Bast worked
out her ‘kitten rage’ somewhere over the Nile and fell over on a bright green
coil of serpent Goddess, arms and legs trailing, the sistrum on the deck of the
barq just under her gold-covered fingertips, claw points just ticking gently on
the metal instrument. Her hair, beaded
and braided much more elaborately than Naida’s trailed also, on either side,
adding to the soft clatter as she snored… lightly. More like a purr.
One hand
curled possessively over Wadjet’s scales, pinning Naida’s skirt with golden
claws and Naida didn’t dare move. It
didn’t seem to be a good idea.
Asteri
sighed, somehow shifted his paws under Bast’s and she curled between the
chimera and the Lady of Flame, freeing Naida so she could scootch back against
the bow of the barq, still holding her lamp.
“She… just
kind of fell over. Is that normal?” she
asked.
“Yes,”
Wadjet answered, lifting a feathered arm to shade them all from Re’s burning
gaze. He still stood, behind them,
glaring across the sand and the heat of his gaze was enough to fry onions on
the stones of the streets below… sand… Nile… more streets. They hurtled through days of travel in the
course of a single day, powered by the sun.
“She has more and younger avatars than most Deities and you have to let
the children blow off their energy like a windstorm. You see she looks older now as she sleeps?”
Bast’s face
was older, more reminiscent of full grown lioness or full grown leopard and her
breathing was more a big-cat’s rumbling purr than anything else.
“I… see, I
think.” Naida said quietly. “Sy…um
Wadjet… Lady… I’m nervous of this fight.
When I found a little boy in the desert I didn’t think I and Syb and
Asteri would be tangled in a fight for supremacy… and I need to get home.” She wasn’t going to blubber. In the desert it wasted water, besides being
undignified. “My mother and father are
going to have another child. And they
might not want me or need me if this baby is raised by them and our people.”
Wadjet made
a noise as though she was going to interrupt, but Naida carried on, talking
right over the Goddess’s sound and the snake woman’s eyebrows shot up toward
the edge of her headdress. “I know, I
know… every child is wanted and needed by someone. But…”
Asteri
baaaaed at her and his lion head shook its mane, all quietly to not wake
Bast. “Not true, little princess. That’s just fear. We’re here to witness this coming…” he hemmed
and hawed for a moment before settling on an appropriately neutral term. “… this coming discussion between Re and
Amun. My Lady of Flame is here to
support Re… and Bast also. They are here
to protect the human witnesses.”
“Why do
Gods need human witness,” she asked and Bodhi started laughing and laughing so
hard he fell right off his lotus.
“Because
with no audience,” he said. “There is no
story. With no suffering there is no
relief of suffering.”
Wadjet nodded
quietly as she scooped Bodhi up and dumped him, head first, back into his
flower, where his feet kicked as he roared with laughter. “Very true. You see, Naida-Efra, the Gods are
so powerful that they are beyond story and they are bored enough to play very
silly games with Each Other. Humans make
real story, because they are so powerless.
As you said to Re, ‘You cannot make me worship you.’ And Gods cherish
that. You humans give your suffering and
your stories and your adoration so completely that the Gods are drunk on you.”
“You mean
we are kind of like Them getting drunk?”
Bodhi pried
himself out of the lotus and lay, draped languidly over the petals. “Very wise, princess,” he said.
“But that
means we’re mostly just here as game pieces.”
“On the
wheel of time, yes, until you wake up and realize that you have free will.”
Kurama
nuzzled into her ear. “Foxes are all
about free will.”
Naida
scratched her ushera under the chin
and felt her fingertips crackle with energy.
“How is it that you are so powerful, when I’m not bleeding?”
The fox
bumped her forehead into Naida’s palm and flopped over sideways almost like a
cat. “Humans are changing. Growing up.
You’re starting to understand where the Goddess power really comes
from. It’s from stars, you know. But blood is the easiest way to access it.”
“Stars? And humans are getting shoved around by
drunken Divinities.” Naida felt like she
was facing down Yal and the other mean girls and boys. “That’s not right.”
Wadjet
shifted slightly to keep them in the shade.
“The problem is that some Goddesses, Gods and Spirits get drunk on death
and terror alone. Control of human
suffering is what drives them so they try and make more of it. Mother Goddess shows grief instead of
insanity, mostly.”
“Um…
mostly?”
“Oh, yes,”
Bhodi said, offering her another cup. “You might want a bit of tea before you look
ahead. Amun’s Temple is in sight.”
Asteri’s
lion head came up and he snarled deep enough to jounce Naida on the deck. She restrained herself from whipping her head
around and accepted Bodhi’s cup and nodded her thanks. “Thank you, Bodhi. I think it will help me calm down.”
“Exactly!”
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