"Seeing a Large Cat"
In Egypt, to dream of a cat is considered good luck.
Dragged to a distant land, the Soumas start loosing their minds to an ancient influence and Kyou must face up to his worst fear or watch as they all perish.
This story is rated PG-13, or equivalent, for language and mild violence/fantasy action.
I do not own Fruits Basket. No infringement on the rights of those who do is intended by this nonprofit fanwork. All quotes labeled The Book of the Dead are from
E. A. Wallis Budge’s translation of The Papyrus of Ani: The Egyptian Book of the Dead. They are taken out of context to support this story and should not be construed as actually representing the contents of said document. All other quotes, except for the love poem in the last chapter, are taken from the books of Elizabeth Peters, which include Seeing a Large Cat, The Ape Who Guards the Balance, He Shall Thunder in the Sky, and The Golden One. These books are part of Peters’ Amelia Peabody series and reading them is highly recommended to any fans of Egypt, archaeology, or a good mystery. Again, the quotes used are taken out of context to support this story and no infringement upon the rights of Ms. Peters is intended. In the last chapter, Kyou and Yuki’s lines in the scene with Akito are taken from The Book of the Dead and the opening quote labeled “Egyptian love poem” was found on the internet credited to George A. Barton from his book Archaeology and the Bible.
I hope you enjoy this story, and please e-mail me with any comments you have.
(Image, and general information below, believed to be in the public domain.)
Notes:
Here's some basic notes on the actual Egyptian deities and also some of the changes I made and why. (This is a rough summarization of these deities' aspects since over the course of time in
Ancient Egypt, as well as in different geographic locations, most deities took on different aspects.) This page contains mild SPOILERS for the story, just FYI.
Again, this rest of this page contains SPOILERS (including a character/deity matchup for anyone who gets confused later on in the story).
- Anubis (Shigure) - Anubis was the god that fit the best with the character I paired him with, and yet he might be the most misrepresented in the story. Anubis is the god in charge of funerary rites, such as embalming. He also watched over the dead and was considered the guide and gatekeeper to the underworld. His chief identifying animal is the jackal, and he is usually shown as having the head of a jackal, except that he is black (because he is associated with death) rather than being the usual jackal color.
Obviously, he fit well with Shigure, particularly since I read somewhere (I can't remember where) that Anubis was believed to have quite a sense of humor. Anubis is not an evil god, and actually helped Isis resurrect Osiris in the traditional story, but I wanted the Trio as my villains so I made him a bit more evil than he generally is.
- Apep (Hatori) - Apep, or Apophis, is basically the personification of darkness and all that is evil. In fact, he was the original evil god before Seth fell from grace and took his job. It was believed that the sun (Horus) passed through the underworld every night and that when it made this journey Apep would attempt to destroy it. Generally depicted as a giant snake, Apep was also occasionally pictured as a crocodile and, in later years, a dragon.
I didn't change too much about this character, except to stress the dragon aspect thus tying him to Hatori. It should be mentioned though, that the river Lethe is not Egyptian at all. I borrowed it from Greek mythology as a physical manifestation of Hatori's mind altering powers.
- Hathor (Hatsuharu) - In the original mythology Hathor is a goddess, of fertility and love as most goddesses are, and also of music and pleasure. She was considered a personification of the Milky Way and was called the "heavenly cow"; she was also a goddess of rebirth. In a far different aspect, she was a destroyer of men who were disobedient to the gods (though this aspect is more often associated with the goddess Sekhmet).
For the story I made Hathor a god, but otherwise kept her fairly intact. I also combined some of the aspects of Amon, the ram, a protector of the weak, to emphasize Hathor's aggressive side. I liked the bipolar-ness of Hathor, which is why I chose her for Haru.
