A/N: This oneshot can be read as a sequel of sorts to my other SM oneshot "Survivors," but can be read independently as well. Takes place in Ancient Egypt, a few months after the end of the War.

She stood beside him, still and serene, in the temple of Amon. It was her serenity that was the most unnerving—not the spells that the priests were muttering, not the unfamiliar feel of the false beard on his chin, not even the weight of the blue khepresh crown. It was the fact that she—his wife, he realized suddenly, his queen—hadn't hopped, skipped, jumped, or even fidgeted for over an hour. He strained to glance at her out of the corner of his eye, almost expecting to see that she had turned to stone, become a mummy where she stood or that the ceremony truly had turned her into the goddess Hathor, like the priests said.

She was none of those things—except perhaps the last. She was a beautiful, elegant lady with all the refinement that a court can provide and a somber expression perfectly fit for the occasion. It suddenly felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room and his heart had been replaced by a millstone as he stared at the stranger beside him. And then, beneath the gilded vulture headdress, she winked at him. The tightness in his chest eased, and he knew then that it would be alright.

She squeezed his hand as the priests finished their blessings and they turned to face the crowd. "Nervous?" he whispered. She nodded, but her face didn't show it. "Don't be. You are a goddess now," he reminded her. "The living incarnation of Hathor."

"I don't feel any different," she murmured, but the quiver in her voice betrayed her. It was different, irrevocably different, and they could both feel it.

"Is everything going to change now?" she whispered nervously a moment later.

"No." He shook his head slightly. "Everything has already changed, Priestess."

"Don't call me that." Instinctively, her fingers went to the Ring around her neck.

"No, you're right," he muttered. "You are a queen now."

Now they stood, side by side, at the balcony that overlooked the temple courtyard. The courtyard teemed with people, cheering and triumphant, desperate to celebrate some happy news in their broken land.

He squeezed her hand. "Ready?"

"No," she sighed. "But when has that ever mattered?"

She wasn't Kisara and she never would be. He knew the aching bittersweetness of the love and the pain—too tightly twisted together now to ever be unwound—that he felt for Kisara would never go away, although in time, he prayed, it would fade it to a dull ache. But life had to go on, just as Ra was born anew every morning. The king—how he wished he could remember his named—had become Osiris, and now he was Horus. And Horus needed a bride.

The moment that the councilors had broached the subject with him, he knew that resistance was futile. He had also known who his choice must be.

He didn't love her. He didn't even know it he was capable of loving anyone anymore. She didn't love him either; her heart was just as badly bruised and broken as his. And that was why. She was the only one who would understand that there was a place in his heart she could never occupy, and accept it. She would understand that the feeling they could not share was not as important as the feelings they could, and did. They shared a deep love for the Egypt they both had sacrificed so much for, and an understanding that they had to move forwards and forge a new future from the ashes of the past. And they were both all the other had.

He stepped forward and raised his hand to quell the crowd's cheers. "People of Egypt," he shouted, "I present to you the Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Living Hathor, my wife, Queen Mana."

Wild cheers erupted from the populace below, and on the terrace, the musicians and dancers broke out into celebratory song. All of Egypt seemed delighted. He wished he could share it. His heart felt as cold and heavy as a millstone.

"The sun is setting," Mana whispered. Her hand felt clammy in his. He wondered if she was as nervous about this coming night as he was. There was so much they would have to get used to in the next few months. It wouldn't be easy, but then nothing had been easy since the world had crumbled a few short months ago.

Mana was still staring at the sky, watching Ra's death-throes fade from blood-red to amber as the sun was swallowed up by Mother Nuit. "But it will rise again in the morning." She turned to look at him as smiled, and for a second she almost looked like the carefree girl she had once been, before she had become a high priestess, a queen, and a survivor. "And we will rise with it," she said.

It almost didn't matter if it didn't, because the hope that shone in her eyes could have lit the whole country, On sudden impulse, he bent and kissed her, not caring about the fresh waves of applause that broke out below, but only the soft, giving warmth of her mouth against his.

The kiss was brief, too brief to begin to plumb the desires that unexpectedly stirred in him. But they had time for that. They had the rest of their lives.

Mana looked up at him with questioning eyes, her color high beneath her golden skin. He smiled. "To the future," he murmured. May it be brighter than the past.

She leaned in towards him, lifting up her face. "To the future."

As the sun set and crowds cheered wildly, their lips met again.