Two Eyes Cenote Eiderdown

AW for pack establishment!

The cenote. Internally beautiful. Externally challenging. She flit about the weeds, searching for edible greenery that would soon serve as garnish for courses at the Queen’s coronation feast. Cacti and scrub brush and ugly stalks of ocotillo. It was all rubbish!

"my medicine room looks very nice, eset, thank you," tavina commented. she had of course spent an hour gossiping inside said chamber with none other than @Akhtar about how rashepses had met toula! not alone but still!

and so she was in a tizzy as she came to join the other woman, tiny leaves caught in her pelt as she strode on. why senmut did not — act romantically in any fashion she did not know!

but eset was a welcome sight that softened the sesh's face. "i was there when she and when all her siblings were born. can hardly believe she's marrying." her tone was slightly aggrieved and certainly scandalized.

thank you for joining!

And to Rashepses.

“I can hardly believe it either,” she agrees, catching the edge of Tavina’s meaning but not making any elaboration. She reaches to lift a leaf from the Sesh's shoulder, lips pulling into contented smile to see her before rooting about again.

“Oh! This?” She tugs eagerly at the branches of some unique-looking, half-crimson growth, raising it high above her chest for Tavina’s opinion. The roots are rotted and the whole thing looks like a splattered brain. Abhorrent! She’s quick to drop the mess. “Gods- no.” The search the continues.

“You’ve been a constant in her life,” she pauses before adding sadly, “One of few.” Would any more family rise from the sands now that their Queen was to become Pharaoh?

tosses her in here >:)

This place felt like a dream, the cenote.
The pass was the most at home she'd felt since her departure from Minya. Dryrock, bland basins pale by day and dancing with starlight come moon-high. She misses it, somewhat.
Her job, decidedly, was to gather materials to build up the halls; to make this as grand a place as their home. A crude collection of terracotta to turn to paint, plants plucked to decorate interiors, berries to store for the Queen's coronation. Pharaohship was to come to her, so she'd heard in whispers.
What did that mean for Rashepses? And of Khusobek, whose eggs rested in his basket? What did that mean for her?
The rustle and bend of a rather strange plant catches her attention, earning a small investigative squint of her eyes as her pad comes to a soft stop. Only then did she register the voices, and then the faces. Oh!

happy to be here!

there was something that changed in tavina's face then; pride and grief mingling. she was thinking of nazli then, only nazli; how her own lack of backbone had led that girl to —

i wanted my own children

we were waiting to see if she had conceived

"she has no mother. and i am not that, but — it is important she has strong women in her life. and she does," tavina said more brightly as another fellahin drew close. 

she did not know inji well, but toula thought very highly of the pretty girl, and pretty she was, though tavina looked away in some sense of guilt. she had not allowed her eye to stray and would not; that was for men too weak to be alone for a short while.

the sesh regarded the discarded plant, touching it gently.

At every turn, Tavina was a woman who clinched quiet strength. But the fellahin perceived, maybe because she knew what to look for, or because gradually so great a loss seeps into corners of life it might have never before touched until grief became a philosophy.

“She does,” another agreement, looking with admiration into the amethyst eyes that had guided her, and so often. Seeing the loneliness there.

“Now that our second palace is nearly furnished, it would please me to assist you again,” The doctor was busy. The paws of Sesh had dwindled to one. Nazli was in the North. Legend lay ailing.

Her eyes are drawn to a flickering of sage and the silver silhouette cresting the bluff. 

“Are you having any luck on your end, Inji?” She greets with an inviting sweep of tail.

Her previous frustrations are comparatively small. She gives a second glance to the odd patchy plant. Maybe there was potential.

