After the night of the festival, I slept for two days. On the third day I woke feeling the presence of someone in my house. It was Ahnesh, come to see if I was alive upon her return from the mainland. I sat up as she entered my little bedroom and she looked relieved. The priestess who had seen to my wounds that night had informed her that I hadn't woken since, and they feared I was gone to see Osiris. They seemed to be unused to the idea that I was not a simple human like they were.

Ahnesh asked to see my wound and offered to help me change the dressings. I told her it wasn't necessary, there was no longer a wound to dress. She looked astonished, and I smiled. I said nothing of the male who had been there, I felt as if it was only something I should know. He seemed to not want himself to be known, so I kept the knowledge to myself. It wasn't as if I were lying when I told her that I healed quicker than a human did, that the job I had to do did not allow for me to die. I told her of the way my insides had felt, and about the horrible itching at the very end, but everything in between I kept to myself.

It was bright outside, and after Ahnesh left me to rest and regain my strength, I took a walk. The moment I stepped out of my home I had that feeling. I could feel eyes on me, and this time I knew, sort of, who it was. I headed for an area where there were no people around, near the banks of the water but away from the docks, knowing I was being followed. I sat in the sand and dug my toes into their coolness a few inches down. I waited.

Several minutes went by, the feeling didn't go away, and I spoke quietly. 'I know you are nearby, why not just come out instead?'

A moment later I head those same footsteps, and I didn't move or turn to look at him until he stopped.

'Thank you', I said quietly, looking at him standing behind me as if intent on blocking me from anyone else's view.

He was dressed high born, but foreign, with boots and cloak and clean, high quality clothes. He had jet black hair that was somehow familiar, and those indigo eyes that I somehow knew, but I couldn't place where I knew him. He was tall, at least a head taller than I was, which I realized when I stood up to face him.

'You know how I know you, don't you?' I walked up to him, and he didn't move. He still hadn't said anything, though he had been scolding me for being stupid the other night. His answer now just seemed to be a small smile that made my chest feel like it was being crushed. I'd never felt anything like it since I was a child. And then it clicked. I knew this man. I'd known him my whole life. How was he still alive? He must be similar to me. Only older, because he had been a man of the same face since I had been a baby. He must have seen the recognition in my expression because his smile widened.

It made sense now why he felt the way he did, and why his presence wasn't alarming and didn't put me on my guard. He had been the only male in all my life who didn't harm me. At least that I could remember. There were memories that were a fog or missing altogether. He looked down at me, and I felt very small, like I hadn't felt before, and it seemed like there was barely a breath of space between us, and I was both aware of it and not at the same time. He smelled of wind and summer and fresh washed linens, and I closed my eyes a moment to enjoy it.

I don't know when he leaned down, I don't know what prompted it or his thought process, but a couple of seconds after I closed my eyes I felt his hand wrap around the back of my neck, and I opened my eyes to find his only an inch or two from mine. Believe it or not I actually didn't know what he was going to do until he did it, and I can't believe I ever forgot it. His lips met mine and they were warm, like the sun at the start of the harvest season. I was surprised a moment, but my eyes closed and I could sense satisfaction from him.

I unconsciously followed the guidance from him, and I will admit to losing track of time, and I don't remember when he pulled me against him. I didn't think, and I experienced something I had never experienced before; both peace and pleasure, from a simple kiss.

He left me breathless after an indeterminable amount of time, and I realized I could taste him still on my tongue as I opened my eyes and looked at him. He looked at me in a way I didn't recognize, and it was both frightening and not at the same time. He kissed me again, but this time not for long, before he pulled away and straightened up.

'Goodbye.' It was the only thing he had said so far, and I opened my mouth to speak, but he was suddenly gone. Simply not there anymore, and if not for his boot prints in the sand and the taste on my tongue, he might have been entirely my imagination.

* * *

In the two days following the day I woke up and met the stranger who was not a stranger after all, there was not a single glimpse or the feeling or presence that had followed me since my arrival at Philae. After taking the two days to rest, dreaming of that male at night and scanning for him during the day, I returned to the temple, and back to the Cove where my animal companions once more were my only company. I returned to where I had left off in the books that were in the enormous cave behind the waterfall. And I didn't come out. I poured over tome after tome, keeping busy and keeping my mind where it belonged. It wasn't easy though.

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Sometime after the male had left, I was in the Cove, sitting in the fire lit cave with a golden tome in my lap and a growing Kyah beside me asleep, a tall woman appeared, with long black hair and a golden glow about her. I looked up, knowing her immediately as The Mother; Isis, the Patron Goddess of Philae Temple and the one to teach me healing.

* * *

I was able to take my mind off the outside world then, and threw myself entirely into learning absolutely everything that the Goddess had to teach me. I occasionally had to leave the Cove in order to eat or sleep or make sure that the temple priestesses knew that I was still alive and well. But months went by, I missed the next festival, though Ahnesh understood, I lost track of how much time was passing while I absorbed every nuance of this woman as well as every word she spoke. And by the time a few years had gone by and I had forgotten my first kiss as well as the person who had given it, I had learned all I could from Isis.

