Qebhet (coolwaters) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2020-09-15 10:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | qebhet |
WHO Qebhet and OPEN
WHERE Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
WHEN Tuesday, September 15, around 10:30pm
WHAT Seeking solace between the ocean and the stars
WARNINGS None
The moult took a week, in the end. Another two days to purge the lingering stain of unclean energies from the apartment. The old skin sloughed cleanly, if uncomfortably, leaving behind no trace of the contamination beyond four pale marks where the soul eater’s claws had pierced Qebhet’s shoulder. She was slipping slowly back into routine. She had completed her fast on Saturday, cooked up a hearty lamb and okra stew on Sunday, and returned to work on Monday. The familiar walls of her father’s domain, and the ghosts they contained, had welcomed her back. Even her cats had forgiven her, and Nedjem had taken to curling against her collarbone when she slept and nuzzling her when she woke whimpering from nightmares. She still didn’t feel clean. The soul eater’s attack had sapped her, weakened her. Worse than that, it had been a violation, a poison that had seeped into her very essence, and that was a thing she was struggling to forget. Water was Qebhet’s element, so it was to the water she went when she needed strength or solace. Right now, she needed both. A river would have been best, fresh and flowing and fertile like her beloved Nile, but the Hudson was none of those things, so she opted instead for Brighton Beach. It wasn't the same, but the salt ocean had restorative properties of its own. And she could comfort herself, perhaps, with the thought that somewhere, far to the east of here, the Nile Delta spilled out into the Mediterranean; that those same sacred waters would mingle with the Atlantic and might, through that great ocean’s network of currents, come to lap at these sands. She wore her family close to her heart, in a linen amulet bag strung round her neck and tucked beneath her clothes: small carved figurines of Anubis, Foremost of the Divine Booth; Nephthys, Lady of Heaven; Osiris, King of the Living; Geb, Father of Snakes; Nut, Who Holds a Thousand Souls; Neith, Opener of Ways; Ma’at of the Perfect Measure. Wedjat eyes circled her throat, potent amulets of protection and health; ankhs and djed pillars and sacred scarabs adorned the bangle at her wrist. She wasn’t sure how much use they’d be as a defence against the soul eater, should she come face-to-face with it again, but the solid presence of them against her skin was a bolster, at least. Qebhet set her bag on the sand, nudged off her shoes and stripped down to a black one-piece swimsuit. It was a mild night, and the beach was all but deserted as she padded down to the water’s edge. She stood there for a moment, eyes closed, face upturned, letting the tide play at her ankles and the night air caress her skin. She waded in further, till she was deep enough that she could lie back and let the water take her weight. It embraced her like an old friend, and Qebhet sighed gently. This close to the city, the light of the stars always struggled to compete with the lights of civilisation. But the sky was clear tonight, and as Qebhet gazed upward the constellations began to reveal themselves. She found the arched body of Nut (which was also her own body, the sinuous snake of the Milky Way) and the twin ikhem-sek that in her own time had circled the celestial pole, marking the path to the heavens. After a little while, she stopped searching for form among the stars and simply basked in their light. “I am the serpent, long in years, I pass the night and born each day.” She whispered the words to the sky in the tongue of her people, and the water enfolded her, and the starlight nourished her, and though she’d spoken the same incantation two dozen times at least in the past week, for the first time, it felt right. In the dark of night, against the rippling water, her skin appeared to take on a blue-black cast. And where the moonlight touched her, it seemed almost to pick out the sheen of scales and the soft light of reflected stars. “I am the serpent who is in the ends of the earth; as I sleep, I am born, I am renewed, I am rejuvenated each day.” Renewed, rejuvenated. Qebhet didn’t know if she was there yet. But here in the arms of the ocean, gazing up at Mother Nut, gazing into her own distant reflection, she felt a peace that had eluded her for months settle around her. And for a little while, she allowed herself to hope. |