Lion Head Mesa The view's so pretty from the deck of a sinkin' ship

Someone please teach my idiot girl something about her rank @Senmut @Akhtar @Medusa

She'd been doing her best to keep up — but Melody felt a little forgotten amidst all of it. Everyone had a place here, a role, as the Pharaoh had promised. She did too, except... she wasn't sure what it meant. Or what she was meant to do.

Mostly she'd hung around and watched others work, though she volunteered her help here and there. Today, however, was the day she finally decided she was tired of feeling as directionless as ever. If Akashingo couldn't live up to the promise made by its missing leader, Melody was ready to move on. What she wanted was a purpose. So she searched for one now, nose low to the ground as she tried to pick up the scents of the others who she had gathered shared a similar role to her own intended path.

another priestess.

"i serve Ra," senmut told this one with no introduction when he had come again. "medusa serves Osiris. the pharaoh served Amun."

he flicked his tail at her like a brandished whip and indicated that she should follow him to the quarters of the priests and priestesses.

Sorry for the wait! Thank you for joining <3

Melody wasn't sure what to make of the green-eyed man whose presence spoke of authority in every aspect. She was silent as he spoke to her, only nodding once to show her acknowledgement. Some of these names were familiar to her, but only just.

She followed along at the flick of his tail, thinking now on the Pharaoh. Even in her absence, Melody could hardly think of anyone or anything else. The beginnings of an obsession, cut short, but the remnants of the roots of it lingered. She watched the priest whose name she did not know as she followed him, and wondered what he might tell her of the departed leader.

<3!

there would be no answers if melody did not question. 

in their silence they passed through the halls of akashingo, the wellspring, the unused halls of pharaoh. to see them quiet unnerved senmut to a high degree.

the housing of the holy wolves was simple, but on each wall by wolfish paw were red murals of mud depicting in abstract their devotion to the gods.

senmut brought her to a small chamber that was empty save for a circle of light which shafted directly down through the mesa. "stand there."

I... made a terrible mistake and accidentally edited this post out so forgive me for the terrible rewrite lmfao

Melody would not question, not yet. First she would see what this man, one of her leaders, had in store for her.

Her eyes traced the murals on the walls as she followed him in silence, but drifted back to him every so often. In time, she knew she would have many questions for him. For now, she only did as he bid her, and stood in the sunlight with a curious and waiting look his way.

the sun was radiant upon her. senmut only observed.

"close your eyes. listen only to the palace. reach with your mind for the paintings you have seen."

voice resonant, faraway and yet close.

"be silent for a time. and then tell me what voice you might hear."

The paintings. The paintings. Melody closed her eyes and reached for that focus, but round herself drifting in thought. She tried to see the red-smeared walls, but it was blue in her mind's eye, the brilliant blue of otherworldly eyes. And when she tried to hear a voice, it was one from memory that came to her.

A girl's voice, promising purpose. Pharaoh. Melody's eyes opened and her ears flushed, and she looked at Senmut as if he'd caught her doing something terrible. I - She blushed more fiercely, unsure how to tell him what she had heard, what she had seen in the darkness behind her eyelids.

senmut saw her reticence. "speak."

and there was command in his voice. he sought an astrologer for the queen's growing court, a vital part of their lore.

for her he could not be this, but the prince made ready to bring such things about in her name.

I - well, She blushed more fiercely, but caved to the pressure of his authority rather quickly. What I heard was... her. Um. Pharaoh.

Melody felt very foolish just then, more like a child than she ever had. And she was just a child, wasn't she? A clueless girl playing at priestess. She would never be worthy of the title; this, she saw in Senmut's eyes, which she found no warmth in.

pharaoh.

makono.

his gaze sharpened. "and what words did she speak to you, priestess?"

Oh no. Melody recalled the way the words had changed, the purpose Pharaoh spoke of in her mind, and shook her head abruptly, and took a half-step back. I don't remember, She lied shakily, utterly mortified now. If he knew — !

No, he would never know. She could never tell him. Melody didn't think she could ever admit her shame to anyone, the intimate thoughts she had about a girl she'd hardly known. A girl with eyes bluer than anything Melody had ever seen...

"hem."

senmut approached three steps; his face fell into shadow.

and he said no more. demand enough.

Senmut was abruptly in her personal space, and Melody registered only two thoughts in that moment. One, she was scared. Two, he was kind of hot. So naturally, she spilled everything.

W-well, when I got here she said - she said she would give me a purpose, th-that everyone has a purpose here, and then just now she was saying - or, in my head she was saying - my p-purpose would be - um, serving her, or, uh - something like that. M-maybe I, I misheard, Melody rambled, rapidly dissolving into panic. Serving her, yes. Very closely.

two he was kind of hot ahshshsjss

pharaoh had chosen melody to answer, to follow.

senmut was aware of her nearness as he was not with any other; not with jawahir, not with the queen, not even with the woman isa. his hungers had been turned silently toward the throne.

"did pharaoh speak from beyond the grave?" his voice was quiet, eyes holding her own.

Melody's just here to enjoy the view ok

Melody trembled slightly, but she was determined not to bend to the fear Senmut struck into her. Yet the Medeiros girl had never felt her youth more keenly than she did in this moment, and as the priest spoke she was suddenly aware that she desperately wanted to go home. She hardly understood him; Pharaoh was dead?

No, surely not. She couldn't fathom it. Her eyes welled with tears, shone with them, but none fell. Melody tried to speak and found that her voice only died in her throat. Overwhelmed and still very much in fear of Senmut and his disapproval, she let her gaze drop and shivered. He would be angry with her reticence, she assumed, but even knowing this she could not make herself speak again.

lol

tears, shimmering.

senmut felt himself tense; he blinked, softening. "she went to study in the kingdom of her father," the priest said, repeating the fiction that he and the Divine Queen had decided.

"but i have had no word. that is why i ask. think now, and tell me her words."

Senmut softened rather than turning to anger, and that confused her. But she didn't linger on it. She was trying to remember exactly what she'd heard, but it was all rapidly turning to a blur in the stress of the moment. Melody wanted nothing more than to be away from the priest.

She said something about, about Ra...? But I'm afraid I don't know who that is, She blinked, questioning all of it. Pharaoh was not dead for sure, but she could be, and that — Melody wasn't sure what to do with that. She'd only wanted to stay for her, for her soft voice and her blue eyes and that otherworldly air about her.

Not this.

"Ra is the god of the sun."

senmut wanted to know! wished to hear! so fiercely he wished he could reach into her mind and hear truly the voice of the wayward pharaoh.

but he said none of this, his face cold, fallen into relief.

"thank you, hemet." a release of muscle and mind.

She nodded, sensing the dismissal in his words. For a moment she lingered, something unreadable in her eyes as they briefly traced his features. Her lips parted as if she might speak again — but then she decided against it. Melody only nodded a second time, half to herself, and took her leave.

She all but fled from him, actually. When she was alone, she started to really cry, thinking now of Pharaoh and what he had said. No word from her, or of her. What did that mean for Melody? Would Akashingo even want her to stay now? She didn't know, and she was afraid of the answer.