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[b][u][center]The Anubian Companion

For repanbo

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Hapsut knelt on the steps to the temple of Anubis, her head downcast and her eyes closed. She could hear the vague flow of people here and there around her, from the priests that were leaving for the night to the men and women that had been there to leave grieving tokens for the dead, and pleas for mercy for the departed. She heard them pass, and knew that soon, she would be alone.

The young woman continued to stare at the inside of her eyes, her head lowered to the stone steps as the cruel eye of Ra faded from the heavens, drifting into the underworld for the night. She mouthed prayers under her breath, knowing that they would come to nothing, as they always did.

As the cool breeze of night off the Nile blew across her back, ruffling her white linens and nearly exposing her several times, the dark-skinned woman lifted her head. She stared up at the great temple, at the white pillars that rose up beside the door and supported the roof, and at the statues of jackals that stood on either side, holding stone spears that crossed just beneath the roof. It was made to intimidate those that would ever think of disrespecting the dead, and it did its job.

Slowly, Hapsut moved from sitting to standing, her long white linens running from her shoulders to her ankles. Gold bands rested above her elbows, and her middle was outlined with a belt of brass. She crossed her hands in front of it, running her fingers along the bracelets that she had been given by the Pharaoh, a mark of his blessing to come here this evening, and a reminder of what she might become.

The great archway had nearly emptied, with only a single, bearded man in white cloth waiting. She approached him, her head down.

“High Priest,” she whispered.

“Concubine,” he said, and despite everything, she could hear the slight sneer in his voice. “You come for the blessing of Anubis.”

“I come at the behest of the Pharaoh.”

“He may speak for Ra, but he is not Ra.”

“Yet I come at his behest, for the blessing of your god.”

“Is he not yours, concubine?”

“I have yet to have the honor to meet him,” she said, keeping her voice civil despite her fear and building anger. “Please, allow me this. I have been given permission.”

“…Enter, then. You will be alone.”

The priest stepped around her, walking down the steps, and she truly was left alone.

Hapsut took a deep breath again, the air chilling as the desert and the great city of the Pharaoh gave up the heat of the day. She leaned her head back, looking up at the darkening sky, stretching out her arms.

[i]Let this be the day that it is done. Let this be the day where it all comes clear.[/i]

Hapsut entered the temple, the braziers still burning, as they would throughout the night. Servants, invisible to all of status, walked the back halls of the temple, keeping them lit and watched. None mattered in the grand scheme of things, not to her, and not to the others that ventured into the temple during the day.

She walked slowly, her sandals occasionally sliding on the sand that was tracked in from earlier in the day, but mostly stepping on carved stone. The letters of the great jackal were writ large upon the stones of his temple, and the cavernous heights of the great chamber echoed with the sounds of her footsteps as she made her way inside.

Hapsut stopped at the second archway, looking ahead. The high ceiling began to fall there, with a long stairway leading into the depths of the earth. The Den of the Jackal, this part of the temple was called, and it was well-named, leading into the earth and to a great, standing statue of Anubis at the far end. She could see him there, carved of the deep rock, one hand outstretched with palm turned up as if in offering, or in request, depending on how one looked. A rod of authority rested in his other hand, carved with stripes and symbols.

She saw all of him as she walked down slowly, the folds of his loincloth intricately detailed in the stone carving. Unlike many other statues which only gave him a jackal head on a human body, this one showed signs of bestial traits all the way down, from his clawed fingers to his furred body, all the way down to the claws on his toes. Hapsut saw them all, but thought nothing of it. She was here as a supplicant, not as a worshiper.

With each step down, she remembered why she was here, and she fought to keep herself together.

Step.

[i]Standing in the streets, her arms outstretched, caught by a slave-catcher after struggling to survive. A stolen piece of fruit, nothing more, but it seals her fate.[/i]

Step.

[i]Kneeling in the slave quarters of a trader, who wishes nothing more than to attract the eyes of the rich and powerful. He trains her, forcing her face down upon a stone shaft, forcing her to gag as it goes into the back of her throat. She cries, her tears staining the black along the edges of her eyes.[/i]

Step.

