Lion Head Mesa sed

can be dated for whenever! <3

pharaoh summoned @Makono, ordering that a light meal of honey and rabbit be brought. he sent away all his fellahin; he dismissed the guard at his door.
when the young hawk arrived, she would find him not in his throne but pacing in a comfortable semi-circle, awaiting her presence.

she arrived, shedding her guard and fellahin. fresh from the cold wellspring, post more training. she could not lapse just because she had left behind the company of the roman and his soldier dogs.

do tell me the messenger from mereo arrived with word of my arrival.

it may have been humor was there not a thoughtful look upon her face.

ramesses looked at her rangy new frame with half-lidded eyes. "it was the only reason i did not descend upon mereo with our guards and allies." did he jest?
now a smile of pride swept his face.
and in his belly nudged the suspicion that makono would tire of waiting for him to end.
"the roman kept his word to you then." already she stood with the straight back of a soldier, a firmness to the elegant poise he and her mother had already imparted.

of course he did.

teeth dared to show for but a moment. quickly hidden behind a more well composed look.

he offered six months in earnest. i believed it best to decline. yet her voice left room for the judgement of a father, pharaoh, once crown prince himself.

"good. in six months many things can change." he lifted his chin and approached her. ramesses still had the slight upper hand of height, but it would not always be so. 
"there are several projects which require your attention, regent." he returned grandly to his throne and invited her to sit at his right side, just below. "the first involves nazli and a new mazoi who arrived in your absence, bayek of siwa."
ramesses trod carefully. makono was beyond orders. he must teach her tradition now.

she took her place with ease alongside him.

she could not deny the difference she felt now. the roman had fed her a slice of a soldier's ambassadorship. it had riled something ugly. as power oft did.

bayek of siwa, she hummed lowly. tell me. she encouraged as she eyed a slather of honey along a rabbit.

"the queen tells me he is a medjay. they are protectors of the land, and often travel to the far borders to disperse threats. they are messengers. they are warriors."
he gestured for makono to eat. "i think you can learn much from him. he will be a replacement for your maidservant, after a kind."

but how could she eat now?

a replacement? no such thing could possibly be made.

a replacement? again, this time asked aloud. her voice level for a moment, yet her heart felt heavy. prepared to strike a hammer if he once more intended to trade nazli away.

first siptah, now who?

bile burning the back of her throat.

was it resistance he heard in her voice? or only shock? "when you were a child you needed a body servant. now you are prince of akashingo and a soldier who can defend herself. your training here continues with the mazoi. nazli will be sent into her full training as fellahin."
this time he did not know what would be done with the lilac girl, only that she would come to him when it was through. 
and that hardly merited a mention. "she will remain here, in the palace. you will still see her."

in which i spent an hour dizzily writing this

bile burned and she was reminded of teeth on her scruff.

that was what this felt like — and she realized the grand emptiness of the room. no fellahin, no guard at the door. a tactician's thought.

it was ugly and churning. thoughts of vile things.

"dico ad coniungere nostram futuram."

"mars mihi permittat videre diem coronationis tuae, princeps."

she moved at once, unchained. standing with a rigidity to her spine now.

my training continues. nazli will not be sent away from my side. she is not as pitiful as the other fellahin and sanpin we collect. to waste her is a mistake. you intended her for siptah, so now she is mine by absorption. a show of goodwill, no?

challenge, challenge, challenge.

danger, danger, danger.

she felt large than her body, filling the space between them and the door. blinded so wholly by this moment that one might think it madness.

<333!!!

makono refused.
ramesses could have pressed the order. she did not yet rule akashingo. what he chose was silence, a long and stretching sea of it.
and then the man descended his throne. he did not rise to the challenge of the crown prince, nor the separation of daughter from father which strangely pained him in its tearing.
ramesses moved to the step below makono. 
"sit."
his voice was even, not adder-sweet, not dangerous, not hardened with wrath. it was the voice of his father, of seti, a man whomst his children would never know but who now steadied ramesses. this was far more than a mere girl. it was the test of disconnection, of mistrust.
she must learn to let go of what was known.
the redstone seat sat waiting.

she expected...more.

a month of slamming her body, learning her weight, feeling teeth. she expected (horribly) to use that here. it had marked her in ways she had not know until now.

his voice a river of nothing, followed by his sea of silence.

she simmered, stewed. nearly not trusting enough to place herself back down.

yet she did.

seated, silent, rigid. lapis gaze burned with more than she could ever speak.

"there."
in his throne. in the seat of power she would one day occupy.
and still his voice did not change. this too was courtcraft and stagecraft, only it was the dance of father and heir. could siptah have known these steps so well?
the Amun-sent was silent again, waiting to watch makono climb the two rough steps to the smooth red surface.
only when she had arranged herself would he speak again.

there.

in his throne.

had this not just been what she had become stone for? that she had practically exiled her own brother for? yet now it felt like a looming mountain. two steps up, a place of power.

but she had climbed mountains, climbed cliff walls.

so she rose to the place, seated herself upon it with all the airs of a royal. now she felt hollow. her gaze devoid in a tired way as she ran through a mental course of her own emotions.

she looked over him, her own father, to the spaces beyond him.

she sat.
she glowed.
she was golden stone and an image of her mother. she was fine amber and his own mirror.
he saw the uraeus settle if only in brief upon her brow.
"do you understand what sacrifices i have made to sit upon that throne, sōzokujin?" he said at once and fiercely, standing upon the step below and forcing his eyes upon her own. "feel them. feel Ma'at around you now."

feel them.

and in that she felt him. she felt the spaces that had grown between them through each diplomatic moment, the loss of wife and child he had seen. the losses that akashingo had seen too. each could be considered personal.

it was a sad seat with its power.

her eyes closed for but a moment, chin tilted up in that time. skyward she seemed to be.

when they opened, she looked upon him now. lapis stones meeting in a pool of space.

sacrifices must be made.

her voice somber, as her gaze.

