Lion Head Mesa necropolis

got carried away, no need to march lol <3

ramesses said nothing for a long time.
the sunglow and refraction of red glint from the mesa poured over him, until at length pharaoh resembled no more than an exquisitely carved statue.
"there is not a place i walk where fellahin and mazoi and physicians and allies may not find me. my name is on a thousand tongues. what i say, what i do; each of these things matter."
he looked at siptah again, and it was with the full unrelenting heaviness of grief. "but there is something they cannot know: my thoughts. each thing that i speak is said with utmost thought. i do not blurt. i do not shout. i understand that there is no one to whom i might go. only pharaoh can be the ultimate advisor to pharaoh."
"today our kingdom saw your wrath. today they have heard your voice lifted in anger. by tomorrow the servants will repeat your words, and all of akashingo will see that as divinity and royalty we are not unified."
a pause. "you have done harm today. you are my successor. i chose you before our kingdom for that honor and responsibility. understand, siptah, that as heir you will see death again and again. before you are pharaoh you may even order death upon another."
"forty days to embalm the queen, my son. seventy of mourning. the sorrow you feel did not end today, but she is beyond us now. queen satsu walks in the Land of Reeds. you simply do not understand yet that the birthright she left you was also a great investing in akashingo. she meant for her children to have this palace and this land."
ramesses was grave. "one day or a fortnight more of waiting; it would have mattered not at all. it would have done nothing to dull the point of pain in your chest, my son, not until you are ready to be finished with it."
pharaoh was silent.