Her father’s study, once a hallowed sanctuary of historical adventure, became a mausoleum of unbearable grief. The meticulous notes, the field sketches, the half-translated texts lying on his desk — they were all cruel reminders of a future that had been stolen. The loss curdled her passion into a bitter, aching sorrow. Her mother, unable to soothe her daughter's profound pain after years of passing, eventually locked the door of the study at Miriam's behest, sealing away the tangible remnants of her husband and, in many ways, sealing off a part of Miriam's soul.As she progressed through high school, Miriam excelled academically, channeling her trauma into a fierce, disciplined intelligence. While she refused to even glance at the locked door at home, she discovered that the knowledge she had absorbed as a child was deeply ingrained within her. History, specifically ancient Egyptian history, came as naturally to her as breathing; she effortlessly aced examinations, constructed complex historical theories, and developed a near-encyclopedic knowledge of dynastic timelines. Her teachers praised her academic achievements, but Miriam felt a profound sense of irony. The very subject that brought her recognition was the same subject that had robbed her of her father. She navigated her teenage years with a complex cocktail of emotions, resenting the subject she loved and loving a subject that brought her pain. But as time passed, and the sharp edges of her grief began to dull, she started to realize that remembering her father didn't always have to be an exercise in suffering. Sometimes, she saw his own handwriting in a textbook or remembered his voice through a recorder. Eventually, she made the conscious decision to let go of her resentment and began to actively reclaim her passion for history, viewing it not as a painful reminder of loss, but as a living legacy of her father’s life and work.Upon graduating from university with top honors in archaeology, Miriam felt a compelling need to prove herself, to ground her academic knowledge in the real world. She chose to begin her archaeological expedition not in her own turf, Luxor. She assembled a small, dedicated team and began preliminary surveys along the west bank, exploring lesser-known sites that had been overlooked by larger institutions. She was in the field for several weeks, the sun baking her skin and the dust of the earth coating her clothes, when she received the news from her younger sister. The message was terse and terrified: their mother had been murdered. She was found dead in her shop, surrounded by her divination tools and scattered tarot cards. The chaos of the scene suggested a struggle, but there was no sign of robbery and no obvious motive. The local police were baffled, and Miriam was now thrust into the throes of a raw, violent, and inexplicable present. She immediately left her team, her professional ambitions instantly dwarfed by the consuming need to return home and find answers. The days following her mother’s funeral were a blur of bureaucratic procedures and sleepless nights.While sorting through her mother’s personal effects in a bid to find any clue about her killer, Miriam discovered a hidden, leather-bound journal. Its pages were filled with her mother's familiar, looping script, but the content was unlike anything she had ever seen. It detailed a secret relationship, a bond with a feline goddess of protection, healing, and music: Bastet. As she read, the words on the page began to blur, and a strange, oppressive energy filled the room. A chorus of female voices, a symphony of whispers, began to echo in her skull, so loud and overwhelming that Miriam was convinced she was suffering a psychotic break. It was only after a terrifying encounter with the goddess herself that Miriam understood. Bastet was calling her, demanding she take up the mantle of "the Eye of Protection," a sacred and ancient duty her mother had secretly fulfilled. Overwhelmed by grief, confusion, and a deep, existential skepticism, Miriam recoiled from the divine presence. She slammed the journal shut, her fingers trembling, and rejected the offer. She was a woman of science and history, not a servant to a myth.Desperate for a semblance of a normal, grounded life and needing to pay the bills, Miriam took a job as a tour guide in Cairo. She found it therapeutic to walk groups through the Egyptian Museum, narrating the stories of artifacts she had loved as a child. It was during one of these tours that she began frequenting a small gift shop run by a charmingly awkward man named Steven Grant. Ostensibly, she went to find unique trinkets and books for her apartment, but the truth was far more personal. It was a way to simply see Steven, to talk to someone whose life seemed refreshingly ordinary and whose gentle, self-deprecating humor could momentarily distract her from the ghost of her mother and the persistent, nagging presence of Bastet in her peripheral consciousness. Their friendship deepened quickly. Steven, in turn, began to confide in her about his own peculiar struggles. And that's where it starts.Miriam discovered that Steven was not always Steven. She met the grim, hyper-competent, and heavily scarred Marc Spector. Rather than recoiling in horror or treating him like a spectacle, Miriam approached the situation with a quiet, studious patience by pretending to be oblivious. She understood enough about the psyche to know that this was a delicate matter, and she waited for Steven to explain the situation on his own terms. When he finally did, opening up about the DID and the numerous gods that seemed to orbit his life, Miriam’s world tilted on its axis. Marc, the original occupant of the body they shared, was the avatar of the moon god Khonshu. In that moment, the pattern she had been desperately trying to ignore clicked into place with terrifying clarity. Just as her mother had been a servant to Bastet, and just as Marc was a servant to Khonshu, Miriam was already marked. Her life, it seemed, had been decided for her long ago. With this profound realization, she ceased her resistance and finally sought out Bastet, confronting the goddess in a moment of desperate clarity. The conversation between her and the feline deity was long and contentious. Miriam demanded answers regarding her mother’s murder, her purpose, and the markings on her skin. In the end, she accepted her destiny, agreeing to become Bastet's new avatar, the Eye of Protection. She was no longer just the daughter of an archaeologist or a history student; she was a supernatural guardian, her physical marks now blazing with a new, coherent power.However, Miriam, ever aware of the fragile mental state of the man she cared for, has yet to tell Marc (or Steven) about her new role (which she believes Khonshu already told them). She is terrified that revealing her own divine connection will unravel the delicate stability that they (Steven, more likely) have begun to forge.Burdened by this monumental secret and driven by a fiery, newly awakened power, she has formulated a singular, consuming goal: to find out who murdered her mother.