Lion Head Mesa Men-nefer

The princeguard moved with the confidence of a stag. Long strides, red-touched legs trotted as though they knew the land by heart. The trail of the prince had carried him to the edges of claimed land.

Pausing upon its edge, the wolf's snout drank of its scent.

Akashingo. @Rashepses would be there. He had traveled with an assortment of offerings. They would have been mad to deny him. And though their grounds were handsome, Siatum felt that he missed the riverlands. Ta-senet was far behind the princeguard.

A call was made at the southern end of their borders.

He materialized against the sky, obsidian on ancient blue with the sun ablaze overhead. The unbroken land diffused the call but the Prince would hear it and breach the mesa to look for its songster.

He cast a scorched look upon the man who stood as an apparition, vibrantly red in the hissing heat. The flanking attendants are waved away and he set off down the slope to meet him.

“I had believed you would not to come,” he remarked coldly with the arch of a shadowed brow. His lips stole into a smile, the smile into a braying laugh.

Like a reaper, the man appeared as a shadow against the pale blue skies. 

Siatum might have taken offense to the prince’s words. Sunset eyes watched the familiar curl of Rashepses’ lips, the marvellous glint of mischief in his soul-brother’s golden gaze. The princeguard was stoic and his features did not betray him so easily. 

Hmm, grunted the bass of his voice. 

I had thought your faith to be stronger than that, prince of the riverlands. 

Only then did the guard allow his dark lips to curl into a knowing smile. Siatum lowered his head and waited to be permitted into the new land.

An arm swung around to draw his brother to his chest.

“Come to serve a Prince before your Pharaoh? You do love me,” a kiss is planted upon the man’s ruddy cheek, no amount of affection spared. That the princeguard elected to stay behind and allay his brother’s transition to king only deepened his fondness for the man.

“You look exhausted,” he gave him a close inspection before shifting his weight back. He would have preferred to allow the man some time of recovery after his journey, but they would depart this day.

“I regret there is no time for rest now, I will have a meal brought, then we must move out at once. The Queen wishes to expand her keep into new land. A lower kingdom.” Elusive is the sovereign Toula. Weeks of travel with his retinue kept a woman’s warmth from them all, and baser desires licked at the skin of the Prince- of whom nothing was withheld. But his Queen had a mind for progress and this had him intrigued.

“Quite the tourney,” He jested, but he wanted his paws upon the arable lands, the prospect welcomed now moreso with Siatum returning to his side.

“Select one of the Queen’s mazoi to journey with us. Whoever you see fit,” He directs the guard as they ascend the mesa. To know more of the stone people he had to understand their wants, and also their grievances.

Yes, a great fortune that I do. 

Loved like a brother, Siatum would have traveled the stretch of the world as it burned for Rashepses. His heart knew no greater purpose. The prince and their gods; he was theirs. 

The princeguard listened as Rashepses shared the queen’s plans for expansion. He called it a lower kingdom. Siatum’s ear swivelled. His sunset eyes shifted to his brother’s face with sharp interest. 

Does this please you? To go to the lower kingdom. 

Siatum would travel anywhere the dark prince wished him. He believed it was beneath Rashepses to make a place in a lower kingdom. The prince of the riverlands was better than such a post. These words were held fast in his chest. 

A mazoi. The man nodded. Have there been any that stand out to you? 

A curious tilt of his chin rested his gaze on the dark man’s features.

“I will know the people of the red land, as a part of them, than sitting idly in an enclosed room all the day,” he mused, “and the longer the waiting, the sweeter her kiss.” The Prince was not known for patience and his mind strayed, just as his eye, to the next diversion. If he could not yet have the Queen at his side, Siatum and the open desert was the next best thing. Boys again.

“Siatum,” he turned, serious now, “When I am Pharaoh of Akashingo, you will be Jodai of upper and lower kingdoms. You will unite all regiments into a single army, under my command, and at your behest.” This journey to the South was not just a race to win Toula’s arm. It was about fostering relations, and testing for weaknesses. “Let us show these stifled stone people a good time, shall we?” A rugged grin, and a swift pat to his man’s back as he signed for one of the palace fellahin to bring the best cut of goat for the princeguard.

“There’s a slender woman, @Legend. Or a broad man, @Khusobek. Take your pick, Jodai.” He arced an obsidian brow. He did not consider the undisciplined soldier Zaahira, who was more like to offer lip than insight, nor the beastly man of no words.

“But know them all."

The princeguard listened, soaking the information into his mind and mulling it over. 

When Rashepses was Pharaoh, he would make Siatum Jodai. The guard would serve as he was needed. He did not have lofty plans for himself. The gods had placed him at the dark prince’s side and that was where he was intended to remain. 

Yet a question burned in the deep valleys of his mind. 

Rashepses… what if the queen of Akashingo is foolish? He worded this carefully. Siatum would never suggest that the riverland prince was anything short of a blessing to the lands he walked. What if she chooses another for her husband? 

The red-tipped guard looked to his brother with concern creasing at the center of his eyes. 

Siatum would not serve a woman. And he would not serve her man, if it was not Rashepses.

“She is not foolish. She is beloved by her people. She makes moves to expand her kingdom. She has ideas and she acts on them.” Rashepses had ideas, too. And he bored of bedding feather-minded women of the court. He wanted challenge. He wanted her. And he would do what must be done to win her.

To Siatum he did look. His ally, one of his great loves. If he could find a similar companionship in her like the one he shared with the princeguard then he would know happiness here, away from his river.

“Let us face the macedonians when they come,” he laughed, but the prince would not be so easily defeated once his mind had a mark and his bow was raised. “Together.”

Having ideas was no sign of a good leader. Many rulers were beloved. Many of them sought expansion. It was not a token of a great mind. And the princeguard wore his skepticism on his face, plain and open for Rashepses to see. 

The prince was ever the charmer. He would surely win the queen of Akashingo’s heart. And if she did not pick him to be her husband, her kingdom would suffer for it. Siatum believed this wholly. Even if he must make it so with his own strength and grit. 

To his prince, Siatum bowed his head. 

Together. As they had always been.

Few would speak so plainly to a prince. They used flattery to inflate his pride or sought to mold him in their own image to rule his councils. He was the third born son, and the least significant.

Siatum was an honest man, this was in part why he was valued above the others. Rashepses could trust him as his own hand. It was in fealty to his prince that he questioned the nature of the Queen, of Akashingo, and Rashepses had confidence in his guard to dig for deceit should any be buried there.

The goat is brought and the prince dismisses the servant. “Feed. I will see you on the path, brother.”

A new life had unraveled before them. There were many prospects to chase in the new land. Akashingo would prove to be a land on which they could build a kingdom. 

And Rashepses would rule over them all. 

Siatum bowed his head, eager to feed and begin his work.