Amun's Prison | Ermes x Fem!Reader

1| Death Waits In The Corner

The minute the sun was gone, Ermes was dead. 

Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. That people must wither like their neighbor plants.

It's a small party that leads the sacrifice, surrounding the hollow shell of a person with torches ablaze and spears gripped tight. The small boy who organized it muddled along, at the very front with a basket of goods weighing in his arms.

The walk to the tombs was a tale of execution, and it was an honor to die. 

Ermes felt the bite of a flame rest just behind her back, urging her forward despite her efforts to drag behind. Wrists bound by ropes that ate at her skin, a cuff on her neck that took away her breath-- it's not like there was an option to leave anyways. She was too weak to run anyhow, the prison food wasn't worth eating.

So, she was dead. She considered herself dead the minute the pharaoh's son marched into the prison, and picked her. 

The pyramids touched the sky, heavens leaning down and kissing their apex with a gentle starry embrace, as more and more eyes of the night opened to watch as Ermes died, as she left stripes of her dragging feet in the cooling sand of the desert.

The prince, with his apricot hair swaying as he moved, turned around to regard her with narrow eyes. Ensuring she was still there, maybe. Or trying to decide if this was what he really desired to do.

Everyone knows the old queens tomb. It's the only one with three pyramids surrounding it nearly as tall, and the only one the people wished had never been made.

Everyone knows the old queens tomb, because everyone wishes she hadn't died.

"She's right in there," The prince said, continuing his walk. The small of his feet pattered against cool stone, and the soft layers of sand left imprint of his visit, just barely.

The queen's chamber was quickly reached, the escorts tactlessly evading the traps and tricks left while the prince danced between each of them with grace, like he'd done it hundreds of times. He probably had done it hundreds of times.

Like she'd washed in with the tide, Ermes was pushed from the back of the group to the front, faced with the heavy casket sprinkled with a delicate coat of dust and sand. Little hands prints disturbed its ancient, peaceful coat, and it was easy to deduce the prince really had been here before, at least once.

"I hope she likes this one." The prince said, most likely to himself, as he stared at the tomb. The dried river of blood by its side told of where her cellmate went last night.

The guards, with a single glare from the prince, quickly moved about, performing an orchestra of chaos as Ermes was prepared to be split open and spilled within minutes. 

"There was always something wrong with the other ones." The prince began to speak again, this time a bit more depressive, like the prospect of the sacrifice was beginning to eat away at his hope. "I wonder if there's something wrong with you, too. Maybe I just don't see it."

The prince continued to watch her, picking apart every little thing he saw as if the most minimal detail could foretell another failure. Parts of her, he grumbled and narrowed his eyes at. Other bits, he sort of nodded at as his eyebrows flew up. To what comparison she was being served to, Ermes was clueless.

When the Embalmer finally looked ready enough, he stepped beside his highness and waited, the prince still occupied with whatever it was about Ermes that bothered him. He looked, and circled, and paced, then realized. No need to dawdle. If this one is no good, he'll find another.