That night she had asked Tuna which of the Mazoi’s rooms belonged to the man @Khusobek.
He is not there when she appears beneath his archway, bearing riches: cedar and acacia, wine- the palace’s rare vintage, a thick cut from the pack’s latest kill and a silver fox pelt slung over her shoulders. She arranges the offerings in a presentable manner, the wine and meat off to one side, incense upon a bedrock shelf, and the fur draped over his bed.
She takes a step back, her work is inspected. It is grand, and by her estimation sufficiently so. But she would not know if it was enough for the Mazoi to overlook the evening prior.
the changing of the guards came rote to khusobek. though he did not want the position of queens-man, he went through the motions for he knew no other way.
when roles had been given and the quiet corners of the palace checked, when he had seen that the young queen was retired among her protective attendants for the evening, the crocodilisk stalked down the corridor to his own chamber.
but he was not alone; the scent of rich things tensed him, and eset herself among them. khusobek stepped among the finery, glancing here and there, moving to pass a calloused paw over the painfully elegant fur and scent the meat.
but why had she brought them? "are these gifts?" he asked her, not considering that a servant would try to anticipate his wants.
His brisk sweep into the room startles her but she is quick to recompose, eyeing his back deliberately to see what he makes of his bounty.
Gifts; offerings; indulgence. A vie for his good grace- and her job security.
“Incense assembled this morning. Ram: the leanest cut. Dry wine: especially aged. Black fox, unusual in her color,” She presents from her perch.
“Do you find your chamber to your liking, Mazoi?” Voltaic face met with her eyes.
he eyed eset with some mixture of consternation and approval, letting the icewater of his stare drift over the things again.
"very much so." the dark surface of the wine glinted, hiding the extra appeal which had been mixed into it: poppyflower, to leaden his limbs and kill the dreams of hatshepsuun's laughter.
"would you like to try it?" the mazoi asked next, wanting somehow to reward her apt servitude as he shifted his weight in the middle of the room.
He is pleasantly surprised, it is apparent on his face, charged eyes faintly subduing in the low light. Her own stance will reflect his acceptance, easing a little in turn.
She does not expect his invitation to join him in a drink. She lingers stiffy by the door. There are too many parallels drawn to the night before, where she’d left a second Mazoi in malcontent, and will she chance forfeiting this small victory.
But she trusts he is a soldier who respects the division of their class, who will not seek to blur their boundaries.
“If you wish to share, my Lord.”
it was perhaps this sense of class which invited her closer with a swing of his tail. "i do."
his gaze upon her was fringed with a desire he did not think he would act upon; no. enough to watch the delicate, careful gestures as she drank first from the cup.
"you went to zaahira?" khusobek grunted as he settled upon the edge of his sleeping couch, waiting patiently to take his turn at the wine.
“I did.”
She wonders what he knows. It is enough for him to ask. And it is all she can think as she lifts her mouth from the bowl to pass her rheumy eyes briefly over his. The way of his repose; easy, watchful.
She knows it is unfair to suspect him of understanding the true measure of his colleague’s grief. She can draw many conclusions from that in her mind, but she wont know whether or not they are true.
On her tongue the wine is earthy. A little fire is set free in her limbs, a tolerance met.
“Bitter,” is the assessment, “You’ll like it.” A small provocation, perhaps, layered in the truth.
a low sound as he took up the cup and drained the faintly bitter remainder, a shadow beneath the taste of rich berries.
"you need have no fear of me, eset," the man said, sitting down again upon his bed in slow repose as he submitted to the potency of the drink.
"i prefer to be wanted." that was perhaps the only binding tie between he and his buried half-brother ramesses, their origins lost to red sand..
"visit zaahira again." on her own time. the glacial eyes had grown half-lidded
“I do not fear you, Mazoi.”
At least, not in the way he thinks. Not in the way he fills this small chamber with the span of his shoulders and the warmth of his breath, nor the desire in his eyes when she looks there. It is not even the way he holds himself in armored stone.
