Lion Head Mesa ho[m]e

Making some assumptions because I missed a lot with her, can edit just PM me! Set around the time MR arrives to AK.

Their lives had been upended. It had happened in such a way that Nazli should have been surprised, but she found herself rolling with the change as easily as she had handled the chaos of the raids; it had been easy for her to hide with her daughter, to keep out of the way. When that changed - and she had assumed the role of mother to more - it had not been such a struggle to adapt, not until things went wrong. A child missing, a child returned; injured, nursed over, recovered as much as the gods allowed... Together, again. Together, always.
Now they said goodbye to their home. The journey had felt so long to the priestess, and she owed the fluidity of their migration to @Senmut, to the Mazoi, to @Toula and her consort; their arrival was joyous to some, awe-inspiring to the children. She could only feel dread as the spires of Akashingo rose upon the horizon. As the earth turned from red-brown to moss green, to ochre, to tilled gold - a familiar ache descended across her spine and a twist accompanied the drop of her stomach. @Aiesha had noticed, and asked after her, and Nazli had to smile that mother-knows-best catchall expression, promising it was nothing - only tired, my beloved.
The children were settled. Some to fellahin quarters, some to the barracks of the Mazoi, because there was space. Aiesha and she, together, took up with Senmut in the holy place, and for a time there was comfort in the familiar scents of herbs, and the icons made of twisted reed; Nazli helped Aiesha to sleep by telling her stories of how mother and father met, edited with delicate craftwork of the tongue.
Now, alone, she slips from all of these things.
She strides to the heart of the palace, above-ground, in the courtyard. The sleeping place of the priests behind her, where Aiesha nests. Nazli looks up, and up, and up, along the straight edges of the mesa which looks somehow like grinning teeth in the gloaming.

by all rights should senmut have gone to pharaoh first, but she and her consort had gone to heated bed. he would not disturb their sovereigns, even as he began to believe that the shadow of rashepses had entered all the world.

instead he made his way among the throng, slipping through sideways red halls until he entered silently the room where his child slept, and brushed her with a kiss. over bedside he whispered a prayer, lingering until he assured himself all was well.

nazli was not so difficult to find; he saw her twilit form and stood watching as she moved through the trees gone to wintertide. his approach was quiet, but it was not a priest who took her into his arms for a long kiss, it was a man long starved of heart's-desire.

there was no other who inhabited that starlight place save for nazli herself.

Once as a girl she had moved through the halls of Akashingo without issue; beholden to Pharaoh as any other of her station, but without the trepidation that now weighted down her every moment. Even here among the trees and in the open air Nazli felt it — this claustrophobia renewed — despite being beneath the shining eye of her goddess. Then as the figure of her would-be husband came to meet her, she was ensnared by his reach, his taste.
The palace was a busy place with these late additions, even at this hour. Nazli did not stop the kiss, in fact leaning in to it as desperately as anyone on the cusp of dehydration might seek an oasis. Once parted, remembering herself and where they now stood, she blushed as a girl might. The old fears of being caught should not have plagued her! They had Aiesha; their love was well known.
It is strange to be here, she finally admits, having not broken their embrace. Snow had begun to drift from overhead, an oddity in this climate but not unheard of, although Nazli was so fixated upon Senmut now that she would hardly have noticed.
Strange, but good. I have missed you. And again she would kiss him, and kiss him, as if to prove this was not some dream.

"strange but good," senmut echoed, not resisting the desire to lean forward, to smooth the place between her ears with another kiss, to bring her close until their hearts drummed together. "it is surreal that you are here," high priest breathed against her cheekbone, unable to hide the foolish, boyish grin which overtook him then.

"i have missed you so, nazli," and in his fierceness he backed her to the edge of the stone wall, to its moss, to its ancient ridging which guarded the many thick pillarings of akashingo.

he wanted to speak of the darkness. he wanted to speak of rashepses. but the man who was senmut commanded now, and he did not care what eyes might see.

His confidence here! Not weighted down by a difference between them, because no difference nor distance stood between them now; but even during the ritual which had brought them a daughter he had not been so driven! Nazli loosed a surprised laugh, muffled only by the priest whose body pressed against her own.
She could not, would not resist this.
Our family is not big enough? Jesting with whispers, feeling herself cornered against the palace wall. They have so much time between them wasted and apart! Now together, what more could Nazli dream of?

"it is you i want, but tomorrow," in another season, "i may desire to see you glowing with life again."

such a blessing aiesha was, even if they both had not expected her. but to spend each day with nazli, to see how nature moved upon her, to be present when new children drew first breath — yes.

but for now, the darkening of his desirous eyes said the time for words had moved beyond him. "we have been too long apart," senmut said in a whisper which echoed her own unsaid thought, caressing her until she grew to heat and softness beneath his touch.

We have, she gasps, seeking his mouth.
Even in this moment her children were not far from her mind! Aiesha was sleeping, secured, hidden away. The others dispersed; there were mazoi guarding them here, and no vagabonds from the desert. No strange men — no cartel. Safe, it was safe here.

