Two Eyes Cenote along both lines of a pathway higher

some tags for reference. tazi, only if you want/have time: no pressure! <3

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guilt hangs heavy in his chest. that when safiya had been attacked he'd been at the opposite end of the territory, guarding the gate there. so far from the thick of the action. so far away from the slavers.

slavers that were only here for machiavelli.

the blame lays heavy in meseba's mind: that a child was bleeding ... and possibly dying because of him. because they were to keep him safe. it is easy to direct the blame where he wants it and so, he does.

too late. he'd found out afterwards and guilt twists his stomach once more.

he goes to the altar of sekhmet; desperately seeking anything.

the wind is still but there hangs a chill in the air that to meseba feels more supernatural than it does natural. he shudders against it, a soft bristle of his guard hairs before he hangs his head; rabbit corpse laid gently upon the sacrifice stone.

`o powerful lady of medicine and healing and war. sekhmet, he starts with titles and ends with her name, a choked whisper. i spill this blood in sacrifice to your name. i beg that you watch over young @Safiya as she heals from her injuries and guide her to health once more.

he splices the rabbit's flesh, warm lifeblood spilling down, over his chin, on the stone.

i am your servant, your willing vessel. i ask that you guide my paws on the right path and ensure my aim to be true. in enacting justice for the crimes committed against a child. it wasn't to protect machiavelli whom meseba now harbored a dark seedling hatred for, but for eset, for safiya and all else he was charged with protecting and had failed.

he leaves to rabbit on the altar once it has cooled and turns, seeking @Eset. if he could not find her, he would continue to the borders and then past to sweep the neutral lands borders the cenote.

Eventually, though she wasn’t certain of when, her head dropped and she had passed out at the foot of Hathor’s shrine. She awakens to the mazoi's quiet presence and sunshine flashing on puddled water.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Eset murmurs, turning her neck to a crick while Safiya’s screams played out once more in her mind. She thought of the gashes to the girl’s neck and how she’d tried to keep strong through it all and blinks back a film of tears to see into Meseba’s eyes.

“Nazli… the children… I don’t know how safe we are here,” she confesses. But would moving them North into Akashingo put them at greater risk?

a soft frown of concern tugs at meseba's lips as he comes across eset, of whom he'd clearly startled awake as his steps halt. green gaze takes her in carefully, studying for any wounds and assured when he finds none. he is quiet as she admits that she couldn't sleep; but clearly hathor had taken some sort of pity upon her to allow her some sort of respite at his shrine.

however brief.

it feeds into his own guilt that he hadn't been on that stretch of borders. that it had all went down long before he'd have even gotten there even if he would've known at the time.

how bad were her injuries? asks meseba, making himself form and force the question he had not wanted to ask when news first reached him. his stomach had been twisted too tightly into knots ... still constricts in a way that leaves him with a threatening wave of nausea. she was just a child.

he aches to comfort her, but is not sure how. he knows not what advice to give her, having never really dealt with this sort of situation before. greyjaw hollow had been relatively peaceful. they certainly had never had slavers attacking their children.

so, he is quiet for a longer moment yet, drawing nearer with the hopes of touching his muzzle to her cheek if she allowed it, before drawing back where he would recline upon his haunches.

they know where we are, and they are obviously not above maiming children, it fills him with a violent fury, burning like righteousness in his chest. but if we leave, if we seek sanctuary somewhere else it will only endanger others. it was a very thin tightrope to walk and falling on either side wasn't great. they were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

hunt them. even the playing field.

i'm more than willing to hunt them on my own. i fear that may be the only way to ensure we are safe again. the time for shadowy assassinations was over. it was war, in meseba's mind.

“Life-threatening,” she whispers as fragments of Safiya’s screams cut again through her mind; the pooling of blood upon the sands. The tearing of her eye from its socket. She felt ill and closed her eyes briskly, accepting the gentle warmth of his affection with a staggering sigh.

As Meseba speaks, she listens, eyes beholding the strong green gaze. She knows he is right. Their duty is to Pharaoh above all others, yet still it is difficult to accept that more violence may seep its way into their hallowed palace. At the following suggestion Eset’s head shakes briskly.

“No,” an emphasis tears through her parched throat, “I cannot bear the knowledge that there are men like that out there– but we know nothing of them. They may be more powerful than we understand, Meseba. I will not send you alone,” her refusal is adamant, eyes upon him hardened. Losing him was a risk the hebsut would not take.

life threatening.

eset's words bring with them a stony grimness that settles like a cannonball inside meseba's stomach. he swallows thickly, in the hopes that it might ease the knot in his throat but his breath is still hard to take, still shallow.

it is not powerful to attack a child. it's weak, he spits the word like it is poison in his mouth. and though he wishes to be unleashed upon them: a vicious jackal let loose to fill ammit's eternal hunger with the shreds of their souls, he accepts her emphasized refusal to his suggestion.

meseba swallows again.

as you wish, hebsut. meseba accepts with a bow of his head.

“They are depraved,” her throat lurches, belly beginning a slow spin. It showed them the lengths they would go to to defend their men. “And they are settling somewhere close. Soto visited our borders a number of times before he was caught.”

She looks into Meseba’s clear eyes, confronted with the roiling rage, and rises delicately beside him.

“Do you believe it is the wrong choice?” Eset asks; a hebsut beseeching honesty from her mazoi.

green gaze peers at him as she rises beside him, seeking his honesty. a part of him burns with the chained urge to not offer it. she is his hebsut and he will obey her orders, regardless of his feelings upon them.

so, he obeys.

yes, he admits in a soft, murmured rasp.

i do not think it should be delayed. i think we should use this tragedy to our advantage. attack them when they expect us to be weak. prove that the gods walk with us. but he is ruled by his rage and his righteousness and logic is being pushed haphazardly to the side in favor of swift retribution.