Aldebaran is accustomed to the biting tone of women stronger than their stations often allowed them to express. He much preferred the ones inclined to express it in the open, to not hide behind pretty teasing insults and instead cut to the quick. Thus, he had surrounded himself with the women who made up the Sisters of Pakhet. Half platoon of warrior women meant for the army and half warrior wives meant to stabilize the households they wed into - they were short of no amount of brandished teeth and white-trimmed gazes.

Sakhmet is beautiful, she is fury-barely-contained, and she is good of heart or else she would not have relinquished herself to the desert instead of charging to part his brother and what very likely was his Soul Sewn. He bids her race with him, coaxing her by challenge, to forget what pained her. It would not be permanent forgetfulness - nor would it stem the ache in witnessing her - but there was every chance that there would be respite here and now. Long enough, perhaps, to let her face it stronger and with more preparations made.

He can see it when she decides, no amateur to miss the coiling of familiar muscles or the bunching of her sleek haunches. Her headstart on him is because her defiance is beautiful and he lingers in his admiration long enough that she passes him by.

He guffaws and whoops like the raucous boy he would always be, taking up the charge alongside her but never within reach of hoof or teeth. He is not so dull as his boisterous nature might imply. He has run messages in battle, has crossed hill and plain and dune to bring words from king to king. He is a runner who was deemed to be without match and so he makes this fun. Fun because she needed to run fast enough to escape her burdens a while. Fun because he knew nothing else when the breath of Shu brought his blood up and gave him wings to fly.

And fly he does, matching her pace, eyeing her form and finding it lovely for one unaccustomed to relinquishing one’s whole being into the wind and air and elation. He is a supplicant at the feet of Shu his every waking moment and when she stretches her stride even further, he does so with only two hoofbeats spared to watch her find her rhythm in the greater speed.

They launch into the dunes, sides heaving great breaths into their lungs, eyes drying for the awesome speeds they attain. Her tail flies behind her, swept parallel by the winds, and her mane stretches back in desperation to keep hold of her crest. He knows that his own, though thick and sometimes more sedate when he ran an average pace, does the same in these greater - heart-bursting - speeds. He leaps the peaks of the last dune they breach, throwing himself forward with enough momentum to cut cross her path in an intent to slow her.

"Peace, Sakhmet! We will die if we do not return to Shu his breath - he is too jealous a god to leave us mortal if we show ourselves to love him too well. I have seen it."