Wheeling Gull Isle wordlessly watching, he waits by the window

There was no doubt, now. She wasn't quite to "lead balloon" status as of yet, but Maegi definitely felt. . .more. Whatever that meant. And with the added fullness also came near-constant nausea, which only the bracing sea air seemed to help.

She spent a lot of time on the beach, looking at pretty shells, watching the gulls over the water, wondering—

What exactly was her use, here?

Maegi had always wanted to be useful. From her childhood, she had latched onto various strengths, branding herself—priestess, healer, mother, leader. . . But none of those really fit, and some were even abject failures. And they weren't tangible. She wasn't a good hunter. She could barely hold her own in a fight. 

So what was the point, anyway? She dug her toes into the wet sand, brows knitted in frustration. What was her point? Because she was about to bring more life into the world, and she was terrified that they would be just as purposeless as she was.

he had been shorefront, passing his time with the dune-pelted figures who yipped and cried their desires to him in brazen ways. he had pursued them inland with a playful step and been rewarded  had the reticent pearl known how the man spent his time, she might have ordered his second exile.
ramesses bathed the scent of coyote from himself and sauntered inland. his frequent stays away had been precipitated by the first reaches of maegi's scent seeking through yuelong; but of course he would never admit this. nor was he fully aware of it.
she appeared to him now, staring across the shoreline. ramesses approached with the step of a thoroughly pleased creature. "do you know that there are serpents which carry poisons, and each one different?" he inquired, thinking of their last meeting and wishing to start on a more acceptable path.

Pharaoh. She turned to him, a slightly jaundiced look upon her face. Their relationship had began on rocky ground, and while it had been briefly mended, their parting exchange had turned sour once more. Still, that might just be the nature of them—the young man haughty, the broken woman prickly.

Still, she gave a brief dip of her head to acknowledge his presence, then shook it in reply. I only know of poisons that come from plants and trees, Maegi said. Well, and that some bugs like spiders are poisonous. But I've never heard of poisonous snakes.

Ah, well. If talk of poisons got her mind off her own uselessness, she would grasp the chance with alacrity. Tell me about them, she prompted, and turned fully to him, the shift also alleviating the constant spray of salt-soaked wind in her face. Her pelt lifted on the breeze, making her look a little larger than her slight frame.

Would he notice? Did she show? She didn't think so, and yet she felt rounder, fuller. Maybe he was that perceptive.

pleased that she had not turned him away, ramesses settled a comfortable distance nearby. he was not unaware of how her alabaster frame seemed to grow.
there was indeed something different in maegi this day, and others past, but because it did not concern pharaoh he did not care to learn the why of it. she had mentioned a mate. children. he had sought to remove her from his royal favor, but like a burr she had clung inside him.
now he parted his lips to answer, domesticated, self-loathing, scrambling for the edges of his pride.
"they are black and gold. they live and die beneath the sun. a single bite may kill a wolf in five steps." he warmed to tales of it, remembering lotus blooming upon the water as obsidian coils warmed themselves along the shoreline.
"one has a great hood he opens behind his head; he hisses and warns others not to come near. his bite too; it makes the heart heavy and that is how one dies. a third moves only under the cover of night, stealing life before one has the chance to know their fate. i have a great reverence for serpents."
a musing pause.
"have you ever seen life taken with poisons, maegi?"

Five steps—that was quick. Maegi had never seen such a snake, but she would be sure to observe from a distance if she ever did run across one. Pharaoh might revere serpents, but they sounded to her too much like the denizens of her birthplace. Creatures of the night, reclusive and toxic.

And then his next question came.

Her lips pulled taut, her mouth indecisive on whether to smile or frown. It ended up more a grimace, though crooked, the ruined side of her face endlessly leering. The other side remained fairly stoic, though there was pain there in the way her cheek trembled ever so slightly.

I, myself, have taken life with poisons, Pharaoh, Maegi echoed, her voice itself lifeless. Twice. Once an accident—a terrible mistake made in my youth. The other purposely, willed by my god.

