pharaoh supposed he should suss out the priest, but chose instead to run away from the strath altogether for a time.
he tested the limits of his spoilt legs until he was filled to panting; he pushed himself on and on until he near tangled with the antlered beasts that made the deep green forests their domain.
so driven out, ramesses eventually came to the juncture of rivers, fording with delight to be touched by water, and clawing his way along the grass-tuft plateau until he stood high, looking out upon the face of the waters and delighting in this silent throne.
rather than spend her days in the company of giants — many of whom she did not know well nor felt inclined to learn about — satsu found herself more interested in the realm outside of the strath.
it was happenstance that brought her wandering across pharaoh's path.
though a quick decision could have driven her back towards the tiger's han to where the warriors awaited her, satsu could not help but think of his words previously; treasonous, yes, and difficult for her to fathom. not wrong, though.
he seemed to be on her mind a lot lately.
soon enough the girl's meandering brought her to the water. there she could see a gilded shape caught in the sunlight—as if made of it, entire.
satsu chuffed softly whilst rolling her eyes, as if bothered to have found him here.
satsu rolled her eyes, appearing nearby upon the island as if she had been brought to him by mist. "your obsession with me is noted, dancer-woman," he teased. "what brings you so far from the house of our daimyo?"
no, he had not forgotten her word; ramesses parrotted it back toward her and sent the twinkle of hardblue eyes to follow, waiting for one of her myriad and satisfying reactions to his unchecked arrogance.
satsu looked well, a fact that did not escape pharaoh, despite his own recent diversions that had driven the willow-wolf from his thoughts for a time.
her frustration clearly wrought across her face before she could stow the feeling, centering herself. as much as satsu wished to shut him up, there was no way to do that and follow the rules of propriety that had been taught to her.
after the initial twist of her features, stoicism reigned. towards the water she wove, watching it rather than the way the sun glimmered off the pallid coat he wore.
i have been thinking.
a dangerous thing for any girl to do.
i could follow the path of revenge for the sake of my brothers, and my father. chase the dream of being a warrior as i had always desired, following the daimyo.
or.
then there is your... offer.
it still felt wrong to discuss it; she spoke in a quick, hushed manner. as if nyra might arrive, or another giant, to eke out the will of their master.
"there is always a storm upon your brow, satsu. i have come to look for it," pharaoh waxed, cutting over all she had said to drift upon his own mind's stage. "i have come to even enjoy it, perhaps. it is like wind in the desert, a khamsin which cuts down everything in its path."
he rolled his shoulders with a slow and dramatic eloquence, focused upon the jeweling of sunlight to water.
"as to my offer, why can it not be both? the world is many colors, satsu. there are very rarely only two choices."
he looked toward her.
"i seek revenge upon my sister, the evil bitch hatshepsuun." ramesses swore the name, flung it like an epithet at satsu's feet. "but while i am here, i will seek no path to fighting. if it is inevitable, why quicken that end?"
a pleasure-seeker, a hawkish and ribald young prince, staring at the dancer.
"you have never tasted this before. how could i expect you to understand how much better it is than war?"
satsu could not decide for herself if the look on his face made her angry, or warm, or even bored; but he spoke openly about his own desires and the very gall of it, of him, made her subtly envious.
what was stopping her from being so open about her own desires?
her father was dead. she picked at the wound his absence had become — this mental abscess — as if remembering him as he was, somehow, gave her power.
the truth was, power stripped from her each time she mourned. weakness came in remembering. there was no way to change what happened and no reason to be found by walking the devil's path of revenge.
still; why not both?
how could i expect you to understand how much better it is than war?
she did not know what to say.
i have never tasted war either,
satsu came to admit, but when i think of my home being taken by a new daimyo, and all that i had to do to escape that, while my brothers were cut down, all i want is --
but she did not know what she wanted, and floundered there. cheeks hot, scruff spiked with bother.
—how can you seek revenge but be unwilling to fight?
irate, now. how quickly her mood turns foul and storming.
"because my sister is not here. for whom would i fight?" tongue lashing across the ridges of his white teeth. "how can you refuse pleasure but entertain the life of a warrior over it?" was this some sort of odd honorbound thing? she spoke of her brothers but said hardly anything at all, and pharaoh saw shrewdly her covert burden.
