Two Eyes Cenote [BOO] 呪われた女王 // Aoimoku

by the time the guests had departed the temple, the clouds had split and faded across the sky. the moon sat alone and watching; but the temple was empty, for a time.

satsu stood where toula had been crowned. her features drawn with sorrow. her three tails draping across the stone behind her as a wedding train might flow. she touched the dias; her ghostly digits pressing against the stone tablet at the head of the room. as she turns from this she catches sight of small pieces of feather and finery which had come away from toula; tiny things, missed in the grand scheme.

she could hear the revelry. remembering.

her figure is more like mist now than ever before - she knows that soon she will be pulled back from this place. locked away where she will only watch, rather than influence.

@Ramesses.

drifting, pacing the floor to where senmut had been. then to the front row of the crowd, surrounded by dust and caught by the moonlight. her eyes close, and she lifts her chin, poised and powerful, and listening.

silver tears slide down her face.

satsu loathed him; satsu called to him in mournful glittering tears and divine rage.
he stood beside her on the dais, watching the moongilt grief upon the face he had always loved;
he had only loved;
"she worships you as if you were her mother, satsu," ramesses pleaded in a tone not honeyed but rife with sorrow, for her agony, for his own knowingness that he too was not long for this mortal world. his lapis gaze watched toula below them, laughing, perfection; he drew a breath. "makono lives. you know it. i know it. and while she lives, there are two pharaohs."

the girl is happy.

satsu sees the way the two look at one-another. how joyous the people are. how even the fellahin see her as beloved.

her husband's words ring true. the dead queen says nothing for a time;
time that they do not have.

then,
i cannot take this place any longer, ramesses. it is too much the same, and too different; i see us in them. her gaze lingers upon his now, sad and soft but without anger.
i beg of the gods to let me go, and they do not hear me. i want to walk the redstone of akashingo; i want to swim the wellspring; i want hours of ecstacy with you. it could not be. her eyes find toula again, dancing, feasting, laughing.
barring that, to be alive and close to your blood. to carry it as i once carried our children. what she spoke of was life, repeated.
satsu watched the dim light of her curse seeding deep within toula, and the deeper it went the more calm and affable the queen became. perhaps the gods would permit her this.

satsu was weary and in relief for his own great weariness did ramesses at last come close and rest his ghostly shoulder against her own.
he too saw the thing inside toula; he was filled with anguish and ire, and turned hurt eyes upon the only face he had ever adored with such devotion;
"spare her body, satsu. place your ka into her firstborn daughter." in this way, she would not belong to toula but satsu, and yes, ramesses bartered now for life he no longer lived.

she watches.

ramesses beside her, pleading.

without looking to him again she asks, will you come with me?

toula, festering blindly.

marry son to daughter.

please, satsu begged, and her blue eyes met his face.

to be reborn —!

an exhale. his lips were firm with command.

"lift your curse and i shall give you my answer, satsu."

hold her hostage no longer for the sake of love!

this had become a negotiation? her spirit burns like white ice and scalds his touch, as she silently emotes upon his request.

then, the possession upon toula weakens. it has not released her wholly, but enough to show good faith.

where the two linger together drops another degree. please, husband.

how can she trust him, when he had moved on from her? she holds firm now.

satsu does not see the light of the curse fade, as she is weakening.

satsu denied his love and sickened his child; he employed the screws of courtcraft against her while ill himself with scorned adoration!
but the moment her hold lessened, ramesses exhaled once more, and gathered her to him, his cheeks wet now with tears like dew. "i shall be reborn with you, my love. we shall rule again in another lifetime, love again in another life. i promise you."
and now, he too was fading; he too was becoming less and yet somehow more, as he at last felt her soul.

he came to her and in his grasp she was warmed and made to feel alive with his touch, even faded as they were, and at last satsu gasped a breath that held many things: sadness, desire, her mourning, her hope.

with the last of her energies she kissed ramesses and became a cool mist, and himself motes of dust in the moonlight; and together they descended among the guests towards the crowned pharaoh and consort.

beloved,
your blood is my blood;
your flesh is my flesh;
the Field of Wheat behind us
Ammit at our heels.

the celebrations unfolded, and those in attendance would feel only the softest kiss of wind, if anything at all.