Two Eyes Cenote linen

@Rashepses >D

akashingo camped in these lands.
his daughter was to be married.
ramesses mourned within himself the shadowed pain that he would not be here in the flesh! to see a daughter crowned — pharaoh.
makono had taken that, had she not? and where was he now?
the shade did not show itself to toula. not yet. instead in gathering form, ramesses descended into the desert, filtering corporeal, and his lapis eyes looked in cold splendor for the prince of the river who had turned the head of his child.

Bless for reading my mind

He dreamed in the halls where he would soon hold his power, teeth red with the evening’s berry. A coldness passed through him. A trick of the moonlight, or some hallucination of wine and present solitude.

He started blearily and circled close for a confrontation of the thing that refused to be shaped. It sifted like smoke. A wolf anatomized. His Toula; and not.

“I know you,” his eyes widened.

<333!

ramesses billowed.
he at last conceptualized movement in such a form, how to dissipate and reform at will. now he flowed around the prince, mist from the surface of a feral river.
"it is pleasing to see she has inherited my taste for beauty," came the voice, breathless, formless, and then ramesses was himself once more; a smirk; voice the taste of honey and wine.
"she is to be pharaoh, and you, Divine Consort? how does this suit you, rashepses," yes, he knew; yes, he had heard.
and now ramesses would know this man who would sit beside his daughter at the head of the kingdom he had built — the lazuli eyes glowed.
bow.

“Pharaoh Ramesses,” and he did incline a dark nose, fur lifting on his spine as the voice flowed over the threshold to him.

The moon poured out its beauty into a translucent smile and a pair of two blue eyes. The body is dead, resting somewhere within a conical tomb, but the soul is far from it, come back to the surface of the desert as if he did not have enough of it and hungered for more.

Awe in his revelation, and then Rashepses moved closer.

“Unprecedented. Wrong,” he told the holiness as he waxed and waned. “A woman never rules as Pharaoh in her marriage. Let that serve as the proofs of love I carry for your daughter.”

"love and tradition are uncomfortable bedfellows, prince," ramesses said, perhaps softly insistent on the final syllable. for the riverman from ta-senet knew that was what he would always be; surely he knew, that prince was forever his title, Consort, Beloved, but never the inheritance and wealth of lineage which ramesses had passed to his children, a chest of jewels to which toula would add her own names and hand this to her chosen heir.
and rashepses, no part in it.
unprecedented, indeed. "my daughters come from pharaohs. her sister was already crowned here. it seems our young hawk-in-the-nest has come to Ma'at's knowledge in her own way. only blood may displace blood."
ramesses turned grandly, scintillating in gold-dust between worlds. "i do not need to tell you that i shall petition Osiris Himself to curse you with waking death, should you betray your words to me this evening, rashepses."

The closer he pressed, the stranger this liminal reality, near enough to see the youth that clung still to Ramesses in his immortal form. Pharaoh dies young.

He laughed at the challenge, knowing well enough that the grudge of a god is deathless as their soul. Knowing also the man was a father concerned for his daughter in this endeavor to slight him. “I’ve no reason to lie to the Gods. I too am blood of Pharaoh, and would find another eternal daughter to wed if I was so compelled.”

“I quite like the sound of 'King'. I quite like the role of it,” the riverlord’s smile was brazen. “I’ll give you grandchildren, Pharaoh. Many, many of them. And I’ll quite like the act of doing so.”

rashepses dared. perhaps he did not feel the true pressure of ramesses' presence as it was not made flesh. the pretty lips curved into a smile inviting, a flash of pristine teeth behind a sleek lip.
"yes, prince. maybe you are the lovely dust through which my purpose will be wrought in akashingo." a desert wind rising, and ramesses became unseen voice once more.
"she will bear a nation imbued with ancient blood. do not forget yourself, Consort."
a sigh, and once more he was visible. "my first queen walks muat-riya also. hers is the first tomb of akashingo. do not expect a warmer welcome from her."
fading, albeit with slow deliberation.