Inji peers 'round the corner of the rather homely little bush, nodding toward Eset at her acknowledgement of the girl's presence. The plants around here are certainly, um, unique, she muses. I think I might have to stick with paints for my decorations.
Her gaze then finds Tavina amid the gossip between women, and from her lip unfurls a smile. The women, it seemed, did not often pay attention to her; did not hunger for her. She is not sure whether that should be pleasing or alarming.
She leans forth to better investigate the scarlet-tinged shrubbery herself. Hmmm, she snuffles and makes a jerking motion backward as a leaf jabs at the tip of her nose. maybe we could put this in the room of someone who sucks. But who sucks?

sorry to hold this up! <3

"rashepses," tavina said with a swift dryness, arching a brow at the two women who appeared to have become her allies in this. 

her eyes returned to eset; between them both, she felt the tripping of her pulse and her body reminded her it had been seven months since —

almost eight.

her wry look had not abated, a dashing expression beneath which a volcanic sorrow roiled. "i'll take the help, gladly. with all the new plants, i've had to do a lot of identification. i expect," tavina went on, scrutinizing the odd little shrubbery once more, "we should all be prepared for the chance our queen may decide to break with tradition and have her children elsewhere. if there are to be newborns here, i'll need to make sure a pharmacy is stocked with both sorts of herbs, from upland and the desert."

she had been musing really, voice dipping from conversational to introspective; a doctor in her element. "i wonder if some of these bloom at night. they might be more appealing. dry flowers, perhaps."

No worries at all!

Eset had not even a laugh to stifle. If there was truth to the rumors then the prince was not a man she wanted around Toula- yet there was nothing to be done about it.

And the idea of motherhood, the season that would soon be upon them; Toula’s; her own-

Nothing to be done about that, either. She forces these thoughts to abate.

“Tomorrow, then. I will help you with the stores,” her voice perks, holding over Tavina before turning to Inji and the bloodied thing at their feet, corners of her mouth tipping.

“It would indeed make a charming display for the river prince, don’t you think?”

Rashepses.
The name falls from Tavina's tongue and Inji finds herself aflutter. Neither of them knew, did they? And suddenly, the young fellahin wishes desperately for them not to — in a situation where she should feel sisterhood, she feels alone; ostracized; dirty.
Whorish.
Her lip curls into something unknown before a smile flurries across a thin set of jaws. I'd love to help, too, if you'll-- if you'll have me, Tavina, for Inji had, as of late, been comically plunked into situations where a knowledge of medicine was necessary, and yet she had none. Who better was there to learn from? And then, to play along — or, perhaps, to make herself feel whole again — she playfully punches out her elbow in the direction of Eset. maybe we could give him a pet cactus.

tavina certainly knew consternation when she saw it, and wondered why inji did not seem to share their opinion of rashepses.

perhaps she found him handsome, tavina considered, though she was immediately wearied by any mental perusal of a man's worth in any category.

a grin flashed on the dark mouth even if her eyes did not truly reflect mirth. "join us then, inji. we might find it amusing if we three kept a few pet cacti, to hand out for — deserving men."

a bold wink.

A breath stops in her chest where a worry grows for Inji, trickling into a well of things unspoken.

Her lips hike into a smirk at Tavina’s suggestion. And not a bad one. She had it on good authority that some cacti were poisonous.

The ugly plant is set aside with her paw. “I’m going to return after sundown to see what blooms under moonlight.”

Deserving men.
It was not as if Inji had grown fond of Rashepses. He knew nothing of her save for her body and her voice, and she him. Of the men she knew biblically within the palace, he had not even been her favorite to lie with!
But Khusobek had given her instruction. Please him; become favored with the royalty; leave with me, one day. And so now the wall had slowly begun to build itself within her.
Maybe we could see if the cacti around here have any, like, healing properties, she thoughtfully declares, placing her gaze once more upon Tavina. or if they're poisonous.

tavina nodded. "i can tell you for certain that the more lovely a flower is, the less edible it tends to be. look for spikes that not only poke, but leave a burning or itching sensation behind in paws or flesh. this could indicate poison."

"i'll join you, eset," the sesh decided, needing time out-of-doors to steady herself. more and more time, it seemed.

last from me, thank you guys <3

“We must be sure to avoid those ones,” she casts a long glance out into the desert. It was cluttered with spiked succulents. She wonders if they’re going to catch their deaths out here.

“I think we’ve earned a break,” she looks between the women, gently shaking the dust from her pelt and taking an eager step in the direction of shade.

last from me as well! <33

The more lovely a flower is, the less edible it tends to be. What a metaphor.
I will keep that in mind, Inji nods along, deciding to harvest a branch from the pitiful plant they had been observing before. Perhaps if she presented it to Rashepses, he would think it to be pretty. Or just lie to her face. Either way, she would laugh to herself about it.
If allowed, she, too, would join the girls in the respite of shadow until night fell upon them.