"choose each battle. not all must be fought," he said proudly, though these were not at all his words, but those of the captain who had trained him.
he was closer now, not to touch but to catch the thin blue fragrance of unknown origin that he felt always wreathed around satsu; and he sought the look upon her face with a smile that was not so cruel this time. "why not take the things you wish, rather than fight for another? conquer in your name. not his."
it is not conquest that demands my revenge,
she hotly contested; noticing only after, when she turned to glare at him while so bound by anger, that he was so close. his proximity startled her and caused a loosening hold upon her emotions. they had bubbled to her surface until that point, then seemed to weaken.
if i can kill the man who took my father's han, then it would restore my father's honor. i would not hold the land or rule it.
which in a way, would have been a waste of the effort. the land would fall fallow, its people would scatter without a ruler.
slowly, satsu came to think of this.
is it wrong of me to fight for the dead...?
her eyes away from his; to the water, watching the silvering of the light upon the surface. trying to calm herself — and not to think of how close the prince was.
golden and brilliant, but reeking of vermin.
"i would fight for my father's land," ramesses said, at last removing the tease from himself and placing his attention where it belonged. "i would fight for his land because it is my land. when he passes into the light of Ra, then i will be the Morning and Evening Star. his land becomes mine to guard and to enrich."
pharaoh looked upon the frustrated woman, enjoying how her expressions shifted and churned.
"but you do not fight for such things. only vengeance. not to rule yourself. it is not wrong. it is foolish."
but he did not look to the rivers; ramesses sought her own eyes, willing satsu to look toward him.
perhaps the difference in their sexes is what divided them, in the end. satsu would have happily gone to war for her father. she would have sought revenge had she been born a son, no question about it, damning her soul to the dark path. as a son she would have inherited the han once having dispatched its usurper—but not now.
now, she could only dream.
now, she could only hope to find a worthy cause, or someday a husband.
the line of her father was at an end.
i admit that you are wise,
satsu murmurs before she can help herself, and then feels his eyes upon her. she looks at him with as much defiance as she can muster; but she is embarrassed too, for having stroked his ego.
in the teachings of my people, vengeance is a dark path that damns one's soul. i would make myself a demon by treading that path.
but what would he care about souls, suffering, and all of that?
i do not know what to do with myself. i will not dance for kyn-dono and i cannot fight for what was already taken from me. i have nothing.
well, no. she had pharaoh.
ramesses listened to satsu, for once, listened to her words spell tale of what she had lost. she flattered him; he straightened more proudly beneath the narrow silver of her tongue, and heard the lament;
beside that which he assumed to be a silent plea for him to step forward, to offer guidance.
pharaoh did not know the most apt thing to say, but it did not matter. she saw the truth of him beneath the teasing smirk, and now he put a more pensive look upon her winnowed shoulders.
"you could dance for me," the exile invited, though his expression was not crass, a first to be sure. "take your wit and your power and discover both far from here."
something forming and taking power in his mind.
"there is talk of war. suppose ... kyn-dono makes of you a fighter instead. will you shed blood for the grandmaster?"
harsh, the hook of his lazuli eyes, testing.
the thought of dancing for pharaoh made satsu's face warm. she could not tell if he meant the innuendo, but that was where her mind affixed, given previous conversations.
he moved to speak of the tiger lord's desires and satsu gathered herself.
he does not need me to fight. there are enough giants at his disposal; enough lust for unnecessary bloodshed and means to extract it.
images of the dark boy coiled in fear, bloodied, sliced to pieces.
you did not see him. there was a young man brought to the strath. the lord made him bleed for sport, to earn a smile.
it had disgusted her - horrified her. satsu's voice betrayed her deeper feelings of distrust.
pharaoh's countenance did not change as satsu described the sport that kynareth and nyra had set before their wolves. "this is a place of violence. it was built by blood. and it will claim ours, in the end. i spoke with the royal nurse. the one who tends kynareth's children."
he leant forward conspiratorially, until his breath fair brushed the hem of her cheek.
"not all are pleased with blood."
"it is the game of brutal peasants," pharaoh declared, tilting his chin upward, rolling his shoulders. "i am above it. are you, dancer satsu?"
the blood bothered her. it was less the violence and more the unjustified nature of the scene that so deeply troubled satsu.
throughly enough that the memory held her attention firmly. she did not sense ramesses' tilt towards her until his breath drew across a cheek.
of course.
she answered.
violence for violence sake? it makes monsters out of men. if it were punishment for a crime, the end would be swift and just.
the boy may have done something to anger the lord; but what could have warranted such mockery of life? such a garish display of slaughter?
these giants are nothing more than beasts.
"what they did to this boy, they will do to us." ramesses was grim now, pointed with the arrogant knowing of one who knew the brutality of courtiers. "we speak treason now." how far would satsu follow along this path?
but any new place would have its diversions. and he did not want to wait for the heavy clack of jaws that would ruin his beauty before departing, delicious as it might have been to drive nyra mad with anger and hatred.
