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The air seemed to be vibrating around her and the heat was suffocating and heavy from the particles from the desert and sand. So much sand. The great sea of the Sahara wasn’t overly forgiving today - it was like the desert’s only goal was to fry every living creature alive, animal, child, adult or Egyptologist included.
Not like the area buzzed with life anyway - everyone found shelter from the killer sun rays hours ago, only she was crazy enough to put some extra work in at the dig site. And it wasn’t even an important excavation she was at. But an archaeologist cannot be picky, if there is an opportunity to get out of the library and given a chance to be in the field and not read about your expertise area, but work in it, she had to grab it.
Not like she was a greenie - at the beginning of her thirties, her university years were already behind her, with her big dreams included.
Every young archaeologist dreams of making big discoveries, finding a new, so far unseen part of history or solving hundreds of years old questions. Be the next Indiana Jones or Lara Croft in line. And when they realize their future professional life is far less exciting it is already way too late; they are already enrolled, tackling their first semester or even first year and sitting in neck-deep debt. Half of her class switched courses in the first year and some of the remaining students gave up later; even if they loved their course, they weren’t sure if they could pay their bills when they constantly ran after fundraising.
So yes, maybe she was in the desert next to Cairo and farther away from comfort, participating in an additional excavation of the temple of Ra right in the middle of the desert in the 30 Celsius degrees, but she would be lying if she didn’t enjoy it. September was a shitty month anyway, here at least she still got some sunshine.
Besides, she didn’t do this for herself. The temple was already discovered and documented; this was a rather small extra work, but she didn’t expect to find anything big here anymore. But every tiny additional information was valuable - or rather information she could prove and did not come from a… scientifically unreliable source.
The heat started to be unbearable making her brain foggy and slowing her down. She took a glance at the sky above her: nope, not a single cloud, everything was annoyingly crystal clear and bright blue. Sun temples had the bad habit of not having a roof - not like that mattered in this case, because this temple barely left any standing walls even - and the team had to set up a small tent to protect themselves from a very possible heat stroke. She was losing her focus rapidly, but it was time for a break anyway and a great opportunity to drink some water: dehydration was a danger she had to count with. Gently putting her brush aside, neatly back to its place and finally moving from her kneeling position made her realize how stiff her body became in the last hour and how sore she was: her joints cracked and her muscles were tense, especially in her back and neck. Grunted but managed to get to her feet and tried to get rid of the dust and sand that stuck to her, but she had no luck: sweat ran down on her skin under the layers of her clothes, making her sticky at every possible inch of her body and it glued the sand to her even at places she couldn't imagine it is possible. It was smarter to give up her wishes of being cleaner by dusting herself off - won’t happen, not without proper showering.
And all this because of him.
Stepping out of the excavation area she worked in, reached for the water bottle that was nested safely in the shadow of the temporary roof above her and drank with big gulps. The water was lukewarm, but it still did its job, so who was she to complain? It could be worse: she could pick South American history as her major back at school and then she wouldn't deal with the dry heat, but the humid version of it, snakes and scorpions still included. It was tempting, especially with the recent LiDAR discoveries, but no, thank you, rather enjoy this kind of short-lived refreshment, if you can call it that while your skin is still itching from the sand.
“I fucking hate sand.” mumbled to herself, voice full of annoyance as she couldn't stop herself from rubbing her forearms together, making the sand irritate her skin even more.
“Because it's coarse and rough and irritating — and it gets everywhere?”
The voice behind her was deep and masculine, even threatening to some, but it didn’t startle her. Honestly, she was expecting him to come around, she just wasn’t sure when this moment would come, when he would manifest out of thin air using one of his grand entries - and apparently today he picked one of the most awkward movie lines ever.
Carefully closing her bottle, protecting her precious remaining water and dropping it back onto her bag, she turned toward the newcomer.
“I am banning you from Star Wars.”
