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+--- Thread: AW Jackal-head (/showthread.php?tid=8982)
Jackal-head - Sennet - 10/10/2025
When she opened her eyes again, she found the world had changed.
Above her, gemstone-coloured birds flew into forests as green as a palm frond. Not the stately ibis, no- birds with hooked beaks, perhaps some kind of falcon, she thought- but more beautiful and colourful than any bird she had ever seen in the desert.
The crash of waterfalls she thought at first was an approaching sandstorm- the sheer breadth of them was astounding- to see rivers merge and collide before falling off the cliff’s edge was a novelty to the woman who knew only the gentle drift of the Nile.
Grass grew- yellowed slightly under the advent of autumn, but still as lush and abundant as Bastet’s eyelashes.
It was inspiring for the artist to see- and when she gazed down at her own hands, she gasped-
- for it was not only the world that had changed.
”No!” She cried, her voice the piercing wail of a merlin’s call.
After 5000 years of rest she awoke- with paws. Ink-stained still, but her supple palms had been replaced with pudgy pawpads, her long, elegant fingers had become short, arched toes.
When she lifted her paws to inspect them, the parcel she’d been clutching to her chest fell from her grasp. The soft skin fell open, and several small but fine clay pots tumbled to the grass. Wax seals held them shut, and the young maiden offered a prayer of thanks as she pulled her feet- also paws- beneath herself.
A jackal? No- not with this pale fur. A hound? Perhaps…But why? Why would she- whose hands had been nimble even in her latest years, capable of precise beauty with deft brushtrokes- be robbed of her most precious attribute? She had used them to paint glorious tributes to her Pharaoh, to carve and weave and mould. Why should her most cherished, most pious trait be taken away and replaced with paws?!
She clumsily pawed the little pots back into the skin pouch, soothed by the familiar clinking of hardened clay. She closed her eyes.
Gods, she imagined- Gods with heads of beasts.
Perhaps it was not a curse; but she realized that even though her humble possessions had come with her into the Afterlife, she might never be able to use them again.
She lifted a paw to trace about her neck- to find even her jewelry had disappeared, though she did not realize yet that its mark still remained in a trail of bronze fur about her neck, spilling down her chest.
She looked to the water nearby, to the edge of the river where it was calmer. She reached for the pouch, only to find her claws simply knocked it aside. She flexed her paw as much as she could, spreading her toes and clenching them- but she could not grasp the drawstring of the pouch. With a sigh, she dipped her head and grasped it gently with her teeth; keeping her lips peeled back so she might not drool on the skin and cause it to soften further and tear.
She set it down as gently as she could on a bed of crisp grass, and peered into the rippling surface of the water.
It was not a hound that peered back at her- not a loyal servant of the courts, but a creature that reminded her more of a courser- but wild.
A wolf.
She gazed at her reflection for a long time. She mourned her former beauty- even the wrinkles and sunspots that had come with age. But the longer she looked, the more her expert eye began to see a new kind of prettiness; symmetrical features, the sharpness of her jaw and eye shape, the deep, mesmerizing green of her irises. She was young- a girl, perhaps, in wolf terms, but one who had shed her puppy fat. With a light gasp, her gaze traced the bronze about her neck and chest- and recognized the sign of an Ankh. Her necklace, changed as she had.
Her long life had been an adventure, followed by a much longer respite. The afterlife, for her, had begun and she, changed, would persevere.
Carefully clutching her pouch by the braided drawstring, she moved away from the waterfalls- casting her gaze toward the horizon where it grew flat and even- with everything so different, she sought out a land and a life that was familiar to her.