beneaththevalley

[beneaththevalley]

What colour are you?

PURPLE

you have been used. you carry the world under your tongue, which is the safest it can be with you, and you glare at those who try to take it from you. what else are you good for, you wonder, if not being used- better than being ignored. you don't need them to tell you your own name. fight back.

tagged by: @perikallis

tagging: @cigarettes-in-rain @frestoniia @stratocumuulus

[beneaththevalley]

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐥 𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞?

COFFEE

Key Words: intelligent, old soul, complex. you are an extremely thoughtful individual with a creative mind and loving heart. being around you is like sinking into a warm bath. there's something truly wise about the advice you give others, and being in your presence leaves others feeling warm, reassured, and inspired. 

Compatible with: coffee, candle smoke, freshly baked bread.

Tagged by: @frestoniia Tagging: @mightofrome @turkcentric @stratocumuulus @diimsum

[beneaththevalley]

There is nothing quite so touching as old men in love.

[beneaththevalley]

Do you by chance have a rules page or anything like that? It's not often I see a cool Egypt or anything and I'd definitely like to RP with you~

[I do!]

[beneaththevalley]

He regarded her thoughtfully for a long moment, bouncing the knucklebones in his palm.

“A true story, then,” Tutankheru said slowly. “We are neither gods nor mortals, but something...else.”

He let the bones fall, his eyebrows slightly furrowed as if in bemusement.

“It makes me think of a carriage,” he said quietly, moving his piece down the board. “Drawn by fine horses. When the road is smooth, the way is easy.” He overtook her piece and cupped his palm over it for a brief moment. “Then the road twists as it goes downhill; the horses shy from the weight of carrying it until they run to try and escape it. But they’re securely hitched and the last and only result is a carriage out of control led by mad horses. I think eventually one must kill the other, but neither survives.”

“I fear them,” he murmured. “I fear for them. Mortals have a strange might that gods cannot.”

   A short laugh, melodious and as sweet as honey, escaped her then. What a quick-witted child. “Ah, but we are not human, dear one. We are the offspring of the gods, born from our brothers and sisters’ Kas and the Nile’s soil. I was a child not much younger than you when they put a crown on my head.” 

Another chuckle escaped her painted red lips at her swift defeat, but she was quick to retaliate. After rolling again, she hummed and overcame one of his own pawns. Let it never be said that she let him win. One can only learn through hard work and perseverance. 

“All life can be traced back to Atum but, whenever I ask him, he has no answer to give. He can remember nothing existing before Ben-Ben rose out of the chaos. Perhaps such mysteries are hidden even from the gods for a reason…

Life for the sake of it. That certainly sounds apt.” 

Sekhet’s features softened thoughtfully and her dark eyes misted over with remembrance. She was silent for a few moments before slowly replying, “As for you, you were only a few seasons older than a babe when I found you on the banks of the Nile. I did not bear you in pain as human women wont, but you are mine nonetheless. The gods answered my prayers by giving you to me and I am eternally grateful.” 

[beneaththevalley]

Fools Rush In

“So hey remember that time you got fucked up and I decided stabbing you a few times with an unsanitised needle would be a good idea?”

@splendidanatolia

“You could have been more careful,” Sadik informed the man, wiping down the long gash on his side. It was difficult to stitch up because of its location–it kept bleeding and making it hard for him to see where he was supposed to be sewing. If he wasn’t careful, he could do more damage, or leave it open to infection, and that could easily be fatal. “You’re usually more careful.” It wasn’t unheard of for him to be injured of course, they all got beat up once in a while, but it still felt odd seeing the usually cool, collected fellow writhing on the pallet while Sadik tried to stitch him up. “Stay awake; talk to me.”

"If all wishes were granted, we’d have no need of the gods,” Gyasi replied. It was muffled by his face turned into the pillow, his hands spasmodically gripping at the rough fabric as he felt the rough, nauseating pull of thread through his flesh.

