Sekhmet App

[metemmods]

Player Information
» Name: Lills
» Date of Birth: 06/14/1982
» Journal: lionheaded
» Contact: Burningbrightly@ Plurk

Deity Information
» Pantheon: Egyptian
» Deity: Sekhmet
» Reference: References One, two and three
» Divine Family: {mother & father} Ra; {spouse} Ptah; {siblings} Hathor, Bastet, Serket, Shu, Tefnut; {children} Nefertum and also later on Maahes

» Mythology: Sekhmet is one of the older gods in the Egyptian Mythos who might have originally been brought to the Egyptians from Sudan. She was depicted as a lion-headed sun goddess whose dominion lay over fire, war, vengeance, healing and medicine.

Sekhmet was known by many titles but the more common ones were: the Powerful One, (as the root of her name 'sekhem' literally means power); the Goddess of Destruction; Lady of Pestilence; and the protector of Ma'at (Balance and Justice). She was also called Neser, or flame and was described as being the harsh, destructive power of the midday sun. The hot desert winds were said to be her breath (Or that her breath created the desert). She was dressed in the color of red which was meant to represent the color of blood.

She shared a close association with the goddesses Hathor and Bastet. With Hathor, she was described as being the harsher, vengeful counterpoint to the gentle goddess; while with Bastet, she was either depicted as being a twin sister or as a counterpart. Together she and Bastet shared a consort in Ptah. They were both seen as representations and protectors of different parts of Egypt. Sekhmet represented Upper Egypt while Bastet represented Lower Egypt.

Although Sekhmet was associated heavily with war and destruction, she was also known the patron of healers and physicians. In all likeliness it was because she was attributed as being able to send plague and pestilence to enemies and to keep it away from those she deemed friends. Her priests were often called upon for cures and to ward of disease and illness. To mark her as a goddess who could both give and take life, she was depicted as carrying an Ankh and the Sekem scepter.

Her seat of power was Memphis where she was part of the Memphis Triad with her consort, Ptah, and their son, Nefertum. Among the royal families, she was seen as the mother/protector of pharoahs, aiding them in battle by firing arrows of flame ahead of the their armies as they went to war. Her power was symbolized by the sun disk crown that featured the Uraeus which represented the absolute authority of the Egyptian gods and of the pharoahs.

Sekhmet is called the "Eye of Ra" and is featured in a destruction myth where Ra, unhappy with the way humanity ignored his laws and broke Ma'at cast down an eye from the Uraeus, sending Hathor in the form of a lion to mete out punishment. Hathor took on the form of a lion and became Sekhmet. Filled with wrath, Sekhmet proceeded to slaughter humanity, nearly wiping it out.

Ra tried to call Sekhmet back, but her bloodlust was too great. So he gathered 7,000 jugs of beer and dyed them red with pomegranate juice and poured it into Sekhmet's path. Sekhmet then drank the beer and slept for 3 days with her bloodlust sated. In some versions of the myth, when she awoke, she fell in love with the first thing she saw, that being the god Ptah.

Character Information
» Played By: Hansika Motwani
» Journal: lionheaded
» Current Name: Shakti Kaur
» Birthdate: 12/12/1988
» Height: 5'8
» Distinguishing Marks: Ears are pierced, and she has a tattoo of a lioness on her left shoulder.
» Family: {mother & father} Sundar and Vijaya Kaur; {marital status/spouse} Single/none; {siblings} Rakesh (m); Sandhya (f); {children} none; {pets} None
» Occupation: Second Lieutenant in the USAF/ Medical Lab Technician
» Currently Residing In: Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, Nevada
» Ability: Shakti discovered at a young age that she can influence the health of people around her. People who anger or upset her on a regular basis are often struck by strange sicknesses while those she cares about remain healthy or recover quickly from illness.

She is also a highly effective combatant with cat-like reflexes and keen situational awareness that makes her extremely efficient in combat scenarios.

» History: Sekhmet was reincarnated in 1771 As Marie-Clair Meilleur in France, where she was born into French nobility. She along with the rest of her family were staunch supporters of the King and the rights of the Nobility. She met her end during the Reign of Terror when she was executed along with the rest of her family via the guillotine.

Sekhmet's most current reincarnation is that of Shakti Kaur, daughter of Sundar and Vijaya Kaur and the eldest of three siblings. Shakti moved around a lot as a young child because of her father's early days spent as a claims adjustor for a large trucking firm. Eventually, her father got a job that allowed the three of them to settle down in Colorado. He still traveled a lot but mostly in the Four Corners area where he worked as an insurance adviser to local manufacturers.

Growing up in the middle of nowhere Colorado was hard for Shakti. Her father worked hard but did not earn a lot, so when Shakti turned 10, her mother took on a job working at a 7-11 part time in order to help pay the bills, leaving Shakti at home to look after her two younger siblings.

