The last traces of incense and underground bloom faded from Aiesha’s coat as she slipped past the pyramid’s eastern flank, where the shadow stretched longest and the hidden entrance lay furthest from sight. No guard challenged her departure; the night was young, the sentries still turning their eyes inward with the influx of new bodies.

She did not look back.

The plains unfolded without ceremony. Dry grass bent underfoot in pale silver waves, stretching mile after mile beneath a sky thick with stars. No trees for the first long stretch, only the occasional low knoll rising like a sleeping animal, its crest worn smooth by wind. Here and there a single acacia stood solitary, branches twisted into shapes that might have been pleas or warnings. She skirted them.

Hours passed in the rhythm of her own breathing and the soft crunch of her steps. The pyramid dwindled behind her—first a black fang against the stars, then a dark silhouette, then nothing more than a deeper shadow on the horizon, so distant it might have been mistaken for a mirage if she had not known better. Aiesha stopped at last on the crest of a shallow rise.

She sat, haunches folding beneath her, tail curling loosely around her paws. Exhaustion pressed harder now that motion had ceased, a dull ache settling into muscle and bone, yet she did not lie down. Lying down would mean rest, and rest would mean thinking—really thinking—about how everything continued to change.

Unknown stars wheeled slowly overhead.

Aiesha’s mother and Legend had not been that different.
One of them had been nurtured.
One of them had wilted.

For Legend, it was the anger. All those built up emotions coming to the surface, and spilling over in quips at the guard in Sapair, and whoever else got close enough to handle an imp’s mouth after horrid frustration.

She had been so close.

And then it was all gone.

Four feet glided over tall fields whose waves flowed against moving ankles. Two spire ears were kissed by silver moonlight peaking white rays through dappled clouds. Lone fellahin would shrink and cry to see their work to soften a queen’s pads destroyed by thoughtless expeditions into outer territories. That a woman which held the purpose to kneel before the crown and obey the law of reverence and fragility, as well as feminine strength with a bladed tongue, could not be still. Could not stay in the safety of a roof which had been welcoming to nurse royalty into position to overtake should the new Pharaoh and majesty fall.

They were wasting their time, trying to raise someone like her. Up into something important.

For she knew it would not last, because nothing had.

Her nose smoothed over milkweed. For a moment, wanting to take in its scent.
But in it, nothingness other than subtle dryness as her body leaned towards it, legs stiffening to plant into position.

But one scent had stuck with her.
Perhaps Aiesha had caught on now. That she could smell where imp could hardly hold a scent.

There, in the distance, a red back slumped into entire exhaustion with the colors of her father burning brighter than every star. She was a child of a pharaoh. Of a god.

Stepmoms were supposed to be evil, she was pretty sure. But imp wasn’t very good at playing roles she had yet to see. Legend hoped it was not too jarring— that Aiesha could use her mind to imagine more malice in the woman’s tone so that a more known story would deliver itself. For that must’ve been easier to think of than the failed tale where a stepmother rose in the absence of the first mother, who was strong and leading and willing to accept or deny love.

Wasn’t sure what she was to Aiesha.
There didn’t need to be anything.
But— lone girl running away until those around stopped caring?
Legend knew all about it.

“Geesh. Now I look like I’m stalking you.”

A shrug of shoulders, looking away towards glittering star lights before the strike of green eyes found her own blues. Didn’t last long, though, before Imp looked back.

“Should’ve known that I would find you here. Didn’t think that you’d be without Khusobek, though.” He was likely already looking. He or her father.
Imp kept walking, albeit much slower, head dipped and wondering absently if there was an end to the ocean of golden fields.

Made it easier to distract from all the other buzzing thoughts.

“Change really does suck, huh?”

To be alone was natural. She was often alone, at least in the way a child might find important. Her parents had been there for a while (Nazli in the beginning, then Senmut, but not ever at the same time); but in the juvenile way that such connections did not count, Aiesha considered herself oftentimes without connection. Her only friend throughout her short life was Khusobek. All this to say, she would not let her singularity in this moment harrow her.

