Lion Head Mesa the darkest side of me

senmut gave in retribution the most bittersweet of reunions to the man who had never surrendered the woman he loved.

to see her stand before the valley wolf and deny him was a balm to the priest's spiritual sensibilities. to hear her say with her own voice the delusion in which she lived kept his eyes upon akavir, staring at the tall nightcloaked warrior as his accusations disintegrated.

he did not answer belen. his words were for akavir.

"i have only ever heard her say two words which might hint at another origin. do you not see? she served akashingo and was reincarnated here again. half-dead in the wastes and she has been given a new life."

oh; in cruelty he turned his eyes upon belen. "i would not keep you here against your will. would you have me release you to this man? speak and it will be so; you will have the freedom which this palace is accused of denying."

The gloating cat that held the cream—he could feel Senmut’s eyes boring into him, but his were for Silvertongue alone. She remembered nothing—and the stoical mask the man kept so carefully in place began to falter at the denial within her—that Senmut would not see fit to even correct her in regards to the Pharaoh and his death.

She could not stay here—his gaze darted to Eivor—then back. He could not take her against her will—would not.

“It is a sad day to witness a man glowing in satisfaction at the delusions and downfall of an innocent woman,” he sneered to Senmut, then, gaze hardening. “If you think this vindicates Akashingo in any way—you’d be wrong. The smugness on your face only reiterates everything I have said.”

With that, he stood straighter—a flick of his tail indicating—he hoped—to Eivor they would be leaving almost immediately.

“Silver—Belen,” he amended, eyes beseeching once more as she questioned the priest of her Pharaoh. “Come with me. Please. I will show you… I’ll show you Riverclan. Where you lived with Crowfeather—where you fell in love with your wife.” Where you had chosen them both, over me. And where the fuck were they, now? “I can show you Qeya River… Where you and Wren settled to have your pups. If… You don’t remember. I’ll bring you back here. I won’t keep you from…” The bitterness that clung to his tongue was acidic. “I won’t keep you from where you want to be.”

but the priest had a gambit,.and it required a malevolence that even eivor had not foreseen. her first thought was for akavir's dignity, and she moved to warn him with her eyes.

but he was already begging now, even as this belen stood against him and refused what he said.

eivor heard his voice and felt she had always known his pain; it hurt her to listen, and she turned, almost ready to speak his name and hurry him out of this akashingo.

the look in his eyes, though, as he gazed upon belen; she cut her own gaze aside. he would not come so quickly. it must then be her own choice to leave.

"no! no, i do not want to go with him! i —" and her chest felt constricted and horribly breathless. "you said crowfeather," tears springing out against her cheeks as she stared frantically between this man and the priest she knew. "you said crowfeather," came her numbed mumbling, shards of light terrifying her very skull with its pain. "i have never known a wife! my body — i gave it to them, to them both. you cannot be truthful," her voice a riotous sobbing, for he knew some piece of her even she did not. "why would i go away with you? all i know is here! who are you?" she cried out. "who are you to call me away?" and who was he to attack the foundations of her life with imaginative falsehoods so evil she could scarcely understand?

"you lie and confuse. you deceive. you harm, akavir," said the priest, and at last he offered the illusions of his benevolent embrace to a servant sodden with tears. "you trust only yourself, and you have slandered pharaoh a final time."

voice, lifted. "i cast you out. any business in the future that we might have with the creek will be conducted through proxy. farewell, akavir. and beware."

guards; he called for them now and set his hard eyes on the woman and then the man who had pressed too far with his threats. senmut understood many things, the skill of courtcraft among them. akavir knew nothing.

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Silvertongue—beside herself—weeping. His jaw clenched—firmly rooted to the spot, and as Senmut tsked at him, not just planting the seed of doubt in the silver woman but pushing it to full bloom—and his eyes sharpened upon the Erpa-ha—again, a feral grin offered to the man.

Surely, the priest must have placed two and two together—Germanicus who had served Belen upon a platter to their palace, the friend Akavir had confided to him of.

No, it wasn’t that Akavir only trusted himself. He trusted others too freely—

Senmut’s dismissal of him would have been met with a wave of a paw, as if swatting at a bug—but he still felt numb—eyes upon Silvertongue, tracing her—as if the puzzle would somehow slot back into place.

“Good luck with your roach infestation,” he snarked toward the priest—finding it interesting that the priest would encourage more enemies to their borders.

Guards would come to collect them—he ensured Eivor remained within his sight, before him—lead through the tunnels underground and back to the desert. Escorted to the outskirts, Akavir caught sight of something—swiping down to grasp at what seemed to be an abandoned stash of fermented berries in a makeshift pouch of skin and sap. “Let’s get fucked up and spar,” he growled, refusing to look back to where his heart lay sobbing in the undergrounds.

eivor shut her eyes. akavir was outmanned here and surely unbalanced by the fact that she did not share his sentimentality for the woman. they should not have come, and he should not have omitted so many details from his conversation with her about this place.

for now she was a guardian, and when the priest dismissed them, she spat a honeyed glob of saliva onto the matting. "kvarsheim does not need your arrogance. keep it, holy man."

she followed the instruction of the guards, hearing their step behind herself and akavir. he took what he wished and did not look back; her own eyes glinted once in the shadowy cold as the sounds of their trudging carried them from flatland toward desert.

not until a cry sounded; wait! wait! the drengr adjusted the pelt around her shoulders, taking the pack lightly from akavir. "i will wait beyond the steppes and the lake. join me in the morning." her eyes said he must listen; she turned away from him to quit the land of akashingo and to explore alone how the scene of such pain had sundered something deep inside her own chest.

so swiftly things shifted. when silvertongue glanced up the man was staring at her with haunting pain gnawed upon expression; the priest's arm had stolen around her shoulders. no, but she was unable to speak as senmut cast out the man and his companion. no! she screamed inside herself as he stared a last time at her and turned away, followed by the marching legs of silent-faced mazoi. pulling away from the priest, she stared shuddering after the strangers, and then she began to run, shambling first and then moving as fast as she was able. "wait! wait!" and the sobbing cry carried her at last out into the open. silvertongue shoved beyond the guards and stumbled toward the border, where the man and the woman had become small shapes in the distance. "wait!" moonlight wavering in her voice.

do you witness this perversion, Divine One? do you see how you have destroyed this woman, stolen her virtue, her womanhood, her mind. do you see what you have done, how in agony she lives, in an eternal loop from which there is no waking?

why have you done it?

why did you do it, ramesses?

and he, only senmut; he heard the peal of laughter which resounded with sweet and poisonous aura. there is no beauty without corruption. have you not learned the same lesson, priest?

tears covered his face, and he turned sharply away from the room and its perverse compelling.