calling

took forever but another eset and charra thread like i promised 20 years ago :,)))

the days since the coronation have been slow for racharra, which is just what she needed as she grew into her adult body. in three months time, she will be a yearling. funny, then, how little she feels she's changed.

those thoughts accompanied the nebet as she stumbled through two eyes in search of one particular person. she was taught one shouldn't go barging into territory outside of Akashingo, but this surely counts as an exception.

Eset? she called, tone gentler than she normally would for a fellahin, but that was for a reason. if she hadn't changed, then certainly everyone else had. she'd grown to miss the former-fellahin. now, she hoped to return to simpler times where the only worry was finding a gift for her loved ones.

now here we are... 40 years later -sweats- thank you for your endless patience, seriously <33

It was a room all her own.

Not a sandy impression.  Not an earthen dugout. Not the master’s walled menagerie. A room all her own. With her plush furs, and her feathers, and a healthy sprig of crimson desert rose. Her paints and her drawings. Her gemstones on a stone shelf, waiting to be admired. No one here to attend. No one’s litter to pick up after. Only a room as tranquil as the river, a space for herself to go, as clean as a slab of quartzite before the engraving.

She passes her palm over the natural undulation of the stone, imagining the works that could go on these walls. The stories. Perhaps her’s.

A voice falls quietly down the hall, but it startles Eset with a stinging familiarity- like how a mother is attuned to the cry of her child. She pulls herself from the room and hastens through the corridors, her breath wedged in her throat and head whipping down the aisles in search of one particular girl.

“Racharra?”

AN: rach is 8-9 months here lawl

beautiful as the palace is, it is not home. it gives her no warmth nor company as she waits in the chamber expectantly. nervously. after what felt like forever for the impatient girl, the fella.. — hebsut's voice breaks the silence.

eset.. she stammers, catching the last glimpses of eset's haste. i'm sorry for disturbing you, i sincerely hope you weren't busy. it felt odd to refer to the woman with such formality, but it was what she was taught to do and so racharra must.

..will you be staying here? she's quick to the point, and while the lake cub isn't frowning there's concern behind those marigold eyes that watch carefully for the answer she wants.

Her impulse to reach for the girl, to pull her into her arms and feather her with affection is suppressed by a new wall of formality. Eset slows, stopping a respectful distance away.

The hebsut found Racharra much altered. She was tall now, willowy and long, doubling the coywolf in size and strength. And oh, she was beautiful, with embellishments in her fur that accentuated her eyes, making her appear older. But Eset still remembered the child, and the nebet was only a girl, still, in a world that had only continued to change around her.

“You know I am never busy for you, nebet,” Eset assures her gently, taking a slow step forward. But she stops abruptly when the second question is posed.

“I am,” it pained her to say so to the face of the girl. “Pharaoh has promoted me to Hebsut, I will live here in Muat-riya, now.”

there's a gap between them, and now it would only grow longer. with distance, with time. racharra could only linger in what she realizes were the last moments before the next time she may visit the new palace.

the nebet shifts and watches one of her adornments flutter onto the floor as she searches between the gap for what she wishes to say. 
why? did you not like the palace? or perhaps she did not wish to be fellahin? what for? queen toula is kind — even fellahin were treated like nebs and nebets. racharra's voice didn't falter, but there's a hurt in it that not even her training could hide.

“Of course not, lady Racharra. I am honored to serve Akashingo, but our Divine One needs help to establish the new palace here.” The air between them is cool. Eset is presented with a front she wishes had never been put there. The girl’s face is firm, her words precise,and yet everything is revealed in what she does not say. And Eset is surprised- shaken- for she had come to feel a deep affection for the child she’d had a hand in looking after, but never did she imagine it would be returned-

In the little drawn hallway Eset closes the space between them, no longer caring to heed proprietary between Nebet and Fellahin. She wants to take the girl’s face in her hands, but latches onto what she can, drawing her by the forearm beneath the curve of a steady palm.

“I wish I could tell you things are not going to change. The truth is they will. But not how I care for you. Never that.” She looks up into Racharra’s hurt, gathering her close, willing her to see what sincerity she held in her heart for her.

“I love you. No distance, nor anyone else, is going to take that away.”

racharra remains firm, nodding to eset's explanation. part of every empire is expansion, of course the palace is neccessary. 

but how ugly, dreadful these walls were now that they trap eset here.

briefly her head turns, only to be returned back to the hebsut as their dark paws join as one. the comfort from it was little — racharra knew it is fleeting but can't help but linger on the sight. the thin veneer of stoicism melts, softening her until she is not nebet but just the lake cub. 
the strength to meet eset's eyes had gone a long time ago, but briefly it returns to her as the woman utters a phrase.
i love you too. she pauses. ..but please don't leave.

"Racharra," Eset breathes, tucking her chin. Love.

She considered how to explain herself to the girl who may not understand, who’s birthright had granted her some manner of protection from the unpleasant- that it was not only upon Toula’s order she remained in the south. Eset had never felt shame in her position, but it did not explain how her throat suddenly went sapless when next her lips part.

“I have been fellahin my entire life. Muat-riya allows me to expand my opportunities. I feel... there is something for me here. A real chance at happiness.” Her face tilts, an unfaltering look studies the girl. So little of her intimate life was shared. She’d wanted Racharra to hold onto the remains of her childhood- yet now, Eset felt this too was evolving between them.

“But...you can come visit me. Anytime, no questions asked. You’ll have the biggest of the noble rooms, and may stay as long as you like,” her voice wavers. “In fact, I see no reason why you couldn’t move if you wanted, and continue your studies here.” To be with me.

so you weren't happy. there's a hiss to racharra's words. unsure if she'd been lied to or not, the nebet couldn't help but furrow her brow. you could've just said so..
but i understand. she didn't. not really, but she doesn't know what eset sees.

for a moment, she dwells. she sits on the offer. racharra loves eset, but she loves toula too. my own duties belong to the red palace. besides.. her voice dwindles until it is a whisper.
i'd like to be there if my sister or mother are to return.

“It’s not that simple,” her own reply comes quickly, not a defense she had readied but a force she felt all too keenly, “nothing in this world is.” She pulls back, compels her chin higher, looking as levelly as she could into the girl’s frown.

Racharra didn’t understand. Because she was right- the hebsut hadn’t been honest with her. If she wanted to now, she would detail out the vile events of her life before Akashingo. How her own mother had been abandoned to molder in the cruel grasp of her master. How Eset was indeed half of that evil.

Then- maybe she would see what Muat-riya meant to her, why it was so important.

She flicks her glazing eyes down to their mirrored feet upon the limestone, fighting an impulse to turn into herself. Instead, she covers Racharra’s dark paw with her own- a light touch. Soft. But let it speak for her in the ways she could not, and let the girl feel from it the coywolf's solemn attempts to understand. 

“You should be there,” she whispers in kind, "I pray, some day, they will be returned to you, Racharra."

she had touched a nerve, and racharra recoils. for a moment, there is silence.
..i'm sorry. i know.. though she didn't understand what that meant for a woman like eset, who has seen much more of the world than racharra has, the girl had also lived through enough to at least know that nothing in this world is ever simple.

ashamed, racharra hadn't noticed as eset's eyes glazed over in thought, instead having turned her gaze from guilt. the sudden clasp of her hand surprises racharra then as things settle to a gentler pace. but sorrow and solemn hung heavy like the vines that slithered through the gaps in the blue palace.

muat-riya is beautiful. while it is perfect for eset, it is not for racharra.
i pray too.. truthfully, i'd wish miho had been here to see Pharoah. i think she would've loved it.