Sea Lion Shores canopic

ramesses had never before been denied the respect his birth demanded. after being called a boy and a fool by the barbmouth woman, the boy had retreated far from their meeting to yet another frozen shoreline. his strength was beginning to leech away; in his curiosity, ramesses found himself quite frozen and crouched against a boulder.
here even the drifted snow could not hide the scent of saltbitter plants beneath, nor the awful stench of whatever unholy beasts called this place their own. ramesses scrambled, inelegant and ungainly, for a cove, into which he curled tightly, willing the trembling to end as he tucked himself into a whitegold tuft of fur.

she trotted along the shoreline, a freshly caught fish clutched in her jaws. they were more difficult to find near the shore this time of year, but easier to catch; like the cold waves, they grew sluggish in winter. she might've feasted on the spot except for the exposure, and these lands were not her own. the sea was familiar. this coast was not.

and though her goal was to escape company, she nevertheless found it in a skinny whelp of a man. she halted as she neared him, appraising him with a harsh, mismatched gaze. after a moment, silent, she crushed the fish between her jaws. delicately, she lifted the tail end between her front teeth and tossed it toward him with a swish of her head.

the head, the brains, the eyes— those delicacies were hers. but no wolf deserved so shameful a death as starvation. not even those with balls between their legs.

ramesses refused to surrender himself to the cold, even as it slid into the great rivers that carried the blue of his blood. his teeth ground together; he willed a harsher fate than this. battle, or perhaps in lust. a poet's death. not thralled to ice in some foreign land. "Ra, hear me," he shivered between the clack of his teeth. "hear Your servant."
his eyelids would have drooped in the next moment had not the fishy odor of a projectile struck first his nostrils and then his flesh.
ramesses' lip curled at the ugly food, but he fell upon it at once, devouring the gift he fervently believed was a gift from the god's barge. 
and then up came his proud lapis gaze, and pharaoh looked upon a figure that bled though the storm in shades of red-orange to his snow-muzzled eyes. 
touched by sunlight.
his wasting muscles tightened. "you walk as if this world does not trouble you," came his rolling tones to cut beyond the cascade of snow.

she leaned her head down to retrieve her fish head and take her leave. it would be a waste of a good meal if the sorry creature did not survive beyond this one kindness; but she had no stake in the outcome, only that she would need to live with her own conscious. she hadn't heard his murmurs— only saw the shivers rake through his thin form, the points of his ribs as he breathed. he could not help what he was, if the stories were to be believed. and so it was easy to pity him.

but as the tail landed, it seemed to have unceremoniously slapped the man awake. he fell upon it, and still she turned to go. she did not take more than a half-step before his voice cut through the winter between them. aeglaeca could have ignored him, would have only weeks before— perhaps loneliness made her desperate. she returned her gaze to him, dropped her meal once again.

this world troubles me, she assured him, a statement that carried with it no betrayal of emotion. but i will not let it break me. this was true; and pointed.

"poetry, so far from a court?" ramesses meant to mock, though perhaps the winterpall extended to the voice emanating from his chest as well. he surveyed her two-toned gaze, thankful that both his eyes had taken the same hue. whatever malevolent little ba had changed her gaze would stay far from pharaoh.
"come. dine with me." the magnanimous gesture of a regent inviting a dignitary to brunch, though even ramesses was not so delusional as to believe this frozen stone a palace, the snow between them a royal carpet. 
a sardonic light entered his stare. "please."

she would have raised an unimpressed brow at the creature, were she capable of such human expression. aeglaeca truthfully could not tell if she was being mocked or if this was simply the arrogance that afflicted all males of her species— her words poetry, when he spoke of courts and dining? perhaps that was his point, but then she had no intention to be poetic. only to speak of things as they were.

she considered him, stiffly. an invitation to a 'feast' that she had provided, as if this sorry sack of bones were doing her the favor. aeglaeca exhaled sharply through her nose. males were dangerous for their unearned arrogance— but they were not stupid, as others would have her believe. she would not make that mistake, to believe this a misguided gesture of appreciation.

but he was the first soul she had met in quite some time. if his state of starvation were any indication, this landscape was not entirely unfamiliar to him; or perhaps it was. either way, there was likely to be some information she could glean, here— even if she did not trust its entirety.

