Khasekhemwy jumped nearly out of his skin when Danny cleared his throat. The match flew out of his hand and skidded across the table into the pre-existing pile, sending a few of the matches closest to the edge scooting over it. The matchbox slipped from his other hand and pattered noisily onto the table, shaking up its remaining contents. His turban, tied on looser than usual, wobbled dangerously as his face shot around with a terrified expression to the doorway to see which horrific villain had come knocking. It relaxed when he saw who it was. A little.
The use of the term sayedy was somewhat calming, too. It reminded Khase that he was in charge. He was the boss. The Man. There were no other sirs around the commune... except, um, well, Charlton.
"Yes?" He cast Danny the slightly uneasy look he always wore whenever conversation opened. Even now that the boy had been his student for a while, Khase wasn't comfortable for the first five or ten minutes into a meeting. "I thought we had a lesson yesterday," he mumbled, still sounding a little uncertain, his accent not as strong as usual. In typical deity fashion, Khasekhemwy spectacularly lost track of time and didn't realise that it had been several weeks since he saw his star student. Time didn't pass in the same way for the original fairies as it did ordinary ones.
To give himself something to look at which wasn't a scary face, he picked up the matchbox and match again and started stroking the latter against the former. Distracted by the watching presence of another, he accidentally struck the match harder than intended and the tip burst triumphantly into flame. Khasekhemwy was so surprised that he dropped the match with a little squeak and leapt out of his chair, wringing his hands and backing nervously away from the table. The match burnt harmlessly on the table which, while made of wood, was too large to catch from such a tiny flame and was protected by a layer of varnish. |