Back to the real world

Unsurprisingly, the hippo-goddess serving as guide to the dead idn't have a spare wardrobe or washing line handy. Short of becoming an avatar again and ending up back at square one, there were no clothes available. There was just one walk between her and being back in the real world, freed of any commitment to serving at the whim of a deity.

Just one walk. Layla eyed the doorway to the barge with a little bit of trepidation, willing herself into taking the first step. She was almost too nervous to think about the view of her butt she was giving Taweret.

She remembered her Duat - a dig site, something like those she'd been on so many times before. Low ruins, wide open and shifting sand, hardly built for cover or for streaking or running. Plus a few dozen archeologists hard at work.

"Not real," Layla told herself. "It's not real. It just looks like it is. And feels like it is."

A squeak bubbled up in her throat, and she pushed it down, and willed herself into opening the door and stepping through.

It was very hard to keep saying it wasn't real when she felt the sudden, heated breeze against her skin, and felt the sand get between her toes. Layla froze almost instantly. Another baking-hot breeze, hitting her like a wall after the coolness outside, wiping away her goosebumps and leaving her starkly aware of every inch of flesh she had exposed.

The sand shifted under her weight, feet sinking a couple of inches through the upper layer, the sediment hot if not as warm as she knew it would be in reality. It look Layla a few seconds to process the situation she was in.

Those few moments were enough for her sudden presence to draw the gaze of the few-dozen archeologists on the site. Layla stayed frozen.

"Not real," she murmured to herself. "Totally not real. Not real people, not real people..."

It looked real when their eyes widened, though - and it didn't help that she knew a couple of the faces. Marc had said something about that, people from his memory repurposed to be people in the Duat.

Slowly, Layla started to move forwards. There was no running on sand, especially without the right shoes for it; each step was painfully sluggish, sand dragging her feet down and then sinking under her with each step, leaving her at little more than a walking pace despite how much she wanted to hurry.

Her face burned, and she focused her eyes on the building she was heading towards, doing her best to tune out the old friends that for all the world it felt like were getting a clear view of her naked body. Long, bare, toned legs, arms to her sides, her core adorned with a patch of dark hair, a firm butt, flat stomach, modest breasts with small, dark-brown nipples, and curly hair framing a face that was still whispering to itself like a mantra.

"They aren't real, they aren't real..."

Covering up barely occurred to her; if she was here, she didn't want to start acting like she believed they were real. If she acted as mortified as she felt, she'd just trick herself into feeling like these people really were seeing her like this. If she just powered through it, willed herself to ignore how real it all felt, maybe she could forget about it.

Maybe.

She stumbled a little as she made it to the mostly-buried building; she hurried down the stone steps, glad to be able to pick up a little more speed, and squeaked as she passed by an archeologist.

"El-Faouly?" they said. Layla bit her lip to suppress a squeak.

Not real, not real...

She dove past them, and spotted the sarcophogus she'd first appeared in - still flushing, she pulled herself up and inside, curling up in the small stone box...

...and waking up with a gasp in the warm, perfumed air of the chamber of the gods. Layla took a deep whiff of the scented steam, glad to feel her mostly-dried, soft skin rather than the sun-baked sensation she'd had in the Duat. She sat up, catching her breath.

There was sand on her feet. Layla hesitated, not quite sure what to make of that, before shimmying to the baths and dipping her toes in until she washed the sediment away. Just some magical after-effect, she told herself. Probably better not to think about it.

"Er, Tawaret?" Layla said.

No answer. Well, that wasn't unexpected. Feeling a little strange, and swiftly remembering that the chamber was filled with invisible gods, Layla shifted back over to her clothes. She tried again to summon her avatar costume, was gratified to feel it fail, before picking up her normal clothes.

Well, at least that was over. Now to try and find her portal home. Back this way, she was sure...

A few steps away, Taweret waited, looking a little sadly as her former avatar departed. Hastily, Layla pulled on her top, before shaking her damp hair free. She didn't stay still while she was dressing, apparently quick to want to leave this place behind. She took a few bottomless steps, before lifting one leg up and awkwardly shimmying the next couple of steps as she pulled up her panties, and finished with her jeans, fastening them and tidying her clothes as she reached the end of the room.

"You let her go, then?"

"Ooh! Hi Hathor," Taweret said. She waved to the rather more sombre figure - a mostly-humanoid woman, with a cow headdress and slightly modified facial features. Hathor's attention, meanwhile, was on Layla.

"She seemed like a good avatar," Hathor said.

"Yeah, well, she didn't want to go long-term," Taweret said sadly. "No one does these days."

"So you ended it?"

"Suppressed the connection," Taweret said.

"I'm surprised she was okay with that one," Hathor said. "Humans these days are so different. You did explain it to her, right?"

"Of course!" Taweret chirped. "We have a stronger bond, so she summons the suit more easily, but the suit's bound in stone so she gets nothing."

Hathor paused.

"You did clarify that means she'll transform into a state wearing nothing, right?" Hathor said. "She'd lose her original clothes, but can't get the armour."

"What else could I have meant?" Taweret said. "She's a smart girl!"

There was a much longer pause.

"Taweret," Hathor said slowly. "I don't think most humans these days are so casual about wearing nothing at all if their mind wanders."

"Oh. You're sure?" Taweret said.

"Very," Hathor said. "My last avatar was very insistent on explaining that to me."

"Oh," Taweret said again. She paused. "Fiddlesticks."