Lion Head Mesa nineteenth

without thinking, senmut had adopted the roles of high priest.

today he moved with authority toward the top of the mesa, where ramesses' body lay in state. "bring the we'eb @Ingram to me," he ordered quietly.

senmut remained, looking toward the cold and coming dawn.

once more, the patronsaint is summoned.

he follows behind the messenger, assuming it was by pharaoh's word. he worries, given the tense beginning of deathbringer's meeting with her on the borders.

but the male before him is recognized as a fellow priest — maybe even the highpriest ( ingram was still learning ).

osiris' acolyte dips his head in deference all the same, weight shifting slightly, pondering the purpose of this summon.

"good morning, we'eb. that is your new title, as pupil to me and to the teachings of akashingo."

the hem gestured to the still and wrapped body of the former godking. "are you familiar with mummification?"

we'eb.

part of ingram desires to ask what it means. another part of him whispers that perhaps he does not wish to know. the latter wins and so ingram simply accepts it without asking for a translation.

no, the patronsaint admits, seaglass gaze going to the mummified body of the once pharaoh. it is a strange tradition and yet so very interesting. he is drawn to the intricate wrappings, to the word even!

mummification.

i'm eager to learn. ingram speaks in truth.

"good."

his eyes moved in speculation and then returned to ramesses. "his organs were removed and he was sprinkled with riversalt before he was wrapped."

the smell was mildly fetid, not intense as it would already be beneath the glut of a summertime sun.

"seventy days he will lie in state. pharaoh will have him buried beside his queen satsu."

it was not an honor senmut might have granted. in fact, he might have very well cut ramesses' joints himself had he been alone that day, so that the man's accursed spirit would never find peace.

removal of organs. sprinkled in riversalt. wrapped.

left to lay like he was now for seventy days before being buried with his queen.

there is soft surprise at learning that the queen ingram had met when he'd first came to akashingo's borders had not been the first. but he does not ask. the deceased pharaoh's business was his own.

ingram had a wife, once. death had not taken her but her own restless, solitary soul. never settled. not with basilica. not with him.

what is the significance of this mummifcation? or laying here for seventy days before being buried? softly inquired, as if the patronsaint felt he might be chastised for speaking too loudly in this sacred place.

"it is to preserve his body so he might walk again in the Land of Reeds. and this process lasts seventy days, to fully dry his flesh."

he motioned ingram closer, then gestured out over the edge of the mesa in the direction of queen satsu's tomb.

"he will be reunited with his wife and rule once more."

land of the reeds.

to be reunited with his queen and rule once more.

it reminds ingram of sithis and the void ... though briefly. a soft of featherlight touch of it that he is quick to sever.

the dreadfather was dead, returned to the void that had birthed him.

the land of reeds ... is the afterlife? ingram inquires, though he is quick to assume as much.

"it is," senmut said softly, pleased by the swiftness of this pupil that makono had granted him.

"what do you know of the afterlife, ingram?" he asked after a careful moment.

it is.

the following question is easy ... and yet not easy at all for ingram to answer. they have had few ideas of afterlife in their life.

both contradicting from the one that akashingo believed.

my prior god before osiris found me, ingram begins, salmon pink tongue drawing across their lips. was lord of the void. the druids' afterlife. that there is nothing but the void. it is a dark abyss filled with the endless screaming of the dead.

horrible and consuming.

"so you have served death and darkness before." it was appropriate then that ingram had come back to it.

"do you still hear this screaming?"

it was only natural that ingram would gravitate to Osiris when the deathlord found him.

befitting, even still of the war reaper, as his mother called him when he'd came into the world.

do you still hear this screaming?

a close of ingram's eyes for the briefest of moments.

only in the ghosts of my memories, he speaks. those horrible sounds may be scratched into my mind forever.

but since pledging himself to Osiris he has known only peace.

senmut's face performed something akin to softening.

"a priest need not be tormented. we will ask for guidance. i will see that you are cleansed. and then a name for you, in the vein of akashingo and chosen beneath an auspicious star."

he paused, allowing ingram to think upon these things.

the man speaks that he need not be tormented.

to ingram, it is a kind thing to say but he is not so sure that any cleansing would erase the lingering remains of sithis within him; tar-like in it's resilience.

but he says, thank you. all the same.

maybe it would help.

fading! <3

they would work for some time, senmut teaching to his pupil the prayers of the dead, rearranging the pharaoh's drying body with gentle, reverent touches, and cutting armfuls of new rushes from beside the river, to place beneath the mummification platform.

all done in service to Osiris.