Then there was Legend. This woman who so captivated her father, allowing him to move on and find happiness; thought lost during this recent transit, only to be found again in that throne room. Aiesha heard her voice now and forced herself to breathe, and be calm, and not spill over with her many emotions.

Then their eyes met, and Aiesha felt something shift. Her expression sank. Her eyes became glossy. I don't know what we are supposed to do, now.

It wasn't what she had wanted to say.

Suddenly she is crowding close to her step-mother as if she were still a small girl, seeking comfort. Blotting tears on Legend's shoulder.

Why did the gods do this? Was I not a good princess? Was my father -- did he make them angry? Legend, she finds herself sobbing —I want to go home!

Aiesha approached.

It was with anger, with hatred. Moving close in to take out which had taken her father’s attention away from growing his young daughter up into a woman and not a girl who was lost as all could be. She watched and waited for impact, muscles free of tension and stilling to allow the destructive fallout of a child’s rage to spill over an imp.

Legend’s shoulder was next wet, and a voice of weakness sheltered under her chin. Not even indifference took over Aiesha. Not even misplaced joy. Not even disturbed envy.
And if the once high amiirad had listened to whispering fellahin and disgruntled mazoi, she would not have attempted to reach humanity in the worm of a yaret.

An arm lifted and suspended, until the unlikely occurrence happened, where her wrist desired touch to not still her own mind alone. It was for both of them that it found place on Aiesha’s neck and slowly pushed inward. Her muzzle rested its side against the girl’s head.

“We are lost again.”

Home.
Their last temple?
The one before?
Had either of them ever been given the time to be called home?

Yet it was what they had.

“I desire so badly to have an answer for us. That this is not another sour joke meant for us to endure. You have been dragged through the most intense ringer I have ever seen.” Legend thought she’d seen a lot of them.
But Aiesha had been the worst victim of horrific Fate.

What had they done to be taken away?

“I always wanted to play the biggest game imaginable. And now that I feel like we are in one, I don’t.. know the pieces to play any longer. I don’t know if your father knows either.” And she was supposed to be the best of the best at puzzles, at games, at solving the big mystery.

Ears flopping downwards, a frown pulling down at a jesters mouth which always smiled. But she didn’t think she could do it anymore.

I see you.

Nazli taught her what that meant.
A hug held Aiesha.

“I miss home too.”

It was hard to hear all that Legend said, because she had begun to sob in earnest. It would take time before Aiesha was in control of herself again; but she was cognizant of the way the woman wrapped around her, so careful and so incredulous, and the doubts that she whispered to life.

There was certainty in the way they both ached.

All she could do was sit there, propped against this woman she had wanted very much to hate, and feel a radiant comfort instead. This woman who her father had chosen over her own mother! But that had not been Legend's fault; if anything, her presence had brought a warmth to Senmut which had been fading, and in that way the family had been saved. Now Legend was here to offer her support again, to the grieving girl this time.

They could grieve their losses together.

I am glad that you made it. I—I don't think my father, or myself, could handle losing you, too. She breathed, and slowly her sobbing became something less, as a storm might pass. Aiesha moved to rub her nose and clean her face a little bit, which didn't do much.

What did that mean?

That one could not handle losing another?

For in all realms and possibilities, she had never heard of that one. As if, for some moment, Thoth shifted the mighty hands of Time and lifted up a new universe in the planes of their existence to present to her ignorance a new truth.

Senmut would be fine with Legend gone.
Why not Aiesha?

Tears had seeped into the girls fur too.

Legends head was ringing again. So very, very loudly.

So, she stopped focusing on it to instead focus on the present of reality.

A soft and steady blink, head nodding. The closest to a thank you a weasel knew how to give.

“..Maybe more than ever, you have room to grow now.”

Where they weren’t at war.
Where she didn’t have to fake interest in being royalty.
Where she did not have to worry of her mother’s health.
Where she did not have to worry of her father’s next decision.

Part of Legend’s journey, it was learning that others existed too. That they felt things even if she couldn’t. That her actions affected them.

“I hope — my outburst in the courtroom did not change your fate as it likely has mine. The rulers here are good tempered. I do not see them putting my faults on you, but if they— tell me all about it, and I w-will—. Well, I’ll fix it for you.”