[i]The Pharaoh sees her, and she smiles as she’s been trained, her eyes downcast as he walks down the line of slaves. She is no better than the others, less than some that embraced their training, but he looks her in the eyes and smiles. She feels hope.[/i]

Step.

[i]He fucks her, not on the bed, but on the floor like a dog. She bites her lips as he takes her anal virginity, rutting her with nothing but oil to slow the burn of his shaft. He fills her shortly, and slaps her rump, almost making her fall.[/i]

Step.

[i]He lays among his many concubines, his eyes for them, and not for her. The Pharaoh tells her to go to the temple. For all that her body pleases him, he wishes for the love of the god-touched, not mere street trash. She cries, taken from the room.[/i]

Step.

[i]She stands in her room, holding a knife. She stares at the reflection, thinking through all that has happened to her. Long ago, she stopped being a person. Would the loss of an object trouble the world?[/i]

Step.

[i]The knife is found, but the servants hush it up. She is dressed as she is now, and she is told that tonight must be the night. If she waits any longer, the Pharaoh will see her dismissed, a toy sent back to the streets, no longer with any value.[/i]

Step.

She stopped, looking up at the great statue of the jackal god. The guardian of the dead, the one that kept the graves safe. What of the living, though? Who was supposed to protect them?

Hapsut slowly covered her eyes. Not in prayer, but in tears as she shook from head to toe. Everything that she had gone through, starvation, rape, objectification, humiliation, even coming within spitting distance of death, came crashing down on her.

“Do I have to die for you to care?” she whispered. “Do I have to die to deserve any sort of protection?”

There was no answer. She slowly knelt at the base of the statue, resting her hands on one of the great toes of the jackal god. Bit by bit, she raised her head again, looking at his head far above her.

“I’m supposed to be here for your blessing…He wanted me to come here. He [i]ordered[/i] me to come here, if I didn’t want to die.” She laughed, hiccupping softly as a sob interrupted it. “Can a thing die, though? Can someone that isn’t even a person die?”

She covered her eyes as a few tears threatened to break through again, pinching the bridge of her nose as she felt them rising. She blinked as quickly as she could, making them disappear, making it a bit less obvious. Slowly, she caught her breath. Slowly, she controlled herself again.

“Not today…not today,” Hapsut said, taking a deep breath. “Object or person, I am not dying today.”

It had been too much pain, too much humiliation for it to just end. She refused to believe that there wasn’t something worthwhile at the end of this path, that there wasn’t something that she could seize for herself if she could live for just a little while longer. A moment of weakness wasn’t going to take it from her.

She backed away a pace, and lowered her head before the great statue, breathing slowly, then spoke the words she’d been told to speak.

“I come as the concubine of the great Pharaoh, he who sits among the gods. I offer myself to be blessed by you, oh Anubis, Guardian of the Gravestones, Hound of the Nile, Gatekeeper of Osiris. Bless me, so I may sit rightfully beside he…he who…”

Hapsut stopped again, unable and unwilling to speak a lie before a god, even one of death. She sighed, shaking her head.

“So I may sit rightfully beside one that will allow me life.”

After all, the Pharaoh did not love her, and she doubted that he ever would. There was no love in that man’s heart, merely a lust for what he could have due to his position. He would never love those that he had among his harem, nor among his wives. That man was merely one that sat at the top of the world and savored what came to him.

But if she had the strength, she could have a portion of that. If she went through with this, then if she had to be an object, at least she would be one that was cared for. She would not be sent to the streets, to starvation, to inevitable death once more.

“I submit myself to you, oh Anubis, and await your judgment.”

The depths of the temple were cold, colder than the sharpest wind to cut across the desert, yet Hapsut knelt there, her arms stretched over the cold stone. She was told to hold this position, to wait until something happened. If nothing did, then she was to return to the palace to be given her dismissal. It was implied that there would be a great deal of pain, even death, if she returned without the blessing.

