Lion Head Mesa forty-seventh

it was midafternoon before senmut was prepared to leave. and he would not go without first seeing her face.

an attendant announced him at the floral gates to her perfumed rooms; he bowed low, touching forehead to the red flooring, and then raising up to regard @Toula with no small amount of reverent nature.

beside him, a single orange blossom, its center a deep yawning red, their colors together bringing to mind a strike of fire.

"we go now, in your name, divine one." how would she fare without him so close? senmut had no doubt in her abilities to amuse herself; it was her protection that now must be handed to her retinue while he was away, until it was proclaimed safe for the royal woman to join her subjects.

Eset had made her aware of a great many things! and Toula wondered long after the fact at the lesson there. passion. a word that left her imagination running! and she was meant to feel such a thing for any of the princes? 
did they feel as much for her? she wondered at this as she looked upon the flower Senmut brought her. never had she imagined in any union passion! this new element left her suddenly confused as she looked back to him.
but what she did not lack for the man was love. no worry, at least, for she trusted those who would protect them with her own life after all. he was in the safest paws. and she did not doubt his love for Akashingo, which was so important to her. 
she should not be thinking any of these things now! he was to go on his journey, to expand their home. I have ensured that you have all the provisions that you need, she soothed, and I shall be alright. but I will miss you, while you are gone, even when he had went to the Lake that much had been true! he was a constant, where few others had been.

likewise, as senmut raised his brilliant eyes no higher than the queen's sculpted cheekbone, he thought of what it would mean to be beside her.

not a confusion for the prince, who must now perhaps make himself look upon her with new eyes. in this moment he saw only the elegant girl she had always been, not a child but still untarnished by the rigor of bearing heirs. hers would be a fiercer task, for in her would be both the tending of lineage and kingdom.

could he himself be such a man? senmut brought the flower forth now, tribute laid at her very feet. "i will pray you think of me fondly, divine one," he said with new gravity to the words, and perhaps she too might hear it.

the erpa-ha, becoming himself.

look to the others, he had once said to her. but as he pushed forth this flower, as he looked to her then, she thought now that he said, look to me. not merely as an afterthought, as once she felt he meant for himself. and she had listened to him, all without forgetting him—because how could she, for all that he had done? but that was practicality.
and this was... she did not know! for all of her wisdom above her years for her kingdom, in this she was a girl lost in a story. the main character had never been her, but Akashingo. it must always remain Akashingo—but if she let it be herself, just for a moment, what might she want?
she heard it, and she saw it—but she did not yet know what was meant by it. they two were of the same mind when it came to Akashingo. he, too, understood that it must come first. but that had never changed for him—
what did? was this that storybook romance whimsy? was this her imagination? did he want this passion she had been told of...?
did it matter then, before his journey? Toula smiled slowly, looking to meet his gaze for a long moment. how could I not, Erpha-Ha? no added gravity, only the truth of it. but she too must learn to look upon him with new eyes, and as she looked to this flower—can you think of me, the same?—there came suddenly the feeling of the possibility of it! 
but there were other princes too she must consider. he had said so himself! still, it soothed her spirit to think, perhaps to even see, himself in the light that she did.

senmut had served two pharaohs and a queen before the ascension of this royal daughter, and she had remained aglow in wartime and in the wake of her father's death, the dispersal of her royal brothers, her sister's disappearance, and the absence of the final sister to sit upon the horus throne.

of course, his mouth wished to form, but it was not the same adulation he must offer now. thoughts of legend and of nazli, yes — they must be put aside, for his loyalty must ever be for those who commanded the reins of akashingo.

passion; sentimentality; he knew them already, knew their shape and taste and the intimate anguish as well, these demands of tribute upon the very spirit. moreover, that which was to be exacted from them both, he as speaker for their gods and she as their very face, their truest intercession.

did he worship the queen or did he serve her divinity? was it she to which senmut was willing to be married, or to the foundations of their very kingdom? perhaps he had not shown so much of himself before her eyes in hopes she chose another; perhaps at his deepest, he had no desire to be pharaoh. 

a stanza, of love, of lovers calling to one another amid a green oasis; calling one another sister and brother;

"she has stolen my heart with her embrace,
she has made the neck of every man
turn at the sight of her.
whoever embraces her is happy,
he is like the head of lovers,
and she is seen beneath the sun
as a Goddess, the One Goddess."

and when it ended, senmut at last let his eyes touch that of her own; briefly; "give me leave to go, great one," and like an exhale it was, trembling in the air.

his voice was so lovely, and his singing evoked such feeling within her. she would thing of these words, turn them over in her head—had she ever heard the song before? it was for her, these words, but were they his feelings? 
she did not mean to stare so, and only realized that she did as Senmut’s gaze suddenly found her own. and she did not break it, not even as he spoke with a voice suddenly uneven. 
Toula found suddenly she did not want him to go. that there were a dozen things she might ask of him instead, none of which were prudent or useful to Akashingo, and none of which perhaps were very wise.
had she no governess, no teachings of her own, she might have. in so many areas Toula was well equipped and wise, but here and now she felt a fool. 
she could not speak, however. her own voice might break, and that fact might be revealed. none could know that but for her. she lifts her head a measure and fights against the urge to shake her head rather than nod. she obeys her better judgment, and nods in a way that is befitting a Goddess, a Queen of Akashingo and of this new land that they would come to rule, too. Queen not only of the Red Sands, but more—that he and the princes would bring her. 
the other princes that she must, and did, consider with this dignified and commanding nod.

a nod; his own bow, a breathless one; senmut turned away and down the small steps and was gone from her fragrant rooms, with no trace of treva nor satsu in them, and only the very mien of herself.

he did not think he would cross her threshold so soon again; the song reverberated inside of him, despite all of him. 

there was much to contemplate, and heavy would his head be once more when he travelled, though senmut did not believe he would be alone.

to his chambers he now retired.