She wasn’t very good at fixing things. It’d probably be a lie of an apology, but— something in her felt mucky and dark if her failures ended up biting Aiesha.

The outburst? Oh—she remembered, suddenly.

You were afraid! We all were. Aiesha sniffled and blotted her nose again. M-maybe I still am. Hushed, now.

That the Pharaoh did not look upon Senmut and see a competitor was clear, and perhaps that was part of why all of this was so jarring. It had been very strange to be given the role of a princess in the beginning and Aiesha had done her best to adapt; but now it was possibly revoked from her, and it had not been a coveted aspect of her life but it had given her freedom.

More room to grow, now.

How could she grow from any of this? It was a preposterous notion. As something she could not yet fathom, Aiesha put it from her mind. She focused on other things, as best she could in this state.

I do not know if this can ever be home for us, but... At least our family is together. At least we have that.

Family.

Had she ever been grouped with the word?

And soaked with the tears of a teenagers grief and her own lostness, there struck a momentary thought of nothingness. That there again, so quickly, nothingness could become something.

“Yeah.”

Why had she never thought of it before?
That it was not Them and Her, but simply—

Them.

“I guess we all are family, aren’t we?”

Why had it been so hard to see before?

Most of them had not asked to be, and yet they were. And she had seen it in many, where repeated acts that others deemed stressful and horrific caused those same people to forge tight bonds, to seek one another’s warmth in the comfort. Maybe she had repeated such things. But so often, and as she knew would happen too, those bonds were only momentarily. Fragile things that took only a singular anomaly to destroy, or for the very thing which had made all parties so distraught to be over with, and for their need for one another to fade.

But Aiesha saw a world where they could all call one another family.
Legend knew only patterns, and was hesitant to learn a new one.

But maybe this one wasn’t so bad.

“We’re gonna keep our family together. Might look a little different at some points, but we’ve made it this far. I don’t really know anybody here, kid, but,” Legend smiled. “We got each other now! Looks like you’re stuck with me! Just make sure not to let them change that. You’re Aiesha to me before whatever new title they throw at you.”

She’d never known this feeling before. Of wanting to run the world with another. And it was with Aiesha.

“We’ll figure it out. Hasn’t stopped us before.”

They would.

“Hope you weren’t planning to run away. I’m a good liar, but you don’t have nothing on me to use if I felt like snitchin’….I haven’t seen this much to explore in forever. I was always..cooped up before, despite going wherever I wanted. Always had to round back to a home I didn’t know. But the world hasn’t looked this enticing to me in forever.” There was a mischievous glint in the adventurers eyes. And for once, the smile was not coy. It was simply a smile. The yearn to wander was there like a hungering beast.

“Me and you? We gotta see what’s out there one day.”
Adventurers Aiesha and Legend, up against the world. When they weren’t busy.

“But if you were planning on goin’ out my style, I suppose no one saw you leave.”
Not even her.

If there was anyone to tell a secret to, it was Legend. And Aiesha..she did not blame, if she wanted to get away from all they had endured.

The way that Legend processed their conversation was lost upon Aiesha, who did not take note of how surprised she was by her connection; they were family, there was no undoing that. She had married in to it, and as the only possible mother present to the young woman, there was a certain dependency brewing. If she were to leave now it would certainly damage whatever was left of Aiesha's trust in the universe—and so no, she would not let anything happen to them.

We're gonna keep our family together. Damn right.

The girl took more comfort in knowing Legend had her back. She was aware of the tumult inside of her now, had caught her here in the dark—somehow knowing the feeling that Aiesha harbored, that sensation that told her to run for the hills, or at the very least to be alone and to hide.

Aiesha swarms even closer, coveting the warmth of the woman's body and the safety it represented. I wasn't going to run away. But she couldn't be certain she was telling the truth. It hadn't occurred to her that it might be an option until Legend gave her support—!

Blinking away the last of her tears, and now thoroughly exhausted, Aiesha's eye drew up to the small dark face beside her: Do you promise? See what's out there one day. There has to be more than sand and sadness in this place.