Rosewater Oasis i

eyes linger upon her, half-lidded, admiring, as she bathes. a show he very much enjoyed—for more reason than one. it was not just the furtive, taboo act of witnessing another wash ones body free of grime, but the true weight of it. to see her cleanse of sins that cling to a bronze pelt, to relish in the unconscious sashay of hips as she rotates.

her questions the only thing to pull him from his trance. a hum bubbling to life in a serpentine throat, chin lifting upwards in a thoughtful jut, as he presses a paw beneath to lean upon.

you remind me of a girl i once knew, pharaoh muses. a fellahin girl; she too came from nemkha. a reminiscing smile pulls upon the gold gilded man's face then, and a soft laugh follows. and absent-mindedly, he says: my father had her beat when he discovered our coupling. perhaps a relative of yours?

he unveils this as if it is nothing more than circumstance. at the time, the prince had been distraught. distraught to have had his young love stolen from him, beaten, and then—nothing. he did not know if she had been killed, or sentenced to some worse fate.

all for the vanity of true love.

and fate—fate had a way of bending lives back toward each other, didn't it?