Two Eyes Cenote gods of the arena

tags for reference! <3

@Eset has yet to return and he worries for her endlessly; as fitful about it as he is while he sleeps ( which is to say very fitful ). he is a grumbling patient for @Tavina, though he does not have the full force of her attention for that remains on @Khusobek, of whom he checks on daily. they weren't friends, at least meseba would not consider them as such, but they were brothers in arms. had spilled and had their own blood spilled upon the salt of the earth.

and his vision in his damaged eye only appears to worsen.

his stomach clenches from hunger and he feasts on the meats brought to him by the fellahin; knowing it will be time before he will be able to hunt for himself.

his mood sours only more as he feels sekhmet's presence and knows that perhaps soon he will be fierce in looks only; a guard for show rather than one of action.

he casts a cruel sneer at the shadows on the walls; huffing as he paces in his chambers, the walls suddenly reduced to a cage.

khusobek was still.

it was not his fault what had happened, and yet tavina found herself resentful of the man who lay in such esteem while eset perhaps lay dead somewhere in the desert.

she had tried greatly to preserve what sight meseba possessed; now she turned a swollen face at his tread and went at once to the doorway of her exam-room.

"come here," voice a hushed dismal thing even as her eyes snapped with a reined fury. "i need your help with something."

he is sullen and surly.

he does not mean to be towards the healer, who looms in the doorway, hushed voice issuing a command for him.

good eye slices towards her over his shoulder as his pacing stops, shoulders steeled.

i am no use at healing, comes the mazoi's truthful grumble as a reminder; letting his mind travel where it may even as he turns to follow dutifully after her.

"that is not what i need from you," tavina said, some note of tense desperation entering her voice despite the fact she tried to control it.

clearing her throat, the sesh raised a paw. "please. i need to clean your eye anyway," tavina managed, stepping back.

servants against the wall watched them. they would report to rashepses; she needed to be careful. 

but anger burned in tavina. she had defied a god. she would do so again.

the tension in her voice gives rise to his own, tightening the muscles of his shoulders as he studies her with his good eye. pharaoh's consort's servants watch; always watching. eyes and ears of the walls and shadows. little birds eager to fly back to their master and whisper what they've heard and seen.

it unnerves meseba a little; still apparently finding his bearing in the pharaoh's courts of intrigue.

will you have to cut it out? asks meseba in a way that was a tone equivalent of ripping off a bandaid. gritted teeth and baited breath and 'tell it to me straight'. it wasn't as if it would be any use to him if he couldn't use it anyway. still, the question has plagued him and he dislikes being burdened by questions that feel like a stone in his chest.

he gestures for her to lead the way, silently communicating he will follow.

what do you need of me, sesh? asks meseba in a quiet tone.

"eyes are more resilient than we know." willowbark astringent, dabbed along the corner of that unfortunate wound. "we will keep it covered."

her own bruised face smarted still, cut tingling where rashepses had slashed her in his fury. 

keeping meseba's muscular back turned for a moment, she faced the guard and dropped her voice into a conversational inflection, though its volume had decreased. "don't react. you should know that our semer-wati refuses to send mazoi to find eset, as she is only one servant."

she slowly wiped a red crust from the corner of his eye, salving the angry flesh there at once with aloe. "my talk with him was less than fruitful. now i am a prisoner here in the examination room until khusobek wakes."

don't react, tavina's stare warned meseba once more. "eset would not want you to do anything untoward. and if rashepses sees you leave muat-riya, he will know you go for her."

now she took a small padding of sheep's-wool and fit it over the guard's injured eye, swaddling his proud face in strips of thick grass to keep it held. 

"it would be better if you leave in the direction of akashingo, meseba. tell senmut what has happened. he will not act rashly. or, you might go to rashepses himself and ask where you might be most effective. once you're out of the palace, you can go anywhere you like. anywhere you need."

angered pain swam in her own face. "i fear my time in muat-riya will come to an end if the captain dies or if he lives. our semer-wati has already threatened the destruction of my rooms and then my execution if i persist for eset."

resolutely she gazed up into the stoic knowledge of meseba's face. "i know you will find her. i wish i could tell you where to start."

a metallic taste lingers along his tongue as she speaks of the resilience of eyes. my vision has only worsened. he admits, knowing that she can only see what the flesh tells. perhaps it does not look so bad but he only knows that his vision worsens in stead of improving. she tells him they will cover it and he makes a small grunt to speak that he will do whatever she suggests.

