*A/N: So I wrote this at 1:31 AM after finishing some homework and listening to the Aida soundtrack. I've also been inspired to write short oneshots to improve on my writing skills in general, so that I can concentrate on a bit at a time. But whether I wrote this for practice or for entertainment, I do hope you enjoy!

A golden age, the people called it. Our lady, our Isis, our queen, they called her. She was the human vessel of godly power; that was how her young servant Ahuva put it. She was the mighty pharaoh-queen—but she was also simply Amneris.

It had been years since the tragic execution of her dear Radames. Amneris missed him every day, even though she knew he didn't love her as she had loved him. Their small adventures together were timeless joys of childhood. Their brief engagement, however surreal it had seemed at the time, was just a way to keep him at home, near her. Near the woman who had loved him.

But then Radames had fallen in love, only not with Amneris. He had taken with great affection and heart to a Nubian slave girl—she herself had turned out to be the Nubian Princess. When their true-love affair had been discovered, they had been sentenced to death. Amneris had made sure to it that the lovers died within the same tomb. No matter their crimes against the great civilization of Egypt, they deserved that at least.

In the now, Amneris had aged. She never would marry—not after Radames. She couldn't suffer so much heartbreak again. She would never bear children; never give birth to an heir. This golden age of Egypt was not meant to last, she knew. "A new dynasty will rise when I am gone," she had told Ahuva.

When she reflected upon herself, in her mind rather than a mirror, she wondered how she could ever have been the bright young thing who obsessed over her fashions and her trinkets. She was so much darker, so much wiser now. It was fate on one part; the pressures of being Pharaoh certainly affected her mentality. On the other part, it was her lifelong suffering. Her lack of love in her life, whether with spouse or blood family. Her guilt at allowing innocents in love to be executed.

When she was young she smiled. She had moments in between those smiles. When she died, she guessed that she would be smiling to finally leave the earth in peace. But right now was not a smiling moment.

It was one of those in between.