Lion Head Mesa bull

lots of tags for reference, AW!

she did not sleep — or if she had, it did not feel like sleep.

her bed had been cold, open, an endless expanse of her emotions. a wave that she floated by herself in eerie silence.

dawn was a welcomed sight — and she swore she heard the praises to Ra from @Senmut in her place.

wearily she dragged herself upright. wondering if the sesh may have something for a brief kick of energy, wisely thinking against it. no. she would dunk herself into the frigid wellspring and then figure where her day would begin from there.

perhaps @Bayek was positioned somewhere, waiting for her. maybe she could pit @Khaba against him for further training of a tactician's eyes.

quickly, she submerged herself once she met the wellspring. crocodilian once more.

"you have the look of Sobek, great one." his boyish voice was teasing senmut was pleased to see her return — and relieved.

but there was a new tenor in the palace, one he sensed rather than saw. "i will be your fellahin today," he said with a bow, indicating the pure white sheepskin with which he might towel her. he perched on the edge of the wellspring but did not enter. 

"did you enjoy mereo?"

she did not let herself speak on how horribly she had missed that voice.

Sobek he said and she wondered if he knew that now she had the teeth as such too.

but her ears stood tall as she hovered at water level for a moment longer. taking her time with this. wounded by his words, even if he had not a clue. if he did? well then she would hurt all the more. buried beneath a solitude she had been told she must have.

when she rose, it was with a new build about her. selfishly and shamelessly she wondered if he'd see.

i would dare to say it's more enjoyable as a soldier.

she had just arrived and yet she found herself heading back to the shore already. for her goal had been achieved, hadn't it? she was awake.

there was something different about her as well. he averted his eyes as she emerged, streaming, and went to dry her at once.

she was muscled and with a new straightness. senmut's mouth ran dry to be in her presence. "what did you learn?" he asked gaily, avoiding her eyes as he pressed towel-pelt to the wet fur of her ruff and chest.

"i saw nazli the other day." studiously he did not look at the heir.

plenty about sparring — and developing the eye of a tactician. all things a good crown prince should.

it felt like a script. over and over. a good crown prince, a good crown prince.

he mentioned nazli, at her chest. she could not stop the slight stiffening of neck and the way her gaze rolled to look skyward.

and?

she buried her hurt before him.

the priest who had seen her cry once before.

she knew not what he knew, what things he had done in her absence.

the we'eb felt her tension. he quailed a little, ears flicking backward.

"she — too was affected, great one," senmut said in a strangled voice. he hardly dared to do what he did now, raising his gaze as far as her cheekbone.

"trust me. i am your confidant, high prince. what has happened?" 

surely she did not think him a fool. she would not allow him into her confidences if so.

trust me.

to be pharaoh was to be alone.

yet still she filled the shoes of high prince — and would she be here fully without senmut? he who had helped her lead such a grand sacrifice before her father?

nazli will be sent into her full training as fellahin. wounded. her heart a boa constrictor in her own chest.

perhaps i was foolish to...

care. treasure. tend. nurture.

love.

the lilac was sent away in the end anyway. no amount of treasuring had saved her from being separated from the crown prince's side.

not yet, at least.

her full training.

senmut sighed and his gaze fell back to where it belonged. yes. he knew the practice. so many girls of aswan had been called into the harems for the same.

he supposed that was for the best, that akashingo had not yet cultivated such a golden prison.

not yet, he thought dismally.

"you are no fool in any way, great one," senmut said softly. if he had been a full priest by this time he might have been able to petition pharaoh for a marriage.

many other women chose to fall pregnant rather than enter the palace. but that too was its own horridness.

he had no platitudes for the crown prince. senmut was only silent, aggrieved.

not a fool!

she laughed, it was a dry harsh sound against her throat. her lapis gaze hardened, as emotionally exhausted as she was physically.

i asked for her to stay with me. she was intended for the first crown prince, so i thought...perhaps i could keep her. seeing as i am crown prince now. sour, stewing. she did perhaps the unthinkable and leaned into the priest for a moment.

voice dropped.

and now? i will spend my days looking upon some medjay. bayek of siwa.

senmut was surprised but did not falter. he kept himself close as a strength for the crown prince.

