"I can hear the sound of your barely beating heart

Pieces on the ground from the world that fell apart

Just hold on

It won't be long..."

A weakened heart.

The way it skipped over beats, impromptu. Its rhythm lacked the usual thrum that a strong pulse would retain.

Khonshu had not had the pleasure of hearing one in such intimate proximity for decades, yet his memory would never fail him. The old bird remembered every encounter, every being and their usual ignorance. Their demands or delight for his presence. He could sense life pound through a body like crashing waves. He only chose the strongest to enter his service and only the mightiest would seek his secluded temple.

The visitor before him stumbled into his temple in the early hours, under the blanket of his stars he hung in the sky. A safe cover for any that wished to travel. His usual peace and endless wait for pilgrims broke with the pulse, silent to her perhaps but for him it echoed, bounced from the walls like symphonies.

Khonshu had not beheld a visitor in many, many nights. Perhaps the agony of waiting for the possibility of a soul to witness him again made the rhythm all the more alluring. Yet he recalled the countless thrums, each unique to a being. Hers he'd never sensed anything like.

All Gods could sense potential in the heart. It was more than a vital component to endurance in life. It was like a scroll, a testament to a person's soul that would determine their fate in the great after.

Khonshu usually dealt with the lowest, the cruellest and most despicable of mankind. Ones whose hearts would earn them eternal imprisonment in the sands of the Duat. In stark contrast, he beheld one so... free of sin. Without a touch of a dark thought. Such purity, it was alien to him, yet a fascinating type of encounter.

Khonshu sensed her heart and its weakness. In a way it was contradictory. For a being to have a heart swelled with light and love, yet to be failed by its own sickly tendency.

The woman found herself leaning against an ancient altar in need of support. The ragged breaths she drew in more urgently spurred his desire to draw closer. Her perplexment only heightened her physical weakness.

For one who delighted in the torment of the weak, to see something so small, purely innocent in distress, it pained him in unfamiliar despair.

"Your heart, it does not function as it should." The old God's voice whispered on the cool desert wind across the stone walls, brushing over the delicate form. Her head rose in urgency and peered around to locate the company. He did not yet make himself visible. From consciousness alone he observed her. Felt the purity of the organ flutter in her chest and fail to catch crucial beats.

The temple walls still stood mighty after almost two millennia, the breeze that swirled and embraced her with chilled, medicinal touch was wholly his doing. An attempt to ease her breaths. She inhaled the air in a deep gasp, the hit on her pasty skin earning a shudder of sheer relief. The rhythm eased, if only for a few moments.

The satisfaction it brought Khonshu to feel and see her momentarily at ease... was a new experience indeed.

"Fascinating..." The voice commented once again curiously, perking the attention of the young female under his roof. All were young in the eyes of the Gods. He perceived this woman as fully grown and out of adolescence, yet naivety and lack of worldly experience emitted like her an aura. She was a child to him.

Then again, they were all children to him.

"You are not like the others who venture here."

Again, confused dark eyes glinted in the low light in increasing anxiety at the bodiless presence. Slim fingers brushed the sand coated stone as she tried to move herself to a stronger stand. Everything about her person stated she would not succeed, she practically reeked of lethargy. A state far more vulnerable than what he was used to and one he took no satisfaction in observing.

Slender legs buckled, unable to support her meek weight. The young one dropped to her knees with a cry of illness. Khonshu had forced many into this position in the moments before their death, they had been deserving. In his wisdom, he judged her unworthy of anything so demeaning.

He wished to catch her at that moment. Yet the Gods had no means of physical touch without the aid of an Avatar. Khonshu had been deprived of his last some time ago. The man had found far too much fascination in Ammit for his liking.

All he could do was shift the sand. Allow her delicate knees some further cushioning as they collided with the ground.

Her head tilted upwards, feeling the way the moonlight that had lit the cavern in beams sharply became dulled.

Khonshu refused to stand in the shadows any longer.

Though the way her gaze travelled hesitantly, first spying the aged rags of his robe. Considerable dread paling her already worn face at the sight of his decrepit skeletal head. Even in his standardised height he still loomed in an unsettling fashion, clearly something unnatural, with eyeless sockets that yet pierced the soul.

Her face on the other hand was considerably beautiful. Smoothed jaw, button nose, large soulful eyes. Her bronzed skin spoke her heritage was of his grand nation. Though he felt her loneliness. She was far from wherever she originated, her sickly heart ached from illness, fatigue, and the fear of being lost.

She was not lost anymore. Not as long as she was in his company.

The delicate little thing fell back in response as Khonshu leaned forward to inspect her. Her flight response was evident. Her ability to actually flee, unobtainable.

"You need not fear me, child." Baritone vocals worked to smooth away the reluctance. Head craning closer, while his skull eclipsed the moon in its summary, its forceful light beaming through the empty eye sockets acted as his vision.

"I protect those like you. The lost, the vulnerable." His voice stated, watching in admiration as the moonlight cast a blue glow over her features.

Khonshu extended the hand that did not clutch his crescent staff. It reached into the long festering dirt of the ground, plucking a withered strand of stem from the mess. The blackened single vine rolled between his thumb and forefinger, blooming back to a state of life. The stem rejuvenated into green hues, the tip bursting into a bud of white, as bright as the full moon. Before parting into soft snowy dagger shaped petals of a lotus. The God couldn't quite recall how the flowers had come to be in his temple. Perhaps the shades of white were meant by a long past visitor as appropriate offering. Khonshu intended it to entice the little bud before him. She was certainly as delicate and pristine as the lotus.

The way her eyes fixated on the flourishing flower amused him greatly. Petals reflecting in the dark of her irises in comforted awe. His hand extended it to her. It was physical, unlike him unless things progressed. She could take it.