The summer sun’s rays beat through the tent’s canvas with stifling force, and Gyasi felt both hot and cold in dizzying succession. He grit his teeth against the groan of agony that wanted to erupt as he felt a fresh fall of blood soaking his side. What to call this circumstance--mere circumstance? Proper karmic retribution?

“No good deed unpunished,” he mumbled to no one, and tried to remember where he’d first heard it.

He imagined it first on his mother’s lips, able to picture the shape of her voice and the quiet look of amused reproach as she chided him gently. But no--she had never spoken these words. They were born far after her and her time.

Cool, phantom hands pressed against his face, against the bloodied, sweat-slick valley of his spine, but brought no relief.

“I’m usually more careful,” he echoed, turning his head just enough to watch Sadik’s face as he stitched. There were more muddy images flashing through his head and Gyasi had neither the inclination nor the energy to begin sorting the fiction from the fact.

The battlefield was true. The blood had happened. The spear in his hands had broken and the evidence was there in the splinters left in his palms.

These were all true stories and could not be refuted.

He was normally more careful--probably true, even if it was said by a liar like Sadik. He felt that truth in his marrow.

The fiction came in confused spurts of overwhelming colour and sound and smoke and stench, garish sunlight and the screams of dying horses in the spear trenches.

There had been a man there, one whose face used to be that of a child he had loved, and Gyasi was normally more careful--

“Am I?” he murmured to Sadik, the words slurred with sleep and too-strong narcotics. “I don’t remember.”

[beneaththevalley]

Aspect of Beauty

@ofkemet

He had a small window in his room that was shaped like a keyhole.

He thought that maybe, with the right key, he could unlock the sky and find Nuet waiting. He loved more than anything the rich shade of blue-black just as the sky was beginning to lighten with morning, the color leeching away into bottle green before the startling smudge of indescribable color along the horizon line. Just when he thought he had decided whether or not it was brown or orange or tawny, he blinked and could tell no longer.

That color, he decided, was the embroidered trim on the hem of Nuet’s dancing skirts that she fluttered at him coquettishly before folding them away to don a more sensible dress of scrubbed blue.

And Nuet’s night dances were very beautiful, of course, but he preferred the artistry in the way she would paint his mother wine-dark and velvety with broad strokes of sable before delicately outlining her with soft moonlight brushstrokes of ivory and mother-of-pearl and then wash her with burnt sienna and honey as the sun rose.

And he would sneak into her labyrinth-like rooms at night and sometimes just watch the art in motion, crouched by his mother’s bedside with his chin resting in his hands.

In the hours blessed by Ra, she walked the palace halls with the assurance of those whom are truly blessed with beauty. And he would follow next to her, one hand fisted in the white linen of her skirts, at peace knowing that the name of a god and a mother such as this, he too would be beautiful one day.

But for now, it was night and Nuet had not yet begun her labours to bring Ra forth into the world. Or if she had, he could not see; the sky through his keyhole window was murky with thunderheads and flickers of lightning flashing through their underbellies. Silent, he slipped from his bed and stepped carefully over the nursemaid lightly snoring on her pallet. The door was already partially ajar and he slipped through the crack without a sound.

He padded down the corridor, chafing his arms for warmth and shuddering at the frigid marble tile underfoot. A clap of thunder echoed ominously through the halls and suddenly he was running, throwing open his mother’s door and shutting it behind him breathlessly. With his back braced against the door, he slid to the floor, forehead braced against his knees as he choked around the lump of fear lodged in his throat.

"Mút," he croaked, inching forward on his hands and knees until his fingers caught the edge of her bedding.

"Mút," he whispered more insistently, drawing back the linens just enough to wriggle in beneath them as another roar of thunder screamed through the palace. He clasped his hands over his mouth to stifle the shout that wanted to burst forth, rolling onto his side and burrowing his face against his mother’s bare chest.

"Amút," came the muffled call, the vowels drawn out with the sort of abject misery only a frightened child can muster.

[beneaththevalley]

@ofkemet ((I said I was gonna, Mommy--))

[beneaththevalley]

“I’ll endeavour to die better next time and not disappoint you.”