She had no illusions that a god of death would respond to a request of the living. Anubis was not there to give safety to those that still walked beside the Nile, nor to those that still breathed. He was there to give safety to those that had fallen, to guard their graves, and to walk the path of the dead, to keep those on the other side from straying.

More likely, a deal had been made. She could imagine that the Pharaoh had sent a message to a priest that was still in the temple, and soon, she would feel hands along her clothes, pulling them up and leaving her there to be raped. The priest would then come out as the Pharaoh asked for proof of a blessing and tell his story, proclaiming that something miraculous happened. And from there…

She shook her head. Whatever happened, happened. If nothing else, the quiet would allow her to build her own story for the event in question, and perhaps it might be more believable than whatever the priest might say.

The minutes shifted by like sand in an hourglass, and she continued to wait in silence. Her mind raced, and her skin pebbled with the cold as it continued to get worse. Hapsut pressed her head against the stone all the more firmly, her eyes closed tightly. Every sound pulled at her thoughts, making her wonder if it was a priest there to take his price for her life, or if it might be a jackal that had found its way into the Den. Perhaps even a thief that was looking for a prize late at night. Yet, no sound ever came closer than the furthest pillar, and even that was a rare thing.

At a guess, it was nearly midnight when she opened one eye. Slowly, Hapsut lifted herself to a kneeling position, tilting her head back as she looked up at the ceiling once more. She could see the bottom of the jackal’s muzzle from here, but nothing else. The darkness was such that there was almost nothing to see save for the shadows and shapes within them, more remembered than seen.

“No one is here,” she whispered, looking down at her hands again. “Not even a god.”

There was no answer, and she chuckled to herself, clenching her hands together.

“I suppose you are reaping your own harvest, aren’t you?” A soft chuckle, a clench of her fists. “How many hopes must die before a life is over?”

“An endless number, more than can be counted.”

Hapsut whipped her head upwards, and her eyes widened. There, standing between the legs of the great statue, was a miniature replica of it. It stood at her height, with lights of gold that burned along its face, arms, and chest, glowing bright enough to light up the loincloth it wore, and the sandals upon its feet. Golden eyes shimmered as it looked down at her, and it carried the same rod of authority that the statue did. It took a step forward, and fear rooted her to the spot as the deific figure approached.

“You…are you…” she whispered, unable to complete the sentence.

“I am the Guardian of the Gravestones, and all the other titles that you have heaped upon me.”

“Anubis.”

“I am he,” the jackal said with a nod.

“…Then I suppose I am dead. Or will be.”

“You have been for years. You killed much of yourself to survive. Your dreams. Your dignity. Your sense of self. Your sense of worth. I have seen them all cross to the realm of Osiris. By all rights, you should already be mine. But two things have saved you.”

“What?”

“Hope, and anger.”

The black and gold jackal swept his rod through the air, and ghostly figures of blue smoke rose at her sides, forming themselves into the shape of dogs. Hapsut stared as they took form around her, their heads down in respect, but their eyes lit with powerful light. They set themselves with their shoulders hunched, their legs half-curled to leap, their tails still as they looked upon Anubis. Four, eight, sixteen, and more, a great pack that surrounded her on all sides.

“Hope is the pack that guides you from death.”

He swept his rod through the air again, and more rose, these ones of red, red and deep crimson. Their eyes glittered with hate and rage, and where the blue dogs were firm and focused, the red ones swayed, flickering with an eternal blaze.

“And anger is the pack that staves it off.”

“What are they?” she whispered.

“That which survives. That which holds you in this world, and not in mine. For you are dead, and so we may speak, and yet you live, and so I cannot command.”

The dogs swirled about her, the blue ones sliding, creeping by her sides with their eyes ever focused on Anubis, the red ones growling and leaping at the outskirts, leaping over her and then landing with a roar of fire and smoke. They stood between her and the god of death, and every time they touched her, they reminded her to breathe.

For she still lived, despite where she stood.

