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Fingers trailed against the golden paint foregrounding the fresco in opulence. The sun had unevenly bleached the portions of plaster exposed through the speckling of olive tree branches in their courtyard. The imported trees required extensive watering, but if gold caked the walls of Hei Sheifa, water was yet another menial expense with the purpose of exalting beauty and exhibiting wealth beyond measure. From a comfortable life among the small traders of Cairo, Iaheru rose rapidly from the woven reed flat boats to owning miles of slips protected by the Pharaoh’s locks on the river. From her roof, she could overlook the Evening Star Palace to the North and the pyramids darkening in the indigo night.
She could also see the orange speckles of life more similar to her upbringing on the opposite side of the river, her shawl wrapped tightly around shoulders as the cold bled from the night stars, dripping from the horizon turned a gradient of light blue to black. Her house was empty, her children wandered somewhere on the distant shores with the exception of Nenet, likely playing her harp or doing something equally innocent. It was the paralyzing loneliness that made Iaheru cherish the next evening even more: a routine gathering of minds Hei Sheifa had indefinitely suspended with the revelations of her life’s secret, she had taken it on herself to host one again.
The presence of others injected the marble slabs with much needed life, bodies lingered with profound glimmer, interupting Iaheru’s monotonous life. Mint intertwined with incense to produce an atmosphere that wasn’t any more suffocating than desolation. The conversation mostly focused on her business and the recent imports, likely the last to return from Greece, and the subsequent clambering of nobles to secure cases of wine, olives, and foreign delicacies. These appeals entertained her immensely, providing her positive feedback and desire that she lacked in her interpersonal affects. Perhaps she had been too generous because of it. Certainly, though, Iaheru had not lost her intensity. The way she could cut down outrageous offers from sultry kohl eyes and pointed, full lips complemented her prideful resolution regarding her lowered reputation. Hei Sheifa was a name strong enough to survive most anything, at least, Iaheru hoped. Regardless, Iaheru was as resilient and sanctimonious as an Egyptian could be.
All of these observations precipitated on the rim of a wine chalice, teasing carmine soaked lips with a release of floral and fruity nuts, perhaps some almond to the discerning tongue. Her company would have more insight to the profile than she did. Zoser, now nearing her station in life in regards to age, the hints of crow’s feet accentuated bliss and studiousness enhanced a spark of learnedness. Iaheru had this incredible comfort that had settled with the wine, company, and food that lingered on ivory plates. Thick ropes of braids feel to either side of her face, frayed at the ends into snakey curls and freed from a golden embroidered headwrap. Her retainers had stitched Iaheru into one of her finer kalasarisis, the garment binding, sheer, trimmed in purple with a thick shawl dragging away from her chest with each sip of wine and each comfortable adjustment to her posture. Her neck donned the heavy golden plate her Sutekh had made for her, paired excellently with a slight slur to her statements and less tension between her shoulders.
This month was always difficult for her, the sting of the memory dissipating throughout the years as her life oozed with honey. Sweetness made the salt packed into gaping wounds that would never fully heal increasingly unbearable. Iaheru's temperament was doused in a distinctive bitterness, temporarily alleviated by this evening and assuaged by the wine. The wine was quite good. She wouldn't have to miss it during the Pharoah's play war. Neither would Zoser.
Her bare feet propped themselves on an empty chair, her arms crossing just below her chest comfortably with the glass of wine dangling from her hand. A box of unused opium laid to the periphery should a guest care to partake, but as careless as Iaheru was becoming she would never dream of publicly consuming the drug. “So you’re the last to leave?” Iaheru’s words are brambles, leading to one another and sometimes slurred enough to touch. “You must be miserable, especially so that you’ve been deprived of the most beautiful place on Earth,” these words also manifest in brambles, if not thorns in the way they were so carelessly and mockingly thrown around in the privacy of her quarters, servants and slaves having disbanded long ago.
"I'm pleased with the evening," Iaheru spoke with glossy eyes and a keen fondness for the past, "It has been some time since Hei Sheifa has hosted an event. It's nice to see people in the house. I hope you've found yourself entertained, or, at least, intrigued."
