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Gods, deities, divine beings, whatever you cared to call such entities, tended to have a different perspective on the concept of time compared to how mortals understood it. Part of it was that, unlike purely biological forms of life, they did not come into existence with a proverbial "best by" date stamped on their bodies and a destiny to slowly grow weaker and sicker if they survived past said date. Another reason was that gods tended to interact with time differently than mortals, who were always utterly at its mercy.
The exact nature of the interaction often varied from one divine being to another; such powers were typically designed to reflect whatever aspects of the mortal world the god had been created to embody. Athena, the Greek Goddess of wisdom and warfare (not to mention a great many other things), could freeze time in the midst of battle, allowing her to more freely observe the weaknesses of her enemies and concoct plans to best take advantage of their vulnerabilities. Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of cats and pleasure (not to mention a great many other things), meanwhile, could freeze time whenever she wanted to take a catnap.
It might not sound especially impressive, but in Bastet's opinion even immortal beings really weren't at their best when they were forced to remain active for days, weeks, months, years, even decades on end without paying their respects to… well the Egyptian pantheon didn't have an official god of sleep, at least not to the extent that the Greeks had Hypnos; which was was why Bastet preferred to just reference him.
Thanks to the actions of a certain son of either Philip II of Macedon or Zeus (given the latter's near peerless promiscuity, it would be foolish to completely rule out the possibility), Bastet's original worshipers had once been brought under the influence of the followers of the Olympian pantheon. One of the results of this particular event was the creation of "Ailuros," a cat goddess whom followers of the Hellenistic faith worshiped whenever they felt the need.
Sometimes when deities crossed over into new pantheons, this could cause their existence to split, creating a new divine being that had at least some distinct differences from its "parent". Ailuros was not one of those cases, the Greeks of the time, prone to seeing another religion's gods as simply an extension of their own, had (once they'd given up on trying to combine Bastet with Artemis (Bastet would never expect one of her followers to swear themselves to chastity in her name, why deny oneself a chance for pleasure?)) created Ailuros as a pantheonically displaced version of Bastet; effectively just a reflection of the original deity, much like the Roman's own creations based on Zeus and his fellow Greek gods (Bastet always got a laugh out of how they hadn't even bothered to rename Apollo!).
All of which added up to saying that despite being an unquestionably Egyptian goddess in origin, Bastet was free to meander over to the Greek pantheon whenever she pleased in a way that the other Gods who had originated in Egypt were not. It was normally just a minor quirk of how mortal affairs had played out over two thousand years ago, but recently she'd been "meandering" far more than usual. Which was all to the good in the grand scheme of things, Bastet was a goddess of cats, being chaotic came with the retractable claws.
"Music?" Requested Bastet as she arose from her slumber and once more waded into the ever-flowing river of time.
As music fell into the "great many other things" Bastet was considered divinely responsible for, no sooner had she requested it than it was granted.
"It's tough to be a god
But if you get the people's nod
Count your blessings
(Yeah!)
Keep 'em sweet
That's our advice
(It's great advice!)
Be a symbol of perfection
Be a legend, be occult
Take their praise, take the collection
As the multitudes exalt
Don a supernatural habit
We'd be crazy not to grab it! (You got it!)
So sign up two new gods for paradise,
Pair-a-dise!" A pair of male voices crooned as Bastet swayed her entire body (tail included, of course) along with the song's beat.
"All right, now that I've had my fourteenth nap of the day, I should be able to make it to tomorrow without needing another one…" Bastet chuckled with unrestrained glee in her green or gold (they changed color every so often) eyes.
"So who do I still need to check in on today?" She added, looking around the vast expanse of emptiness in shades of red, orange, and yellow, which suggested the general idea of a desert as painted by a child.
A piece of papyrus materialized in her left hand, while a piece of shining quartz came into existence in her right. Bastet held the piece of quartz up to her matching eye and used it to examine the papyrus, not because a goddess of cats could ever possibly have anything other than "purrfect" vision, but because it was a good bit.
In a small town that barely fell on the American side of the nation's border with Canada, she had a Siamese cat whom she'd blessed with supernatural instincts for solving crimes.
