Lion Head Mesa akhet

wheneverrr <3 got carried away my b

"there are several pieces of business which you must know, neb @Gucci."
they were not in the throne room, nor atop the mesa. nor beside the wellspring. 
they were in gucci's quarters. pharaoh had come without announcement, waving away all the servants except to order that the good pine liqueur be brought for both he and the nobleman.
"the first is that i mean to dissolve prince charles' marriage to the princess lilitu. he has not earned her and their inability to prove fruitful has cost akashingo face."
he stopped his words, listening for a long time until he was sure that the fellahin had gone after bringing their drinks. ramesses downed half his and stalked around the space as if he were a restless white leopard.
"therefore — and i have not yet told our queen — i have sent a message to brecheliant. i mean to make lilitu Second Royal Wife. her children will be my own. but they will not be raised here." he narrowed his eyes toward the advisor. "with the passage of time, makono grows into herself. i sense she plots something with the roman." 
paranoia, the shadow of it upon ramesses' unblemished face.
"she holds the title of crown prince only so long as there is not a brother to take it." and little boys tucked into backwaters could still be plucked from a swamp, when the time came.
"the second is that i mean to send toula away for a time, where her education might continue. but also — i think it were best, and safest for my daughter, were she betrothed to a foreign prince, and one day she too leaves the palace."
his throat was tight. she was his favorite. his lotus petal. 
"and the third is a story. once upon a time there was another queen. this queen had a slave girl. a roman paid a greek mercenary to work in my court, and for his payment, the man asked that the slave girl be freed." ramesses' face was cold and terrible, marble as he spoke. "when this same greek and same roman came to free her, i demanded that her debt to the queen be repaid. and so into my hands they sold a girl, to replace the woman tamar."
"germanicus has kept silent all this time. the man arsenio has also. such knowledge would destroy them both. and now, gucci. now i have found where they hid their little nest of love. the knowledge came easily, from the pretty mouth of an epoch woman who tragically loves a man of mereo."
his eyes glittered. "i want her also. and i want her to come of her own accord. else i will send messengers through the land carrying the story of the slave-driver roman and his lying accomplice."
meadow, a treasure, an obelisk of his final triumph over those who had stolen from him and those who had sought to resist his word.

it can quite throw one off, to wake from a midday nap and find the pharaoh and his retinue at one's doorstep. the servants being sent away only made the unease rise. now gucci laid stiffly on his favorite pelt, cup of untouched pine liqueur between paws.

( he was only grateful @Medusa had taken @Midas out for a walk. it benefitted the blind boy, and in this case kept them both far from politics. best they take the long way back home. )

the nobleman nodded, unfocused. an ear twitched to show he listened. 

already big eyes widened at the new information. but, he did not try and interrupt his pharaoh.

concern grew.

when the pharaoh seemed done, the neb took a single sip of his drink.

the bitterness was needed to rouse him awake.

"m'luminosity," he began. "ya make grand plans quick." one thing at a time.

"do either o' th' nupital pair object?" he doubted so. they were about as interested in each other as a bird was in burrows. "more importantly, does your vision nawt hinge on lilitu acceptin'? 's there reason t' believe she'd... decline?"

his paws adjusted their non-existent grip.

"there's always other women."

some foul humor tipped his mouth toward an ugly slash that could not aptly be called a smile. "charles, perhaps. but charles has — become mine." he shrugged, thinking of the unabated passions of that hard-muscled body, sweet with drink.
gucci would take his meaning.
"she may not wish to return. i have considered extending an invite to basilica and to kvarsheim, to put forth their own offerings. but lilitu —" he let out his breath. "it would be a way to further bind brecheliant."
he at last sat down. "i love makono." his voice trembled, with love, with sorrow, with anger. "but too many a pharaoh has been couped or killed by their heir. it will not be me, gucci."
a glimpse, now, into the ravening blackness beginning to eat into ramesses' pupils.

ah. the meaning. he took it.

another lap of the drink.

t'was certainly one problem removed.

gucci righted himself into a sit. his eyes were on the cup, careful not to spill it, when a feeling in his pharaoh's voice made his face rise to see his.

the neb was not blind to how things had changed since the crown prince's return. how good folk stifled laughter deep in their throats, how whispers grew into an insect-like buzz. king and prince had become beacons of blinding light - and akashingo knew only one led to safe waters.

and gucci's loyalties found it easier to side with the man who'd given him all, rather than a child.

