembered about it was the bustle.

No one in the kitchen had lacked for something to do. He certainly wasn't going to let Raine and Bakura off the hook.

"How ever shall we cope," Solomon said dryly as he prepped the food to move to the table, but he threw a smile in Bakura's general direction. If either of them cared about Raine's theorising, they wouldn't be there. "Your summon spirits have a more defined pattern than most pantheons I know," he said next, knowing full well it would only encourage her. "The Greek gods frequently came in pairs. Usually married pairs, but sometimes not. Artemis and Apollo were twins. Sometimes they complemented one another, sometimes they didn't; sometimes there was seemingly no relation to their providences. Hera was the goddess of marriage and fidelity, for instance, while her husband Zeus was a god of lightning and storms. He also had a habit of shapeshifting to ... shall we say ... indulge in every other woman in Greece, human or not."

He lifted his eyebrow pointedly, but with a smile, and gathered shadows around the bowls, lifting them up to move them to the table without having to singe his fingers.

Neither of them minded, and that was the beauty of it. Solomon was always more likely to join in her tangents and theorizing, to at least listen seriously when he had nothing outright to add, and even if Bakura was still a more opaque matter in some respects he entertained her questions, the majority of the time. Neither was alarmed by her passions, nor incapable of or disinterested in keeping track of where she went.

There was a short span of quiet from her, while Raine appreciated this little home she had found all over again, and smiled softly to herself. Then she was off. "While it may not be considered one of his aspects, per se, the fact you feel it relevant enough to mention says it's an important part of that god's makeup," she pointed out. "Therefore, the opposing pairing of fidelity and infidelity does exist, and in an outright damaging way. Further, it can be said that marriage contributes to the creation of a household and home; it serves as a safe harbor, for which storms are as direct an opposition as possible, given a relatively abstract concept."

It looked like Solomon had the rest in hand -- or in shadow, as the case might be, and Raine trailed him and the bowls to the table, still thinking out loud. "Most of the summon spirits, while they do complement each other, are directly opposed and damage each other," she noted, more for Bakura's benefit than Solomon's. They'd spoken of such things before. "Hence their position as poles. Luna and Shadow are, as always, a special case, in that they are more reverses of each other than polar opposites, and Aska..." Aska was never not a problem, she reflected ruefully, and kept going. "In short, pairs manifesting in ways that are outright harmful to each other is no surprise. What of Apollo and Artemis?"

Though that question was more specifically for Solomon, who had knowledge outside the Egyptian, Raine directed a questioning look at Bakura as well, hoping for his point of view on such balances and pairings.

"I'm sure we'll find a way," Bakura answered Solomon in the exact same dry tone, even as he flashed a grin at Raine. And Solomon's thoughts were true, in that neither of them minded and in fact both rather enjoyed listening to Raine's passionate discourse on various topics.

"There are pairs in Egyptian myth too," Bakura pointed out. "Though most of their active worship was from he Old Kingdom, and had faded somewhat by my time. But the Eight Ancestors, called the Shmun, had their city-cult was in the Fifteenth Nome of Upper Egypt, called Khmunu." Which did, at least for Solomon, indicate why Bakura was more familiar with them, having also been from that region.

"Four pairs, to represent the beginnings of the world: Nun and Naunet of the primeval waters, Heh and Hauhet of eternity, Kuk and Kuaket for darkness, and Amun and Amaunet represented air, and that which is hidden."

Edited 2015-09-02 05:26 (UTC)

"Apollo is a god of the sun," said Solomon, levering the pots, on their little carpets, carefully down into the area of the table they had left relatively spare--there being four sides, and three of them. "Artemis is a goddess of the moon. He's of music, truth, prophecy, healing, poetry ... a veritable smorgasbord of topics. Artemis was of the hunt, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and a protector of young girls. I didn't realise your pantheon included primordial pairs, though I really shouldn't be surprised."

This last was directed at Bakura, without much in the way of warning at the shift in attention. It wasn't much of a surprise; if they'd been old when Bakura was young, they were very old deities indeed.

Solomon drew back and waved off the shadows, and bowed self-deprecatingly, indicating the table. "Dinner is served. I would also like to state for the record that any unexpectedly unusual tastes were not my idea and were probably slipped in behind my back."

"When would I have had the chance to do that?" Raine wanted to know, only temporarily distracted from the thoughts of gods and duality. "And I don't see why that's a bad thing, in any case. Just because it's not what you'd expect..."

But she couldn't be truly offended, really, and she seated herself at the table with a bare minimum of grumbling about people who wouldn't let her into the kitchen. Her focus was back to theory almost as soon as she was settled, in any case.

"I see what you meant about complements," she said, in Solomon's direction. "I'd hardly call those opposing, unless you choose to define Apollo's domains as civilization and Artemis's as the wild... in any case, I'm more curious about her aspects. Childbirth and virginity would seem naturally opposing, presuming virginity is taken as a lack of sexual experience rather than simple purity." Belatedly Raine realized this was, perhaps, not the direction she wanted in a conversation of which Bakura was a part, if only because she simply wasn't sure where they stood right now. "Would it be accurate to assume then that she overlooks the majority of specifically female things? And--"

Bakura's pairs had also netted interest, and now Raine found she wanted to know more about everything at once. Well, it would only be a problem if they couldn't constrain themselves to talking in turns. "What difference is there, between members of the same pair?" she wanted to know. "Are they simply different faces for the same aspect or is there something more?"

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I ain't made for a rivalry; I could never take the world alone

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