Hotep was not a warrior. Not a god.

Not a man deserving of pride.

But he saw, now, the culmination of so much effort — the call of Osiris to do that which was fitting for a Priest.

Sing.

Lift Ra's solar barque back into the sky! Banish the dark chaos of the serpent! Resurrect Life-Giving Warmth to all Mythris!

This he could do. Would do. For he had passed through death and been raised again in service to Khaemwaset and Merneith, and they had seen fit to name him their Seer. Where he failed once before to perform the tasks demanded by the Cosmos, and guide his pharaoh in the keeping of Ma'at... here, now, he would not.

And as the Light did pierce that pervasive Dark, Hotep solidified forever his certainty that their cause was Justice incarnate and their kingdom divinely ordained.

In Egyptian, he hymned words known by heart, meant to welcome the birth of a new day:

Hail to you, Ra, at your rising, Atum-Horakhty
I worship you, your beauty in my eyes
May your radiance be upon my breast
You proceed and set in the Mesketet boat
Your heart dilated in the Mandjet boat
You cross the sky in peace
All your enemies having fallen
The indefatigable stars praise you
The indestructible stars worship you
You set in the horizon of Manu
Being complete as Ra, every day
Living and enduring as my lord
Ra, true of voice

We didn't like that dream. We like chaos, but this felt wrong. The portals before her were confusing. Was she supposed to go in? Where was Mama? Where were her siblings? She paced for a moment, closing her eyes and hoping this was a bad dream and we would wake up back in the warm fur pile. Sadly, this wasn't the case, and anxiety gripped her chest, so without thinking, she slipped through the first portal. It was dark, so dark. She wanted to cry out for her family and find them, but she felt her ears lower as she ran blindly through the sea of darkness and others.

Sprinting, she saw a familiar figure, Daddy? It was Daddy and a lady. Discordia barreled towards them, her small frame slipping under Jaxxons.  She saw something shiny in the distance and peered out from between Jaxxon's front paws. Daddy and the lady were howling; she would, too. She didn't really understand what was happening, not entirely, but her small voice rang out. A slightly pitchy but determined voice. At least with Daddy here, she felt less alone, but the thought of Mama and her siblings not being here caused her to cry out louder, more firmly, as she hoped they were okay too.

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— artwork: Lines are watermarked design by I believe Castle or Sol ·
Common Speech

He'd been told of the oddities this world contained, of the magic that coursed through the roots of the earth, of the great fissures to the unknowable below. His very existence here was all the indication needed for Bogart to believe the incalculable but the land seemed voracious, vicious, so hellbent on him intimately witnessing its capabilities—its significance. It left his stomach upturned and his chest a mess of unforgiving thumps of his heart as though it was trying to tear right through him.

But as the dream peeled away to leave him muddle-minded and unsteady, even as the air split and brought forth three... doors, the last thing on his mind was the consequences of such a sprawling fracture of the world.

Bogart could only think about Raisa.

His senses returned to him at a molasses drip and he found his legs in tandem, coughing, searching. " Raisa?" He called out, bracing against the raging storm. The winters he'd experienced had never been so brutal. It hurt to so much as blink with the way the winds whipped and spat, forcing him to narrow his gaze and shrink the scope of his world. "Raisa!" His persistence was rewarded, at least. Shoving through the blizzard; through the resistance, he spotted her. Stark and bold against the vast nothing around them.

Standing right at that second door. Wraith-wolves slunk, teeth met flesh, blood spilled. He had no troubles with fighting, no compunction in baring teeth when he ought to. In another life, at an earlier time, he'd have hurried forward and through the door, beckoned by a call to defend... but he wasn't that man anymore, was he?

Bogart had more to think about than impulsive gnashing.

Now? He was going to be a father, he had pups that'd need him of sound body and mind to assure their safety. Now? He was something to Raisa and she was so much to him; lover, mother of his children, the woman he'd traveled all this way for and with and—

—"Don't!" Bogart hollered, hoping the storm hadn't silenced him.

As he neared he could see the consideration on her face, the indecision. He didn't blame her. Hell, if she charged forward, he'd have gone with her, but the mere thought of it sickened him. What would he do if she was hurt? Injured beyond repair? "We can go through the first!" He said, teeth in a grit. "Stay with me. I know what life like was 'fore you, don't make me wonder if I'll have to know what it's like after ya'."

It was a selfish thing to say.

He didn't regret it.

"Think 'bout the pups at least," he reasoned. "Please."

Whether it was his greedy plead or the mention of their children, he couldn't tell, but he knew something had shifted her his direction. He nodded, pressed to her side in a fleeting gesture of comfort, and then turned.

Stepped through the door.

The darkness was all-encompassing, swollen by this cacophony of voices, and he waited. Breathed.

And tilted his nose to the sky, letting out a long, ceaseless howl.

There are things wrong in the world.

But the homebody finally had a real chance to do something.

Lifting his head to the sky, Spider joined in with the chorus to banish the long dark.

༻❁༺

---

It was not a call to action as much as it was a summons.
To what, Yue could see quite clearly:

Rarely did dreams have so much agency. They were like a story that happened, and she was their captive audience – willing, or unwilling. This one was different. Where she looked, she saw different options. Different horrors, each of which spoke to a different part of her soul. Her self-preservation. The obligation to the Dynasty that had been drilled into her since birth.

She was filled with an urge to choose. Yue hurled herself into the corner of the universe, which spoke of love and beauty and song.

As a young child, learning to sing had been her favorite of lessons. It was so much more fulfilling than the other requirements of history and strategy, though a younger Yue had taken a penchant for languages due to their proximity to song and poetical composure. Her instructors had taught her that singing brought peace and harmony, where once there was only discord.

Would they be proud of her, now? For living this purpose so deeply, that her voice was akin to a blade on a battlefield?

At first, the Empress did not know if her eyes were open or closed. When she thought they were open, all was white. When she squeezed them shut, all was black. The roar of the winds was persistent through either.

Behind the cacophony, it rang true. The voices of others, some more graceful than others, but all joining together to banish the long night. It might have only been her awareness becoming clearer, but it was as if the voices amplified and became louder. If she squinted her eyes, somewhere between open and closed, she could even see them though the frigid chill.

Though her lips refused to move (they felt quite frozen), eventually she urged them into her accustomed positioning, and she sang. Nothing with words or phrases, nothing that needed to be understood to be felt.

Yue, no more an Empress than the other souls that joined around her, wrapped everything that plagued her around the carrier of her voice, and unleashed it to the Gods.

Perhaps, now, the Crystal Dragon would listen to her.

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༻❁༺