in another life, nephthys is sitting in a morgue. her fingers go over a body in little searching rivers. she will bring the hearse around and help the body in. in this life, she feels sometimes her real job is protector of the living, not of the dead. who else needs it, after all? the dead are the dead. she arranges them like flower petals. her funeral home comes smelling of coffins, but softly, welcoming. she is known for taking “hard cases,” makes a mangled body look beautiful, the same way she did once, a long time ago, for osiris, who calls her sometimes, when he remembers. anubis and neph get together and shit-talk. she likes dark wine a lot. he likes taxes.

osiris is busy. sticks his hands in the dirt and shifts it around. when monsanto comes, osiris floods. catch him out with the bees. catch him telling them the right way to go, but gently. a good leader who is tired, right. had the pride dragged out of him. he likes superman a lot. feels a certain je ne se quoi connection to someone who can’t see through lead. osiris, half-there, half-gone. scattered to the ends of the earth like seeds.

anubis – when he’s not folding a fitted sheet – lives in the world of forensic science and judging. dual degree, because he like being busy. meticulous. gets the details right. walks in the world of law and feels a little thrill (just quietly) whenever sentencing someone he knows is guilty. listens well, and always decorates tastefully. eats in tiny bites. likes to cook by weighing things. actually just likes to weigh things. he has a long love-hate relationship of digital scales – so accurate but so unbeautiful. a digital scale takes the uncertainty out. it knows how much a feather heart would be. it is unlike the scales of his hands, the sensation of good/guilty. the word “fair but harsh” follows at his feet. he likes wreaths, the arrangement of something dying. his guilty pleasure is crime tv, although neph won’t watch it with him any more because he can’t help but say things like “in reality, that wouldn’t be sufficient evidence” or “98% of murders go unsolved” or “i can tell by his eyes that he’s guilty”.

hathor – twin to destruction – runs a couple’s spa. loves weddings and planning weddings and being at weddings and dancing at weddings. has an elaborate ballroom for elaborate parties where elaborate people go. of course situated on 500 acres of farmland with free-range cows. if you’re really nice to her and she’s really drunk, she’ll let you ride one. always knows what kind of bottle to bring to a party, loves long dresses that flow around her. knows instinctively if you need a hug and is always good for one. once dressed up as sekmet for halloween, to which everyone said “too soon.” has long hair and really bad at palm reading but loves giving advice about your love line. known for massages that are brutal but effective: a little hint of harshness, her twin’s reflection. cries at proposal videos and has a girl’s night every month where they all get together to watch chick flicks. most of them love it, sekmet pretends to hate it just because she likes to complain loudly.

sekmet. poor lady. the problem with identical twins is that everyone thinks they’re one and the same person. hathor sprang from a mirror on the day that sekmet looked into her own destruction and split the love she has in her heart with the evil she had wrought. it was lonely, at the end of the world, and her sister came from that loneliness. wears a different pair of glasses every day of the week, always has a biting reply that is unfairly funny. loves glasses that have absurd rims, mostly because she likes watching people squirm when they want to mention them – “do you like them?” she grins, knowing they do not, knowing they will not tell her that, her eyes the unblinking sun glare she’s so good at. she hides in the shadows, doesn’t smile unless you’re uncomfortable, still agrees to get her nails done with hathor every week (coffin-shaped acrylics, obviously). absolutely knows your deepest insecurity instinctively. best friends (and maybe more than friends) with bast. they go motorcycling.

bast, made kitten-woman from lion-heart, often gets underestimated, and she’s okay with that. a cat knows when to sheathe claws. how to purr in the right way only to save the fangs for a later day. loves winged eyeliner. buys low, sells high. also runs an all-inclusive women’s shelter and very good at group therapy. the group homes for “lost girls” sprawl across the country. she seems like she’s always there, ready. the minute things get tense and a girl starts acting up: suddenly, her green eyes, watching. that unnerving promise that the protection she offers does not include protection from the growl at the back of her throat. loves stock markets mostly because it’s watching a string, but with data. will also never admit that out loud for any reason ever even if it meant her life was forfeit. kind of has a thing for sekmet, kind of, because, like, who couldn’t. maybe it’s kind of happened a few times oops. often pranks ra, because, like, who wouldn’t.

ra works on weekends in animal rehabilitation because where else can you get a hawk in this economy. tired, but good with a smile. teacher at a very fancy art school where he likes to see how many times the words “be creative” can be used in a day. really into that one “miley what’s good” moment from nicki minaj, which he still references even though it’s been a year. tagged it @aset. actually has learned how to get along with osiris, because being in charge honestly got to be too much stress. has convinced hathor his real name is greg. every year he changes it up to something more absurd. last year it was bob. when she gets drunk at the end of the year with sekmet, she always begs him to tell her the truth. he says “okay, okay, okay.” then convinces her it’s Microsoft Word. also owns a large collection of “#1 Dad” mugs. regularly challenges horus to arcade games.

horus works in the department of defense. tries to actually defend things, works with the “eye in the sky” and media intake. really likes how cool his eyepatch makes him look. time in this world is so specific, and there’s so much to take in while his eye is wandering. it used to be a lot harder to watch over things. he secretly cries at the movies where the son says “no mom, i’m living your dreams!” but still gets coffee with aset.

aset keeps her hair in a bun and her chin up. nobody tries her. on trains, there’s a big circle of space around her, even at rush hour. she bleeds authority. mogul at large, although her interests vary. whatever will bring her upwards, quickly. marriage counselling is quite fun, but she’s thinking about being a divorce lawyer soon. and yet, despite all this fire in her: sweet. knows when to make cookies. she did what she had to do to survive. if you’re loved by her, you’re safe. she doesn’t love often, but when she does, it expands to swell the entirety of space. has a collection of sand dollars and lipsticks. excellent at making someone feel a little less alone. she won’t comfort you with a hug. she’ll show up and be there and somehow, in that knifeblade power she wields, you feel better. whole.

set is at the edges. turns out the problem with immortality is that everyone remembers that one time you cain-and-abel’ed your brother. “it’s like,” horus said once while drunk, “can i even trust you anymore?” it hurt worse than set expected. family didn’t matter that much until he was left without it. works in dentistry where he can put people in pain for a fee. secretly covets the color pink; that softer blush than the reds people paint him in. protector of the wild ones, the ones no one else will look after. the darker souls who are still asking for saving. he understands sibling jealousy a lot. sometimes calms people down, sometimes revs them up. cries in bathtubs. feels himself, full of rot. why is it that the gods were made so human, and he, so cruel, so twisted, so evil. to spit at him is good, after all. he breaks like a branch in a storm. goes to pride parades in a mask, wishing for a courage he doesn’t know the name of. he calls toth just to hear him breathe, and then immediately hangs up.

and toth? in the land where words are so permanent and impermanent, where wisdom is both a click away and away from those who doesn’t want to see it – doesn’t he suffer the greatest. it was one thing when libraries weren’t a thing. it was another when the world is now a constant updating stream. he feels the echo chambers like bracelets on him. now there’s information everywhere – but nobody willing to actually read. how terrible, how frustrating. and yet: for every person who doesn’t understand “don’t believe everything you read”, there’s another book being quietly self-published that strikes his interest, his longing. in this life, when he can, he turns the computer off and goes for a walk. when he writes come, the gods come. and they talk.