Luneshale Pass Desafinado

Open to @Thutmose @Siatum @Khusobek @Legend @Zaahira + Anyone else in the traveling bands are welcome to join too!

Ostensibly, there was no peace between the parties as they cut a path through golden earth towards an unknown land. The eyes and ears of Siatum, thus an extension of the riverprince himself, set upon the troops of the regional mazoi, striding beside them by the day’s sun.

But now the moon had risen and the Prince himself tossed rough hunks of lamb onto woven mats, and canteens of beer upon the desert rocks. His howl pierced the night, calling to all.

“Come, dine with me,” He requests of the approaching eyes, each returning a sharp glow of moon. “One has sufficient enemies without seeking out others amongst men. Let there be kinship among bedfellows,” he gestured to the meats and took a deep swig of his own flask.

A howl cut her ears.


Late did she stay upon the dunes, standing still and looking out as the chill of night arrived. In hours, the Ra turned to Khonsu.


She was close to the new prince.


Her head turned to his voice, her feet steady upon the peak of the rise as the moon held high. A bubble of noise from her throat to acknowledge him, and for a period, she did not come. For now, she continued her gaze ahead, her ears stiff as they'd been for hours, and her head frequently snapping to new directions.


It was here that she was alive, but still to one place.

can be skipped!

moon-eyed and thoughtful, she watched.

foreign, long-limbed creatures of the mountains and valleys invaded. their march steady. her focus fixated.

sat atop a mound she observed their calls, their motions, their feasts. the scraps of their banquets left to be devoured by the likes of her and her enemies.

wolf entered the dance of dunes. a new competitor arises.

where they would brawl for the throne of sand, she would soar above.

"do you travel with a pretty man and his hard mouth?" khusobek grunted to rashepses, in direct antagonization of the dark prince.

not even senmut had gained his respect. the crocodilisk had come to the palace on order of his pharaoh, she who had cast him from her bed into this foreign world.

the ice eyes did not leave the strange royal, but he settled on his haunches, lifting his chin to suggest a barest hint of peace for the night. he smirked sideways at legend in knowingness of her time with senmut.

“His mouth is quite pretty too, no?” He quipped once his lips were free of the vessel. A hearty laugh rumbled his throat, accord in place of reproach. For he was not Pharaoh; yet.

He seized a canteen with his jaws and lobbed it toward the impressive man, a second was thrown in the direction of the sleeker silver-eyed woman who made her home of the silent shadows, and born too from the darkness was a waft of wing and the gift of a brindled feather that was caught between his teeth.

“Khusobek,” for he knew the man’s name, “how does the road compare to the palace for you?” He asked amid an admired glance at the owl’s plume. “You prefer it?”

To a creature who watched as she did, the gremlins eye's fell upon feathers. What a way, what a tale, what a song, what a poem! She knew the eyes of the sky-walker. The way they burned through souls and tracked through tales of decay. The way its beak plunged death and its wings fluttered grief. A death was coming. Little itty-bitty chess pieces, one by one, and through the eyes of an owl, a creature not unlike her, she learned of this line.

One of them would fall.

With bubbles of laughter, a mixing pit of a whine and throaty bark for attention, she pointed her voice to the owl with big eyes and a curious, thoughtful smile as her tail beat on the ground.

One little pawn, falling off the dunes.

That was the fortune an owls gaze brought.

To the owl, she spoke.

"Who?"

Funny! Funny, funny!

Then, the throaty cry stopped.

Her gaze fell upon Khusobek and his sly smile. She had none of her own, but instead stared with big, bewildered, wondrous eyes that listened to their speaking's, and peered through the mazoi's soul. Eyes of ice. So, she treaded her gaze across his tundra until he chose to break it. She had been circling the luneshale territory tonight, and this is where she so stopped.

