---

aw but perhaps Mekh? <3

Charmion is gone again.

It pains Neith to realize that she aches a little less this time— that between now and when she’d first learned to let him go, her heart had created a wall to him.

It should not have surprised her. How many has she learned to release? Mother, and father, Den and Satakh, Aunt T, and Senmut, and Ibrahim. Charmion.

Mortals like to believe that love is static, eternal, but their world is always changing, and that is the truth; that it flows transforming endlessly through generations and time.

Cloaked in the old bindings of her lynx, Neith steps into the desert's dark expanse. Before she could truly begin anew in satriya, the queen needed to rest her past.

Skill: Orator

---

As Merneith's paws shifted against the soft sands, curious eyes followed her.

Mekh had yet to formally introduce himself to the Pharaoh and his Queen. Everything had happened so quickly, he was given only a brief mention in passing while the wolves of Satriya gathered themselves for the journey home to Skyspear; better for it, he thought. At the time his ribs had still pressed painfully against taut skin, and he would have been a sorry sight to any leading figure knowing he was to be the newest addition to their ranks.

What good was a half-starved mutt? Now, at least, a healthy layer of flesh padded his bones and helped to smooth out some of the harshness of his features. He would never possess the rounded softness of a true wolf - his coyote blood made certain of that - but proper nutrition made him a little more approachable, rather than some gaunt, haunted ghost.

Merneith drew nearer to the coywolf's curled position in the sand, and he rose to his paws on the long legs his mother had given him, and spoke into the dark.

My Queen, Mekh announced, bowing his head. He would keep it lowered, eyes averted, until told otherwise.

I haven't had the chance to thank you for the generosity you and Pharaoh have shown me, he said. Was she listening, he wondered? Or was he simply babbling into the weak dawn? If not for you and the care of Sitamun and Setemhotep, I should have perished. It is a cruel land to travel alone for one used to a life beneath the benevolence of Ra's chosen.

He paused, ears swiveling as he listened for the sound of retreating footsteps - for she had no obligation to stay and speak with him - and heard naught but the sound of the wind.

My name is Mekh. I once served as companion to my Pharaoh, Seti, but have been severed from him by the gods for reasons I do not yet see. I seek new purpose here.

But what did he have to offer them?

I am an able hunter, a swift messenger, and one who hears many whispers in better aid of my Pharaoh. Whatever it is I may do to be of use to you - speak it.

---

Answering both the lift of his form and the good faith in his speech, she bids the coy to be at ease with a sweeping tail. “Khonsu blesses you, Mekh. Walk with me.” Her smile is thin but not lacking sincerity. Undressed, in a sense, without her fellahin, what the queen needs most is an attendant this ill-lit day.

The eternal flame douses their path in red, the leadened sky dulling every sound in favor of deep mutedness. Neith had lived through strange times, but she finds this stranger yet.

It pleases her that Mekh is already becoming acquainted with the court. “Setemhotep and Sitamun have found their measure within Satriya; I wish the same embracing for all of my people,” she explains, implying that there is some choice despite the apparent inferiority of his coy-blood.

“There will be a wedding, and His Great One’s coronation to the horus throne. Royal dinners, ceremonies, guiding newcomers and attending emissaries— these are fitting places for one who hears whispers. As a fellahin, these would be your tasks. Yet the path of a mazoi is not closed to you. Should you wish to hunt and guard the desert’s borders, the jodai will instruct you in the disciplines of Pharaoh’s army."

---

Mekh nearly stumbled as he righted himself in his haste to follow her, gangly limbs a tangle of intent mixed with poor execution. He muttered a brief apology under his breath, ears pinned back as he moved swiftly to catch up to the stately Queen who seemed wholly unbothered by the error (or simply masked it well; he hoped it was the former).

He kept an even pace with her, an almost comical figure of odd proportions next to the she-wolf. Nevertheless, his sharp features were drawn together in an expression of great focus, keeping one ear cocked in her direction as he kept a respectable distance so as not to overstep.

There was some surprise that he might have - options. It was true his muddied parentage had always limited his trajectory, but even when gifted to Seti for the young Pharaoh's birthday, their close bond had made it so that the servant did not mind his position; if anything, he embraced it. There was a contented sort of satisfaction that came with being good at one's job, and not every slave had a burning desire to leave their comfort zone.

Here, however, he did not have Seti - he did not have anything at all.

Square one wasn't even an option; Mekh was beginning at zero.

Save but for the grace of this new Queen.

I am humbled with gratitude beyond measure, he said after a brief moment of silence between them, digesting the information in stunned wonder. They continued on this way for a little while yet, and Merneith likely knew him to be wrestling with himself over what might be the correct course, or whether or not this was a test to see if over-reaching dwelt in his nature.

To choose fellahin was to make this choice for life, and often the only one a half-wolf could ever make. That the gentle Queen might even consider the possibility of Mekh one day making a mazoi...

He did not even know these people, this dynasty. It felt like too much. Too much grace when they had already saved his life, kept him warm, fed him their meat.

I... the life of a fellahin is all I have ever known. It would be a disgrace to your kindness should I choose the path of the mazoi and fail, he said, casting a resigned gaze toward the dim horizon. His golden eyes glittered with emotion, but it was difficult to say what.

Many long nights have I feared Ammit's judgment, thinking her ever nearer as the hunger gnawed at my insides; lost, alone, abandoning my Pharaoh even if through no intent of my own, he said. I am only Mekh.

