Ramuna had still felt drunk and dizzy when she woke back up from her visit inside what was yet another dimension. She was starting to wonder what was real and what was not and how it was even possible she could travel to infinite places inside her mind that wasn't the real world.
Something felt off about her waking besides her drunken state. Ramuna looked around the room confused for some reason the room seemed darker than it normally was. The candles seemed dimmed and the curtains that led to the balcony were drawn shut. She never recalled if she had shut them or not.
Ramuna sat up, her hands trembling. Something really did feel terribly off about the curtains. She stared at them for a long time, transfixed. It felt like something was watching her.
Was it Tafari? Could he see her from wherever it was that she saw him in her sleep?
While she was overthinking what could possibly be making her feel this way she saw the curtain slightly move. The movement was too quick and sudden for it to be the wind. Ramona stood up from the bed and rushed to the curtain and flung it open.
What she saw made a blood curdling scream escape her lips. She was unaware of what she was looking at. It looked somewhat human. It had pale white flesh but it had no eyes and no nose or ears. Not even hair. It just looked like a husk of something that was once human. It's mouth was open possibly due to a jaw that was no longer there. It did not even move when she discovered it yet it still continued to stare at her.
Ramuna turned to run to the door but that's when it made its move to snatch her arm. She screamed again and tried to push the thing that was grabbing her arm away from her.
To her relief she heard the door to her bedroom burst open and two sets of feet rush in and the sound of metal unsheathing from whatever held it.
Before she could think the thing's arm was removed from its body the arm still gripped hers as if the limb still had control.
Ramuna heard Tafari's voice speak in rough Kemet as he said an incantation and held up his hands towards the thing standing at her curtain. With a quick movement of his hands the thing vanished in a cloud of black smoke including the limb that was holding her arm. Even though Tafari had sent whatever it had been standing there away she still felt it holding her arm and staring at her with those eyeless sockets.
Ramuna felt hands on her shoulders from behind her as if trying to stop her from shaking.
"Are you alright?" It was the Jackal's voice but when she turned her head she saw the man who met her by the river in her recurring nightmare. She was speechless. His golden eyes shone a bright glowing hue almost as if they were a light source of their own.
Another glimpse of that dream came to her mind. No. It was a memory. Now that she learned everything that she did with Tafari she knew now these were all memories.
This man that she had been living with in this dimension that kept a mask on him the whole time had not only infiltrated her dream that one time but had been a part of that memory and actually had been there on the day the event took place. And not only that he was-
Ramuna was too quick to control her own actions, she had not even realized she had hit him till his head was cracked to the side, blood coming out of his nose and dripping down onto his suit.
"Ramuna!" Tafari roared and quickly got between them holding his hands up to separate them.
Ramuna noticed Tafari had to grab a fistful of the Jackal's blue suit to keep him standing upright. That satisfied her on an emotional level she still didn't quite understand. Or did she? This man had been in her nightmare countless times because he had been a part of the memory and yet she felt nothing but hatred towards him. Hatred she still did not understand the reasoning to. She wished she could have been alone in that moment to gather her thoughts. To figure out what made her impulsively strike him.
The more she tried to dig in her mind the more emotions seeped out instead of explanations. Now she started to feel relief and sadness. All of a sudden she wanted to hug him.
What the hell was going on? Why was she feelings all these rushed emotions at once as if she was meeting him for the first time? Something was terribly wrong.
"Well if that's the worst thing she will do to me today I can live with it," the Jackal said, wiping the blood from his nose with the back of his palm.
"How do you two know each other and how are you here Tafari?" Ramuna demanded trying to get her mind off all the mixed emotions she had towards the Jackal. Even hearing him speak now felt like it was for the first time in a long time even though she had just spoken to him before she had fallen asleep.
Tafari sighed and let go of the Jackal's suit. "You should probably go fix yourself, Ramesses, we will regroup downstairs."
The Jackal or Ramesses as Tafari called him just scoffed and rolled his eyes turning away and storming out of her room not even shutting the door.
Ramuna was impressed. She had expected them to start arguing considering how insufferable that man had been since she got to Kemet. He did not seem like the type to listen to anyone else other than himself.
Now that they were alone Tafari pulled her into a hug. Ramuna was too much in shock from the past few moments and all the events that unfolded to refuse. Besides, the hug felt genuine and safe, not like the embrace of someone who was in love.
"Are you alright, Ramuna?" Tafari asked, pulling away and looking her over.
"What was that thing?"
"It was a demon of Duat. A form of the underworld where Set usually resides. Odds are it was spying on you for Mr. Seth Phisler."
"So that means he knows I am here?" Ramuna asked, feeling like someone punched her in the stomach. Of course he would know right? He had to know some form of subconscious dimensions existed if he had once had possession of some of the pages of Thoth. That meant he must know who and what she is too and that she knows now as well. Or perhaps he knew what she was all along?
Ramuna and Tafari had assumed that he knew who she was when they originally talked in her sleep but they still didn't have a definite answer to all her ex fiance's motives.
"It is a huge possibility but also that thing could have been nosy on its own accord. That was a form of demon that feeds on people's dreams and since we are in a form of afterlife they easily can slip through the veil of their world and this world more so than the living world."
"And my other concerns?" Ramuna asked, sighing and heading towards the hallway. She no longer wanted to be in her room. She couldn't get the image of that thing out of her mind.
"I planned to arrive in Kemet after we had met and you were comfortable. Since you were asleep I decided to go make myself acquainted with your friend and his guard happened to be down when I arrived otherwise I would have assumed he would have given me the masked identity he made you get used to. I also wanted to make sure he was not Set's marionette."
That last part startled Ramuna for some reason. Something was screaming at her from the back of her subconscious but she could barely pull together all the information Tafari had already given her.
Ramuna could not wait to be alone so she could try to resurface some of her long lost memories. Somehow from all the waves of emotions she had just felt Ramsesses was more than just someone who randomly came across her in the desert after she dropped a controlled bomb on Atann. That also meant he had a real reason for hiding his identity and that he was hiding more than she could probably handle.
Even though Ramuna was still getting used to the fact that she wasn't just some human who made a life altering decision but was in fact a deity who made a life altering decision she was desperate to understand where everything was connected. It was the only way to fix things.
"I want to meet you both in the pub downstairs, Tafari, I really do. But I need to talk to Ramesses alone."