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“Is that a fucking nipple?” Vi asks and I look up at her with a frown. “Like, it looks like an areola. Some sort of ancient drawing of one but an areola one all the same.”
“It’s the sun hieroglyph," I say, rolling my eyes. Egyptian history has become a bit of a hyperfixation in the past few weeks and Vi seems to find it mostly amusing. Now, I’m looking through different hieroglyphs, mostly for fun’s sake, but I’m sure I could learn something from them. “It’s not an areola, darling.”
“Are you sure?”
I swat her hands gently and she smiles. “You should have more respect, this was an incredible empire with a vast amount of history and influence throughout all of the modern world.”
“Yeah but they’re dead,” she says, shrugging. “I don’t have to respect dead people.”
“You’re bizarre, darling.”
“Okay, this one is pretty obviously a bird,” Vi says, pointing at what, yes, is definitely a bird. “It is a bird, right? Not some sort of plant or something?”
“Why would it be a plant? I think the Egyptians knew what bloody birds are,” I say and she mutters something under her breath about me using the term bloody. “Oh, I’m right, Violet.”
“Well, what does it mean?”
I look at the translation and find that it is truly just a bird. “It’s a vulture.”
“Wanna go through some more?” Vi asks, sitting next to me. “See what I got horrifically wrong? And please, pick something that’ll make me look like an idiot.”
I flip through the website I’m looking at and pick one out I like.
“It’s fingers,” Vi says, frowning. “I’m looking at some fingers. Four to be exact.”
“That’s four thousand,” I say, smiling. “That represents the number four thousand.”
“They count thousands on fucking fingers?” Vi says, flexing her own hands. “So, if I finger you-”
“I’m stopping you there,” I say and she smiles, pressing a kiss to my forehead. She’s always been really good at this, letting me talk about my hyperfixations and special interests and engaging with me. I try to do the same in advance, I love seeing her excited but I’m not always the best at figuring out what I can ask or add on to the conversation. “Thank you, Vi.”
“For what? Asking about this stuff?” Vi says, resting her head on my shoulder. “I like hearing you talk, Cait. You have a nice voice, bloody hells and all.”
I didn’t say bloody hell but that doesn’t really matter. “I am really grateful for you. I like talking to you about these things with you, Vi.”
“We could watch one of those movies, Indiana Jones or whatever,” Vi says. “I watched some of them as a kid and they weren’t half bad, Powder really liked at least one of them I think.”
“Maybe,” I shrug, smiling. “I don’t know if that kind of stuff has much history in them. Now, let me find another one.”
I show her another one and I smile when she says, “Antlers.”
“They’re upraised arms,” I say, pressing a kiss to her pointer finger. “It represents the Ka, it’s a life spirit.”
“Cool, they’re kinda reaching towards the sky,” she hums. “The sun god was one of the most important things for them, right?”
“Yes, Ra was incredibly important for a majority of Egyptian history. He was the king of the gods for a long time,” I say. “Multiple pharaohs claimed to be connected to Ra or even related to him at different times.”
“You know, I wanna pull that kinda shit. Jesus is my fucking uncle, always used to bring shitty bread rolls to the family dinner.”
“I think some Christians would burn you alive,” I say. “There was this idea of Egyptian gods being connected to people as more than just priests, that doesn’t tend to be the case for Christianity.”
“Yeah but it’s the big guy around these parts, I can’t really claim I’m related to a Buddhist god when most people around here couldn’t tell you how many gods they have.”
“Well, how many do they have?”
“No idea,” Vi says, shrugging. “I’ll look into it if you want me too. I don’t know anything about any religion, I just got my good pal Jesus shoved down my throat from when I was really young.”
“You’re really cute.” I cradle her face a bit and I brush my fingers across her lips. “You’re so fucking adorable and I want to just squish you sometimes.”
“You’re cuter.” She kisses me on the cheek and I grin, closing my computer as I pull her fully onto my lap.
“I’m so lucky to have you,” I say, resting my forehead against hers. It’s a habit I picked up from her, it seems like a fairly typical way of showing affection for the people from Vi’s hometown, and I know it makes her happy. “I love you, Vi.”
“I love you too. I love you so much and I’ll listen to you talk about hieroglyphs for as long as you want.” I laugh a bit before she adds, “And I’m getting something for us that I’ll think you like.”
“What are you getting?” I say, smiling as she sits up a bit. She pulls her phone out and pulls up something that she’s bought. It’s from some small store and I see that it’s a knock-off Lego set of the Sphyx.
“I figured it was something you would like and I’ve been doing Lego’s with Pow since I was a kid,” Vi says, smiling.
“I love it and I love you,” I say, squeezing her hand. “And I can’t wait to do it with you, Vi.”
“I can’t wait to do a few things with you,” she says, smirking at me.
“You’re so lucky I love you, darling, because you are truly terrible.” I don’t say it with any bite but she pouts nonetheless looking up at me with those godforsaken eyes. “You know I don’t mean it.”
“I know,” she says, squeezing my hand.
We don’t get back to hieroglyphs for a while, instead just sitting together in near silence, happy to just be by each other’s side.