Iaheru wished to pry about the workings of the palace, but even in her state of inebriation knew it would be inappropriate. In a fit of torture, she often wondered if this month was particularly sour for Isetheperu, to know that the late Pharaoh's only son had been conceived with another woman. If Isetheperu did, Iaheru couldn't imagine the Queen Dowager's bitterness competed with Iaheru's destructive rage. Even with a beautiful son, Iaheru was profoundly angry when she thought about what happened deeply and intently. "My family will recover from me, you know." She mostly referred to the initial awkwardness of the evening and the rejected invitations. The diverted gaze in court and from her own husband. The whispers that pinned the hems of her kalasaris wherever she arrived. She stared blankly ahead as she swirls the wine around the rim of brass. An uncomfortable lump beckons at the precipice of her throat that necessitates a cough to hide. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're the only two people in Egypt that understand that."
After all, Iaheru had attended the same lessons as Zoser. He was a product of his experiences in Greece and Iaheru was modeled after a true Egyptian woman, if the Egyptian woman could dare to be modest and doused in scandal all at the same time. Iaheru just needed someone to understand. Anyone.
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Oct 15, 2019 20:50:47 GMT
Posted In Bear Witness on Oct 15, 2019 20:50:47 GMT
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Fingers trailed against the golden paint foregrounding the fresco in opulence. The sun had unevenly bleached the portions of plaster exposed through the speckling of olive tree branches in their courtyard. The imported trees required extensive watering, but if gold caked the walls of Hei Sheifa, water was yet another menial expense with the purpose of exalting beauty and exhibiting wealth beyond measure. From a comfortable life among the small traders of Cairo, Iaheru rose rapidly from the woven reed flat boats to owning miles of slips protected by the Pharaoh’s locks on the river. From her roof, she could overlook the Evening Star Palace to the North and the pyramids darkening in the indigo night.
She could also see the orange speckles of life more similar to her upbringing on the opposite side of the river, her shawl wrapped tightly around shoulders as the cold bled from the night stars, dripping from the horizon turned a gradient of light blue to black. Her house was empty, her children wandered somewhere on the distant shores with the exception of Nenet, likely playing her harp or doing something equally innocent. It was the paralyzing loneliness that made Iaheru cherish the next evening even more: a routine gathering of minds Hei Sheifa had indefinitely suspended with the revelations of her life’s secret, she had taken it on herself to host one again.
The presence of others injected the marble slabs with much needed life, bodies lingered with profound glimmer, interupting Iaheru’s monotonous life. Mint intertwined with incense to produce an atmosphere that wasn’t any more suffocating than desolation. The conversation mostly focused on her business and the recent imports, likely the last to return from Greece, and the subsequent clambering of nobles to secure cases of wine, olives, and foreign delicacies. These appeals entertained her immensely, providing her positive feedback and desire that she lacked in her interpersonal affects. Perhaps she had been too generous because of it. Certainly, though, Iaheru had not lost her intensity. The way she could cut down outrageous offers from sultry kohl eyes and pointed, full lips complemented her prideful resolution regarding her lowered reputation. Hei Sheifa was a name strong enough to survive most anything, at least, Iaheru hoped. Regardless, Iaheru was as resilient and sanctimonious as an Egyptian could be.
All of these observations precipitated on the rim of a wine chalice, teasing carmine soaked lips with a release of floral and fruity nuts, perhaps some almond to the discerning tongue. Her company would have more insight to the profile than she did. Zoser, now nearing her station in life in regards to age, the hints of crow’s feet accentuated bliss and studiousness enhanced a spark of learnedness. Iaheru had this incredible comfort that had settled with the wine, company, and food that lingered on ivory plates. Thick ropes of braids feel to either side of her face, frayed at the ends into snakey curls and freed from a golden embroidered headwrap. Her retainers had stitched Iaheru into one of her finer kalasarisis, the garment binding, sheer, trimmed in purple with a thick shawl dragging away from her chest with each sip of wine and each comfortable adjustment to her posture. Her neck donned the heavy golden plate her Sutekh had made for her, paired excellently with a slight slur to her statements and less tension between her shoulders.
This month was always difficult for her, the sting of the memory dissipating throughout the years as her life oozed with honey. Sweetness made the salt packed into gaping wounds that would never fully heal increasingly unbearable. Iaheru's temperament was doused in a distinctive bitterness, temporarily alleviated by this evening and assuaged by the wine. The wine was quite good. She wouldn't have to miss it during the Pharoah's play war. Neither would Zoser.
