Lion Head Mesa imprisonment

attn @Drusk figured we’d get a newer one! I Can spree out our older one too!

 

remove that from him at once, Toula snarls in a rage! what was this? imprisoned though he was for his crimes, she would not be so cruel as to collar him. once he answered and atoned, he would be free of this place one way or another—
or perhaps he might wish to stay. Toula, brows furrowed, said take him to the warmwaters, not within the palace, but near the place he was held. Toula could hardly take this any longer, and her heart wrenched. to the fellahin that had done such to him, she said, you will bathe him. food awaited them at the waters—she began to move in that direction, surrounded by others that would prevent him from running if that was what he wished to do.
indeed, she tired of this. and she was beginning to think he was only a stupid man, not one with nefarious intent toward her people. perhaps it had always been the food in their stores… ah, even if not in the way he wanted, he still managed to receive it!

the fellahin which had collared the man was summarily reprimanded, and the collar removed while in her company. it had not been a tight fit. in fact, drusk hardly noticed it; but he presumed the sight was enough for word to travel to the pharaoh and the upset rippled throughout the servants.

he was brought to the spring where he could be washed. flanked by these same fellahin yet at a distance, and mazoi eyes upon him in case the beast ran afoul of this new freedom, he entered the winding underground of the palace.

the mountain people were born for cliffs and highlands, for chasing their sheep and the wild goats they claimed, and never did they sleep beneath the earth. that was where the dead went. yet these desert people by comparison had built an empire within the earth!

drusk felt uneasy as he found himself within this spacious room with perfumed water. he would not go near it, and without the collar he could not be led or forced. instead he watched the fellahin around him with what could only be described as a hollow, glazed expression.

he would not be forced. not to anything, not any longer. he had endured enough. and in his eyes she could no longer see so much as a spark—Toula wondered if it would be gone forever, or if there was any way to bring it back. 
Toula drifted to the waters, still flanked by protectors, stepping in only as deep as her ankles before turning to face him. why did you trespass, she asked at last, and added, speak the truth, and perhaps you shall know freedom again. perhaps, perhaps—she could not promise it, if he meant to kill or abduct!

the woman bathed. the young man was not bashful as he watched her, showing no sign of care about the way the water soaked her coat and made visible her body.

her questions were answered with succinct singular words, as usual. to the charge of trespassing he says, hunt. and a moment after gathering some words to himself, adds, small ones. he motions to the hallway where a fellahin waits and watches, and their tall coyote ears twitch at the answer.

was hungry. wanted to eat. he had only ever seen coyotes as vermin upon the mountain or slaves, and this was reinforced again here in this desert place by the roles they held. the fact he was a prisoner for his intended abuses made little sense to drusk - but perhaps this woman owned them all.

it was as his sister thought, then. they are mine, she answered, speaking in terms he would understand and perhaps could respect. what is mine is not for you to hunt or to kill. we do not hunt the fellahin, a word he would know well by now. he had not killed any here before—the Hemet had been intact, not touched by teeth hungry to eat.
will you hunt my fellahin again, when you are freed? will you seek to hurt my people? retribution, he might think of it as—but now he understood there would be a cost, and this time there had been mercy even if it did not feel that way—even to her! 
but she thought of what might have happened, had he not been captured. he might have come again and again and again, failing twice before he finally succeeded and it was @Tuna or @Eset or @Inji and her children betwixt those devouring jaws, screaming, suffering, no chance for the spark in their eyes to ever change from that bleak and cold flatness of death! and she felt that only this measured cruelty toward him would make him understand, make him truly listen, 
because the language he had first bent to was that of the body at its most savage and vicious. the man before her did not know the lessons he shared with her went far beyond the learning of their differing languages. she was grateful,
and she wanted badly for this next truth of his to show he had some shred of wisdom, and that it would be a truth that would set him free.

the girl-queen claimed the dogs as her property.
this was no so strange; the place he lived before was similar, except those were slaves which were owned between families, and the cost of harming one of them was not so steep. here the difference was obvious, in that drusk could not have his way with them. he did not want to be held in the pit for another moon because he could not control his urges.

he grunts, turning his head in a dismissive, almost relaxed way from her gaze. he understood that they were not to be touched and he would not try to take from her again.

his gaze averted. he seemed to understand, and so Toula too relaxes some. but she is not so foolish as to relax entirely, prepared to move should she need to. 
bathe, then. you are free—unless it is your wish to remain. there could be a place here for you, she watches him now, quiet, curious. she trusted him, largely because of who @Racharra thought him to be—but also because of who he had portrayed himself to be, too. Toula remained guarded by her people as she said, and if it is your wish to go, you will be escorted out, lest he had any ideas! but she would keep her word.