Luneshale Pass you're a funeral pyre

though meseba has chosen to travel at night — though no longer with the slinking disapproval for his mission is stamped with approval from divine pharaoh herself, he finds the cover of night comforting ... even if he still struggles to adjust to his singular eye.

daylight made it a bit easier.

the shadows liked to play tricks even to those with twenty-twenty vision.

but he cloaks himself in the shadows now, hoping the dark of night might whisper her secrets to him.

he hunts now for eset in earnest, feeling the fierce force of the goddess Sekhmet at his shoulder, guiding his path. back. back thru the cenote. to the luneshale pass where, despite the shadows, the refracting light makes visibility good.

he pauses to make a sweep of the immediate area with his gaze, finding no suitable shelter for rest.

he would keep going, then; undeterred.

castel lingers at the edge of the pass, emerald eyes sharp even as the shadows stretch long in the dimming light. the desert at night is quieter, but no less alive. sounds carry further in the stillness, and castel catches faint echoes from deeper in the canyon. a soft scuffle of paws, the shift of sand underfoot. not his own. he pauses, ears angling toward the sound, body lowering instinctively.

he presses along the rocky edge, keeping to the darker folds of the pass. the refracted light offers visibility, but castel knows how to bend to the terrain, how to move unseen.

another sound, closer now. he stops, crouching low against the sand. his gaze narrows, scanning the space ahead until he catches sight of movement—a figure in the distance, cloaked in the same darkness he walks. castel stays still, watching.