Lion Head Mesa i'll be a regular guy for you, i never said i'd do that

the priestess stood at the great red gates, admiring the grandeur imposed upon the valley.

around her neck, new trinkets woven into brier. she had found two of the tokens; the third lingered somewhere here.

she thought of ramesses, of arsenio. how strange it was for her to meet two wolves of this clade on the road -- two wolves so distinctly different and yet, that pull. the same pull which wove whispers together and braided the fate of thousands of lives.

it was not in her nature to announce her presence. she knew this road to be frequented -- she would be seen soon enough.

pharaoh was beside himself. the queen was filled with something new. the fellahin scurried here and there. tavina sensed that something had begun to shift inside the mesa. it was why she was outside of it, headed toward the serpent lake to wash and drink. she preferred the cold water to the brackish liquid inside akashingo.

but she was not alone here. there was a new coyote standing near. tavina veered from her path to approach with a chuff and a grin. her eyes lingered on the talismans woven around the stranger's fur. "hello. have you come to seek an audience with the royals? or are you only traveling, in need of rest?"

a thin creature approached, already displaced from the red walls which rose sentinel behind them. qiao had yet to see this delicate thing in her weeklong observance of akashingo. perhaps she had not looked hard enough.

she regarded the svelte female with more warmth than she had ever spared a strange male -- and even then, there was little dancing in her olive gaze. "i am here for ramesses of the red sand."

the other was welcoming, but tavina saw the wariness beneath the small frame. she spoke of the pharaoh. the sesh nodded and turned. "i will take you to him."

the mesa was tense with chaos. he had been close to the queen's apartments as long as he was able. who knew what sort of mood he might be in? "if you know him, then i will not introduce you," tavina offered, curious about when she had met the lord herself.

what errand kept this creature outside of the walls? qiao's gaze climbed the sandstone. this woman's stature belied that of a guardsmen's ilk -- even then, qiao did not let her guard down. it would not be the first or the last time a wolf's initial impression was a lie.

"we have met." qiao stepped lightfooted behind tavina. "are you a guard?"

"I am their doctor," tavina said with a small grin. "there's never any fighting here, so it's a bit quiet in that regard."

she led the coyote up the wide, high steps of sandstone and into the open air throne room. tavina did not look at their visitor, only started down the passage on the right, which dipped low.

the sesh trotted with the end of her tail curled. she nodded at passing guards. belen passed by with kasmut and she smiled at the girl but did not receive a response.

tavina strode into pharaoh's throne room with a bow. but it was empty, for the man was keeping close to his queen. "wait here," she said kindly. "i'll get him."

pharaoh was in a fine furor to be drawn away from his intentions. he stalked angrily into his throne room, trailed by tavina. the man burned with frustrated lust, his pristine fur disheveled, a maddened glint in his lazuli eyes.
when he turned them onto the stranger standing in his court, ramesses hunted her with a new focus. "we have met before," he murmured, unsmiling for now despite his clear interest in the exotic coyote woman.
"i do not think you have come to join my retinue," ramesses murmured. here he paused to summon @Sayf with a sharp bark. the fellahin joined him as pharaoh lay back in his throne, beginning to preen the royal into a more manicured state. 
"tell me why you have come," the egyptian purred, seeking to swallow the semi-stranger with his lapis stare.

a doctor! certainly more interesting than a guard! qiao's eyes danced with quickly hidden delight, but she followed in silence.

up into sandstone stairs they went, the doctor's gaze turning to the right. unknown faces scurried by; qiao gave each of them a quiet study.

now they came to a room tastefully open; qiao knew these quarters for the many years she had spent as a king's mage, a queen's adviser, a sheik's grihasta. she kept her eyes low.

ramesses arrived, far removed from the coolly composed regent she'd met by the earthstone. his servants came from the woodwork to attend his disheveled state. dark anger pulsed from him like a wound.

she wondered if her coming here may have been a fools' errand. it was not her lot in life anymore to bend to the capricious whims of kings -- but by every king was a glut of gold, of blood, of full bellies and fine spirits. their pull was undeniable in the way the waves sucked back over crushed seashells and sand alike.

his lapis stare seemed to consume the room to the point where she was but a flea among the great red stands and stone archways. qiao lowered her head, her trinkets clinking. "that is exactly why i am here."

could he trust this? ramesses gazed at her. sayf still pressed to his side and he did not send the fellahin away. 
pharaoh's tastes had evolved in these months, though many might say that corrupted was a better word. he gave no show of his churning, eager thoughts, and shifted his eyes to tavina.
"you may leave."
when the sesh had gone, bowing her way backward from the throne room, ramesses gave the sooth-woman a slow appraisal. "i do not think i received your name." it would be a cautious meeting. he did not yet descend. she had not been worshipful, and so ramesses remained openly intrigued but observant.

the king was right to be wary. qiao remained still, eyes averted as the king beckoned the doctor away.

many times she had done this song and dance. a careful move here, a coquettish smile there. one step forward, one parrying step away. twirl and bow and curtsy and dance! dance!

and in the end, when the song was over and those dancing departed, qiao remained. "my name is qiao-ihla." a name -- her name -- the most powerful thing she had to give. she bowed deep and the trinkets scraped against the floor. a light smile curled the corners of her muzzle. "does your queen like her new jester?"

