Qebhet hissed at the contact, spitting venom, red fury and oily fear surging up in her throat against her volition. Pinfeathers squeezed up through the skin of her hands to stab into Hecate's palms and a molten silver crack opened at the corner of one eye, tracking a line like a gleaming tear down the side of her nose, starlight straining to push its way free.
Isfet tore through her like a desert storm, uprooting everything, rending her at the seams, sending all spiralling wildly towards a yawning abyss.
But the hands held tight, and they kept her from toppling over the edge.
Centre centre find the centre
Centre, between the earth and sky; the soil her great-grandfather's vast brown belly, rumbling with his laughter, the stars the jewels that adorned great-grandmother's arching body, and the heka flowing freely between the two.
Chaos had stolen her senses, robbed her of her bearings, but Hecate guided her true, heka heka hekate, a gnarled silver tree in the eye of the storm, roots that spread deep into bedrock and catacomb, branches that reached up to cradle the moon, a beacon calling her to safe harbour.
The storm around her did not abate, but Hecate's sheltering presence gave her a needed reprieve. Father Geb's voice, rough-hewn and stable: You are here. Mother Nut's, wise as the distant constellations: Gather your tools, child.
"Water," she whispered in a cracked voice. "I nnn... need water. Bath. Pitcher. Th-the lapis one. Charcoal and... inssssense."