Rosewater Oasis this is a joke

his touch fades like the retreating tide, the lingering warmth of his paw leaving her cheek as he relinquishes his hold. the weight of his gaze lifts, yet its absence is as heavy as its presence, the gilded intensity burned into her even as he turns away. his slender frame shifts, but there is no triumph in his movement—only the solemnity of a man burdened by gods and their unrelenting demands.

his tail drapes low, brushing the sand with each step. the proud pharaoh, draped in sunfire and shadow, is subdued, the brilliance of his form dimmed by the enormity of his thoughts. he does not glance back, does not beckon her to follow, but his silence grants her the choice. the desert swallows him in its vast embrace, but he walks as though the weight of the gods rests heavy on his shoulders.

when he finally speaks, his voice is a fractured thing—a whisper of gravel and grief, low enough that it could be mistaken for a prayer or a curse. the gods do not mourn, racharra, he says. they demand. always, they demand.

tethered to both the divine and the mortal, a man weighed down by the sun yet walking ever toward it.