After that, there was a contemptible couple in Maine who insisted on killing cats for fun. She was going to see to it that they got ambushed by every housecat who lived within a mile of their home and were left covered with a plethora of scratch marks. If that didn't teach them to mend their wicked ways, the second lesson she gave them on the subject would preclude any possible need for a third.
Still further down the list, there was a poor girl who'd wound up catatonic (pun very much not intended) in an asylum after being the sole survivor of a fire that consumed her family's home. Bastet was going to send the waif a feline spirit to help guide her back to sanity.
There was also an artist whose resurrection Bastet had recently overseen. It was only fair, as the poor woman had been murdered for having the audacity to accidentally overhear her employers discussing their new line of cosmetic products' horrific side effects. Said artist was currently trying to avoid having the police officer she held romantic feelings for discover her secret identity (Bastet was a big fan of the "two cakes" philosophy).
The item at the bottom of the list bucked the trend of being a proper description of the task to be performed (once again, chaos and Bastet went together like cats and cardboard boxes) and instead was simply a pair of letters.
"FK".
Favorite Kitten.
Barbara Ann Minerva, a woman who had unknowingly renamed herself in veneration of her own greatest divine opponent (or at least her Roman version), the Owl of Olympus.
Such was the lamentable fate of a mortal woman whose failures and follies meant that she would never measure up in the eyes of a goddess who, in Bastet's opinion, had grown so in love with the act of measuring that she'd forgotten why she bothered to do so in the first place. Bastet preferred to view mortals by a more lenient standard, and there was nothing she enjoyed more than a good redemption arc.
After spending some time sorting out those other matters, the feline goddess allowed her attention to drift in Barbara's direction to see how she was doing.
Extremely well turned out to be the answer.
The archeologist was currently in "the throes of the passion", and judging by the sounds her beloved Amazon Princess joined her in producing, Bastet's Favorite Kitten had good company.
The feline goddess averted her senses from that particular matter and used one of her impossibly sharp claws to draw a line through the relevant section of the piece of papyrus, signifying the task had been completed. Indeed, every task had been scratched out at this point, which ironically meant that the feline goddess had one final task left to perform...
"Ready to go, Kitten?" Inquired a powerful masculine voice that had perhaps just the faintest hint of a falcon's chirp underlying it.
Such was the voice of Ra, unquestioned divine ruler of the Egyptian Pantheon, he who carried the sun itself across the heavens, and ensured that it would rise again each morning. Should the unthinkable happen and he perish, then the mortals of Earth would be cursed to never know another sunrise; they would instead experience only the pale facsimile of a mere ball of glowing gas illuminating their world (and only a mortal could fail to grasp the difference between those two events).
"Almost, Dad, just give me a moment to select my own companion forrr the night…" Bastet eagerly responded to her father's request.
Then she sighed heavily, not because this was the part of her days that came the closest to being genuine work, but because she always hated having to make this particular choice; it felt unfair to have so many qualified candidates and yet only select one.
Bastet closed her eyes and waved her hands; when she opened them, the endless "sand" of her realm was now home to endless cats. Some resembled white wispy ghosts while others more closely clung to the forms they had borne in mortal life; all of them were the spirits of her subjects who had expended all nine of their lives, and now there was but one final service she could request of them.
Every night, as her father descended into the darkness of the underworld, Bastet would journey at his side to face down the evils that dwelt among the dead, the greatest of them Apep, the Serpent of Rebirth, the gluttonous snake who would doubtlessly devour the entire sun if given a chance.
This was the task given to Bastet. Not to her older sister Sekhmet, "One Before Whom Evil Trembles," nor her eldest sister Mafdet, "Piercer of Darkness". No, this sacred duty fell upon the shoulders of "She of the Ointment Jar" instead. Bastet had performed it every night for multiple millennia… and the sun continued to rise.
Such was the case because every night, she would take into herself the spirit of one of her fallen subjects, augmenting the feline goddess with all the strength, skill, and hunting prowess the fallen cat had shown in the entirety of their mortal life. Then, once Apep lay dead at her feet (though, of course, as his title implied, death never claimed him for long), she would release the spirit into the underworld so that it could move on to even grander things.
