Two Eyes Cenote electrum

aw! she's here for @Eset but it might be dramatic to also have @Akavir present! <3

tavina flew from akashingo.

she would be back to look in on the royal little ones, reassurance given to @Toula and @Rashepses and with izaiah also in the palace, little was bound to happen.

it was not in her power to command senmut to return! but she felt he should be here so that she might leave with less guilt.

she came alone, flooding over the borders and into the palace; she pushed her skins of herbs and rich cloaks brought from akashingo off onto the servants and strode swiftly to find eset.

but her entry was timid, quiet, purpled eyes seeking around the lintel with an exhale of worry and relief.

Thistle is on the air before a sound enters the room, and at once Eset knows she has come.

A breath scrapes her throat, a gathering of arms over the face of heartbreak, and in the middle of the room the coy makes herself a forgotten argil rise in a temple of medicine. A gutted husk, exposed for her recklessness, her promiscuity, her failures. She could not bear it. She could not bear for Tavina to see it.

Her voice roughens with a sob. Crushed marigold longed to find her petals of iris, but Eset cannot bring her eyes to open.

Senmut had declared he was not to be arrested—Eset, too, had spoke fiercely that he was free to leave of his own accord.

Eset had denied his invitation—her insistence to stay and love for her pharoah never wavering in a way that invited further conversation to such a notion, and thus, Akavir did not press it. In these walls he had remained silent for his duration—his presence with Eset when she allowed it, and alone otherwise.

But he knew he must leave. He could not stay within this hollow kingdom, and knew the Creek would worry for him. Lilitu was dead—he would still need to find her, to bring her home—

Lost in these thoughts, Eset is suddenly upset and curled upon herself—a sob releasing. Worry knits his at his brows, and he lifts his arms, looking to pull her to him, placing a kiss upon the back of her nape. The horrors she had endured—but it is then he notices a pair of watchful eyes come upon them in the Hebsut’s room, and for only a flicker of hesitation he allows his grip to loosen—only then to place another kiss upon the grieving would-be mother, as if he need reaffirm to her his affections were not only placed in private and away from prying eyes—to assure her he was not ashamed of what had transpired between them.

their kiss burned through her as if it were volcanic fire.

upon entering the room, she had seen the man, seen the tender kiss given to eset. so intimate, that kiss, even as his arms pulled away.

but he was no fixture, this individual. in fact, given what tavina knew of the situation's medical aspect, he was quite possibly very important to the entire thing.

the kiss was a blow. the softness of his regard was another. the sesh refused to center herself in this moment, in this room, and so only a single small jerky half-step announced her unease.

"eset," she said warmly, nodding in an affable manner to the man in the room. she was a doctor, in a doctor's mien; her bedside manner was impeccable. 



"the erpa-ha will be going home now. i'm back, here to stay unless they need me for some reason." tactfully she avoided any mention of the royal children, reaching out to touch eset's paw in a friendly way. "i can leave. only wanted to see how you were."

she veiled anything else behind concern, offering an encouraging smile in case the hebsut wished to speak.

Above her, Akavir’s iridescent eyes would look sad. It is what she thinks of as her lover holds her in his arms. He is her comfort, the place she can take her remnant grief.

Why then does it feel so traitorous?

Eyes open to the sesh’s paw. The doctor’s voice moves over her. She is a shriveled seed unready to look; to speak. But her hand clasps Tavina’s in a move that speaks when her words cannot.

Stay.

Eset remains entangled against him—physically, emotionally. His eyes survey the other, not knowing what thoughts flickered through her mind—nor why the Hebsut reacted in such a way to the woman’s presence.

Senmut was leaving—this one was here to stay.

Fiercely, he wished to remain curled around Eset, as if touch and a hug could help dwindle the pain that wracked her. Had she maintained only her silence toward the unknown woman, he would have perhaps protectively pulled her closer—but one of her paws snaked forward, reaching for the she-wolf, and Akavir allowed a small hum to escape him. “I can give you both privacy, if you wish it,” he offered with a small murmur—his eyes now only for Eset as he waited her decision.

