Two Eyes Cenote [ap] Honey, we should run away, someday.

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that night as nazli entered her bed chambers far from the celebration she could still feel the pounding of voices in her head, or thought she did, and as she began to ready herself for sleep she realized it was not the party she could hear - but her heart thundering.

she was shaking as she tidied her space; almost dropping her amulet as she slipped it from her neck, to place it carefully on a stone ledge by the head of her bedfurs.

with a breath she tried to steady herself. the moonlight pooled in from the gap in the widest wall, turning her various plants and decorum a pale silver.

she sits at the edge of her bed, heartbroken.

there was a woman's laughter in the corridor, a squeal! the vibration of khusobek's baritone, and then he had craned his head to peer into the room as footsteps continued further along the corridor.

"the party is just started, nazli!" he crowed, resonant in good food and a touch of the drink. only a taste; he would work till the sun rose. "why are you here?"

when a body darkened her doorway nazli's heart leapt to her throat! she had a held breath, hoping to see —

it was khusobek. the hemet swallowed her feelings and felt the coiling of a snake in her chest, choking at her heart again.

it is all.. very loud, out there, she murmured, trying to blame her retreat on her condition and the overwhelm of the festivities, but she would not be convincing. she takes a breath and cannot meet his gaze, letting it pool with the moonlight on the floor.

the mazoi at last entered the small quarters and came to stand before nazli. this time, he pillared her body upon the bed with his strong forearms, not touching but with his muzzle just above her crown.

"tonight is a time of magick and worship. tonight you take what it is you desire, sesh." for he could see the dizzy want in her, sensed it, though he knew not its origin nor its intent.

"look at me."

he moved so quickly! she was overwhelmed at once by the power of him, and did not listen to the words he spoke while the desire in her body became spiking adrenaline; shocked at his impetus, shocked at herself for freezing in response, shocked that she did not even stop him; breath caught in her lungs brain empty how dare he—!

look at me.

where else could she look?!

if there was any sport khusobek enjoyed, it was teaching that great power was already possessed.

for now, he taught. she listened.

her eyes were the hue of rain upon dark earth. "so. what is it you want, nazli?" and his voice commanded that she speak freely and truly.

he stared.

he demanded, and she — being so trained to answer the demands, even after all this time, only wants to wilt before him.

nazli feels tears welling in her eyes; is she furious with him? is she furious with herself? or is her want so great that trying to put a voice to it hurts?

senmut! she forces herself to say his name, and she shuts her eyes tightly and almost cowers; i love him.

another time, khusobek might have teased nazli for her ambitious reach. "a lofty branch," he perhaps could call her. 

but nazli was no grasping servant, and khusobek had seen too much of love not to recognize the purity of it in the pleading dark gaze.

he did not need to tell her that a prince married only whom his pharaoh decided, or that this one had chosen legend's company as of late; khusobek only nodded and slowly, slowly, dropped to seat and elbows, though he kept his paws as they were.

now he looked up at her, and once this conscious shift had been completed, khusobek ordered quietly, "then go to him. respect the love you have by not allowing it to die inside you."

she could not speak for a time.

khusobek appeared patient now; nazli wept wordlessly, until empty.

the mazoi spoke an answer to her problem that was so simple as he uttered it; but nazli knew better.

it must. and she knew this so strongly that her words were like iron. i cannot give him what he deserves.

nazli knew the purpose of fellahin and had been ruined by it in ways that only gilthyra knew. she saw the way senmut looked upon the woman at the banquet table and understood then how deeply jealous she was.
to be touched in that way! to be loved. to bear him sons! none of this was possible no matter how much khusobek insisted.

nazli blots the tears from her cheek and catches where they line her throat. she had said the truth out loud and oh how it stung but it was spoken, finally, and there was peace in that.

he did not know these things, only that nazli wept until it seemed the salt sea entire had painted her cheeks.

"and what does a priest deserve?" growled the crocodilisk at last, and this time he cupped her wet face against the pad of one hard paw. "a man who could not love you back does not deserve your pain."

khusobek was jealous, was wounded; hatshepsuun had never wept for him, not even when he had worshipped her with his own tears. 

softly he smoothed a last rivulet to invisibility against her lilac chin. "what do you deserve?"

it didn't matter that he was a priest, it would not have mattered if he had been a fellahin, or some scoundrel thrown in akashingo's catacombs for some crime; nazli did not care what senmut's title was, only that he existed and that she wanted to be near him always.

a man who could not love you back does not deserve your pain. rasped the mazoi, rightly.

khusobek touched her cheek so tenderly; he asked his question, watching her. nazli looked upon him with an expression that warred between determination and sorrow, desire and grief. it doesn't matter; i can't have — i can't be the person i should be. i am only this wretched thing now. i —

and there! does she not deserve her fury?

