Broken Antler Fen grow back your sharpest teeth

tags for reference! <3

after speaking at length of plans with @Tavina and seeing her one last time to check on the dressing over his now empty eye socket, meseba sets off in the still night. the ache of worry in his heart for @Eset gives him the strength to rebel against a god on the earth, to push past the throb of his wounds. rebellion lingers like the sharp taste of a sword across his tongue as he moulds himself to the shadows, concealing him as well as they can.

he sleeps during the rise of the sun and moves only in the shadows of night, in the pale glow of the moon.

he is not even sure he heads in the right direction.

but he will not stop until he finds her.

he meets a stranger ( @Abydos ) and directs him after questioning that leaves him frustrated and eager to move on.

when he reaches the fen, the dawn paints the sky in muted colors and he takes a long drink from the waters before searching for a place to rest for the day.

Along the reedy margin where grass meets tree, small foot-marks pass; straying no further than the last cedar. Before the stars had left the skies she had risen, and shivering in the coldness, by moonlight had tried to hunt the swallows in the glen. To move her frozen bones a bit in this cold country while @Machiavelli stilled in precious hours of sleep.

The wind had upended her breath and her steps were black on the frosty grass. She’d pushed herself down, sprawled to the earth when a shimmering trail of silver crossed against the dusk, trusting none in the wake of the strath. Splaying feet, Eset did not believe the figure that moved with such familiarity as any but a trick of light. She flattens her cold ears closer to her head and watches.

Unfortunately for the wraith, precious "hours" were more like precious unwanted, uncomfortable moments that barely qualified as sleep. The drifting dog stirred long before rest could ease his frayed nerves, snapping awake with a sharp intake of breath.

Something was wrong.

His opal eyes darted about the dim space, heart plummeting when they found only emptiness where Eset had been, and panic had already begun to set in when logic caught up with the scent trail she had left behind—mouth-wateringly strong with the promise of prey. She hadn’t vanished; she had gone hunting. Relief came in a shaky exhale, but it did little to quell the unease curling in his gut.

A low growl from his own stomach gave him a convenient excuse to follow. Certainly, it was hunger and not the terrifying idea of being alone for more than a few minutes that propelled him from his place. That would be absurd.

The dog slunk to his Hebsut's side, paws sinking into the earth without a sound, but it was not her he was focused on. The rounded ears were pricked and opal eyes focused on the distant figure. Fear rose in waves, pelt bristling, and heart beginning to race.

They were still too close. Too close to Godsmouth.

His gaze darted between the unrecognized stranger and Eset. If her gaze turned to him, his signal would be immediate, desperate, pleading—a sharp flick of his tail and a pointed look toward the opposite direction.

Please, let us leave before we're spotted.

the unnatural rustle of foliage causes meseba to stop and turn; other senses already working into overdrive to make up for the loss of his eye. guard hairs bristle; still sore and healing and worried that Pharaoh's consort king would call for him to be hunted.

but the figure was familiar. he'd know eset anywhere, even a phantom draped in shadows.

that he would be so lucky as to cross paths with eset happenstance upon the first few nights of his defiance was nothing short of divine intervention! even if sekhmet had demanded his eye, she had not spurned and turned from him as he feared.

relief almost crumples meseba as he moves closer.

hebsut! he calls out to her; gaze lingering on the form of machiavelli that lingers near her. him, meseba is not nearly so happy to see; still believing ( wrongly ) that he is fault for the ill-happenings. but much has happened in your absence and none of it good.

“Meseba!” The wind takes his quivering name abroad and with a reassuring touch to Machi’s shoulder the coy abandons their shade to cross into the dell. Her steps are featherlight; quick. She sinks into the familiar gray chest, inhaling home and feeling at once some semblance of safety.

But his words are quick to reawaken worry. It drags through the air, the sentry’s anxiety as palpable as her own. Eset pulls her chin up to see a doctor’s dressing where an emerald should be. “Your eye–”

Her voice falls into a gasp, one frozen paw lifting to his cheek. “Who’s done this to you?”

They’d been seen. Machi felt it in the shift of air, the telltale pause in the world’s rhythm. His paw slid back a half step, instinct guiding him into the shadows where the foliage clung closer, darker. His ears flattened against his skull as the figure drew near, but it was not a cultist that had found them. No, there were no cries for Godsmouth, no call for vengeance.

Just Meseba.

He didn’t follow Eset as she crossed the space, her name called out like a fishing line to pull them together. No, the dog stayed where the light couldn’t touch him, his pale eyes trained on the reunion with an intensity that bordered on predatory, only to break and roll in annoyance as the pair embraced.

How convenient, how exquisitely predictable. Meseba, bruised and battered, arriving on cue as if the gods themselves had written him into this moment. Was it divine providence or just the way of things, that Eset always seemed to draw her pieces back to her like some celestial force? Machi’s gaze lingered on the Hebsut, the way concern softened her features.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, seeing the sentry after all this time. Too much time. And wasn’t it hilarious, how he showed up now, now, just after Eset had appeared?

The half-breed shifted slightly, his nails digging into the soil beneath him. His gaze flicked briefly to the soft press of paw against cheek, and then away again, irritation carving itself deeper into the lines of his face.