Soon after, she'd slip her way down the mound in order to grasp the canteen, only to try and fumble her way back up and away.

so. the prince knew his name. khusobek was surprised but did not know it. he was a pawn upon a board he would never glimpse. favour granted now could not be counted on as currency later. and yet he was intrigued.

the owlfeather was an omen.

he drank deep and belched, an ear flicking toward legend as she took to the higher sandways. "he will have to find another to teach him a lesson." there was no judgement in khusobek for set-men, but his taste was and remained women.

"it is good to put myself to other tasks, lord prince," the crocodile grunted, and tore at the meat provided.

He gestured for a servant. The feather was stowed away, neatly among his things.

“Perhaps Sitaum could teach you, Khusobek,” he proposed, allowing the offer to sit before delineating with amusement, “it would be a good use of servicemen’s time to learn techniques from one another.” Sparing, of course.

A mazoi of many tasks, then. Did it make the rugged man a master of none?

“Do you find the work in Akashingo satisfies you?” He takes a mouthful of beer. “And you- Legend? I hear you have many talents. Tell me of them,” The riverprince raised a suggestive brow, for he too did hear the talk amongst the soldiers, and her distant manner now labeled herself as extrinsic.

She'd have stolen that god damn feather, had he not taken it. It had been pretty, and pretty she liked.

Another bubble of cries from her throat. They mimicked a hyenas laugh, and perhaps she was laughing. Swaying her tail below the mound, her attention kept being dragged back to the men and their drinks. Far less interesting than the mice running across the sands before her. Her mind was burning a path to tumbling one. "Me? Talented?" An uncanny, devilish smile and her head quirked left, right. A pause. "Don't know."

As sand fell from her paws in her turn, she quickly shuffled to fix herself afloat.

"Guess!" she offered a game.

Then, oh, if they wanted to, she showed interest in amusement in hearing it. Perhaps they'd say something fun.
Because that was all she saw in this.
A game.
She wanted them to play. And for as animalistic as her mind ran, it was the one thing she knew mortals could do.
Be fun.

legend was nearly sacrilegious in how she toyed with the prince, with the crocodilisk even.

for a moment, khusobek captured a glimpse of what he felt senmut might see in her: glittering irreverence. he smirked into his canteen. she was not without her attractions as a woman, but he wanted those stationed above him or those firmly below; he could abide few things on their own merit.

"out of the darkness came something sweet. out of the fire came smouldering meat." it was a riddle, and a lewd one, and one meant to lay bare for sport. he wanted to see if this rashepses would fall upon her.

Like an animal waiting to be fed he stretched his legs out and arched his head forward, tail swaying above his croup, overt interest flickering between them both. He had several ideas in mind about where she was skilled.

“I will guess that you are talented at seeing,” his lips find their curl, “and hearing,” He eyes her legs as they drive into the still-warm sand.

“But are you good at listening?”

Drag did her right paw do, all the way up until it guarded her left. Khusobek's eyes were ripped from a cold hell. With a single limb, she inched closer to him from meters away, all the while her tail came to a terrible still. Their mouths tried to level her down with them, all the while she looked upon them from a high and soft, unwavering hues. He received no response, only a sick, dainty smile as her head fell gently over. 


For a silent night and a burning light before them, she heard the rumbling of drums in the men's chests and the ticking of crickets. It's to Rashepses, the taunting umbra leaning towards her, that she slowly put her gaze on. Her head twitched over to her left. It's to him she also spoke to. Her smile turned lopsided as she leaned her cheek towards her shoulder, giving a gentle sway of her shoulders and a squirrely shake of her tail. If they wanted her invested in them, then they would have it. "Do you think so?" Putting her sights to the black sky, where Ra dared to no longer touch as three new devils dwelled, she gave twitches to her ears.


"I think so."


It was slow, smooth that her pupils fell down on them, her nose pointed to the liquor from their breaths. "Yes." And what a drastic, drastic difference. How devoted and subservient she'd been to the royals. But they now offered her a game, and they were not her royals.

back on one elbow, khusobek watched the dance of legend's willowy body as she made flesh each emotion. he saw the prince look at her as a man and saw the mortal, answering flaw in himself. that she had entertained a royal man already intrigued him further, for he had seen no evidence of such desire or ability in senmut.

to him, the crimson man was impotent and weak, a man made to be food for the gods, not the figurehead upon their throne. he had no virility nor inspiration to him.

rashepses differed, and while khusobek did not trust the other, nor halfway like him, man pealed to man in silent decree.