The figure, heads taller than her and twice as wide, perfectly sculpted in his athletic form didn't make any remark, just looked at her. It was always difficult to read emotions off of his face, not because he was so mystical, but rather because birds of prey weren’t about facial expressions. But the more time she spent with him, the better she became at picking up the small signs of his emotions; right now, judging how those dark bird eyes were shining, she was pretty sure her God was entertained.
He didn’t dwell on the movie restrictions a lot, rather turned to the ruins: some temples were in better conditions, some worse. This one sadly fell into the latter category: not a lot remained from it. Still, it was easy to imagine the structure, the tall walls with nothing on top of them, just the endless sky and the unforgiving Sun shining down on the courtyard. The walls were full of depictions of Ra, Amun, and Nekhbet, in great detail, carefully painted with vivid colors. And of course, you cannot miss the pharaoh from such a place, his frame is as tall as the Gods, a clear sign he is a God himself too, still paying his respect and offering food and beverage to the Gods. An obelisk reaching high into the sky, fully carved with hieroglyphs.
Everything screamed how great the Gods are, how powerful the Pharaoh is and how rich Egypt was. Now nothing else left than some hieroglyphics and stones.
She was sure he saw it all at that moment. All the walls, the paintings, the people who came here to admire him and offer him food and alcohol and mummified falcons. Memories so vivid he could almost touch them - if he would reach out, could he feel the walls warm from the Sun? Smells the hot sand under his feet, mixed with the scent of the sweating bodies?
“This… feels familiar.” He almost did a great job to mask his tone as casual and light as it can be, that fitted more the God and not someone who actually had feelings.
She didn't plan to pinpoint it out though. “Well, this is your temple after all.” She shrugged, picking up the vibes he dropped. “Honestly, I am surprised you even came, this is not Heliopolis.”
Black eyes flashed back at her as she earned his full attention again, his gaze darkened just a bit, showing his disapproval.
“Junu.” Ra corrected her. Right, that. The pride was still there.
It was easy to forget Ra was an Egyptian God and not just any God. But he felt so… casual and inquisitive, like he was seriously interested in mortal life and wanted to know her as well, not just using her as an asset for rEvEnGe and JuStIcE, but…maybe it is silly after all because he was still a deity, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling he and her was a team. He randomly showed up whenever he wanted to and just stuck around. Asked questions and listened to the answers. He was fascinated by modern things, such as technology and movies. Deep down the Main God of all Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, the one who fought Apep every single night was a nerd and it was just as comical as fascinating. Honestly, if anyone would ask her before how she would imagine Ra, she would definitely answer something like “terrifying, proud, powerful, almighty, dangerous, petulant”. She would never guess one day he will be standing in the middle of her living room, trying to figure out the remote of the telly.
And then in the next moment, he proved he is an Egyptian God after all and even if he was one of the more casual ones, pride still wasn’t so far away from him. And that he could be terrifying as well.
“And I am a loving God, I appreciate every temple that was built for me, Sunshine.”
She could hear him smirking when she rolled her eyes at him, again. “I really wish you would quit calling me that.”
“I am the God of the Sun” - this earned the “ No need to remind me you git, jeez.” look - “and you are my Avatar. Therefore, technically speaking you are my Sunshine, a ray of the golden Sun who strikes down my enemies!”
And here he is, all theatrical again, with striking down and enemies and epic battles and magic and “I am a God, KNEEL!” Sometimes she asked the silent question: wasn't he related to Loki accidentally?
“Yeah-yeah, vengeance and justice and balance and everything.” She waved him off “I still have a name, you know, the one I got when I was born.”
But, unlike Loki, Ra actually appreciated some bantering. It was hard to tell sometimes with those falcon eyes staring back at her, not saying anything. In the beginning, it was nerve-wracking, but it can be gotten used to eventually: “soul staring” as she labelled it in her mind was his thing. Was it a trick to intimidate mortals, another God cliché or just Ra himself, that was still a mystery to solve. She assumed it was all three at once.