"a fellahin intended to any prince would be a — she might carry his first children." and makono possessed no such ability. "as you are the heir now, you —" he reddened. "well. this duty will fall to you."

but what was meant for nazli? he shut his eyes and allowed himself the barest comfort in her touch.

"i have not met him. but to be medjay means he is skilled indeed." would she take heart in that?

carry children.

this duty fell to her.

she pulled back, ears tall and gaze heavy. she had only just found herself gazing upon others. duties and traditions were to be expected and yet it would feel too early to discuss children.

even if she moved beyond it, she was still a child. only on the cusp of early womanhood. hardly that too even!

yet she knew she could not balk. these were her tasks. the things she had agreed upon.

and as if nazli is not? humor, hoping to sweep discussions of children under the rug. i even went so far as to offer an exchange. that i might bring more bodies to replace whatever duties she moves onto now, if i could keep her close.

"— she might carry his first children."

perhaps i border upon the unspeakable with how much i push against his words sometime. then came that inkling of a rogue kept hidden under neither the mask of ambassador. did you and pharaoh speak of me in my absence?

senmut wilted. he had not meant to imply that nazli was without skill.

but he did not interrupt the crown prince as she spoke now of how she had tried to convince her father.

"no, great one," he said softly. only that he and isana had been — summoned! "he did not call for me. the palace was quiet in your absence." empty. 

senmut gathered his courage. "i believe pharaoh expects you to test him, divine one." and in these hard lessons perhaps ramesses meant to teach. but he would not presume.

quiet.

why? why did her father build a grand palace with busying bodies and all she heard was that it was silent in her absence?

tests, tests, tests. it rankled her in full each time. it mattered not if this was the way!

tell me my next step towards power, senmut.

there. another test. her annoyance for them did not mean she either could avoid them.

power, always, and makono no stranger to ambition. "you need your own spies, divine one."

he spoke treason! and yet did Amun not guide him? 

"pharaoh knows all of what happens beneath this roof. send yours out, to the borders. princes are — expect to be dispatched, to the furthest borders, as captain of the guard." it was her role as heir, to prove she could protect akashingo from threats.

but spies — ah!

i believe i will need to seek outside soldiers for such. she confessed in a soft voice.

this was a dangerous line to entertain, yet she did. continuously. frequently. it only heightened after each hurt and each smarting.

i must know those who look upon me as you do, we'eb.

head turned and canted, so she might exhale softly against the tips of sandstone fur. daring and emboldened by his continued service.

senmut shut his eyes a moment. he did not want to know! and yet he must.

helplessly the priest looked at her, at the gilded fall of her fur and the starlight in her eyes, at her regal bearing and the wholly unfeminine aura which clung to her like lotus perfume.

yes, she was a God upon earth, as much as her father. but he saw the rift growing; he saw makono gathering strength while her father should be happy to have his glory siphoned for his lineage.

but ramesses would not go so easily. he was still a young man who could sire many sons, and those sons would all fight for the throne of akashingo.

"do not use soldiers, great one. do not show the alliance between yourself and mereo until the — end. seek mercenaries and pay them well."

there was a sudden thought in her mind.

that she might give senmut the whole world for the knowledge he continued to bring her. that she might kiss him, to impart some divinity upon him. an unholy thought that she did not stop.

simmering her gaze upon him wholly.

expansion is in the cards. i believe i want them expanded under me and i will put mercenaries there. she hovered near his ear now.

she began to form a list of names.

she began to drift closer to senmut.

something came over the crown prince. he felt the brushing fine linen of her divinity as closely as if it had whispered across the floor between them. 