"pharaoh." the dog spoke plainly. "crown prince won't have got naw reason tah move on ya, if ya keep 'er indulged. find a- a smaller way tah grant 'er power. project, or quest or mission. sate 'er, fer now."

had to cut over half my post bc this charie has the incredible effect of turning his posts into 90% of pure uninterrupted monologuing :')

omg i want it allll <3

pharaoh nodded. "the land is strangely peaceful for now." he looked at gucci. "i was sent several times to our borders, to settle skirmishes. but there are none."
yet a thought was forming. 
he lashed his tail against the earth. "i no longer sleep, vizier! my dreams are filled with the blood of my father. i have no male heir." he shut his lapis eyes. "i have tried in my heart of hearts to bend my head to Ma'at, That Which Changes All Things, but i cannot. in this i see only the death of the long line. if makono has no brothers, she will have no choice then to begat foreign heirs and see that foreign blood follows her upon the throne."
he was angry now. how could he not be! she did not share toula's piety; she had so much of his own ambition. pharaoh was consumed with pride for makono, with love, with guilt for ever suspecting her of such. she loved her Divine Father.
but love did not hold an army nor a palace. "i will send her to basilica. senmut tells me that they also have their own sort of holy priestesses. i want to settle toula there, for a time. she is too delicate for mereo's ugly mud, but she will take a great interest in learning of other gods."
ramesses stared at gucci, lazuli eyes burning with an uholy feverish. "tell me i am wrong, to mistrust makono. that she does all she has done for the good of akashingo."

he watched cracks form in the marble which all akashingo's royals seemed built of, and gucci hurried with white cement to fill in the gaps of doubt.

"nan-sense, great pharaoh! if she's yours - raised n born - there ain't a way she'll ever let th' spire's good slip 'er conscious. what's a monarch ta rule if there ain't naw kingdom?" the chihuahua said so with utmost authority, as if each black eye had peeped into the minds of the mesa's great players, and only came back further convinced that what ramesses had built was grand and faultless, indeed!

"as fer sendin' princess toula- ah agree wi' ya." gucci relaxed back on the pelt, by conviction raised hackles lowering. "young princess, ah said so b'fore, s charmin' as she's pretty, n there ain't naw pack this or that side o' sunspire tha'd decline housin' 'er. and would be good, keepin' royal children there 'n' there. leaves room fer more."

the advisor smiled.

"matter o' second wife aside, queen treva's given a boy b'fore. who's tah say there won't be another? n matter removed back on th' pile; ah've been learned a wolf's season o' love starts when winter's thickest and goes tah midsummer. plenty o' time fer findin' healthy wife. n why-" gucci hopped onto his paws, curved tail waving.

"-even think only o' sneaky epoch or brecheliant far too close? there's older groups - moon-glah, sah-feek! wife fram great bear, wife fram th' coast - pharaoh, man like ya can pick n choose!"

EDIT: fixed the jank :ok: 

no MESS
also lets hope tavina doesnt give the message to maia then AHAHA

ramesses listened, slumped, brooding. gucci's words soothed him. he wanted to be guilty for suspecting her at all. and yet his long grasp of courtcraft suggested that he not let down such guards. 
the vizier was correct. makono would not tear down what had been built for her to one day lead. and so there was a loosening in his shoulders on that alone. his eyes pierced toward the little man but he only smouldered in a continual silence. 
toula would only be gone for a time. but he hoped in this he would protect her from what came later. "i have no doubt in the queen's abilities. only that — by makono's first year, she would have been queen-in-waiting, her title assured through a marriage to siptah. he could never put her aside. now she will struggle."
he spread his paws. "suppose an ambitious new prince did not wish to wed her? to only be a consort where he could have been a god? you see now, gucci."
makono had given herself a harsh path indeed.
but now his vizier's words turned to wives. he named places not yet visited by the pharaoh nor akashingo. his spine straightened; ramesses at last returned to himself. "i suppose, gucci, i —" and the flowers of a poem touched his mind. "i have seen lilitu and long wanted her. but perhaps it is unfruitful of me to place such emphasis on her." he smiled wanly. "what sort of woman should i seek, gucci?"

the little vizier wished to, with soft paws, guide his pharaoh away from potential disappointment. lilitu, yes, had a winsomeness about her, but t'was a far simpler charm than poised satsu or eager treva. more pressingly, the young woman seemed as grounded as a paper plane in wickedest wind. a royal wife and princely mother needed be stalwart, dedicated.

well, motherhood could change that, yes, but gucci believed it when he said the pharaoh had much to pick from.

