Two Eyes Cenote fifty-ninth

"then let it be only for her eyes, and only for my contemplation," senmut said in pleasant invitation, paws aching somewhat to lift paint for the wall himself.

it had been a long while since time had allowed for it. the prince allowed himself the idle image of he and eset, shoulder to shoulder, muraling while the hours passed.

she asked for very little. senmut granted it with a nod. "she will need you during her honeymoon, and during — spring," he ventured. the needs of a royal bedchamber, its secrets, its failure; all guarded by the hebsut. virginity, conception, birth, these pillars of one's existence supported by the constancy of the one called eset.

"aside from these events, you are free to plan your own foray. come to me when you are ready to leave. do you plan to journey alone?"

for himself, senmut planned to depart upon the very night of the coronation, once he had seen guests to their drunken feasting and paid compliments to the emissaries who had come. perhaps it could not be done! perhaps he must stay a while after, but with eset's capable gaze upon all things, senmut suspected it would be easier to escape.

he hoped only that toula would not be affronted by his short time away, less that than its obvious timing, less than its obvious message that senmut could not share their roof on that first night, for reasons he both did and did not understand.