“I know Annie.” He mumbled his answer, moving away from the topic and turning his attention back to the stones once again. This was a bit unusual: his avatar kinda expected he will be dramatically gone in the next moment, hurrying somewhere, because he had places to be, Deity things to attend to, but he was still there, still staring at the ruins like it was the most fascinating thing he ever saw in his long life. Maybe it was the human in her to think of him this way, but it must be difficult to face things that were built thousands of years ago in an age that no one remembers anymore, only him and the rest of his extended family.
He almost seemed regretful. Longing. Sad.
It was rare to see him anything, but full of life - in battles he was all in, he knew how to deal with that, it was his element. In everyday life he was kind of fascinated like a child discovering the world around him, learning, and asking questions. He was a very vivid Deity and a very weird one, Anne wasn't entirely sure the others treated their avatars like Ra treated her. She didn't really have the chance to get to know many of them and not that deeply - they occasionally run into other Avatars, when they were working on "saving the world" (his words, not hers), but these were short meetings and quite rare. Gods preferred to work alone. And Ra preferred to keep his distance from most of them, this was his default setting when it came to the other Gods - he just tend to skip business meetings if they ever happened. No happy catch-up with friends or quick visits.
Deities did change over time - as the Kingdom went through different periods, the religion followed as well and the Gods with it. In the early era, the Gods were cruel and scary, they didn’t care about mortals. Later they became more complex, more layered, they cared more, and they protected humans. Ironically Khonshu was a great example of that, how cruel he was in the early ages and later he became the one who was really concerned about humans and protected them. Or used to do that.
Ra shared several stories about the glorious ages with her and that was everything Anne could dream about. After all, she was an Egyptologist and being tied to the main God of the whole Egyptian religion and hearing how life was in one of the greatest empires in human history was worth everything - even the fact she couldn’t publish anything of it, because of the lack of actual proof (and if she would add her source is Ra himself, she would definitely end up in an asylum.)
But there were things Ra avoided talking about, such as the Aton-era, the Ennead and what happened to Khonshu. He was important to him, they shared the sky after all. Family sticks together. He clearly was uncomfortable when they brushed these topics and Anne didn’t want to push him - it wasn’t her business and if it didn’t interfere with their missions, then why cause tension between them, so questions like what happened between the two Gods or why he is not among the Nines and rather went rogue have been buried deep.
The look on his face was familiar, she saw this kind of pain in those sharp black eyes before, not too often, but more than once. He loved this place. Maybe it wasn’t Junu, wasn’t the center of his cult and maybe this wasn’t a glorious temple or his biggest one, full of gold, incense, a sacred bull, food and wine. But it still was close to his heart and he is still here and the temple is gone, the people are long dead and his home is still being lost in the past.
-
“Isn’t it too painful?” she asked him once, some excavation seasons ago after a long day of working on exploring a tomb of a superior of the city - it wasn’t a huge tomb, but it was untouched and well preserved, fascinating on its own accord and all the information she could learn was so exciting, Anne couldn’t wait for the new day to begin. But at that moment she took her time to admire the angry deep orange sun setting above the desert and it was difficult to not feel like how she is part of him now and how they are watching as their realm is giving its place away to the night and the God of the Moon.
Every evening they die and with every morning they are reborn.
“What exactly?” he asked back, steel-coloured feathers reflecting the warm orange light, eyes blinking, his brown skin almost matching the stones behind them.
“Coming back, seeing how everything changed.” she gently gestured with her hand toward the modern city in the distance they could see from the cliff. Behind them was everything he knew and that is nothing more than ruins and history. What is ahead of them is still Egypt, but not the same, something unfamiliar, almost alien for him. He was nothing more than a fragment of a long-lost era, he was a God, but no one believed in him anymore, no one respected or adored him anymore, no one prayed and no one made offerings. He was the past, living in the modern era.
Ra didn’t answer instantly, looked at the city, watching as the electric lights came alive, outshining the stars in the sky.
“No.” he answered at the end “Maybe it is not the same as it once was, but it is still my home. And I will always belong to the place where my home is.”