Sky Mesa muscle & water

today the mazoi had been sent to hunt, to lay in meat fresh for the supper of pharaoh and consort. his jodai had made it so, and he would heed.

there were pronghorn on the sky mesa, and its steep sides did not dissuade khusobek, for he had climbed akashingo many times.

"inji has the notion i would make a good husband," he said conversationally. "she believes i treat her well. but you know me, @Zaahira. i tried to tell her no; think on it, she says!" he laughed and it was a wondering sound.

the desert saw zaahira yet again when it came time to hunt. she had made time to stop by muat-riya briefly, even if only to say her greetings, and with her on this trek came khusobek. she enjoyed their patrols together, oddly enough; he was reliable, and at least he kept the trips from becoming boring.
her tongue clicks against her teeth in thought, muscles burning as she leads him up the mesa's edge. a pronghorn would be impossible on flat ground, but here they had an advantage, and zaahira thought to exploit it.
inji? she nearly snorts with amusement. she has propositioned you?
as hard as she tried not to, she thought of eset. she is a sweet girl. do you not have feelings for her? that would be rather awkward.

"rashepses has his eye upon her," was khusobek's evasive non-answer as he set his attentions on the dusty ground before he and zaahira.

his feelings upon inji were a confusing jumble; affection, possessiveness, resignation, a deep want to know more of her, to understand the thoughts behind her beautiful eyes.

"all i know is i would make her unhappy," khusobek grunted at last. "we are very good together in one way. i am not certain about another."

rashepses. just the sound of his name brought forth a flare of disgust from her. yes, he had bowed to toula; yes, he seemed to care for her wholly. but that was not enough.
and now he had made the palace's local dimwitted servant his prey? inji did not know better, zaahira thought. the same way toula hadn't. she also thought that perhaps khusobek's taste in women was a bit... simple. but that would remain unvoiced by her.
her nostrils flare as she stands upon a tall slab, scanning the periphery for movement. sourness rests upon her tongue. you find a woman who is willing to marry you, and bear you sons, and you do not take the offer?
how would you feel if semer-wati was to steal her away? do you somehow think that would make her happier? no woman wants to spend her life in service of a man who does not know his ass from his face.
least of all being zaahira.

further away, the pronghorn herd moved uneasily. khusobek was briefly annoyed by how zaahira had rounded on him rather than them, but he had solicited her opinion after all.

the dark red ears flicked. she castigated him and in it the crocodile thought he saw affection, no matter how exasperated. he looked up as her shadow fell across him, a feral smirk curving his mouth ever so slowly as her rant continued.

"i can see how much you hate him. but he is Divine Consort. what he wishes, he will have. it was i who encouraged her to seek him out, and it is plain he enjoyed what was offered "

in the heat of the baking desert, khusobek became ice: "suppose the queen cannot bear children? suppose she does but they are sickly? who else will carry a lineage? there is permanent safety in that; i want inji to be protected by the bloodline itself." happiness! would she be happy with a rough man who could not keep from dallying in other warm countries?

it took an exorbitant amount of strength for zaahira not to scoff in his face. it sounds as though you feel you are unworthy of her.
if pharaoh cannot bear children, that is a problem that is between her and her husband. it is her blood that we serve, ultimately. not his. he provides only the seed. rubble breaks away from the rocks beneath her claws and tumbles down the side of the slope. the pronghorn are not stupid — soon they will know something is wrong. her voice lowers.
you are allowed to be selfish in some things, mazoi. you worry that you will not be enough for her, but how do you know this? her eyes narrow to a squint. beneath your hard shell, — a veneer of stoicism, misanthropy and, if she had to guess, functional alcoholism — is a good man. or at least a man that she finds desirable. and you would be foolish to let her fall into the hands of the crown because you think you know her better than she does.
she paces a few cubits ahead of him and crouches for coverage beside a tall, shielding cliff. here, they would wait.

his own skulk near brought their shoulders together. khusobek did not answer for some time.

a good man! had he ever once been called this in his life?

his mouth twitched with a dark ire. "suppose all you said is correct, jodai." the crocodile did not glance her way. "it changes not the fact that i have a — life — in kadesh, and while my return will not be celebrated, it is a return that must happen all the same. should i take her from this jeweled life," he went on, voice a murmur, "and into the rough sands to be scorned? i am worthy of her beauty, not her future."

muscles tensed now as a break came in the herd of pronghorns, who plodded toward the cliffline.

kadesh! oh, had she hands she would have slapped him!
why return to kadesh if it will only make you both miserable? why do any of these things if it will leave one or both of you hurting? rhetorical, heated; her gaze broke away from the set of his jaw to find a straggler among the pronghorn. from what you have told me of your life with pharaoh hatshepsuun, you were in agony. you are under toula's oversight now. hatshepsuun does not own you here.
the jodai softens, the bristle of her nape coming to a calm as she searches his face once more. i know that she haunts you. that you feel as though you do not have freedom. but khusobek, her knuckles flex as her grip on the gravel shifts.

let go.

there is a chance — a young doe, no more than a year old, with a stagger to her gait. she cannot keep up with the rest of the herd. zaahira springs to her feet and launches the chase into action.