When Shakti was 11, her brother Rakesh became very ill with a rare disease similar to the West Nile Virus, though at the time the doctors were baffled as to how he ended up contracting it. At the time, Shakti did not know it, but she was responsible for making her brother very ill. They had been fighting and in a fit of rage, Shakti unknowingly called upon the powers of Sekhmet and cursed her brother with the disease. Her brother almost died from the illness and became extremely sickly afterwards.

As she grew older, Shakti began to realize that people who upset her often became ill, while those she was on good terms with, remained healthy as far as illness went. She suspected it had something to do with her, but was afraid to say anything to her parents lest they blame her for her brother's illness. As an experiment, Shakti began to will he brother to grow healthy. Over time, her brother's poor health improved and he became hale and hearty again, though permanent damage had been done to his lungs and he suffered from neurological scarring that affected his brain. From that moment on, Shakti wanted to go into medicine to further test her abilities and to make up for the damage she had inflicted towards her brother.

Unfortunately, since her family was rather poor and most of their money was spent on trying to take care of her ailing brother, Shakti had little chance of getting into any of the good premed schools without a scholarship. Unfortunately for her, School had never seemed important enough so she also did not have strong enough grades to support a scholarship on an academic level. Looking for an alternative, she turned towards sports, figuring a sports scholarship might get her closer to end goal. Her father was vehemently against her joining any sports team or program however, feeling that such activities were not meant for a daughter. His wish was for her to to go to the local community college, gain enough of an education to support herself until she could be married off and then have her start raising a family of her own.

Shakti's mother, Vijaya sympathized with her daughter and began to look for alternative means for her daughter to achieve her goal. However, it was Shakti who came across a solution that she felt was not only the right one, but that would annoy her father to no end. During Career/College Week at her local High School, she came across a booth representing the United States Air Force Academy. Further more, her mother, agreed to support her behind her father's back. Shakti then began the long process of getting accepted into the school.

So driven by her desire to prove herself, she started to improve her grades. Although she still could not participate in sports or many after school activities since she still had to look after her brother and sister, she did her best to take on leadership roles and key responsibilities in the few activities she did manage to join. Shakti also began to work out, making herself as fit as possible in preparation to join the USAFA. Her father noticed her sudden keen interest in health and grew suspicious of what she was doing. Thankfully her mother came to her rescue, saying that she supported their eldest daughter in trying to stay healthy so that she did not end up ill like her brother.

Thus Shakti and her mother managed to keep her application into the Academy a secret from her father until the day she got her acceptance letter. As soon as Sundar found out just what his daughter was doing, he threatened to disown her. In a fit of rage, he kicked her out of the house and forbade the rest of the family from contacting her. The last words he said to her was that he would not pay for a dowry for her nor for her marriage should she ever find a husband willing to take such an unruly daughter as her into his house.

Although the separation from her family hurt more than she was willing to let on, Shakti soon found herself thriving all the more at the USAFA. The strict military regimen, combined with hard classes provided for her the kind of environment she had secretly been craving all of her life. For the first time she was on her own and no longer needed to look after her brother and sister. The military lifestyle also awoke something else within her. She soon found that she had a taste for violence and war which was deeply at odds to how she had been raised. She even began to question her decision to go into medicine, wondering if she shouldn't just make a career out of the military itself.

Then she got a letter from her sister Sandhya, sent in secret. Her father had taken ill with a disease similar to the one which had partially crippled her brother. The thought of her family struggling with only their mother there working at her 7-11 job to support them galvanized her decision and Shakti enrolled into studying premed. All thew hile she continually sent thoughts of healing towards her father, hoping that he would get better. To help her family out, she also began to send home what she could of her cadet pay. She and her sister started keeping regular correspondence via emails, and telephone calls where Shakti pretended to be a pen pal named Leona. Eventually her father got better and her family once more started to do well. Shakti continued to send what she could of her pay to help support her family until her graduation.

After graduating from the USAFA, she was sent to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, Nevada to continue her military career. The appointment to Nellis AFB came as a shock to her, as she was expecting to go either to Washington D.C. or Dover AFB in order to continue her medical training. It was soon revealed that while her desire to become a virologist was well known, the military felt that she would be of better use serving out her military contract in a place where her combat skills could be honed and appreciated. She was assigned to the 58th rescue squadron in order to function as a combat medic.

» Personality: As a young child, Shakti always tried to be a dutiful and obedient child, but as she got older and began to get more in touch with her goddess self, she began to develop a fierce independent streak that often set her at odds with people around her. While the military has helped to keep it in check, there are times when Shakti feels the need to cut loose. Sometimes it is in the form of drunken revelry, other times, it is getting into fights. During those times, she drops the name of Shakti and takes up the name of Leona or Sekhet (without being aware that it is an alternate spelling to Sekhmet). She also goes by the nickname Lioness, though not even she is quite sure when that began or who started it. She does her best to not get caught, but occasionally she has shown up with bruises and skinned knuckles that has earned her disciplinary action. Most of the time, she accepts them without complaint, figuring that it is better to get them over with than to fight about it.

