Two Eyes Cenote fifty-ninth

"i am an acolyte of painting," senmut gently insisted, though a warm look accompanied his words. "are you the same, eset?" it was not his first skill, but it was something which had come to him in the past months, as if Amun had willed it.

mentally, he veered away from the stark subject of their queen and the riverprince, caught between a dozen emotions.

he thought instead of the many tortoiseshells tucked now into a dark storeroom, fermenting cactus pulp into smooth white liquid, the legs of sheep and goat he had ordered to be hunted each day, the armfuls of flowers he himself brought — all the things the queen would need for her coronation and her honeymoon.

"i will be leaving for a time, once the marriage is complete. i believe i may go and see the ocean myself."

aloneness. it was necessary.