Epilogue: The Exodus of the Misfits
It began with an uprising no one saw coming—not from the royal court, not from the dusty temples of Amok, and least of all from the bureaucratic dung heaps of Sakkara's lower archives.
Mussa, once a slouching, poetry-quoting, sandal-shuffling nonentity, and Princess Naynah, a royal rebel with more brains than patriarchal tradition would ever allow, made a break that would alter history.
With the help of Kephri the scarab—who'd rerouted a labyrinth of guards using nothing but strategically placed dung balls—and the ever-snide Serious, the talking dead cat, they fled Egypt under cover of a lunar eclipse. They navigated through forbidden tomb tunnels, bribed border guards with embalming coupons, and rode atop a stolen sacred ostrich named Marvin.
In the land beyond the desert, on the shimmering shores of the Unnamed River, they founded a city called *Sekhem-Ubasti*—"The Strength of the Forgotten."
There, cats were not sacrificed but consulted. Dung beetles were not crushed under heel but elected to Parliament. Poets, dreamers, and the genetically confused were appointed judges, counselors, and sacred scribes. Everyone had a voice—even if it squeaked, meowed, or buzzed.
Princess Naynah, now simply called Naynah the Bright-Eyed, became the first monarch of this curious land—but only after insisting on the title of 'Facilitator.' Mussa, now High Oracle (and reluctant administrative assistant), composed edicts in rhyme and decrees in riddles.
The people? Misfits, all. Refugees from ancient traditions. Makers of new myths.
And every year on the Day of the Exodus, the citizens gathered at the Great Mound of Reflection, where a marble statue of Serious the Cat stood frozen in his usual disapproving hunch, a papyrus scroll under one paw.
Below the statue, carved in clean hieroglyphs, read:
Let no one be forgotten.
Let no voice go unheard.
Let no dung beetle go unsung.
History, of course, never mentioned this city. The priests erased it. The pharaohs ignored it. Modern archaeologists dismissed it as a myth.
But if you ever find yourself in this Empty Quadrant and you see a beetle rolling its sacred burden across the sand under the full moon—listen closely:
You might just hear the whisper of a poet laughing.
