Lion Head Mesa divide

she would never forget this place.

the early morning offered long lines of shadows for her to dance across the flatlands. she knew that even if the halls emptied out, the mesa would always stand as an obelisk to many things.

much time had sprawled out between her last steps here. she dared go no further than the border wall. she knew trained eyes might see her already, long before she had come this close.

did her monument of grief still stand?

were there still princesses dancing at ceremonies?

the wind whispered of old things. old, but unforgotten. Khonsu brought forth another traveler—this one familiar. time had changed much between then and now. though some things never would—the monument still stood, and was ever tended to. though not an Amiirad any longer, as Pharaoh danced.
she had been just a girl when last she saw this one. no, not just—so much more than that even then, though never would she have imagined such. grief, she thought, might have sent this one away—
perhaps it had been grief that sent her own mother away? perhaps, perhaps, but…
Toula moved with her assembly toward her, changed in only presence and authority—but her heart remained ever the same. have you returned to visit her? she asks gently, knowing that while this was not the space her body existed it was a place the spirit could be communed with, in the space they had seen built.

for a moment she is thinking the gold spear is ramesses.

but this one did not wear a gold cloak. instead it is a cloak of shadows. she thought that she recognized it all, only the figure was larger now. grown. princesses did not dance in ceremonies but in politics.

maybe she might have stood among that assembly once.

now she figured she was too old and too worn to be even a useful mazoi. it was okay. it no longer defined her to be held only by titles.

the question was not lost on her, either. her mouth opened, prepared to speak, only to close and offer a lick of her lips. uncertain. would it unravel her? would the rickety organ in her chest be able to handle it? but this felt like being welcomed back, in one way or another.

she nodded only, not trusting her voice, if it still lived in there.

words were not needed, not for this moment. how often had Toula gone to the pyramid of her father, or of Makono when she longed for them most? the number was countless, for even when the missing them was not to the point of some poignant sort of pain, she visited them often. 
whether it unraveled the one before her, or pulled her tighter together made no difference to the Goddess—she would stand with her, a steady presence and an anchor between worlds. Toula had come undone before the entirety of the kingdom when her father had passed, and then it had been her sister she had looked to, and the then Hem.
now? now she was Pharaoh and voice of the Gods. not so fierce as the ones that had come before, no—not that any eye could see. even if already she had gone to war, to save the children of the Lake knowing it could be a bloody and awful thing. 
it could not be helped—she led with her heart, and it was a thing that roared. her softness was her strength—it made her stand taller, prepared to carry the heavy weight of grief. for she was a God, too, and she could transform it to something lighter. 
in a comfortable silence did Toula take her to the place that had been made, tended to. stones that had been stacked were made solid by what had once been wetsand, dried and dried and dried again beneath the hot sun. now desert flowers bloomed all around, many red in memory and tribute of the first flower ever left here. and vines from elsewhere intricately and expertly placed framed the scene of grief. low, drooping fronds offered a place of privacy within a stone hollow. 
the black feather of a raven, or perhaps a crow, spiraled down from overhead as one flew Westward.