He stared at Sadik’s proffered hand for a long moment, weighing the pain of staying against the pain his pride would endure. Bleeding to death on a boulder was perhaps more poetic, he decided, but entirely impractical when his body had pointedly chosen to live, regardless of how he felt about the matter.

“Is someone a close acquaintance?”

In the literal sense; hobbling along leaning on Sadik for more than a few paces seemed an invitation for disaster or a nasty blood fever, at the very least.

“Just because you happened to survive is no reason to get cocky,” Sadik informed him, before going over to offer Gyasi his hand. “I’m not even going to address your other accusation.” Although it bore the weight of truth; Sadik’s moods could be largely dependent on how much food or sleep he’d gotten recently. “Suppose we’d better have someone look at that, huh?” He was attempting to appear nonchalant about checking out Gyasi’s wound, but he wanted to know how bad it was. And he didn’t want to ask.

[beneaththevalley]

“Should an infant recall their own birth?” he asked her cleverly, his eyes glinting briefly with mirth before he took the smooth knucklebones in hand and rolled them, overtaking her piece and exchanging their places with a small, private curve to his lips that was not quite a smile. “I think that’s not a true story, Mother.”

“Were they born like you, Mother? The gods, I mean. The priests say they first came from nothing, like beetles, but I think everything must come from something. Even I came from you, did I not?”

He tapped the ankh carved into the senet board with a single finger. “Like this? Life for the sake of it?”

   Slender brown digits gathered the two knucklebones resting on the table. She shook them in her gentle hands before laying them to rest. She moved her piece accordingly. “A true story? I did not realize I could tell you anything but, sa.” 

Sekhet tilted her head as she thought before her intelligent hues fluttered. She had silently made her decision. 

“Have I ever told you the story of my birth and the first time I met the gods?” 

The queen of Kemet doubted he would turn out to be her exact duplicate, and such a prospect was displeasing. He had his own unique talents to offer the throne and, even if mistakes were to be made, she would be proud of him regardless. 

[beneaththevalley]

Endeavour To Die

Epiphany Drabble

@splendidanatolia

Sadik had anticipated an easy victory–they all had. So when it became quickly apparent that the tide was turning against them, he was not only nervous, but taken aback. Still, he tried to direct his troops, refusing to accept defeat. It wasn’t over until the end.

But when he saw Gyasi go down, he had to force down the panic in his throat. If he could just get over there, just break through the press of people, but they refused to get out of his way–

Someone was down on him with a spear now, and before Sadik could call out, the weapon crashed down. Sadik’s attention was so taken up by this that when his horse reared, he was unable to keep his grip, and hit the ground hard. Sword, sword, the fight was still raging around him and even if Gyasi was dead, his men still needed him.

They did win, in the end, but it rang a bit hollow in light of what had happened. Wounds half-bound in torn cloth, Sadik opted to walk through the dead rather than sit and rest–he felt a responsibility to find Gyasi, if only to remember in its entirety the man’s death. But as he walked slowly through the bodies, he heard a voice call out to him.

“Are you looking for me?” He turned to the voice, and saw the man in question seated on a boulder, bandaged heavily, but not at all dead. He gaped for a brief moment–he had been so sure that the spear struck true! But his sight had been obstructed–perhaps he had seen wrong.

“For once you prove me wrong and I don’t mind,” he replied, weight rolling off his shoulders.

“I usually do,” Gyasi intoned dryly. He clenched his jaw against the sudden spike of pain that sparked through him and gripped the spear he’d appropriated from the battlefield more tightly to keep him upright on his ill-chosen seat.

Mostly, he fought for control; the pain would not show on his face and be a dishonour to his training.

“You mind until you do not,” he continued, “and that is sometimes contingent on how full your belly is. Please stop staring and help me up.”

[beneaththevalley]

He regarded her thoughtfully for one brief and silent moment. In many ways (too many ways), he was all her; old eyes in a young and sunblessed face, the dignity and economy of movement that came with skill, the river reed’s ability to bend fluidly and yet be perfectly still.