Gradually, Hapsut lifted herself to her feet, managing to bring her eyes up to look Anubis in the eye. His golden gaze met hers in turn, and she shook, but she did not fall. Instead, she crossed her arms under her chest, effecting an authority she did not feel, and that she most definitely did not have.

“I have come for your blessing. Since you are here, will you give it?”

“No.”

Her heart sank, but she held on. One blue dog pressed against her right leg, and a red one against her left. Somehow, she drew strength from them, able to speak again.

“Why?”

“Because to bless the living is not within my power,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “And even if I could, I would not bless you to return to one that has forgotten what it means to sit among the gods.”

“Then why are you here?”

“You offer a chance for me to remind the Pharaoh of his obligations, of what his line has forgotten.” The jackal extended his hand upwards, and the stairs were lined with shadows of black and gold, reflections and imitations of the jackal god. “Our world and yours are connected, but he sees only the power that offers, not the responsibilities. He has forgotten…and he must be [i]taught.[/i]

“There are others that have killed parts of themselves to survive, and others that live only through the small things that remain. In them, small gifts have been given. But you have access to the Pharaoh himself, and that allows us a chance to change things. I cannot command you, but I may request that you go along with my plan.”

“And what is your…plan?”

“To allow the Pharaoh to truly sit among the gods once more. Not merely with those that have been ‘blessed’ by the touch of our priests, but by one touched by a god directly. You will take on my likeness, and you will return to him in power, to let him see what he has cast aside, what he has forgotten.

“And you will bring upon him a message. A message of respect, a message of care, and a message of remembrance, with the power to enforce it.”

“Power?”

Hapsut could not help but latch onto that word. It had had no meaning to her, had never belonged to her before. Even thinking of it now sent a shiver down her spine, and she trembled as she imagined having it. Power.

The red dogs surged for a moment, only to calm as she calmed herself. The young woman looked up at the god of death.

“What will happen to me?”

“You will take upon yourself my aspect. You will walk the world in fur, and naught else. You will carry my rod, and you will bring upon them awareness of my will.”

Anubis held forth the striped rod that he carried in his hand, turning it so that the base was offered up to her. Hapsut looked at it, then at him, and then at it once more. The idea of carrying his power, his authority, that of a god…

It was worth the loss of humanity. After all, as he had said, she had lost it a long, long time ago.

“I accept your offer.”

She took the rod, and as soon as she did, she heard the roar of the dead.

Hapsut’s eyes went wide as the space between the statue’s legs suddenly filled with darkness, with the roaring, howling skulls of the dead that strained to come back. Anubis’s jackals roamed the boundary between the land of the living and the land of the dead, the jackals barking and snapping their jaws at those that would escape their fate. She looked up and down the line, staring at the presences of ghostly strands, fingers that reached towards the world of the dead, only to be snapped off by the hounds.

The Guardian of the Gravestones guarded both sides of the border, it seemed.

The roar slowly faded as she held the rod, but that was not all that would happen. As she clenched it between her fingers, it glowed with golden light and seethed with endless shadow. Life and death, death and life, the boundary upon which Anubis ruled.

The shadow wrapped around her arm like smoke, the gold light casting it further and further up her limb. She did not hiss or gasp, intentionally forcing it down, intentionally forcing herself to be quiet. No, no, she would not. She would not give in to this, would not show her fear again.

The blackness wrapped tighter around her arm, darkening her bronzed skin until it was the color of night. More and more it spread, and as it did, her arm…thickened.

Hapsut’s eyes widened at the sight. Her arm muscles were growing stronger, thicker, bulging out more than a woman’s should. But was she a woman any longer? Or was she merely a jackal, just a female one?

She clenched her hand ever tighter on the rod of power, refusing to let go as the darkness spread along her limb and across her shoulders, carrying with it greater size and strength. As she arched her back, feeling it creeping up the back of her neck, her arm began to itch. Strands of fur began to grow from her new, muscular limb, and it spread down from her shoulder to her fingertips. The beginnings of blunt claws began to appear at the edge of her fingertips, and she shuddered, not in fear, but in happiness.