She didn't know whether she was confessing or threatening. There was an ease on her heart from speaking these things aloud. . .but a tiny part of her wondered if she was in fact putting a wall between her children and him—or anyone else who might dare hurt them.

Not that she had a reason to mistrust him. But Maegi had killed, and she would kill again before she let another of her babies die.

her expressions were swift and open; glinting skull-smile on one side, and on the other the ferocity that only anguish might bestow. a poisoner. maegi belonged to the ranks of those feared even by pharaoh himself. her small stature was not without muscle; her voice was not without the steel of one who had sapped life.
he found himself wondering with his gaze about her figure; something indeed was different. but ramesses would not allow himself to stare. he had soured enough time between them. somehow for her wit he hated her less, trusted her less, desired her more; his rightful title in her mouth fired his want.
"tell me more of jaes." he remembered, and while he wondered if uttering the name might somehow burn him, pharaoh held to it all the same, waiting to see how this poisonwraith might take his words.

He wisely changed the subject. Maegi would not elaborate further. She hadn't told a soul about how Lainie had shuddered, how Parvati had twitched and trembled. How the foam gathered at the corners of their mouths, the gagging sounds they'd made, gasping vainly for breath. She had watched each of them grow still—the first time in horror, the second in pleasure.

No, she kept those memories close to her heart. No one would know.

Jaes is everything, everywhere, Maegi explained. Formless, sexless, limitless. The protector of all souls, but especially of those who are defenseless. The very young, the very old. The sick. The crippled, she said, with a wan smile toward her foreleg. Jaes is my protector. My job is to praise, teach and protect as Jaes has done for me.

It had given her a purpose in what could have been a very purposeless life.

She looked at him, searching. And Jaes could be yours, too, if you choose, she tested. She knew he had gods already; many of them, much like the daedra of her youth. If you listen, you may hear the voice. Jaes's voice. Jaes speaks to me. Jaes may speak to you.

ramesses wanted to rejoin crisply that he was without deformity and so did not need jaes, but even he saw the cruelty in that. and also the lie of it, as maegi went on about the realm of her god. he served those who could not do so for themselves. there was a humility in this that was not lost upon perceptive, arrogant pharaoh; his sharpness cooled beneath the reverent, loving cascade of her words.
"how do you pray to him? i would hear his voice." a challenge, both to himself and to Amun. but perhaps the way that the tooth-bare side of maegi's face had glowed with her words now brought his own. jaes had made of her a vessel, though what the sea-woman held he both loathed and feared.

She dipped her muzzle in careful consideration of his question. I have always spoken to Jaes through the language of my family, Maegi explained. Prayer can come in any language—but if you wish to hear Jaes, perhaps try this—

Jaes, ñuha āeksio, ñuha mīsio, she intoned. 'Jaes, my lord, my protector.' Māzigon.  Rȳbagon nyke. 'Come. Hear me.'

He was, at least, bilingual; he had spoken in his ritual tongue to her before. She thought that he may be able to pick up on Daedric relatively quickly, and if not, it would only take him a few times to get the hang of it. Whether he tried it here before her, or somewhere yonder, mattered not.

She would know if he tried. Jaes would tell her if he tried.

a popular trick of priests was remembered, instantaneous memorization. used for prayers and the like, this had been bound in ramesses from the first day. he utilized it now, cunning spiderweb mind painting the words in hieroglyphs along the inside of his mind. so that when he said it back to maegi, he knew already the shape of them.
the emphases and accent of any kind would not be genuine; a rough approximation. but pharaoh was zealous in his pursuits of all things that led to the root of god. he wished to know what had taken place and what would; he wanted to know the incantations and the names of the deities which slept in this world. 
still now, the attempted islander tying himself into her gaze.

Only a few mistakes—that was natural—but it was good on the whole. Very good. She smiled, enchanted by his attempt, and knew that Jaes was listening.

Well done, she praised him, dipping her head. And if you hear a new voice, an unfamiliar voice, you will know that you have been heard. I will ask Jaes in my later prayers to hear you, too.