Her bare feet propped themselves on an empty chair, her arms crossing just below her chest comfortably with the glass of wine dangling from her hand. A box of unused opium laid to the periphery should a guest care to partake, but as careless as Iaheru was becoming she would never dream of publicly consuming the drug. “So you’re the last to leave?” Iaheru’s words are brambles, leading to one another and sometimes slurred enough to touch. “You must be miserable, especially so that you’ve been deprived of the most beautiful place on Earth,” these words also manifest in brambles, if not thorns in the way they were so carelessly and mockingly thrown around in the privacy of her quarters, servants and slaves having disbanded long ago.
"I'm pleased with the evening," Iaheru spoke with glossy eyes and a keen fondness for the past, "It has been some time since Hei Sheifa has hosted an event. It's nice to see people in the house. I hope you've found yourself entertained, or, at least, intrigued."
Iaheru wished to pry about the workings of the palace, but even in her state of inebriation knew it would be inappropriate. In a fit of torture, she often wondered if this month was particularly sour for Isetheperu, to know that the late Pharaoh's only son had been conceived with another woman. If Isetheperu did, Iaheru couldn't imagine the Queen Dowager's bitterness competed with Iaheru's destructive rage. Even with a beautiful son, Iaheru was profoundly angry when she thought about what happened deeply and intently. "My family will recover from me, you know." She mostly referred to the initial awkwardness of the evening and the rejected invitations. The diverted gaze in court and from her own husband. The whispers that pinned the hems of her kalasaris wherever she arrived. She stared blankly ahead as she swirls the wine around the rim of brass. An uncomfortable lump beckons at the precipice of her throat that necessitates a cough to hide. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're the only two people in Egypt that understand that."
After all, Iaheru had attended the same lessons as Zoser. He was a product of his experiences in Greece and Iaheru was modeled after a true Egyptian woman, if the Egyptian woman could dare to be modest and doused in scandal all at the same time. Iaheru just needed someone to understand. Anyone.
Fingers trailed against the golden paint foregrounding the fresco in opulence. The sun had unevenly bleached the portions of plaster exposed through the speckling of olive tree branches in their courtyard. The imported trees required extensive watering, but if gold caked the walls of Hei Sheifa, water was yet another menial expense with the purpose of exalting beauty and exhibiting wealth beyond measure. From a comfortable life among the small traders of Cairo, Iaheru rose rapidly from the woven reed flat boats to owning miles of slips protected by the Pharaoh’s locks on the river. From her roof, she could overlook the Evening Star Palace to the North and the pyramids darkening in the indigo night.
She could also see the orange speckles of life more similar to her upbringing on the opposite side of the river, her shawl wrapped tightly around shoulders as the cold bled from the night stars, dripping from the horizon turned a gradient of light blue to black. Her house was empty, her children wandered somewhere on the distant shores with the exception of Nenet, likely playing her harp or doing something equally innocent. It was the paralyzing loneliness that made Iaheru cherish the next evening even more: a routine gathering of minds Hei Sheifa had indefinitely suspended with the revelations of her life’s secret, she had taken it on herself to host one again.
The presence of others injected the marble slabs with much needed life, bodies lingered with profound glimmer, interupting Iaheru’s monotonous life. Mint intertwined with incense to produce an atmosphere that wasn’t any more suffocating than desolation. The conversation mostly focused on her business and the recent imports, likely the last to return from Greece, and the subsequent clambering of nobles to secure cases of wine, olives, and foreign delicacies. These appeals entertained her immensely, providing her positive feedback and desire that she lacked in her interpersonal affects. Perhaps she had been too generous because of it. Certainly, though, Iaheru had not lost her intensity. The way she could cut down outrageous offers from sultry kohl eyes and pointed, full lips complemented her prideful resolution regarding her lowered reputation. Hei Sheifa was a name strong enough to survive most anything, at least, Iaheru hoped. Regardless, Iaheru was as resilient and sanctimonious as an Egyptian could be.