She had strength. For the first time in her life, she had strength.

The increased bulk continued to appear across her shoulders and down her other arm, following the streaks of smoke that spread across her body. Her shoulders bulged outwards, and her neck swelled as she stumbled from the intensity of the transformation. She panted, catching herself with her empty hand, barely remaining on her feet as the black smoke rushed up the back of her head and down her spine.

The fur crept along, and everywhere it touched, she grew stronger. Her flesh disappeared beneath the darkness, covered in fur, covered in muscle, covered in power. The hounds at her feet swelled and changed, hope and hate ebbing and flowing as her heart warred with itself with what she could do.

Anubis watched her in silence as she continued to change, the blackness creeping beneath her linens. Barely held in place as they were, they swelled out at her shoulders as she continued to grow, as her spine cracked and popped as she grew taller. The black fur ran into her bosom, and it slowly began to expand.

Her linens did not last long after that.

The brass belt snapped from her waist, and the golden bands on her arms did the same as she grew too big to be contained. The linens billowed out, the white cloth pushed outwards as she grew taller than any woman she had ever seen, than any man. She stood over seven feet in height, and her face itched as it continued to warp and change. Her ears slowly pulled up along the side of her head, and her lips and nose pressed together before slowly dragging their way forward, pulling out from her face, becoming a muzzle.

She coughed, barked in shock, stumbling again, and this time, she fell to her knees. Her feet were changing, cracking, growing larger. Her toes swelled until they ripped the leather that bound her sandals together, her feet growing out of them and growing still. Her legs swelled with muscle, with power, and she could feel them tensing and almost cramping from the sheer growth that they were going through. Her eyes clenched shut as her body trembled, as the power of the rod spread through her.

At the base of her spine, something started to grow, and then to sway. It was a tail, she was sure, a jackal’s tail, and it was growing longer by the second. She panted as it lifted her clothes up, her linens falling to the side in rags as she was finally left in the nude.

Black fur covered her from head to toe, and she stretched a little taller, ending up somewhere around seven and a half feet tall. Her muscles were thicker, stronger than any warrior she had ever seen, but on her, they were lean, powerful and toned as the jackal that had given them to her. Her curves, too, were bigger, but understated on her bigger body, rounder, suitable for a woman, but not bursting at the seams the way that some of the slaves had been.

And then, the golden light spread.

It ran up her arms in spiraling lines, twisting around her forearms like segmented gauntlets, running from her wrists to her shoulders. Her claws on her fingers were painted gold, bright and yellow against the darkness of her fur. Hapsut loosened her grip on the rod, not quite letting go, but no longer holding it in a death grip. The golden glow spread across her shoulders, forming a chestplate of sorts across her breasts, framing them, but not hiding them. Further, further it spread, down her belly in sweeping, curling lines, and in lines across her legs.

On her face, it lit up her eyes, glowing where her make-up had been, and giving her the regal appearance of the Anubian Jackal, of the god of death and his people. It spread, lighting up the world around her, and she realized she had been given his vision. She could see living and dead, dead and living.

He had blessed her, after all.

The transformation finished, and the dogs at her sides faded, red and blue disappearing. She looked up at the jackal god, and saw him slowly walking backwards between the legs of his statue.

“Go to the Pharaoh, and tell him what has happened. You are protected now, not by man, but by gods.”

And with that, the jackal disappeared into the darkness.

Hapsut was left alone, no longer human, and no longer with the companions that Anubis had summoned for her. She was alone in the Den of the Jackal, given only the power of her new body and the rod of authority that he had given her. Lifting it up, she looked at the glow in the golden stripes, and the shifting darkness in the black ones.

It was still powerful. It was still magical. And it was hers.

It was all hers.

Slowly, she turned. In her new vision, she saw the shades that walked down the steps towards the great jackal, and she moved out of the way. They barely noticed her as she walked up, but that was all to the right.

The dead should not notice the living, and the living should not notice the dead. But she was neither, and both.

