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.