she would not move closer into the small shelter he had made for himself to die in; but dropped to her belly where she stood, pulling the fish head back between her paws, where she began to slowly work away at the meal. her eyes remained steady upon him.

pharaoh counted it a personal victory unto himself that the woman arrived at all. her dour countenance did nothing but dampen whatever physical enthusiasm might have been instilled by her presence. 
indeed, the doleful look of her was different than the desirous expressions of malice he had too often seen upon the face of hatshepsuun. this stranger sharing his bower; she bore the same snarl of cold in her face that the first one possessed.
what was it about these lands that made the fairer sex so vehement? 
the empress was another story altogether, but ramesses stopped to throw her into his comparison as well: by far the most pleasant noble he had met thus far, though how much of it was genuine and how much a trick of royalty he has not yet discovered.
pharaoh tapped his tail. "if you need a listening ear, perhaps you might tell me what about this world irks you so." he was beginning to feel warmer now: he brought himself up into a sphinx stance, though kept his plume carefully coiled along his flank. and was silent.

she allowed herself to drop some of her suspicion, though she remained no less guarded. the lack of gratitude, the arrogance of tone, the presumptuous notion that she might share her troubles with a stranger, a male— these things were irritating, but not unexpected. she accepted it with the sort of patience that a mother might accept a babe pushing and learning her boundaries. he was harmless, as much as she could gather. in this state, she doubted he would risk a physical altercation.

you're welcome, she told him, dry, as she licked the last of the white meat and salty scale from her lips.

aeglaeca considered his offer, then, sitting in intentional silence as she groomed her paws. if he wanted poetry— only ghosts. but this was the truth, still. if she allowed her mind to stray for too long, she could still feel the bones break in her jaws, the metallic taste of blood running down her throat, making her sick. she swallowed, eyes steely as they rested back upon him: and ghosts are of no consequence. firmly stated. there would be no more talk of this.

and you? she queried, gentler. it would appear that this world has troubled you. bad luck in these lands?

ramesses grinned then, a true honeying pleasure drifting into a smugness that begged to be wiped from his well-bred features. he thanked no one. only Ra, who for reasons unknown to pharaoh, had sent this one to feed and comfort him. gratitude was not necessary, for she had not personally earned it.
ramesses, who called his moral flaws each a victory in their own right.
ghosts. spirits who walked to whisper dark things into the ear of the sleeping. he knew them well, for they had set him apace a thousand times while he had only the moon to light his way. "their voice could drive one mad," he remarked, moving along in the direction of conversation the cold one led.
her voice did not hold so much steel when she spoke again. 
"the weather troubles me," ramesses retorted in imitation of the woman's earlier dryness. "the land is hideous. those who live on it are all little better than golems of ice. i am truly cursed to have been coughed up here."

he remained silent in response to her admonishment, but aeglaeca had expected no less; they were selfish, all of them. it would take divine intervention from the sea herself to see a male exhibit generosity, or gratitude. and for the honor of such intervention, they would be blessed to serve the sisterhood. aeglaeca knew all too well that such blessings were rare, growing rarer.

her unlikely companion— for this brief moment— did not press the talk of ghosts, acknowledging and accepting her remarks in step. superstitious, then, or appreciative of metaphor at the least. this surprised her, seen in a brief micro-expression of widened eyes, though she strove to mask it quickly. she hadn't expected sympathy. didn't want it, but could detect no insult in it.

she smirked outright at his dry correction; pleased that she seemed to have found a way beneath his skin, regardless. mm, she acknowledged. aeglaeca was comfortable here, and therefore one of these ice golems he spoke of. but she seized the opportunity to turn the conversation away from herself, suspecting he would revel in the opportunity to talk about himself.

why come to this land at all, then? 'coughed up' made no sense to her; he had legs, and they must have carried him here.