"if you choose to be more, then you choose not to be one of the saints."
yes; treason.
word was between them, yet as soon as he spoke of it, satsu silenced. they were far from the strath but there was no telling if they were watched now.
a spike in her anxiety came next, with a shudder and a sigh.
i will not keep to their standard.
but--
if we go, we may make enemies of them all. what then?
"two choices on a mud road," he joked in the words of another time. "tell kynareth and nyra that we cannot stay among them and risk their punishment, or disappear under cover of night as if we were truly thieves."
neither of these appealed to him.
"unless you might think of a third, satsu," ramesses relished, lazuli eyes still intrigued by all the secret places of herself that she had not traded for his favour. what sort of woman might she become, when hunger cramped her belly and the protection of a pack was no longer hers?
and so they would be forced to think, and plot, and be no better than the snake who had usurped her own father. what had gone through the mind of her father's rival? satsu wished for a purpose in life and knew she could not find it among savages - along with that, pharaoh did not seek to overthrow; it was not the same.
she was not the loathsome creature that annihilated for the sake of it.
but she arrived at a new thought, centered on what little she knew of the tiger.
the daimyo is an expansionist.
warlord.
nyra is proof of that, with her growing claim. we could present the same opportunity.
a sharp, shrewd look came to satsu as she voiced this. without the support of the lord they were both doomed, but perhaps this way had a higher chance. she looked to the man now, wondering.
a cold look followed satsu's words, the spreading of desert nightfall across an oasis. "this would make us his vassal state." yet he was not so insulted as not to not see the immediate and skillful merit in her words: appeal to his sense of alliance, expand in his name.
"will it be truth or a lie, shabti-girl?" ramesses uttered, using for her the foolish little name he had made up some time ago.
"is it better to ally with beasts than to be beneath them?" he asked next, words slow and voice wondering. sea-dark eyes fell to satsu's canny expression.
she was not sure. the shift of focus upon her face showed this; the uneasy silence that followed. her face sank slightly.
after further thought she could only shake her head. this was not a part of her teachings; this was spy-work, or at the very least, diplomacy of which satsu was not trained.
if it were only to aid our escape, it could work. tell him of one place, go to another. i... i don't know.
was she so reduced in life that the shame of a lie did not dissuade her?
she faltered under his scrutiny. he tsked and moved onward with their discourse. of course he would be the one to plot it! she was only a woman, after all.
the thought harmed him, and ramesses felt himself tense in response. disingenuous, perhaps, to force his mind in such a way. he did not know it to be true of satsu.
deftly he turned them aside, sighing with a truly theatrical air. "we will end in one another's bed and quite bitter," he declared, as if he were a soothsayer gazing upon clear stars. "such pressures always drive these diversions, and to suddenly be a captain, in charge of carving out a new palace —" ramesses turned his stare skyward, "this will be a great pressure indeed."
his mouth was full of laughter.
"shall we get it out of the way now?"
how swift his worries ended! as if the very notion had not been brought up at all. when he presented satsu with laughter and crude jokes, the tension she felt melted immediately.
in its place roared a juvenile's outrage. satsu puffed, drawing away from him with the quick precision of her true self; the dancer.
wha- no!
out of sorts, and stunned by this twist in their discussion, satsu only floundered.
i -- that's -- oh, you just go back among your little vermin lovers.
men! ugh!
he guffawed aloud, mirth streaming from his very eyes!
but the mention of vermin quelled him, and he looked at satsu most austerely. "i do not bed down with rats, nor the ones in this place that you have called beasts. only the one who calls to me, the ones who danced and brought great pleasure in the court of my father. they are blessed by Iset."
yet his jollity returned; ramesses simpered at her as he stood to his feet. "i will return to her now, at your bidding. and then later i will seek out the priest, and then after — shall i look for you or should we go to kynareth together?"
his desirous eyes held teasing, and challenge.
however useful his counsel could be, in this satsu refused to see the merit. he chose to lay with lesser beasts; whether they pledge to the strathwood or not (and, she thought with profuse bias, they were too dull a race to do such to begin with), they remained vermin.
but this was something not worth discussing.
satsu turned away and moved, purposeful to escape his foul appetites.
i will journey home, then, and wait for you.
a slight grimace traced her features. remember to... bathe, before we speak to the lord.
huffing, satsu slipped away.
"until then, satsu," and ramesses watched her prowl off into the god's own gold light, soon lost to view.
pharaoh chuckled again to himself as he turned to point steps toward the coyote-woman.
satsu did not understand this world, for she had never been a part of it. until she set foot in this deviant realm, he would expect only her virginal sort of judgement. surrounded by brothers, bound by loyalty to a father; it was no small wonder that she knew how to talk to unrelated men at all!
he left now, to gather his jewel and be made her own.