All of these observations precipitated on the rim of a wine chalice, teasing carmine soaked lips with a release of floral and fruity nuts, perhaps some almond to the discerning tongue. Her company would have more insight to the profile than she did. Zoser, now nearing her station in life in regards to age, the hints of crow’s feet accentuated bliss and studiousness enhanced a spark of learnedness. Iaheru had this incredible comfort that had settled with the wine, company, and food that lingered on ivory plates. Thick ropes of braids feel to either side of her face, frayed at the ends into snakey curls and freed from a golden embroidered headwrap. Her retainers had stitched Iaheru into one of her finer kalasarisis, the garment binding, sheer, trimmed in purple with a thick shawl dragging away from her chest with each sip of wine and each comfortable adjustment to her posture. Her neck donned the heavy golden plate her Sutekh had made for her, paired excellently with a slight slur to her statements and less tension between her shoulders.
This month was always difficult for her, the sting of the memory dissipating throughout the years as her life oozed with honey. Sweetness made the salt packed into gaping wounds that would never fully heal increasingly unbearable. Iaheru's temperament was doused in a distinctive bitterness, temporarily alleviated by this evening and assuaged by the wine. The wine was quite good. She wouldn't have to miss it during the Pharoah's play war. Neither would Zoser.
Her bare feet propped themselves on an empty chair, her arms crossing just below her chest comfortably with the glass of wine dangling from her hand. A box of unused opium laid to the periphery should a guest care to partake, but as careless as Iaheru was becoming she would never dream of publicly consuming the drug. “So you’re the last to leave?” Iaheru’s words are brambles, leading to one another and sometimes slurred enough to touch. “You must be miserable, especially so that you’ve been deprived of the most beautiful place on Earth,” these words also manifest in brambles, if not thorns in the way they were so carelessly and mockingly thrown around in the privacy of her quarters, servants and slaves having disbanded long ago.
"I'm pleased with the evening," Iaheru spoke with glossy eyes and a keen fondness for the past, "It has been some time since Hei Sheifa has hosted an event. It's nice to see people in the house. I hope you've found yourself entertained, or, at least, intrigued."
Iaheru wished to pry about the workings of the palace, but even in her state of inebriation knew it would be inappropriate. In a fit of torture, she often wondered if this month was particularly sour for Isetheperu, to know that the late Pharaoh's only son had been conceived with another woman. If Isetheperu did, Iaheru couldn't imagine the Queen Dowager's bitterness competed with Iaheru's destructive rage. Even with a beautiful son, Iaheru was profoundly angry when she thought about what happened deeply and intently. "My family will recover from me, you know." She mostly referred to the initial awkwardness of the evening and the rejected invitations. The diverted gaze in court and from her own husband. The whispers that pinned the hems of her kalasaris wherever she arrived. She stared blankly ahead as she swirls the wine around the rim of brass. An uncomfortable lump beckons at the precipice of her throat that necessitates a cough to hide. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're the only two people in Egypt that understand that."
After all, Iaheru had attended the same lessons as Zoser. He was a product of his experiences in Greece and Iaheru was modeled after a true Egyptian woman, if the Egyptian woman could dare to be modest and doused in scandal all at the same time. Iaheru just needed someone to understand. Anyone.
Upon learning that Hei Sheifa would host once again, Zoser made a point of responding swiftly to the invitation when it arrived. Sirdsett Iaheru and her family knew how to entertain in the highest measure and despite the recent social doldrums inflicted by their family's scandal, it was a relief to know that these social engagements would resume.
While it might not be the most politically savvy thing to do, Zoser did not suspect that many people would care where the Royal Scribe threw his visible social support. It would surprise few, anyway, to see where the line was drawn between friendships and necessities of his occupation.
Many of the guests for the evening had drifted away, and Zoser found himself as one of the remaining few in the household. Making his way up the stairs to the rooftop terrace, he sought out the hostess for the evening, knowing her habit of retreating to the roof following a night such as this.
The curls of hair that had grown on his visit to Judea had recently been cropped shorter for the formal occasion as Hei Haikaddad, where the Pharaoh had announced the Queen's pregnancy as well as the turning of the wheels of war against Greece. The choice to forgo a wig and a lifelong fidgeting habit had him running his hand across non-existent curls all evening. For the evening he wore simple, unjeweled gold pieces at his wrist and against his chest, with the Crest of the Royal Scribes the only true embellishment on them apart from a hammered texture across them. Beyond that, In his years among the court, he had all but mastered walking the finely-drawn line of dressing the part for these social events without ever appearing to rise above his station as a common-born man. It was an art form in itself.
