Lion Head Mesa 発火 akejosei (m)
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#1
All Welcome 
the queen's quarters were empty.
the furs that had piled there, which once lived in the alcove of arsenio or the little nook that served as tamar's waiting place beside her door, now gone.

wet prints across the floor led outside of the mesa palace.

strewn across the side of the palace wall, down from the cliff's edge, was the collection of fine things. the last one having just been cast from satsu's own grip. as the furs tumbled she watched them, breathing heavily.

then, turning towards the palace, paused upon the promontory. windswept as she was, satsu could not make the heat within her skin abate.
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#2
ramesses was alone.
without fellahin, without guard, he went to the apartments of the queen and breathed in the lacework of her scent.
outside of this time, satsu struck him as if she were the finest myrrh. but all was heightened now, all was anticipatory.
pharaoh entered.
but she was not here. he followed the path upward, until he came across her perfect small prints outlined with water. and here her fragrance again, the bouquet of the queen drawing him along and along until he saw her silhouetted against the cold sky.
satsu glowed. ramesses stared after her with open desire.
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#3
the queen was awash with feeling.
she did not know what to do about it; cleaning had not helped.
out with the old...

as she turned from the ledge she saw the aureate man standing there, watching her, hungry-eyed as always. the look satsu had always dismissed now brought purpose to her anger.
she did not know if the feeling was anger, at all.
it was something that made her want to kick and scream and throw things, thus the furs; sakki rising like never before.

was this why he had waited for her?
she averted her eyes swiftly to look out over their lands.
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#4
he could not lure her with song;
nor his body;
nor his mouth.
ramesses wanted to tell satsu that he had not called belen to his chambers, but was aware enough to understand that any mention of another would forever ruin this moment. he felt as though he and his queen had cultivated a network of these porcelain seconds.
"i will bring you new things," pharaoh said finally. she had not forbidden him to come closer, and so he moved all the same, stride deferential.
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#5
the sound of him gliding closer was hard to ignore. there was nothing else out here but the two of them, and try as satsu might to appear distracted, it was too much a struggle.
he spoke, she countered: i do not want new things.
frowning as she stared out across the expanse of their kingdom, to the far-off mountains, to mereo.
turning then to leave him on the promontory, she finds him very close indeed, and freezes.
what was it tamar had said, in whispers?
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ramesses was unused to being denied. satsu stood before him and there were only seconds of space between he and she.
pharaoh did not reach to touch her. he did not want the indentations of her teeth in his flesh. but his lapis gaze caressed the queen all the same. "come to bed," he urged in a rasp of invitation.
ramesses did not believe that she would. he stood ready for her dismissal, helpless in her presence and thrumming with a desire so deep he had forgotten, for this moment, a fellahin.
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#7
his question infuriated her.
no; she wasn't sure it was fury now.
his eyes were warm and she thought she was melting beneath that gaze.

your bed is full already. she said with a more calloused tone than she meant;

drawing away with a sweeping step, it was like stepping out of sunbeams in to shadow.
cold, cold, cold.
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#8
this was her duty! her responsibility! why even ascend the throne as queen if she was not prepared to bear heirs? ramesses did not allow her to leave him. he went after her, trotting to keep pace if he must. "you would leave the fate of akashingo to the fellahin?" he said.
it was a light threat; he tested satsu with it, seeing if she would pause, would turn, would relent; not relent, only look at him again with her lambent lucid eyes so that he could feel his heart sundered anew.
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#9
he chased after her like a cat seeks a mouse, hoping to corner her. those words, his claws.

satsu hated that he so readily made threats. she hated most of all, that she had agreed to this charade to begin with; she felt cheated, having found herself livid with anger over the thought of another in his bed.

when had that happened? she had gone from willing accomplice with a contract, to a kept woman. this was not business, this was — she did not have a word in the common language, or in her father's, for what this was.

and why not? she cooly answered, unable to look at him.
feeling his presence was almost too much. she could not outrun him.
you made me queen to give me control of myself,
to keep me protected. that was our arrangement!


glaring now at him, but there wasn't anything malicious in her gaze. fire, yes, but desire by another name, and she hated that she could not hide it. don't talk to me of fate, you arranged all of this. you - you knew, you waited satsu was out of breath, overwhelmed.

the look of him filled her vision and she was trapped, somehow.
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#10
"yes! i waited!" now pharaoh did not care who heard his rich voice raised. "i would not force you, satsu. but yes — i know this day would come," he hissed, the lazuli of his eyes hardened as the inside of a tomb. 
"you are still my queen. you will be queen of akashingo whether or not you bear children." it was their agreement. satsu flung the scroll of it into his face and she was correct.
his heart beat fast. pharaoh was unused to feeling in this way.
"but i will not forgo heirs. akashingo must have them, if you wish to stay queen, with your servants, your rooms, your guards." if she wished to have power.
ramesses pulled forward. "i will take concubines. they will do this for me, and you will remain pristine. untouched. the only one at my side."
was this what she wanted? it was not his wish. but then his desire could not outweigh her own.
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#11
you did away with my servant, my room, my guard! first when i became your wife, and next when - well, she should know better than to dredge up the infidelity of tamar, if that's even what it would be called. the giving of the maiden to the mazoi. yet it was still fresh for satsu.
he was in her face, talking of concubines.
you will remain pristine.
that isn't -
—untouched. the only one at my side.
i don't want to be some statue for you to look at! she didn't mean to shout, yet her voice carried to the heavens. her face red, pulse racing in her veins.
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#12
"but you are a goddess!"
ramesses was calming, forcing it to come to him, to compose the wild flaring lines of his face. oh! only satsu could do this to him. "when i gave you the name sobekneferu and married you in front of mortal eyes, you too became figurehead and speaker for them! you are not a statue for me to look at, you are a pillar of strength for all of akashingo to worship!"
her guard. her maid. "you forced my hand. you gave tamar to the mazoi, insulting not only her status as yur personal and favoured servant, but me as well. your husband. you defied our order. and akashingo lost two skilled followers to that roman."
an outpost built by poaching was hardly one at all. 
"i have never taken away your rooms. i only thought you might want to share mine. as man and wife."
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#13
he had answers for everything.
it was dizzying, listening to this.
he did not understand what she meant and satsu was too flustered now, too caught up in everything to pick it apart again. it was a tangle.

i don't want to share with you. she said, her voice almost too quiet. coquettish.
i want - i want! that was the whole issue; this wanting he had somehow instilled within her.
jealousy, unmasked.
hurt, strobing across her face.
lust growing upon her like the thorns of a rose.

if i am your goddess, prove it.
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#14

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: suggestiveness

prove it
ramesses saw the greening of envy, the unfurling of anguish, the desire;
at last, at last it mirrored his own. they were not inside rooms. they were touched by the open air of the mesa below, the view dizzying. pharaoh caught at her mouth with his own, a long, stirring growl reverberating inside him.
he seized satsu with the bowstring strength of his creamy limbs, turned her, pressed her chest and cheek against one roughened stone wall.
his lips, at her ear; "that is all i have wanted."
not himself yet; if satsu yielded he would press his kisses to her nape, her shoulders, her spine, lower into the lands long denied him.
and who cared who might come upon them.
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#15
coughs, fades...

he was ready for it; he had waited, watched, and listened.
and then he was everywhere, and she beneath.
the air burned her lungs as she sucked breath after breath,
forgetting that they were on display; a wedding once, a melding now.
it was almost too much -
it was too much,
everything, all at once;
melting in to him, in to nothing, in to sun.