Lion Head Mesa now we'll see who is who

set shortly after ramesses' ro

qiao limped from her chambers out into the red halls. pylons of gold sunlight lit her path.

ramesses was not in his throne room; it lay quiet and bare.

qiao tracked his scent out to the red plinth. here the sun rose around them in shades of mahogany and liquid gold.

a form hunched along the mesa's edge. qiao slowed her shuffling gait to study the way that familiar fur glinted as if molten sun ran from its figure and out into ra's endless realm.

she did not need to feel his pulse to know he was dead, joining the thousands before him.

qiao set her briar torc upon the ground and threw back her head in a howl. where were his fellahin, his guard? how was it that she was the first to come across him?

senmut, who had appointed himself executioner of makono's coronating days, looked up as lady qiao's cry broke the air of akashingo.

he shut his eyes hard, breathing a prayer to Thoth.

and then he gathered windings of hairless, cured leather, amulets, salt scraped from the riverbank; he carried these things solemnly to the mesa and lay them down beside ramesses.

"do you swear fealty to our divine pharaoh?" senmut asked in a quiet demand. not of the husk that lay between them, but of makono's reign.

senmut came with a bundle of dried leather. salt and metal colluded the air between them.

she looked upon this man who now doctored the trajectory of her fate in akashingo. qiao's fur bristled to be so openly insulted.

only ramesses had shown qiao the kindness she deserved. his servants had never tried to see her end.

i serve the crown, hem. dark things were moving underfoot, and qiao feared she may be too old to move with them.

senmut looked upon qiao with his shadow-stained eyes and said nothing.

loyalty to the throne of akashingo was commendable, not a reason to quarrel unless the woman showed herself false.

"we will cleanse his body here," he said, gesturing to wet lengths of weasel-fur, "and then we will embalm his flesh. i believe pharaoh means to lie him beside satsu."

he spoke no more, rolling the man who had once been pharaoh and beginning to scrub the tearstains from silent face.

qiao expected recourse. when none came she bent alongside the hem, pulling the fallen pharaoh into repose.

an aroma lingered from the once-pharaoh's lips that qiao chose to ignore. flecks of foam along his muzzle spoke a dark truth that did not need to be spoken of.

from her greenbriar kit qiao pulled a bundle of strong-smelling nettle and set it down in front of the hem to aide his work.

is the shabti disposed of too, then? if she was to be involved, she expected transparency.

"that is not my decision to make, hemet."

but he too wondered. would makono move to strike down the woman who had given the second set of heirs to akashingo?

he closed the stiffening eyelids, whispering a prayer to Amun. 

moving aside, he lay out the leathery wrappings. "are you fit to help me move him?" senmut asked, aware of the other's injury. let no more be harmed on behalf of ramesses.

qiao received this reply in silence. from his words she tried to triage all possible outcomes: did that mean she was not yet dead? or had she met a similar end as the red king of akashingo's keep?

with teeth gritted, qiao seized an end of leather wrapping. i can assist, for a time. you may need to call upon sayf if you expect expediency. her head would protest, but qiao understood that very few wolves could be trusted with this task.

she can be sent away!!

too much was changing!

nala felt a trembling in her chest. her heart! yet as she heard a woman call and knew that it all was happening. she caught sight of senmut up with the woman who had healed in a place near tavina.

let me help! she called out near breathless.

yet she would understood if she was sent away too.

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: gore, also the idea is that they are singing kind of together, mingling voices

in his haste, he had forgotten to call upon nala. it was the mistake of a we'eb.

but senmut could afford no mistakes. "this is not a task for fellahin." he waved qiao to stop and motioned the other hemet forward. "priestess of Hathor. when i am ready you will help me move this body. priestess qiao, you will assist me with the salt."

he looked to nala. "pray, aloud."

this too for qiao, eyes moving over the trader.

senmut took a long breath. his jaws cut first into the chest, snapping bone. blood welled fiercely, the priest pulling until the divine body was laid open.

"the seat of the Ka, we offer it now," he sang in shaking voice as paws inserted to lift the dripping heart of ramesses from its mooring. he laid it out for qiao to wrap.

the belly next, senmut ill to his marrow, but still he sang, "we prepare you for the Land of Reeds. your name is written in the book of the kings."

he did not know how many organs he handed to qiao, nor how long it took to pluck them all from the innards of the once-divine man.

his paws were dark with blood to his elbows, his chest smitten with it. "now," he said hoarsely to the priestess of Hathor.

the body would be much lighter when he and nala had moved it to the bindings. he sat back upon tired haunches and nodded to qiao, to begin packing the emptied cavities with salt.

"we prepare you for your hunting and your palace. we prepare you for your queen."

qiao had much to learn still. she stepped back and allowed nala her space as ceremony descended them all.

how could she know? this was her first attendance of a pharaoh's death.

she watched in fascination as organs were meted from body cavity - this, this she knew well.

each organ transplanted to leather, packed with salt, and sealed with care.

honeyed sunlight glinted across the pulverized heart held in senmet's arms. a garland of red trickled round each limb.

qiao thought she quite liked that vision.

their voices joined together as they worked.

it was horribly sad work, she felt.

had it been just days ago she had danced for him? as if it might have hushed whatever had plagued him. now he had seemingly befallen to whatever it had been. she thought to ask tavina, perhaps poke around for whispers around the fellahin.

of course she thought of nazli! the girl seemed sick herself and it was after meeting with the pharaoh!

but the only words she spoke were ones of worship. a voice raising into soft song beneath senmut's own and qiao's too. admiring the far more skilled work of the two of them.

her stomach twisted and turned in protest.

she thought of the horse at the wedding night.

last for me, what an amazing thread <333

"you will remember the name of your fathers."

each arm he directed to be wrapped in the leather as well as they could.

he dealt with the bulk of the body, covering the pale fur and the bloodied tear along chest and belly with more.

"the serpent will carry your spirit to Ma'at."

amulets, for each one of them to tuck between layers of salt and flesh and leather.

arms crossed to chest, face wrapped last, more salt.

senmut was wearied beyond measure when at last it was over.

"seventy days," he said in a voice that barely sounded. "go now. more change will come. go and rest."

and he, he would wash a man's blood from his hands and go to find pharaoh once more.

their barbaric ritual ended in silence. qiao listened as wind rushed around the canyon halls.

seventy days now the pharaoh's body would cure. seventy days to sneak back in and steal a rib from his aging bones. he had been most interesting to qiao, and she was sorry his soul had gone beyond her reach.

she gathered her things, noting nala's demeanor seemed a little less detached than hers' and senmut's. perhaps the girl had not yet experienced death -- or perhaps she had been close to the great red king of akashingo.

either way, his name would fall to dust now, while they remained among the living.

and qiao intended to keep it that way. 

she pulled the green torc about her neck, murmured a soft incantation over the place where ramesses rested, and then she too would retire to her chambers.

there was much to ruminate.

last from me too <3

the work was to be done and they would be sent away.

it was a blessing to the young woman who had never been faced with all of this. she would be quick to give a polite nod to all before she fled.

quick to find tavina's arms.