It had been quite some time since she had recovered from her disease with the help of the Infernian she stayed close to know, this healing man who seemed to know so much but felt nothing. The days bled together with bright colors and distinct smells and even though she knew now that she was still alive, this Inferni was still her strange underworld, but one that she did not fear as she might have in the days before. There was no Anubis, no towering Osiris, no dark Queen Isis...but there was Enkiel and Ezekiel and Talitha, creatures she saw in similar lights but on mortal planes. Without death, she served beneath them as a confidant and nursemaid and companion. As a subserviant member of what appeared to be a bloody, genetically entwined clan of creatures she was unfamiliar with.
Spending time with Enkiel allowed her to forget that she was in an unfamiliar world -- he spoke her tongue, and it offered a sense of home. Of Egypt, a place she knew was not hers by birth but one she loved as any loved the place they grew up. Inferni wasn't Egypt, it wasn't Cairo, it was littered with those from other places. Wolves, dogs, hybrid blood and creatures like Gabriel who were large and unfamiliar and completely male. She suffocated under the ingrained gender roles, jealous of Talitha's brash and abrasive nature and ability to force herself to the top of the ladder. Enkiel gave her some reprieve from her feelings of despair. He didn't ask things of her as others did.
She returned and dropped the bundle that consisted of her kaftan and the plant life, crouching and listening as he spoke and not recognizing his eyes on her. Green eyes shifted upwards to look at his face while he spoke of his own home -- Alexandria, not Cairo, a place she knew only by brief and undisclosed word of mouth. Her mind started to work, searching for the best way to speak of the large city as he moved on to the plants, lifting them up in turn and explaining their names, even including a bush she had ignored. In English, horribly accented with touches of Egyptian and Maghrebi Arabic, she murmured the names of the plants beneath her breath: mint, dandy-lion, hawsorrn. She gathered up the plants and followed as he approached it, staying a few steps behind so as not to crowd him while he taught.
Dying was not a skill she had ever learned extensively, but she was open to more knowledge, and when he offered to gather more for that purpose, she eagerly nodded her head. يمكن أن نكون? It felt right to ask even though she knew they would. Delicate hands reached out to ever so carefully look at the plant. انه من العار الذي لم تتح لهم ابدا الفرصة لرؤية القاهرة، بل هي جميلة. مكان جميل جدا. الكثير من الحياة هناك. Life she hadn't been able to experience herself before making her way to Greece and then crashing on the shores shortly before finding Inferni and her golden Saviour.
Focused fully on the berries of the plant, she shifted her weight and readied herself to speak of something she had been ignoring, familiar memories evoked by the presence of the healer jackal. لقد رأيت وجهك من قبل. Not his exactly, but the face of the bird-god, the Sun, was familiar in several ways.
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