Chapter Text
Sekhmet: Order Through Extremity
Excerpted from “Theologies of Use: Instruments of Divine Function in Early Dynastic Religion,” Vol. II, Cairo Institute for Comparative Theologies
Sekhmet—whose name derives from the root sḫm, denoting power, strength, or violent force—is most often characterized as a deity of war, plague, and punishment. However, such definitions, while functionally accurate, are semantically incomplete. Within the broader theological framework of the Egyptian solar cult, Sekhmet is best understood not as a god of violence, but as a divine response mechanism: summoned, not born; invoked, not adored.
As the Eye of Ra, she functioned as a sentient instrument of equilibrium, dispatched to preserve ma’at—the foundational principle of order—through calculated annihilation. Her most enduring myth, recorded in the Book of the Heavenly Cow, describes her near-eradication of humanity following a perceived betrayal of the divine hierarchy. Notably, the narrative offers no moral critique of her actions. Instead, it concludes with her sedation through a symbolic act of ritual misdirection—beer dyed red to mimic blood—a pacification that neither redeems nor vilifies her, but merely concludes her function.
Sekhmet’s worship was concentrated in Thebes, where she was invoked both by warriors and healers. This dual invocation is telling. As the bringer of plague and the patron of physicians, she occupied a paradoxical role—feared for her volatility, revered for her precision. The priests of Sekhmet were often medical practitioners, and her cult sites were known for their surgical and anatomical knowledge. Such associations do not negate her violence; they simply contextualize it.
Modern scholarship is frequently divided on how to classify her. Attempts to frame her within the binary of pacifist versus aggressor miss the point: Sekhmet resists anthropocentric moral structure. She is not a personality but a function. Not a god of war, but a god of correction.
To call her violent is insufficient.
To call her merciful is speculative.
She is, and always has been, a system.
Your vision is gone within an instant, replaced with a luminescent white. Your fingers itch to claw at your face, to grant reassurance your eyes haven't melted from their sockets. The heat ravages your skin, branding searing kisses on your flesh. Muscles tense and then melt, and bones dry to ash and crumble as your body is remade anew. It is unlike any pain you've ever experienced, all-consuming and immobilising. You do not thrash, and you do not cry. Your mind is trapped in a cyclical torment where words cannot be uttered, and thoughts cannot be formed.
You wish for death; if this is death, you want it to end soon. To be taken to the next place, wherever it may be, longing even for the bleakness of black silence if that is where we all are to go. Oblivion seems beautiful; eternity's endless, icy black will surely grant you solace from this torture.
Cool palms cradle your head, as soft and bare as a spring breeze. A relief amidst the blistering hell from which you see no end.
Serve me.
The voice is calm and crooning, a balm slipping over your scorching skin. It is everywhere all at once, a delicate softness belied by the strangest tint of urgency.
Serve me, and be remade in my image. I will give you the world.
Even in the middle of your agony, you hesitate. The longing for oblivion and the stillness of death wavers, and the desperate human urge to live begins to worm its way back into your thoughts.
I will grant you dominion over life and death. Your hand will stay the plagues, and your touch will heal the wounded. Speak my words and surpass the greatest warlords your kind has ever known. Serve me, and your blood will be of the sun. What say you?
The word forms effortlessly at the offer. Yes.
Pleasure hums from the presence invading your brain, and the scorching burn crescendos to a peak before dissipating as quickly as it had come.
Rise, servant of Sekhmet, and know what true power is.
You may have chosen differently if you knew what godhood was all about. That's what you tell yourself in the beginning, in the adolescent throes of your new body and the inexperience with which you wield it. You reconsider your choice with each wound; when a blade cleaves your abdomen open, and you clutch at the gaping wound to keep your insides from falling out, your shattered femur knits itself back together; each time you spit bloodied teeth to the grime-covered pavement and new ones push through your gums.
Your new life is a rough start, and that's considerable, given your familiarity with such a thing prior.
