Wardrobe

Villager: Amun, Priest of Thoth

Walking along the beach and taking in the beautiful sunset painting the skies and ocean both, you see a small rabbit with decorative makeup on his face and dressed with mummy wrappings of all things, typing away on a purple laptop with a white bird sticker on the back. A tuxedo origameow prances around at his feet, pouncing on a colored rock poking partially out of the sand. The sheer contrast between the two pikes your curiosity, and you go over to introduce yourself to the kid.

The rabbit looks up at your approach before returning to his laptop, clicking something before closing the lid and giving you his full attention.

"Sorry, I was just saving my work real quick. I'm Amun, the...well, high priest of Thoth, and my friend here is Papyrus. Who are you?"

"Yeah, you heard me right. The old gods may be mostly forgotten, but there are still some of us who worship them. Anubis and I are two of them. I know Belphegor likes to poke fun at us for being 'outdated relics' but he's a demon so we don't care."

Amun held up his paws in finger quotes at saying 'outdated relics', and rolled his eyes. It's clear he doesn't hold Belphegor's opinion in high regard.

"My- oh, the wrappings and kohl and stuff are ceremonial, really. But also functional - there's runes of protection painted on the underside, pressed against my fur. Evan has had a blast being taught how to use them, that’s for sure."

Amun has a fond smile on his face. It's clear the two are friends.

"You want to know how I ended up with the title of high priest at my age?"

Amun paused, thinking this over for several minutes. A multitude of emotions flashed across his face, before he sighed.

"Might as well get this out of the way. My best friend and pharaoh, Anubis, we're both from ancient Egypt. Our parents sealed us and the rest of our friends away, to preserve the blood of the pharaohs and Anubis's court through the calamity ravaging the land. Only, it..."

Amun looks to be on the verge of tears.

"There was no one left to wake us up. We all slept a thousand years before Zihao and his colleagues unearthed us. And our friends, they, their sarcophagi didn't last the test of time. Anubis and I were the only ones still alive."

The rabbit sniffled, wiping away a tear.

"We're an incomplete court now. Well, most of the year, anyway. Anubis - the god, not my pharaoh - is kind, and allows the Samhain Spirit living here, Shiloh, to guide our friends and parents to Ouroboros on Halloween. We get to be with them again that day, and it's a gift more precious than I can say."

"Why is Anubis named after the Egyptian god? It's not blasphemy or anything; Anubis just looks a lot like an Anubis jackal and his dad, the pharaoh at the time, thought it was funny. The high- former, high priest of Osiris wanted to strangle him for it though."

Amun laughs at the fond memory.

"The court, they were like an extended family to all of us. Like a whole bunch of aunts and uncles. We were to continue their legacy, but that...didn't exactly work out."

You decide to change the topic, and take Amun's mind off of what are clearly painful memories.

"Huh? You want to know what I'm working on? Oh, well, as a priest of Thoth it's my duty to record knowledge of all kinds, as well as scribe the history of my pharaoh. Modern technology has been a blessing in that regard. Normally I would be recording on papyrus - the paper, not my buddy - but with my laptop not only can I hold all of my documents, but there is near infinite space for them and mistakes are easily corrected! I take my laptop with me everywhere, in my laptop bag when I'm not using it."

Amun taps the brown bag at his side, which you initially missed due to, well, everything else about him. It too has pictures of white birds on it, and something about it is nagging at the back of your mind.

"The birds? Oh, they're ibises, the sacred animal of Thoth. I consecrated my laptop to him, and my bag. I've got runes of protection all over the inside too, because if anything happened to my laptop I'd cry. No, seriously. I mean, with iCloud storage I don't have to worry about losing everything, which still blows my mind, but it's still important to me, you know?"

"Nah, there's nothing weird about getting Thoth's blessing for my laptop and laptop bag. I mean, these are my tools of worship, so why wouldn't I consecrate them in his name?"

"You want to know if I have any other hobbies aside from writing? Well...I mean, I enjoy reading fiction books and gaming. Not as much as Anubis does, but it's still really fun. We have fun kicking each other’s butts and then Juniper kicks ours across the room in the weekly town gaming sessions. That gembound is crazy good at whatever electronic game he so much as touches, I swear."

"I like discovering new things, too. And animals, there's so many more animals than I've ever seen before. Like Papyrus! He's a living paper cat and it's incredible! I don't like crabs, though. They suck. They pinch your fingers and paws and nose and it hurts like crap. Those things pinch hard. They're right up there with scorpions in nastiness. No offense meant for scorpion villagers - I mean, my friend and his dad, the high priest of Ra, were scorpions - it's just the critters that are the nasty ones."

Amun frowns, wrinkling his nose. Clearly, he doesn't like those very much either. You don't blame him - getting stung by one would be enough to ruin anyone's day.

"What? Oh no, I got Papyrus as a gift from Tienyo. I had a silver scarab back in Egypt, but he wasn't sealed with me. Not like Keket was with Anubis. Keket's a cat you see, and cats are sacred creatures. It was only right to make sure Keket came with us."

"Let's see, other things I like...ooh, there's ice cream! I mean, milk is one thing, but ice cream? I don't know how they do it but they've turned it into something divine. Whip cream, too. It's both incredibly delicious and a formidable weapon in a duel."

"What? You want to know if our whole court had red eyes?"

The rabbit laughs at the question.

"No, just Anubis and I. But I can see why you'd think that."

A haunting melody begins to pick up from the direction of the village. Many more voices join in on the song, and Amun's ears twitch at the music.

"Sorry, but we're gonna have to cut this conversation short. It's time to go home. Safe travels, traveler. Don't be a stranger here."

And with that, the rabbit smiles, before carefully packing his laptop away. Shouldering his bag, he gets to his feet before scooping up his paper kitty, placing him on his other shoulder before joining his voice to the song, and making his way back to the village proper.