Lion Head Mesa she cries 'cause she's nothing like you, is she like you?

thread song

down the mountain. sloping into a darkness that felt like choking tendrils. she walked not as a soldier or a prince, but as a rogue. damned and dreary. to know that this was it, the end of a road she had walked since birth. it could be the end of her own road, she thought. was the thought comforting? if her eyes closed as her father's shall, she'd never be burdened by these things again.

perhaps a coward at her core — or maybe just a girl. a girl not even a year into life, prepared to commit patricide to ascend a throne for...her people. the priest, the jodai, the sisters and brothers to be left in a mad pharaoh's wake. who would stay still when the world was turned upside down by her own hands?

she had wept at the creek for some long time before the final stretch of home. somebody would surely spot her return, she knew it. let them. let them whisper down halls until it reached the fever peak of her own father. pharaoh. ill, mad man.

was he still her father? was he still the man who had doted upon a lotus become lioness? she had lost that man somewhere in the ice carved canyon of her heart.

sentimentalities must be set aside. she came with a scentless bundle to the dark room of @Senmut, not a sound to be given less she stir any other priests present. perhaps he did not sleep. perhaps he had felt the grief in her heart and soul all the way down the mountainside. perhaps he felt the tired burn of lapis upon him now and knew that they could wait no longer.

<333

senmut had waited for the return of his pharaoh.

and when makono came for him, he met her eyes in a rare moment, seeing the strain, the exhaustion; sensing tears beneath her resigned veneer.

the priest would not insult her by asking after her well-being. he knew that makono suffered. so silently he paid his service to her in respectful steps before her, bending forehead to smooth cool floor.

his eyes moved to what the crown prince bore.

senmut did not ask. he did not speak.

he only waited, her loyal servant.

it was good they did not speak. she set down the bundle for but a moment. a divine kiss to his crown when he bowed. then let him rise as he must.

she hovered a paw over the bundle. nearly horrified to let anybody but herself handle it. even more horrified to speak but, ah —

it must find a way into him, voice tense, hoarse, strained into a whisper.

senmut inhaled.

knowing its contents his eyes moved back to her stricken face.

"wine."

his voice was steady.

"khaba has gone, for now. it is only you and i, divine one."

the hem drew a breath. "ramesses is mad. he speaks of his tomb. he speaks of his grave. he speaks of Osiris." his eyes were pained. "we will go to him. we will bring this."

did she understand?

she hid the further hurt to hear the jodai was gone. why? where? had he faltered in the darkest hours? she did not want to think so, it choked her like smoke.

distractions were futile.

then may he have it. his grave, his tomb, his damned death! furious that he could not be a proper pharaoh! enraged that her success maddened him so fully. wounded again and again by the family heirloom of this madness.

she gathered the bundle, there would be only one stop to make before they went the pharaoh himself. to gather the wine for a heavy dose of poison. her eyes laid heavy upon loyal, devout senmut.

"he keeps your friend at his side," senmut said of @Nazli, not knowing where she was but wishing to warn makono all the same. her lilac might well be present for this.

but he rose. they would draw wine together and into it he would stir what she had brought.

senmut had a thousand questions but no answer mattered now until the end had come.

he would follow her to the throne room, carrying the dour burden.

posting order can wobble as needed. nazli is welcomed too ofc if she's around <3

a fickle detail. if he wished for nazli to divulge? it would seal her own death too. the last thing that the crown prince wished for. a complication in already muddy waters.

if voices fluttered out around them, she ignored them.

one last court with him. one last bow, one last words of worship upon her tongue. a place where she had drawn so many firsts with him would also be her last.

worshipful gifts have arrived for pharaoh, he would know it was her who darkened his doorstep. she need no introduction.

PPing nazli as needed!

his lotus columns.
ramesses did not know his daughter had come back.
he did not know that the heir walked the halls outside with her blackened priest.
to what had tavina alluded in the lilac? ramesses, who had been pacing the interior of the redstone hall, looked toward the slight and sickened fellahin perched at the foot of his altar, a crumpled tribute to his glory.
new life.
an heir.
a true son of akashingo.
he did not look for treva; he did not call for her now.
at the door, gifts.
at the door, the crown prince.
his lip curled in near hate, the planes of his face starved all down to the glitter of his mad and beautiful eyes.
"gifts from the roman, makono?" ramesses demanded, and his honeyed laugh filled and spiraled through the air.

they entered. senmut set down the small wooden goblet at the paws of the heir.

his eyes looked to her. ramesses burned in madness.

senmut stepped back, his gaze moving sharply to nazli with worry and anger.

and still he said nothing.

if i need to delete for nazli to get in still, lmk pls. just wanna keep it going since it's very high priority <3

a roman is not a man of gifts,

let him strike her for the blunt of her tongue, let him spill the divine liquid between them and crumble the whole room. the care of these things had left her somewhere at the doorway.

and she did not recognize the man she faced. it softened the blow of all of this. as if he was nothing more than some wretched spirit come to haunt the royal halls. it was noble to bring him down, to stop all of this in its tracks before it seeped even further. beyond her, beyond the fellahin.

but your people are.

his for one more night. only a few more drawing moments in time. then he could be nothing more than paintings on walls and whispers in halls.

gifts. ramesses did not trust her and the glitter of his mad eyes said as much. "where is my queen?" he asked near plaintively, looking toward the weakened nazli. "where is treva!"
the crown prince and the silent priest.
"where have you gone, makono?" and his voice was a cold ripple of lotus fire, eyes blazing with righteous fury and yes, hate, now, hate for the one who had changed Ma'at, for whom the gods made a way to his very own throne.
pharaoh would not surrender.
"have you been with him?" with germanicus. the accusation was clear, as clear as his growing unease to know that senmut stood beside makono in obeisance.

the wine stirred at makono's paws.

at last the hem's head rose, and with it his confidence.

