snagging this
The Overseer was once again on the move, having scaled down the high slope where she had made her whelping den to do some patrols and get in some exercise.
As the Queen moved, she came across the new wolf they had intercepted some short time ago.
He seemed to be digging a den for himself...
Amusement carved a crooked smile into her maw as she made herself known; "You should try to socialize more, y'know. What's pack life if you aren't familiar with your fellow clansmen?"
edit for unexpected post (
@Nyra ya just beat me to it XD) I know it says Nyra entered the scene before Aerin but I honestly wasn't sure how to reword this so yall just lmk if this doesnt make any sense or I need to edit!
The Priestess watched him for a time, curled sphynx-like in the long grass that hid even her wintry coat from view -- so long as she remained still and silent, a habit that the once-slave had long ago acquired. She'd not been expecting the golden-capped man to come wandering by, unbeknownst to him that his savior (if she could be called that) lay nearby. So long did she hold herself, watching the display of arrogant emotions cross his face like the shifting sands of some white-hot desert, that her bones were slow to unfold as the halfling rose -- creaking silently beneath her flesh with prickling needles of numbness as the hart toed her way closer, grasses parting as she trotted towards the man.
Mere curiosity was all he would find if he turned to scrutinize her expression, a sort of unreadable calculation in her gibeon gaze of detached starlight. A wisp of noise escaped her throat as a greeting, silver gaze drifting from the man's lapis to the abandoned warren he scraped at and back again. "Vhy 'ad ye trespassed?" The ivory doe asked of him without any sort of preamble, allowing her slender diadem of snowfall to cant to the side expressively as she waited for his response.
"Were ye running from something?"
The sighthound was prevented from answering though, for soon the hulking white form of their Overseer came into view -- a quip escaping the Phoenix's lips as Aerin moved to bump her tapering muzzle against the Nightwish's in a friendly display of affection.
The Phoenix's gaze hardened at the exile's words as she licked Aerin's crown in a gesture of friendship, But her voice remained tinted in patience.
"Talk to them as if they are your equals or your superiors. After all, they are exactly that." Nyra suggested calmly. Though in her mind she was fighting herself not to paint him in the image of a spoiled brat.
<3 health first! no worries
met with warning from each of them, dropped tones from nyra to a reminder of his place as fellahin, ramesses only dipped in a lower obeisance. "i am a man humbled by his gods. give me your harshest tasks and i will do them." but the head he lifted was no less haughty, his gesture no less proud. pharaoh was also a man emboldened by challenge. neither the brutishness of the overseer nor the scorn of the priestess would maim his hubris.
only Amun could do this.
yet ramesses recognized that it was within his best interest to show himself ready for humility. therefore he kept his lapis eyes politely trained away from them. nyra's voice, ringing again: your superiors. pharaoh? him? he did not bow before heathenry and the lost! and the slave; her angular beauty muted for the royal now that he knew she had come from dust.
and yet he did bow, and yet he too was made of dirt here among the saints.
above, Amun grinned in wicked amusement.
whoops sorry I took so long lmao
Nyra's hell-borne hues sharpened upon Ramesses. Almost as if her mind was already made up for the time being.
"You must have done a great disservice to your gods, for you to have fallen so far from your throne." The Queen mused with icy tones. She held no more sympathy for him. That would be earned, through much blood, pain, and sacrifice. Especially where she too had come from royalty and yet still worked her way from dust to divinity.
A wicked grin crawled upon Nyra's face as she assumed she saw disgust flicker in the former blue blood's eyes at knowing Aerin's origins.
"Here are your orders, Ramesses, should our lovely Priestess accept: you will be at Aerin's beck and call. Day and night, for everything and anything she needs. You will be her personal assistant for any tasks she thinks you to be of use for and you will follow her every order to the letter. If I hear that you cop the slightest attitude or show the tiniest modicum of disrespect, I will carve away your very being and you will have more than just your gods to fear." As the Queen spoke, her voice carrying and radiating with authority, she came ever closer to Ramesses with a full display of dominance and bared teeth.
Clearly, Nyra was angry now, and her inner darkness unfurled its eldritch tendrils if ever briefly in the form of hellfire smoldering in her amber hues.
"Am I understood?"
While the gilded snowbird's pomp had irked The Priestess, she wasn't ready in the slightest for what Nyra proposed -- the man's simpering seemingly not enough to convince The Overseer of Ramesses' contrition. The pale wisp's butterfly auds fluttered, half-mast in her confusion, as an expression of abject concern overtook her blank, protective features: rosy lips parting in a tiny 'o' of shock, brow rumpling as jade-kissed opalites clouded with alarm.
"Nyra," the pallid milkmother rasped, lips working wordlessly for a moment as she tried to find some way to refuse this horrible thing without offending her superior and friend. "I cannae..zis is nae.." the once-slave stumbled over her words, raspberry tongue swiping along her scarred chops in an anxious gesture as she smothered the breath of a whine that wanted to escape her slender throat.
As if suddenly remembering he was there, her gaze snapped to meet the cold sapphires of the Underling's -- hardening again, reluctant to display weakness in front of someone she couldn't trust. "Ye could serve Vein or ze gods...just leave me out of it," Aerin informed him brusquely, frowning slightly. Murmuring an excuse, the Saluki was quick to leave the scene and the duo behind -- heart racing against something she couldn't name.
Aerin's muted hurt is what returned Nyra to her sanity, but by the time she blinked and began to defuse, the Priestess was gone, and Ramesses was disappearing after her.
With a heavy sigh, Nyra relaxed, turning a different direction, and disappearing into the trees.