Snow dusted his shoulders. She felt it touching her cheeks, her nose, and melting in to fur. How she wanted to melt in to him — The wellspring, she sighs against him, or—where? Take me anywhere, Senmut, innuendo or not, it was better than in the open; that had already been done, and not something Nazli wanted repeated even now in her hunger for him.

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he did not remember how they had come to be inside akashingo after that; he was drunk on the wine of her mouth and the ardency that transfixed every part of him.

dampened by the wellspring, both of them gone to whispers and soft sounds of pleasure; he moved with her in undulation on a heap of silken white skins beside the water, his eyes, his flesh, his soul — hers eternal.

perhaps even in its midst was he more overtaken than he meant to be, his teeth at her throat, losing himself in the frenzy of love.

the darkness could not touch them as they bound together; the darkness would never come between them, senmut prayed desperately to Amun as the little death came for he and nazli in rapturous cry.

They had been apart for so long that Nazli had expected things to feel new again, or different, or somehow very strange, and yet she found herself melting in to the water and the shadow before Senmut. The hour grew so late that even the most dutiful fellahin was not to be heard in the halls; it was a perfect time to be together, just the two of them.

In the time after, warmed by the presence of her love for him, Nazli could only sigh and press against the slicked wet chest of her man.

There is a pleasant quiet between them. Heavy breathing punctuates the moment, and the lust in her eyes has become softer. I love you, my priest.

"i love you, my priestess," heart finding its calm as he framed her face in his palms and gazed down as if committing each detail of her countenance to permanent memory.

in many ways they had both changed. aged. grown into the roots of their spiritual demands, and yet to his eyes was nazli ageless, guileless, a testimony to the goodness of their kingdom.

not for the first time was senmut unsure of their place here, and a shadow crossed the otherwise honeyed set of his smile. 

She smiled to him and the corners of her eyes creased, her gaunt cheeks plush beneath the pressure of his careful grip in that moment. Something she could not name shifted across his own face, and even if she had wished to ignore it for the sake of the warmth between them Nazli knew better. What is it?

The water shifted as she pulled her chin up, focusing as best she could while her skin thrummed in the aftermath of their love-making. Perhaps he was afraid? But she could not understand what there was to be afraid of — the dangers of Muat-Riya were not likely to follow them here to the grand palace.

Nazli wanted to believe in that so badly.

he did not want to tell her.

senmut found a stall in a long kiss, an exhale against her shoulder until he at last relented. "there is — some force at work in akashingo. and i believe its conduit to be our Semer-wati."

voice, hushed; "are you aware he denied sending soldiers for eset and detained tavina for weeks? by now pharaoh should know, and yet nothing is done."

he did not want their sugared moments to be followed by such bitter bile.

She was easily distracted, hungry for every bit of affection he saw fit to grant her; clinging to him even as he drew back to breathe, to speak, Nazli found herself wishing she had not asked —but he named Tavina, suddenly, and the mood shifted.

Nazli had been so busy with Aiesha and then the other children, so intent on keeping them as sheltered as she could, her own ignorance spiked now. Tavina—no, why?

She had known of Eset's disappearance insofar as rumor had churned through Muat-Riya; but even those rumors were hard to process. What had started as idle gossip became swept away with talk of the cartel, then it became so muddy, and herself too busy to keep up.

But, Tavina?

He can't think Tavina was involved. Reality threatened the sweetness of their reunion now, and Nazli found herself growing chilled in the water. She has never, would never, act against the benefit of Akashingo. She was biased; they both knew how and why, but it did not stop Nazli from speaking sharply in support of her mother and mentor.

"he has asked me to — bring her before the gods, nazli. i believe he means her to die." it was too great a horror and yet he was unmoved! too many years in this wretched place with its bloodying politics had numbed his servant's heart.

now was not the time to speak of ramesses, and yet it was all he could think of for now, the princely face, the plotting laughter, the way he had looked with nazli beside him.

the majestic manner of his death.

"you must promise me this, nazli: that you will take our children and leave to the north, to the moon villages, should anything befall me. anything at all," voice hushed in somber dread.

It was awful to listen to this presumption; what right did this man have to do such a thing? How could Toula permit this to transpire? This was the woman who had been present for her birth! So had Nazli, come to think of it — but Tavina had always been there for each arrival of the Divine, for even Toula's own children! How could they even consider...?

Senmut spoke of worse things still! You think they would burn all of their strongest supporters? That Toula would harm you - harm them? Aiesha? As she spoke her voice weakened, and when she spoke the name of their daughter there were warm tears in her eyes, a constriction of the throat.

Whispering now in the dark together, Nazli had to silence herself and take a deep breath. She presses her forehead in to Senmut's chest, head bowed, blotting at her eyes with the red and cream there.

I'm not ready to be parted from you again. Senmut, blinking, looking up at him now in the dark. Our family is finally together.

"i want you here so fiercely it hurts to breathe, nazli," senmut murmured, the tug of tears behind his voice. "i have ached to be away from you, and yet, and yet! i could not bear to lose you to some tyrant. yes. i believe if i do not act in the way i am obligated to act, you are in danger."

bringing one to heel was an art, and a gilded man such as their Consort would have a thousand thumbscrews which might be put to an artless priest.

her tears stood in the dark. he tasted his own a moment later.