Lion Head Mesa the lotus step

in a growing rage, attended by @Sihaya and @Sayyadina, ramesses searched for his errant bride.
her servant had not been so discreet about her entertainment of their mazoi. pharaoh saw that @Satsu had made no gift in return. he had expected the girl would come first to his bed.
tamar was with her when he discovered them. his lazuli eyes were cold open them both, but he turned his gaze toward satsu. it was her choice to dismiss her maid, or let her witness the words to come.

satsu tidied the shared space that had become her chambers. alongside tamar, who had once protested against such work by the queen, but was swiftly silenced.
she had found the dry lizard and placed it upon a stone shelf within view of the door. beside this, sprigs of wintergreen one of the mazoi had brought back from patrol, and was aligning a pile of dry flowers when she noticed that tamar had frozen.
looking to where the maiden stared, she saw the oncoming golden figure. ramesses appeared determined; this was his way, and so satsu suspected nothing.
the white-faced coyote fellahin was at his heel, and a mazoi at the other; this was odd, but satsu only had eyes for her husband. a look of concern creased her face as they arrived; tamar, eyes averting.

satsu remained softly worried. unruffled. pharaoh at last waved his guard and his lover away. the queen had not dismissed tamar and thus ramesses no longer held himself back. "i am ruler of the fellahin. they are here to serve first me, and then those in akashingo most deserving."
the lazuli gaze shifted coldly to tamar. "you have been giving her to the mazoi." while she was indeed the property of satsu, and the queen might do as she pleased, ramesses found a disservice and a disrespect in her choices.
now he was silent, expecting an explanation.

the icewater of her eyes flared with brief understanding, before cooling again. becoming one with the winter.
the queen looked to tamar, who herself was looking smaller by the moment, as if she could hide among the collectibles along the walls or vanish in to shadow like jawahir.

at first satsu said nothing, but flicked her attention to both sihaya and sayyadina, an expression that told them to disperse. she would not have them spreading rumors of her answer.
when they had gone, she looked to ramesses.

i asked her if she knew men, yes. i ordered her to learn of men for me. to return and to... give me knowledge. her face grew warm despite her attempts to remain calm, composed.

i wished for this so that i could... i could understand, for myself, and for you. to please you. her jaw tightened. she felt her shoulders tense.

and have you? ramesses wanted to snap. the truth of it glittered high and sharp and mean in his beautiful eyes. satsu had angered him, but he could not harbor anger for his queen. "what did you learn?" pharaoh inquired in his honeyed voice.
the image of tamar, ruined by the mazoi. he could not understand sobekneferu's gall. she had come to him knowing of their arrangements and hierarchy. he had thought her an ally. but this!

tamar was small and silent beneath the eye of pharaoh.

satsu knew she could not fall victim to this too. she was like ice, sculpted. staring at him with cool indifference to match the dawnfire of his ignited glare, the solar storm of his voice.

that my every command is to be followed. she moves a step closer to him, feeling bold, feeling the presence of the power he had given her in marriage; taking to heart her new name of sobekneferu. she would not melt.

tamar would be protected. satsu had promised, and even if her servant were a halfblood, she would keep her word. otherwise the word of the queen would be made meaningless.

she is loyal to me. she does all that i ask, above and beyond. i would not take kindly to her being taken from me. she is mine, to do with as i please. was that not the point of your gift?

would he do it, she wondered? take tamar, take the one friend she had made any connection to, simply to soothe his own loins? what sort of marriage had she entered in to — satsu watched him expecting the worst.

she defied him.
pharaoh would never show it, but his mouth ran dry in this moment. satsu had come into her power; she glittered with a hard and alluring light that he had not bestowed. and his mind in its treachery suggested that she had lain with someone other than he; after all, she had excluded him once from what was his.
he saw the nile lapping in her eyes.
"she is a poor substitute for what i desire," he said in a low tone that thrummed with a growl. "but she is mine now, all the same. she has done your bidding. now she will do mine."
ramesses did not move toward tamar, did not so much as look toward her.
he wanted satsu above all to explain why she had crossed him.

Satsu had to be made to see her place, despite her title.

No matter what Pharaoh had promised of their equal standing, she had tarnished some part of their arrangement. She was queen, but she was also wife, and the two were competing for validity within her.

The man demanded a correction be made. It was Tamar, or it was Ramesses; Satsu had made promises to the both of them, and even as the man stood there indignant and demanding, she knew there was only one answer to all of it.

If there had been fire within Satsu in that moment, it faded to ice as silence cued between the pair. She did not look to Tamar, and turned her eyes down from her husband also.

Gears shifting in Satsu's mind come to a halt. She sighs.

Take her, then.

she did not.
ramesses snorted angrily and moved beyond her.
but he did not take tamar with him.
to take her would be to sully himself with the mazoi's choice.
hurt vied with anger in his spirit.

satsu watched him go.

tamar lingered nearby.

soon they would both be summoned, but until then, the queen could not look to anyone; her own shadow looked to curl in to itself as she sank against the wall, quaking with ramesses' exit.

rage, unbridled.