Avaris

 Their dynasty would continue.

 Rashepses lay sated, an arm slung across the honed marble shoulders of @Toula , panting into her nape. “You drain me, Iset,” he laughed.

 Once breath was caught he kissed her neck and rolled up to his elbows to see out over the sands. Kem in his thoughts, as often his son was.

 “Our dark prince is studious and commanding. He embodies Akashingo,” the father mused, prideful. “It is my wish to see Khaemwaset ascend.” Traditionally, the title of Crown Prince was held by the eldest Pharaoh’s son. But while his heart thrummed in equal love, Rashepses believed Khaem had surpassed the crocodilian brother in courtly ways.

 Semer-wati turned eyes to his wife. He did not sense she would disagree— though it was another deviation from the long-established tenements he desired chiefly to uphold.

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 she lays in bliss alongside him, laughing, catching her own breath. she did not know how it was possible for each time to get better and better, but they both defied all odds together—in everything, it seemed! his words were heard and regarded as she considered them.
 she could see it, truly. and it did not mean Den would not be Pharaoh, not if he went far and forged his own destiny as perhaps her own brother had. as Rashepses himself had first set to do!
 but first, “he must first change Ma’at,” her lessons came to her. perhaps all that she has learned so long ago was for this, those questions when she did not even wish to become Pharaoh. “it can be done. but it will not be an easy thing,” she looked to her husband, kissing his cheek. “he is worthy. if it is his wish, he shall do it. the Erpa-Ha shall guide him,” a smile upon her lips. she could see it!
 “he should also become a King—as his mother first was Queen, and his father like him also a King—all before we each became Pharaoh, in our time,” many names, many accomplishments—the trials that led them there would keep them solidly in place! “how brilliant our family is,” she hummed, thinking on how it would only grow to become more-so. she was not yet in season—the Gods had the good grace to let them settle, at least!

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 “He is already changing Ma’at,” the man crooned, “we should test him, next— send him abroad. Put him in charge of an expedition. Provide him an opportunity to prove his might as prince beneath the Gods’ eyes,” he felt his heart swell for his son.

 As Toula spoke, Rashepses dragged a soft claw over the flatness of her belly. In each of them he saw so much of her. “It is your brilliance, wife.” Wife. His. Ever his.

 “I want you in a proper throne by the time your season comes, ” he nuzzled down her sweet-smelling spine. Infinitesimal grains of sand tinted his kiss. “ I want you in a proper bed.”

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 she does not disagree with his thoughts, nor his idea—her smile broadens to hear it. she remembered her own first time abroad! Toula reaches out to him and kisses his cheek. “a grand idea, yes! how he will impress Them!” no, he would not fail—not their son. unflawed perfection, in her own eyes—each of them. “I see what you see, as do the Gods. but that alone cannot change Ma’at. it must be done with blood,” she remembers. and if their son felt it was right, he would be willing to make the sacrifice.
 she thought in quiet for a moment, considering. then she speaks softly, “my sister changed Ma’at. and when our father passed into the Land of Reeds, she…” had disappeared. Toula wondered if it was because perhaps, “…she was fierce, my love. strong. if I never thought to be Pharaoh in my youth, it was because I knew she could carry the weight of it. much of our son… reminds me of her. I see he is capable,” she leans against him, “but we must be certain he is ready. if I…” she did not wish to speak of it, the time in which she would someday move on into the Land of Reeds and be with their children no more! she did not fear death, but was not ready to be separated from those she loved most—
 his gesture, his affection, grounded her. brought her back to him, away from the place they two had drifted two before emerging here. she rises, spinning to kiss him upon the lips before darting backward, throwing her head back in a laugh. they lived! they lived, and they were brought here, where all that they wished would come true—“shall we find them?” she invites, her eyes filled with many things!

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 “We are deathless,” Rashepses’ voice lifted to cover her’s, releasing the tight clot that had formed there with his wife’s implication. “See how our gods have ordained it, with this New Kingdom. Soon They will see also how our Khaem is a god of eloquence and torment, who understands the power of Pharaoh.” Though in raising one son to his heart, the father wondered at his second. If to change Ma’at was drawn in blood, would Khaemwaset commission the death of his brother? Would his wife also carry such dangerous thoughts?