“Ramesses,” he makes a bid of the specter that flickers into near nothingness. “King, husband, consort. Title me as you please. I wish not to squander time. Your message is received. Your daughter’s blood is holy. It will not be wasted. She will be Pharaoh. It is not my aim to seize this from her,” his obsidian brow quirked.

“While you are here, let us speak of her.” A love for Toula, that much they had in common, “She wants you to give her away on our wedding day.”

“In fact, it is the only thing she asks for.”

ramesses fused himself once more to this world, lazuli eyes filled with interest. the slights to Ma'at which had gone on in his absence, the abandonments, the failures; toula would not have him here to guide her in matters of state, of war, of vassal states. this was to be rashepses' role, and in the insistence of the pretty young man, ramesses saw the victory of royal blood mingled with his own.
many hopes were placed upon toula. she knew this. her chosen Consort understood. but would she truly comprehend?
"i will be present." pharaohs were beholden to gods, even in death.
ramesses would not have broken with tradition; he would have not stood for less than a kingdom. did his daughter truly command such obedience from the son of ta-senet?

Fragments of sand alloyed into the pale gold of late roses; the Pharaoh’s regard, at present, returned. The eyes of the riveprince glittered with pleasure.

“Muat-Riya,” he spoke the name of the polished stone palace where they stood, “It is a marvel. It is the beginning of a new era for Akashingo. Together your daughter and I will build an Empire the likes of which the world has never seen.” He need not speak it; the old ways were dead. The old ways had ended in poison and treachery. Yet there was crucial wisdom in this spectral Pharaoh who raised the kingdom he was soon to devise. In his success, and in his failures.

“If I am the dust of your purpose, Ramesses,” he mused, “tell me that which you pursued in life.”

the ivory ghost flickered and dissolved as rashepses spoke, rising like pleasant mists upon a river and reforging into the image of the man he had been. "all men are dust to pharaoh, prince," he said softly.
ramesses arranged himself in repose and raised a languid paw, its nails coiffed to gleaming; "i test you because my children have all turned from what i thought was Ma'at's way, and you are a man so bound by it that you surrender your earthly wants." his voice, a cool pour of fermented honey and raspberries brought down to the desert in trade.
"i pursued an empire, Consort to Horus," ramesses at last said after a time, bestowing his own title upon rashepses as one might shower a man in gold, "one built to honor that of my fathers. tradition sees power, prince. you know this. return tradition to akashingo in the ways that you are able. keep pure the blood i leave behind. honor pharaoh as godhead even in the deepest parts of your heart which no other may see."
a soft clouding once more, golden laughter. "make all in your path a vassal state. ensure tribute for a hundred years. build an army in her name."
the lapis eyes, fixed unblinking to the handsome pleasantry of the riverprince's face.

Something instinctive rustled within him. Power shone from the marbled face of Pharaoh, unmistakable even in death. Rashepses was seduced. Great gods have a nose for desire, and the riverprince inflated with it, the fuel of a rising purpose in everything a man wanted to hear.

But the contradiction was clear, for united in their aim, his Queen was tender in the manners of her approach. Indeed her people loved her for it, while Ramesses had paid for his Ma’at with death.

“My betrothed has novel vision, ideas that deviate from tradition,” he dropped his lip, discourse on his face plain.

He loved Toula, he would be partner to her in all ways. Yet here stood the divine first King with the wisdom of one who had before walked this path.

"you must guide her back to the righteous path, consort," ramesses intoned. it was a thing that rashepses must make a cornerstone of their marriage, he felt as former pharaoh and current ancestor.
his lips were lovely as he smiled; "sacrifice for satsu and i, prince," and then truly ramesses dissolved into languid light and etched himself from sight.

Occult mists wafted over his crown with the sting of  Pharoah’s missive drumming once more into the angle of his ears. Only the common embodiments of a free man’s apprehension before his marriage, and when he held Toula’s beauty beneath him he was assured in the falsehood of these imaginings.

But the gloam of early nights fell heavy across Muat-riya, and the carvings of each dream sharpened in memory of a voice.

Sacrifice; for the righteous path.