her breath singed his ear. the we'eb was captivated, ensnared, and yes — yes he had wondered! 

he trembled; his arms flexed as if he might dare to embrace her sanctified form.

but she was a God and he only mortal, and so in mortality senmut quelled his desire to return her kiss, and quailed, and crumbled gracelessly to prostrate himself at her feet, overcome by her holy nature and his own flawed thinking, that he could ever be so close.

he crumpled, sandstone steps at her paws.

she saw surrender. she saw bliss and worship. the devoutness of a priest never faltered. not in this one, at least.

let him stay low, she thought. nearly protective in its nature she aimed to drape a leg over his shoulders. head and neck bent so that she might still stay close to his ear.

tell me, we'eb,

and yet she did not say what to tell her of.

senmut closed his eyes and felt the tension filter from him.

and still she whispered, and he saw agelessness in the way she nurtured him now, a queen and pharaoh in one. for it was not only a soft touch, it was a command.

"i love you, prince. i always will." senmut's voice did not tremble, though he was awed by how easily she summoned the words from his throat. "i want to serve you as high priest. i want to make the sacrifices at your coronation."

senmut, her second subject, senmut, as loyal as nazli and with the power of Amun coursing in his veins. 

tears now, in silent worship.

"i love you, prince. i always will."

she felt it. the same way she had felt the Apis Bull, the way she had felt her own divinity upon rising, the way she felt all things so horribly deeply.

his worship ran deep and cutting like a harsh river.

she could not explain the need to show him things physically, the way she did think of kissing him. it overcame her all at once as she stood there. half over him half off of him.

kiss me.

nearly stunned by her own voice.

before eyes and ears find us in full.

but her voice was not an order. it could not be for such a thing, for him. if he shied away, if he felt distaste at the idea she would not push him.

but he did not.

at her command senmut rose, cheeks wet with reverent weeping. he looked at the fire of her and the passion of the Apis Bull's blood bestowed into those royal veins, at the aquiline patrician's nose and the beauty that promised to be great as all other things about her.

"those who love might call one another sister and brother." the way of fellahin, of peasants who adored one another beside the nile and knew their flesh was one with the earth.

and very gently, senmut did as she bid, neither rising in passion nor faltering now, and upon them he felt the Gaze of Amun, and sensed in the God no judgement.

she could not say why her eyes grew watery, why she pressed into him in full in that moment.

for a silent moment, somewhere between his lips and their shared air, she wished he was a brother, a consort like her father had spoken of. then realized that she didn't want that either. lest she have to drive him away as she seemingly had with siptah.

she never wanted to see senmut go as her own blood had.

but she could not speak these things. she could not weaken before him because of a kiss. it mattered not if he had seen her weep before! if he had seen her at her lowest just to lift her higher!

her voice caught somewhere in the back of her throat, as she aimed to rest their foreheads against one another.

do you truly know the lengths i will go to for you, senmut? you need only ever speak, ask...

she hated the sound of her voice now. how it filled the time that came after something so suddenly rare and opening.

"i know it, mighty one."

he thought of nazli, how he had wanted to marry her. how he still wished this, despite her new coolness and new assignments, how wildly he loved both she and the crown prince for so vastly different reasons.

senmut hated to part from her, to pull his crown from her own, and yet he tactfully stepped back lest a wandering eye spot them there. once more he was we'eb and she the heir of akashingo, and a great space separated them though they still stood so close.

"i want only to serve you, and if the Gods will it, to grow old in your service, to see your descendants inherit the Horus Throne." his voice shook with love and with determination; he would see these things even if directly after he breathed his last.

it was a cracking. a fracture of everything she held near to her.

tears and suddenly she could not stop them from overflowing. to hear such loyalty was groundbreaking. yet it made her greedy as well. suddenly wishing she could clutch senmut close, that she could lure such words out from him again and again and...

take me to the worshiping halls,

she blinked feverishly.