like ships in the night

like ships in the night (passing me by)

814 BC

Ancient Egypt

The first time he meets her, she is young and he is already old.  He has had thousands of names, both killed and saved men, helped empires rise and watched them fall, laughed, and even cried once or twice. He is hundreds, no, thousands of years old. She can’t be older than seven.

He meets her first when he is Seth, god of the desert, and she is a child.

Her hair glows gold in the sunlight as she plays in the Nile, giggling and splashing the muddy water. She spots him sitting on the banks and instantly stops, her face a light shade of red.

“Hi,” she says softly.

“Hello.”

She sits in the water for a moment, just staring up at him with wide blue eyes and muddy clothing. Then she grins at him, showing a missing front tooth and a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Want to play with me?” she asks.

He almost says no, he has better things to do, things that should already be done. But then the sun hits her hair just right and he swears its pure gold and when he looks into her eyes, so wide, so filled with hope, he finds himself unable to refuse.

One thousand six hundred and eighty two years of life, and for the first time, he feels something inside him snap. Something like hope, but stronger, more resilient. He brushes the feeling off and instead splashes the little girl causing her to giggle and go under. When she comes back up, her hair is muddied and the sun no longer makes it glint -.

They play for what seems like hours until eventually he climbs out onto the banks of the Nile and she follows him.

“I’m Cleopatra,” she tells him. “I was going to be named Nefertiti, she was one of the great queens of Egypt, but then my parents decided Cleopatra instead. But one day I’m going to be a great queen and the whole world will remember my name. And they’re going to write stories about me because I’m not just going to be a queen. I’m going to be a healer too. So when my people get sick, I can help them.”

“That’s a good idea,” he says. Reaching out, he grabs a strand of her muddy hair and gives it a playful tug. “But I think you’ll be remembered for this more than anything else.”

Her grin gets even bigger. “My mother says it’s a gift from the gods, she says that Ra kissed my head when I was born and made my hair as gold as the sun. She says I need to pray to him every night to keep my hair gold and to thank him for his gift.”

“Because his ego needs even more boosting,” he mutters under his breath. He knew Ra, but he knew the other immortal by his true name, Finn. The guy was a dick to say the least.

“Hmm?” the girl asks, but she’s barely paying attention, now drawing pictures in the mud with a stick.

He looks down and sees two figures in the mud, squiggles over the top of them that he assumes is a river. One of the figures is much bigger than the other and has short hair and he tries to believe it’s not supposed to be him. “Aren’t your parents looking for you?”

“Probably.”

As if right on cue, he hears a woman’s voice yelling the little girl’s name. He stands to leave, only to have a muddied hand wrap around his wrist in a death grip. Wincing in pain, he tries to hide it behind a smile as he looks back down at the Egyptian princess.

“What’s your name?” she asks, curiosity in her grey eyes.

He could’ve given her a thousand different answers. He could have simply walked away. Hell, he could have told her he was a fish that had grown legs and she’d have believed him. So he surprises even himself when he answers her question the way he once swore he never would: by telling her his real name.