She has forgotten to ask @Tavina which stocks need replenishing.
Out in the wilds past the Mesa, she plucks at random. That it will necessitate a second visit to the doctor in order to gather the proper supply will not be a waste to the fellahin.
She pulls interesting things: crocus, cypress roots, shavings of yellow bark, and even more she will not know the names of. The herbs are evident by their strong scent. She’d borrowed a woven sling from one of the other fellahin, and when she cannot fit any more in it, a brisk trot brings her to the medbay.
Outside she lingers, an ear pressed to the side of the wall, listening for patients. It is quiet.
She appears in the hallway, eyes seeking for the Doctor.
"oh, this damnable heat!" tavina swore, putting a paw to her brow as she bent over her sullied workspace.
outside was not much better, else she would have already taken the air. now that around her exam room was suddenly fragrant with hot herbs and rich roots, and she turned to see eset there. "come in," she invited a bit sheepishly. "this summer has unfortunately made me realize why a noble would want to lie all day in a pool of water."
the purple eyes traveled with polite, bright interest along the cuttings and seedery that eset had brought.
The curse was starling! She stills momentarily, watching the flustered woman from a distance before padding forward cautiously at her invitation.
But Tavina is quick to warm, stern violet eyes shifting to intrigue, and Eset will decide she does not mind her foul mouth. In fact it in ways suits the medic, and alludes to a level of trust between them, or at least that she feels- she is not so comfortable in anyone else’s presence.
It’s enough to garner a little laugh, “Maybe I can help distract from the heat?”
She gingerly places her gatherings before the woman.
“I’ve brought you,” she pauses to turn out the pouch, “a bit of everything. I know it’s a whole forest. I could not remember what you needed so I figured I’d cover my bases.”
The fellahin's shoulders give rise, eyes reaching across, praying it would not be perceived as an insult and that Tavina could forgive her ignorance.
“Well, Doctor, anything valuable?”
tavina had never forgotten the sodden jetstone brow, how the woman had whispered and opened eyes that sought beauty. that gave in return.
the tick of her loneliness bit deeper.
"a bit of everything!" tavina laughed a little, then cleared the redstone counter. "here. work with me. we'll lay it out together."
though she could not say it, the sesh was touched. service was the realm of the fellahin. foraging was hers. the overlap caught at her hurting spirit.
Tavina is not insulted. She humors her gatherings and Eset helps lay them out- organizing like plants with her nose. The end result is- well a bit chaotic, admittedly. Even her untrained eye will know this.
She steps back, giving the sesh room to analyze the findings. Behind her, the Doctor’s stores are meticulously kept, cataloged and placed in their appropriate vessels. The beds are cleaned and awaiting patients. It is such a foreign, curious place, but its smell is filled with the thistle she’d come to associate with Tavina.
“May I ask, how did you come to learn all of this? It must have taken a lifetime,” she wonders.
goldenthread from the meadows, cypress, crocus. there was wild mint and marigold, the sheep's-ear growing rampant outside the palace. threads of sweet orchid and a veritable bounty of sand chamomile.
tavina paused in her sorting. "it always came naturally to me, i suppose," she began. "my father was a surgeon. self-trained. he taught me to dissect small animals. i became enamoured with the working processes. but less with death."
she pulled a small grey skin from a shelf and wrapped the mint in it, glancing at eset. "how did you know what to find?"
What is that like- to see inside someone? It’s an ill thought, but a morbid curiosity. She imagines the anatomical knowledge and expertise required to perform such a thing as surgery.
“Have you seen a lot of it?” A quiet voice will ask, “death?”
She wonders what that responsibility would do to someone, whose work tows the line between life and death. Would it break them? Would they grow harder? She’d come to know first-hand the frailty of the living. There had been no doctors in the slums to work their magic.
To the sesh’s question she reveals, “I didn’t," but it gives her hope that something could be of use to the Doctor. Her ears lift. “I chose things that looked unique. Pretty."
pretty things, gathered by pretty paws. tavina scolded herself; why, you're no better than a man! truly! and turned with near-spinster studiousness to her sorting of neat, tiny piles, three to five of each ingredient.
"you've certainly laid in a summer stock. most of this will be able to keep two years, with good curing." she smiled at eset. "unfortunately i have. it's part of healing." she thought of the old, the sick, and more than once, a starving young mother who gave up the ghost in childbed.
what would have happened to nala when she too went into travail?
her heart ached.
Tavina quiets but her pain is loud.
Regret- is it not the most haunting of emotions? To know you had something, once.
She thinks of her mother whose fate is unknown to her and may never be. Memories of her now are hardened by grief’s edges. But she knows she would rather have them than none at all, even if they made living without her agony at times.
Regretfully, the fellahin does not know how to heal. She knows only how to serve. Her lips pull into a bittersweet smile.
“Allow me to scout for you again, Doctor. At least while the heat is high. I can go out in the mornings before the Queen rises. It would really be no trouble.”
"all right." doctor. it touched her nerves with a soothing fingertip.
the titles of wife and mother had — well. had they ever been hers to hold?
doctor was a solid sound and bespoke her work.
