Hotep couldn't hold back a smile at Phoenix's elation, the simple purity of it. He followed more slowly, ears flickering this way and that, and it occurred to him to wish that he could release hold over himself in similar fashion.

His time as priest had seen him bound like the dead in many ways, a vessel for greater things. There was value in that. Meaning. Fulfillment. Even its own kind of joy. But Phoenix proved with each breath she took that service to gods and mortals did not require the hobbling of feet. Her heart needed no scarab to speak for it.

Had he ever been so free? It was hard to recall.

It is a beautiful sight. I have never seen such pure waters... He mused, sitting down beside her, and regarded this sea with less wariness than those past. No crocodiles could lurk under an ocean as clear as the sky.

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