"pharaoh. you have disgraced akashingo." he pointed with a paw toward nazli. "you have disgraced the lineage your father handed to you. step aside," senmut pleaded softly, "for the good of your people. for the good of your memory."

senmut was an icy piece of steel. yet makono felt the wailing of her once-father in her soul. his cries for a queen who seemed absent in his mindness. perhaps, she dared to think, treva was smarter than all of this — or maybe she was foolish. to let the pharaoh play among the fellahin while tending to a flourishing daughter.

i loved you. her spine straightened into a familiar line. but you are no longer the image of a man who i yearned to be. you are no longer the face who looked upon me in our lessons.

she refused to cry before him, but these were words he must hear before the end of it all.

but you made me. i am the legacy of you, whether you like it or not. taking that heirloom of madness and digging it deeper, deeper. a wound upon their hearts when she had not wanted blood! let me protect you with your image. let me give you one last act of love.

"i made you in my image," ramesses said softly. "i loved your mother satsu," and his voice walked halls of memory, eyes going wide and blank as he looked toward the arched red dome of his throne room.
the part of his mind devoted to court and capture remembered this: a brother, heels drumming, foaming, losing control of his bowels as the poison of a scorned harem wife worked its way through his young body.
how ironic that this! should be!
ramesses stared at makono, at the golden face so like his own, at the kohled eyes and resolute mouth, at the pointed muzzle that held both satsu and seti in its vision.
the priest and nazli forgotten, even as ramesses meant to say that his divinity had brought life to the fallowness of his fellahin. 
that his last prince was surely —
the dark liquid caught his eye and he knew, he knew at once what this must be. what it was. 
ramesses trembled with anger and knowing.
mercy. mercy to only have the four of them here, he supposed.
"will you bury me beside her, makono?"
ramesses was her father once more, the lines of his handsome mouth a tremour of madness and anguish.

pharaoh did not want to die.

he wanted to be reborn in the Land of Reeds. 

but senmut saw now that the divine heart was bound for devourement.

in his pain for his crown prince he said nothing, green eyes fixed upon the man he had once worshipped.

she bit the tip of her tongue. placed it harshly between pointed teeth. anything to hold back the words and the tears. he spoke of her mother and she wondered what it would be like if she was still here. if the memory of her was fresher even, at least.

her mother felt more like a fable, a tale of a goddess from a far land.

it hurt worse to recognize him in the coming moments. in the way he looked upon her rather than through her or with a pierce of anger.

of course, there could be no other place to rest him — and perhaps her mother had called to the spirit of her father for a long time now.

he need only sip, he need only to recline one last time.

makono could lie.
she could have his name stricken from the collective mouth of akashingo.
but he knew he must have this last trust. he had not chosen makono. he had chosen siptah. it was the gods who had changed these things and it was the gods he had resisted.
a bolt of fear rushed through him, the understandable agony of a man who had long believed he would not see death until he lay old in his bed.
siptah had unraveled him.
but it was satsu; her unsolved death and dead face rose in his dreams on waves of guilt, her grinning skull damning him to a half-life.
ramesses glanced once more toward nazli. it would be an easy thing, a fine thing, to walk, to strangle her where she lay even as heir and priest moved to stop him. 
but she was still vibrant with a life he had sought to siphon for himself.
and perhaps she would carry the name of ramesses forward into the future now barred to his soul.
pharaoh grabbed up the wooden goblet and drained it, tasting the sweetness of pine, the tartness of berry; it soared electric to belly and limbs and tasted only of the pleasure he had ever known.
"be wiser than i," ramesses said, somehow restored as the elegance returned to his spine and legs and countenance.
and thus, he lifted his head and strode beyond them, out of his throne room, to the roof of the mesa where darkness waited for the touch of Ra.

senmut knew the suffering of the hawk-in-the nest.

he saw ramesses hesitate and it was then he expected the railing, the raving.

but it was pharaoh who put an end to himself at the last.

horror and resolution and perhaps a final admiration for the alabaster man bent his head in reverence as ramesses pushed beyond them and was gone.

he looked to makono now.

she could not be afforded even an ounce of regret now. it was too late as the man who seemed to fill the frame of her father sipped upon the pine. a warning on his lips.

had madness only ever touched the men? she had not thought to ask.

yet now she stood in only a room with nazli and senmut. pharaoh had left and she realized it mattered not where he went. he would not be long for this world. let him rest where he wished.

@Khaba must be returned to the palace. her voice strained along her throat. and tavina should be...informed, maybe. so she does not think pharaoh is worth healing. if he somehow thought he could be healed in time or without waste. moving parts, they all shifted around her and a certain numbness crept up.

ah — her voice faltered and her eyes closed for a moment.

pharaoh still filled all the spaces. senmut almost waited for the man to return, to laughter and wine and —

priest or not, he was only a man for the moment; he pulled makono against his chest, sensing the great break within.

"it will be done, pharaoh."

last from me i think <3

"it will be done, pharaoh."

it felt crumbling in that moment. the title shifted from father to daughter. the loneliness that sprawled across her in those moments regardless of any bodies in the room.

she held senmut for a long moment.

then she wished to hold her loneliness in solitude for some time. to let herself feel the weight of these actions and never forget it.