Two Eyes Cenote hey, it’s time to hand it over

she wondered if they knew the significance of this place, when they set camp along the rim of the cenote. did they know they stood upon the sunken face of a felled god, that they worshipped and celebrated over the murky bank of a charnel-house? 

she eyed the late august sky. a pair of perseid stars flew across the navy ceiling of the world, diminishing into a purple fringed horizon. 

she mapped the progress of the moon. waning gibbous; silky pale whites interspersed with the mottled mosaic of the moon’s deepening shadows.

 it was not time — not yet. 

she turned back to the cenote, a bundle of sun-cured herbs in her jaws. nestled between these dried fingerlings was another effigy — an antler braided by ropes of bluestem and river-reed. three coppery berries were crushed to its pale stem, staining the antler the grim color of a bruise. 

she paused at the cenote’s rim, eyes closed. gibbering voices of the overworld rose over the ancient sound of trickling water. once before she’d visited this place and cast her haka in it - she could sense its lingering presence somewhere deep in that bottomless pit, lingering like the smear of a malcontent soul. 

she looked over the precipice, where the luminous eyes of another world glowered. waiting. hungry. 

qiao dropped the herbs and their effigy into the pit. the antler was the first to reunite with the water; it landed with a loud plunk that reverberated down the cenote’s hard walls. second came the plop of dried herbs.  the black-water hissed as it swallowed the priestess’ tribute, a gurgling sigh the only answer the first of many costs had been met. 

qiao’s voice murmured as it wove between the roar of the overworld. she stood up, gingerly pulling from the bank. 

the priestess made her way back to muat-riya’s hearth. over her thinning body the night sky hovered, a single red star pulsing in the endless black.

Medusa was weak, and truly in no state to be moving around. But she could not sit still and think about… 

Fatigued, and flagging, Medusa stepped into the night with a sigh. A familiar scent, and a familiar feeling. Medusa followed, watched—with the curious eye of a heretic who said she believed in Gods to get to whatever end she needed to get to.

Today, it was answers. Medusa did not know what she had seen or not seen the day before Pharaoh died. Only that Qiao seemed somehow a part of it, and Senmut too, who had sent her away under decree of Makono, or maybe then it had been Queen Toula if successor 2 had already gone away…

Again, semantics. The finer details didn’t much matter to Medusa (maybe they should). Only the point. And what was the point of her going away? It’d all been one big theory, but now… 

Medusa, on wobbly legs and in no condition to begin a confrontation, asked: killing another Pharaoh? 

Now, Medusa had no idea if Qiao was involved in any of that. She wasn’t supposed to know anything, truth be told. And here Medusa was, revealing a card. Everything had changed after that day. Makono, who Qiao had gone to visit, elevated. 

It didn’t matter, that, not in the face of the fact that Qiao was surely still better liked than Medusa herself for what she could contribute (and what wasn’t known), and yet… 

Had Qiao been poisoning the water? 

Medusa, hating everything this particular hour, thought she might want to take a drink of it and see for herself. Bedraggled and unkempt, Medusa found her eyes turning to—or, at least the direction of where—where Qiao had dropped and retrieved her wares. 

Now, all of this was one big assumption. The big truth? Medusa knew shit about fuck. Things had been chaotic. But how did one find anything out without a little pretending?

vague about … previous hours

as she swept back along the paw-worn path, the footsteps of another joined. 

medusa; qiao was surprised to see her, much reduced from the wispy thing she’d seen last. her olive gaze apprised her without warmth. 

a blessing. qiao corrected, cold in light of the treason sprung upon medusa’s tongue. 

she paused from her brisk walk to measure this creature, recalling the hour she’d helped wrap ramesses’ cooling flesh. only the guilty point fingers.

but this girl — if she could be called that — was hardly worth qiao’s focus. in the manner of a clergy irritatedly smoothing his ruffled cloak, qiao swept past medusa and kept on the same path as before.

Medusa knew when she was outclassed. Qiao, like Senmut, was in every way her superior. Medusa, mentally, scrambled in an effort to recover. She doubted with a woman like Qiao she ever could. It was a poorly delivered joke, Medusa answered, and in an effort to spin it all around, she said: and anyway, I know it wasn’t you that had done it, but Medusa did like to push buttons and annoy. 

Not, though, at the expense of herself. She had not hoped to be written off. She hoped for substance, answers, …anything else other than “blessing”. 

Now, Medusa only knew that because someone had allegedly clobbered Qiao. The kingdom had all been in a tizzy. Fellahin whispering and all of that. No doubt Qiao had probably heard of Medusa getting a proverbial spanking from Senmut, so… she shut up about it, for now, except for:

 The guilty also get defensive, she rejoined, eyes narrowing, Ah, sorry. I’m definitely guilty of my abrasive way in trying to connect. I’m meant to have outgrown such tendencies, but all of her spit and vinegar seemed to just grow in excess.

It wasn’t Qiao she hated. It was supposed to be Senmut, but so much time had passed that now that feeling had faded. Medusa was just… lost, and bored, but wanting to… wanting to what? 

She looked to Qiao as though for guidance, but didn’t expect much of anything from her either.

had medusa not lobbed the height of all treasonous accusations on qiao’s person, she might have softened. medusa was seen; she was just a girl held against the shearing edges of a world intent on turning her to gristle, a girl rudderless and clawing for her spot in the tumult. qiao always had a soft spot for girls; they were born softbellied and kind, and the world took advantage of them the moment they sucked in their first suffering breath. their bodies were not their own, and were shaped only to house men in them — an injustice — it would not be until they whittled their last breath that their souls would know peace. 

for this, their lives were to be cherished the way boy’s souls were to be crushed against the mortar and pedestal; drawn into a useful tincture far more potent than the culmination of their lives would ever be.

but medusa set afire that bridge, and the priestess only looked upon her the distracted way one might observe an irritating bug on their sleeve. medusa’s soul would join the faceless thousand and would not ever taste qiao’s sympathy. 

so, she delivered one final piece of advice. it is better to keep one’s mouth shut and be perceived a fool, than open one’s mouth and remove all doubts. your tongue, girl, would be more useful in the dirt than it is wagging in your head.

she did not care to entertain rebuke; gathering herself under the growing dark of the night, qiao did not look back. 

she would come for medusa’s treacherous tongue some other darkening hour.

Medusa flinched. The words had found their mark. Was she a fool? …well, hell yeah she was. Medusa knew that. I’m living and I’m learning, she shouted after Qiao, who might not even hear her, let me be a fool for a little while longer! 

God, Qiao was cool as hell, but also a little bit of a bitch. Medusa couldn’t really blame her—she did just throw a lofty accusation at her. What did she expect? 

Look like a fool, talk like a fool—next step, act like a fool. No, no, she shouldn’t…

Medusa, in an effort to apologize, moseyed over to the place in which Qiao had bestowed her blessing and whispered one of her own. The Priestesses had taught her something, why not make good use out of it? When things were going well for Akashingo and Muat-Riya, Medusa would even give her all of the credit.

And for good measure, she spent the remainder of the evening making a charm to bestow luck upon the wearer. She left it before Qiao’s door, and thought she would leave it at that. Words were bullshit. It was what one did that was supposed to matter, right? 

Since Qiao hadn’t brought up Medusas own greatest humiliation to date—second, actually, but the first Medusa would never, ever admit to—she was good in her book.

Medusa continued to suffer every step back to her bedroom, but she raced the sun.