Two Eyes Cenote what I’ve done

@Nokht !!

Maybe it was Toula’s protection totem, or maybe the Gods had thought Nokht had seen enough. She didn’t know, she didn’t care. The only thing she cared about was crossing the threshold, where soldiers awaited—they let her pass, alarmed at her state, perhaps missing the too small being in her mouth.

She didn’t bring him to Nazli. She knew she should—maybe she still would. But Medusa couldn’t bring herself to do it just yet. She placed him on plush furs and looked at his exhausted little face, and called in the halls for food to be brought here.

I am going to clean you up, okay? she asked, uncertain of where to begin, how to do this… any of this. And then we can rest, and do whatever you want for a while, she lowered herself on her belly, looking at him, grimacing at the wounds. 

She rose and asked for a fellahin to fetch @Tavina, and to bring healing herbs. Medusa’s jaw ached, and she saw his leg—she wouldn’t force him to walk anywhere, but she needed time before she carried him again. Her own hurts were small next to his. 

He was so small. Too small, malnourished maybe. Fuck, she didn’t know, but she’d take care of him. From here on out, Medusa would do everything she could to make sure he lived the best life.

tavina had seen to it that the wound delivered to her by the semer-wati would not scar. but relegated to this room, she could not bathe nor seek the comfort of a bed. the sesh grew listless and angered when she was not tending the silent captain, a man who she was quickly coming to resent.

when the summons came, tavina rounded on the servant. "you know i'm not allowed to leave this room," she snapped. "tell medusa to bring the boy here."

poor child, poor innocent child. she prepared silently for him, black fur hanging in lusterless hanks from her irritated form.

it was no one's fault save for that of rashepses, she told herself.

He scarce recognized the walls of home. Only weeks had passed, but the fight for survival had attempted to scrub the thought of better places from his mind, best not to dwell on them too much, made the whole ordeal that much worse. 

He was tired. Hungry. He hadn't got much relief for either in his confinement, save for the occasional scrap, and even that had been few and far between when the one-eyed man was around. He seemed to find some joy in his torment. Nokht wished he understood such hatred and what he had done to be on the recieving end of it. And sleep? Most certainly not; when vultures eyed him up from every corner, how could you sleep under that sort of duress?

So when the panic had finally worn off, and the feeling of bottomless fear finally flickered out to mere embers, he laid his head against soft furs and felt his body grow ten times heavier. The voice of his rescuer uttered sweet promises; the sort he hadn't been worthy of. 

He wanted his mom. In the haze of pain and exhaustion and every other thing, he reached his paw out for comfort.

The fellahin came with word, and Medusa frowned. Reluctant to disturb him, she saw his little paw reach for hers. And her heart just about melted. Two more journeys little guy, she promised. She just needed to figure out where the last one would be. Back to Nazli, or herself?

Another brought food. She bid they follow her as she gently, gently picked her boy up. And then they marched to Tavina, and again she was gentle when it came to depositing him where she was told to. 

Her eyes had yet to turn to the doctor, or the other patient in the room. They hadn’t left the boy once since the moment she found him again. She was a little afraid that if she did, he would be taken again. 

Look what those fuckers did to him, she hissed angrily, shaking her head. Medusa seethed and stewed, blind to the fact that she cared so much for a being she had refused to claim when first he came into the world.

"put him here," tavina murmured as medusa entered the room. a smaller shelf of rock, tucked against the wall and covered with a soft sheeps'-pelt. covered in toothmarks and cuts, it was his leg which worried the doctor most.

yet someone had set it, wrapped it. she would have preferred neater handiwork but that was all. his wounds had been at least washed; in her bias she bulled beyond the finer details: the cartel had a medic.

"sweet nokht," tavina smiled, managing it just barely. "i need you to drink something for me. it will make you sleep nice and deeply." weakened wine mixed with just enough poppy, it would dull his pain and send him into merciful slumber.

the sesh drew medusa aside. "his wounds will heal. i'll clean them and bandage them. but the leg has begun to set. if it's set badly. i'll have to break it again and splint it proper." horrible, for a little boy to have already suffered so much, but if he wanted a chance to walk again, medusa would take it. "once he's asleep, i'll do a further inspection."

her heart went out to the priestess, the young woman who had surrendered her children to a higher power only for the gods to drive her right back into motherhood's trial.

He let out a small whine as he was lifted again, but he'd fight through it; despite the meekness of him, he had a spirit that tried as it could to remain unbroken. He tried not to whine the second time he was set down, he didn't want them to think he wasn't grateful. Round ears perked to listen as he was addressed; faces he knew, but failed to remember.

At least they spoke to him gently.

..m.'okay.. He mumbled out, lifting his chin to drink what was given. 

Soon there would be relief. First in many days. It felt like longer, felt like he'd grown a decade in the last few weeks. He wanted them to stay, looked their direction as the two filed a little further away from where he could hear.

He still hadn't gotten to say thank you. Likely, he wouldn't for a while more yet, the drink made his eyelids heavy.

