War and Healing (Gods of Egypt)

Chapter One

The history of the gods has been twisted and shattered through the millennium. Their great heroism and disastrous pride were woven into simple stories for entertainment. It was not so in the beginning.

But neither is a man or the god of air the focus of this story that was once true. No. While their heroics will not be diminished, that position belongs to the goddess of war and healing. Sekhmet.

This goddess' reputation has been obliterated into a dark tale of death and destruction. Her origins changed to falsities. Her impact on humanity, forgotten.

Like any of the gods, she is not perfect. Some aspects of the tales you know today are true. The lives lost. But here is the correct explanation of the goddess of war and healing.

In the beginning, when the god, Ra, looked upon the Earth and the mortals who roamed, he only found disobedience. His anger fueled the fire of his power and created two entities. The goddesses Hathor and Sekhmet.

One made for destruction and the other for love.

Sekhmet was thrust the duty of exacting justice on the humans due to their disobedience toward Ra and to maintain Ma'at, the balance of the universe. She wreaked havoc among those who were disloyal with pleasure. Lives were lost. Some were not deserving of such a death.

Her body was given away to the form of a lioness to exact Ra's justice. Her heka, the power of the gods, supplied her with the ability to kill with a single touch. A slow, agonizing death through plague or a quick demise depending on how the goddess felt. She was a mindless killer.

Hathor was created as an alternative method to achieve the balance humanity skewed. Instead of fear causing the mortals to return their praises to the gods, the goddess of love presented exactly what her title entails. She blessed mortal families with good fortune and kindness if they showed obedience to the gods.

The humans gradually returned their praises to the mighty Ra to which he was satisfied. Sekhmet; however, continued her slaughter of humankind. Surviving mortals dubbed the goddess of war with suitable names, the ones by which she is only remembered by. "The One Before Whom Evil Trembles. The Mistress of Dread. The Lady of Slaughter". Unable to weaken the limitless heka residing in the goddess, Ra quickly created a solution to subdue the havoc that raged in the goddess.

Every god's heka was confined to a part of their body. The heart of the great god Osiris, King of Egypt, contained his heka. Thoth's heka, the god of wisdom and magic, resided in his limitless brain. So, Ra took the goddess Sekhmet's golden hair, the capsule of her powers, and used his all-powerful abilities to change them. For what came from Ra could be changed by Ra.

The removal of the goddess' heka took away her ability to transform into her most powerful self. Her lioness. Such would happen for any god whose heka was severed from their body. This took away the goddess' most dangerous powers of death and destruction but left her like a caged lion pacing its cell.

Ra did not wish to harm his daughter who defended his honor with blind faith. The goddess' ma'at, her haku's harmony, was simply unbalanced. Instead, he changed her heka to help the mortals so that she may continue to exist. Sekhmet kept her unparalleled fighting skills and intelligence for invincible war strategies but the inability to control her constant murderous rage was replaced with a sympathetic conscious. To balance her power to cause death or sickness as she wished, Ra blessed his daughter with the ability to heal even the gravest of wounds.

Ra returned the heka to his daughter and she awoke in a fit of anguish. The Nile grew from her tears as she was bombarded by the images of the massacres she once found pleasure in. All of her heinous acts prevailed in her senses. The smell of warm flesh as her lion form tore bodies accompanied by the sound of wailing children that were all too quickly silenced.

No god had ever experienced the despair that plagued the goddess of war and healing. One of the only gods who realized the tumultuous lives of mortals, that they received a variety of excruciating pain that they did not deserve.

Sekhmet quickly came to welcome the pain that accompanied her vivid memories. She found that it allowed her to understand the mortals with greater ease as she experienced a pinch of the pain that they did throughout their lives. The gods were not much better than the mortals.

The humans rejoiced in the absence of the ravaging goddess of war though they remained fearful that she would return to her old ways. The ways that slaughtered thousands of their people, their children. While Sekhmet wished to walk among the humans without hesitation, she did not wish to scare the mortals anymore.

The goddess, Nephthys, removed Sekhmet from her self-isolation and slowly immersed her into man's world. By choice, Sekhmet decided to reduce her goddess body to that of a human's size to appear less daunting. One would think she was a mortal if not for her ethereal beauty and strength. The humans were trembling but obeyed the orders of their goddess, Nephthys. Under the guidance of Nephthys, the goddess of protection, Sekhmet used her powers of warfare to protect the people of Egypt from their enemies. She used her healing to provide care to all those who let her near.

In time, over many years, the humans welcomed the changed goddess as she proved herself to be selfless and kind. Sekhmet found a purpose for her life in returning healing to the humans she had once prosecuted so rigorously. The humans became her friends and taught her more things than a god as herself was ever born with.

As Sekhmet used her powers of healing over the years, she learned that she was blessed with more than the ability to heal life-threatening injuries. Her people that suffered from illness in the mind could be healed. The emotions of a broken heart could be softened, becoming bearable. Diseases that made outcasts of people could be healed by a touch of her hands.

The people marveled at every miraculous healing they witnessed. With a touch of her hand, her golden hair would stream into a blinding light while her usual honey eyes would burst into searing suns and the person was healed.

As Sekhmet grew closer to the humans, she encountered more gods. Specifically her sister Hathor. The two grew quite close... at least Sekhmet thought so. Unknowingly, as the sisters spent more time together, Hathor festered with jealousy.

Both sisters were infamous among humans for their beauty. Hathor was the epitome of a dark beauty with flawless caramel skin and smoldering eyes. She could control a man just by looking at him, no powers necessary. Hathor's mesmerizing beauty caused her to become increasingly more conceited and further exalt herself above the humans.

Her sister, while equal in beauty, was remarkably different compared to her fellow gods. Pale skin that shimmered with golden flakes, a hint of the blood that flowed beneath, accompanied by eyes and hair that glistened in any lighting. Their physical appearances were the first clear distinction between their differences.

While one grew in the love of the humans, another wilted. Both born with different purposes, each began to become the other. Sekhmet became more loving towards the humans, now equipped with her power of healing, while Hathor became drawn to the darkness of jealousy and greed. How could mortals love a goddess, who once hunted them, more than the goddess of love?

The temptations and promises of the underworld crept into Hathor's heart despite the love her sister and the people held for her. One day they were together and the next... Hathor was trapped in the underworld surrounded by demons. She became "Mistress of the West", one who welcomed the dead as they made passage to The Hall of Truth for judgment.

Sekhmet grieved for the loss of her beloved sister. The worlds of the living and dead separated the two. Brief communication was possible but nothing more.

It was in her grief that Sekhmet met her best friend, her love. Horus, the god of air, future king of Egypt. He didn't save her, for she could do that herself, but he loved her.