Nokht had been curious ever since the other boy arrived; his senior by a few months, but he'd spent long enough cooped up in the sesh's quarters, healing from his injuries while Khusobek fought with his own, that he knew him to be one of the mazoi's sons. Redsand fur lightened by a touch of fire, a pair of amethyst eyes set into face that seemed all too at ease for the realities they faced.

Amethyst eyes borrowed from a fellahin woman who surely laid dead beneath the rubble, all the same as his father, and his sister.

How did he surivive? Was he there, amongst the panic? Were his screams an addition to the symphony that filled that flooding cavern? Nokht felt a familiar guilt clawing a hole into his chest. He had left them. All of them. Would the redsand boy be angry at him?

He did not know, and he could not rest with it, not that Nokht rested much anyways.

So today, he came forward from the outskirts, limping his way through the vibrant halls that flanked the oasis looking for the fiery figure with an offering of a small fish in his jaws; one of the few things he could actually catch, plucked from oasis waters.

When he did find him, he found himself hesitant to approach. He mustered up a mumbled ...Hey. and fidgeted with his paws against the sand.

Nokht set down the fish, placing it onto a fallen palm leaf where it would be safe from the grainy sand. Yes. If you'll have it. He mumbled; a terrible habit of his, but one yet unbroken. ..I'm Nokht. I also came from Muat-riya, though I don't think we ever really got the chance to meet. He dipped his head, coming to sit in the other boy's company, his own figure a little below his eyeline. Soon, hopefully, he would fill out, put on some muscle, and maybe a few inches of height if the gods felt generous, which they never seemed to be, so Nokht didn't exactly expect much.

...What are you doing, over here? He asked curiously, looking around at the place where Akhre meditated, wondering what habits had come to haunt the sun spirit. It seemed solitude called to them both.

He bit back the true question on his mind for now, not wanting to bring up that day in the first few seconds they had met. He did not want to ruin the pleasant air with one so melancholy, although his presence alone had seen to that regardless.

He didn't expect his face to be known, maybe his name; in hushed, hopeless whispers through cenote caverns, mutterings of a child stolen and returned in fractured pieces. Admittedly, Nokht did not know Kheti by name, only by the heritage he gleamed from his few sheepish, stolen glances.

Nokht sat back as he listened, coal-tipped tail coming to rest over his leg. Pharoah took me in. The cenote is empty, the mesa is destroyed it's.. not like I had anywhere else to go. He muttered, paws shifting in the sand. At least he had not been met with marble and

How do you know that- ..Ra guided you here? He asked hesitantly, uncertain of the gods in all their cruelty and their negligence. He wondered what it was that inspired such devotion, even in those who had been wronged so terribly.

He had been robbed this experience, learning of his own gods, instead he hated them for all they stood for.

Felt it, heard it, saw it.

All things Nokht had never been afforded. He did not like the resentful feeling that grew in his chest, clawing at his heart, he kept his eyes from glaring, at least. It wasn't Akhre's fault.

Nice of them to show you the way. He muttered, his lack of belief apparant in the quiet scoff that rolled from his maw. What made you special?

That was mean. He could not stop the words before they were spoken.

He believed. But faith? That was another thing entirely.

He sighed, and let a muttered apology roll from his jaws, guilt flicking through his expression.

I do.. I just.. The boy hesitates, he tries to convince himself. I don't understand them.

He shifts his posture, sitting up and bringing his gaze to the sky, the feint outlines of stars hidden away in the blue of the sky. They'd always drawn a sense of comfort around him, many a night spent with nothing to do but look up at the constellations and make everything seem smaller. Those who tormented him, the bite of his wounds, gnawing into his belly, all of it, diminished beneath that vast, swallowing thing above.

...Are there places they can't reach?

Heresy was not his intention, but Nokht struggled to bite his tongue in the face of a topic forbidden.