Greatwater Lake [m] I lift my head and all is born again.

Rashepses! Rashepses! Rashepses! She says his name as if he is a man she can summon to her waters. She says his name as though he is already less than him by how the letters sound in her mouth alone!

Rashepses! Calling upon anyone but him, he who stands by her now and feels less of a man and more of an animal by second. Seething, heavy to think that he could raise blood not his own. Rashepses would not make him. Surely, he would not? Suddenly she makes him question it. That there is a world where she walks away from him, and comes back with children sagging her stomach that aren't his own. Mesen-ka knows she plays with him, finds humor in her games. Scurry to big man, she says.

He is not sure what comes over him when he feels her teeth sink into his skin. A desirous growl was exiled from his throat when the queen met his blood. If this did not work, and he did not make it, what then of him at the palace? There is no choice but to make them work, play her games.

His wrists are to her ogre waist while blood soaks his tongue. And so let him be the animal that she calls for. Be the vision her little shadow toy sees if he chooses to show his face to them now. Mesen-ka will be rough and a wolf today, tonight, tomorrow and the next. By lakeside, they will breed for all to watch. He will accept she is not ugly when dry of insults. Courts order. For both.