He was, after all, the intruder in these halls. The stubborn and grieving woman who maintained this palace had all but insisted that—stolen moments together such as these were not something to become used to. It had been made clear that she was unwilling to see what more they could harbor for one another, if only because neither was willing to leave their home.

tavina chose to make nothing of his words, his nearness; she settled near eset and gave him a glance that resolved to be professional. "it may be that eset, you take solace in both us being near," she suggested, not wanting to press a decision upon the woman.

even as he stared at the hebsut, at her small frame in the wide bed, at his displacement from around her.

at last she looked full upon the stranger. "i'm tavina, royal doctor." and you are? hung on her tongue, politely muted by her refocus upon eset. "i won't leave. but i did bring some things that might ease your discomfort. and some pretty objects as well."

A shallow sigh from her lips, a silent relief at not having to send one or the other off– Akavir who’s night skin burns with the selfsame grief; Tavina who’s attendance begins a sudden jump– for sudden reasons. Grateful, desperate, she clings to them.

Still, the air is heavy with unspoken tension.

She desires both of them near and neither. Her legs long to run from this place of humiliation. It is too much of a struggle to tear her brain from the shielding numbness which encases it.

“I am just– tired,” she explains to them, lamely. So tired. Could she unravel into nothing?

Eset murmurs she is tired—Akavir, unknowing of the way it tore at the woman now infront of them, planted another kiss to her crown—chaste, perhaps—eager to soothe the Hebsut’s frayed nerves.

His gaze, though, is upon Tavina—and he inclines his head slightly in greeting. “Akavir,” he offered, his eyes sliding from the proclaimed royal doctor to the coywolf buried in his arms. “Akavir of Swiftcurrent Creek,” he finalizes—prior to this—to Eset—never would he have wanted Akashingo to know of his ties, or where his home lay.

Now, it all seemed to matter very little in the wake of his daughter, Lilitu’s death, and Silvertongue’s escape into a new and happy life.

"we'll take it in turns, then. eset. i don't think anyone wants you to be alone. but we should all rest. yes."

she cleared her throat. "if you don't mind, akavir. i'll sit a while first. go and eat, stretch your legs."

she glanced between them, and against the twinge of her spirit, said, "if there's a reason to go fetch you, i will. later, i'll go to my examination room. that way you're not alone at all," she said, turning back to eset as she straightened the coverlet, anxious.

Cold now, where once Akavir had warmed with his heat. Her arms curve sinuous and slow, as if to shield herself from the pains that come through her, like hands were enough to hold off a storm.

Silence prolongs the span of his leave, the well of saturnine eyes beholding the door, then trailing slowly over Tavina’s coal-black. Her scent weaves like water in her lungs, a consolation, and the woman wishes she could use it to sate a depression. Copper cheeks are let down with wetness, eyes draining their new turmoil. Her affairs and flaws laid out for all the kingdom to condemn. For the doctor to know.

Again her arms gather over her face, shamed.

Invited to stay at first, told to leave by the next sentence. An extra squeeze given to Eset before he uncurled from her—his eyes drifting from her and giving a nod to the proclaimed doctor. He would remain near, though he did not voice this—he had a feeling both expected this of him.

Still—when leaving the room, there was a certain dread that curled in the pit of his stomach—and while Tavina told him to stretch his legs, he found himself not straying far—and yet, he made no move to interrupt either Muat-riya member.

This was not his home—Eset did not fit in to his life—that had been made abundantly clear not just by her, but by those she took solace in as comrades.

her hypocrisy was washed away in the relief she felt that she would be alone with eset — if only a moment.

the hebsut was no longer present, physically in that bed but caught in merciful drifting.

and when akavir left, when she heard his footfalls fade in the hall beyond, she bent over eset again, kissing that slim shoulder. "rest. rest. that's all you need to focus on now. sleep. i am here."

She moves, covered with the dust of stars, slowly, bit by bit, and with delicacy, a kiss.

Blood! Surging! Not one thing on the ground anywhere escapes it! Wherever it touches it stains, stays and sinks in. Eyes open and the room is red, Tavina a last raven-shape in the bloody stippling.

“You hate me,” she hears herself whisper, intractable. Exhausted. Delirious.

Tavina, between her and the world.

“Say it,” Say it. The knelling, quiet and perpetual.

"whatever gave you such an idea," tavina groused when she could speak again, when she had separated from the integral into the hurt fractal images of herself that now only eset glimpsed. 

stilling her harshness, one work-strong paw against the bed, tavina leaned over the poor figure in the crumpled furs and slowly tried to work the slender arms down until she could see the stricken torment on eset's tearstained countenance.