"y'know, berries might not've been kind tah me, night o' th' royal weddin', but these ears ain't jest fer showin'!" his fuzziness plopped back down, aforementioned ears twitching. "ah heard, fram amogst th' guests, o' th' coast, th' sea. a group perched on tall cliffs, what been neighbors tah blackwater, n been there 'fore n aftah them witches got taken by wind. think on it; marryin' a mermaid!" gucci grinned wide.

"then this pack way past the forests, in what they call th' great wild. they been howlin' fram their mountain since brechelient's been in th' fen, been a presence 'tween hinterlands n 'ere. could always start collectin' wild-touched wives, hm?" his squinted eyes glinted.

little by little, pharaoh relented. gucci spun a world beyond his whims, and slowly he released the image of delicate, green-eyed lilitu. she was such an ornamentation as he would want on his arm, but she did not care for the palace.
mermaids. blackwater. witches. "a woman from the islands once came to me," ramesses said with a tone that remembered. "she never said the name of her land, i do not believe. only that they were druids who lived a solitary life. she offered trade terms and arrived as emissary. we spoke for a long while."
his teeth flashed in a grin of elegant lechery. "the lady marina was wild in my bedchamber as the sea from which she hailed." he recalled the scorch of her, the way she had given voice to her pleasure and he to his. "i sent the beautiful belen with her, to be used in whatever way the druids saw fit."
pharaoh sighed. "a waste to hear that they are gone. and where is belen? gone also, a trained courtesan." 
he wondered, pointedly and suddenly, what stirred his companion. gucci spoke easily of women rich and bountiful as grapes, but never of his tastes. 
he smiled. "perhaps i should send you next, vizier, to find a Second Great Royal Wife. you have the mind for such a choice." he toyed with a small red stone.

ahh, belen. he'd wondered forever what became of her after the distant pack disbanded. in his mind, he still saw her as more girl than woman - despite all evidence in looks and behavior which opposed him - and had, quietly, so quietly it was only within his own skull, hoped she'd found some happiness and purpose.

his thoughts then slid to crowfeather, and the man quickly shut them down. 

no. no reason to guess at graves o' them long dead.

so instead, gucci laughed.

"oh, ya know ah ain't a journeyin' sort! legs are short n th' road is long..." he stretched out his gloved toes. "but if ya ever need me sent, jest have a mazoi carry me by th' scruff o' m'neck." gucci grinned.

"but, bein' serious," and his face matched the tone. "if ya can spare sendin' one or two well-toothed men, come easier weather i wouldn't dislike t' travel, this purpose or that. wives, well-wishes, invitations or plans fer kingdom's expansion."

ramesses chuckled richly and stretched out his long limbs. "the prince is restless. would you like to travel with her in the spring?" he did not expect to have what he wished this season, not with snow upon the ground. "she should know the vizier who might one day counsel her."
it was a lifelong position, after all. and a good, cunning Hand of the Pharaoh kept himself alive long enough to die an old man, outliving his own rulers.
ramesss thought he saw the same ability in gucci, hidden behind the saccharine drawl and genuine well-wishery. 
so long as he was pharaoh, the vizier would report to him. let one of those reports be upon makono herself.

"hm, now there's a hope, if she don't have me banished 'fore that." a joke made mid-yawn, concealed by a paw, but it truly was an issue he hadn't had private word with the prince. he'd need plan for being host to another royal; this one invited.

gucci had laid down onto his pelt, his limbs folded alike a feline, blinking slow the same way ( combined with his increasing girth, he made for quite a fat loaf ).

"pharaoh." the vizier began, warm. "that child's like she paw-picked each good trait o' her lineage. when th' sun tha's you sets - n that won't fer a long, long while - she'll shine jest 's bright."

"ah know, late queen, would've been proud tah 'ave given 'er tah this kingdom."

gucci was correct. ramesses drummed his paw upon the earth, a shadow of pain crossing his face at the mention of satsu. "i never found her murderer."
perhaps that should have been makono's task, if she had stayed in a queen's place! but no, she must shift long centuries of the ways that had always been.
ramesses rose gracefully. "thank you for your words, vizier. i am sending red hawk feathers to your door in the days to come." a gift.
those loyal to him grew fat on bounty, in more ways than one.
pharaoh did not say goodbye. he only walked off, head caught by a thousand thoughts.

"ah'm spoiled, majesty."

gucci bowed his head, until the pharaoh had left.

and he hated to admit it, but with ramesses went the tension that had kept him stiff.

he waited for a while.

then, a voice outside. gucci's ear twisted. his smile came easier.

the vizier went outside to greet his children.

tyyyyyysm i love all the ram threads <3333