Two Eyes Cenote start carvin', darlin'.

Set after the festivities. Time is a construct.

things began to settle once the last of the guests departed. there was more to be done post-coronation; cleaning, mostly, and probably some diplomacy.

nazli was solely focused on fixing up the temple. she could be found there most days, singing prayers to the sun in the early morning or building altars in key points to different gods of the pantheon.

today she had been brought bark from a sycamore tree; it had been gifted to muat-riya by one of the guests. nazli was carefully arranging these pieces to pay homage to nut, her own goddess.

the wall had been marked with a design, and soon would be painted. the bare red rock had been clawed at carefully so stars could be formed, and a dome-like sigil drawn to represent the expanding sky; below, the mark for toula, with the left eye of ra on one side and the right eye of horus the other, for muat-riya.

nazli added more stars each day, as she spent her nights here also; studying, recording constellations.

would you be ok to forward date this? <3

The priestess, Nazli. Not wolf. Not coyote. Belonging to both, and neither. 

The hebsut lingers in the doorway to the temple, clutching Senmut’s bundle carefully in her jaws, harboring regret that she will deliver this news.

“Lady Nazli,” her voice is gentle, “I apologize for the disruption. The Erpa-ha has left this morning for Akashingo.”

“He wanted you to have this,” the parcel is laid at her feet.

she plotted star-charts in the dirt from memory. it was easy enough to correct her errors, and with repetition came knowledge.

eset came then, laying a bundle by nazli with word of senmut's departure. she paused with one paw raised, and this descended to the bundle, moving it through her recitations. oh. thank you.

gone already?

a look to eset, a smile, and then she unwrapped the gift. touching the face of the new amulet with such care - surprised by the sight of it!

She sinks into a bow and turns to go, this news of the Erpa-ha’s departure is the priestess’ to make sense of, and what it might mean for her the hebsut does not wish to see.

Only, she had seen something.

It had been in the eyes of Senmut; neither swift nor demanding but patient, and honest. It was not lust. It did not seek to control. It was the knowing of a soul. It was the acceptance of it- it was not unalloyed; it had been tested-

It-

Eset turns back.

“He is in love with you, Nazli.”

she thought of the last moment she had seen him; she thought of what she had said to khusobek that night, and ached as she looked upon the amulet.
eset was going; then she was speaking, and at once nazli felt exposed, as if somehow the hebsut was aware of all that happened here in muat-riya.
immediately nazli felt the defensive slice of her own tongue. is there something you need from the temple? why stay? why speak?
was eset jealous?

The way Nazli tenses and shifts-

She knows. Maybe it is still not enough.

Peeling herself away the hebsut murmurs a quiet apology and shakes her head. She cannot inject herself here, despite her affection for the Erpa-ha and her want to see his happiness. No desire to control an outcome could be moved by all the right words. Some things could not be solved with prayer-

Sometimes all that could be done was to take the fragments of an aching soul and carve them into a wall.

She knew nothing.

The fury at being seen, that uncertainty, stabbed at a deeper wound in Nazli. She dared not hope for love from someone such as Senmut, and rebelled against the notion instead. It was safer. It was required of her.

Eset moved to flee then, and Nazli felt a stirring of power even within the depths of her embarrassment; this was not how a fellahin was meant to speak to a hebsut.

You're not a fellahin anymore. You are not sesh. You are above those things; reaching for the place that man once stood. It felt like a thought, a heartache, a voice from the gasping sky above.

Her eyes go up. She does not speak again to Eset, and does not care if she stays or goes; for once Nazli feels called by a higher power in her grief.