"who told you what you were?" khusobek demanded. their faces close; he knew that he could kiss nazli, and found he did not wish to do so. not in the way of a man, of course that! always that.

but the love in her eyes was for senmut; her want too, belonged to this undeserving priest. it would be a robbery to take so great a moment and so khusobek leant back; he dropped his hand.

"i see nothing wretched in you, nazli. only in this man for not seeing how your eyes shine."

for your sanity i wont link to "what was i made for" but just know it was playing as i wrote this ...

gritting her teeth.

he was a mazoi, and a man, and would never understand what pain she was in; and her rage bubbled over.

i used to pride myself on being useful, being fast, anticipating needs; and then the pharaoh took a look at me and said, 'ho, a beautiful toy!' it broke me! he, broke me.

no tears, only white-hot rage as things unsaid were finally erupting from her!

i had thought the struggles and the starvation did it. im so weak now, i can't help anyone; but the doctor -- the doc, she could not bare to say this! she fought herself over it. to admit that, she confirmed it. the starvation weakened me so i can't be useful, but that man, ramesses, took all i had!

she fell forward now against the chest of the mazoi, pressing her forehead against him, sobbing emptily.
i can't give senmut children. i-- i can't give anyone heirs, and so what good am i? what reason was i born if not this?

silence and pain.

already sobbinggg ;;

and at last, khusobek understood. he was silently stricken; he softly cradled her head against the new shocked gallop of his heart, reviling his earlier thought;

here was yet another slave shattered by the chains of a master. 

khusobek, lover of hierarchies and placements, saw that their cost was great. his heart was filled with wrath, the icewater eyes with sorrow.

"you think of yourself as a vessel for a man because it is what you have known." the crocodile spoke these words over her crown into the room around them. "we are all much more than vessels. than fathers and mothers. a priest needs no heirs; his role is chosen by pharaoh. your worth, surely, is in more than childbed, for that is not love."

you asked me what i wanted. her voice is cold, she is tired.

the man could say anything, do anything, choose any path. his counsel was biased; he would never understand the deeper pain that nazli carried as woman.

more than anything, i would be a mother; i would be loved by my husband and my children, and they would never know the same pain. she had a piece of that now as sesh or hemet, where she would never be used by a man again.

but to get here, she forfeited the rest.

so i say, it does not matter what i want, what i deserve. i cannot have it.

he did not know.

he could not know.

khusobek wanted to argue, to insist that the gods had the ability to restore such things to her. but the wintertime touch of her voice told him she no longer believed.

and so the mazoi sat back upon his haunches, sliding his paws beneath nazli's elbows until they cupped her wrists; he stared down at them, their thin birdlike nature.

the gods took. the gods gave.

his voice was hoarse when he looked up into her desolate face. "pray to Amun." there were no promises, but only He Who Is the Life Spark would comprehend nazli's loss and how she must be given great treasures in return.

as for khusobek, he found a welter of respect and loyalty for the sesh.

khusobek speaks the name of one god out of many, and is met with long silence.

nazli is comforted being held.

and as she let's the energy of her emotions subside finally, wearing her thin, she says, will you stay with me until i sleep?

there was trust between them now.

slowly, the sounds of celebration filtered in from the hallway.

this was not something which had ever been requested from khusobek.

for a moment, he wondered if she had misspoken; if nazli wished him to stand guard while she slept.

"i will be here when you wake," the mazoi assured with a quick smile. "shall i take a post inside the room or without, nazli?"

there was a moment she caught him off-guard; she saw then the unintended suggestion to her words and blushed, withdrawing to her bedfurs properly.

inside, until i sleep - and then you may go back to the celebrations; i do not mean to keep you. nazli bundled herself, and would go on to closing her eyes for sleep, and eventually the sound of her breath evened out.

it had been a long and glorious night, ending with too much raw emotion; so she slept quickly - or perhaps feigned it well enough.

he stayed.

"you are not keeping me."

he stayed beyond the settling of her body, beyond the evening of her breath; the guard did not watch her sleep, only gazed ahead with the focus of his post.

but when the crocodile felt that the lilac slept, his face fell into a mask of fury and shock as he stepped outside her door and sought his next assignment, shouldering through the halls until the cool air of the desert struck his cheekbones and he was able to breathe out in rage.