Two Eyes Cenote lotus & lyre

"i sent safiya away to akashingo quite recently. machiavelli will bring her there."

he did not try to pause, to parse; his wrist throbbed from the captive's teeth. "i have come to report that the man gives no more. his words have not changed."

his heart ached. "kiyya and kheti have joined the mazoi, effective today." at last his eyes rose toward @Eset. would she chastise him for acting out from under her edict?

She lay numbly upon a low dais in the hebsut’s common chambers, for the briefest of moments not so swift to conform to her emblem of rigidity. Leaflet scriptures spread over the polished stone. Her head turns as the guard speaks but she does not yet rise.

“I will not see him released,” is spoken with finality, but her voice is soft. She loathed a prisoner as much as she loathed the idea of playing god with his life, thus an impasse was met, for she would not free a man like that to prey upon more children.

The mazoi sets his decree without opening it for discussion. The coy’s conjectures sharpen. Never had his lack of care been more apparent. He saw her as refutable. She remembers the collar.

“Safiya has fostered her own advancement. She is the one who took the initiative to begin her own training and proved her merit in hours upon the sand.” The hebsut had not yet seen such fierce eagerness as their sister in the mazoi’s sons. She did not doubt their capabilities, only their want for it. They were children, still, and Safiya’s promotion had come at a notably young age.

“Only a Jodai passes that decision, Khusobek.” Rising then, to descend the dais and forge with gentle curves an obelisk of copper and obsidian. Her firelit eyes are lifted upon his ice. “Congratulations.”

he held the conscript in proverbial hands, turning it over; he tried to find in its placement a joy of any kind. a delight.

"or a father, my hebsut," he said hoarsely, unable at last to maintain the fracture of agony in his face. 

was it salt he tasted?

was it blood.

"in the prison, he sang to my safiya, as a man might. he has met with her four times." four! this was his failure; this was his dire shortcoming. "she sees only kindness in him. i sent her away before —"

he straightened, pulling his voice together. "i am grateful to be your jodai, eset. and i thank you for it. please know i would not have acted out of turn if i were not her - father." it was not an action he meant to repeat. "she is capable, a credit to muat-riya." he tried to pause now the pain.

"given the frequency of his visits and his gifts, i do not think he works alone. will you allow me to put a bow around the nearby territories? i mean to bring the new mazoi, unless you believe they should remain." better they see violence early. but khusobek was too moved by emotion to fight overmuch; he had sent safiya away and it was all he could think of now.

Before–

“I know… I know,” a mournful croon breaks, the gossamer sheen of upset in Eset's eyes haunted with visions of cavernous mouths and scattered cries of help.

But she does not know his pain. Does not know what it is like when a parent hurts for their child in ways they never should. She tears her face away, succumbing again to passionate grief.

“You have done the right thing for Safiya,” and now they must also do right by her.

Eset feared for all the cubs, grown only to half their full size, and what effects the sudden exposure to the world's great cruelties would have on their still-developing minds. But if all the years of the captain's training lead him to this decision, then she would support him.

“Yes,” she agrees, knowing he would safeguard the young mazoi.

Almost absently, her paw finds his. The barest touch of comfort.

he wanted to tell her.

he did not. he held the warmth of her hand gently in his own and made it enough; he asked no more; he surrendered himself to that single contact and tried to force his skin into forgetting the feel of the monster's teeth.

"you will not let him go." his voice was hushed but controlled; he dared not lead her or anyone to ask. "do you care what is done to him?"

he asked for violence; he asked for murder; he lay these in hushed sonnets at her feet, their ink still glistening, asking that eset seal each with her edict, or burn them all wholesale.

he submitted.

His eyes ask for violence.

Eset’s own fall away, guilted, though not at the idea of denying him–

It was the notion of betraying Toula by assenting to such acts as Khusobek was capable; that she’d witnessed the horrific aftermath of. That she’d had her own hand in provoking.

She was a conduit for Pharaoh’s agency in Naaghai, ensuring her word is ennobled in every requisition that passes through Muat-riya. The hebsut knew her Pharaoh. Toula was the healer of broken sanctuaries and whose generous spirit would call for compassion before devastation.

But for all her Goddess’s good grace, the coy felt her own raring like a dark pretense, coursing as sin out and over Khusobek’s calloused paw.

She lifts the hand, turning her face away. None would watch the damning order leave her lips and only the jodai would hear it.

“Let him hurt.”

Eset was none of Toula’s altruism. If she was broken, then it was men like Soto who had made her this way.

her palm ascended from his own and with it eset gave her order, and took his warmth. khusobek bowed his head, as much in sorrow as in relief. and so it would be, this separation between them. and so it must be, the divide between her goldtraced soul and the sin of his own.

let him hurt.

it was theirs. theirs to hold in this room. the jodai nodded; he did not try to find her gaze, but let his own close as a sigh settled the thick musculature of his shoulders.