He did scare her- because she suspects they are playing a similar game.
She’d been honest with Zaahira, given companionship and it devolved into ruin. It was a mistake that would not repeat where the Mazoi are concerned. And it is easy to fall into an appeasing role, like a switch. Serviceable; agreeable.
“You are wanted.” She rises as he reclines.
“I can tell you how,” She reaches for the empty bowl. “It is funner to show you how.”
you are wanted, she said.
the man's eyes sharpened as he watched her touch the bowl which had only just held the most potent of wines produced inside akashingo.
"i invite you to show me, eset," came the low, throated roll of his voice. it was not in his nature to push, nor demand. they all existed beneath a hierarchy and he had faith they would both submit beneath this arrangement.
she to him. he to a higher power than himself.
for now, khusobek watched the fellahin, daring her with a tilt of his chin to come closer.
“Lie back. Close your eyes.”
She climbs onto his settee and draws herself against his back. Between herself and the indigo fox stole his pelt is intensely ember-lit. The expanse of his withers is caressed with her paws in strokes that successively come slower and hold longer. It is in the way she has been shown how to gratify a soldier, where to press into muscles that coil after long days. She kneads over the rigid ripples flanking his spine to the crests of his shoulders, and up into his neck. She lowers her mouth to the lobe of an ear.
“Where now,” a whisper. “Guide me.”
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eset's reward was a low growl, almost ekeing into a snarl, as she skillfully found the most tangled muscle along his shoulder and set it to rights. he relaxed, slowly, reaching along his flank for where her hip might be
when the fellahin's soft breath stirred his ruddy aud, khusobek shifted in controlled movements until he might face her, steady eset, gaze up into her pointed coyote's face and pull her touch to his chest.
"do you favor women?" the mazoi asked in a husky baritone. he knew it was her role to serve; he knew eset came of her own accord. but he could not stop himself from seeking a taste of the intimacy he had once shared with hatshepsuun, their torturous bond, and now something softened the hard-ice eyes as khusobek waited for the woman to answer.
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He has aligned their sights now and it is headiness she will assume she sees in his eyes.
An appeased murmur brushes over her tongue. Bestride the Mazoi, her paws will manipulate the planes below his collarbone as directed, weighing him down and pressing herself over him as she considers his ask.
Women; men- why should she favor either when it is her who knows best how to pleasure herself?
“No,” she answers; because her desire is bound only to emotional connection.
“Tell me about the woman you favor,” she requests, returning the focus to the soldier. “Is she demure, modest?”
The edge of her claws are grazed over his throat, “Controlling?” She presses. “Dangerous?”
her claws at his throat provoked an immediate response from khusobek.
but he was not ashamed; he tilted his chin to feel the press of them more freely. "she was a queen." the first truth said aloud, in the way of men to those whom join them in their beds, never in life.
his own touch light to her hip, drifting toward a sleek flank.
"fatal. beautiful." a hardness now to his mouth. "cold." he did not think eset could embody those things, but he sought them all the same, pulse sweeping into a bold fire.
Fatal. Beautiful.
“A Queen,” she’ll repeat as he arches his neck.
She releases her claws to draw them up around the side of his jaw, leaning herself into him, to touch her lips there before whispering: “A Queen will lay with her Pharoah. Not a Mazoi.”
Cold.
She lifts from him, gathers the empty wine bowl and passes from his room into the darkened passageway.
<33!
a queen; denied.
eset whispered and in her voice was the cool lapis of something far beyond her station, a glittering cartouche swinging forth on a pendant and spelling out a hidden name.
eset — yes, and his breath was only caught when he heard the soft sound of her steps in the corridor and saw her shadow bob smaller and then away.
sleep would only come to khusobek before dawn, and until then he would lie frustrated and entranced in his tangled bedclothes; eyes turned to the ceiling; ears remembering every echo of hatshepsuun's voice, which never once had formed the words my pharaoh.