Lion Head Mesa from what i've tasted of desire

attn @Senmut !

 

at last the girl was home, and staring upon the Horus Throne. one she had not known would be hers. one that had seated two of the greatest wolves she had known. 
father, and sister. 
she had not had the years with them that she deserved. and only one she truly knew the end of. only one she could feel with her, always. 
Toula was bedecked in all things that made Pharaoh such. and soon @Senmut would arrive to her here to confer and advise how their trade had gone, a strong beginning to her reign to be sure. had her father accomplished such a thing? no, but he had accomplished many other things—political marriages, and an outpost all for Akashingo's own. 
the one who remained Godswife would make him proud. she slowly ascended and reclined into her new place, a seat that had been cold for some time. a seat she had hoped her sister would come to find for herself again. but Makono had never returned. and perhaps she never would. 
gathering herself, and feeling imbued with power, she looked to the fellahin at the door with a smile. I am ready to receive him, she murmurs with a nod.

a prisoner had been captured, had the first-day's report come from their jodai. with a promise to come and interrogate her himself, he had sent this word back to @Zaahira and gone to be bathed at the wellspring.

so swiftly had senmut entered back into the realm of politics that he had little time to think of how he might compose another letter to nazli, though the vision of her luminous eyes against the backdrop of the sea had not left his mind for a single moment.

washed, dried, coiffed, and perfumed with desert flowers, the cougar-skin of his rank as high priest was draped around the prince's lithe shoulders. eyes anointed with oilblack, he stood ready to be admitted into her presence.

behind him, bearers carried the great hide of the bison, and as he bowed with forehead to the floor before the Horus Throne, they laid it out between prince and pharaoh.

the soft, perfectly cured sides fell flatly away to reveal another gift: a bouquet of flowers gathered from flatland to mountain to seaside, and ringed with all manner of feathers in specific from those birds of the deepshadow woodlands. 

at her word, senmut straightened, not looking higher than the royal cheekbone but gathering in all his attunement to her that she had changed. her confidence had always been very strong, but now it was a force, a compelling draw which made her kohled eyes otherworldly and her gaze the expression of a very god.

Ma'at burned around her head.

"our first trading went very well. there were many tribes represented among this one village, and i spoke with others in hopes of achieving a new connection in the sunspire, great one."

the gifts he had brought were received with a pleased smile that reached her eyes and came from her heart. for they were thoughtful, each of them. she adored flowers, and that he might have thought to take from each new type of land she had yet to encounter meant much to her. the feathers within them too were a variety of which she had never seen, not within the desert nor Muat-Riya, and she marveled over them. 
she circled the massive hide next, awed by the mass of it. it seemed to her that it was bigger than that of a bear! what manner of beast was this? she asks him with ample interest, having circled all the way around it and arrived once more before the flowers. I am grateful, truly. you have done well, Erpa-Ha! with his aid, he would bring with her a time of great growth within and to Akashingo. 
her eyes lingered upon him. he seemed changed, renewed perhaps. handsome, as ever, but truly a prince now! she smiled at this. what items have we traded, that interested them most of all? ...did these other tribes have interest in this? she thought the idea a wise one, to continue this supply of great and wonderful things. Akashingo's resources were plentiful—Toula always made sure of this.

"divine one, this beast is called a 'bison.' they are said to roam the plains in great numbers, thousands even, all at least this side. both male and female wear a short pair of curled horns, and it takes many bodies to bring down one bison."
in many ways, talk of them brought to the priest's mind to the Apis Bull, and secretly he wondered if there might be a way to capture one as a calf, and rear it for sacrifice.
"i myself traded only with moontide. pieces of amber and beautiful feathers, sage-grouse breasts, good meat, eagle plumes. the plants you see here are too, something for which i traded. i suppose our sunstones and our offer of a new trade route was most intriguing," the prince added, his eyes trailing upon his pharaoh and realizing that she too had changed.

her mind worked in the same way as his own, then, but she made it no secret. perhaps we can collect one... young, and living—tribute to the Gods, for she did not think one the size of the skinned beast below would or could be herded anyplace! but something smaller? her eyes were bright with the idea of it. a new dawn, a new era—and with such a great thing to be sacrificed, who could deny it was fully her own? 
still, she looked to the man for approval. he was one she entrusted with religious tasks such as these even still—he who had been tutor to her! would he think it wise? or was this perhaps a fools errand she dreamt up? 
and then, speak of trade again, which she listened to with much enthusiasm. this is all very wonderful, comes her words of approval, nodding, should you like to continue seeing to this connection? that we are successful in the building of this bond? she wondered if he enjoyed the trip to the waters, or if he preferred to stay in the Redlands of Akashingo. he was a royal, now, and he would have his choice in this matter.

they alighted upon the same thought! giving thankful grace for the communication of the gods to pharaoh's own mind, he dipped his head. "it is possible, divine one. consider the breadths to which such a beast might grow, and how crushing its step might be so close to palace walls. but if you wish it to be so, i shall seek an excursion to where i have been told they gather."

a concern came to him, one weighing; he stepped to her side. he thought of nazli with a blast of heat and sorrow; "great one. soon it will be time to send away our foreign prince, cornelius, jawahir, and even our mazoi, bayek," he murmured. "this leaves our numbers rather low."

"i will oversee this thing," senmut said slowly. "but i ask once more that you consider me for an alliance." hatred for it rose in his gorge, but royal children must have nobility. his line might support the royal one, and still, he hoped that pharaoh would again decline his responsible offer.