Lion Head Mesa fourteenth

ramesses kept nothing secret.

therefore the rumours which might have fluttered held a sort of truth that senmut was not ready to realize.

his painting finished, he devoted himself to hymns and then to prayer, then to sweeping the top of the mesa, straightening holy items, tossing out old mats and bringing new up.

senmut worked until twilight fell, until he was streaked with dust, until his limbs trembled.

and then he did not go to the wellspring. the young priest went down to the icy waters of the serpent and immersed himself there.

present date? <3

rage! burned like a million suns in her and even the cold bite of the water did not stop it. if she cried, it was beneath the frigid waters, so that when she emerged there was no difference.

when she emerged, she noticed the priest some long yards away. also in the waters.

then she burned all over again! she felt unable to speak and unable to move. she merely snorted over the surface of the water in a childish bid for attention.

yes! <3

senmut looked up, dripping and somehow vulnerable.

the sight of makono there flushed him a roseate hue. he nodded to her and made his way to her side with long strokes in the coldness of the water.

the prince's eyes said a storm had befallen her, and not one of rain. senmut was silent.

and she reached out, beneath the water, desperate to pull him near. she could not say why. she could not say if she cared why!

if he had not refused, pulled away —

i have missed you. her voice a husky whisper with the edge of her emotion, and in her mind's eye she saw not senmut.

but nazli.

"and i you," senmut murmured back, the flicker of emotion in his electric green eyes proof enough.

he wondered if she waned to stay in the serpent. he found that he did, as long as he was able.

senmut exhaled as makono twined him closer and set his embrace around her as well.

it felt deadly. this moment, these thoughts. she imagined the sick lilac and then banished it all at once! prayed for it to roll off her back like water.

she leaned closer and placed a kiss to his cheek.

still she wished to hold him close. closer, closer, closer. a tremble in her limbs that she ignored.

their limbs, stirring.

senmut did not know how to feel or what to say, the knowledge of nazli weighing heavily on him.

when the crown prince brushed his cheek, the young priest thrilled with an insensate worship.

"you know," he whispered thickly.

she knew nothing it felt! like the whole world dashed away without her in only the span of weeks. as if her father had somehow banished her to another world entirely.

tell me, her voice tight and tired and yearning.

she kissed him once more. it mattered not if eyes watched or fellahin whispered!

"it was wrong of him, to call her."

senmut's mouth was a thin and severe line. he felt heavy as the icy water. he wanted to pull his half-numbed and sodden body out onto the bank but stayed as he was, becoming more docile, warmer under her kiss, arms finding the strength to pull her closer in something that still held the chastity of a holiness.

"it is wrong."

fervor gathering beneath the courage he felt in makono's service.

it is wrong. she echoed, a deep rasping voice. anguished! pained! she did not hide it from his ears and eyes. let him see the rawness of her heart.

it is wrong. a voice pulled tighter and tighter against tired vocal chords. her lapis eyes squeezed shut and she clung onto him with an unbecoming fever.

senmut's eyes burned.

his throat flamed.

makono wrapped around him; the priest found himself reduced to tremouring we'eb, and he wondered why she chose him for any such thing.

he pressed soaked lips to soaked royal crown; "what will you do, divine one?"

she is —

was? she did not know if the things tavina had prescribed would work. she only recalled storming out in a flame.

sick. perhaps madness is infectious. cooed out lowly to the ears of the priest. her vizier. her worshiper. her devoted.

it needs to be stopped, senmut. tell me i am wrong. and she listened for it, for the wise words of knowledge beyond akashingo's own teachings.

"you are not," and senmut felt the fervency of Amun in him.

this time he did draw away from makono in hard strokes; he sat streaming and shivering on the sand but his eyes did not abate in their intensity.

"it is time for you to be pharaoh," and his eyes watered! mouth twitched.

he pulled away and it felt like a jagged shard removed from her heart. she could not explain it, would not.

time!

not even yet a year on these red sands and he proclaimed the time was now. she pulled herself from the iced waters and sat in the pooling of it that rolled off of her body now.

there is a man who may know the best way. for she was a tactician, but she was not so mastered at is as he! who wishes to see me rise, too.

"then take the moment, great one," senmut urged in a voice that almost cracked but did not.

the priest did not want to know what foreign powers she wielded now! he only wanted to see her upon the throne and akashingo quieted, calmed.

take the moment!

her head spun and it felt as if the world was suddenly crashing down upon her. that no amount of training could have prepared her for this rush of blood and roaring of ancestors in her ears.

you must — her voice was hitched, sharp in her breath. you must keep eyes averted for my absence, senmut.

or she might be killed before it was done.

senmut felt his own heart pounding hard in his own ears.

the hem drew on all power of Amun and nodded. "i will be here."

to do whatever she needed, to wait while akashingo burned in on itself.

fade? and expect something for u know who momentarily :sweats:

it seemed she had no time to waste, if it was truly to be now. while the iron was hot. while ire lived in the hearts of a few important figures.

she kissed him once. wondered if it might be the last — !

and then gone, lost to the stretching shadows in no time.