As she ascended the stairs, she saw hints of light in the distance. Morning had come already, to her surprise, but there was no fear for her. Not this time. Not after this.

She reached the top of the stairs and the archway into the open part of the temple. The priests turned, as did the servants and supplicants, and one by one, they stopped to stare. Their eyes traversed her naked, furred body, looking at her with both fear and envy, worship and idolization, shock and awe. It was not with lust that she received their stares, nor fear, nor embarrassment.

She took it as her due, and no more.

Slowly, the jackal-woman walked down from the arch, passing through the public area. Her only accessory was the rod of authority in her hand, and it glowed whenever one came forward to try and stop her. The guards, the priests, the servants, they all saw it and stepped out of the way.

She was of the living and the dead. Unlike Anubis, her powers [i]could[/i] affect the living, and they seemed to grasp this, and quickly got out of her way.

Hapsut turned her eyes to the palace in the distance, seeing it through the archway to the city, and picked up her pace. Her new legs could carry her faster than her human limbs. For that matter, they could carry her faster than the wind.

#

“What…What is…”

The Pharaoh struggled to speak as he saw her, as did the various concubines that were spread throughout his quarters. The shaven-headed man looked her in the eyes, his wide, hers not. He gestured at her body, furred and bestial, and she shook her head.

“I come with the blessing of Anubis, and a message from the gods.”

“Impossible.”

Hapsut barked a laugh, and swept the rod of power through the air. The red dogs returned, leaping through the room with growls and howls. The concubines scattered, and the Pharaoh was pinned with ghostly teeth at his arms.

“A man who is supposed to sit among the gods calls this impossible? Truly, you have forgotten…”

He stared at her, his mouth working soundlessly, and Hapsut realized how much she had changed. It was more than gaining power. More than being stronger. More than being able to put this man in his place. She had taken on more than a god’s power, but also pieces of his memories, his knowledge. His anger.

It burned just as the ghostly hounds did, and even she felt the heat of it, and for once, it was a heat of warning. For the first time in her life, she felt anger that burned hotter than hers, and it pushed her to slow down.

A wave of the rod, and the burning hounds disappeared. The Pharaoh gasped, shaking his head at her.

“You…you…”

“I am still Hapsut,” she said. “And I am blessed by Anubis. I have fulfilled your conditions, and I will stay.”

“…” He nodded wordlessly.

“And you will learn, Pharaoh. The gods, they are displeased with you. I am your only defense, now, and if you do not listen, if I cannot carry their message and make you listen, then this will be nothing compared to what they will do.”

The realization that the gods were angrier than she was had not been something she expected, and the realization that she was their plan to fix things before they had to take greater steps. She had power, but this…

She flicked the rod of power against her thigh, and everyone in the room jumped.

“Pharaoh.”

“Yes?”

“You will name me first wife,” she said. “And from there…we will see what else must be done.”

“You…you want…”

“You will do as you’re told, little man.”

The rod came up, and she held it to his chin, making him stare up at her. How the tables had turned, and how things had changed. How much more she wished she could do, were it not for the rage of Anubis hidden just behind her own.

“You will do what you’re told, and you will do it when you are told. The gods are angry, and I am the [i]only[/i] thing standing in your way…and you have no idea how much I don’t want to be there…”

“Y-you were…given the blessing…of the Pharaoh.”

“And a runny, worthless blessing it was.”

“It was my touch! You cannot – ulk!”

She twisted the rod, pushing down just enough to keep him from talking. It worked quite well, as a matter of fact.

“If you want your kingdom to fall, and you with it, then keep talking. If not, then you will listen. Right. Now.”

The hairless man nodded, holding up his hands, and she pulled the rod back. Sitting down on one of the cushions, she effortlessly pulled the Pharaoh down, holding him on her lap. She did not pet him, nor did she give him much in the way of affection. If anything, she held him like a pet on her lap, a thing that she must train against her better judgment.

It soothed her anger, somewhat, to know that he would have to submit to her regardless of her decisions. She just wished that she did not have this weight of responsibility to go with her new power.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]