I was given a break then, being told that I would learn fighting from Horus, and that he would come to me when it was time. So I went back to my little house at the temple. The people had changed a little, but Ahnesh was still there, though she was noticeably a decade older than when I had last actually resided. She was happy to see me, and I was introduced to the newest priestesses that had come to the temple in the last couple of years since I had last come out of the Cove. I found I was ravenous and I had not felt a natural breeze on my skin for the better part of a decade. I decided to go to my little house and have a meal and sleep. Ahnesh had kept my house for me for all this time, and my belongings were still there when I went to look.

There was fresh food, and I ate my fill of bread and cheese and fruit that was in season, along with fresh water from a new barrel. I took a walk after, wandering the temple grounds and re-familiarizing myself with them and with the people. When the day's light waned, I returned to my home and sat outside watching the sun set as the surroundings became less bustling. There were always people who stayed at the temple overnight, but unless it was festival time then it was mostly quiet.

After the night settled in and the stars burst through the sky, I went inside, and had a small meal of my own, lighting the torches mentally as I had long ago learned to do. And after eating I laid down on my bed on my side, just listening and thinking without thinking. I was jittery, not being used to relaxation. I was always active, overly so, and the downtime didn't feel right. I didn't know what to do with myself and it kept me from sleep.

I got up and went to sit outside again, and I wandered aimlessly through the grounds. The years that had passed made things feel foreign to me, and I wanted to go back and learn, but there was nothing left to learn at that moment. I tried to think of what might fill my now empty time until Horus came to teach me.

As I walked I could hear a sort of commotion going on near the docks, and I headed in that direction. Coming up to the docks I saw a couple of people hurrying to try and carry someone on a makeshift stretcher. I approached and asked what was the matter. The person on the stretcher was a child who looked on the brink of death. The two people were the child's parents come to pray to the Goddess Isis and to try the medicines that the priestesses at the temple were known to use.

I helped the couple bring their son fully onto the beach and set him down on the ground. I knelt to look at the boy, and they told me he had come down deathly ill suddenly and they were told only the priestesses at the Temple Island of Philae could help them, so they had made the trip from the lower part of the kingdom in hopes that their son might be cured. Almost immediately I could see that the trip alone had brought the child closer to Osiris than to health. I examined the child, who appeared to be around ten or so, and I didn't think that Ahnesh could help him. I thought about how to tell the couple, when there was a sort of nagging feeling in the back of my mind for a moment before it clicked.

I picked up the child, burning with fever, in my arms and half ran back towards my own house rather than the temple itself, the couple trying to keep up. I didn't stop for them at my doorway, but went right inside, assuming correctly that they would follow on my heels. I laid the sick boy on my bed, ignoring their questions about going to see the high priestess. I hadn't actually tried my new skills on a human yet, as everything had been done with the animals in the Cove, but I was sure of myself.

I told them to be quiet and I set my palms, one over the little boy's heart, the other on his forehead. He was burning with fever and his skin was clammy. I closed my eyes and pulled, concentrating. My palms heated up, and I vaguely heard one of the boy's parents exclaim that they were glowing. I said nothing, reaching out to the unconscious child mentally and let energy spill forth while still controlling how much. Too much could kill the child rather than heal and cure him.

Minutes ticked by with not a sound in my house, and still I worked. Finally, after I don't know how long, I sat back heavily on the floor, the palms of my hands looking burned and my breathing heavy, as if I had run for miles without stopping. The couple both knelt down beside me asking if I was alright, but a small sound caught all of our attention., they looked up towards my bed, where their son was waking up for the first time in days. The woman dissolved into tears of joy, but I caught the male's attention and told him to get water from the other room for the boy. He would need to drink.

I felt drained, as if I hadn't slept in months though I had slept just the night before for a few hours. The time of night that it was meant that there was no one to take the couple and their healed son up to one of the temple's guest quarters, and I was in no condition to do so either, I couldn't even get off my floor. It meant that I would be giving up my bed to this family. I could not, in any circumstance be seen as weak, so I forced myself off the floor, said that they should sleep, especially the boy. I told them there was food in the next room and left them, leaving my own home entirely. I kept on my feet by sheer force of will, and made it to the edge of the water where a decade before I had finally seen the face of the presence that had followed me for so long. I sat down under the tree there, and the next thing that I knew one of the young priestesses was gently shaking my shoulder to wake me. It was obviously well into the afternoon, and I had fallen asleep under the tree.

When I woke, the young female said that Ahnesh wished to see me in the temple and had been looking for me all day. I was stiff as I stood, not used to sleeping sitting up, and followed the young one to the temple where she brought me to Ahnesh in the main temple where she stood with the couple from the middle of the night. Their son stood with them and as soon as he saw me he ran to me and hugged me. All I could do was stand in shock while the boy thanked me tearfully and his parents said that he had insisted on seeing me before they left to travel home again. The boy let go of me and I gave a small smile as I looked down at him. I didn't know what to say, but I didn't think what I'd done deserved thanks. It was what I was supposed to be doing, I didn't deserve appreciation like this, and had never received such in the past, and could not understand why now I was being thanked.