Even though Sutekh knew that it wasn’t necessarily true, he felt that he had no choice, but to forcefully wield the power afforded to him by his new half-sister. It was something that did not want to do under any circumstances. After all, this was a sort of power that he only held in informality. He was not a trueborn prince as Hatshepshut’s child would be once they were born. He was little more than a charity case, saved from destitution by a girl who was desperate for a family member that did not see her as some pawn for political games. His power was afforded to him by the queen and the queen alone. He did not have the support of the Queen Mother or the Pharaoh himself and Sutekh knew how razer thin that made his ability to use the title he had been given. He could not enforce any sort of royal proclamation without the support of his sister, leaving room for others to ignore Sutekh as they knew just as well as he did that the young man had no real authority to follow through with the threats he made.

Bastards had no real power, after all.

He knew that there was a high chance that the man who raised him would ignore the summons. After all, the last six letters that Sutekh had sent in the course of two months had gone unanswered. It was more than clear that Sidar did not want anything to do with Sutekh, even going as far as to pretend that the boy did not exist. Perhaps if these events had occurred earlier on in Sutekh’s life, he might have had an easier time accepting it. However, that was an impossible thing for the former Sheifa heir to do at this moment in time. How could he forgo the only father figure he had ever known when the prince knew that his life was now marked with the promise of his shortcoming death? He wasn’t even being given the dignity of an execution where the Prince would have had no way to escape the swing of the excutioners blade. No, instead he was being made to fight for the few scraps of his own life as if he was some common dog and not a man. He was being battered and weakened through the means of needing to starve himself in order to avoid poison from his wicked step-mother -- a woman who hated him solely on account that he was the living proof that her husband had been unfaithful. He had to scurry like a mouse to avoid the jealous. authoritarian gaze of his brother-in-law who had already decided that Sutekh should die on the battlefield just for the sole crime of being the son of a former pharaoh. When Sutekh had been born and presented to the world as Onuphrious’s son, he had had the world in his hands. It had been a simple truth that he would have a bright future as a man safe in his role in life -- but now that had been turned on him. He was a dead man walking with all the fears of knowing that death was coming for him, but powerless to stop it from reaching him.

Why wouldn’t he try to turn to the man who raised him in a moment like this?

It didn’t matter what had happened between Iaheru and Imopehatsuma that quarter-century ago. Sutekh was Onuphrious’s son. The Sidar had raised him as his own and instilled every value that the Prince had within him. It had always been the Sheifa leader that Sutekh turned to when he was faced with a problem he could not solve, so that he might be given the tools he needed to work things out. That’s all Sutekh wanted. With a violent and immentient death on the battlefield looming over his shoulder like a dark cloud after his personal appointment to the rank of Deputy-General by the Pharaoh, Sutekh needed someone with a level head to remind him what he needed to do to stay alive. Someone who could see what Sutekh couldn’t in the blind panic that came with spending every waking moment looking for the other shoe to drop -- for his luck to run out. As much as Sutekh longed to meet with Imopehatsuma so that the man might answer the questions that plagued the son he never acknowledged during his time in the mortal realm, he did not want to do it so soon and under these circumstances. When he was born he had been a bright shining star. He did not want to die in disgrace simply because he had been sired by the wrong man.

Though this was not all that Sutekh wished to accomplish as the morning rays of Ra’s blessing flickered over the Nile, casting a warm orange glow on its waters. There was something else that he had to do now that he was finally going to have the chance to address the man who had raised him after two months of silence. Onuphrious was a man that Sutekh held a great amount of respect for, even in spite of the man’s callous actions. He could not bear the burden of going to his feather-weighing without some sort of resolve between the two men. They had once been so close, Sutekh couldn’t fathom embracing his death with this divide still between them -- after all, neither of them were arguably innocent in everything that had happened. Neither of them had anything to do with the actions of a greedy Pharaoh.

Sutekh had held out hope that maybe this would change as he scribbled out his forceful invitation for Onuphrious to join him on the royal barge. However, as the man now approached the royal barge, Sutekh could see the hard, cold expression plastered upon his face. That was far from a promising sign and the visible falter in that barely-there hopeful smile would have been clear as day to Onuphrious if the man had dared to look at him. Sutekh was not blind to how the older man refused to glance in the direction of the Prince standing underneath the great red canopy in the middle of the boat, ready to great the guest who so clearly did not want to be here. The Bastard Prince knew that it was an obvious form of disrespect being shown to him, however he did not comment on it as the guards cleared Onuphrious and allowed him to walk onto the boat. Sutekh knew that he had already ordered the older Sheifa man around enough and if he wanted this to end on any sort of positive note, he was going to have to avoid bringing down the weak powers he held as prince upon his former father. There was a reason Sutekh had Onuphrious set aside two days as he knew that what had occurred between them would not be undone in the course of a day.

However, it did pain him greatly that he couldn’t great the man with any sort of familiar greeting as Onuphrious roughly barked out his question. Any hints of hope that this was going to go well instantly dissipated from the boy’s face. For two months, Sutekh had dared to hope that maybe once he saw Onuphrious again, that things would somehow be alright again. After all, it was easy to spurn someone when they were out of sight, but when they were right in front of you? That would clearly be a difficult thing for them to do. Sutekh had not thought that Onuphrious would not be capable of it. He had genuinely thought that the love and pride he had held for the boy over the past twenty-four years would be enough to override the hatred held now, but he had clearly thought too much of Onuphrious. He had always thought that the man was not one to held a petty grudge. That once others were away, he would reveal his true self. That’s why the royal barge was sparsely staffed. There were only two royal guards, two sailors, and two serving girls, the bare minimum of what they would need for the next two days and all had been told to stay out of sight if possible. He had believed that Onuphrious would once again allow himself to be the father that he had always been for Sutekh. That this would be just another fishing trip and everything would be right in the world. But even now, Onuphrious held that anger towards Sutekh.

He could only pray that it would fade in the days to come.

Before the prince, he signaled to the sailors to release the barge from its mooring as he did not want to give his former father the chance to walk away from Sutekh once he revealed why he had summoned Onuphrious in the first place. Once the ropes had been released, the barge floated lazily away from the dock, making it impossible for anyone on board to leave unless they wanted to take their chances by swimming in the croc-infested waters. It was only then that Sutekh answered his father’s question, acting as if he had not been showing the young man a severe amount of disrespect from the moment he had boarded his boat. “We are going to go fishing.” He stated plainly, quietly bracing himself for the impact of this declaration. Onuphrious was not going to be pleased with this. Fishing was something that was almost sacred to the older man and it was well known that he did not go on these trips with just anyone. If you were invited along, that meant that the man held a deep amount of respect for you. So, Sutekh forcing his hand and making him tag along was something that was not going to be taken kindly. However, Sutekh again didn’t feel as if he had much of a choice. He needed as much time as he could muster with Onuphrious and this was the best excuse he could come up with.

Waving the man forward, Sutekh walked a bit further back to a map that had been laid out for Onuphrious to see where exactly they would be going. “We will sail up the nile and see how close we can get to the ocean before it gets too late. We will return tomorrow, shortly after dark.” His words were simple and matter of fact, leaving no room for Onuphrious to argue with them. Not that he really could. After all, the man was on the royal barge and he had spent the last two months making it painfully obvious that which one of them held the royal blood here.

Sutekh could only hope that he wasn’t so displeased with what the boy he had raised had done that the man was more willing to take his chances with the hungry crocs then spend two days trapped on a boat with his wife’s bastard.