- Horus/Harsiesis/Harakhte (Kyou & Harakhte) - Horus is a very complicated deity, so mostly for the story I simplified him. In some versions of the mythology story Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis; in others he is Osiris' brother. Horus has many aspects. One is Harsiesis, or "Horus the son of Isis," who helped Isis avenge Osiris. Another is Re Harakhte, or Ra Herakhty, a combination of Ra and Horus. Horus is primarily a sun god, usually shown as a hawk or a man with the head of a hawk. The aspect of the great cat is far less well known and was probably less worshipped, cats generally being associated with Bastet or Ra. Horus lost his eye in battle with Seth, but he killed Seth to revenge the death of Osiris and thus became the king of Egypt.
The crux of the whole story rests on the Kyou/Harsiesis dynamic I created. The original character of Harakhte embodied all of the sun, sky, and hawk aspects of Horus.
- Isis (Tohru) - Isis is the queen of the gods, the loyal wife of Osiris. She was known as a healer, who shared her healing arts with man, and also as a goddess of magic. Rats are one of the animals associated with Isis, as well as cows (particularly later on, as she became merged with Hathor), vultures, and kites. When her husband is killed by Seth, Isis brings him back to life with the help of some of the other gods.
Tohru just kind of fell into this role, since when I started writing the story I had the vague idea of her ending up with Yuki, but she fit particularly well in the aspect of Isis the healer. Obviously also, I gave her rats to Osiris.
- Osiris (Yuki) - Killed by his brother Seth, Osiris was resurrected by the magical powers of Isis. Osiris is, oddly enough, the god of life and also of death. In contrast to Seth (god of the desert), Osiris is the god who presides over living things, particularly plants and the harvest. He is usually depicted as being green, because of his aspect as a nature god. He is also ruler and judge of the underworld, but he doesn't do a whole lot other than sit there (as Yuki observes...).
Yuki as Osiris was one of the first roles I cast in this story and the role only fit more the more I learned about Osiris.
- Ra (Akito) - Only briefly mentioned in the story, Ra is usually associated with the sun. For the purpose of this story he is mentioned only in his capacity of creator/king of the gods.
- Seth (Ayame) - Seth, or Set, is the personification of the desert and came to represent everything about the desert that was feared and hated. He was a god of chaos, and was believed to have pale skin and red hair (since red was the color of evil). Very early in Egyptian history, Seth was the Lord of Upper Egypt and was an ally of his brother Osiris. After the upper and lower kingdoms combined is when he became a god of evil, though no one really knows why this happened. Just about all animals that are in the least bit associated with the desert (or killing people) have been associated with him at one point: jackals, hippos, crocodiles, wild pigs, donkeys, and serpents, as well as the mysterious "Seth animal" (extinct today, no one is really sure exactly what it was). According to popular legend, Seth bites Horus in the form of a poisonous snake (which I changed to Osiris).
The Seth/Osiris dynamic was one of the founding plot threads of this story, so obviously Ayame was going to be Seth. (Odd how I make my favorite character the bad guy...)
- Taueret (Kagura) - Taueret, or Tawaret, is the goddess of childbirth and a protector of women. She is usually depicted as a hippopotamus standing on its hind feet. When in full protector mode, she could get nasty- much like a real female hippopotamus. (She is also identified usually with the goddess Sekhmet, the destroyer).
I changed hippo to boar to match with Kagura, but otherwise Taueret pretty much
fit the bill.
- Thoth (Momiji) - Thoth is the god of the moon and also magic, wisdom, science, and writing. He is thought to have invented writing and Isis places great trust in him. He is also a healer, and was a judge of the dead. Above all, Thoth is a seeker after truth. His primary animal is the ibis.
Nowhere in the history of Egypt, that I could find, have they ever worshipped rabbits. Sorry Momiji... So, I took the Chinese story of the rabbit in the moon, and Thoth god of the moon, and smooshed them together... In any case, I think Thoth fits really well with Momiji.
(addendum 1/07: I have discovered a rabbit god! I know nothing else about this deity... not even a name... But I still like Thoth better.)
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