Lion Head Mesa turn back time

@Legend !!  + @Zharille for reference

the nebet approached the chambers where the mazoi slept. the only thing that accompanied the girl was the clicking of her nails, loneliness filling her young heart as she approached the chamber she remembered her mother had claimed.

it lay empty now — even where the ogre woman had dug to give her daughters warmth was gone. a weight falls on racharra's shoulders, and naturally they slump as a sigh squeezes through.

"Nebet?"

Behind the growing woman, the mazoi stood. She stopped her passing to watch. What was Racharra doing in the alcoves? The child walked slow, and her chest had fallen heavy.

Her tail swished back and forth in slow waves, and that smile upon her lips, even upon her first entry into Akashingo, stayed present.

"Is there something you seek?"

racharra sharply turns to the voice behind her. ah, mazoi. her shoulders stiffen.

she knew the name of the grinning woman. she's known her before even akashingo.

no.. she hesitates. no, not exactly. i was just exploring. she affirms this sentiment with the shake of her head in an attempt to convince even herself.

Just vaguely, and in very little, the soft scent of newly brought pup was something Legend would remember. Racharra.

Saved by Akashingo's shelter. Now one of them. Their people.

"This room has been empty. Very long," Legend said, looking to the empty walls. The lonely bedfurs. The empty leaf cup. Abandoned.

a solemn nod as she stares at the room. however, she partly disagrees — for the nebet, this room is haunted by a woman who still lives.
racharra wonders if legend and her are thinking of the same woman, and so she takes a chance.

what was she like? uhm.. my mother.
she understands just a few things about the living ghost:
one, she was her mother. two, she didn't speak. three, she was fierce.

i assume you two knew eachother. forgive me if i am wrong.

"I'm afraid your mother is not well known by me." Spoken in an echoed wisp, the imp mused carefully. Racharra wished to know. Nebet of Akashingo. Legend would oblige. So, then came the question of if the raven knew why Racharra was here. Oh, what a wonder, if the imps dull eyes could fathom such things. Though, if she did. If she could.

For better statement upon the settled watch, why wouldnt she?

"But in passing, in word, a fierce woman. Tall woman. You perhaps lack memory, nebet. There was time, many suns ago, when you still lie in the belly of the lake." 

If only the moment had been longer, yet it had happened. "Only Khaba," a name spoken like a snake, "I had seen in your denspace then. Your mother pushed to see you on a day none expected. She came for her children. For you. She must have been overjoyed." The closest word Legend found that could be perceived.

the impish mazoi's words struck a chord the girl didn't know she had. and now, pain clogs her throat and she struggles to swallow it.

khaba — a name she has only heard once or twice before, and yet she recognizes it as father. and seeing the venom spew from the jovial woman's lips paints enough of a picture. 

so why does it strike her with the same sorrow? perhaps because it is the last thing she wishes to hear. it means the answer to her question is something that will be out of her grasp for far too long.

i see. she speaks to fill the silence. the dust is in her throat. it's in her eyes, so she thinks.
thank you. she squeezes the words out. i needed that.
a lie. she wished for more, but she wasn't about to blame the mazoi.

"Perhaps the Pharaoh @Toula or priest @Senmut may know."

As Legend knew then that at the time, in the wake of it all, it was them who fronted much of it.

"That is as far as my memory reaches. My time at Greatwater was not long." She knew her answer unsatisfying. There was nothing to mend it.
For, she had not infiltrated them for more than a month or two.

"Would you like me bring you anything, nebet?"

those two were go-to options, and probably the ones she should've gone to instead of dumping this on the mazoi's shoulders. but she also doubts the queen would have much time to answer the frivolous questions of the confused nebet.
senmut may leave as her only option, then, seeing how soon the voyage to moontide dawns upon her.

but the scheming woman's question breaks her concentration.
your name. her response carries the same confidence she had while still barely half the height of her own leg now. not for any new-found will, but to don once more the face of a noblewoman rather than that of a stumbling ogre. what is it?

Silence covered the room for a moment. The young nebet asked more seriously perhaps this time, a question she could answer. Would she, was a better question? Did she care to give it, an ever bigger one?

Amusement fell upon the mazoi's eyes.
"Legend," and rougher from her tongue, expecting nothing of the nebet in terms of being able to pronounce it, she said in her full tongue, 

"Sekhem."

racharra nods. a peculiar name, but that just makes it easier to remember.

thank you, legend. it's late, so please get some rest. we have lots to travel.
it's an order her own body wishes to follow but cannot. she could swear she coudld hear it beg to sleep here, but she musn't. she gives a slight bow to announce her departure from the mazoi chambers.


that room does not belong to her. it does not even belong to the woman who slept there.
it belongs to her ghost.