I lounged peacefully until Geb finally spoke.
“I must ask.”
“Yes, my lord?” I looked to him, an arm’s length from me. There was a base, a rock, something that I sat upon, but I wondered if it had been conjured just for me, for Geb’s tail would need the pool to be bottomless to fit it all.
“Howdid you refuse?” he asked. “You are not the first to go through similar trials, different though the others’ goals may have been. None has ever surpassed me.”
I was not surprised, but that also made me wonder if other companions of his were off in other caverns. “I suppose as mortals we often seek a different version of ourselves than what the gods originally granted us. For many, I understand why. But in my case, had I given in to your temptation, it would have been for vanity alone. I am not immune to its call, but it helps to have another who sees you as perfect just as you are. I did not fail here, and I will not fail with any who come after you.”
Geb nodded, smiling cryptically as he said, “We shall see.” Then he laughed, and it seemed the very core of the earth trembled in its wake.
Ominous though that sounded, I let myself relax for as long as this reprieve would be granted to me. I knew Geb understood my loss. In the creation myths, he and his twin sister Nut had been forced apart, Nut to make the sky and Geb the earth, leaving room between them for life to flourish. Geb's tears over their separation formed the earth's bodies of water, including hot springs.
Sad as that story was, I was glad to have discovered the tales of his jovialness were also true, for it was said his laughter was so boisterous, it could cause the earth to quake.
I closed my eyes as I sank just low enough in the water for my chin to barely keep above its surface. I might have even dozed off, if but for a moment, because the next thing I felt was a lick at my hand.
I looked, catching the brief sight of a white cat trotting out of view behind a nearby rock.
Time to go, eh, Pasht?
But where? There was no archway this time.
“Do you think you are ready for what comes next?” Geb asked.
Time to go it was. “Yes,” I said, “I am.”
“Then hold tight, Nakht, for now, you leave the primordial to headup.”
Up, I thought? But before I could voice the question, the base I sat upon propelled me upward as if loosed from a slingshot toward the cavern’s ceiling.
I covered my head with my arms, but no collision came. When I dared peek past them, the rocks above me had parted to make way. I wasn’t airborne, but moving upon something solid. I had not been propelled after all. Geb had commanded the earth beneath me to move.
As I shot higher and higher toward what I could only imagine would be the open sky, I soon found myself blinded again, as though once more I had stepped through an archway toward my next trial.
The following chapter contains:
Mask/Identity Kink, Face Riding, 69, Heat & Cold Play, and Intersex Rep.
Chapter four
The Shifter
MERYT
Ireadied to hurl the pair of snakes I had caught into the nearby palace gardens, but something stilled my hand. They werea breed more nuisance than threat and could be helpful when they hunted rodents, but we had plenty of palace cats for that. It wasn’t that I had been bitten, and these weren’t particularly adept at constricting, but as they hissed and squirmed in my hand, the pair inadvertently curled their tails around each other, reminding me of... something, but what?
Something large and thick and coiled like two snakes, with fleshy barbs all up and down it…
“Ah!”
I whipped around to look back toward the palace entrance.
Nakht…
I tossed the pair of snakes as planned, and as they slithered off in search of rats among the foliage, I darted back inside. This was a side room of the dancer’s area, a place where we prepared ourselves, painting our faces, adorning our hair, and changing for performances. Mother was training Nakht and I to take over someday as the heads of the troupe, the keepers of our fellows, and so we had been tasked with cleaning and preparing the room for the next night.
It was early morning and still a bit chilly from the desert cold, and so an open hearth in the center of the room had been burning. It was out now, billowing acrid smoke, while Nakht sat on the floor beside it, hissing like the snakes I’d discarded as he favored his left inner thigh.
