She didn't so much look upon the Horse-Headed God as she placed herself between it and the world.

A shadow on the sun. The outline of something enormous and terrible. A... violence and intensity that she could feel from here. It wasn't the brutal cruelty of the Bull-Headed God destroying things weaker than it, it wasn't the aloof menace of those who spy and subvert and break. This was like her - a terrible vision of her. Broken just a little further. Pushed to the point where the pain became funny. Where regret and honour and love were transmuted through the terrible alchemy of madness into laughter. 

This wasn't strength that she was staring at. It wasn't a shadow blocking out the sun. 

It was a pit. 

Deep and wide and in the centre of the road she was walking upon. A hollow place carved where light should be. She didn't know how she'd avoided that emotion so far. Had she already touched on it? Was she already in the process of falling into it and just hadn't hit the bottom yet? If she thought about it she could feel that same laughter welling up inside the darkest place in her soul, and who was there to save her from it? Anathet had said that these weren't the first High Gods...

She pulled her eye away from the telescope - biting her lip, fearful tears glistening. Oh, stars, of all the things that could have been at the end of the Great Chain. She'd thought the Annunaki at least had the direction right - that the chain went up instead of [i]down[/i].