Hideaway Strath falcon

ramesses pondered the winding sweep. he meant to procure a den for himself, removed from this organized band of heathens.
no, pharaoh. you are humbled. here it is you who is are the fellahin.
a stiff reminder that he was not within the hallowed pillars of his natal land. the pale exile wandered aimlessly between the trees, searching for even the beginnings of something he could meld into more.
he found it in the abandoned badger set not far ahead of himself; ramesses saw the way he might dig down beneath the stone lip. he set about this excavation with a somber look to his face, one that curled in greater disgust the more he filthied himself with clods of soil.

snagging this

The Overseer was once again on the move, having scaled down the high slope where she had made her whelping den to do some patrols and get in some exercise. 

As the Queen moved, she came across the new wolf they had intercepted some short time ago. 
He seemed to be digging a den for himself...
Amusement carved a crooked smile into her maw as she made herself known; "You should try to socialize more, y'know. What's pack life if you aren't familiar with your fellow clansmen?" 

Fury is in peak condition

Health (100/100)

Fury claims a +6 buff in all combat dice rolls

edit for unexpected post (@Nyra ya just beat me to it XD) I know it says Nyra entered the scene before Aerin but I honestly wasn't sure how to reword this so yall just lmk if this doesnt make any sense or I need to edit!

The Priestess watched him for a time, curled sphynx-like in the long grass that hid even her wintry coat from view -- so long as she remained still and silent, a habit that the once-slave had long ago acquired. She'd not been expecting the golden-capped man to come wandering by, unbeknownst to him that his savior (if she could be called that) lay nearby. So long did she hold herself, watching the display of arrogant emotions cross his face like the shifting sands of some white-hot desert, that her bones were slow to unfold as the halfling rose -- creaking silently beneath her flesh with prickling needles of numbness as the hart toed her way closer, grasses parting as she trotted towards the man.

Mere curiosity was all he would find if he turned to scrutinize her expression, a sort of unreadable calculation in her gibeon gaze of detached starlight. A wisp of noise escaped her throat as a greeting, silver gaze drifting from the man's lapis to the abandoned warren he scraped at and back again. "Vhy 'ad ye trespassed?" The ivory doe asked of him without any sort of preamble, allowing her slender diadem of snowfall to cant to the side expressively as she waited for his response. 

"Were ye running from something?"

The sighthound was prevented from answering though, for soon the hulking white form of their Overseer came into view -- a quip escaping the Phoenix's lips as Aerin moved to bump her tapering muzzle against the Nightwish's in a friendly display of affection.

!!! <3

ramesses had just backed from his den when he was greeted by the feathermade creature who had come to see his first addled moments among them. her accent was heavy; ramesses struggled to understand. seti had brought many emissaries through his land. he did not think hers had been among them. "i was lost," he told her inquisitive small features in a simple monotone, though lazuli gaze flicked over her lilted beauty with interest, now that he could see it for the first time.
he turned his attentions to the fierce round she-wolf. his flesh recalled the touch of her breath. would she be angered that he had not answered her first?
but pharaoh's heart was hardened — he dipped his head in an obeisance he did not feel and straightened, dirt cascading from his shoulders. "Hathor has blessed you," the exile noted, though his lapis eyes adopted a deep glint. perhaps it would be better to see how nyra might respond.
feckless tongue, running ahead. "where i am from, we use slaves to do this work. i was raised above most, and i do not know how to speak to your people." direct. irascible. would she seek to thrust him down into the mussed start of work he had never done? ramesses found a new spark of intrigue.

The Phoenix's gaze hardened at the exile's words as she licked Aerin's crown in a gesture of friendship, But her voice remained tinted in patience.

"Talk to them as if they are your equals or your superiors. After all, they are exactly that." Nyra suggested calmly. Though in her mind she was fighting herself not to paint him in the image of a spoiled brat.

sorry for the wait y'all, been having some health issues but all's good now! didn't mean to hold this up or anything.

Perhaps the shieldmaiden was able to answer with patience but Aerin did not have the same capability. Her orbs of moon-shine hardened, metallic -- the cold flash of gunmetal catching the light. They were bitterly cold as The Priestess examined him, chin tilting up just a fraction. "'ow curious," the halfling hummed, unreadable. Almost fascinated, in a calculative manner of speaking.