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"set's balls, zaahira!" khusobek snapped, the thunder of his voice panicking formerly peaceful hooves. the entire herd stampeded.

breathless; "do not say a word about her! you do not know what she took from me! those things are gone! i can never have them back and i can never give them to inji!"

yes, anger, yes, rage; and beneath it would his jodai see a malevolent and simmering pain, right before his eyes cut away from her and he bunched powerful muscles to collide with pronghorn shoulder and wrench it back to toward zaahira.

a killing team, she a scorching incense scent to gentle a beast. khusobek roared in fury and struck for the strained flank of the bleating doe, a fine red mist descended over mind and spirit.

punched into a formidable silence, zaahira says nothing after the spit of khusobek's fury mars her eardrums. no, no, she needed to think. needed to redirect herself —
the terrified pronghorn swings toward her and zaahira is quick to latch her teeth into the tender skin. she is dragged through the sands, tearing, splitting; the blood is hot as at streams down her chin.
she will not drag out the process any longer than necessary. heaving and trembling, crimson paints her chest as her gaze burns into khusobek's, his wretched face.
burning, a numbness, and it all funnels into her own seething hurt as her pupils draw to tiny pinpricks and she —

do you know what i would give to have a woman to marry, mazoi?

i had one, once, you know. i had-- a beautiful, smart, sweet woman. she liked me for the person that i was. and i was-- i did not even get the chance! i did not even get to love her! i watched her fucking die, khusobek! i watched h-- i saw it! and i found her body, i was the one who--
she is pacing now, pacing vigorously and she can feel it as something inside of her snaps.
so if you know what is good for you, you will shut the fuck up and marry the fucking girl! you will give her children, and you, you-- you will build a life here, and you will not waste the one fucking chance you get at it! at happiness! because i can promise you, i swear to the gods above that if you do not you will see her face in everyone else, and you will always ask yourself why you were so fucking stupid!

khusobek had been prepared to deal the killing blow, to bludgeon until — but zaahira was a khamsin that stole first its breath in sprays of blood, but all his anger; it was torn from him in such fervency that he all but saw its ruby anger crawling into her lungs, her nostrils.

and when she breathed out it was in such a conflagration that he knew Ra as he had never before, and fought a flinch — and she delivered into him a shrieking tale of woe in the voice of a wounded demigod, transformed by redgold wrath and the remembered blood of a dead lover.

and by the end, khusobek still quaked with his own rage but he knew it was only for hatshepsuun, and that awakened it would destroy him. and he saw the error in himself and the opportunity to right things, and how his cowardice had no mirror in zaahira.

how he understood at last the recognizable fire of a deep and long held hurt, and how she saw now fit to give him a way into his own salvation. even if it meant she would no longer have commiseration in pain.

it hurt to swallow.

khusobek squinted against the sun and probed the inside of his bleeding gumline with a rough tongue. 

he spat amber into the sand and felt salt falling against his lip. khusobek huffed out in the hoarse sound a man makes when he has been moved and looked away.

when the slanting ears lifted again and their panting had eased, he buried his hatred inside himself and rolled his shoulders. "well, jodai. i am going to drink you under the desert at my wedding."

<333

womanhood.
such a complicated thing, womanhood; to fall apart beneath the heel of man while he may chew the fat in silence and make you look as if you are unhinged.
to watch the undeserving, incompetent, inferior find a beautiful face to lay beside at night. to have gone through a world of pain that could only exist in his nightmares. to try again, to melt into liquid gold vulnerability before a pair of firestone eyes, and have it be spat back in your face — to climb to the top of the chain and realize that you are so, so very alone up there.
zaahira felt as if her very core had been ripped from her. the ember in her eyes was quelled, stomped to nothing but a glazed bitterness, and she watches as khusobek's revelation tumbles down upon him like a sack of bricks.
inji would be a radiant bride, she thought.
help me carry this back, please.

for the rest of the way to muat-riya, she would say nothing until she could drown herself in sour fruit and unfurl in the silent respite of a guest chamber.