He had all of her fire but none of her warmth, much of her skill but none of her eloquence.

Finally, with a shy hum of assent, he wrapped his fingers around the piece she held out to him. “Maybe,” he mumbled, “that is the point?”

Tutankheru reset the board once more. His hand paused over the House of Three Truths before setting one of his pieces in the square above it.

“Would you tell me a true story, then?”

Sekhet’s smile was patient and her gaze open and filled with understanding. “Yes, you speak the truth. Mothers are kind, but wouldn’t it be cruel of me to claim that you won when you had not? A lie, my son, even one coated with honey, is never kind. Besides, we have been playing this game for quite some time. I thought you would see your improvement as clearly as I.” 

She bent down to pick up the fallen piece and offered it to Tutankheru. “And you are my child, are you not? If Thoth and Ma’at favor me, I see no reason why they should not favor you.” 

To others, she could be as fierce as a desert cobra or sand tempest, yet with him she was always as warm as sunlight. She did not bear him into this world as the humans would, but he was hers all the same. A blessing to her on the lonely path of eternity as well as the being that would succeed her one fateful day. It was her duty to guide him and teach him all that she had learned for the thousands of years she had roamed Kemet. 

Having confidence in his abilities was a start. 

[beneaththevalley]

“No,” he protested immediately, the gaming piece he’d been toying with tumbling off the board as he straightened. “I just--”

Tutankheru paused abruptly, staring down at his lap with his small, thin fingers knotted together and his brow furrowed. He bit his lip as he folded his legs inward, trapping his elbows in place as he thought. “I am not,” he said haltingly, “blessed by Thoth and Ma’at both, like Mút--”

(A servant, hidden by the shade of a pillar, tittered softly; Tutankheru coloured but pressed on determinedly.)

“So I think you are...being kind. Isn’t that what mothers do?”

“Sa,” Sekhet returned with exasperation as well as bemusement tugging on the corners of her full lips. Oh, what a peculiar child Tutankheru was, yet the mother of Kemet knew that she loved him. Even with all his standoffishness and idiosyncrasies, she loved him. “Can you not accept praise when I freely offer it? I swear to you by Ra that you won by your own skill. Learn to be content. You’re more intelligent and crafty than you think.” 

She tilted her head to gaze down at him, dark eyes twinkling. “Do you think so little of your mother as to call her a liar, my little prince?” 

[beneaththevalley]

He stared down at the board with a look of mild consternation, as if he himself also couldn’t believe this miracle had come to pass. He braced a hand on each knee as he leaned closer to the board, as if he could divine where victory had leapt from with him all unknowing.

“Mút,” he muttered with a trace of churlishness. The expression he turned towards her when he looked up would’ve looked the same to anyone who didn’t know him as well as she; the sullen set to his jaw would’ve gone unnoticed.

“It’s not a blessing if you let me win.”

@beneaththevalley​

   The royal consort glanced down at the Senet board with widening eyes before her features brightened. What a wonder. “Well,” she laughed quietly. “It seems that I have taught you well. You’ve beaten me, my son. It seems that Thoth favors you.” 

[beneaththevalley]

mama egypt: i'm going to do the frickfrack with rome

egypt: HOE DON'T DO IT

mama egypt: *gets stabbed in the back*

egypt: ya elahi

[beneaththevalley]

ottoman empire: i'm going to invade syria

egypt: hoe don't do it

ottoman empire: *SUDDEN DOWNWARD SPIRAL*

egypt: ya allah

[beneaththevalley]

Ram’s-head Amulet

Period: Kushite Period

Dynasty:  25

Date: ca. 712–664 B.C.

This amulet was probably made for a necklace worn by one of the Kushite kings. Representations show these pharaohs wearing a ram’s-head amulet tied around the neck on a thick cord, the ends of which fall forward over the shoulders. Sometimes a smaller ram’s head is attached to each end. Rams were associated with the god Amun, particularly in Nubia, where he was especially revered.

http://www.metmuseum.org/