Her feminal arc is followed, traipsing like a feline with a hollowed stare, fading like the shadows and recurring in subsequent steps. The prince shifted to his side to whisper something to a servant, eyes over her unremitting.

From his haunches the roughened pelt roused, and he summoned her to him with a beckoning paw. “Come here, Legend,”

"Yes?"

The feathers of the lurking owl, she heard buzz and ring in her ears. Gentle crackles jolted and gripped her arteries. The sickening, moving churn that elevated her stomach. She took it as toy. She perceived game and mortifying thrill.
She did not realize, she did not comprehend, how her perception skewed. That she knew stop too late. That the moans of danger could mimic.

Sliding down the sands, those long, lanky limbs on a small body brought her over to the seething mazoi and foreign prince. Senmut's presence was static. She had no inkling of a clue where the prince she'd bowed to treaded, close or far.

 With a low head and slow walk, the imp approached, moving her eyes across Khusobek and Rashepses in a visual art of curiosity.

can be skipped unless tagged! <3

jaws chewed his ration of meat more slowly. rashephses commanded and legend answered.

why would a mazoi who had caught the eye of one prince heed another? unless — she had found him wanting, as well. 

senmut.

khusobek settled into a half-lidded smirk. who better might know the weaknesses of the red priest? he watched in prurient interest.

He rose and closed the gap between them, prolonging the graze of his nose against her’s, that he might take her fragrance for his own, raw and wild. He took his lips to the angle of her cheek.

The servant returned, passing an arm for the prince to pinch the shaft of the quill between thumb and foreclaw, divinely translucent in the paleness of night.

“Such a striking pattern and color. See this is delivered to your Erpa-ha. I believe he would like to look upon it.”

Into Legend’s slender palm he places the owl feather. Then he repossessed his bed of shale and the meat awaiting his teeth.

He was no shy heir.

He stood, and when he did, she saw the difference between her, between him, in an instant. Cower did her posture, leaned away and motioned backwards with big, soul-peering eyes as if she would bolt or lie. She did not. Soon, it was his scent that he put in her lungs. Invasive, loud and bullet striking as their scents traversed on one another.

The underside of her tail dug into the ground, her limbs asked to move away, and there her neck extended to press firmly back against his nose. There it ended.

Coming to a quick, full stand, it is death he put upon her hand. She took it, bounding forward not far from @Khusobek, his breath deep and his presence thick. Whipping her tail low below her flank, a smile never leaving her inky lips, soft breaths chuffed from her nose, almost mute. Near a laugh or a whine.

She settled quickly, going to nab her teeth to some of the lamb and feeling her fur burned by soft embers. Her mind was as feral as her eyes. "Khu-so-bek," his name quickly hit her tongue, "this meat smolders? Sweet?" Swish, swish, swish went her tail, before a couple feet away from him, she went to settle upon her stomach as her heart beat up misplaced joyrides.

her answer was a grunt.

his eyes were for the man, the prince. the would-be god.

he commanded the lover of the red priest as if it were only a small thing; khusobek felt he was peering beneath a disk of voidless black stone.

mouth shifting; the crocodile ate in silence and knowing.

it was to rashepses' chariot that he must hitch his good spears.

He tore meat from bone. He studied the man, and then his eyes slithered over the girl in the shadows and her shimmering step.

He felt the heat of eternal flame, the one which would be sated by his Queen.

By firelight, they dined on flesh and bone. Her tail was at a gentle sway, and as the night chilled on, her quiet laughs echoed.

What a story this would play out to be.

There were the sifted in sounds of rustling brush and shale creaking, be them from pack members or wildlife.

With them, the rest of those next few hours came slow.