Two Eyes Cenote Echis

Shadows lap at the dark in silence, when Eset prefers to walk the halls. There is the benefit of being unseen in them.

Some tunnels had not yet been explored in full, such a one she prowls  through now. The sharp cut of limestone smooths to blue shale beneath her step. Her skin chills.

"eset?"

what happened earlier? the rooms were cool with darkened starlight hanging above. she came to regard the hebsut on her stroll, falling into wary and now silent step as muat-riya slept around them and the desert came to life.

In the dark there appears before her  only two things- a widening gleam of the sesh’s lotus eyes and the question in her voice.

“Tavina,” the moment startles, “may I bring you something?” She knew some nights plagued the doctor, ones in which she did not sleep-

But the hebsut could hear it in her tone: Tavina wants answers. Eset had them prepared.

her approach was careful and tavina halted some feet away. she did not understand the coolness she perceived now from eset; it made her idle dreams ooze into a sickly pale green.

"some of our kind loathe coyotes." an observation, not an accusation. a statement rather than question. she wanted to see it in eset's face.

This was her friend; her confidant, someone who she cared deeply for- but who bought into the same requisites of the divine throne which ruled them all; whose shared duty it was with the hebsut to uphold; who’d stood in witness to Eset’s treason. Across from her the coywolf braces with the defense on the tip of her tongue, as if she carries a shield in hand, waiting for the question-

Somehow the words that come are not accusive. The look she gives does not seek to bury. Tavina had seen; seen and understood.

The moment sends too many things in her mind to a reel, she holds Tavina in silent disbelief as her cheeks flood with burning relief- yet cold shame cannot be exiled. She shuts her eyes, turning her face sharply away so the Sesh cannot not read her anguish.

“Tavina, I am loyal to Toula. I am. I am,” she whispers hoarsely into the black air, body taut with guilty attendance.

“If something happens to him- if someone-"

"the fault is mine.“

what tavina did not comprehend about this moment was swiftly replaced by the intention of her step now, to cross the room, to cradle the dark satin of eset's shoulders.

the intensity of her gaze was for the profile turned to her, the touch to chin that the sesh hoped would bring eset's eyes back toward her.

"i understand your fear, from the — very bottom of my heart. but this is no longer such a world ruled by men, and you, eset, stand above us all with a scepter of protection in your grasp. i see it. we all do."

Everything was shifting so rapidly. The bend of Eset’s arms flex over Tavina, finding the solid familiarity of her embrace. When her head is made to turn, her eyes open and she meets the depths of her violet gaze. Tavina sees something in her, but no sooner than the old hope blooms it is cut again into the selfsame mark.

She forces a nod, because it is what she had wanted. Because it crumbles her to see the overwhelming look in the Sesh’s eyes and know she had put it there.

“I’m sorry,” the apology that bears out of her throat is fragile as her eyes cast down between them. She could not afford to be this way. She hated this weakness; she hated for Tavina to see it.

"you have done nothing wrong, eset, and everything right. this place can be what you want it to be. pharaoh is going back to akashingo at some point. your power won't dim when she does."

a smile now, encouraging; the strong arms pulling the hebsut close, wishing to soothe through this moment as much as she could.

as much as eset allowed her to be close.

The assurance in Tavina’s gaze makes her throat burn, almost the breath-stealing pain she’d endured after days of walking in the desert without enough to drink. She feels like an imposter in those eyes, and still she clings to her as if searching for an end that could be put to this paralysis.

She’d turned Talisman away because he was coyote. But could she promise not to do it again?

Never in her life had Eset been so sought after for her opinion, her presence, than in these last few weeks. It did not feel right that she should carry the weight of such choices and ask others to endorse them. But in Tavina’s arms she cannot bring herself to admit it, not when the sesh carries her own raw memories through days with suns that never set; while she had chosen to make the best of it through her nourishing.

If Eset did nothing, she was just the same as everyone who willingly turns a blind eye to suffering where there’s pleasure to be had.

“What do you want this place to be?” Her eyes lift in quiet ask.

what did she want?

had anyone asked tavina that before, when it came to the matters of a kingdom? she thought not.

"i want it to always be this peaceful. peaceful and hopeful. and — well. nala and i we — we had dreams once. of being teachers in a school, perhaps."

her voice carried the unhealed swell of a deep agony that had only just stopped yawning.

her arms tightened upon eset.