"it was not my choice." ramesses considered launching into his embellished tale of woe, but shrewdness held him back. she was a stranger who had evinced no warmth toward him beyond a few bites of fish — pharaoh did not think hers a bosom where he might take comfort. and yet stranger pairings had happened. intrigued, suddenly, to know if he might make a game of this, and squeeze warm water from a frozen fish, the proudling blinked.
"but the gods always have their own mapmaking in mind for the mortal soul. i am here to become something greater than all my natal titles." even pharaoh, ramesses suspected, though that one was for the pleasantry of his superior mind alone. his darkgem eyes traced along the side of her paw; he lifted it slowly back.
"you seem content enough. perhaps my calling is to study why such a forsaken place might be appealing in any way," ramesses tested his reluctant companion, probing around the corners of her for a softer spot into which he might set his seeking proverbial teeth.

there is always a choice, she corrected, but the words fell flat, and she withdrew into herself. it was unexpectedly bitter on her tongue, tasting of metal and the color red. she swallowed thickly, beating back the flashes of memory before they could fully form. the sound of breaking bone, reverberating in her body. torn flesh and gore. she forced herself to focus on his words to ground herself.

they all believed this, didn't they? that they were chosen by some deity and it justified their arrogance, their immorality, their greed and entitlement. aeglaeca was but the other side of this knife, though blind to it— she had been trained, without truly understanding it, to discard any doubt that the sisterhood was correct. if she doubted, it was her flaw to reckon with.

she did not notice the way his eyes moved over her, lost in beating back and reasoning herself out of acknowledging her traumas. she did not take his bait, but continued to steer the conversation away from herself. aeglaeca cleared her throat, feigning curiosity, natal titles? you're important, then? not that importance anywhere else mattered here, but she sensed he did not feel the same. i'd like to hear more of your gods. the path they laid out to bring you here.

ramesses did not expect the woman's rebuttal, and suspicion showed plainly in the set of his pretty jaw. for a time he did not answer, thinking of the many ways he had been tested and shaped, had his mettle fail beneath the might of the gods. that was his greatest accomplishment: accepting that the gods existed beyond himself.
even if no other living creature met such a bar.
"they are the only ones worth worship," pharaoh breathed in a slow remembrance of the burning lands and the way Amun had left His footmarks for the great king seti to cherish. "my father taught me so, and his before him." importance. ramesses enjoyed the idea of being important to the impertinent wolf-woman, but knew he needed not her charity to guide his own opinion of himself.
"some demand blood. others sacrifice. and others, lust." who had hatshepsuun made her patron after all?
"i knew such stuff existed," pharaoh said of the snow, "but only high upon mountaintops where only bedouins wandered. they call it talgu. but even they would be shocked to see so much. their god did not prepare them for it. mine did."
all-seeing, all-knowing. ramesses would not ramble himself into vulnerability. "are you one who prides their mind over psalms and praise?"

they were both dancing now, keeping to the shallows— attempting to push each other further from shore, only to be met by the solid footing of the other. and so the conversation kept to the surface, where their depths could not be exposed. aeglaeca did not push him further to explain his arrival or past. that, too, she could empathize with (and hated herself for it— he did not deserve her empathy, for they were murderers all). she assumed the story was painful, like hers.

bedouin? she wondered, unfamiliar with the term. it is warmer here than i am used to, aeglaeca finally conceded to share. the weather, it seemed, was a topic that felt safe to both of them. i prefer it. she did not miss the long dark.

his question took her off guard, lancing deeper than the talk of weather prepared her for. she furrowed her brows, you think them mutually exclusive? each has their place. i am here, and must trust what i know with my senses. but there is value in tales. and there is purpose from the gods. all of these things must be honored.

"one might say the prophets and priests created the gods." ramesses eyed her with a newer sort of expression, one that sought to be knowing, and slide the blade of his arrogance between two of the woman's ribs. "but in the end, it was Ra who made all known first." he lifted his face to where the warmth of the sun ought to have been felt; sighed in disparagement, lapis eyes blinking up in a mist of nostalgia for a moment.
"we were molded from dust by more powerful beings than ourselves. it was they who gave us free will. gave us hubris," pharaoh said pointedly, though to that point he would leave off a moment. warmer here? so there were places far worse than this; well then, ramesses would give thanks to Amun that he had been led into such a fruitful place.
"you asked me if i was important. i was chosen by the gods to be their figurehead, the mediator between their world and those of my people. it is the role of pharaoh. it is why i cried out to Ra when i thought i might die here. and then you came," the white-gold boy grinned. "touched by fire. He is god of the sun. why should i believe you were led here by your own design when i begged that the gods show me favour, and you made sure i did not starve?"