Lion Head Mesa adoration

A dead mother. An absent sister. A young girl who’s only semblance of sisterhood is in the confidence of the maidservants she keeps around her. It is quite tragic. Even more so when Eset acknowledges the Queen’s kindness that refuses to bend beneath the weight of her atef.

The fellahin too has endured. Toula arms herself with love, Eset plates herself in ice. She has learned of what comes from an ill-timed glance or a word set at an unpropitious time. There has always been a way to feel nothing, and she has found the power in that. It is a game to see how little can be felt.

Though, it is a choice. And now the fellahin finds herself wanting to believe in Toula’s way, her divinity but also this mortal nature that in her heart chooses to give even when so much has been taken. To feel not less, but more.

She places the basin on the tiles and steps around the edge of the bath until she is face-to-face with her Queen.

Beautiful, she is. The Goddess, and the mortal girl in unison.

“Do you imagine them when you’re not together? When you’re not even standing in the same room?” She eyes the tawny frame of her face, shown molten gold in the lowlight. “That’s what passion is, your grace.”

“It is craving.”