Ratams surveyed the scene before him. The village was lost and had been long before he and his forces had arrived. Yet another victim of the one-sided aggression from the Desert Elves had been piled up at their feet, and yet more innocent blood tainted their unjust hands. By now, Ratams was beyond feeling any kind of good emotion for the Sand Elves, and nothing but a burning fire of hatred and wrath filled his undead eyes whenever he gazed upon one of the damned bastards who were responsible for such tragedies. However, there were two bright spots of hope among the ashes and ruins of this once vibrant village; a single young child and a man whose deeds were the stuff of legends and fable remained among the razed settlement, and the latter had aided Ratams’ forces in retaking this place.

This man was, in Ratams’s eyes, almost certainly going to be almost solely responsible for the salvation of the Solusand Dominion and that of its immortal Pharaoh. Were it not for him, not only would his cherished ruler be either dead or still under the control of that infernal mage, but he himself would never have been reunited with his master, let alone been able to receive a pardon from her and be given the right to command her forces once again. Lord Vaile was truly a gift from the Sun, and he was a being that his God-Queen desired to be at her side.

Some people from the Dominion had viewed the epics of his legacy as mere myth, but Ratams knew differently. Unlike those who believed he was either a fairy tale or a divine warrior of the Pharaoh, Ratams had seen firsthand the power that Lord Vaile could display. If it were not for him, Ratams and his Pharaoh, Zahra I, would not be nearly as powerful as they were now.

So, here he was, seemingly having arrived in the Dominion’s time of need, ready and willing to bring the fight to the Desert Elves and reclaim more than ten thousand square miles of territory that had been lost to the marauding tribals and, by proxy, to the desert they sought to expand. Ratams knew immediately upon the end of the skirmish what he had to do. His divine master would not be pleased with having to wait for her desired mate to be brought across the vast lands that separated this razed village and her seat of power. No, she would want to see him now and would likely not mind having been called here in the slightest if it meant her reunion with that which some claimed she prized over absolutely everything else.

So, as Ratams approached his Lord, he withdrew a small fetish from within his clothes and snapped it with his mummified fingers. Immediately, the atmosphere in the destroyed village changed and, in the distance, a piercing light like that of the morning star could be seen rocketing towards the heavens from the direction of the Pharaoh’s palace. The light pierced through what seemed to be an invisible wall high above the planet, vanishing through it before piercing back through the star-studded barrier and slamming into the ground just meters away from both Ratams and Vaile.

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Before the light had even begun to fade, Ratams, his soldiers and the little child that Vaile had protected all got on their knees and bowed low to the being that had used the light of the stars to shift her position from many, many miles away. The golden glow began to dissipate and a woman who looked like a supermodel cosplaying as a ‘Sexy Pharaoh’ seeming formed herself from the fading light, her feet not even touching the ground as she reclined on the body of an overly large king cobra whose black and purple form looked to be covered in stapled-on talismans, burned-in hieroglyphs and ringed by the occasional band of what looked to be solid gold that gave the beast a kind of ‘enslaved monster’ vibe.

The woman whose looks would cause many to wonder if a Middle-Eastern version of the goddess Aphrodite who had a thing for stereotyped period costume had descended, and as she opened her eyes her piercing gaze swept across those before her. Her gaze first fell on Ratams, her greatest general, and she was about to demand the answer as to why he had called her out here when there was nothing for her to do.

Then she felt a sensation unlike anything she had felt in quite a while. It was a feeling that seemed to crawl all over her and set her disembodied heart that had long since been removed from her chest and stored within a canopic jar aflutter. She felt the gaze of someone she had vivid memories of piercing her frame from behind, and her monstrously large King Cobra ‘pet’ that doubled as her throne moved around to allow her to see who it was that had such an impact on her.

At first, she could only barely remember who it was she was looking at, but as a second turned into two, she realized whom it was that she was looking at. While his attire had changed significantly since their last meeting, she knew now without a shadow of a doubt that this was the one she had waited seemingly an eternity for. Her lips, which bore lipstick the shade of a deep purplish red, trembled as she tried to keep herself from jumping off her living throne and taking Vaile in her arms. Despite her desire to do what she wanted, she was the Pharaoh and therefore had an image to uphold. However, this did not stop her eyes from watering up and single tear from streaming down her cheek and onto the ground.

Upon her tear’s contact with the sandy dirt, the ground immediately began to show signs of transforming on a fundamental level. The sandy dirt became moister and more suitable for agriculture as the encroaching desert was forced away until a new super oasis had spread for over seventeen miles in all directions from her position. She was barely able to speak at all, but managed to get out barely four sentences.

“It has been an age since we last beheld each other with our eyes, and now you stand upon my nation and have returned to me in our time of need. Truly, the whims of errant fate work in mysterious ways to bestow upon my struggling nation the one who was prophesized to bring our return to glory at such a time. I, Pharaoh Zahra I, welcome you, oh great and beloved savior of mine, to the Solusand Dominion. I… am pleased to have you on my side once again, to save me and mine from the forces of evil and darkness one more time.”