Bastet looked out upon the largest clowder of cats to ever exist and got down on her knees to make her selection.
"Your name?" She requested from one cat who, for some unknown reason, felt especially important.
"I am called Mirri Cat Warrior." Declared the spirit, who still bore the reflections of her mortal form.
She had a coat of long brown fur, broken up by black stripes and splotches, along with white "socks" on each paw. There was also a large "explosion" of white fur located just below her neck, rising to encompass her lower chin, and spreading down across her belly. Her green eyes were fierce and keen. She had long whiskers and another set of equally impressive "eyebrow whiskers" to help keep her fully abreast of her surroundings.
"Excellent," Bastet responded to the fallen feline's words as she placed a hand upon Mirri Cat Warrior's head and absorbed her spirit in preparation for the trials ahead.
That task completed, Bastet joined her father in his Solar Barque as it prepared to punch straight through the horizon and into the underworld.
"So, how has your day been?" Ra asked with complete nonchalance regarding their supernatural surroundings; they were both gods after all.
"Oh, it's been good. Got to take lots of naps, help make lots of people happy. What about yourrrs?" Bastet inquired in turn.
"Satisfactory. How fares your favorite mortal?" Just because he was the nigh-unquestioned ruler of the Egyptian Pantheon didn't mean that Ra couldn't find a little time to be aware of her daughter's interests.
"Well, between naps eight and nine, she stole herrr beloved golden lasso. Not actually frrrom herrr beloved of courrrse, but frrrom an evil alien queen who had taken it. Then she used it to fail at hijacking a truck full of diamonds so that she'd have an excuse to lose it back to herrr beloved." Bastet recounted the tale with considerable delight.
"She violates laws of her realm with disquieting frequency." Ra reflected with an unmatched divine example of "more in sorrow than in anger" parental disapproval.
"She spent everrry day before we met forrrced to wearrr a leash. I rrremoved it, and so now she's finally frrree to trrruly explorrre herrr own life. Exterrrnally imposed confinement inevitably crrreates a desirrre to flee. Successful flight begets wisdom of how cold and empty the worrrld is when you've chosen to live a solitarrry existence. Knowledge of what lies beyond the doorrr brrrings a returrrn to the warrrmth and love of a genuine home. Species-wide 'domestication' of Felis catus is a lie that humans tell themselves because it flatterrrs theirrr egos more than the trrruth of how ultimately everrry cat makes theirrr own choice on the matterrr." Bastet tried to explain.
The feline goddess knew that she was (to use a particularly flavorful human expression) "ice skating uphill" on this particular matter; not only was her father not a cat, but he was a pharaoh. He didn't just have a divine portfolio to oversee; he had an entire pantheon that he was expected to rule.
"Kitten, I do not understand the life you lead, nor do I understand some of the causes you choose to champion… but never imagine those are the same thing as me not loving you." Ra insisted as he placed a gentle hand upon his daughter's shoulder.
"That rrreally means a lot to me, Dad!" Bastet made sure to voice those words with "maximum purr".
When the conversation inevitably died down, Bastet began to survey her surroundings more closely. The underworld was, of course, a dreary and boring place, so Bastet helped "liven it up" and bring a smile to her father's face with some more of her music, though they both knew that such diversions were profoundly unimportant compared to her true role.
Just as every night before, there came a time when a titanic serpent with black scales along the top of its body and white ones along its belly lunged towards the Solar Barque. Thus did Apep reveal himself in all his massive monstrosity, a beast so large that even Bastet and Ra seemed minuscule in comparison.
This was the being whom the ancient Egyptians had rightly feared as the embodiment of darkness, chaos, and all that was wrong with the world.
Matched against this colossal cobra was Bastet. The feline goddess who was so chaotic that she aligned herself against her pantheon's incarnation of chaos. It was a fact she drew considerable pride from; after all, if you simply behaved randomly all the time, wasn't that just another form of being predictable?
