Two Eyes Cenote fifty-ninth

"please prepare a room for the sesh nazli," senmut asked of @Eset. "i have sent for her to join akashingo, now that we are settled. i am told she returned some time ago and lives, though she is still recovering. our queen means for nazli to be part of her court; see to it she is placed close to the divine chambers."

the Horus Throne would not be his. his mouth tingled to think of how he had touched however briefly the divine form of their godhead. it was not fitting for a priest. "i know that we once spoke of bringing tribute from the sea for this coronation. can it be done?"

his heart was filled with many things.

The disappointment is misplaced. She knows it is unfair. She feels it anyway, standing in his elegant presence.

Had he ever wanted it? She’d been a fool to believe the words of a mere fellahin might ennoble the mind. Perhaps it is here in this present station between divinity and nobility he found himself most fulfilled. Perhaps it is that his heart pulls him elsewhere-

“At once, Erpa-Ha,” she nods. “There are a bank of chambers I’ve reserved near the royal halls. I’ll see it is fitted with the suitable comforts.”

She fell to quiet again before giving a second acknowledgment, “Yes. The mazoi will be sent out a week before the ceremony. The tribute must be kept fresh,” she explains. She had tasted the bounty from the initial excursion and found it buttery, lightly sweet yet equally acidic. It was an acquired taste but she believed Toula would enjoy the novelty so long as the chefs of Akashingo knew how to properly prepare such a dish.

senmut nodded. "thank you for making the arrangements. our queen is wise to keep you so close."

and then, for a bold, open moment, the prince caught eset's eye. "i have not forgotten your faith in me. so you must know it is equal, mine in you."

rashepses, laughing, leaning over the redstone arm of the hewn throne to whisper something for the queen alone; an image, plucked from the future, he decided.

a breath and he was himself again. "i look forward to seeing her pleasure at receiving this bounty from the sea. her delight is — a reward."

senmut quieted himself now. "do you have everything necessary for the rest of the banquet? tell me when you are ready to send our invitations; i will see that a swift messenger carries your dictation."

this was her crowing glory as aspiring hebsut. the rank was all but hers; the queen need only say. the triumph of a royal wedding and feast would come down upon eset's mind. senmut wished her to know that her efforts were greatly seen.

She swallows down a clench in her throat, finding it difficult to long hold the intensity of the deep jeweled stare. His trust in her, like Toula’s, it could not be misspent. Somewhere along the way Senmut had become more than noble man to her, but hieroglyph; freed of servile origins, ascending to that which he is most devoted- godhood.

Senmut did not need a vow of marriage to bind himself to Toula’s reign.

“Thank you,” her nose lowers, gaze averted, until his questions are again for work.

“Nearly everything’s been arranged. I will compose the address and come to you in no more than a week’s time.”

There was still the matter of Toula’s dress, something she and Tuna were designing. Seating arrangements, too, would need to be chosen. The entertainment had been heavily considered. The fellahin heard stories of great sacrificial beasts, grand spectacles of Pharaoh’s power, though needless bloodspill did not feel like Toula. And in essence, the entire ceremony was a representation of Her.

Alternatively, it was Eset’s hope to assemble a song from Inji, a dance between Tuna and the snake she charms, and something from Sayf, if he wished. Perhaps it was simple and atypically modest for a feast and occasion of this size, but she believed it was the collective talents of her own people which would most delight the Queen to see.

For her own gift, there was a half-formed sketch on a wall; a fresco she could not hope to finish on time. If not for a second artist.

“Tuna tells me you are a painter, Divine One,” she whispers.

"i am an acolyte of painting," senmut gently insisted, though a warm look accompanied his words. "are you the same, eset?" it was not his first skill, but it was something which had come to him in the past months, as if Amun had willed it.

mentally, he veered away from the stark subject of their queen and the riverprince, caught between a dozen emotions.

he thought instead of the many tortoiseshells tucked now into a dark storeroom, fermenting cactus pulp into smooth white liquid, the legs of sheep and goat he had ordered to be hunted each day, the armfuls of flowers he himself brought — all the things the queen would need for her coronation and her honeymoon.

"i will be leaving for a time, once the marriage is complete. i believe i may go and see the ocean myself."

aloneness. it was necessary.

She nods, though hobbyist was more suiting. Still, where she lacked in formal training she compensated in being observant.

“There is a mural started in one of the hallways, l was hoping to have it completed before the ceremony. Would you care to paint with me?” The delivery was more direct than anticipated, which a bent head sought swiftly to amend. Menial work, she knew it was well beneath the Prince’s rank.

“Only if you’ve the time, and such a thing might please you,” she steers respectfully.

He wishes to go away. She wished he would not, but she understood why. Some tolerance was only achieved at a distance.

