El’Zeath awoke in her den to complete shock and surprise. The dream that just occurred…she was completely overwhelmed by it. The wolf was completely unaware of these dreams and what they meant. Hotep did not have the time yet to explain such happenings, and El’Zeath didn’t even know if this was just a personal dream just for her.

Find…runes? To save this world? What did this flame and Hotep bring her into?

El’Zeath cannot breathe in the den. The foreboding woman scrambles out, taking a deep breath as she finally sees the sky and the gentle sunrise.

Nothing is familiar here. New trees. New grass. New sky.

No powers. No mountain that she remembers so vividly. No eyes of amethyst looking back at her…these eyes, whose name she cannot remember anymore…

Yet Druid’s Rise held somewhat a familiar feeling despite being so unfamiliar. How can one feel so split? Her memory of her own field flashed before her eyes, but it was like a fly zooming by, unable to be caught.

El’Zeath sits in the snow-touched grass restlessly, orange eyes staring at the rising sun, completely lost and disassociated. What did this all mean? How does she find these runes, was that even real? She huffed, shifting her weight. She had hoped this journey would help her get her bearings in this new world…but she felt more confused and lost than ever.

At least the sunrise was a comfort found in any world.

Skill - Soothsayer 1/5

Hotep was much disturbed by his dream. Time grew short — Osiris bid them resist the falling of the world and so it could not be the fated Return to Waters. Ma'at trembled with the will to carry on even as earth shattered. His morning song to Ra had been pitched with new desperation... but when he returned to the dens, he found another brooding on the moorland.

El'Zeath. He greeted, coming to sit beside her. She looked troubled.

And his smile was kind, but voice heavy with the weight of knowing this coming storm. There have been omens in the night. Had she seen them too, so sent by Ra?

Her eyes shot over to Hotep, and her head dipped in greeting. ”Setemhotep,” she replied. His words brought a touch of comfort, but a touch that quickly faded to concern. There was so much about this world that El’Zeath was unaware of, but it appeared magic was not completely lost here.

”Is that what that was called? Omens?” she questioned, shaking her head softly as she looked to her paws. She missed when they were touched with a golden hue. They just…didn’t feel right.

”You had this dream…this…omen too?” she questioned, lifting her head back up to sunrise. She sighs slightly. The wind rustled her tri-colored fur, and her brows were touched with worry. Words were escaping her at this moment, and her ears perked with anticipation for wise words.

Rune Discovery : 「 Failure 」 

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The potency of this new reality seems to settle around you as you speak to one another. You can sense it — the ever-growing darkness. The eternal night. Soon, the omens will not just seek you in the evening hours.

Omenal. Kumal. (Omens. Dreams.) A voice is in the breeze, rolling in with the dawn that brings you no light. And the voice, too, does not bring favor. Sin, rulityl. (Soon, reality.) A chill runs through you as the voice lingers in your ears for a moment longer. You almost hear it sigh.

Kak surthind … kluse. (Keep searching … please.) The breeze dies down, but your sense of discomfort persists, crawling against your skin.

You feel far more on edge than you did before.

Stiffening at the voice of the gods, the echo of the warning vision, Hotep took a sharp breath and nodded. Do you hear him, Scepter? It was Phoenix who heard the voice of Osiris, before me. She told me of his decrees. And now...

A swallow. Now time draws short. But the gods do not speak idly, and if they have given us a task, it must be in our power to accomplish it. Ma'at must be preserved.

Doubt would poison him like the bite of a serpent if he did not cling to the certainty of all he had known to be true. Faith had brought him through the desert into Satriya's arms. There was a reason for it. And a reason for El'Zeath, as well, who had been reborn from sacred fire in this hour of need. For this, I am glad you are beside me. He smiled, placing a paw against her own.

El’Zeath felt herself freeze, hearing the voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. The words, they appear to be that of language, but not of one that El’Zeath had heard of before. She only knew the one language, and rarely had even encountered any others. Yet, this she knew, were intelligent words.

Eyes darted to Hotep, his words ringing in her ears…a physical feeling compared to the more ethereal mystery of the voice before. He seemed confident, that these were words of the gods, his gods. Gods that were somewhat unknown to El’Zeath, but Gods that had brought her to this land for reasons yet to be completely discovered. She listened intently, giving him a nod of acknowledgement.

”Never have I heard anything like that before, these are the voices of the gods, you say? Osiris, specifically?” she asked, wanting to confirm, wanting to understand. She had lived before, but in a world so different…this she knew, even if she couldn’t remember it all. She looks down as he places his paw on her own, a paw smaller than her own, but in the end she finds she misses the golden touch it used to have.

