Lion Head Mesa Everything is lit but my lightning-bolt brain

Melody was still quite miserable. After her experience with Akhtar, she developed a stubborn resistance to seeing a Sesh. It would have been easy enough to seek out @Tavina and ask for help, but instead she crept around the Mesa and sneezed all over the place.

Just now, she was sneezing her way through the halls of the Mesa, observing the murals Senmut had shown her not so long ago. She was still disturbed by what occupied her mind, and it nagged at her as she looked on the painted walls. Why couldn't she stop thinking about her? They had spoken only once, and then Pharaoh had departed. But that day still replayed in her mind all the time, and did even now.

"we will go to tavina."

the erpa-ha materialized grimly near the paintings. melody was not quiet at all in her sickness. with death and war looming, no one could afford to be ill.

senmut's annoyance was clear in his cool eyes as he waited for the priestess to respond to his order.

Senmut appeared, looking rather disgruntled. Melody's ears lowered at the sight of him, then pasted themselves to her skull as he spoke. She nodded, but her gaze dropped; outwardly she gave every appearance of apologetic shame, but inwardly she seethed. It wasn't his decision to make!

Except it was, so she would follow him in relative silence save for her occasional sneezes. She almost tripped over a small errant rock on the way, and instead sent it skidding past Senmut at high speed, directly into one of the walls where it bounced off and rebounded back toward his paws. She cringed. Sorry, Melody mumbled.

quiet steps took he and the hemet down the corridor to the small neat room. tavina looked up as they entered, glancing toward melody as the priest explained.

"honey for the throat, citrus for the nasal," tavina murmured, mostly to herself, bustling about until she had prepared a decoction.

"come and drink this," the sesh said to the young woman. senmut eyed melody with firm encouragement.

He hated her. There was no way he didn't hate her. Melody went over this again and again in her mind as she followed Senmut, shrinking further into herself with each passing moment. The women who led, they made her feel quite special — but this man? Melody felt she would receive more acknowledgement as a speck of dirt on his nail than under these circumstances.

So his encouraging look was met with one of shame, and she avoided Tavina's eyes as if her life depended on it. Honey and citrus wasn't so bad, really. She coughed slightly after drinking it, but immediately her throat felt a bit better. Thank you, Melody mumbled, eyes on Tavina but drifting to Senmut as well when she spoke.

and he looked back toward her.

but his eyes revealed nothing.

treated, the sesh gently steered the hemet toward him, and senmut guided melody out.

"you will go and rest." his tone invited no argument.

Melody couldn't help it. But what about - ! Well, I'd much rather learn about - gods, She flushed as she protested, ears falling back against her skull with the knowledge that it truly was not her place to argue with him. The Hemet almost apologized then and there, but managed to stop herself.

I'm bored, She added, and immediately sneezed again. Her eyes watered, and she pawed a little pathetically at her face. Bored and unhappy, that was today's mood — and she was entirely fed up with it!

senmut's eyes grew to the cool of a twilit pool. "you will learn nothing while you are ill. go and rest," and this time his tone did demand recognition.

"i will send a fellahin with your meal, melody."

dismissal; senmut watched for her expressive eyes, wondering if one day she too would learn to mask this — or if he at all wished that.

Melody only allowed her gaze to linger on Senmut a few moments longer. Then she abruptly turned away, furious and embarrassed in equal parts.

She would rest, then. And she would hate every moment of it. Melody would spend a long while thinking about the encounter, and about Senmut, until eventually she realized she hadn't thought of Pharaoh in some time. That was a relief — but one that didn't last long.

Because suddenly she could not stop thinking about the red priest; fixated on his distaste for her, and her own growing need to see some kind of approval from him.