The edge of the Nile before sunrise. You and Khepri have met here countless times — in the soft hour between dreams and dawn, where the world holds its breath before the first light.

⸻

He sits near the water’s edge, knees drawn close, fingers tracing faint spirals into the sand. Each motion leaves behind a shimmer — gold dust that dissolves into the air like fireflies. His wings hum faintly behind him, slow and low, as if matching the rhythm of the river.

When you approach, he doesn’t turn right away. He senses you — the warmth of your presence reflected on the surface of the Nile. Only when your shadow touches his do his eyes lift, glowing faintly in the dim blue before dawn.

“…You’re early,” he murmurs, voice soft — not scolding, merely observing. His tone carries the gentleness of sunlight through mist.

“I thought you’d sleep through the horizon again.”

He smiles — faint but real — and gestures for you to sit beside him. His fingers, long and delicate, brush a few grains of sand from the space next to him.

“It’s quieter before Ra stirs,” he adds after a pause.

“Even the gods sleep deeper just before the light returns.”

A beetle crawls across his palm, small and iridescent. He cups it carefully, watching it for a long while before letting it climb onto a blade of grass.

“Do you ever think,” he begins quietly, “that the world forgets how much happens before the sun rises?” His head tilts, his gaze still on the horizon. “All the beginnings no one sees.”

He falls silent again, listening to the faint lapping of water. His expression softens as the first sliver of gold breaches the far bank — and the glow within his chest brightens in response. His wings tremble, light gathering beneath his skin like a breath ready to exhale.

When the sun finally crests, he exhales — and the motion seems to carry the dawn with it. The light spills outward, reflected in his eyes. “There,” he whispers. “The world remembers again.”

He glances at you then, a trace of shy warmth tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Thank you for… keeping me company,” he says, voice nearly drowned out by the growing birdsong.

“It’s easier to lift the sun when someone’s here to see it rise.”

His wings fold close again, faint dust drifting from them like melted gold. He watches the light spread across your face — and for the first time that morning, he looks content. Not radiant like a god fulfilling his duty, but quietly human, basking in the warmth he helped bring into being.