Sekhmet is mercurial and often hard to please. One day, she is a warlord, brandishing her power through you to destroy militia and the next, a benevolent hand that flows life into the still body of a child whose mother weeps openly above the prone body. She expects you to be everything, all at once, a constant push-pull of punishment and reward. Her mood shifts as quickly as the cold air that covers the desert come nightfall. Arguing is futile when the searing light of Ra glints in her eyes and fills your blood like molten lava. Reason can only come when she is soft and sated, her presence in your mind as docile as a house cat.
You learn to pick and choose your battles as carefully with her as you do the physical ones, until your regrets become fewer and farther apart. You wake one morning and bask in the sunlight streaming through the window onto your bed, stretching your limbs and feeling her divinity hum like a live wire beneath your skin.
You see, cajoles Sekhmet. It is not all bad.
Her answer has changed each time you've begged the question: Why me? You are a warrior. She purrs concerning your previous work as a former special forces operative. You are fair. She admits, replaying the times in your past when you've spared a life instead of taking it. You carry a healer's hand. She says proudly, reminiscing on the incomplete years of your M.D. Why not? She retaliates blithely on the days when she cares little for your concerns.
So, you eventually stop asking, like you stop regretting, and begin to adapt.
A fist connects with your temple and your skull fractures from the force of the blow. You stumble at the rooftop's edge, your vision blurred as your brain rattles from the impact. Sekhmet's furious hiss surrounds you on the fall to the concrete below. It's a seven-story drop, and your landing is terrible. You lay on your back, gasping for air through a punctured lung, staring up at the glittery veil of stars in the night sky as your body hastily mends.
Miscreant, yowls Sekhmet, and you wince from the thunder in her voice. Deserter. Deceiver.
You lift a shaky hand to wipe away the blood dripping into your eyes. You blink, and the sky is obscured in a flurry of shadow as a figure descends.
Get up, urges Sekhmet, her presence pacing like a tiger in a cage. She pushes up against your mind, so unyielding you think she may break through the thin barrier that grants you autonomy of your own body.
You roll to your side, spit blood from your mouth, and get to your feet warily.
The first thing you notice is his eyes. The opaque, luminescent white that blazes inhuman. You cannot see his mouth behind his mask, and the top half of his face is shadowed beneath a hood.
"You're one of them," you say haltingly, staring at him in awe and suspicion.
You had assumed there were others, and Sekhmet had stringently conceded they did exist, but in the last year of your service to the Goddess, the man in front of you is the first other Avatar you have ever seen.
Kill him! Sekhmet urges. Rip him limb from limb and bathe in his blood.
"Don't listen to her. We both know we can't kill one another." The man in white says, with a solid American accent. His white cape lifts slightly in the night's cool breeze. The gold crescent blades in his chest glint, but you stay transfixed by the white of his eyes.
Sekhmet growls. We can try.
You suck in another breath. "I'm sensing some animosity."
"Yeah," he drawls, dry and quick. "That's one word for it."
He doesn’t move from his staunch pose as you stretch, arms lifting skyward to pop your spine back into place. That's a good sign, at the very least, that he hasn't rushed to deliver another debilitating blow. Not that you'd let him get one in now; combativeness and competitiveness run hot within you, and you don't take well to humiliation. It wouldn't serve him to try and hurt you again, not with Sekhmet's power coursing so aggressively within.
"The cape is a bit much." You gesture at his suit, buying time while considering your options and for Sekhmet to simmer down. She's still hissing and sending jumbled images in your head: war-torn battlefields littered with corpses, a burning temple, and the clash of swords. You can't make sense of them, but you can make sense of her anger and, beneath it, the relics of a personal pain.
He makes a sound that isn't quite a chuckle. "The gold is a bit ostentatious, don't you think?"
You shrug, ignoring the jab at Sekhmet's choice of attire. The linen is mostly red and white, but the gold plating—curved across your shoulders, sternum, thighs is what he’s referring to. The two of you could trade insults all night, and you bite back the retort of comparing his suit to a mummified corpse.
Sekhmet agrees. Enough pleasantries, what does the betrayer want?
"Betrayer?" You look slyly at your caped opponent. "That's a strong word. What does the betrayer want?" You raise a brow at him curiously.