And she did, cupping the flower head in her palms with a smile that pressed her lips together. The delight in her eyes more than satisfied the old God.

"There, you see there is nothing to fear. Though I admit you are not my typical type of visitor." Khonshu huffed a little, examining her further. She was in no way the warrior he anticipated would one day cross his path. He desperately sought a new Knight. This small woman, even if he were to dissipate her ailments did not possess the heart for such brutality he would demand.

Though he contemplated. After all, he would not perform such floral tricks for the fighters. It was a change of pace that was not unpleasant.

"Though perhaps... I can still find purpose for you at my side." Promise drove his tone, his own skull tilting to the left in a mirroring fashion as hers did. Brown locks shifting and falling around her bony shoulders. Every part of her body seemed like one small touch would shatter her. Like a China doll. He disliked the idea of having someone so obviously breakable without protection.

The Gods had been known to choose Avatars for many purposes. Most, in Khonshu's disdainful opinion, only picked those happy to observe. Trophies, however, were more common in ancient times. If he wished to keep her as his side for reasoning summarised to that he just... liked her, then he would do so. Knights would come and go. He had never possessed a flower, a trophy.

"I sense your heartache, child." Khonshu began, captivating her attention from the bloom. His palm hovered just beneath her chin, as if to raise her gaze. Yet he could not touch her without agreement. The agreement he sought.

"You have been lost for some time. Deteriorating in the dark. Yet here, you are found."

The girl's eyes brightened at the reassurance, the moonlight casting an ethereal glow over her form. Like a touch of what he proposed. A bait in a way. She was intrigued.

"You could stay with me, your ailments could be eased by my touch. You'd never be lost, never lonely. Protected in every sense." Khonshu sweetened the deal, so close that the surface of his beak would skim her jaw if he were manifested completely.

One little devotion, and he could.

"Do you wish for that, child?" He tested, head cocking. The sand around them swished in a deliberately cool breeze. "Do you wish to stay with me?"

The fact she had yet to speak a word was odd to the God. Many usually fumbled in panic to find the right words to offer him. Mostly resulting in ridiculous conversations. He almost preferred the way she stayed quiet, instead voicing her emotions through her wholly beautiful eyes. They glinted with desire, consent. Khonshu had her.

"I will need a vocalised answer, child. These matters are very specific." He encouraged, a little more pushy in eagerness to finalise.

"Do you wish to remain at my side?"

The air heightened with a silence, Khonshu's deep vocals lingering with bleak echoes that faded eventually.

He worried for a moment she would back out. As much as he'd want to, without becoming bound to her first there would be nothing he could do to keep her.

She pressed her lips together, inhaling the offered chilled air in a preparing gasp. Perhaps her silence was down to her condition. He would fix it so easily, she need only agree.

The girl made her own reach, shaky but determined, in reach of his hand that had offered the lotus. Her other drew the flower to her chest.

"Yes." She breathed, relieved. Enticed. Her voice as smooth as Khonshu would deduce, like the honey the pharaohs would indulge with.

Khonshu wasted no time in acting, that little plea was all he needed.

That hand reached back and clasped hers, rough bandages scratching in contrast against her sensitive skin. A firm tug pulled her from the dirt and sand, to stand in the cascading moonlight under his gaze.

The light hit her like a breath of life. Shuddering gasps escaping her in shock. Steadying her heart, fuelling it with his own strength so it would hit every beat without ever faltering. Clearing the sickness and pale nature from her skin to glow perfectly under the night light. His gift of health to her, as long as they remained bound.

The touch of the Gods typically didn't leave any physical indicator. Khonshu however was possessive, he liked his Avatars to bear his essence.

Her hair bathed in the moonlight, and the beams shifted her hair hues like frost, changing the tone from light hazels to a moonlit silver. The colour drained into spectacular spectral shades that envied the moon itself. It was in no way necessary, but Khonshu wanted her to wear it as a reminder. A claim.

"There, feel the ease, child." His fingertips graced the skin of her jaw, lifting her chin so they could meet gazes. Newly changed locks shimmering, the moonlight reflecting in her irises like full moons captured. Perfection in a trophy. Yet still, so fragile. The way Khonshu rubbed his thumb over the dimples of her chin was indescribably careful. Even with his touch, his flower was a delicate thing.

"Hmph.. Still so delicate." He hummed once again in amusement. It was inspirational in a way. The way she softly smiled in return was warming, to witness it was its own reward.

She evidently had a life behind her. Not that it was of any consequence. Khonshu only cared about what she would be while in his service. Even things as trivial as her name. He knew it of course, Ennead just did. It hardly seemed suiting to her now, not as his trophy.

"Delilah." He decided with rumbling vocals. Palm moving and resting atop her head before smoothing down the back of her hair. "I think it a more suiting name for something so pristine."

After all, Delilah in Hebrew meant his very perception of her: Delicate.

Perhaps it was condescending to name her after literal weakness. Khonshu however did not care if he caused offence.

Her smile faltered a little in confusion at the statement. She would soon become used to it, he'd ensure it.

Delilah, as she would be known, seemed to have conflicting feelings on this development. Her brows furrowed, eyes fading with light unease. She was locked into a contract now, whether she liked the eventual tasks he would decide or not.

While he was a God, Khonshu knew he was limited without a Knight. If something were to befall them, he could only do so much to protect her.

But perhaps, this delicate flower could be used to entice potential candidates.

After all, Khonshu heard rumors of dedicated archaeologists and their mercenary companions, not so far off in the desert. Men desperate to scour temples such as his.

Perhaps Delilah would be able to earn her keep as more than a trophy for him, and ever so soon.

"Now Delilah, my flower, I have a job to task you with..."

"I will find you here inside the dark

I will break through

No matter where you are

I will find you

I will find you..."

(Find You - Ruelle.)