Hideaway Strath giza

whenever you have time!

kynareth had instructed ramesses to bring a gift for @Aerin, the sharp-tongued foreigner who held a sainted place among them.
he had bumbled through the land, keeping away from anyone who might stop him or otherwise antagonize his presence; pharaoh followed his task with grim, singleminded intent. she was a woman, and women enjoyed things that were beautiful. this was the extent of his thought process, and the afternoon hour found him proudly bearing a mess of slain butterflies, some intact and some shredded by too-eager teeth.
but ramesses had found all shades of the lovely insects, and picked up her trail. yet he decided he did not want to follow the path to its end, where teeth might wait for him stumbling upon her lair. and so he only tilted back his head, cooing a dove-soft note that wished her attendance.

He was a wise man not to wander too close.

It rankled her that he was even so close as this and knew that his scent was something that would also stir something protective in @Vein's (reference) chest as well. She could not quite forget his disdain for the lowborn -- for the lives that had been forced upon the once-slave, the same lives she had clawed and fought her way out of. And it was for this that Ramesses would come to know a similar withheld contempt from The Priestess, polite but only on the surface. In all truth, some aspect of her felt she had denied the retribution he was due by sparing his life. It would not fix anything, his blood on their borders, but it might make her feel just a little better -- like some debt had been paid, if not to her then to the slaves of his homeland who had surely also been the victims of great monstrosity.

The mother was tall and proud, every bit The Priestess she had been named if still bearing the scarred flesh of slaveskin, as she drew upon him -- eyeing the ruined beauty in his jaws with an unreadable gaze that murmured of disgust. What a waste, to kill such sweet, pretty things -- and with no purpose, for even as sacrifices they would not mean much to her gods.

"Vhat is zis?" Was all she asked, all judgement withheld in the cool hum of curiosity that fled from her like cicada-song. 

now that he knew her lowborn roots, ramesses rankled at the thought of being placed so far below a slave, one who wore the jagged marks and scarring of heathenry. pompous, incandescent inside himself at the cool sound of the priestess' removed tone, pharaoh bowed his head. "jewels for your bower, divine one." voice to match, devoid of anything save for a canny edge of respect. he did not wish to fall afoul of kynareth or nyra in this regard.
once upon a time he had known another pale priestess, one with a turned foot and a fathomless gaze turned toward the farflung shore of the crowded island. a poisoner. ramesses wondered if in this place of warriors, such things were also known. 
he thought it impudent and dangerous that the grandmaster allowed children born that were not his own. this despite the fact that ramesses had assumed the current children to belong to kynareth, and that of the snowstruck overseer as well. 
ramesses waited for the priestess to engage or dismiss him; he would have preferred the former, though his own rancorous curiosity was biting at him now, demanding to know how a slave, even one beautiful, he begrudged, had climbed so high into the canopy of the saints' tree.

For all that she hated the dead things that he carried, she had seen so many innocent things felled purposefully, the once-druid didn't have it in her heart to be unkind -- even to Ramesses. Her lips thinned into a thin line of blush, her diadem of hoarfrost dipping once in a jerky nod of mere confirmation. "Thank ye," she managed, though it felt she had to grit the words out, her tongue wishing to remain fixed in silence -- a protest of the fallen Prince's company and silent derision.  "But I am just Aerin." She would not have any of this 'divine one' nonsense, nor would she entertain the notion of keeping a slave in any form or fashion. 

The Priestess would rather destroy her enemies than stoop to needless violence and mindless cruelty.

"'ow 'as ze scraping been treating ye?" The feathered wisp asked him, with only the faintest twist of a smirk marring the smile she allowed to crawl across her lips like a spider on its webbing. "I take it ye mean to stay if'n ye 'ave dug a den fer yerself." Her preference regarding such a notion -- whether he stayed or went -- was carefully concealed in the light tone of her dulcets.

ooh, 100 for u!

ramesses did not like uttering her name. a title gave them a polite distance between one another, removed. he royal-blooded and she low-born. he supposed he should cease thinking of her in this way, but he could not. for now.
to placate himself, pharaoh focused upon the heavy accent that cut her words into quarters and caused his ears to strain in understanding. "i mean to be useful, di — aerin," he corrected himself. "i will stay."
as underling, no less!
"your husband, he is the high priest?" ramesses inquired, drawing up another step but no more. these saints were fickle, and he would expect the same of her, a sudden turning or snap.

Her brow quirked in the faintest of tics but the ivory doe said nothing. Words were so often meaningless; only time would tell if the gilded royal would stay -- or if he truly proved useful to their brutish tribe. So far, he seemed to have only agitated several of his newfound comrades and perhaps piqued Kyn's ever-fluid interest. Aerin herself had done so once but Donav was a fickle-hearted man; Ramesses would soon lose his shiny appeal.

A genuine grin shifted her expression into something gleeful then, an ironic humor rising in her chest like a burst of repressed laughter -- only too excited to tell him the truth of it, knowing it would only disgruntle him further.

"I am ze 'igh Priestess," the sylph corrected him, not unkindly. "My 'usband is a Specialist; 'e aspires to stand beside me as 'igh Priest someday," she then added by way of explanation. "But my gods 'ad no place amongst ze Saints. Ve serve 'is gods together."

if she sought to anger him, she had done a fine job.
only his time within the court, a spoiled brat at the foot of his father, saved ramesses now. he inclined his head, but inward his mind railed against the very notion of a high priestess. why, that was just as foolish as the concept of his sister as pharaoh? what sacrilege did kynareth seek to burn as incense here in the strath?
the man was beside himself with rage.
ember tempered by the revelation it was her husband's gods the pair served. "my father," his fine head coming up, "remembered the gods of my mother, and built her goddess a temple." an inferior deity, to be sure; ramesses would never have worshipped some desert god for fellahin, but seti had seen the prudence in keeping his queen pleased.
white teeth in an inscrutable smile. maybe this aerin had some sense of her place after all.
"will you tell me of them? before i came to the saints, i lived with a prophet and his daughter. i learned too, the stories and the names of the ones that they followed."