 He did not ask now, not with her warmth there beside him in the sinking light. He could see the edge of her face, the rounded jaw and gentle curve of eyelid. He wanted to look into them, a thousand times he had seen their teal and still he felt a rush when they turned his way. A paw ran against the curve of her thigh, desire growing swiftly again. But before he could feed her with his zenith, she was dancing away, gaze shaded with black pools and a call that opened to drink him, pull him back into her.

 Rashepses sprang to his paws and made a rough dash for his wife, grunts of amusement and possession dripping with want as they drove across the rippling sands.

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 deathless. perhaps that was true here, and she did know that they were eternal—she let herself be comforted. for although there were many unknowns, they surely lived now! and it was that which moved her then, propelling her forward as much as she wished to lean back into the arms of her husband. there was time for that still this day, but she would first seek to grant his wish!
 he would see her upon a throne. her thigh felt a dozen sparks where he had touched, and she thought then that he would do more than only see her there—one glance back, and he might easily read the thought upon her features that were ever an open book for him!
 nearly a mistake, he was almost upon her! she laughed joyously to see him give chase in earnest, knowing her head start would only help her for so long! he was the one their son had acquired his swiftness from, Toula recognized with a beaming smile as she pressed ahead—a discovery that filled her heart with all the more love for the man that then gave chase!
 she might have let him capture her then and there, had something strange not appear to be jutting outward, upward, in the horizon. it looked as stone would, like upon a mountain, but it was certainly not in the shape of any formation she had ever seen before. Toula changed her trajectory, moving toward it, asking between panting breaths, “have you seen such a thing before?!”

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 Toula laughed; it was a pretty sound as she broke away and guided them over slip-face dunes. So enraptured by the billowing of blonde tail and shapely legs that Rashepses was halved in interest as the distant rise fell into his periphery; only returning his full attentions when his wife’s call hearkened for his ear.

 Their lopes brought them to a viewpoint of this mount and the king was first certain that their great mesa had been resurrected in this desert. For there it rose, like the pride of Pharaoh above a spill of molten gold waters. Not a play of light but strong and vivid.

 “Come,” Rashepses urged to Toula’s cheek and sped out across the water to the opposite bank. From the shade of acacias and long-stemmed papyrus beds did the king first lay eyes on the intricate carvings of the new mesa, and as they moved closer in awe dancing shadows brought to life these enormous figures of stone who guarded a singular tall entrance at their center.

 "Great Gods," he murmured, and this was all. For once, Rashepses was moved to silence.
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 she moved with her husband, awed by the sight that grew and grew the closer they moved toward it. acacias, papyrus beds, yes—and sycamores, a variety of palm trees, tamarisks too, all there and inviting, existing there for centuries in an appealing sort of symmetry Toula could not wrap her mind around!
 and the mountain, oh! it took shape in certain areas into things of which Toula had never before seen, and so did not know—not for what it truly might be, but as her husband spoke, she nodded slowly. “it is Them,” she whispered her belief, looking now to the massive entryway that yawned before them in an open arch. golden light poured within, but still she stood in awe of what they two had found, transfixed!
 what awaited them within, she wondered? could it be more beautiful than this? in reverent silence did she step ahead, though not without her husband.

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 Together they cast long shadows upon the stone floors of a great hall, the vastness of such a place inviting wolfkind to seek out what lay within her deeper cavities. A sudden wind off the lagoon swirled through them, fluttering their cheeks and tails so that for an instant their dark casts were set into dancing motion and Pharaoh and king blurred as one. The breeze passed as swiftly as it had come, but the whispers remained around great stone pillars like the howls of Gods.

 Golden eyes shot wider, a turned nose thrust beneath the majestic splendor. The Gods took, but on this day they gave.

 There Rashepses mounted a kiss to his wife’s lips, hand guiding her back close. “It is them,” he echoed with a grin and together they gazed into the depths of this grand house of Gods.

 The King guided them further, passing through curving halls and from one chamber into the next. Rooms of differing height and scale and color, some with naturally occurring flora, others dry and red as rare meat. Precious stones glittered in walls, and as they stepped the channels expanded into a grand chapel flooded with beams of natural light, where a ceiling of the cosmos awaited nightfall. The holy of holies. The beginning of the new world.

 “Toula,” he exhaled as a man and inhaled as a God. They had found the eternal kingdom.
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