Lion Head Mesa so intoxicated with the end

only if you have time/want to, of course! ashpaw tag for reference. <3

after spending the morning consulting the threadbones and feather of ma'at, learning to read the conjunction of the feather bones as they become instruments of communication from Osiris, ingram takes his leave from the temples to stretch his legs.

the hem of Osiris seeks @Sanguinex.

the day that greets him is frigid, drab and overcast.

it does not darken the patronsaint's mood but forces him into one of contemplation; easily confused with sharp cutting stone.

thoughts going against his will to a @Ash Paw and the nerves that grip him as he considers that she has to be getting close to giving birth. would pharaoh let him leave to be there during their birth? should he even ask? ... questions buzz loudly 'round his mind without answer.

vague with mama thread rn! would still love if sanguinex wanted to join!

her grief was an all consuming thing. Toula loved fiercely, and came to discover that the insurmountable hurt she endured matched well all the great things of life. she was tempered only by the fact that this was not the end for her father. he would be reborn, he would again be something—someone!—great. she prayed to all of the Gods that she might be fortunate enough to know, and love him, again.
for her grief, Toula still was the pious Princess she had always been. it had been so very hard, to look outside of herself. Toula realized this when talking to Iset. how her mother must feel! her sisters!
(it seemed this early morning she did not recall the conversation between herself and the Shabti—blank spaces, now, that might return—or might not!)
the divine one thought to find them. speak with them. comfort them, and perhaps find comfort in them—but the people, these divine beings, had always mattered more to her than anything else!
the fellahin dressed the amiirad in black furs, appropriate for the time of mourning. though she was heartsick, much prayer and her devotions comforted her. today she would seek her sister, or perhaps the Hem or even her mother!—
she sees the man of Osiris. her heart rises in her throat, his visage somehow a comfort. on light steps does she move toward him, two attendants lingering at either side of her and one moving forth to announce her presence to Ingram.

toula that moves to greet the patronsaint is different than the one that had stayed with basilica.

or perhaps it was simply the guards that flanked and announced her. perhaps it was the blackfurs draped over her shoulders or the fact that mourning had appeared to age her.

to pinpoint it would force the patronsaint to pry into matters he desired not to.

princess, greets ingram, sweeping into a bow.

Toula smiles softly toward Ingram. Hem, she breathes warmly, voice not at all absent of pride. he had decided on his path here and it suited him, she thought. 
there were things she might have said. things she found she, as of then, could not. he had been unable to meet her father, the late Pharaoh—and she was sorry for this. sorry too that he had entered into their fold in a time of mourning.
but he would swiftly learn more of what was surely now his people, a part of them now! and an acolyte of Osiris... well, he understood well the cycle they had spoken of. to see him and remember this brought a comfort.
she thanked Iset silently. divine timing had brought them together, and this now more than ever she believed!
how are you settling in? she asked, lightly falling into step alongside him. here, Toula was able to stand a little taller befitting her own station—but the Hem was a towering man even still in comparison to her! she looked up to him, feeling more at peace than she had in many days.

uncertainty weighs upon his shoulders.

a vicious circle that ingram finds himself travelling in: confident in being lead by Osiris but unconfident in how he feels about being lead by a child.

he had come to akashingo to follow ramesess and his queenwife. coming to terms with the brutal shift he has brought upon himself — the imbalance — the patronsaint wavers.

well enough. truth ... and yet, not much of it.

well enough. Toula sees the truth in it, and hears that for what is. and understands, for different reasons entirely, the meaning of it.
she did not wish to speak on it. and yet, she must. you have come during a difficult time, the obvious is spoken, but it needed to be heard with the rest of what all needed saying: do you not find the timing of it all strange? ...divine?
nothing nefarious did the guileless Toula mean by this! only wondering if he himself could see that his being here... perhaps it truly was meant. there was more for him to learn yet. from child, from priest! 
her own faith in the divine was not shaken.

divine.

godtouched! so starved for it is ingram that he wants to believe it so blindly.

a rough laugh rumbles in his throat; a raw, rasping sound.

if it is divine then i must be wanheda. commander of death. but of course it would always circle it's way back to praimfaya! endlessly, mother plagued son from the grave. a cruel irony, as she had named him upon birth war reaper.

his laugh is answered with the slight tilt of her head, but her eyes twinkled. she could sense something in him then, but not, precisely, what it was.
that is not so terrible a thing, she hums, for it your favored Osiris that is also a commander of death. it gives me peace in the knowing of it, Toula stepped toward him and said, but I know this is my own way of thinking. I know little of your own Wanheda, Toula openly admits. she dips her head in apology, not intending to insult him—and open to listening, too!

