Lion Head Mesa hollyhock

@Ramesses please? <3
any/all other tags for ref

the sun rose.

she found no sleep that night and she turned away faces at her door. even @Nazli was sent away, in favor of the echoing silence.

makono brewed in the first light of the morning. she felt that her father had some sort of grand scheme above her. to have hidden the tale of regent neferu-net and bring it before her in the light of her siblings. why not tell her upon her return from mereo?

had he hopes that she might turn against those brothers raised alongside her?

against him?

surely not. surely he had no intention for such a thing but —

she moved into his chambers. unwilling to speak until the room was made private.

all of these things showed in her glowering silence.

and if he was not here? the lengths she would go to — !

he was there and he watched makono glower with a golden fury that rivaled his own. she was more masculine than he had ever seen her, vibrant with indignation and satsu's innate poise.
"speak."
his voice was a command. ramesses met her eyes with a clear expression. 
once upon a time he too had stood upon the threshold of seti's court with such a fire. how long it had been since that day!

a teenage mind was an ugly wasteland.

tumbling like rocks, and each was bigger than the last. the weight of her emotions not unlike boulders.

but she would not be crushed beneath the weight of her father.

was it intentional to speak of regent neferu-net before them yesterday? to my ears for the first time? i know better than to think things coincidences or accidents.

it was a game of senet. but makono was no longer ignorant of the moves.
"the story of neferu-net is one such tale. she had no sons. she had no brothers. she was in her middle years when her father died." too weak to marry her and continue their line.
"and she had the ear of all priests. all priestesses." there were many obstacles there, least of all the great age that had separated that moment from this one.
he spread his forepaws thoughtfully. "you want to be pharaoh."

she listened, brewing further upon it all.

a jewelstone gaze had become a dark ocean, expansive and toiling.

no sons, no brothers, a dead father.

she did not wish for any of it. she would not demand any of those around her succumb to a fate her mother had already seen. yet finally her father saw the truth of it all.

something akin to grief struck her heart.

i am the image of one already. you see it.

all but in the body she had been born into. looked over in favor of a brother who had not even seen the world beyond akashingo yet.

she dared him to say he did not see the writing before them.

ramesses grew impassive, like marble. he hated the dog's-head shadow of mistrust which leered with dripping muzzle in the corner, ready to devour their bond as if it were nothing.
and still he felt the shade of hatshepsuun, laughing as she corrupted his favoured daughter and hardened her heart against him.
"only divinity may birth divinity." his voice was as cold as he had become. "suppose you sat here, upon this throne, makono. suppose they called you pharaoh in my stead, when i have gone to join your mother in the Land of the Reeds."
"would you make a peasant your consort? would you muddy the blood of our long and unchanged line for your desires?"
he wanted to know. he must know. pharaoh was silent and unapproachable.
and yet his heart hurt with regret, with pride, with worry, with hope.

it felt as thought a canyon now cut along the room, either one of them across from the other.

an open expanse laid between them. he had become the grand marble pharaoh and she hardened like steel.

"would you make a peasant your consort? would you muddy the blood of our long and unchanged line for your desires?"

she felt marked all at once. as if he might think she would ever do such things. did siptah ever have to speak such words allowed? or had they all just assumed he would do as bid? was she only being asked the obvious because she had not been born crowned prince?

her features hardened further.

far too serious for such a still growing girl, but the look was not one new to her or her features. not in the last few weeks certainly.

i would do no such thing to you, to akashingo. a weaving of hurt beyond her own cold tone. for him to ever even consider she might.

perhaps it was too terrible a thing for her to be such a carbon copy of her father and mother.

yes, he had expected her to understand, to fall in line. he had not accounted for the fire on each side of her lineage, and that was his own fault. 
ramesses sighed, and the breath from his nostrils was warm; he wanted very much to melt the spires of silver ice that had climbed the terrace of the bridge to one another.
"i did not think you would. i mean only to describe to you the impossibility of what you desire, makono."
and still he guarded the truth of hatshepsuun and his own shame.
"look how much you have already done as princess. what you want is to change Ma'at."
his voice was affectionate. he moved down from his throne. "changing Ma'at is not done. speak to the priests if you want to hear it from them and not from me."
ramesses sought to look down at her now, for their eyes to meet. "your brother speaks highly of you. he says the throne of akashingo is yours by birthright."

as if the words of any others might matter if lord pharaoh always closed the door.

the impossibility.

she seethed, even as he came down from his throne. she could not meet his gaze with the affection he held now. still she wondered if everything he said was to rise her. to grow her hunger and starve her of it further.

to speak of her own brother! to say that he thought she could!

her face ached from the clench of her jaws.

does he want it nearly as bad as i do? does he understand the emissary work to be done for akashingo? has he given you more than i have already so young?

and she already knew that she would drag the priests' ears to hers at once after this, that she would burn in a fury nearly unbecoming of the things she yearned for.

but this hurt was unlike any other.

"no."
ramesses' gaze was unflinching. "you have done more than them all, makono."
he would not deny her accomplishments nor the pride she had brought to akashingo already. "siptah must grow into himself. your sister grieves your mother. little toula slowly comes into her own, and now we will see if sethnakht becomes rival for the crown prince."
"and a new queen comes to the throne."
pharaoh searched the fierce young horus. "i know that you feel denied. you think a queen below a pharaoh when a dynasty must have both to succeed. consider this: the assassin did not strike for pharaoh, my lotus."
and at last his voice audibly shifted, to where makono might see though the great wealth of control accrued over the years to the pain that slowly oozed from the wound of losing satsu.
"it was not me who represented whatever threat made this enemy move. it was her and the lineage she left you. she was her whole self entire, tied not to me or to pharaoh but out of choice."
"she was more than a queen. she was a goddess."

all of it served to hurt more.

that she had proven, before them all, and yet she was denied. siptah had been named — and even the son after him might prove to be a challenge.

but makono was dashed aside from a position she had already grown into. how could he not see that as the denial it so clearly was? he spoke of both, but the importance of one seemed to weigh heavier than the other. who was blind? her? him? the both of them?

the tension of her body spoke volumes of her turmoil.

the damage had been done in the wake of all this.

she could not leave her the girl she had come in as.

"she was a goddess."

her throat clenched, tight enough to make her feel she did not have enough air. a burning, stinging at her eyes. so badly she wished to weep.

but how could she do so before the one that brought all of this hurt?

i am done here. her voice hoarse and pulled tight against her vocal chords. i am seeing the priests. send a fellahin if you need me.

if he did not speak against this, or move to stop her, she would stride away at once. prepared to cut a path towards the newest priest (to be) — not of akashingo, not so deeply ingrained. perhaps he held more knowledge of the things her father could not give.

perhaps all palaces truly were this way.

she's gonna head for senmut if that's okay <3

<3 of course!

she was cold as he in the wake of those words.
ramesses saw he had driven her away. and yet he doubled upon the necessity of it. he was pharaoh, not she. not siptah. neither of them yet showed what being a ruler demanded: the balance of ambition with want.
those were hard lessons learned and makono had been privy to such tonight. but he hated it; he hated it! for he knew also that things would not be fast mended between them — if ever.
he was impassive until she had gone, and then his tears ran silent and hot. once he had been a boy with his heart broken by his father. it was a tragedy he had not wanted to pass down.
he went outside the palace after that, with only a single guard, and walked in the warm summer rain alone for several hours.