A smiles graces her face as she looks back up to him. ”I will accept this, for I, too, am glad I have you to guide me,” she said, a small frown crossing her face for a moment. The dream, this voice…the felt so foreign in this moment. So far from home, a home she knew she couldn’t return to, a body she could not return to.

”I wish…I wish I had this knowledge that you have, it seems to bring you such comfort,” she admits, flicking an ear as her eyes rest again upon the sunrise.

Hotep nodded, there was much to learn and El'Zeath did not have a priestly upbringing to fall back on. Catching her up to years of study would take time. Ignorance was not offensive. The Priest would do what he could to plant the right seeds in her heart. Indeed. His smile was gentle.

How to explain it, to one who was new to the glories forms of the cosmos which had taken up patronage of Satriya? The Perfect One, Osiris, once ruled wolvenkind, and walked among us. He was a benevolent Pharaoh for generations uncounted. All his lands and people prospered. But his brother, Set, the Lord of Storms, was jealous.

Setemhotep wondered if El'Zeath had gleaned that many of those born to the River carried names which tied them to the gods. Setemhotep, himself, had been named for the storm god, invoking Set's coming in peace. Set is not evil, in the way some foreigners name destructive things. He serves a purpose, as do all the gods. He is fierce enough to do battle with the serpent Apep, and so guards the solar barque of Ra, ensuring that our Great God traverses the sky safely.

A pause. But Set has done great harm, as well, and unchecked can wreak destruction upon many lands in the improper place. So it was with Osiris.

Hotep looked up to the sky, and there was no warmth there — but he felt the comfort of these stories nonetheless, and that encouragement bled sincerity into his tale, As the next in line to rule, Set threw Osiris to the ground, in a bid to take the throne. A euphemism for death. Murder. Hotep's inflection made it clear. Painted word, hieroglyph, was magic which could alter the cosmos. Spoken word held not the same power, and still, as a priest it was impossible to resist the impulse to veil this tragic thing held so high in their histories.

A wry chuckle, Yet as you have plainly heard, Osiris persists. He is preserved in the Duat — for his wife, Isis, used sorcery to spare him eternal loss. Thus he is an eternal Pharaoh, though he can no longer walk the land of the living. Now he rules the Underworld, where he welcomes the noble dead as subjects, and safeguards those who pass between worlds. Like you and I.

Tilting his head, Hotep's smiled widened toward El'Zeath. This magic, these runes, they are strange to me. But the Divine is not. They speak to me in dreams, and I advise Pharaoh on their behalf. In time, as you learn to comprehend, the gods may make a messenger of you as well. Understand: Ma'at is the cosmic balance, Justice incarnate. Osiris, as Pharaoh, proclaims her measurement. For him to speak, so plainly, must mean great things are happening, and our obedience is crucial to the future of this land.

It was a lot to take in, and at times, intimidating. She had lost a lot of her memory to the void of death, and here stands someone who knows so much. Not just of their own life, but of stories of lives and existence from times before. Will she ever get all of her memories back, to tell the stories of the place she lived so many winters?

Story of jealously. A story as old as time itself. This is a thing she knew to be a true, a thing she had seen many times in the past even if it was but a feeling. This Set, perhaps, represents a natural order of the world for it to operate as needed. She listens intently, eyes seeming to gaze off in the distance, but in her mind’s eyes she visualizes these gods and their actions, her imagination running wild.

A fight for the throne. A sudden flash of memory. She remembers then, protecting her own throne. A land of fire and ash. Burned trees. The smell almost engulfs her senses, but as quick as it came, it was gone…but it was hers. A memory she had back. She feels herself take a deep breath, and continued to listen. Magic, sorcery…it was not a thing foreign to her, though it sounds the particular magic this Isis used was not one she remembers.

She found it so interesting though, how these stories last through the ages. How many moons later, Setemhotep tells it all so well. The underworld, she wonders…”This underworld…do you think I was there, and just do not remember it yet? Does Osiris allow those who pass to remember such a place? I remember a…darkness…not even…a nothingness before the darkness…” she asked curiously, hopeful though. She wanted to know of this underworld, and these runes…they were new to her too.

”The world around us speaks in odd ways. I know my prior world, the magic would take hold of you, and allow you to pass it through when you desired. The magic here…it seems to act on its own completely,” she comments, thinking of the voices they have heard in this place. ”The divine? I shall learn to be their messenger with your guidance,” she gave a nod, feeling something in her chest. Perhaps she needed this meaning, after a life so long lived. A meaning for something new…differeent, and perhaps, greater.