What did she pray about, these days? The safety of her unborn children was paramount. She prayed for Sakhmet's welfare, wherever she was, and that of the children not of her flesh that were scattered across the wilds. Elfie. Rowan. Scarab. The young wolves she had mentored; she knew at least Rowan had grown up to be a fine man, and knew that the others were on similar trajectories.

And for Mou, of course, to keep him healthy and out of trouble. For Blue, somewhere in the south with his family. For Ramsay and Euron—were they even still alive, or had this world taken them, too? For Moonshadow, Venninne, Coelacanth, Relmyna's daughters—

And now for Pharaoh, so that he may be heard by Jaes.

What do you pray for? she asked, suddenly curious about what was on his mind.

maegi would ask jaes to think of him. ramesses found this particularly interesting, as he would have never offered to speak on behalf of any mortal to the gods. that was for each to do individually; the high priest could not tell pharaoh upon the throne what he must do, only what he might do.
horus-in-nest, ready to descend when the royal falcon had flown to the sun — stolen.
for what did pray? pharaoh was unsure as to how he might answer this; piece by piece his confidence began to flake, and while he desperately clung to those practiced cool expressions, his face grew naked for a span of two moments.
anger, flickering darkly there, lighting lapis to something more roiling, the flame trapped inside a sapphire.
"for the death of my sister," lips curving up and up into a taut unsmile. "so far, Amun has not answered my prayers. He means for me to learn something here. when i have learned it, He will reward me."

Well, at least he was honest. Maegi blinked once or twice but otherwise didn't react, staring at him, waiting for his speech to wane. She certainly couldn't judge him, nor would she. She had prayed for others to die. Skullchaser, Parvati, Potema. . .

I hope your prayers are answered, she responded diplomatically. I know what it's like to have something—someone—hanging over your head. To have to wait, or else take matters into your own paws.

Had he considered it? Even if he had, given that he was here, still praying for his sister's demise, that consideration had not translated into successful action.

Still, she wanted to stay on his good side. A man that hoped for death would always be a threat, in her eyes, to her children—whether that fear was rational or not was irrelevant. She gave him a bland, lips-closed smile, wondering what he would say next.

did she? but then, maegi had just finished telling to ramesses the reality of how she had used her poisonous knowledge. perhaps in that notion, direct with threat but vague in intention, there resided a message. maybe it had been one of her own upon which the dark one in the pale robe moved. 
was there regret in maegi for what she had done? was this the allusion of what she had said, taking matters into one's own paws? ramesses felt himself flush with a thousand questions, seeking, pinpointing. wanting. "Amun will tell me when i am to leave. where i am to go. He has never misled me before."
but pharaoh was staring upon her now, wondering if she made of herself an oracle.

His faith in Amun was as strong as hers in Jaes, she thought. She would have been comforted by his belief in deities if not for her own experience with the daedra. Not all gods were good—and she had no way of knowing if this Amun was anything like Sithis or Mephala.

She was disturbed, suddenly. She rose up, took a step back, giving him a wan smile.

I'm tired, Maegi excused herself. I should go rest. Loath to pluck herself from the cool breeze, but. . . Perhaps it was only her impending childbirth making her so wary. She usually gave into these conversations, pouring out her heart and soul, lightly parrying with words.

But he scared her, and the near future scared her, too. Only in the shadows of her den, close to Mou, did she feel any semblance of safety.

Maegi left, leaving lopsided pawprints into the sand in her wake.

<3

ramesses only watched maegi as she departed, ears twitching in response to her quiet look. pharaoh followed the lines she had left with a curl of distaste wanting to climb to his mouth — and failing. whatever he had once considered in regard to deformity had somehow been affected by her.
this he did not like. ramesses wished to believe that he was loyal only unto himself, and that as rightful hawksent, each of his thoughts were divine. gods did not become less than themselves.
nor should he.
but the lapis eyes looked back as he trotted in the opposite direction, watching until the wisp of maegi disappeared into the shoreline.