"Where I come from, I vas born a slave. To think ye 'ave found yerself 'ere, scraping in ze dirt fer ze first time vith a former slave zat 'olds more rank than ye." Careful. 

She assessed him again, lips quirking faintly at the sense of ironic justice. Perhaps he could change. Or perhaps it would've been best to let Nyra and Ky decorate the borders with his bones. Only time would tell. 

<3 health first! no worries

met with warning from each of them, dropped tones from nyra to a reminder of his place as fellahin, ramesses only dipped in a lower obeisance. "i am a man humbled by his gods. give me your harshest tasks and i will do them." but the head he lifted was no less haughty, his gesture no less proud. pharaoh was also a man emboldened by challenge. neither the brutishness of the overseer nor the scorn of the priestess would maim his hubris.
only Amun could do this.
yet ramesses recognized that it was within his best interest to show himself ready for humility. therefore he kept his lapis eyes politely trained away from them. nyra's voice, ringing again: your superiors. pharaoh? him? he did not bow before heathenry and the lost! and the slave; her angular beauty muted for the royal now that he knew she had come from dust.
and yet he did bow, and yet he too was made of dirt here among the saints.
above, Amun grinned in wicked amusement.

whoops sorry I took so long lmao

 


Nyra's hell-borne hues sharpened upon Ramesses. Almost as if her mind was already made up for the time being. 
"You must have done a great disservice to your gods, for you to have fallen so far from your throne." The Queen mused with icy tones. She held no more sympathy for him. That would be earned, through much blood, pain, and sacrifice. Especially where she too had come from royalty and yet still worked her way from dust to divinity.

A wicked grin crawled upon Nyra's face as she assumed she saw disgust flicker in the former blue blood's eyes at knowing Aerin's origins. 
"Here are your orders, Ramesses, should our lovely Priestess accept: you will be at Aerin's beck and call. Day and night, for everything and anything she needs. You will be her personal assistant for any tasks she thinks you to be of use for and you will follow her every order to the letter. If I hear that you cop the slightest attitude or show the tiniest modicum of disrespect, I will carve away your very being and you will have more than just your gods to fear." As the Queen spoke, her voice carrying and radiating with authority, she came ever closer to Ramesses with a full display of dominance and bared teeth. 

Clearly, Nyra was angry now, and her inner darkness unfurled its eldritch tendrils if ever briefly in the form of hellfire smoldering in her amber hues. 

"Am I understood?"

While the gilded snowbird's pomp had irked The Priestess, she wasn't ready in the slightest for what Nyra proposed -- the man's simpering seemingly not enough to convince The Overseer of Ramesses' contrition. The pale wisp's butterfly auds fluttered, half-mast in her confusion, as an expression of abject concern overtook her blank, protective features: rosy lips parting in a tiny 'o' of shock, brow rumpling as jade-kissed opalites clouded with alarm.

"Nyra," the pallid milkmother rasped, lips working wordlessly for a moment as she tried to find some way to refuse this horrible thing without offending her superior and friend. "I cannae..zis is nae.." the once-slave stumbled over her words, raspberry tongue swiping along her scarred chops in an anxious gesture as she smothered the breath of a whine that wanted to escape her slender throat.

As if suddenly remembering he was there, her gaze snapped to meet the cold sapphires of the Underling's -- hardening again, reluctant to display weakness in front of someone she couldn't trust. "Ye could serve Vein or ze gods...just leave me out of it," Aerin informed him brusquely, frowning slightly. Murmuring an excuse, the Saluki was quick to leave the scene and the duo behind -- heart racing against something she couldn't name.

ramesses perhaps had underestimated nyra.
she roared down upon him, and he bowed his head more lowly, feeling the heat of her breath. his lapis gaze was singed by the powerful fire of her own. a madwoman. a hot wind in the desert, though she was queen over him.
pharaoh was shaken.
Amun smiled.
he did not hear the priestess' words of dismay, nor did he hear her retreat. blood thudded dully in his ears, heartbeat chaotic for nyra's sudden spurn of wrath upon him.
when ramesses returned to himself, it was to see the holy woman departing, and he scrambled madly after her, burnt by the overseer's anger and, for once, obedient to his core.

Aerin's muted hurt is what returned Nyra to her sanity, but by the time she blinked and began to defuse, the Priestess was gone, and Ramesses was disappearing after her. 

With a heavy sigh, Nyra relaxed, turning a different direction, and disappearing into the trees.