Chapter 41: I Can Manage, Sistah

           Naida twitched, startled, but managed not to bounce his head on her legs.  “You’re awake!”

            She began helping him to sit up, realized the water jar she had was empty, leaned over to the lamp, tapped on it three times with her brass pin and demanded “full water jug!”

            The lamp stopped snoring and hopped a bit before spitting out a water jug that was so full it sloshed on them and they yelped with cold.  “Here. I have a dipper.”

            “I can manage by myself, sistah,” he said and struggled upright.  He looked pale and bluish and was very unsteady, but the third or fourth dipper settled him and he looked much better.  “Thank you for giving me water.  And destroying that horrid spell.”  He looked much older than he should.  “I couldn’t do anything from inside it.  Even at Sun’s Height.”

            “You’re welcome.  I wasn’t sure I could do anything.” Naida said.  “If I pulled on it I was afraid I’d just cut your head off!”

            “You would‘ve,” he said, shrugging.  He turned his face to the ceiling of the tent.  “I just want to be human a little longer.”

            “Pardon me?”

            “I wasn’t speaking to you, sistah.  Wait a moment.”

            For a long moment he sat, shoulders bowed, and in a whisper said “It’s night still.  I can be a little boy for longer…” a long pause where Naida put her hands over her mouth, not understanding why she couldn’t, mustn’t interrupt him.  “I want my mama,” he said, closing his eyes, fisting his hands like a young boy about to have a horrible tantrum. Naida held her breath.

 Then he straightened, his skin turned bright, blue.  Gold glittered on his wrists, materializing out of nowhere. Bracelets, anklets, a heavy gold collar around his neck. His head was covered with a magnificent blue and gold head-dress and Naida blinked as his face flickered through the sharp bill of of Ra-Horakhty, the insect face of Kephri, a Ram, and a Phoenix, a Bull and just long enough to make Naida throw her hands up to save her eyes, the blinding light of the noon sun disk.  Her eyes watered and she couldn’t see any other forms.

She didn’t take her hands down, but bowed low, knocking her head against her knees. “Yes, yes, very nice,” he said.  “You recognize that I am Ra and your name is Naida-Efra.  The princess of Kush.”

Without looking up, she nodded.  This was one of the God of Aegyptian creation. The Highest of Gods and she wasn’t about to be rude or argue with his avatar about whether He or His sister/wife had precedence.

“Get up, get up.  I owe you and I have a bunch of debts to pay.”

She looked up and found him sitting as the bright blue little boy again, so she could look at him.  “Someone dared try…”

“And kill this avatar, yes.  I know who and I know how and—“ His head turned sharply to the sky.  “Here come your friends.”

“My—“

Re stood up, he was short enough that he could just duck out of her tent and stand up, while she scrambled to follow after, snatching up the lamp against her chest, for protection and reassurance.  In the sky above, against the glittering veil the moon trailed behind her, a bright double star shot across the sky toward them, a hairy, fiery star with a blue core, actually a glowing flower leading the way.

“I require a better place to receive visitors,” Re said and a pair of stone pillars shot up out of the sand to tower over them, steps leading to a throne with the sun disk over His head.  “Sit on the steps.”

“All right.”  You didn’t argue with one of the creator Gods.

The blue star descended with what turned into a bright, golden winged lion behind, and they both settled to a stop in the sand by the bottom of the steps that were still shedding sand.  A white fox with three tails jumped out of the flower when it was still high in the sky and as she apparently bounced down the air she changed colour until a golden fennec fox jumped off the sand and threw herself on Naida so hard that they tumbled down to roll in the sand.

“I’M HERE, I’m here! Love you, love youloveyouloveyou! You’re mine, I’m yours WHEEEEEEEE!”  Naida, overwhelmed by an armful of fox, and her lamp started to laugh, lying in the white sand.

A chubby boy in orange clothes stepped out of the  flower as it settled onto the ground, smiled hugely and said, “Namaste, Re.  I like it.  Very impressive in the material world.  Shall we have tea?”

The winged lion folded his wings, sinking onto his haunches.  “Bhodi, why do we always have to have tea? Seriously, it gets tiresome.”

"I'm sorry you think so Asteri," the boy said.  "Ra, are you still suffering?"

The little blue boy on the stone sun throne looked nonplussed.  "Well..."

"It's all right.  Things will get better.  After we have tea." Asteri sighed and rolled his goat's eyes.