Lion Head Mesa use your hands

she fled quickly from the scene of her work. she had done her best to wash herself so she did not come home smelling of, well, death. even if he was fresh there was no denying the scent!

@Tavina! a hoarse whisper into their chambers as her tall ears pointed towards the sky.

a bit of a bewildered look on her features.

qiao had given her a tea for nazli. tavina lay the herbs before her and inhaled. in their scent was the knowledge that perhaps the girl might escape the creeping horrors of ramesses.

but then nala was with her, fresh-scrubbed and smelling of blood; tavina's eyes narrowed. "what's happened? has someone hurt you?"

did tavina not know?!

her heart raced and she nearly fumbled right into the arms of her wife. n-no! oh, tavina, he's dead. ramesses.

and her bewildered mismatched gaze looked into purple eyes.

did her wife truly not know yet? somehow it felt impossible to be the first to know anything between the two of them!

tavina's face closed, for she had heard the call of lady qiao. who could not?

"good," she said crisply, angrily, arranging new cloths and running her paw along the inside of a bird-skull she might use for the tea.

"so now a woman will sit on his throne, eventually. a girl for now." she looked at her wife and relented, reaching to touch the stunned cheek. "this is a good thing. he was a horrid man."

nala did not miss the anger that spread through her wife.

she watched as she worked on things until she returned for a touch. the hemet wished she could whisk away all of this stress. that she might cleanse the whole palace of it! an impossible mission.

i— her voice felt weak in her throat. have you...seen her? should we go see her?

"i have not seen her." tavina's face was sickened for a moment, at the dead man, at herself.

"lady qiao has told me how these are to be prepared. it will put nazli to sleep for a long while but when she wakes, she might forget."

how awful!

tavina nodded. "i will prepare this and then — then we will find her."

nala thought of him.

exposed. bare. nothing more than a...man. the body of one, really. she thought of all the singing they had done over him.

she nearly missed the words of tavina!

oh...but she will wake, right? there was some tremor of fear in nala's voice. she knew that it was not always the best for one to sleep for a long time. but lady qiao and tavina were both skilled well beyond the newest hemet.

can i help? at all?

"two days for this potion." tavina slipped green paste and owl-pellets into clean water. she held up the devil-claw plant which the other hemet had given. "lady qiao says she will be delirious the first, the second and third she will be feverish. but on the fourth, she will waken."

so she hoped. so she must believe.

tavina put down the greenery. "lady qiao will help us watch over her. and i think, nala, that she should be in the place of the priests while she recovers."

her heart could not handle it!

nor could she hide the soft shake in her feathered quarters now. the trembling of a nervous woman who had just helped laid pharaoh in a peaceful way — er, once pharaoh! now she was to be a hand in the healing of nazli who still laid ill.

she almost missed a time when she had been clueless to all the ongoings of akashingo.

i will make her a place. she said softly, but certain of this. i can keep her company at all hours. i can sing for her and her healing. i'll tell her stories so she knows we are there and care.

she thought of the three of them singing over ramesses and her stomach turned all over again.

her eyes had started to water.

poor, sweet nala! tavina enfolded her close.

"she will need these things and you are the best one to ensure they happen." her own throat was harsh with tears she would not allow to fall. tavina meant to be strong for her shaken wife.

"we will heal her, you see?" her voice carried determination. "and she will be better for your healing and your songs."