“I will make preparations for your journey, Erpa-ha. When the time comes. Will you be going alone?”

senmut was pleased. "show me," he said, his voice a radiant study in intrigue. where did she find the time to paint? eset was humble, and so he looked forward to seeing the fine detail in this work as well.

he had seen what she had done with each room and how their queen was satisfied, delighted, glowing; how she wanted for nothing; how her guests were treated with care.

eset was careful and senmut felt this would apply in any of her crafts.

he moved with her. "you will make preparations for two journeys," the prince said softly. "one after the coronation, and a similar one in the spring."

there was an intimacy between them, senmut planting his unsaid words and eset tilling them into green thought that did not need to be discussed.

"i will go alone to the sea," he decided. "and in the spring, i may ask for a companion."

In his eyes, no mockery. An eagerness jumps in her throat as she guides the holy man down a deserted hallway.

There on a bare face of limestone was a faint scene loosely stroked by paw: Toula, the golden Pharaoh, with the solar disk of Isis bright over her head. Beside her, smaller, a figure had first been drafted in reds. He now comprised of obsidian and gold.

She stares at the crude marks.

“To make something, I believe it is an act of optimism. First you set out to paint a mural, you believe you’re going to finish it. Then you think once you’ve finished it’s going to be good. Then you believe there’s someone who will want to see it, which is even more hopeful,” her eyes move to his.

“A single stroke of paint presumes a future audience. It presumes hope.” That hope caught in Eset's face.

“Two journeys,” the fellahin acknowledges. She wanted happiness for Toula. Such happiness she wanted also for him- even if it was not to be found in her Pharaoh.

senmut was mesmerized. the weight of the last year seemed to fall away from him, if briefly; his marvelling was open-mouthed and boyish, and he inspected each part of the mural without touch, only the caress of his skilled eyes.

"i want all who attend the coronation to see this work," the prince said softly, still gazing upon it. "you are right to hope. the gods reward it. i believe in the potential of this work, eset."

"is there anything you desire that i might provide? perhaps from my journey. perhaps now."

A smile dimples the fellahin's mouth to hear his thoughts and the acknowledgment that so simple a thing had value. It was not the mural she saw now, but the wall beneath it; the palace as a painting, and the world their audience. It was all a form of art, this kingdom of Toula’s.

“Thank you, Erpa-ha. Though I’d find that… deeply embarrassing,” she confesses quietly. “I wish only that Pharaoh will see it completed. So she will know her history- her hope- is set upon these walls. And any who happen to walk here will know it, too.” In time the palace in its entirety would be adorned with the stories as Akashingo was.

She felt almost shy of the offer by what she wanted. It was something she would not have before dared ask for; yet now perhaps there was a chance-

“I wish also to go away for a time. Once things here in Muat-Riya settle. Might I be permitted?”

"then let it be only for her eyes, and only for my contemplation," senmut said in pleasant invitation, paws aching somewhat to lift paint for the wall himself.

it had been a long while since time had allowed for it. the prince allowed himself the idle image of he and eset, shoulder to shoulder, muraling while the hours passed.

she asked for very little. senmut granted it with a nod. "she will need you during her honeymoon, and during — spring," he ventured. the needs of a royal bedchamber, its secrets, its failure; all guarded by the hebsut. virginity, conception, birth, these pillars of one's existence supported by the constancy of the one called eset.

"aside from these events, you are free to plan your own foray. come to me when you are ready to leave. do you plan to journey alone?"

for himself, senmut planned to depart upon the very night of the coronation, once he had seen guests to their drunken feasting and paid compliments to the emissaries who had come. perhaps it could not be done! perhaps he must stay a while after, but with eset's capable gaze upon all things, senmut suspected it would be easier to escape.

he hoped only that toula would not be affronted by his short time away, less that than its obvious timing, less than its obvious message that senmut could not share their roof on that first night, for reasons he both did and did not understand.

She’d never shared a painting before and there was a small sense of anxiety in opening it to another’s mark. But as each exerts themself upon the wall, the silence is easy and the work is made lovelier by converging strokes.

“I would not leave my position here during that time,” the fellahin consents in the air between them where hung the heavy implications of what was to follow in the warmer months. She sets down her paw, staring intently at the gold paint.

“Yes; alone.”

alone.

"may the gods bless our journeys," senmut said softly, offering eset a gentle look. he had already decided he would return with something for her. he wished his recognition of all her nuanced contributions to be clear.

he followed her gaze to the gilt color and found himself quieted.

“Gods guide you, always, Senmut.”

She takes a low breath and returns to painting, grateful for the priest’s company. In time as the passageway quiets she feels their own presence centered within it, small, solid, and in command.