Steam hung over her weary form in thick, wiry strands; like a column of smoke ascending into the sky far above. She stumbled, listlessly, as if her exhausted muscles were suddenly incapable of holding her up after their grueling workout. Thrall caught her in his arms, before she could collapse to the earth below.
She completely surrendered to his embrace, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder, and daring not to upset this small moment of reprieve. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, but he shushed her. "I'm so sorry... I couldn't touch you before, or else I would have joined you in the hold of your electric prison."
She shook her head. "No, It is myself who is in dire need of ignominy." She let her tears soak into the cool skin of his neck, and she shook her face muffled into his shoulder. "I thought I could handle it... You tried to warn me, and I ignored you."
Her breathing was troubled, and her body still shook from the aftershocks of the powerful experience she had undergone, but it never occurred to her to regard the state of her being. No burns or charring registered across the entire breadth of her body's surface, despite all the heat and energy that had just lanced through her like a live wire. Her feathers hadn't even been singed.
Thrall just held her comfortingly, patting her cheek as if to remind her of the marvel that she had remained uninjured. "I see it as a... calculated risk," he tactfully undersold. What she had experienced was nothing less than a lightning strike. It was a wonder that nothing worse had befallen her. It really did seem like she was made for this, after all. "We both share responsibility. I should have explained how electricity manifests first, before I gave you the word. It's clear that you have the gift. Even in your mistakes, you are a wonder."
She sniffled, and looked up at him. Her eyes were wide with the sting of catered inadequacy. "Really? Do you think so?"
Somehow, he seemed to know just what to do to set her at ease, and off-kilter at the same exact time. This seraph... kept finding excuses to put his hands on her. She hadn't neglected to notice this, and quite frankly, she invited it. She wanted him to touch her more.
"Of course. I believe you handled that famously, for a beginner. I have never seen someone harness so much electricity on their first attempt. The thunder is as much a part of you as the wind ever was. I am proud to have unlocked so much potential within you."
His firm hold on her torso steadied her nerves, and steeled her resolve until she was able to support her own weight. She glanced over to the dazed black mass that she had upended with her electro-sonic detonation. "Uh, is he okay?" The crow had resumed his natural posture of lying on his back with both talons stretched into the air. He hadn't the heart to see the woman he had so callously berated before, all lit up like an aurora with the power of lightning hanging off her breath.
Thrall looked over at the little guy, all tuckered out at the sight. Hexes were a much more subtle magic than the tempered elements that Thrall and his woman had brought with them into his world of sardonic manipulation, and poetic mind games.
"Oh, he's alright. It is natural for a bottom feeder to play dead in times of extreme duress."
A gravelly voice croaked out a reply. "Who... are you calling..... bottom feeder..? You, the son of an ox and a plover?"
"See?" Thrall laughed. "He's not even tired, are you buddy?"
"I don't know why Nephthys is allowing me to keep the company of such dangerous louts. Perhaps you two are my punishment for losing her missive." he figured, rolling up onto his legs, and shaking his head upon the sight of the two of them all enrobed in the other's arms, like the cover of a cheesy romance novel one might find in a seedy bookstore on the streets of Los Angeles for a dollar and fifteen cents. "You do know that the two of you are going to have seriously ugly children, together."
Xantheaa's face ruddied, and she could no longer meet the crow's gaze, as he continued. "The two of us, however, would birth such wonderful chicks. Why, the skies would fill with the progeny from our initial co-"
"Alright, that's enough! You both seem to have recovered your spirits, plenty, if you're in such a good mood as to start teasing one another." Thrall could tell the topic of laying eggs was a sensitive subject, for her; so he saw it fit to divert their attention back into the matter at hand. "It's time we entered that gate, don't you think?"
'Aswad was not about to argue about them getting closer to that sweet delicious revenge which he so desired, so he chose to save his flirtatious manner for later. Xantheaa nodded morosely, and tore herself away from his arms, despite herself. "It would have been nice to have some kind of weapon first, but it doesn't seem that I would be able to wield it effectively, without some practice, first."
Thrall nodded, and so they all strolled up the hill, across the plateau, along the adequate stone wall that encircled the border of the open-aired courtyard, and up to the forty-foot tall brick structure that housed the one and only gate into the small temple. It was a mighty feat of engineering for the time, consisting of two monolithic towering pyramidic walls on either side of the seven-foot gate, two slender portholes spaced symmetrically one cubit apart on either side and two-thirds of the way up from the door; topped off with a foot-long cornice at the top level of the imposing edifice.
It was a beautiful structure, even in its own time, built sturdy enough that it would be one of the few features to survive the ages, into the days that Thrall hails from. The gates themselves were thick stone slabs, carved from a single ream of impacted granite, each. They looked like they could tank a mortar round without much difficulty. Thrall unsheathed his blade, and laughed. "So, who wants to knock?"
Xantheaa joined in his reverie, scoffing. "You know, we could have just flown over the tiny little wall, if your princess here weren't so touchy about procedure. The actual courtyard is completely open to the sky, and the wall wasn't even that high."
"I-It would not be right! There is decorum to follow in entering what is sacred ground." 'Aswad puffed out his chest and crowed. "Even if Thoth isn't my god, his land should still be approached with the respect that it deserves. If all creatures treated each other's territories so casually, there would be madness everywhere!"
Thrall nodded. "Good call. The last thing you should do, when trying to ask for a minor god's favor, is to piss him off. That still doesn't answer the question of how we're going to open this door, though."
No sooner did the words exit his lips than the massive stone tables began to grind slowly outward; dust spitting freely from its hinges. Within the temple across the courtyard came a loathsome cutting voice like a shrill cry of an ibis, mixed with the dreadful repartee of a howling baboon. In that dreadful voice, older than even time itself, came a single sentence containing all the necessary context of whom and what they were stepping into. The voice simply uttered, "Welcome, travelers—Enter freely, but leave your conceptions at the façade."