and then the shift. the truth of why she sought him out comes out in hushed tones meant only for him, spilling like wine from an overflowing cup prefaced by a plea not to react.

only a servant, Pharaoh's consort had called eset. rage holds itself in the soft tremble of his shoulders; hot and filled with the fury of sekhmet herself. luckily for meseba, the wounds of his face twist his expression into a grimace of pain instead.

was it possible that Pharaoh's consort knew of the love he felt for eset? did tavina? that she is asking this of him, knowing he will not refuse. that he would set the world ablaze to find her, defy the gods themselves to find her ( too ). that Pharaoh would let this happen to one of her most trusted feels like a betrayal ( though he does not even know Pharaoh ).

and tavina herself; held prisoner. the words take a grim tune that gives meseba a feeling of finality that he does not really like.

many questions burn his tongue. but there is not time for many questions. only the important ones.

i will bear a thousand punishments for her, but i will not bring her back to muat-riya if it is not safe for her. where do i take her? where will you go?

it was what she wanted, for eset to be safe. but when meseba spoke against muat-riya, mind realized her true helplessness.

attempting not to falter, tavina found a new truth in the low incense burn of guardian's voice. he cared for eset, and while defensive heart wanted to reel in hurt, tavina set the safety of her love above all else.

"take eset northwest to the bear wilderness, where we went for the great hunt." it came with a pang thrust to her heart; her laugh for herself was only softly bittered. "i am not sure the packs there trust us, and so she will be safe among one of them."

"i will go nowhere now. i have a role to play within the cenote. khusobek must awaken. it will be safer for her when he does," for truly she commanded such respect in all the mazoi.

now she inspected her neat bandages with solemnity. "the eye may not be able to be saved. more time is needed to know. but if you want me to put it out, meseba, i will do this."

more pain but no greater risk of infection than the travel which might influence septic flesh. the choice was to him.

trying to take eset anywhere against her will would not only be impossible, but also wrong ... meseba hesitates. to leave the place where he had been reborn, welcomed into the embrace of the gods and the divine Pharaoh also felt wrong. it was one thing to speak passionately that he would not take eset was not safe but it was another to take her against her will ... and meseba would not — could not! — do that to her.

a soft, perhaps resigned sigh pushes past his lips as tavina bandages his wounds. and what if she will not go? if she is determined to return? even if what she loved would be ripped from her? if only cruel punishment awaited her?

speak true: what do you think will happen if she returns?

the cenote was her home, and asking her to leave it even temporarily, even if it was what was best for her was a lot.

take the eye. it is dying and no use to me either way.

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: depiction of eye surgery

she unbandaged him again, grimacing at the angry redness of that poor eye. "come. sit down."

"eset will not abandon muat-riya, so you're smart to think twice about it. ordering her won't work. speaking to her will, and even then she'll want to come back. in that case, do go to akashingo first — if pharaoh and her consort are still here."

"if she comes back straightaway, rashepses may punish her, demote her. imprison her. if khusobek still sleeps, or if he dies, this will be tenfold, i believe. but if i can keep the captain alive, eset may have some leverage. standing at her side against pharaoh makes you a traitor, meseba. remember the gravity of what we are doing."

a pause. "this will hurt. drink." the same she had given the others; wine and poppy. "you will need to sleep before you go."

a peeled willow stick lay on her table. willow did not grow in the lowlands; she had traded for the antiseptic bark and now she lifted it, counted beneath her breath, and drove its pointed end firmly into meseba's ailing eye.

oozing, bloodied; tavina set down her implement and steadied the guard with soothing wounds, wiping the gore from his cheekbone until she was able to see the socket empty.

flushed, packed with chewed herbs, swaddled in milkweed fluff, and wrapped with new sinews, it would hold.

belatedly, tavina realized she had not looked up in an hour.

i know. speaks meseba with grave conviction. whether tavina knew the truth depth of his feelings for eset or not, she had came to the right man if she was looking for someone to defy the gods on earth. eset is worth it. but he doubted he needed to elaborate to tavina.

he takes a large drink of the poppy wine, feeling the swimming of his head, the cottony feeling in his ears. it dulls the pain but does not erase it completely and he cries out in high-pitched whines that taper into growls as his claws tear at the earth; fighting to keep his head still as she removed his dying eye.

his tongue feels like a fish in his mouth and so he does not try to form words; instead lets himself linger in the heavy throes of drug-induced sleep as it threatens to take him as she works to re-dress the wounds.