"no. never. why? for this? for him? no, eset. worry," she said down into the eyes she hoped would remain open to her. "fear. relief. not hate."

No. From the umbra appear the cosmic eyes and she is helpless against them, laid bare and burning. She opens her mouth to sob from pain and shame, but even that release is denied her. Awareness plunges past the guts of the earth, dragging the remaining dignity with it.

“I can never be her,” the ground heaves, the whisper of a voice so far away.

“I’ll never be her.”

"you cannot be her."

her heart felt as if it might scorch from her very chest; she lay her warm palms against the salt-soaked cheekbones, cupping them lightly. "i do not need you to feign any part of her. you can't. i don't want that, eset. i want you."

broken heart stitched, and now the hebsut could see the uneven seams guarding tavina's heart; with some terrifying relief she felt the magnitude of her own vulnerability and was rendered silent again, their breath mingling in the truth of the moment.

I want you.

Her eyes lock, and she shivers. The world falls away into hazy insignificance. Weakly, Eset's hand reaches to skim across the dark brow, trailing over the cheek to tangle into Tavina’s fur, the way she has imagined doing. It melts the last year off the sesh’s face, and she sees the vulnerability of the woman underneath, the one before Muat-riya. And pain. And her.

The stroking is gentle, drawn out, prizing the feel of rough fur in her hand. It is different from anything else; in so many ways. Tavina is different. Tears spring into her eyes and she lets them flow. I want you–

Surreal, ethereal, and she responds with aching warmth that only feared the future possibility of being turned away.

“Tavina,” Eset whispers against the bed, watching the face so near to her’s, the one she could not look upon without feeling a unfettered rush of devotion.

“I do not want anyone else. No one else. Only you.”

i do not want anyone else.

admission cooled the frantic leap of heat in the cheekbone stroked by eset. for a moment, suspended, their arms tangled and her eyes filling with surprise, with pain, with love, with a deep and aching love which threw aside all things.

her kiss was soft; to brow, to eartip, to the side of that radiant face; featherlight upon eset's own mouth.

"well then," and her voice was humour which tried not to be a sob of delight, "then i am yours. and you are mine. and we shall be this," she proclaimed in a hushed whisper that wavered with cascading tears, "until the sky closes for one of us."

eclipsed, a moonless night; she would not survive it alone. she did not want to survive it alone. tavina pulled eset's palm gently against her chest, against the crazed cadence of a heart ready to embrace in completion this love declared.

It was the first kiss.

Not their first, but the first. For Eset.

Because there is meaning.

Her lips respond. But her eyes drop, a golden crescendo to silver muting, that trusted not where her paws felt upon that chest, where sang amid perfect words of the heart beneath her trembling fingertips.

‘Sky closing’, Tavina sighs, and was Eset not already there?

The singeing reaches of her soul had wilted. Past that, Eset rose and came to brush her amber eyes with gravity along the cosmos, and fold her mouth against the darkening press. Seeking in each instance all the persisting stars.

eset was water and from her lips tavina drank the elixir of hope, a fierce and butting thing which frothed with splendid fear and greatest elation.

ocean of stars, golden paths through the jet fur through which the sesh made a tremulous journey with her lips, circling the slim wrist as her heart galloped.

at last she unfolded them but did not pull away; she searched eset with her own brimming eyes and found that the only correct answer was a soft laugh of surprise and adoration.

The laugh is a fragile splendor, a barest magic wrung from the dark moments of distress. Eset crumples back, the affection that hums in her veins too heavy to lift.

Long the yard had flooded with no foundation beneath her paws, with solitude and the lapse of silent hours, the ache for which disappeared as the sesh bent to touch her–

You are mine. Such a phrase had once provoked fear and now it set in the hebsut’s eyes the curiosity of all it meant.

“Kiss me again.”

again! again, again;

branches silvered with frost reaching for one another over summertime angst.

tavina allowed herself to reach through painful past and into crystalline hope, thinking how pretty it was that the winters of her life should bring such love to cut the cold darkness.

<333

Kissed and held and savored. Everything she regarded– the hard domed walls, vaguely stained bedding twisting around one calf, an impression in a leaf used to hold water spilling over the side–

It would matter to no one but them.

The rupture still fills this space, and her life with blood. But in her eyes were violets.

Violets, violets.