"not every sacrifice must be a sad thing, makono. think of what you have already given and what you have already done. you cannot keep the servant of your childhood so close forever. it is not safe."
and his words resonated with truth, and a rare humility, for he had once known a face at his cradle who later guarded a knife for his back.
"this will not be the hardest thing that you give. this will not be the most difficult parting. you will see death. you will see treason. you will bear the prince who follows in my lineage. and in yours." he had come now to her side, a pale vizier for the moment. "learn that even those who follow you in love cannot carry the full weight of your trust. to be pharaoh is to be alone."

in childish ways she wished to drown him out.

a softening waterline to her eyes. these words did not seem like politics or cunning, but would she know if they were? trained by her father in his visions. as blind to him as she was herself.

far too alike for their own good.

to be pharaoh was to be alone.

were you alone even when mother sat alongside you?

but —

why did she think of nazli so much? even now she sought ways to keep the girl close, to maintain their bond and not send her to the slaving ways of other fellahin.

makono was not so blind to those beneath.

a sharp breath, a little laugh. 
"at times it felt that it was the only moment i was not alone." his throat clenched. he would not allow her to see it, not in this moment. "the man who becomes your Divine Consort may bring you comfort, makono. but Ma'at has changed for you. and so your path will be far different than that of any other pharaoh."
and it was not a place where he could see.

an opening, a clearing.

her path would be unlike any other. perhaps it was cruel to twist and wind emotions in her favor. even her own emotions.

my path is different, so i see the different things, but they are our tradition all the same. the throne hugged her in ways she tried not to notice, to think upon.

nazli is not ready yet. and she meant it. nor would she think the girl ever ready! that she held close. i mean it. give — her stomach sunk within her. her to me. lest she vanish all together.

softer now, yet the seriousness of her voice remained all the same. composed when placed on the spot.

more bodies can be supplied to fill this gap in work, if that is the fear.

ramesses saw a fear in makono for the girl that he had not pondered before.
but to his knowledge, even in all her wisdom, even the crown prince did not understand. not truly. separating the two would shelter makono a while longer from such realities. they were unnecessary until she had chosen a consort.
"it is not a low supply in workers. it is the fact that from the beginning a fellahin is destined for that. this is her role. you have given her training, education, and travel. she is already worth more than you understand."
but he swept all that away; he wanted no answer. "what do you fear on her behalf, makono? i will tell you mine: that you have made a sister of her. that you have told yourself in some way she can be such. and she cannot."

it burned again, silently she begged it to stop. perhaps it was Ma'at that held her eyes open, ears tall. so that she may see and listen in full.

the truth.

then i will make her not a sister. i will make her a jewel. her bones ached as she continued to resist against the flow of her father.

but, tell me, where is my council in these matters? you can speak to whoever you wish, you have your collection. where is mine to advise me on all angles?

senmut, khaba, nazli.

names burned into her.

she resisted. she pleaded. she gave to him a complete reckoning.
ramesses explored the root of his own resistance. was it possessiveness or a true love cultivated for the lilac? 
he did not understand it, and wanted to forbid this perfidy from permeating his household.
"i am pharaoh," ramesses said softly, gazing now at the girl who sat in his throne but did not yet fill it. "let her be separated from you. let her leave your side. let akashingo polish her. but — there will be no last expectation."
magnanimous on his part.
the education of a fellahin involved no finality. only he could do so. but he did not explain this. "let her spend time from your bosom and you from hers. test her but be warm." it was still dangerous. it was still foolhardy, to let this bond continue. but ramesses was not a god of force. he wished to be wanted and intemperate servants would not do.
and he too now was curious to know if the days ahead would change such things.
pharaoh offered a compromise. makono would go to bayek and leave her maidservant in the hands of the priestess and the courtesan. and if all was well, nazli would return to the council of her crown prince, ready to be serve makono's higher aim.

she grew tired.

they could be at this all day, in winding weaving ways. she did not desire it. she had pushed as much as she could without causing a scene or becoming accused of treason.

she stood, removed herself from his throne and in that moment removed herself from her own mind too. down two, three steps.

i will say no more. not to him. it hurt worse than begging for mercy in spars.

release me, and i will seek out those who need me.

senmut would be first.

bayek could wait a day, this she would order.

she fought him! over some slave girl she grew cold and taut and withdrawn. ramesses knew it was more than this, but he had relented in the end to as much a degree as he could.
it no longer mattered where he had meant nazli. now he saw the dangerous stiff-necked nature that makono had gathered in mereo, and now inside him lit a fire that said she collected a council meant to be his undoing.
those loyal to her, however, still belonged to him. and he would take nazli from her as he had said, though he would uphold his final proclamation to makono.
and in that same stubbornness which went unrecognized by ramesses, he relinquished his hawk-in-the-nest. "go." he would not order her to court the following day, only expect that she would be there as his heir.
he turned back toward his throne as she departed the room, eyes closed in an angered prayer to Amun.
already so much had changed for makono! why did she seek to break the tradition of hierarchy now?
ramesses fell into a bleak humor.