Lion Head Mesa hollyhock

<3 of course!

she was cold as he in the wake of those words.
ramesses saw he had driven her away. and yet he doubled upon the necessity of it. he was pharaoh, not she. not siptah. neither of them yet showed what being a ruler demanded: the balance of ambition with want.
those were hard lessons learned and makono had been privy to such tonight. but he hated it; he hated it! for he knew also that things would not be fast mended between them — if ever.
he was impassive until she had gone, and then his tears ran silent and hot. once he had been a boy with his heart broken by his father. it was a tragedy he had not wanted to pass down.
he went outside the palace after that, with only a single guard, and walked in the warm summer rain alone for several hours.