Voices

There's at least eleven different presences on the outskirts of my conscious awareness now. Five of them are from my own Band, the rest are primordial deities; descendants of Ra and the breakwater against the vast abyss of the dream wracks Aten fostered over our crime of assaulting his tower. None of them bring us relief.

Rebecca's found a kindred murderous spirit in Serket, and Vana seems to have enraptured Ra ... or perhaps it's the other way around. Wuyi is Sekhmet's latest plaything and stares at me like we're strangers. Chloe's turned serpentine and is vehemently against anything done or proposed until someone can assure her it's fine. Kelly's gone quiet. I'm just trying to keep up the mask that everything's fine.

It's not fine.

Even with the gift of a Selkie's skin from Ra's trove of treasures, I'm ... ill-content here on the glittering river of stars. The bright monuments and barques are aesthetically welcome but there's only an academics pleasure to be found watching them. Even the river itself is of no comfort to me, and I have rarely felt so out of sorts near the element I've resonated with since birth.

There's a plan drawn up. Risky and almost assuredly doomed from the start. We will turn one Titan against another for the glory of Ra. To make sure we at least have a worthwhile chance, it is Ra himself who sacrifices his ichor on the Saddle of the Vanir to allow Vana to guide us through The Way down onto the world proper.

We face trials of paragonhood. A series of challenges designed by Imhotep who watches from the shadows, a ghost of what he once was. Wuyi achieves the Paragon of Strength. Becky; Perception. I stepped back and granted Chloe to become the Paragon of Dexterity. I am graceful, far more so than her, but that is not what I am known for, nor do I want to claim it.

I am granted the Paragon of Beauty when Anann seizes control of my body through the ring, a failsafe she had designed into it to keep me from mental influences that would see her secrets uncovered, or her assets harmed. She blinds the Band through me and the glory of my ichor cinches the hieroglyph.

I am ... settled when Anann's voice registers through the small village of consciousnesses I'm now attached to, but it's only a temporary reunion. A touch to remind the other we survived our battles. Her, on the field against the Forces of Lir, and  the ones I've fought the past few days. Once we succeed at retrieving Ra's True Name and awakening Apep, though, I'll be seperated until Iteru's under the control of the Sun-God once again.

It cannot come soon enough. I miss the valleys and green of my home. 

Drabble a Day - Haze

The rumor goes around that this is the first time Enech couldn't chain a goddess.

She stands under the shadow of an overpass; only the burnt tip of a cigarette illuminating the slash of her smile. Smoke slithers up the cast of her cheek, gold and shadow from the fire between her lips. It curls to her like an obsessive lover tangled in her personal gravity. He's beneath her, caught under a heel that crushes deep onto the bone of his thigh, a deceptive strength in the slender line of her frame. His eyes are narrow rings of terrified olive and hazel, the drag of the cigarette a blaze of orange in the black of his overblown pupils. Hers are the electric blue of the ocean, the riptide dragging him out to open water.

He pleads, she doesn't sympathize. He demands answers, she doesn't explain anything. He bargains, she doesn't compromise.

He's the product of an overbearing mother who loved the drink more than her family. She's the product of two thousand years of conditioning. He went out tonight and chose the wrong moment and the wrong woman to lash out towards. She went out tonight and was compelled by ancient laws to seek retribution.

The bridge rattles as the late-night delivery trucks rumble into the city from the countryside. It drowns out the ragged breaths he sucks deep into his lungs. There's a rasp in his throat, a rattle from pain from the tip of her heel digging deep. He'll walk away with a bruise that lingers for weeks after this meeting.

At least he'll walk away. He'll keep her visage locked within the confines of his mind and only time will tell if it will be the deterrent to keep him from winding up another cog in the wheel of abuse, or if it will only push him that much more to the edge.

The cigarette blazes bright then dies. The smoke is tinted blood in the passing lights of the trucks. The pressure over his thigh drops as she steps back with a click of heels. A butt bounces off his chest and lands in his hand. In the morning, the imprint of her lipstick will be there and he'll find himself compelled to keep it.  

He looks up to see her retreating through the narrow overpass. The click of her heels is the sound of his freedom. At the other end, she passes underneath the yellow streetlight and the electric blue of her gaze fixes on him one last time. It's a warning.

Enech could not chain the goddess, but it could temper her.

