Lion Head Mesa silver

akashingo had changed.

the mourning went on but it was if the palace only waited to be free of ramesses' specter.

today tavina dragged aromatic wet branches across the floor of her examination room, attempting to clean the months' stains from the redstone.

and her mind whirled.

nala had awoken, went about her day.

she thought she had caught a glimpse of the pharaoh in passing but she had quickly turned! perhaps the pharaoh saw this and nala was left to not think what the young woman on the throne would think of her now.

only that she had tucked herself to far reaches.

and then something had slowly filled her space. fresh enough that she thought only she would notice for now.

quickly she had turned (again) and fled to the space of tavina.

oh, tavina —!

her voice hitched with a dizzied frenzy.

time! and all her fine work! and all the momentous —!

she smoothed nala's face with kisses and smiled, forehead against that of the other. [b]"fear not. nature thinks herself a humorist.

time! her heart raced.

but!

oh, her heart trembled with all the ferocity of a rabbit's foot. thump, thump, thump against her breastbone!

you trust this to still...be okay? things here are so — she sighed and threw her forelegs around tavina's neck. she felt adrift in an ocean full of tidal waves.

her only anchor the sesh.

"i have faith in our new pharaoh."

she felt somehow makono would understand, perhaps even encourage.

"i have wanted this a long time, nala," the sesh whispered in a ferocity of feeling.

faith.

the holy woman would hold this near in all hours. trembling beneath the whisper of a loving wife.

i have prayed for this, in long quiet hours. she confessed softly. perhaps tavina would know this, perhaps she already felt it in the throes of their love!

i want this with you still — and forever.

for many years! any time!

do we go see her...? or will she — maybe she already knows!

prayed. tavina's chin trembled.

"you stay here. i will go to see her now." she kissed the soft forehead and turned away at once.

***

how to explain this to a child god? tavina bowed herself into the throne room and sought makono's audience.

"i ask for permission to take leave from akashingo, for a period of up to two weeks, divine one," tavina asked once she had been granted right to speak.

makono sat upon a throne, sayf at one side. the sesh was announced and welcomed all at once. a warm look settled over the healer like a fur shawl.

and your reasoning?

no judgement, not yet. only a burning curiosity.

"i was hoping your lordship might give us permission to begin a family this year," tavina said carefully.

pharaoh or no, she was still a child.

"it is time for us to go, now. i am sorry, your majesty. i meant to ask before."

to start a family. that meant to stay within the halls. that meant growth. makono could extend akashingo in these ways, no? why not send the sesh off with her wife and a noble or two for the neighboring meadows? let them blossom in those fields and see how grand the new pharaoh was. full of a kindness and a goodness.

as if she could ever be.

i understand. she did not. still too young, but she was quickly learning. and you will come home when...? a quirk of one brow. truthfully, she realized, she had no clue what the sapphic pair of akashingo intended to do!

"at least a week, divine one. perhaps more."

tavina would answer if the young pharaoh questioned, though she hoped makono would not.

the sesh stood in pleasant silence as she waited for the ruler to truly accept or to change her mind.

yes, of course.

just a week. maybe more. to do whatever it was two wives went off to do. why not here? but she knew better than to rise in challenge against tavina. even if it might have been her place to do so now.

go with your bride. come home soon.

it was all she cared to offer as she gestured softly for the sesh to go now.

"thank you, great one."

dismissed; warm; giddy; tavina rushed once she was from the pharaoh's eyeshot, returning to nala.

"get ready to leave. we have a week." she kissed first one silken cheek and then the other, humming with anticipation.

fade? <3

oh!

their trip was blessed off by the pharaoh! nala could have asked a million things, but there would be no time! they had to go now.

this she knew in the tremble of her bones and the perfume she carried now. one more otherworldly than any royal scents of akashingo.

a kiss to her wife, then they could be off.