Two Eyes Cenote Crowned

minor pp & keeping vague for the timeline! tags to join & take this thread to Valley of Gold, or it can be bts, whichever you all prefer <3 @Reverie @Dusty Rose (for your reference!)

To the Medeiros Family,

The palace of Muat-riya in the Two Eyes Cenote welcomes you to the Lowlands, and requests the pleasure of your company to join us, week after next, for a summer feast followed by an evening of celebrations. We look forward to a response at your earliest convenience.

Eset, Hebsut of Muat-riya

Eset had awoken to the same wild thoughts which had at length closed her eyes and she resolved then to make good on one proposal. She called for @Legend to take the spoken letter to the Valley of Gold, where the wolves of Medeiros currently resided. Khusobek had been vague about his exchange, hinting only at a minor dissent. It was one Eset intended to discern and resolve, if needed. She asked @Ironspine to accompany the Yaret on her sojourn across the desert.

Heart, beating. She watched them slink further from view. Then she carried on with her tasks for that morning.

around the corner, tiye peaked her not-so-little head around the corner and spied upon the hebsut for a moment to make sure that she looked "free enough".

the young fellahin finally musters the courage to trot inside with a leaf to present an assortment of foods, picked by tiye herself (based solely on what she likes). with a clearing of her throat, she announces her tiny presence to eset. curious to see what she's doing, but eager to brag to the others about being a helping hand to the hebsut herself!

are you hungry, hebsut? more forward than she'd hoped to be, the girl had yet a long road of training ahead of her.

She’d surrendered to the certainty of her work, sequestering herself to Nazli’s temple in order to see it maintained in her absence. The hemet was with child, and while Eset had longed to notify Senmut, she remembered the priestess’ cold words; her dismissal. And the hebsut knew it was not her news to share, regardless of her fondness for the Erpa-ha.

She wondered at him. Diplomatic work had kept Senmut busy, but she hoped they would soon receive him as a guest in the Lotus Palace. She missed his presence here- and he was to be a father. Did he know?

A gentlest presence startles her, and she looks down into the curious face of a little girl. Setting her cleaning aids aside, Eset lowers to the puppy’s eye-level, admiring to the leaf-tray of assorted treasures.

“Starved,” she smiles, “what have you brought, miss Tiye?”

ah.. cottontails... a dove! and.. tiye prattles on about some of what she carried — small, and mostly consisting of meat (no vegetables). 

good stuff! she insists, and bumps the leaf plate towards the hebsut. tiye knew nothing of the no-fun adult stuff, but to know that she was needed was more than enough for the girl's tail to wag uncontrollably.

“I’m very spoiled- thank you!” A laugh splits her lips but more so, the hebsut was impressed! The little girl already had a knack for detail at her age! “Here, split it with me and it shall be a true party,” she suggests, taking a tiny bite of the desert cottontail.

“Mmm, it’s delicious! What’s your favorite?”

tiye lights up even further when the hebsut offers her a seat.

oh, she's gonna be the best fellahin ever.
all of them! but my favorite-favorite is dove! no matter what, it's the same delicious taste.. though really that applies to everything on the plate.
i didn' know you were gonna like them, though. i just picked what i liked.

“You have good taste,” Eset compliments, trying a tiny bite of the dove’s tender breast-meat next. The flesh was mild and pleasing.

“My favorite is the sacred ibis. But they are very rare, and can only be seen on our rivers during wintertime,” she entices with a grin. "Perhaps next winter you might be interested in helping me catch one?"

i do! i know i do.. tiye fluffs her short mane in nothing short of pride.

eh..? hebsut have to hunt still? but we can! in winter, she'll be even bigger, but so would her siblings. can't my brother and sister do it? they want to be mazoi, anyways.

"To have good taste means you have a good nose," the hebsut explains, "good noses are the best for hunting."

"In the winter there will be snow on the ground too, which makes it even harder! I'll be reliant on your skill," Eset grins, tilting her head, "maybe your brothers and sister can help us, too."

oh. she is less than thrilled, slumping until her potbelly protrudes.

though being needed and relied upon is enough to straighten herself back up, even if it was over something as icky as hunting. i'll be on it, then!

The hebsut laughs, admiring the girl's dogged determination.

“Have you ever seen a sacred ibis?” She gestures to the wall with her hand. On the face of the limestone are paw-marked rows of painted white waterfowl with long, slender beaks. “They are very elegant, aren’t they?”

mhm! and she points to the very same drawing.

very! but not pretty enough to not eat. like butterflies! they are too pretty to eat. tiye wonders if they taste like big doves.

are they hard to catch?

“Yes,” she nods, “they are careful birds, always aware of their surroundings. So we must both practice our stealth, to be prepared for the hunt.”

The hebsut demonstrates by crouching, shaping her body into a hunter’s prowl and darts swiftly behind one of Nazli’s painted stela’s. An eye peeks out at the girl before whipping back into her hiding place.

hebsut is quick! in a flash, she is beastlike, though playful. the girl couldn't help but giggle whenever eset peaks her head. tiye leaned in whenever eset hid once again in the shadows, eager to see more.
and eventually, the girl crouches in a low position too, crawling towards eset with far less grace, stubby legs working hard to keep her steady. so that when eset poked her head out again, tiye bounded up in the air.
i got you! she declares, arms reached for the brown woman's snout.

Eset gives a startled yelp! Collapsing onto her belly and writhing for Tiye’s glorious victory!

“Hey- you’re pretty good at that!” she grins, cocooning her arms around the cub to cover her tiny face with a congratulatory nuzzle. “Let’s try again!”

This time the hebsut leaps off into the shade of the young sycamore and conceals herself among its leafy boughs.

the girl bursts into a flurry of giggles underneath the nuzzle, panting when she's released and eset skulks back into the shadows. the sycamore bristles but is quick to conceal the dark woman, enough so that it made tiye hesitant to approach it. afterall, what if eset lunges at her as revenge?
tiye plops onto the floor, her crawl unsteady and shaky as it prematurely prepares to burst into a leap if anything were to go wrong.

Little Tiye moves more like a salamander than a wolf, but in her earnest temper Eset sees all the makings of what would one day become a formidable young woman.  She watches her slithering with an endearing smile, ruffling the sycamore’s leaves every-so-often to clue her location.

She allows the wolf cub search a bit longer before letting fall a raven-coated tail tip just at the nose height. She gives it a flick and waits to see if pup will notice.