In addition to his supreme size and strength, Apep wielded yet one more wicked weapon: his eyes could hypnotize any divine being who dared to look upon them, rendering them still as a statue. Thus, within an instant of the snake's arrival, Ra, the most powerful member of the Egyptian pantheon, was rendered utterly helpless.
"I come to feassst," Apep announced as he opened a mouth wide enough to swallow the sun in a single gulp.
"You come to die." Answered Bastet as she stood up to her full height, ready to defend her father.
Apep's eyes could defeat any deity who dared to look into them… but Bastet did not match the serpent's gaze with her own eyes. Rather than a pair of eyes that shifted between gold and green at random, Bastet beheld Apep with the solid green eyes of Mirri Cat Warrior.
"I will bury my fangsss into your flesssh thisss time, Moussse Chassser!" Hissed Apep.
"You have failed beforrre Enemy of Rrra and you will fail again, for I am Bastet and I guarrrd the light of day," She vowed in response.
"Your victoriesss are an illusssion; no matter how thoroughly you ssslay me, you merely peel back another layer of dead ssskin, and once it is fully ssshed, I will be reborn." Taunted Apep.
"All I have to do is win this fight. Whateverrr happens tomorrrrow is a prrroblem for 'Futurrre Bastet'". The feline goddess insisted with a mocking look of her own.
"Childisssh." Scoffed Apep.
"Meeeew." Was Bastet's only reply.
Apep struck.
He lunged forward, his massive body moving far faster than one would have ever expected such a huge creature to be capable of.
Bastet was still faster.
Apep's mighty fangs closed on empty air as the feline goddess (having leaped upwards) landed on his back and buried her claws deep in the serpent's scales. Bastet's weapons were not merely impossibly sharp, but also struck with the strength of the sun, cooking her foe's flesh wherever they pierced his hide.
Against any enemy of a similar size to herself, one swipe from Bastet's claws could have ended their life, but Apep was too large to be disposed of so easily.
The gigantic serpent twisted and turned, trying to smush Bastet's body to paste with his crushing coils.
He tried in vain.
Bastet ran, Bastet leaped, Bastet climbed, and most of all, Bastet clawed. It did not matter if she did so with the ones that extended from her hands or from her feet; her razor-sharp, glowing claws continued to carve their way across Apep's body, leaving behind wounds that glowed with golden light. For all that the serpent wished to consume the sun, his body could not abide the power that infused Bastet's claws; that holy fire was to him a toxin worse than any his cursed fangs could produce
If Apep wanted, he could focus his attention on the still hypnotized Ra instead and devour the unresisting falcon; to the world of mortals, it would seem that an unexpected solar eclipse had suddenly occurred. Then, because Apep would be distracted by that process, Bastet would rip the serpent to shreds, freeing her father from the snake's stomach, and the eclipse would pass, allowing the sun to shine once more. The two had faced each other in battle too many times for any new grand strategies to exist.
If Apep had been wiser, he might have sought allies to aid him in battle against Bastet… but if Apep had been wiser, he wouldn't have continued to challenge the feline goddess after suffering so many defeats at her paws.
So instead, the pair simply enacted the same battle over and over again, Bastet's glowing claws against Apep's flashing fangs.
The average snake's reaction time is between 44 and 70 milliseconds; the average cat's between 20 and 70 milliseconds. The difference in speed between Bastet and Apep was roughly the same, adjusted for the divine powers that both held. Every time Apep struck, Bastet was always one step ahead of him, always just a little out of his reach, and with every failed strike, the serpent opened himself up to a counterattack.
As more and more glowing wounds began to accumulate upon his body, the snake grew slower still, and both combatants knew all too well that his end could not be long delayed.
Apep threw all his remaining strength and speed into another vicious lunge, only to wind up slamming face-first into a stone wall as Bastet rolled out of the way.
"I will kill you tomorrow." Groaned the self-proclaimed "Lord of Chaos".
"I will kill you tonight." Bastet riposted before severing Apep's spinal cord.
He didn't die immediately after that, but anything worthy of being called a "fight" was unquestionably ended.