"qiao-ihla." ramesses held the name suspended in the air between them. it tasted of warm climes and spices beyond imagined hue; he found his hunger for her as sharp as it had ever been.
but he passed his gaze over her decorations once more, this qiao. "you say you have come to join us." this time pharaoh was lightly suggestive, his eyes lingering upon her fine, pointed face, the set of her jawline, the long ears; the details that made her kind so crushingly desirous to the hawk of akashingo.
"he entertains a boy laid low by injury. the queen is generous with her gifts."
satsu vibrated in the back of his mind. ramesses fought not to glance toward the doorway as if she might suddenly appear —
"in what capacity do you mean to stay here, at the palace?"

the redking repeated qiao's name back to her. how it took years of studied intent to remain visibly indifferent despite the roil of anger that speared through her breast! to be so openly felt by his lapis eyes; folded, held, and turned over -- like she were an object of great interest and no more.

my name, mine. the seer seethed, eyes gone deceptively bright despite the flatness within.

the gnome attended an injured boy. qiao wondered if this was not the doctor's duty -- had she not mentioned her work slow? no matter. qiao did not come to discuss the fate of stupid boys and their disfigured jesters.

"in whatever capacity you have use for me." qiao answered openly. "except for one; i will not be your whore."

she allowed silence to peel around the two of them before she spoke again. "every king has uses for the likes of my kind. if you have deserters, my eyes can find them. if you have enemies, i can help guide a tooth through their throat. if you have troubling civilians, i can quieten them. and if you have struggling midwives or impotent doctors, i can show them my craft so they can better serve you."

she bent to the ground, and the greenbrier slipped from her throat. she did not unwrap it -- not yet. "these uses come at a cost. i am happy to do anything you dream of, provided that cost is met."

ramesses wanted to laugh. the role of her kind was in servitude to wolves. but as he listened, he looked at the charms. he knew himself to be irresistible; he was gold in the eye of those who looked upon him. and so he regarded her with equitability, or at least his best attempt at it.
for a long while after, he considered qiao. she had made a powerful statement for herself. and she did not want to be how whore. she offered herself as spy, as rogue, as medic. the mention of midwifery reminded him of satsu;
satsu, who waited for him in the fragranced furs of her apartments.
"very well. you will be meshkhenet to akashingo. train our sesh as a midwife." he was impassive. "i will expect your teachings to be shared with the fellahin, as well as the royal children when they are born. all of them."
he stood. "what is your cost, qiao?" or would it be as it had been with arsenio, with germanicus? he waited, impatience growing to know that satsu thrummed in waiting and this exotic, strange, fierce creature would not be persuaded this day to lie with him.

a silence filled the great room. qiao remained expertly still.

he was weighing his options considerably; most kings did. qiao liked to believe she presented every royal she'd met with fair options, but the truth was, the moment she walked into their orbit how much of it was their choice at all? fate wove it all -- from great king of the red sand to lonely pauper girl sold to childlock. every soul paid the cost -- every soul was bound by fate.

she would teach his sesh, train his fellahin. duties which seemed disappointingly sexist. she believed ramesses to have a hungry imagination: such duties were chores any midwife could do. "and what of you? will i only teach the women and whores?" she queried, soft. maybe it was his way of testing her mettle first. she was playing a dangerous game, toying so close to the knife that was his barely whetted appetite for anger.