Although she grew up in the typical Hindu household, Shakti does not act or dress like it. She has embraced being 'American' with all the enthusiasm that one can possess when leaving their past behind them. Rather than wear traditional Indian clothes on her days off, she prefers to run around in t-shirts and jeans. When on duty she keeps her hair neatly braided and tided up, but when she is on her own time, she lets her hair down literally, rarely tying it back.

She is also highly competitive when it comes to physical activities, especially when they are training exercises. She likes things that can challenge her and force her to strive to do even better, be it a person or an activity. This combative side has only really come into the forefront within the last few years since she joined the military. Most of the time Shakti sees it as a sign that she is doing what she was meant to do in life.

The older she gets, the more in touch she becomes with her goddess self. She has already come to the conclusion that she is not a normal person and has therefore begun to research just exactly what that means. So far, she knows of her control of illnesses and suspects that her natural aptitude for combat might be signs of something greater.

Shakti loves her family, and view them as important to her life, but she feels the time away from them has been more of a blessing than a curse. To her, having a family is a burden, one that she is not ready to bear until after she has established herself in her chosen career. In order to keep her mind focused on such goals, she tries not to have any boyfriends or even close relations with guys, feeling that a relationship will cause more complications than she is willing to deal with. She has engaged in a few one night stands and the occasional casual sex hook-up, usually when she is trying to blow off steam. She also tries not to bring up her family too much in conversation and quickly deflects away from them if people begin to get too personal about it.

Being situated near Las Vegas has actually gone a long way to improving her overall mood. When she is on leave from the base, she spends her time in Sin City gambling, drinking and getting into fights. Her recent discovery of the MGM Lion display has her frequenting the MGM Grand casino often just to watch the lions. She also likes to frequent the Luxor, feeling somehow nostalgic when she is in it's confines.

Shakti is also surprised to find that a part of her resonates with the arid, sparse landscape of the Nevada Desert. Although she does not quite feel at home out in the desert heat, she does excel in it. When others are suffering heatstroke, she is perfectly fine and quite content. More than one higher ranking officer has earmarked her for deployment overseas, but as she is still in training, she as not yet been deployed.


» Other Notes: Shakti knows hindi as well as English and is fluent in both. She is also straight.

» Sample Journal: I thought I'd find it hard, out here in the desert. It's different in many ways from Colorado, and yet, still the same. Sun rises in the east, sets in the west. The air here is just as smoggy and muddled as it is back home, but there is a difference. I don't know what it is. I wake up every morning in the barracks, listening to groans about the desert heat and I find myself wondering just what everyone is complaining about. Now if it was humidity, I could understand. Humidity just takes the fight outta me, but this dry heat? It leaves me feeling cleansed even during the hottest part of the day I feel alive, active. It's as if the desert challenges me and I of course have to accept.

» Sample Log: “Sandy, I told you I can't come home.” Shakti sighed as she leaned against the desk looking at her sister who sat opposite her. They were talking face to face, but Sandhya was actually a couple hundred miles away, tucked up in her bedroom, using the family's laptop to talk to her.

“Mamma misses you. It's been hard these last few years. Rakesh is doing his best to help out, but you know how he is... And pappa...”

Shakti had heard it all before. She knew quite well what was going on with her family, even without Sandy mentioning it twice a week. She let the silence linger between them for a moment. Her strange grey eyes pierced into her sister's darker brown ones. She waited, watching Sandhya squirm in her seat before finally speaking once more.

“You know why I am doing this. I want to help them. That's why it's important I stay here. Besides I have a contract. You know that. Two years in service, then I'm off to med school.” Of course she knew her timetable had the chance of being horribly skewed, given the number of people in the service who were still in even after their tours were up. She kept those misgivings from her sister though, not wanting the youngest in the family to worry the most.

Defeated, her sister gave a sigh and nodded, giving in for now. “Rakesh wants to know when you're gonna get a boyfriend to tame you.” Sandhya said suddenly with a slight smile. The sudden interest in her love life meant one thing to Shakti. Her brother must have poked his head in to see if Sandhya was still on the laptop. She didn't envy her brother at the moment. Now that he was getting older, there was more and more pressure on him to find a girl so the family name could be carried on.

Normally she'd laugh at her sister's teasing, but right now she was feeling irritated. Her poor brother had enough on his plate without having to worry about a girlfriend, just as she has better things to be doing than finding a husband. Rather than show her annoyance to Sandy,w ho had only been trying for a laugh she made a point of glancing to her watch and then making a sad face.

“Time is up little sister. I need to be going. I'll skype you again next week.” Shakti waited for her sister to say bye back before ending the call and pulling off the headset. With a yawn and a lazy stretch, she got up and made her way out of the computer room in the library, allowing someone else the use of the computer.

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