Chapter Text
Once again, the Solar Barque docked at the harbor of the underworld, the boundary where the realm of mortal and the dead meets together. Souls drifted down the River of the Dead from the world above, arriving in Duat, the land that belonged to the departed.
Even within the underworld's eternal night, the sun still radiated scorching warmth and a pale, ghostly light.
The souls adrift upon the river that could never flow backward were drawn to that light and heat like moths to a flame, only to be gently repelled by an invisible force. Since the sun god of the night invited only a single passenger aboard his vessel.
Waiting alone at the harbor stood a god with crimson hair. Against Duat's endless dusk, those scarlet strands looks like congealed blood. After the sun's light lingered greedily upon that striking color for a brief moment, it was soon concealed beneath a divine headdress shaped from sand, with square ears and pointed projections, an unknown beast. There is a black scythe-like sword in the god's hand, gleaming with the chill luster of obsidian.
As he had done every day for the past century, Set, god of deserts and war, boarded the Solar Barque at the boundary between the living world and the underworld to fulfill his sacred duty. He would guard the vessel throughout its journey across Duat, then disembark at its farthest edge and watch it continue toward dawn and the world of the living.
The night god Atum nodded in greeting to his companion.
Wearing a ram-shaped divine headdress, the god was taciturn, his dark gray skin reminiscent of stone beneath the night sky. In neither temperament nor appearance could Set easily connect Atum with Ra, the arrogant and insufferable former supreme god he had known in the mortal realm.
Appearance, yes.
When Set had first arrived in the underworld after his death, as one of the Ennead, his coming had disrupted the eternal balance between order and chaos. The forces of chaos surged. Apep, the great serpent and one of chaos's incarnations, awoke from its slumber. It sought to weaken order and devour the sun, until chaos and order once again became the two balanced ends of a scale.
The sun god of the night had moored his vessel along the riverbank to escort the newly deceased god toward the duty that the laws of the underworld assigned him. To his shock, he found the newcomer sprawled on the ground in despair—without even the divine regalia that marked a god's status. The red-haired, red-eyed deity lay staring blankly at the sky, lost in his own thoughts.
Why isn't he wearing his headdress? Atum was puzzled.
He rarely left his Solar Barque. The underworld's endless desolation—its spirits and chaos—felt too monotonous to warrant close inspection. Yet this newcomer stirred his curiosity.
Not wanting to tower over the fallen god, Atum politely crouched beside him. After a moment's hesitation, he removed his own divine headdress, revealing long white hair made entirely of pure light, simply wanted to be the same with the newcomer.
The crimson-eyed god's gaze snapped to it.
Hair made of light...
Just like Mother Nut's.
At the thought of his mother, Set's eyes drifted toward the star-filled sky of Duat, indistinguishable from the one above the mortal world.
Mother... she probably has even less reason to care about me now.
No wonder neither Mother nor Father ever looked my way.
Someone like me, who betrayed his sister and fell in love with his own brother... someone who committed such acts... hardly deserves to call himself a god.
It seems like Set's doubts about his own existence as a divine being had damaged his crown while crossing the River of the Dead. Set could easily shape a flawless replacement from the sands of the underworld, yet his divine power now bore the same hollow corruption as his godhood itself, heavy and sluggish like waterlogged sand.
"The Solar Barque sails upon the river. There is no sand there for you to command anyway."
Atum's words came out stiff and awkward. The moment he spoke them, he shut his lips, a trace of regret appearing on his face.
As the sun god of the night—or rather, the sun god of the underworld—he had almost no experience interacting with other gods.
Fortunately, the newly arrived god of the desert eventually accepted his new responsibilities in the underworld. When he first stepped aboard the Solar Barque, it had looked as though he were fleeing from something. Yet for the next hundred years, day after day, he fought side by side with Atum, resisting Apep and preserving the order and balance of the underworld.
But today was different.
Atum sensed another god entering Duat.
Unlike Set, this god had not arrived because of death in the mortal world. His arrival stemmed from the very nature of his divinity.
He would measure the boundary between life and death with his own footsteps.
He would weigh the hearts of the dead upon the scales.
He would become the world's first god of the underworld.
As guide and guardian of departed souls, he would henceforth travel between the realms of the living and the dead.
The Solar Barque paused briefly at the farthest edge of Duat before setting sail once more.
Having completed his duty for the day, Set wants to have a glance at this newly born god.