"you have a good eye. you said you never had any training in it? would you like some?"
She finds herself hesitating.
To learn, yes, she desires this above all: to know which plants serve which purpose, what is indicated in the stars above, and how to see the underlying secret meanings beneath words people speak. Education still feels a forbidden thing not meant to be touched by peasant girls, though it is not necessarily so in Queen Toula’s Akashingo.
“Yes,” she tempers an addled mind, eager eyes growing wide. She would have sought time with Tavina regardless and would not pass on the opportunity to also learn from her. “Only, if you’ve the time for it, Doctor. I can wash your bedding and your floors. Keep your stores replenished, bring clean water. Any duties I can alleviate, Tavina, please I will do so.”
eset seemed determined to work as a true acolyte: from the ground up, and tavina did not see a reason to deny her.
"all right. i would appreciate it." she smoothed paws along her flanks. "as long as it doesn't take you from anything the queen needs or wants." but that should go without saying.
she sorted through the piles, touching the cypress root. "have you ever heard of greencough? it affects the very young and can end their lives, especially in winter. a decoction of cypress root, watered down, and a little honey is very effective in reducing this cough."
a smile, hesitant. "i expect there to be royal children next year."
“You are good to me, Tavina,” she always had been, even in the way of her introduction that had meant another patient for the already overworked Sesh. “Thank you.”
And when she instructs the fellahin is attentive, interest braiding with realization.
“Yes,” she’d seen this before in her serfdom. Few coyote children aged past one month, though they did not have a name for it. She eyes the cypress root, thinks of the honey, committing this remedy to memory for Greencough.
Though- children. The inceptive feeling is dread with worry following close behind.
“Do any of the Princes deserve her?” In this private session between them she noses at the impervious confines of her rank.
"no better than i should be," tavina retorted, though it was dry with her usual good humor.
eset inquired after the queen — so young for it! why did akashingo remain a place where children led? — and tavina paused, but only for a moment.
"i haven't met any of them," she revealed. "between you and me, i'm not looking forward to seeing that poor girl shown off like wares in a marketplace."
a muscle leapt in her jaw.
Curt yet warm, her doctor. She watches the Sesh’s work with her head bent over the herbs, but averts her eyes bitterly at the thought of their sweet young Queen paraded about like a brood mare, and for some man with vague claim to usurp her autonomy.
Toula had asked for the title of Pharaoh herself, though the Prince had seemed to deny this. Still, was there nothing that might purchase more time? She knew love did not often a royal marriage make- but it also seemed she’d had no real time to allow them to court her properly.
“If all fail to please our Queen and the Gods- can she refuse? The throne of Pharaoh is empty. Must it be filled?”
"yes."
for all her pragmatic and scientific nature, tavina had fallen beneath the spell of akashingo. all that had happened, all she had not stopped, all she had indeed ceased —
why would i be anything else now?
"that's what's believed, after all. she's someone who owns a considerable kingdom, and her father had enemies. the first queen was poisoned." a breath, sharp. "it's best to have a pharaoh. that way he can take all those risks himself."
A moment passes and then she nods.
Poison. Treachery. And suitors would continue to arrive, month after month in want of the empty throne. Even if Toula refuses now they will linger, eating up the palace stores and making demands of her court. There was not a thing that could be done to prevent it, the kingdom would not rest until a Pharaoh sat on the throne.
“What about the High Preist, Tavina?” she’ll broach, eyes slating down over a twist of root. The doctor would know of him, would have come to see the man’s character over the years.
“Do you believe he’d make a fair partner, a good ruler?”
"well, he's quite a bit older than her, and seems to have some scruples about it." unlike most men, including a divine man now turned corpse.
"he would be attentive and loyal as he always has been," she decided, stripping petals and crushing them underpaw. "but there could hardly be romance. and she deserves that at least, if she has to be married."
tavina glanced at eset. "you're as concerned as i am. she might listen to you. servants have a way of approaching royals that the doctor cannot. i adore her and she cherishes me, but i will always be a physician. it is a friend she needs."
“I would be more concerned if he didn’t,” she admits along with brief thoughts of Inji. It alluded to Senmut's respect for their Queen, where others in positions of control may seek only for more of it. If he would not give love to Toula, he at least offered her that- and how many Pharaohs would?
But it was selfish, too. This she will acknowledge. There was some choice for the fellahin in Queen Toula’s Akashingo. She would not see them lose it. It was difficult for her to imagine love's importance over this fact.
And if it meant pushing her own agenda- so be it.
She reaches across to fold her paw over the doctor’s busy hand, stilling her a moment.
“You are my friend.” Perhaps her only true one.
“I won't keep you, Tavina,” Her eyes upon the doctor are fond before she moves for the room’s doorway. “I will see you tomorrow.”
<3
tavina did not know what to do with the warm regard in eset's eyes. she bumbled, her face flushed and tone flustered; "see you then, eset."
too harsh? too clipped? the doctor offered a twist of her lips in answer and hurriedly turned away, the tips of her ears atingle with an unfamiliar heat.