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.