Two Eyes Cenote adamantium

Tears are in the eyes of the boy, for he is only just that. He sees the palace as a world to leave strong prints and do great deeds; a purpose larger than oneself. All the same ideas and dreams that she had so coveted.

Out into a deserted horizon she brings him, and further still, until Muat-riya is indistinguishable from the ridge which births it and their casted breaths is all there is.

As she turns to face the boy it is also to yield to who she was; not the focused, self-assured mistress of Muat-riya who had arrived with Toula some weeks ago, but the scared, feeble girl whose sentimental hopes had shattered.

“You want to serve,” she finds the blue of his eyes set into a youthful face, “do you understand what it entails? You are coyote. They will take from you what you do not want to give. Your body. Your control. Your self-respect."

Her throat vibrates with a humorless laugh, “they won’t even realize they’re doing it.”

Trembling now, for the confession alone feels forbidden- like a mar on Toula’s name- on the whole of Akashingo! A thought she cannot permit herself to have and now sent out into the world, for a stranger's ears!

“Our Pharaoh is kind and good and she means to protect her servants. But it will happen under her nose. I cannot make this decision for you. Please, please, do not ask it of me,” she begs now with a horribly stricken voice, eyes slick with tears, “you are from nowhere. You could belong to anywhere.”

Let him see this pathetic, broken creature, and let him choose differently.