"I wasn't looking for you, specifically," he admits, not commenting on the betrayer aspect. The admission must cost him because his eyes narrow after silence, and he shakes his head.
"I was just unlucky collateral damage, then?" Your eyes flit to the rooftop. "I'd hate to see what deliberate damage looks like."
Stay your beguiling tongue, warns Sekhmet contemptuously when you glance at his broad shoulders and muscled body. You laugh inwardly because you can feel the Goddess's reluctant agreement that the Avatar is built well before you. Khonshu has long since dallied in vanity. His Moon Knights indeed share the trait.
"Moon Knight?" you say aloud, tossing the question out.
After a brief moment of hesitation, the mask slips back from his face. He reaches up to push his hood back.
See, says Sekhmet smugly. I was correct.
You concede that she was. The Moon Knight is handsome, with dark eyes and thick black hair that curls at his temples. His jaw is strong, and his face arresting, despite the tense purse of his lips.
"Marc," he says. "My name is Marc."
"And who is Marc, the Moon Knight, looking for, if not unsuspecting women on rooftops?" you reply curiously.
Marc looks unimpressed; otherwise, you cannot read on his face if your knowing of his title bothers him. "I give you my name, you give me yours—that's sort of how introductions go."
Sekhmet is silent while you consider this, and when you tell him your name, she does not protest. Instead, she offers a tidbit of knowledge: Khonshu, who protects the night's travelers and guards the passage of time. Moon God, she says bitingly, and then, begrudgingly, find out his cause, but do not trust his slippery words.
You wonder if Marc's God is providing him with information on Sekhmet and whether it is as distrustful and marred as her words.
"So how about it?" you prompt. "What's the job?"
Marc's eyes are hard. "What's your job? Or is loitering all that Sekhmet has her Avatar do?"
"Recce," you reply evenly, ignoring the way Sekhmet bristles. "I've been tracking a cartel the past month; an informant lives in this building." You gesture behind him.
Marc thinks this over, and judging from his silence and pensive expression, he's probably conferring with Khonshu. After a moment, he crosses his arms over his chest. "Our missions align. You can go; I've got this."
"Oh, thank you," you gush dramatically, wide-eyed and falsely reverent. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're too kind."
He scowls. "I mean it. Get out of here. You're inexperienced, and I can't have you mess this up."
Sekhmet's yowl of fury and indignation is deafening, followed by a stream of heated Egypt words in a language you don't understand. It sounds like a combination of insults from her tone.
"I can't have you mess this up." You tell him hotly and steamroll over his retort. "Don't bother with excuses. Your skill set has room for improvement; you're so trigger-happy, you'd attack me before confirming your target."
You stride past him. He reaches out quickly, his gloved hand curling around your forearm to hold you in place. His grip is like steel. He crowds you up against the rough brick of the building to intimidate you, blocking you in with his body. You glare into his face. This close, you can see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. He looks to be in his late thirties. His expression is cold and cut off, but the tense clench of his jaw betrays his frustration.
"Don't mess with me," he warns quietly.
You quickly decide the night is over.
Enough, growls Sekhmet. I will tolerate this no longer.
It's good to be in agreement as you summon thought into action. Marc is still holding your right arm tightly, and he isn't expecting it when you drive a dirk into his gut with your left hand, all the way to the golden hilt. His lips part in shock, and his grip on your arm doesn't break but falters. You twist to the right, under his arm, and break his hold. The dirk disappears the moment you let it go. It doesn't matter. A spear materializes in your right hand, and you pierce him straight through on the other side of his abdomen; with enough force, he stumbles back three paces. You follow his momentum, skewering him on the weapon as he clutches at it with both hands.
As the Goddess of war, Sekhmet wields the power to manifest any handheld weapon she can imagine with pure cosmic energy, an ability passed on to you.
Marc's confidence has been his downfall, and you smile wanly at him. "Don't get in my way again."
You conjure another dagger in your left hand and stab him in the thigh.
"Fuck!" Marc shouts, clutching at his wounds.
Then, you turn and run.