She was satiated by the flicker of irritation that crossed his features, his displeasure feeding some hidden rebellion in her that had long burned. Her smirk took on a satisfied hue before surprise flitted across her own wan countenance. She eyed the man with keen gunmetal. "Of ze Druids gods or of mine own?" 

"Ze Druids 'ave long been destroyed an' scattered to ze vinds. I cannae imagine ye vould 'ave much use fer ze gods of ghosts," she mused softly to answer her own inquiry. "But zey vere a simple folk -- kind, I suppose. Zey believed in nature spirits -- in ze stars mainly." 

"My 'usband's gods are 'arsher -- ze gods of Saints. Zey are called Nahuatl in 'is tongue -- our tongue now. Zey do nae bleed -- do nae suffer as ve do. An' so, zey require blood an' sacrifices fer zeir favor." 

"Zere is Alom -- god of ze 'unt. Bolon Tzacab, god of storms an' wind, an' 'is brother -- Cabrakan, god of earthquakes. Bolon's wife is Chaac, goddess of rain and lightning. Ek Chuaj is god of warriors, 'ze black var chief'. Itzamna, 'is kin, is ze god of ze sun."

"Of most importance is Kukulcan, god of death, an' 'is vife Ix Tab, goddess of fallen sacrifices who guides lost souls to ze underworld -- Xibalba. "

he listened. two sets of gods, one primal and the other organized into a pantheon, the structure of which he recognized.
he would never give this scarred rustic the satisfaction of knowing this, but the description of her gods lulled him, restored a sense of peace to know that he was not alone in this place.
such a shame it must come from one with the blood of the enslaved.
idly, he wondered if her life before the saints was where she had earned the ridges along her flesh, or if they were deliberate — he had heard rumour of pagan tribes cutting their own skin.
his own, unblemished.
"xibalba. we have Osiris, god of the underworld. and Anubis, who weighs the heart of the dead against the feather of Ma'at." would he speak to aerin of Amun? he did not yet know.

"An' who is Ma'at to yer people?" The waif questioned with great care not to butcher the name in her strange affliction of speech, though she was just as reluctant to show the royal any interest. Perhaps he would say more and perhaps not, for now The Priestess was content to listen to whatever he shared as she settled on her pale haunches -- fighting against the tension that had worked its way betwixt them whenever she remembered who it was she was speaking to. 

"Ma'at balances the skies. she balances the heart. She brings order to the stars, that we may read them. She is harmonious in all ways. She is truth." she could not be without her counterpart, nor her opposite, for even in her very weakness, Ma'at was divine. it could not be called a weakness if it was her formal character.
ramesses felt himself fill with piety, a haughty dreamlike expression crossing his face. "Ma'at weighs the truth of your soul against your deeds in this world. She is the last step between torment or rebirth."

"Ye 'ave done something nae many can manage zese days," the silver doe murmured when his words had concluded and she was left wishing they hadn't. She was somewhat pleased that it only sounded slightly begrudging. "Ye 'ave surprised me," she admitted with the beginnings of a bemused smile, chuckling quietly beneath her breath as she gave a shake of her head. When Ramesses spoke of his gods, it was easy to forget the animosity of their interactions. She yearned to ask, to hear more but held her tongue as the reminder of how he felt about slaves flitted through her mind.

"I vill zink on zis," she promised and she would. The Priestess would remember his words, how they dripped from his tongue like gilded droplets -- like jewels brought from his homeland. "But fer now, I must prepare my own den. I zank ye again fer ze butterflies an' ze vords about Ma'at," the midwife inclined her pale crown to him in a grateful bob, waiting to hear his parting words -- if he had any -- before she moved to gather up the gift and make her exit. It was not a lie, she did truly have a whelping den to ready for her future children. 

Before picking up the winged offerings and departing, Aerin cocked her head, considering, and suggested: "Ye might consider speaking vith @Vein, my 'usband, about gods. 'e knows of many zings."

surprise.
ramesses had not expected more from the priestess save for her gentle, courtly scorn — he had set them apart a great rift the first day, with his talk of slaves. and while pharaoh's heart had not relented, it was also dishonest, and ignored the peace that had settled within his rancorous heart during this sharing.
pharaoh in the absence of judgement, almost priestly in gold-drop humility.
he parsed the lilt of her words to hear his dismissal, polite though it was, and found that he was rather reluctant. he would have liked to tell her of Mut and Nu, stories of the first ones who had come to his people. not for nothing was ramesses familiar with the ways of an elegant, formal dance.
"thank you for your time today, priestess," the man said, lowering his head. she spoke of her husband, and it clawed at ramesses with ire. he meant no meeting with some barbaric man who kept consort with — he supposed aerin was slave no longer, and flicked his lapis gaze for a second's time to the palestone set of her own, how the downy streamfall of her ears framed the otherwordly lyric of the woman's features.
ramesses did not correct his use of her title. "i will seek him."
another bow, and he turned to move off, back proud for as long as he was within sight of the scrutinizing gaze.