Two Eyes Cenote levitate

vaguely fwd dated, feel free to take this as trespassing and give her an injury & whatever else!

her stomach burned in a weird way when she awoke, most likely from all the putrid scraps she relied on for sustenance for months.

she is pained, but she wanders on, piled in early-morning shadow. she took in the scene, an oasis in red ribbed land and covered in purple wood. dimly she could hear the splosh, splatter, tinkle and running water that she couldn't see.

spots danced in her vision as she trudged towards it.

Pressed along the foothills of the palace are herbs that seem to grow nowhere else. They are so rare, she wonders if even Tavina has names for them. The coygirl scents them in their beds, breathing spring seedlings into the air. Small, orange-brown blooms and tubers sharp to the tongue are gingerly uprooted and stored in a pack at her feet. The findings would be presented to the sesh- save a handful of blooms she intended to cultivate.

A sudden presence on the horizon rouses her from her work. Over a modest patch of dittany, an image of wolf forms; narrow and alabaster, as if cast in the sun’s illusions. Eset straightens in wait but does not chance shifting focus to rid the earth from her pelt.

“Welcome,” a greeting is delivered in even tones once the traveler is within earshot. “You have reached Muat-riya, second palace to the Pharaoh Muat-riya Isetnofret,” they are informed with a bow, but there is clear wariness in the amber hue of the hebsut's eyes as she watches the woman.

“How may I assist you?”

cameo!

khusobek guarded the spine of the hebsut as she addressed the fevered newcomer.

he did not like to be away from his children, but his role was protection of all muat-riya. tavina was now with his wife and pups.

the crocodile said nothing, nor did he loom beside eset. rather he stood five paces back and to her left, his hard stare upon the stranger, muscular body tensed to intercept.

and yet, idly, the stone-faced man wondered if inji might enjoy returning here for cultivation of his own, crude to his very last.

her eyes sagged terrifically, inert, smudged fuses in a fuse box, her mind a few ticks behind, raising her head on choppy ones, twos, and threes.
muat-riya. pharaoh muat-riya.
she is made poignantly aware of her own spiderlike-frame and folds in on herself, dissolving as if water spilled on her head to toe.
"pharaoh," she dogears her corners further, "pharaoh ... i-i've intruded. but please, p-please, i've—"
only in her cuckoo-like delirium would she be so uncharacteristic to even utter more than two words, a sentence if she was frazzled.
hunger changed her in ways she could not describe. she prostrates, reverential.
"i'm in need! in need, of ... food and shhelter."

In no world would she dismiss this woman; not when she is unable to tear herself away from the sight of the gaunt face, her burn-marked flesh and quivering limbs.

She had the look of a Shuyet serf. And now Eset had something the others serfs did not- the power to do something about it.

“Help me,” she solicits of Khusobek and offers an arm to the woman. Together they would ascend the stone steps to the embedded limestone palace.

With aid, the traveller is brought to the cooling cenote embankments. Eset encourages her to take water while she vanishes into the scullery, reappearing moments later with the breast of a duck.

“Eat,” she extends the fowl and retreats a few paces back. “You will be cared for here.”

the crocodile stepped closer, supporting the wretched creature toward eset's doting.

he stood by at the offering of water and meat, retreating to his proper place as the hebsut took charge once more.

his own intrigue had been roused, but he was only a guard in these moment, silent, missing no detail.

so miseria drank heftily, greedily, all the viscous fluids down away with it, as he kinks in her back seemed to flatten, only her eyes burned wet-hot and her jaw slacked with a similar feeling after chugging as desperately as her body allowed.
the palace could put the kubla khan to shame—supplied with its vaulted hauls and fed by streams of youth.
she could seed herself into the embankment then, there wasn't enough water in the cenote to satiate the indelible food anxiety that hung around her neck like the albatross.
her tongue was soaked with warm meat, not soured and tough like the spoiled fat on a raccoon's carcass like she'd been accustomed too.
she could be bogged down by shame by the way she smudged the rouge of the duck's breast up her neck and down her brow, for now she would pray the benevolent pharaoh would not impound upon her newfound luck.
sordidly, she tears up before she mistakenly takes as the almsgiving woman who lords over this pleasure-dome, "thank you, pharaoh."

Like so many who found Muat-riya from the sun-scorched deserts, the woman is starved and dehydrated. She eats with a ravenous appetite and Eset takes care to see she is brought more cuts of meat, as well as leaves of fennel and turmeric to aid in digestion.

When the traveler speaks, a certain nervous heat snakes into the hebsut’s cheeks and she finds the tops of her feet with her eyes. She does not know why such an innocent slip would affect her so.

“I- I am not Pharaoh,” she amends gently, “I am Eset, servant to her Grace.”

“What is your name?” She asks, encouraging the woman to answer in her own time.

he breath shallowed like a receding tide, she blinked at her food during her brief pause. she ... was she not pharaoh?
miseria.
will pharaoh muat-riya mind you helping me? she asked as meekly as a grown woman could, with blood making for a pungent blush upon her features.

“Toula is a kind Pharaoh- she would want to see you looked after until you are well, Miseria,” she assures, “you are welcomed here.”

Unless the woman wished to stay, which was not breaking convention. There were few who had seen wealth and beauty like that of the blue palace, and fewer who would choose to part from her grand halls to return to the desert’s severity. 

“Once you’ve had your fill I will escort you to a bedchamber. You will be able to rest there.”

fade?

miseria swelled with relief and shame and gratitude and sadness—it elected her wet tears all the same.

a "thank you. thank you." for both the hebsut and mazoi.