Two Eyes Cenote Amduat

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He rode hard for the cenote, flanked by guards and servants who spilled into the halls and receiving rooms of the blue palace.

“Inform Pharaoh @Toula and Wedjat @Khusobek of my arrival. Rouse every inhabitant of the palace from their dwelling,” Rashepses ordered before bending to fill his royal jowls with the glittering doline waters. When next he raised his head the people of Muat-riya had begun to congregate, looks of concern cutting their faces. The king made no move to assuage them. The two lands were in an extreme state. Hearts were heavy. The commander was in the same position as the commanded.

With dribbling lips and a lowered voice, he motioned for a pair of mazoi, “do not release the sesh Tavina from your sights.” 

so. she had treated their captain and turned to filth in that room, and still rashepses meant her persecution to be ongoing.

with eset nowhere in sight and muat-riya roused, the sesh was prodded into view. she bit the inside of her jaw, not in fear but in rage, seeing that wretched husband of toula's making standing ringed by the inhabitants.

to one child or another she whispered, attempting reassurance even while possessing none of her own.

khusobek knew he was not yet fully healed, but had made his peace with the potential for so deep an injury to follow him forever. he kept the limp from his stride with a tight jaw and made his way to where the Semer-wati waited.

a nod arranged their number in anticipation of pharaoh. muat-riya's wedjat stood firm, eyes surveying the mingled bodies and beyond, in the direction he had once fought their enemy.

joy in her heart, and only that, to hear her husband had returned! she smiled as he requested her presence, and looked into her reflection. oh! she longed for @Eset then, but in her absence she turned to another fellahin and said, make me beautiful! with a peal of gay laughter! and that laughter rang in the halls as she and they two conjured up the image of her husband having missed her so fiercely that he returned so swiftly—ah, the truth of it was she had missed him just as much! 
and in this form did she come to meet him, though she was surprised to see an audience there—and to feel next a new tension. there was her Sesh, who Toula smiled to—she had kept to her quarters, though the edict to keep her there had never come to her own ears. 
her appetite, though, lingered. there might be a ceremony, but must it be now? hungrily she looked to her husband, the thought to dismiss all others evident in her gaze.

In the blue gloom of those humming halls Rashepses looked on the gathered coldly. Another pair of eyes might have glimpsed distress, but in silence the king saw crookedness, and its resulting heavy portents. The angular faces with its many sharp features raised high over neck, attention stolen by a part in the painted bodies.

Angel-like, the goldspun form of his wife, so soft and fair and shining through darkness, whose luminance spoke to him in memories of warm mornings and hot breaths. Her beauty and power alone was his to swill. But it was the lustful look set in the nile-eyes which rocked him with a wet swelling in his chest, a longing which brimmed as she drew within range for him to touch. He does not, instead bows low and ceremoniously before her.

“You bewitch me,” whispered a great restraint, eyes teasing as they flicker low on the plush fawning between her legs. His lips kissed one foreleg, and the other, the Semer-wati drew his wife to stand beside him.

He saw the restless faces and was gruntled by them. “Gather, so I may speak to you. In the year of our inception, Muat-riya has endured war, infiltrations, murders, kidnappings, maimings. The brightest have been cast down. Our women and children live in fear, our men powerless to shelter them against ceaseless assault, repeated again and again and now the cataclysm has spread to Akashingo. I am afraid the circumstances are dire.” It was then the sunstone eyes drew to his wife, though he was troubled to see what impression might be waiting there. No cause was yet revealed, nor how silence had fueled it– silence like a contagion in which the mind would not accept the truth.

“Nehebkau calls for His people in Akashingo. We will answer Him at once. Our journey begins before sundown. Go now, gather your things.”

it was as if toula did not even see her, ensnared by the trajectory of rashepses' planetary pull. bitterness warred with understanding. she had ramesses' blood in her; she would always be for her people entire, not only one or two.

dread filled the sesh, suddenly, but she knew she could not get away. "@Nokht will need to be carried," she made herself call out. tiye and aiesha had inji with them.

but what waited in akashingo for her, when all the strength was gathered?

her heart raced in stuttering fear, and all she could think now was how good it was that nazli had escaped.

"i will help to bear the boy," khusobek grunted, thinking with pained horror of his own sons out there in the waste.

he did not know if they lived and there had settled into him so great a melancholy that it felt impossible even to breathe.

an automaton once more, he moved with the heavy step of one commanded by spirit what he must do in flesh.

he had little to carry and much, much more to leave.

it had reached Akashingo! it was all she heard then, and it consumed her thoughts. her Sesh spoke, and Toula looked to her with love and worry all at once. she did not think the woman in danger, and had imagined her choice to remain in her halls to attend to @Nokht and @Khusobek. none dared whisper “traitor” of her—though none dare speak against her husband, either. 
dread in her heart, to know now a sacrifice must be made. she had thought the Gods might be sated by the life she had given Them, for the act had taken much of herself too. 
she looks to her people. it is her own word they wait for. we must be together—we will not allow this evil to win out. nor shall the Gods. for They are with us. she would protect them all!

It was Pharaoh’s voice they needed to hear. Her edict is made and no sooner are the people stirring. Rashepses ignores the voices passing like hot winds. A leer holds briefly over the guarded sesh to find his wife in affection too long withheld.

A travelworn paw takes her chin, tilting it up towards him so he could admire the radiance of her freshly groomed face. Her turquoise eyes are stricken with worry, a sentiment his kiss works to coax free.

“A convoy’s been arranged to carry you.” He’d not have her walk the sands. His second paw tended his wife’s lissome limb, pulling her in close enough to chase another kiss to her ear.

“The Erpa-ha has a magical tongue. You have the powerful magic of your mouth, protector goddess, effective in commanding. The Gods will listen to Their servant, and to Their Sister,” he held her then, offering his feathering as a pillow for which his wife could rest her cheek. He wish to insulate her from many difficult things, least not those trials which would come to pass at Lion’s Head Mesa.