"my cost is quarters of my own to store items of my trade," she gestured then to the greenbrier, which remained slumped over pelts and thin bones woven into its strands. "and a childservant. its blood does not need to be your own, although that arrangement would prove tremendously useful."

of course qiao was not pleased, and why would she be? it was all a test. her position. his request. she delayed him and demanded more, this winning creature who by all rights should be ranked with the other fellahin and in service to himself.
"you are the only one of your blood with the rank of teacher. you will have your own rooms." more than one, if qiao saw fit for this. and secondly; ramesses held tonguetip between teeth and sent sayf away with a gesture.
when they were alone, as alone as two might be inside a listening palace, ramesses stepped closer. "east of us, in the mountains, there is a canyon of red sand. a man named germanicus is building an outpost linked to this palace."
a child.
he thought of kasmut. of jawahir, each who had agreed to carry his brood.
but would not one of full fellahin blood be best?
"i will not ask what you plan to do with this child, so long as you carry back all details for me when you go to visit mereo." his pale ear flicked. "he will believe you my spy. allow it. you are there to see his numbers, his might, and how he is regarded by those he has gathered."
was this a good enough task? "as for your teachings, there are not only women and whores here. there are men also, in need of better honing."
pharaoh was restless. and yet he waited.

one of the little things was sent from the room. fellahin, presumably. qiao was still, cool eyes tracing the departure of that lean figure.

later, she sought to probe his mind on what he meant by mention of her blood. she certainly did not consider herself among the rank-and-file coyotes -- no, she was something different. better.

and she would become something so much greater than teacher,  given time.

ramesses stepped closer, the gold of his topline glittering. qiao bent a slender ear towards him. to the east of them was a mountain - a canyon of red sand held by a man named germanicus. qiao kept these details close.

certainly, this task was more befitting of qiao's... particular skill set. she smiled, the closest thing to warmth she'd demonstrated thus far. "of the child, what i do with it depends on how useful it is to me in life." inferring, perhaps, there was some use to it in death too. "and i would keep no secrets from you on its behalf. i will go east." east -- funny wasn't it, she was always going east.

"i can go now, if you'd like. better now before the scent of this place settles in my bones. if that is your command."  qiao bent to the ground in a deep bow. there was one last thing, yet she sensed the edge of the knife grew close and ramesses' patience ever-thin.

rising from her bow, qiao teased the greenbrier noose around the deerskin open. from its contents, she raised a small, gleaming thing to the light with reverence.

a chipmunk's skull -- chittering with diabolical madness. around her voices thrashed, yet qiao paid them no mind.

she placed the skull upon the deerpelt and raised her paw to her teeth. one quick jerk of her muzzle, and a welt of blood rose to the surface. qiao held her palm upright, watching detached as scarlet bloomed among her fur and then ran in a thin line pulled by gravity.

qiao allowed seven drops to falll with quiet plops on the skull's brainpan. then, she raised her palm to her mouth and sucked the blood clean.

no blood spilled on his pristine floor, of that she was sure.

"a malevolent spirit," qiao explained with a smile. "useful for certain practices. this is my oath to you --" she closed her eyes, murmuring an ancient incantation over the pale bone. when she finished, a hissing rent the room and the droplets of blood seemed to sizzle. "and it seals us on both ends."

to say that pharaoh was captivated was an understatement.
only priestesses spoke of taking children to keep or to sacrifice. he saw at once that she could not remain a midwife. and he was not yet aware that there was one beneath his palace who spoke with the stars. qiao captivated all facets of the pharaoh. he watched her openly, raptly. 
but ramesses did not speak. his eyes were upon her quick darting paws and smooth movements; he looked only minutely at the things surrounding quiao until the bone-white of a small skull.
if that is your command.
satsu filled his mind. his body ached in the absence of her scent, of her delicate limbs wound around him in pleasure and in love. but pharaoh could not look away. the metallic tang of blood filled the air and still he watched, helplessly fascinated.
a high priestess; hemet.
seven spools of crimson falling. he felt the electric snarl of the spirit in the air, and stared in raptured wonder at the skull, then her glinting, marble beauty. a malevolent soul to bind them. whispers of a language he had never heard before.
ramesses approached. he looked down upon the skull and then back to qiao. pharaoh towered over her on his tall limbs, devouring each small detail he might; of her paw, her face, the deerskin.
"do this thing for me and i will reward you," he murmured, his voice throaty with want and enchantment. "tell him i have sent you in my stead."
he did not think germanicus would be insulted beneath the lack of expectation to receive the pharaoh.
it was what ramesses hoped to design.

qiao was used to such an audience. in a way it thrilled her to be the magistrate of such power, the supplicant of total attention. when the ceremony was done, ramesses came close. every part of him stretched luxuriant in her vision. oh, he was tall -- oh, was he handsome -- and wickedly alluring in a way that promised danger and excitement.

yet qiao had her fill of men in that way. still, she admired his form as it towered above her.

she bowed low. from her peltskin she extracted one last item; a clamshell bound shut by sap and clay. inside, the pharoah would find the most delightful aphrodisiac: fermented roe.

this she left on the courtsteps. each of her things gathered carefully, qiao bowed deep once more. "my king." she murmured, and then -- should he permit it -- qiao made her leave for mereo.