Two Eyes Cenote Coachwhip

“To my chamber,” her dark voice commands. She did not wait to see if @Khusobek followed. The trail of provoked pawsteps blazed through the halls with the ring of claw on stone, until they found the privacy of her assembly room where she whirls, reigning upon the mazoi a barrage of fury.

“What the hell are you thinking?”

YEAH GET HIM

"i am thinking he is a liar with a foul mouth, eset, and that you should hand him to herod posthaste."

his eyes were cold, but his respect for her limned the red shadow. "his is a pretty game driven by his tongue. silence him and his lies stop."

he studied her. "is he not a prisoner? is he not being held for actions against one of our own?" surely she did not think imprisonment could have any beauty, no matter how well he was fed.

lmao yessir!

“That man is a victim, I know it to be true! I placed him in that cell for his own protection. So when Herod and his enforcers came, our story was convincing. To be guarded- not abused by his own!” The hebsut rounds on him, skin pulsing with all the fire she could not throw into her voice lest they be overheard.

“Yes, he attacked Legend that day- it does not warrant torture! You are not some cruel greenhorn initiate, Khusobek, you are a captain! A tactician for gods’ sake! He is trying to get under your skin.” And he succeeds! It infuriates her!

How then can she trust him not to crumble with any undertaking; particularly those that require one to stay their hand?

"you gave him into my care as a prisoner. no longer beneath our protection. no longer our own. had i known his cell was to be an alcove of peace, i would have ordered wine myself."

he could not help the bite in his voice, angered by eset's ire vented upon him. "you are right. i am not green, nor am i unskilled. his words do not stir me. i have heard worse. but you might ask yourself why a man who cowered and pleaded before us turns to an acid tongue when he is asked to be accountable."

a pause. he turned, his shoulders hard in a roll that was accompanied by an exhale. she had not seen the man laughing and begging for khusobek's anger, his wrath, his inflicted pain; she had not seen how he had stayed his hand over and again, unmoved. hatshepsuun would not have cared what happened to any prisoner. it spoke of eset's better character that she did, and khusobek was shamed by her goodness.

“I will not doubt the awful deeds we are capable of committing when we are desperate,” she rejoins, “you are not! You have the authority here.”

She knew his life had not been simple. She knew he was pawned by the same chain of command that had forced her into thrall. And it was no different from the powers that had capitalized on Machiavelli’s personhood.

“What you’ve done is sadistic.”

The words waver, a maelstrom of emotion coalesces toward a fierce coil in her chest. She does not move to seek his eyes again, instead fixing them squarely upon the offered back.

Even then she knew he was right. It was Khusobek’s cruelty- but this was her failing.

"and i will accept what punishment you see fit for it." he felt like a fool, but he could not blame eset for what looked like to her the actions of a volatile, uncontrolled man.

there was nothing more to say. khusobek was flatly cold, not for any stirring of malice in his own form for eset, but embarrassment for himself. 

he had been a different individual when he served hatshepsuun. those days could not come here. "i will rotate with stark. the sands call my name. perhaps my sadism will be better tempered on a longer march." sadism! how could she accuse him of these things when she knew him more deeply than any wolf in muat-riya knew machiavelli?

the crocodile waited in tense silence for eset's decree and dismissal.

She glowers into the eyes of the man she had relied so heavily on to safeguard them- to see them through the raising of Muat-riya.

He mocks; her lip lifts.

“You are forbidden entry into the cells, this will fall only to @Ironspine’s jurisdiction.” Stark, who she would trust not to act with needless cruelty. “You will guard the sands.”

Her stance tightens, she brings her face up. “I do not want to punish you. I want your good sense returned. Go. Come back a better man, Khusobek.”

There is no formal dismissal, she ends the conversation by leaving the room herself.

<3

once upon an eon, a collar had been put upon him. one of his own making, it had enabled khusobek so great a surrender that whatever order he carried out had no influence upon him.

what he had done to machiavelli would not haunt his dreams, for they had ceased being dreams long ago. a trail of blood followed khusobek, though unlike herod, it would not follow him here — unless he brought it, loosed hold upon what he been in the employ of hatshepsuun.

the crocodile stood straight and stalked from the chamber.