Two Eyes Cenote APHELION

Set for January 1st. Sorry for double-tags! ( @Toula @Senmut @Rashepses @Racharra @Haizel @Zaahira @Legend @Tuna @Jawahir @Gucci @Cornelius @Bayek @Eset @Khusobek @Tavina @Inji @Medusa ) Feel free to reply here with a visit, or use this as a jumping off point for private threads if you'd like. Participation is not required, I just figured it'd be a fun little event!

The temple had been completed, and further decorated for a night of spiritual communion. Nazli had seen to it herself that the paintings along the walls had been finished in time, the altars having been laid out with fresh offerings, and incense placed at key points so that the spacious room would be welcoming to all who might come to visit. The ceiling was open of course, with a full view of the stars and the moon as it stood in waxing gibbous phase.

Directly under the opening was the central plinth, a section of raised red stone that had previously been used for Pharaoh Toula's marriage to her consort Rashepses. Nazli had sent fellahin and mazoi out in shifts to hunt down and obtain a sapling for this night. It now stood behind the plinth; this tall, young sycamore that would grow up and out through the ceiling, and in the coming years the canopy would drape the front half of the room.
This, a symbol of her chosen goddess Nwt, was decorated sparsely with ribbons of snake skin found in the desert, and stars built of cactus needle, and the dry husks of beetles for other members of the pantheon.

At the door to the temple was another stone slab. Upon this was laid a long palm frond and an assortment of feathers which had been gathered on the night of the wedding, and every night since. Nazli had made a point to pluck these from the storehouse when she saw them, or to ask for donations when necessary. Now she had a collection of many varied types: heron feathers, hawk and eagle, the runner birds, vulturine, even a raven or two.

The invitation had gone out through Senmut, and spoken of with Eset, so that those of Akashingo and Muat-riya would be made aware of the opening of the temple; people were welcome to come and to pray. If they did not bring a feather of their own to be anointed with oil, they could take from what Nazli had collected, and place it by the sapling with their wish in the new year.

With everything prepared, Nazli now stood at the head of the temple with the sapling behind her. She fretted over a few decorations as the first visitors made their way in to the chasm, smiling to them and bowing her head, and felt a sense of preternatural calm descend across the space as she waited.

racharra stalked through the halls before finally arriving at the temple. she had grown quite a bit since her and nazli's last visit. in just a couple of months, the nebet would be a yearling.

she bowed her head to nazli. you've done wonderfully. she hums, gazing at the decorations as she approaches the altar.

racharra normally was not one to pray often, she believed in the god's favor in her to get by. but it was as she approached the dawn of adulthood where the girl felt it was neccessary to speak with the gods for blessings.

Trailing nebet Racharra quietly is Eset, her wonder abiding over every engraving, the sole marks and their contribution to larger narratives of Nwt. They are timeless. Her eyes lower from the artwork to their lavender creator.

“It is beautiful, Nazli,” she whispers into the fragrant air between them. Each spoken word on these holy grounds seemed a hymn.

To the young sapling she brings a crow’s feather; a token from the raven’s modest cousin, but pristine in its shape and distinctly colorless as the night. She lays the plume upon the new undulating growth, where it will take root in the vault beneath the eyes of the gods.

senmut told himself he would attend for the gods, for pharaoh, for muat-riya, for eset.

in state he departed, accompanied by servants and guardians. for the altar itself he had six white feathers tipped in gemstone powder, taken from the wing of a dove and dedicated.

nazli was transcendent, transformed from wilting fellahin to glorious hemet. he saw the illustrious nature of her altar; he lay his feathers in humility there, then stood to flank the priestess who had summoned palaces together for the glory of Nwt.

so very, very proud she was of nazli.

and this was in all lines of her, in every expression. she placed a black feather, noting belatedly that it was similar to that of eset.

she was not a praying sort, but as she gazed solemnly upon the sapling, her heart whispered,

i wish for love.

she came, a hawk feather held gently between her lips as she offer her polite bows of the head to those who needed them. tuna was not one to celebrate strictly the religion of this place, though she found comfort in the fact that others found comfort. in some way, it gave tuna a sense of peace, and she certainly could not deny the beauty that was the temple.

her eyes would wander to eset and to inji if she would show, and she would think of her moments with her beloved girls. eset had risen, and inji far away from tuna. 

for her prayer, if she was even listened to as an outsider and a secret heretic, she would ask for one thing.

"keep my girls safe. all of them."

gucci was quite insistent upon doing this himself - so he deluded himself that he didn't look all that ridiculous dragging through the dirt an overlarge runnerbird feather what he'd swear to every god had an agenda to poke his eyeballs out.

still, he succeeded in depositing it near the sapling. in his best performance of a mayor at sunday service, gucci set his pose and expression into pious serenity - which thawed off as a single, dawning realisation overtook whichever rehearsed prayer he'd prepared.

huh. it's really been two years.

at once losing interest in faking god-fear, gucci pranced up to and by @Tavina, brushing her foreleg with his tail as he passed.

meet me outside. mouthed the little man.