[ She calls it evil, not love. The words feel like a blow, different from any other; a dull, hunched pain that builds within his belly and shoves itself up, up into the space where lungs might dwell, ripping breath from him if he truly needed to draw it. Seizing his shuddering heart in a fist, to clench it so hard he feels faint. Quetzalcoatl knows, in some form, now. She knows, and her condemnation does not arrive upon Set's shoulders — he is not condemned for being repulsive, pathetic, less than a man to allow himself to be led astray. To be devoured by a skilled liar, whom he still,

in some ways,

loved. Shamefully so. Reconciling the image of his generous, kind brother and the madman he had become felt impossible. ( Set knows he drives men to madness, after all. ) ]

— who would have born it for me? With me? I was an idiot.

[ A naive idiot, blindsided. ]

Nobody asked. Nobody wondered. Nobody considered that he could have been the one who ruined everything, it all fell upon me. You know gods are made for particular duties, yes? We are made by our creators, or are creators whom make ourselves, even. But, we do not choose our way. So, if we are made — if we are given roles, and maat, reality itself, expects us to perform them for the functionality of the world —

[ He sighs through his thought. ]

I was made to be alone, Quetzalcoatl.