Rosewater Oasis Plume

For @Akhre.

Nokht had been curious ever since the other boy arrived; his senior by a few months, but he'd spent long enough cooped up in the sesh's quarters, healing from his injuries while Khusobek fought with his own, that he knew him to be one of the mazoi's sons. Redsand fur lightened by a touch of fire, a pair of amethyst eyes set into face that seemed all too at ease for the realities they faced.

Amethyst eyes borrowed from a fellahin woman who surely laid dead beneath the rubble, all the same as his father, and his sister.

How did he surivive? Was he there, amongst the panic? Were his screams an addition to the symphony that filled that flooding cavern? Nokht felt a familiar guilt clawing a hole into his chest. He had left them. All of them. Would the redsand boy be angry at him?

He did not know, and he could not rest with it, not that Nokht rested much anyways.

So today, he came forward from the outskirts, limping his way through the vibrant halls that flanked the oasis looking for the fiery figure with an offering of a small fish in his jaws; one of the few things he could actually catch, plucked from oasis waters.

When he did find him, he found himself hesitant to approach. He mustered up a mumbled ...Hey. and fidgeted with his paws against the sand.

When he was not at the Pharoah's side, the spirit spent his days and nights in solitude and prayer. For what yet, he was not quite sure, only certain that there must be ways of communing with the pantheon to be discovered. Himself, a conduit for sun's light, a feeling he had not experienced since that fateful day in the mesa - he desired it above all else.

Well, perhaps not more than a good meal. The smell of fresh fish drew a wiffle and a chuff as the spirit sensed he was not alone. A boy, blessed by some miracle to be alive with such injuries; his gaze traced his twisted leg sympathetically before he swiftly beckoned him to approach. What recognition there may have been in Kheti's eyes was lost on Akhre, and he regarded the nervous onlooker with more curiosity than anything. "Is that for me?"

Nokht set down the fish, placing it onto a fallen palm leaf where it would be safe from the grainy sand. Yes. If you'll have it. He mumbled; a terrible habit of his, but one yet unbroken. ..I'm Nokht. I also came from Muat-riya, though I don't think we ever really got the chance to meet. He dipped his head, coming to sit in the other boy's company, his own figure a little below his eyeline. Soon, hopefully, he would fill out, put on some muscle, and maybe a few inches of height if the gods felt generous, which they never seemed to be, so Nokht didn't exactly expect much.

...What are you doing, over here? He asked curiously, looking around at the place where Akhre meditated, wondering what habits had come to haunt the sun spirit. It seemed solitude called to them both.

He bit back the true question on his mind for now, not wanting to bring up that day in the first few seconds they had met. He did not want to ruin the pleasant air with one so melancholy, although his presence alone had seen to that regardless.

"Thank you. That's very kind." The boy beamed in delight as the gift was delivered to his feet, lowering his head to trace it's glittering scales with his tongue. Ears flicked to catch mumbled words as he began to eat, tearing strips of silvery flesh. Akhre had never tasted something so fresh, so salty and delicious.

The flavours melted in his mouth and before long the small meal had disappeared down his gullet, licking his chops to finally focus on the conversation at hand. "Nokht," the name was familiar on his tongue, "it's good to meet you! Although...I don't recall seeing your face before." An honest admission, though the spirit felt a niggle of guilt at the boy's apparent recognition. It was difficult to piece together what Kheti had known, and the spirit found it all too confusing to dwell on for now.

Reclining on his side, Akhre began to clean his paws with long swipes of his tongue. "Ra guided me here" he offered simply then, turning to Nokht with a tilt of his head. "What brings you here?"

He didn't expect his face to be known, maybe his name; in hushed, hopeless whispers through cenote caverns, mutterings of a child stolen and returned in fractured pieces. Admittedly, Nokht did not know Kheti by name, only by the heritage he gleamed from his few sheepish, stolen glances.

Nokht sat back as he listened, coal-tipped tail coming to rest over his leg. Pharoah took me in. The cenote is empty, the mesa is destroyed it's.. not like I had anywhere else to go. He muttered, paws shifting in the sand. At least he had not been met with marble and

How do you know that- ..Ra guided you here? He asked hesitantly, uncertain of the gods in all their cruelty and their negligence. He wondered what it was that inspired such devotion, even in those who had been wronged so terribly.

He had been robbed this experience, learning of his own gods, instead he hated them for all they stood for.

So Samirseti's gilded wings extended over both of them. The spirit was most grateful to the Pharaoh for his kindness, and in turn his heart wrapped Nokht in an embrace of shared experience. "I-" had it been him? "-I have seen them both." Buried them all - had he? The memory was fuzzy, as if distorted behind a waterfall. "I can't remember much though, only that they are at peace now."

Pink tongue flicked to clean a particularly dirty toe. How had he known? It was like asking how he knew he was alive. "Because I felt it." Nokht was reserved, unconvinced. "After the burial rite, I looked upon the mesa and saw it aflame in Ra's light. I knew - to follow the sun." The voice inside him - the spirit had not heard it again. But that did not mean it had not been real. 

It had led him here, after all.

Felt it, heard it, saw it.

All things Nokht had never been afforded. He did not like the resentful feeling that grew in his chest, clawing at his heart, he kept his eyes from glaring, at least. It wasn't Akhre's fault.

Nice of them to show you the way. He muttered, his lack of belief apparant in the quiet scoff that rolled from his maw. What made you special?

That was mean. He could not stop the words before they were spoken.

While the words that left Nokht's mouth appeared kind, the darkness that dredged his tone made Akhre shiver unpleasantly. Why did he doubt him so? Had the gods not guided him here as they did the spirit? 

"You speak like you don't believe," he relents finally, a quiet hurt in his voice now as his ears drooped in thought. To hail from such a place as the cenotes where the gods were worshipped in their reverence; the spirit simply could not understand it. He prayed then that he was wrong, that the boy before him was simply lashing out. For the alternative was that Nokht did not see Vahanet for what it was.

You speak like you don't believe

He believed. But faith? That was another thing entirely.

He sighed, and let a muttered apology roll from his jaws, guilt flicking through his expression.

I do.. I just.. The boy hesitates, he tries to convince himself. I don't understand them.

He shifts his posture, sitting up and bringing his gaze to the sky, the feint outlines of stars hidden away in the blue of the sky. They'd always drawn a sense of comfort around him, many a night spent with nothing to do but look up at the constellations and make everything seem smaller. Those who tormented him, the bite of his wounds, gnawing into his belly, all of it, diminished beneath that vast, swallowing thing above.

...Are there places they can't reach?

Heresy was not his intention, but Nokht struggled to bite his tongue in the face of a topic forbidden.

Not even Nokht's begrudging apology could lighten Akhre's mood, but still he listened. He listened and he tried to understand, though his eyes sank to watch the reflections in the pool at his feet. The boy spoke something of the truth, though the spirit himself found it difficult to grasp why the gods would turn on Kheti's family. But they had done so nonetheless; there must have been a reason.

What was said next, however, drew a whine from his throat. "No. They are everywhere. In rocks, in pools, in stars. You see them every night, don't you?" The sky above was a constant, a reminder that the dead were waiting for them in the Land of Reeds. "As long as they are there, I think- I think there is not a place they can't reach."