+- Vivarium (https://vivariumrpg.com)
+-- Forum: Vivarium (https://vivariumrpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Forum: Smoldering Wastes (https://vivariumrpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=28)
+--- Thread: AW lay low the embers (/showthread.php?tid=13358)
lay low the embers - Ankh-ren - 8/17/2026
Ankh-ren moved through narrow chambers with the careful economy of someone who had performed the same sequence every dawn for nearly a year; the temple was close. The body remembered the angles even when the heart no longer served the same purpose.
They had not come here only for Hathor.
The morning rites still followed the old pattern as closely as paws and jaws allowed. Ankh-ren purified the space first—mouth rinsed with the little water that could be spared, face and paws wiped with a damp cloth of linen scraps, the gestures of cleansing performed with the same gravity once required before approaching the inner rooms at Dendera. They swept the hard-packed floor. They set out the offerings: a small disc of meat pressed with berries, a dish of water, a few dates, a pinch of resin. The sandstone image still received the words that belonged to the Lady of the Sycamore, the Mistress of Dendera, the Golden One. Ankh-ren would not withhold what was due. That much remained ma’at.
But when the formal offering was complete and the other chosen had drifted away to their own tasks, the true work began.
Ankh-ren lowered themselves until their chest and muzzle pressed to the earth. The posture was still correct—full prostration, arms (forelegs) extended, the body made small before the divine. The words that followed were not the standard hymns.
They addressed the ones who shaped and unshaped.
First Khnum, the potter of Elephantine, who formed bodies on his wheel and breathed ka into clay. Then Thoth, master of written magic and hidden knowledge, who had once restored the Eye. Then Isis, great of heka, who had reassembled what Set had torn apart. The names were spoken carefully, the epithets remembered with the precision of temple training. The wolf throat turned some of the sounds rough and thin, but the intent was exact. Ankh-ren offered what little they still possessed: the meat already given, the water, the residual smoke of the incense, and the repeated surrender of their own will.
Return me, the prayer ran beneath the formal language. Unmake this shape. Restore the hands that knew how to pour. Restore the voice that could sing the full hymns without breaking. Let the ka remember its first vessel.
They had no illusion that the request was small. To ask the gods to reverse what they had done was dangerous. It brushed against hubris. It risked the charge of discontent with the portion allotted. Ankh-ren knew the texts. They knew the warnings. And still they asked, every morning, every evening when the light slanted low through the reed roof.
The body itself fought the rites. Paws could not break the offered meal cleanly - what should have been bread, what instead was something once alive. The muzzle could not lift the water dish without spilling. The old gestures of presentation—two hands raised, palms upward—were impossible; the closest approximation left Ankh-ren feeling clumsy and exposed. Each failure was noted, filed away as further evidence that the current form was a barrier between servant and proper service.
No answer had ever come.
Not in visions. Not in dreams that felt like more than memory. Not in any change to the russet coat or the narrow muzzle that still startled them in the water jars. The gods remained silent in the way they had been silent in the old temple, when Ankh-ren had begged to know their father’s name and received only the unchanging smile of Hathor’s gold face.
Yet faith was not the same as certainty of outcome. Faith was the decision to continue the petition because the alternative—accepting the wolf-shape as permanent—felt like a second, quieter death.
When the final words were spoken, Ankh-ren remained prostrate a little longer than necessary. The earthen floor was cool against their chest. Somewhere beyond the compound the desert wind moved, carrying the scents of dust and distant rain. The sandstone image watched with its painted eyes and slight, ambiguous mouth.
I am still yours, Ankh-ren thought, the old loyalty rising unbidden even now. But I am also asking. Let that not be counted against me.
They rose, shook the dust from their coat with a quick full-body tremor, and began the work of clearing the offerings. The bread would be shared among the temple servants later. Nothing was wasted. That, too, was ma’at.
Outside, the light was strengthening. Another day in the body that was not theirs. Another day of service that had become, in secret, a long and carefully worded plea.