my mother was called wanheda, ingram settles upon his huanches, seaglass gaze trailing to the servants that lingered nearby. but he trusts toula! and hopes that telling something of his story, of loosening the chainmail and armor that keeps him guarded might offer distraction from her loss(es).

it is her culture's belief that the spirit of the commander moves into a new commander when the current commander passes. a rebirth. a draw of breath. if the bloodline of the hedas is broken there is a conclave ...a competition for those who meet requirements to be a commander must go thru. only one can survive and that is the commander. from there, a new bloodline begins. the cycle begins anew.

the divine amiirad listened. wrapped up in his story. drawing swiftly the parallels between Osiris and his Wanheda.
did he see it? he must, she felt.
Osiris is also the lord of death and rebirth, she breathes, blinking toward him. he would understand Osiris perhaps better than most!
and she considered the peace he had brought to her heart. then, and through this story. perhaps you could spread the word of His story, Ingram... whenever it is you feel that you are ready. it is peace that you bring, and those that the story fell upon deaf ears were merely not ready for the truth of it all! you could speak with your fellow Hem Senmut, who could aid you in the ways of this perhaps more than I could. items speak to you; bones, the feather, spiritual things! you could continue to gather and collect them. each must have their place for him, surely... these things that spoke to him!

the parallels are as clear to ingram as the judgement of the heart versus the feather is to Osiris. he does not wonder — has not! — why the deathlord called to his soul. unknowingly, ingram has been familiar with his work since his birth.

except, ingram'd been hearing the commanders long before he committed matricide.

which left him to wonder if it was truly so selective. or if anyone in the bloodline could be chosen by a spirit of a commander past.

so many possibilities!

indeed. rumbles the patronsaint in agreement.

the Amiirad smiled at his agreement.
and then, suddenly, she asked him in a quiet breath, would you perhaps... read your bones with me? for she wanted to respect his own culture, his own roots—and she felt that Osiris might speak to him, through him...
the dead visited once they passed, before they were entombed. it was why she herself visited so often the mourning place of Ramessess. Ingram might very well have heard her wailing; in a time of mourning, expressing ones grief was important.
sometimes there were those hired for such things! but (perhaps thanks to Toula) there had been no need. 
perhaps... perhaps her father would speak to her through these trinkets, tools not merely of the void, Toula did not think—but a bridge between worlds!

a soft question.

for a threadbone reading.

it's been some time since he's read them for anyone aside from himself.

a confession he made only to the altars: that he'd been avoiding them since they'd spelled out basilica's downfall.

their news over the past months had not been good. still, he carried them with him, hoping that Osiris might offer him better readings than the Void.

of course. ingram cannot say no. it plays into his obsession with them and his soft, almost paternal affection for the princess.

he leads the way to where he's stashed them. their new foxfur wrappings clutched tightly betwixt his jaws he gives his head a shake: dried bones rattling together within. to many, it might sound like a deathomen. to ingram, it is an haunting music. a tolling bell to Osiris.

he gingerly sets the wrappings down and nudges it open to reveal the bones; peering up from the bones to toula.

the sound was lovely, albeit haunting. Toula watches Ingram with bright, curious eyes. what would the bones say? would it be a message from beyond? would Iset try to speak with her?!
she grew giddy at the thought, though solemn at the idea that perhaps... perhaps her father might have words for her? before he entered into the field of reeds, a land that Osiris Himself ruled over. Toula looks back to Ingram with a slow nod, ready to hear whatever it is that might be shared.

he does not know what she wishes for him to see from them.

if he had to assume, it would be something from perhaps osiris, or in relation to the late pharaoh.

but the threadbones did not give the readings wanted. else their messages wouldn't have been so grim as ingram read basilica's own personal apocalypse in each spread.

seaglass gaze roves back to he bones, taking a deep breath as he focuses on them; unblinking. letting his vision tunnel so that it is only him and the bones; the fluttering feather of ma'at drifting across the death.

one of praimfaya's ribs.

fitting.

death, he gestures to the ribbone with his muzzle. because you have lost the pharaoh, but it does not always mean death in the literal sense. it picks up on fears. on turbulence. on catastrophe and in akashingo there is much of it. much and sudden change. and perhaps that was afflicting the reading.

judgement. he gestures to the feather of ma'at. feather versus the feather. your life has changed forever ... but there are new opportunities. potential. the feather of ma'at demands this is not to be ignored.

the next bone standing out in the middle, sway from the scattered others: the birdskull. the hierophant. he points to it with his muzzle. a reminder to not do what is expected of you but what makes you happy. to do what it is important to you.

ingram's focus upon the threadbones breaks as he lifts his gaze to toula, taking in her expression with quiet curiosity.