Two Eyes Cenote grey dawn light

visitor!!

Beyond the ravine and the dunes seemed to lay a paradise in sands.

The scents that wafted from the borders were rich and she found a hunger bloomed within her. One for adventure, one for food, one for the mystique.

She wanted something even if she did not know what.

Her head tipped back and the call that broke free from her sang of coyote blood with the wilds of the wolf.

coyote.

muat-riya had been besieged enough. the strong stride of the mazoi commanded obeisance from a lesser being, and the cold eyes blazed into the dark hide.

"you have come to muat-riya, golden palace of pharaoh toula," he growled. "what is it you want?"

He was large. Strong.

Her exposure to men was limited but she found this one was handsome. Was it him or the rich scents of the place he wore along his warm colors?

See?

Just a glimpse, just a taste.

he was not inclined to let a coyote enter the gilded palace, but perhaps it was not specific to her kind, and only to strangers.

the guard appraised her, seeing the pretty waist and shining eyes as an opportunity. "what do you barter?" he chuffed in some amusement.

What could the man who wore the scents of paradise want?

She had nothing. No lavish things that scented half as good as his cologne of Muat-riya.

Her face appeared as if she gave this some tendril of genuine thought. Then figured she would make no fine answer on her own.

What want?

"what do you have?" he shot back, a guard now leaning with greater interest upon the straight pike in proverbial hand.

"the palace is very beautiful," he promised. "but it is divine. the gods walk here."

His handsomeness must have been a trick to conceal his drabness. Lament did not understand why he wished to hide away the pleasures of the sands.

Divine.

Gods.

I sing, She could not promise they would find the music of her voice very good! Yet he had dared to think she was a creature capable of bartering to see divinity.

Woe was her, locked out of paradise.

"then sing." despite his dwindling interest in the matter, khusobek wished to hear this voice.

he had not yet decided if he would allow her within the sanctum, song or not. the icewater eyes were unreadable.

No one had watched her before —

She found the water of his gaze was like being plunged into winter rivers. Did it help or harm her?

There were no words to this song, not even much of a melody in truth. It was a song of something old and primal that raised up in her voice in a series of howls.

Anguish and strength. Grief and beauty — the kind held in the eye of the beholder.

Even if she could not be allowed into paradise, perhaps they might hear her begging all the same.

Had anyone ever taken pity on the beggar?

it pushed at a wound long-buried in khusobek, this song. he had not expected its primeval sound to be quite so compelling.

the tension in the man slackened; his eyes glittered with wonder.

and when the last echoes died away, the crocodile considered the songbird with a wondering, appraising light in his icewater eyes.

"what is it you came to see?"

Paradise.

Something hollowed out within her voice now. As if what she had bartered was a piece of herself, never to be returned. She inserted herself into every lament that she wailed.

If divines walked here, if something stronger and holier than her laid between the two eyes here, perhaps it might bless her.

"follow."

follow, to the bathing pools, to the rich verdancy of nazli's temple. to the shafting light which fed the garden watered by the cenote, to the bitter herbs of tavina's pharmacy.

he did not show her the paths which wound through muat-riya, but allowed her to drink of all things which her eyes might see upon his tour.

And she did, obedient under instruction.

There was so much to see! Some things felt familiar in unspoken ways and others were brand new. The whole thing was intoxicating. By the end of it all she was practically drunk! Maybe literally, maybe not so literally. Regardless.

A warm stone supported her as she leaned against it, held tilted back as if she might dare to sing again.

Am welcomed?

She had the want to return, but not if she would not be welcomed.

Or maybe she was willing to keep giving bits of herself for glimpses into paradise.

"you are."

he offered her a drink of fermented cactus from the hand of a servant. his manners were not so neat as those of inji or eset; he was not an entertainer. but she had sung for these pleasures, and so khusobek offered them.