Luneshale Pass bite & blood

@Inji, spirited behind columns of strong white sandstone where the starglow did not reach.

khusobek controlled himself, breathing the fragrance of her, lighting himself afire by the shadow-smudged smoulder of her strikingly beautiful eyes.

"tonight, when the feast has ended, go to rashepses. say you are a gift."

without his touch; his hungers unsated. "it will not be long before the queen must choose. make sure that man favours you also."

Blah, blah, blah. Politics, poison; either way, Inji drifts to Khusobek, a feather, fluttering. Is this for my benefit? her head comes to a defined tilt, eyes aglow beneath the soft light of the scattered stars, nimble figure a mere shadow. Or for yours?
Rashepses was the one foreign man she knew nothing of, having not yet met him; she caught a glimpse of his smoky eyes only briefly during the Queen's ceremony, and that was it. Khusobek favored him, and she knew not why — and this cold command of his, no touch given from him, frightened her.
Will he even want anything to do with me if he wants to marry the Queen, anyway?

"for us both," khusobek grunted, for there was no reason to lie. "by the gods, you truly are a vision," the man swore suddenly, lightly; in this moment was inji every visage of a queen.

"but you do not know what it is to be in a palace beneath a pharaoh. first, all the queen possesses will belong to him, including her courtiers. you are her dowry," khusobek said plainly, and at last realized that beneath his sheer ambition was worry, too, for what rashepses might wreak upon them.

"become her spy instead." his cold eyes dared, challenged. "i believe his men will only heed him, come what may. a favorite companion is the first to know such things. serve your queen by becoming her eyes in pharaoh's court."

A spy.
She thinks upon Eset, of the way her spindly arms wrapped around her in a sense of shared helplessness and fear of their kingdom being torn asunder by ruthless teeth. If she could alert her fellahin, her sisters, of what may come; Okay, she nods slowly. you're right.
Blackened lips part as her tongue brushes against the lower. A teasing curve finds them now. Are you telling this to all us girls, mazoi? Or was she, somehow, seen as helpful in those seafoam eyes? You look good tonight, by the way.

"i reek of the desert and sheep's-blood," khusobek retorted, though he drew somewhat nearer, muzzle dipping to touch the warmth emanating along inji's throat.

he wanted to say he cared; the words lodged in his proud craw and instead the crocodile murmured, "one day i might very well leave this place. i will ask you then to come with me. do not answer now."

thus he was indeed solemn, his face and its smirking nature reduced for a quiet intensity, a subtle thaw to the frigid currents of his stare.

Something forbidden patters in her chest, something true and naïve; want had always shot to sparks between them, but what she saw in him now was the most subtle of affections held for her. He cranes closer and her tail instinctively swings up into a content beat. There are worse things to smell of. Decidedly, she did not care, anyway.
The silence breaks with the utterance of a question she must not answer. Leave? Leave Akashingo?
Those cold eyes of his thaw like a coasted glacier. Can I ask, a gentle reach of her paw upward to curl along the side of his face. why? And where we would go? Hypothetically, of course.

"who can know," khusobek grunted. he should pull away; she was meant for greater things than him. there was pleasure in their union, and now a soft blossoming warmth, but a mazoi could do nothing to elevate a woman.

his cheek, then, pressed into the cup of her palm and then the crocodile stepped away.

khusobek's face would burn for the remainder of the night. "it is good to have you here, inji."

He dances around the subject and it admittedly leaves her wondering what he meant. She pictures a new home, one with him; somewhere in these southland deserts, or perhaps somewhere north; fanned with palms and nibbling at sweet-tang berries. It was awfully idealistic, even for her.
Akashingo gave her safety and serenity. But with the threat of pharaoh dangled over her head, the crushing fear that something terrible rested just over the horizon with claws splayed—
I'm always here for you, Khusobek, her smile twinkles. you're my favorite client, y'know?
A kiss, chaste and summery, to the cheek opposite the one she cradled. She knew now what she must do, even as she wished to drag him toward the rockcliffs and bloom beneath him. I'll see you around.
In search, now, for Rashepses; a swing to her hips as she disappears into the dark.

<333

there would have been not a single way for khusobek to know the exact nature of his own want. he saw her, he wanted her, he had her. and that should have been its end, for it had been the end of a dozen liasions between kadesh and akashingo.

a man with a stone heart. a man with a false mouth. a man who knew flesh but not mind. a blockard. a drunkard. a stumbler. hewn from rock. soulless. and all these insults, pattering against scaled hide inured to anything that might be said about him.

unless the lashing tongue belonged to hatshepsuun, who wielded the great strength of his devoted love as if it were a flail, and opened wounds across his soul that he did not move to lick unless she bid him jump.

client! clinical; detached; facelessness; it filled him.

he saw, he wanted, he had, he wanted; the cycle had not ended itself, and khusobek watched inji with a growing sense of loss yawning in his bosom, watched until she was gone from view. and, if she gained a prince's favour, she would be beyond his reach as well.

the hard mouth twitched. he turned back to his post and was silent for a long time.