She could cry, to think that they would cause him any pain. She hurt in ways she never wanted to. Never thought she would. Wasn’t this a reason she had pushed them away? Here she was in the thick of it.

Will he feel it, if he sleeps? she asked quietly, wanting to to curl protectively around him. He had gone through too much. For whatever reason, the Gods wanted him in her paws. The rest too, probably. She couldn’t very well ignore Their demand, not when They made it like this. 

Still she did not look to Tavina as the boy fought sleep.

"he'll feel the pressure, certainly. the pain will be bad when he wakes. let's hope it's not necessary."

in reassurance she touched the priestess' shoulder, then began to unwrap the leg. 

but she did not palpate the bone, not yet; she motioned medusa closer. "hold his hand. let him know he is not alone."

He drifted between two realms, that of the sleep which had evaded him for weeks, and that of the waking world that had shown him so little aside from cruelty.

Even here, he struggled to feel safe. He fought against the sleep. What would happen if he wasn't there to see it? He only anticipated more pain.

He let out a whine and looked through half-lidded eyes at those over him, aching with a terror that knew no logic.

She frowned. And she hoped beyond hope that whoever had healed him knew what they were doing. Medusa curled around him, watching him try to drift. And she did hold his paw, gentler than she’d ever been. 

His father found me. I should call him, she thought of @Vasilly—but also still of herself. And then wondered at her lack of self-preservation. All she’d ever done was to survive. But this act for Nokht defied all logic. All instinct. 

Medusa felt adrift, too. Between two worlds—one with her son, and one without.

"no men are necessary here." why had medusa not simply married the stupid fool and kept her children? maternal instinct was great, but would nokht understand why it was the priestess at his side and not nazli?

son of magick.

when he was asleep, tavina checked his breathing and rolled the boy to his back, head nestled in the crook of medusa's arm. her touch was firm and seemingly unkind as she pressed hard to assess the break, tracing her paw along both sides of nohkt's leg.

"it's healed badly, and there is swelling. hold him, medusa. he may cry out."

fetching an arched stone, tavina nudged it into place beneath the poor limb and snapped it quickly across the stone surface; as the splintering sound filled the air, she winced but worked swiftly. blood welled from torn flesh in two places.

rock was removed, replaced by two strips of fawnhide which she bid medusa help her to arrange beneath the bleeding leg. next, two almost-equal lengths of polished driftwood were brought by the sesh, a medicinal trade from their time at the great hunt. 

placing them on either side of the newly-broken leg, she salved the ripped skin. physician and priestess swathed nokht's limb as tightly as they might be capable.

"he will hurt when he wakes." but would he regain full motion? only the gods of this place could possibly know.

Hi pls accept this massivelong cameo post

She hadn't slept well ever since her brother disappeared. The three siblings had been shushed and soothed by Nazli and servants in equal measure, but Asenath refused to settle. She roamed and scoured the red halls calling for Nokht until her throat ached from the effort, only returning to the den when escorted back by a servant where her dreams were plagued with purple-orange moons, alongside tall and spindly figures who spat strange, green venom. She began chasing the shadows that appeared along the walls, thinking them to be her brother until she rounded the corner only to find one of the smaller members of Muat-riya's ranks staring back at her in confusion.

The past few days had seen their home become alive with activity and tension, but the adults told them little of what was happening and even less about the whereabouts of their lost sibling. They were ushered back to Nazli's den if they ever wandered too far from the safety of the palace.

Unfortunately, Asenath had inherited Medusa's stubborn streak. She crept from their chamber after finding herself yet again unable – and unwilling – to sleep. Her patchwork coat helped conceal her somewhat as she danced in and out of light and shadow, on another futile search through the halls – searching, looking, thinking maybe this time...

She didn't believe the scent that hit her nose, not at first. Nokht's – faint, but there, along with the strong tang of blood, then of herbs, followed by the unmistakeable smell of the palace's physician who Asenath realised just now she had not seen in quite some time.

Her pace quickened until she was sprinting towards the room, arriving just as both women were swathing her poor brother's limb; though from the doorway, she could not tell just what they were doing. She peered anxiously around the stone corner, partially hiding, partially desperate to call out for her brother. Who was the pale woman with Tavina? They both reeked of blood, of strange scents of the outside world. Another was in the room, too, a hulking dark mass laying further from the women and the boy they worked on.

Blue eyes darted from form to form as Asenath remained crouching in the shadows, watching, trying to complete a puzzle out of ill-fitting pieces.

Much as he fought sleep, it would still take him.

Like all things, not even this, did he have choice in.

In this sleep, terrible sleep, he would feel it; sparingly, like hurting in a dream, it was hard to tell what was real and what was conjured. A mercy in some regards. In the waking world his paws would twitch and his chest would rise and fall with rapid speed. 

But soon, the worst would be over. If the world were anything other than this cruel and wretched place he'd been shown, then soon, he would wake with family, play with siblings again, feel wonder in every new thing he saw and love everyone around him.

If he even could, anymore. He was too young to be so damaged. When he would wake, the pain would be the first of many hurdles.