It was strange to say the least, standing right across from her stood the body wrapped in linen, wearing a blue tinted crown that blended in with the darkness surrounding her. It was a terrifying image or would have been if not for her lack of direction and constant stumbling.
She obviously had no sight even now, she felt around her, slowly making her way down the hill of cooled sand toward where Maaike stood. As Maaike moved to run away, she felt her feet stuck in place.
Glancing down at her feet, a shudder went through her, she was stunned speechless at the sight of the inky tentacles wrapped around her feet and ankles. It was both a disgusting and confusing experience, she wasn't sure what the abilities the mummy had, but these things seemed to be both real and illusionary at the same time.
When she looked up, Maaike flinched backward, startled at the sight of the tightly wrapped head directly in her face. The wrapped hand trembled as the fingers slowly lifted to the corner of Maaike's eye, caressing gently down her face.
A garbled sound came from the mummy until it finally let out in croaky speech, "My child…"
Maaike couldn't help but lift her brow at that, she wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that a mummy assumed she was its child. Then again, she took a closer look at the crown, it was obviously the crown of Tayet.
She leant back out of reach of the hand, looking over the figure before her, she recognized the wrappings on her fingers. It was the body she had possessed when she entered the wild portal, it was an odd feeling, looking at a body that she had once thought was hers.
"I'm someone else! Wh-who are you?" avoiding the approaching hands of the mummy, she tried to confirm her suspicions.
"Lysara my baby…why are you avoiding me?" came a sob, unsure how to respond, Maaike lowered her head from the sight of the inky black tears staining the linen as they ran down.
"It's me, Tait, it's your mother…" she fell to her knees sobbing. Mya's ankles were freed, and she took a step away from the crying mummy before her.
After a while, there was complete silence, Tait slowly got back to her feet, looking as though nothing had happened at all. She turned away from Maaike and with a wave of her hand the sand swirled in multiple dust devils¹ gathering around in a circle.
They twisted faster and faster before turning into a large portal, the middle glowed blue. "Follow me." Came the croaky voice, as Tayet began to step toward the portal. Unable to find anywhere she could go to get out of this mess, Maaike shrugged and fell into step behind her.
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As they stepped into the blue light, the world seemed to warp around them, twisting through countless timelines and places until they were left suspended high above the earth. They slowly floated down until they were hovering among the clouds, "This is where I was born!" said Tayet sounding wistful.
Maaike looked down, it was a very dirty town in Egypt, a place that many looked starved. "This is…"
"Akhmim, the small town in Egypt, where all the best weavers would gather, it was where I learned to weave linen." She said, replying Maaike's unfinished question. They both silently watched, as a sickly-looking lady struggled through labour, and when she finally succeeded in naming the child, breathed her last.
Shroud was what the meaning of the name given to the baby, "To the people that worshipped me, it was comforting…Only I knew that it was a curse, an insult used to remind me that my life came with the death of my mother." She sighed, and moved to sit down on a chair that wasn't there before, she gestured beside her and looking there, Mya found a seat waiting.
Sitting down beside her, Mya mulled over what she had said, "So you were a normal human in the beginning?"
"Normal? No, I was strange to say the least…It was hard for me to act or behave like normal. I was smarter than most kids, I would spend my time weaving or harvesting flax to avoid the stares."
Right below them, the story was unfolding just the way she had described it, she could be counted as an intelligent child, but she had a strange habit of talking to thin air.
"I used to see spirits of the dead, they were drawn to me…those who were not buried as mummies would swarm around me, asking me to weave wrappings for their bodies, they were never polite but demanding. I had to constantly defend myself from the injuries their energy gave me."
"So how did you manage…I thought they'd all go to the afterlife?"
"They should have…but you see things never turn out the way they were created for long, Anubis did his best, but the judges were getting more and more judgemental, they claimed that those buried without wrappings did not deserve to cross over."
Maaike watched as the place got darker and darker around the young Tayet, there was a dark gloom surrounding her. It seemed to repel every living thing and even destroy the home she lived in, the only thing that remained uncorroded was the weaving equipment and the flax.
"Soon everyone noticed the strangeness about me, they took me to a priest, and it was decided that I would weave the linen for mummy wrappings…That only made things worse, the spirits were enraged that I would weave for others but not for them."
She paused watching the scene unfold before them, it only looked worse, and her younger self looked weaker with every passing moment. There were scars appearing on her skin constantly, it got to the extent that she was wrapped in nearly as many bandages as a mummy.
Maaike watched quietly, swallowing down the tight feeling in her chest watching the teenage Tayet fall into more and more isolation.
Eventually she was dragged to the head priest when the linen she had woven only served to harm those responsible for burial rites or simply decomposed before they could be used. Her weavings would always come out better than those her fellow weavers made, only to end up useless.
Maaike let out a gasp of horror as soon as she saw the room Tayet was taken to, it was the room for burial rites. "They didn't…"
"They thought that the best way to stop the spirits from escaping was to send me down there to serve as a guide's assistant. Of course the spirits intercepted my spirit after the embalming process…They wanted revenge because I never helped them, my soul was nearly obliterated when Imentet₂ found me, she was surprised that I hadn't appeared at the main gate."
The world below them spun again, revealing the underworld, it looked dreamlike, "It's illusory, based off my memories…Things were hazy back then, time goes by faster in Duat₃, but all I remember was that I recovered quickly and grew stronger by absorbing the energy of the underworld. It was also when I decided to weave linen for those who were sent to the underworld without being mummified."
Tayet waved her hand, sweeping away the view beneath them and revealing a simple cove with a tree, a garden, and her younger self seated at a weaving table quietly going about her business.