For now, he stayed put, rooted to the shadows like a ghost too stubborn to move on, observing the scene playing out before him with all the grace of a decidedly grumpy, wet cat—watching, waiting, and incredibly unamused.

in the moment where she falls against his chest, the world melts away. the cold of the coming wintersbreath, the pain that has lingered as his constant companion without the painkilling flora of tavina to soothe the very worst of it. he forgets machiavelli's presence still in the shadows. he forgets that he's defied a god on earth to find her.

gladly, he would bear the punishments for her. every day for the rest of his life, if that was what semer-wati decreed.

we went to war with the wolves that hurt the young safiya, he begins. the captain and i fought their leader i guess he is, meseba doesn't know and recalls only the pain and stench of blood as it rained upon the ground. flashes of memory were all that his adrenaline addled brain had been able to capture like rapidly snapped polaroids. jodai lingers between life and the hall of two truths. Anubis stands guard constantly, even as tavina works tirelessly to try to save his life.

there was so much to say and things he was afraid to forget. he closes his remaining eye for a moment, letting her frozen touch upon his cheek calm the furious race of his heart. [i]Semer-wati forbad anyone for searching for you. he attacked and imprisoned tavina for it. it is dire, eset. she came to me, entrusted me with this task ... knowing i would go for you, regardless of what it made me. of what it meant. for he loved her even if would never be reciprocated.

it is not safe for you to return, not nearly as safe as it would be if we knew for sure the captain will live. tavina suggested going to akashingo to wait for news, while Pharaoh and Semer-wati remain at Muat-Riya. but meseba was not making the choice for her. he would escort her and by proxy machiavelli anywhere they wanted to go: whether it was to the lion's den or to temporary safety.

No time to fathom it, the coy eyes fly wide and she shoves back abruptly, feet already finding shaky steps that would bring her to Khusobek in the south, the blood draining from her face.

Meseba goes on, breaths curdling to sobs. A hollow tearing opens the chest where her heart and lungs should be. Tavina.

“No,” her chokes are agonizing, “no. She needs me.” Eset's pacing turns wild, eyes raking the grass.

“Meseba. Please take Machi to Akashingo. His leg is badly injured. He needs rest, not to be thrown into another conflict. I have to go to Muat-riya.”

There was no waiting for response, the legs beneath her fell into a lope.

It was the littlest Mazoi's name that broke him from his brooding, dragging him from the shadows. He rushed toward the pair—or as much as one could rush with a broken leg—and skidded to a stop beside them, pelt bristling.

War. Khusobek injured, dying.

Eset, I will meet you home as soon as I can. A promise, heavy in its meaning. They had attacked him too, they had been the reason he had been left unguarded to be snatched up by Godsmouth. He longed to follow her, to return to Muat-Riya, where he knew he could be of service. Yet, if the Hebsut wished he go to Akashingo, he would oblige her, he owed her that much. There was, however, one condition that could shatter that resolve.

Machi rounded on the one-eyed guard:

Where is Safiya?

tavina wants you safe. i want you safe. tavina is too valuable for him to do the unthinkable. we should really go to akashingo to await word.

to machiavelli as the other man hobbles towards them. she is in akashingo healing, last i heard.

and while meseba had anticipated this sort of response, he had not accounted for machiavelli's presence. words of protest rise upon his tongue. and then they die. and they resurrect themselves.

i am not leaving you to return alone. if you return, we return together, eset. he is a mountain that would not be moved in this.

he is hoping that by doing so he might be able to draw some of Semer-wati's wrath unto him so it would not be so bad for her. he stands by her side as traitor and she whatever imagined slights Semer-wati had made for her.

Her pace is halted, head thrown over shoulder with the whipping of fel winter winds.

“I need Machiavelli safe,” Eset counters, pushing close into Meseba once more. More than mist glazes her eyes, there is pure desperation there.

“If you have any respect for your hebsut... if you have any– love, for me, you will do as I have ordered,” her voice is strangled, guilty, to knowingly play against his affections. She is cruel, and worse is that in the moment she does not care to be kind, so long as she is listened to. Her paws grapple for another step.

“I am Pharaoh’s, no harm will come to me. Do not ask me to wait.”

A single brow arched, suspicion flickering like a candle behind opal eyes as his gaze darted between them, finally settling on Meseba. Details clicked coldly into place, but the dog had little time to dwell upon it.

If Safiya was in Akashingo then there he would go.

Come along, lover-boy. You heard her. His tone was clipped as he turned on his heel, yet his opaline gaze shifted to the retreating form of the viper.

She isn’t helpless, you know, His words cut through the air, their tone nearly as biting as the chill. She managed without you for quite some time. Snappish words from a snappish mouth, the dog made no effort to temper the disdain bleeding into his voice.

words of continued protest die on meseba's tongue as eset uses his affections towards her against him. they melt into something almost bittersweet; asked to turn against what he'd came here to do: see her safely to akashingo. he hates the idea of letting her face the lion's den alone even if she was Pharaoh's.

where was Pharaoh when her husband made his decisions? perhaps they were of one mind ....

but she is quickening away and machiavelli is calling him 'lover-boy' which draws a scowl upon meseba's scarred face that is so freezing it could put the ice of the glacier to shame.

begrudgingly, he follows after machiavelli, harboring no love for the other man and wondering how he was expected to make it thru the journey to akashingo without committing a crime. sakhmet was surely testing him.

we can travel in silence, y'know. meseba offers with equal amounts of disdain; a demand clothed in the sheep's skin of a suggestion.

Meseba’s face stung.

It was not in the satisfaction of knowing her cruelty had hit home, but the demands of her heart that she turned so abruptly, withstanding sears of guilt like daggers to the gut.

Repressed violence stirred in the wake of her retreat and still she rode east as quickly as webbed paws leant her speed.

Hold on. Please.

Exit Machi! <3

Fantastic, maybe if you keep silent I'll be able to think, the dog returned—for now, his mind would remain occupied.

There was more than one way to skin a cat, as the old proverb so crudely stated—many of them tested and known. By that logic, if there were countless ways to skin a cat, then surely there were just as many—if not more—to unmake a wolf, and Machiavelli intended to learn each one.