While Bastet would normally be only too happy to dine upon the freshly spilled blood of her fallen foes (Sekhmet and her didn't always agree, but they also didn't always disagree) the foul fluid that animated Apep was so vile that even a tiny taste was more than enough to make her stomach turn; luckily, the heat of her solar claws was able to instantly evaporate most of the stuff.
"What… just happened?" Ra groaned, as only with the serpent's death did he finally regain his wits.
He wasn't so thoroughly befuddled that he couldn't quickly realize what had taken place based on the gigantic freshly slain snake, the blood splattering Bastet's fur, and the nigh-on countless number of times they'd taken part in some variation of these events.
"You have saved me again, Kitten!" Ra declared, holding his arms wide.
Bastet wasted no time leaning in and accepting her father's embrace; a moment after his arms enfolded her, his wings did the same.
XXX XXX XXX
An hour or so later, the Solar Barque had finished its journey, and Bastet had been able to return to her home. It was now officially a new day, roughly 1:01 AM "divine standard time," which meant one thing...
Bastet might as well go grab her very first catnap of the day to start preparing herself for whatever came next!
The End.
AN: The music that Bastet listens to is from a song that also serves as the title of this fic, "It's Tough to Be a God" from the DreamWorks movie "The Road to El Dorado". Bastet's choosing the closing section of that song for her wake-up music is extremely ironic because it's a song about two completely mortal scoundrels who have managed to finagle their way into being worshiped as gods by the eponymous city's residents. Bastet is using it as her way of having a laugh at herself and her fellow deities by implying that there's no great difference between how genuine gods act and mortals who are trying to fake their way through the process by the seat of their pants.
Some Google searches talk about how the Ancient Egyptians didn't have glasses that people would wear but did use polished pieces of quartz for similar effects. Bastet is thus doing an ancient Egyptian version of the visual gag where a person puts on glasses to read something long and boring.
The "small town that barely fell on the American side of the nation's border with Canada..." Is a description of Pickax City from Lilian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who" novels, which I enjoyed reading as I grew up, and the Siamese cat in question is Kao K'o Kung/Koko.
The couple who kill cats for fun getting punished by a swarm of cats is a reference to The Cats of Ulthar by H. P. Lovecraft (the couple's fate is much worse in the original story).
The "poor girl in an asylum" is a reference to Alice Liddell from "American McGee's Alice," a series based on a more violent and nightmarish take on Alice in Wonderland.
The artist who Bastet resurrected is, of course, Patience Philips, the protagonist of 2004's Catwoman, who canonically gets superpowers from Bast/Bastet.
The "two cakes philosophy" that Bastet talks about is a reference to this… https://fanlore.org/wiki/Two_Cakes_Rule. It's basically a quick and concise way of saying that Bastet knows what she likes and she'd rather have multiple iterations on those particular themes (in this case, women with superpowers struggling to maintain a relationship with someone who wants to arrest their feline alter-ego) than explore things she doesn't like.
The description of what Ra's death would theoretically do is a reference to "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett. That said, I also think it serves double duty as a reference to Wonder Woman's "Loveless" arc (Volume 5, issues 77-81, huh I reference that arc A LOT for how little I enjoyed it) where Barbara's killing Aphrodite caused everyone who would otherwise be inspired by love (including Diana) to suddenly find themselves utterly bereft of that particular source of motivation. Likewise, if Ra died, every person who ever looked up and was inspired by the sun, or felt any form of positive motivation from the act of witnessing a sunrise… would now feel nothing instead. The results wouldn't be as apocalyptic as Earth being engulfed in eternal night, but it would unquestionably make the world a worse place.
"Mirri Cat Warrior" is a reference to the Magic: The Gathering character/card of the same name.
The evil alien queen who stole Diana's lasso is a reference to Eviless (a character created in the early '40s can you tell?) who did indeed steal Diana's lasso in Wonder Woman Volume 1 issue 28.
The exact nature of how Apep's hypnotic gaze works is a little unclear (from what I could tell based on Google searches), so I came up with a mythological explanation that is as "logical" as anything else in mythology. If you want another reading of it, birds (and Ra is a falcon) can freeze up when they catch sight of snakes, while cats rarely exhibit the same behavior.