---

Only Mekh. The queen turns her face.

Ra favors his eyes, and also the mind which sees through them. A man with no shortage of regrets and no reluctance in naming them. Priesthood may be where his true repose waits.

Charmion, there again in her thoughts once more.

Neith slows their step. “You disgrace me only by foretelling failure before allowing yourself the occasion to succeed.” Her smile is honeyed. “In all the endless worlds and their infinite pathways, the gods have guided you to Satriya; and to me. You are reborn here, as are we all, beneath the realm of Pharaoh Khaemwaset. Devote yourself to Him. You do not need to fear Ammit’s condemnation.”

Would he take her words to heart?

---

The weight of her words nearly sent him prostrate upon the ground. It was a gentle admonishment, but habit was hard to break and he still grappled with the reality that he had been taken in by their generosity like an abandoned pup, a thought that filled him with a mixture of shame and gratitude immeasurable. How was he supposed to feel? To behave?
Once, he had been a gift; now he felt like a burden.

Yet Merneith is kind, and despite his warring halves he is relieved.

You are right, Queen, Mekh says, and he dares to shift his gaze in her direction. She is a young Queen, pale and slender beneath the moonlight, the softness of youth still padding her features; yet in her eyes there is the solemn resolve of a woman who has lived several lifetimes. He feels like a child in her presence, awkward and ungainly, his words ham-fisted and perhaps even misplaced.

Yet Merneith is kind.

I... may need time to think, he replied softly. His ears swiveled back reflexively. But I do not believe I have the strength of a warrior. My heritage limits me; I will never possess the strength of one who is pureblooded. It is my worry that I would do disservice to the role with my... inadequacy.

The words were acrid on his tongue, but their truth could not be denied. He would always have the finer-boned build of a coyote, and it made him unclean.

---

No, their truth could not be denied, though Mekh’s exasperated tone makes her wince. Still, she imagines there is more to a warrior than bold-faced strength, that Mehk could still be a clever hunter, a strategist, a military tactician, if he desired. The queen would allow him time to arrive at these realizations, holding the way open for his choosing while he found new footing in the red land.

“Mazoi, hem, fellahin. Any title will suit you.” The lion-goddess pads them softly in the direction of the delta. It is the season of peret, and Khaem has already begun to sow rings of seedlings around the palace. But Ra has not yet come to sun them. Neith prays they will survive this gray deluge.

“I want to hear about where you came from. Where were you born? Who were your parents?” She is grateful to learn of him; his experiences in kingdoms unknown to her.

---

Were she anyone else, barring Pharaoh, Mekh would have dismissed her faith in him as sorely misplaced. But the word of Merneith was sacred, and he bowed his head and accepted her words in silence. Although the world around them grew cold, a budding warmth had begun to bloom in his chest as he dared to think he might have a chance at something greater than his roots.

The sussuration of cool sand beneath their paws filled the quiet as they walked together.

I am from a place not unlike this, he began, then offered a half-chuckle. Albeit a great deal hotter, understandably. Dunes as far as the eye could see, and great structures exceeding even the height of Skyspear. A river flowed through Seti's holy land and gave us life.

Her questioning almost made him uncomfortable, however. He did not often speak of his parents, a topic better suppressed in his mind, but it couldn't be avoided beneath her steady gaze. It was her gentleness that made it only just tolerable.

I never knew my father, he admitted. My mother would not speak of him beyond a brief mention he held station in a great army somewhere far away. I do not think they loved each other; I think it was...

Mekh felt disgust even alluding to it.

She was beautiful, you see.

Hot shame rose like bile up in his throat.

She was also a slave. Before she gave birth to me and my siblings, she ran; she ran far beyond his reach, choosing death in the dunes over his affections. I hardly remember childhood.

Hunger he did remember; a vicious hunger clawing at the walls of his belly like a feral beast, sleepless nights spent beneath the stars huddled together for warmth, the ragged breathing of his littermates. Mekh never knew how she'd done it. How she had kept them all alive for as long as she did.

We became separated in a violent sandstorm; some passage of time later I was discovered half-buried in a dune, fattened up, and thusly gifted to Seti for his birthday, he said. I have never seen them again.

Them referring to his lost family. Mekh preferred to think they all perished in the storm rather than endure any more of the half-life they had lived. His mother forever away desperately hunting, skin stretched taut over her ribs, his siblings' high keening echoing out into the empty desert for meat that would not come.

Would it be overstepping... to ask you the same?

---

This idea was newly engendered in her mind by the sesh, that a woman could be forced into motherhood outside her will. It is a nauseating prospect, a repulsing one, and here is a man wrought from such a betrayal.

With a sickening suddenness she understands in some small way why Mekh feels so undeserving of more. Neith was a product of the purest love. How does one grapple with being the product of violation?

And the fate of his mother and siblings on the dunes. No words, and yet no graves. No cruelty surpasses the torment of not knowing.

She is stripped of any words. All she can grasp is this: that he walks beside her. That he lives. That his story moves toward a purpose hidden from mortal sight.

Would Mekh recoil from this sentiment? She cannot say she would fault him if he did.

In a swift step, the queen stops them. He is in her eyes, the coy’s tapered face. The wolf’s golden eyes.

“Help me. This world has been unconscionably cruel to you, Mekh. Help me build a better one.”