Lion Head Mesa [sc] Boa

The sky swells deep cerulean above the yellow grass and wind-shorn clouds. Eset takes in the holy scene; voices and dancers and lovers in harmonious collective. Branches of acacia poise in full bloom, triangles of geese migrate overhead, and the serpent is the clearest green, where Senmut and Nazli have fallen into dance; sure and bright as spring’s own renewal, as she envisions a love to be. Senmut is happy. Her heart gentles. She turns, searching through the gathering for Toula-

A wind interrupts, repeatedly. Sand and airborne red petals blur her vision. She doubles over with a jolt of electricity. She frowns and clutches her abdomen. At such a slant everything tests the verdict of her eye.

“@Legend…?” She murmurs.

"Ēē ku." A familiar call.

Legend had long disheveled. A shattered face shattered far too quickly, and yet not soon enough. Joyous smiles and cheers, delicate prayer and proud song, and in the middle of it all, there was Nazli. There was Senmut. Legend did not know why, and could not understand why, or why she felt- or that she felt at all- that it had not been Her. But of course, she should have known why. Chaos incarnate and terribly blind, for better question, what creature would have thought it would be her? Certainly no one wise, and that had been why it was her last to catch on.
Silly imp. A silly creature. Senmut was smart to turn her away.

Give this not to Eset, she came to the hebsut with resting lips and a high head. Eset would call, and she would be there- always. "hal tahtaj musaeadatan?"

the gif is everything!!

Legend is there; her touch, her tender voice, the familiar pair of ash spoused paws padding the earth near her head. Eset reaches for her friend’s arm, clasping both around her shoulders. An uncertain wind stirs the dust about their legs. The hebsut’s glances are timid, alarmed. Too many scattered thoughts tear through her, but one stronger than the rest. She dreads its fever.

“Please- send word after the ceremony to the Erpa-ha that I am leaving,” she speaks swiftly into the mazoi’s ear, “for two weeks. Maybe three.” Senmut had once granted her the opportunity to do so. Would he still honor it? So much had changed since their last conversation-

-but time is draining from her clock. She tried to control everything. This she could not.

“Would you stay in Muat-riya until I return?” Eset pulls back to look into her friend’s face. It is only then that she sees a hurt there that causes her heart to twist. She lifts a worried palm to the silver curved cheek.

“Legend?”

It took nothing for her to understand. Close eared and all-given attention, she wrapped around the presence of her friend as a snake. Listening, quickly, and the imp drew out the first words that traversed her hellscape of a pretty head. "Should you be alone, you may find it more dangerous beyond the safety of the borders." Women know women. @Senmut would hear of it before Eset's departure. "Yes. I may ask for Khusobek's aid if Akashingo summons. Do you wish to leave alone?" Legend could go with her, Hebsut and Mazoi.

Eset noticed the shaken of her face.

"Legend's okay."

No time for Legend.

Something incorporeal, like a caged lioness, roars to life inside her. She has the urge to release a cry of frustration.  Her encircling arms cling harder.

“It’s a spectacle either way, isn’t it?” She asks Legend in a muddling voice, the expression on her face warring between acceptance and dread. Worse is the awareness that had returned to her own body, the want that felt like fires being lit all over her skin at the lightest touch. How long until her scent exposes her?

She wanted to ruin; she liked the idea of being ruined.

“It is myself I do not trust,” Eset confesses, “if I traveled with anyone, it would be with you. But I have never been alone before. I- I wish for this.” She needed it; there was something she must do- and she knew she could not stay a moment longer and risk her fortunes changing.

But Legend stills her- and it takes the hebsut only a moment to truly understand the despondency worrying the face of her friend. Eset does not glance for the banks of the serpent, but she knows she would see priest and priestess together if she did. She reaches to take Legend’s hand in her own.

The hebsut did not know the relationship between Erpa-ha and mazoi, nor the nature of their desire for one another. The heart could be pulled in as many directions as turns of sun. But she did know what she’d witnessed with Senmut back in his room at Muat-riya, and now she hesitates with that reality on the tip of her tongue.

“He is in love with Nazli. I think… I think he always has been,” her eyes rove the other woman’s clear blue gaze, regret furrowing the soft line of her own brow. “I’m so sorry, Legend.”

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Legend knew there was a word for this. When someone was given a million reasons to be focused upon anothers livelihood, their happiness, their statistical enjoyment of their overall life, and yet they could only answer something of themselves. She knew. Legend knew, and tried very hard not to encompass that word now, because it was a very silly thing. Tried so hard, in fact, her head hurt, but the first words she released were not to answer Eset, but of herself. There was still a pain.

"She knows," croaked itself out.

Legend's ears twitched. It was not possible they'd missed the talk of the Fellahin.

Selfishness drove many away. Of course, she didn't know when selfishness was true and when it wasn't, or always what mattered of it, or even when was wrong or right. She knew only that she could not lose Eset.

Legend didn't care that they were in love at all. Didn't care, of course, if his feelings dwindled to someone not her. Didn't care at all who he laid with and who he had children with, or even how many partners he could take, or even how much his heart could pour out to another far more deserving than she could ever breathe to be. Legend cared that she wasn't sure if she was special anymore. 

But then, she also remembered the way in which he had described the worship between them, and he as an earthly god, and she as a loyal disciple to his every word. There was also the fire she felt upon her neck, and the more peaceful connection of simply speaking, and being, and those were all special. So long as she kept that special.

Well then, it didn't really matter at all.

She was still his in that way. She enjoyed the ritual.

Special distracted her enough to focus on Eset. Eset.. knew? How had Eset known? And Eset did not tell her?  She didn't like the.. sting! But Eset, she was near all she had. Eset said so now. Maybe Eset played a game with her, and Legend liked games, Legend knew.

A sniffle, her eyes widened and she clung to Eset. Hugs felt nice. Legend liked hugs.

"If it is what She thinks She needs. Then, avoid the serpent men, Eset. They will have Her for longer than she's had the chance to speak to them." Maybe Eset wanted that, but few empires desired ruined serfs, and Eset desired her job. "Or know an herbal woman." Someone who could help her, if things went wrong. "I come look for you if- take too long? Whatever happens, I be here. Tell all about it when You return!" All the gross, and all the ugly, and all the wonderful. There was little to hide from one another. Eset knew her Legends. And Legend knew hers.

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Avoid men; avoid assault; get rid of the problem. These were the options afforded to her- an unmarried, servile woman whose paws were never clean. Who liked her work too much.

She knew what Legend was truly saying: don’t throw away your whole life for one lovely week.

She’d never considered motherhood for herself. She’d seen the women of Shuyet fall into pregnancy and stay that way; suckling litter after litter, subjected to life as wet-nurses for noble newborns. What happens when an unwanted child gives birth to an unwanted child? What kind of future could Eset and all her tumult offer a baby?

She feels thin and empty, like a bit of smoke escaping from a wildfire, but holds onto Legend in tight solidarity because she knows it’s the truth. The hebsut nods her head. On her face is the quelled acceptance of someone who had come of age in enslavement.

“I’ll be alright,” she smiles thinly, “I promise to return, you wont need to come looking for me.”

Eset glances down at their entwined hands, silent for a moment. “Legend- when he looks at you, does he see you? I don’t know much about love. But I know you. You deserve to be seen.”