Ghost Lion Crag wilting lotus

The scent of cat is in her nostrils -- she stand amid sharp peaks that jut up to bite at the sky. The lapis of her gaze sweeps the barren land, and her heart wrenches at the ugliness wrought by the hotland insects. She knew them well, knew their twitching bodies by name and by the destruction that they brought with them.

Senmut was dead. He had been the one man she had loved in her rigidly cold life, and Thutmose, jealous of the man's great affections for his wife, had murdered the gentle wolf. Oh, Senmut! How I failed you in so many things! she thinks, but steels herself against the threat of tears. There had been enough of those.

Upon her departure, Thutmose had taken her daughter for wife, as was their despicable custom. When Hatshepsut had gone home, Nefurere's belly had been filled with another litter while three sons from her first gamboled about her paws, heirs to the throne.

But I am Pharaoh! she hisses to herself, wending her way down a steep path to the flat arid land below. For had not the Mighty Bull made it so? She had only taken Thutmose as her husband to secure her rule, and the snake had robbed it all from her. 

The rise of her daughter's taut stomach was burned into Hatshepsut's inner eye; her ka writhes at the images that rose darkly before her. Such a wicked way to get sons. 

She would not go back.