Two Eyes Cenote Dinner & Diatribes

"the women. and the men." having completed his slow circle of parading glory, khusobek was amused. his time with hatshepsuun; well. she had enjoyed her entertainments. she had enjoyed watching — him, and there was a moonswell glissade of that now in how machiavelli and he regarded one another.

to hide the pulse of his wrist, the captain moved to preen the last droplets of glistening water from his own shoulder. a garden, and a respectful invitation to follow. "teach her," said the crocodile at last. "it was disagreeable when we did not know each other."

and now that understanding had come to them both, there was no obstacle of enmity to the idea of soft purple shoots and his daughter's happy face above them.

he moved beyond machiavelli then, out into the gleaming halls of the cenote. he did not want to sleep in that bed tonight, in its unyielding stiffness. not when the coldness of the desert would scourge him wakeful; not when his watch could be punctuated by starlight.

but his head turned for the fellahin then, and the ice of his eyes seemed more the gentle waves of an oasis — for now. "teach her what you feel is useful. she is not a noble. she is not royal. her heart is more than both of those things, and her mind matches."

a school, perhaps was outside their realm. but tutoring; he would not pass up the gilded offerings of this new kindness between them, and place them upon the promising young mazoi.

and he wished machiavelli truly to understand that the captain had surrendered all notions of distrust. there were no better ways to do such than to offer a true acceptance, a continual repayment of what he had taken from the slender man.

opal gleamed; quiet water glowed.