Love to Love You, Baby

[Transmission Start]

Rhiannon: Where exactly did you find a recorder in Iteru?

Rhia: *laugh* I liberated it from Becca. Don't worry, I distracted her with a huge pile of doritos. Anywho, why are we doing this again?

Rhiannon: Blackmail.

Rhia: Blackmail? Against who? It's just us three here -- *voice cuts out as a violent crash sounds in the background* Oh. Right. Anann, I take it?

Rhiannon: We need leverage and this is the only way to record what has occured here without Rhiann finding a way to rewrite the truth.

Rhiann: I am going to murder the both of you! You cannot even begin to understand Hathor's beauty --

Rhiannon: See what I mean? Blackmail. Now. We will start at the beginning, when we arrived onto the Prison Barque.

Rhia: Right! Right. Uh, lesse. Oh! Set was stuck, literally, on this huge throne of spikes and doom and it probably wasn't comfortable. Horus was brooding, like always and Hathor was --

Rhiann: Hathor was conveying the gentle comfort that only she can provide.

Rhia: *silence* Yeah, let's go with that. Moving on! I think they were sentencing Set for traitorous activities. I wasn't paying attention... Kelly was attempting to -- *cough* Uh, moving on. So! Horus was grumpy because Hathor offered us baths (which we needed like... woah!) and then he decided to join us in the baths which is... kinda awkward.

Rhiannon: He is a Sun God and we have our fatebindings.

Rhia: Mmmhmmmm. Uh, ok.. baths, Set, oh! So Rhiann decided to stick behind in the interoogation room to see what the hell Set did and Rhiannon and I covered with being amazingly sexy. I mean, I'm looking at you-me- right now and I want to just--

Rhiannon: Rhia!

Rhia: What?! Oh. Fine! Jeez. So, while Horus is giving us a personal massage under the waves in comes Wuyi and she must have had a brain implant because she was actually thinking and making sense besides fighting, fucking, and futzing? Is futzing a word? What?! Stop glaring at me. So Wuyi's talking like she's not Wuyi and suddenly Kelly takes off like a bat out of hell!

Rhiann: Please. She was furious because she couldn't accept the fact that Hathor chose me and while we were finally together in comes the lot of you.

Rhiannon: Unfortunately, Kelly had returned not too long after fleeing and told Horus that you, Rhiann, had mind-whammied Hathor. ... did you mind-whammy her?

Rhiann: She was going to try and make me forget the depths of my affections for her. I had to take the chance.

Rhiannon: So, Horus believed we had compromised Hathor and attacked Rhiann. We survived, but we wouldn't survive another hit so we all left to Sekhmet's barque and I think she's going to collect Ra and have him undo on Rhiann whatever Hathor did.

Rhia: That covers it! ... though I was hoping Horus would pierce us with his, y'know, natural sword instead of the golden khopesh! I think this is up there with the exploding potatoes.

Rhiannon: Right. That is about all that happened and now we have it on un-corruptable record that Rhiann was love-sick for a Cow Goddess.... ok, Anann's a bovine-goddess. I suppose that means you'll have to do what we say if you never want Anann to discover this and punish you.

Rhia: *trails off into evil giggles*

[End of Transmisson]

Isolated

Three of Me. Them. ... Us.

 Separate and disjointed, the tear in my/our/her psyche came when Vana stole us from the crash course into Aten's Tower. I had my thoughts. I could hear her thoughts. She could hear my thoughts. It was overwhelming and nervewracking and I can barely keep track of who they/me/we are.

Aten's retribution doesn't help at all. My/Her/Our dreams are terrifying even though fear was bartered away.

We compartmentalize and from that moment onward we're no longer the same woman. We're us. Closer than twins, yet our minds are forever separated. We rely on our innate instincts of our own mannerisms and moods and we come to terms with the result of losing all of our mortality.

Then Enech shatters and my own expressions are alien to me.

I buy us escorted passage to Iteru's frontline at the price of being the Sphnix's chewtoy. Wuyi abandons us when we meet the Pesedjet. There's an interrogation before us and all I can do is struggle to keep my cool as Aten's Judgement drains my willpower. I strip bare some of my resistance to keep from murdering Kelly at her constant insulting. I know I'll regret it.

We'll all regret it.

I just want to be whole again. I miss me.