Finding the Sirdsett lounged on the rooftop between two chairs, Zoser paused and pondered a moment a few steps shy of the rooftop. The entirety of the court now knew what had happened all those years ago, in a time well before Zoser had stepped foot on Egyptian soil. Yet, it did not stop Zoser from finding a friendship with Sirdsett Iaheru.
His expression was quick to correct itself from contemplative concern to a lightly inebriated smile as he mounted the final few steps and leaned his back against one of the posts that held the shaded covering over their rooftop terrace.
"Much like old times," he noted, his comment hoping to offer reassurance that the night was successful, despite the reduced numbers and apparent mildness. As if to reinforce it, he lifted his glass towards her and added, "I welcome it."
The slurring of her speech mirrored the relative lateness of the hour, despite the sun having not fully shrunk away from the evening sky. Sipping at his wine, he offered a slight shrug, finding safety in not making a reply to the comment of his misery.
This was not the first occasion that they spent on the rooftop of Hei Sheifa, usually though, accompanied occasionally by another. Still, their age and shared interests in Grecian wine sent them here to watch more than one sunset together, usually under the guise of official business.
"It was a splendid evening," he remarked, offering unnecessary reassurance in a truthful tone, "It is good to see that some...normalcy has resumed. It shows strength." And perseverance, and a stiff upper lip. It was a very Egyptian way to do things, and if there was one thing he knew about Sirdsett Iaheru, is that she was the ideal for such a visage. Smearing mud over gold did not make it change to silver.
Zoser chose not to respond to her comment about her family's recovery from her actions - it was not needed. Life moved on, as did courtly gossip. At least, it was pretty to think so, despite Zoser knowing full well that this issue could well affect the line of succession....at some point.
It was no secret that the noblewoman missed her son, Sutekh, dearly. In fact, he had been quick to note that there was little conversation regarding her family at all during the social hours of the event - a fact of which he was glad. His own knowledge of her children should have been limited to their brief encounters within the Hei and the more frequent encounters with Sutekh around the palace - and yet, he began to feel the heavy weight of knowledge regarding Neithotep's visits to the Evening Star more keenly, particularly sitting across from her mother.
Then, the Sirdsett's words sent his mind whirling a bit more quickly than necessary as he misinterpreted them - linking the thoughts of her son, Sutekh's, status as a bastard child...to his own status. It was a leap and a very unnecessary one at that, but with the knowledge that the Heis were having their records scoured for potentially missing royal funds, a lingering fear and a constant, silent in the back of his mind hoped that they royal accountants kept from looking too far back into the H'Moghadam records and get curious.
Zoser took another sip of wine, swallowing harder than was necessary and leaving his voice to rasp a bit, coughing a moment before asking, "I'm inclined to agree...yet, what makes you say that, Your Grace?"
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Oct 20, 2019 11:49:39 GMT
Posted In Bear Witness on Oct 20, 2019 11:49:39 GMT
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Upon learning that Hei Sheifa would host once again, Zoser made a point of responding swiftly to the invitation when it arrived. Sirdsett Iaheru and her family knew how to entertain in the highest measure and despite the recent social doldrums inflicted by their family's scandal, it was a relief to know that these social engagements would resume.
While it might not be the most politically savvy thing to do, Zoser did not suspect that many people would care where the Royal Scribe threw his visible social support. It would surprise few, anyway, to see where the line was drawn between friendships and necessities of his occupation.
Many of the guests for the evening had drifted away, and Zoser found himself as one of the remaining few in the household. Making his way up the stairs to the rooftop terrace, he sought out the hostess for the evening, knowing her habit of retreating to the roof following a night such as this.
The curls of hair that had grown on his visit to Judea had recently been cropped shorter for the formal occasion as Hei Haikaddad, where the Pharaoh had announced the Queen's pregnancy as well as the turning of the wheels of war against Greece. The choice to forgo a wig and a lifelong fidgeting habit had him running his hand across non-existent curls all evening. For the evening he wore simple, unjeweled gold pieces at his wrist and against his chest, with the Crest of the Royal Scribes the only true embellishment on them apart from a hammered texture across them. Beyond that, In his years among the court, he had all but mastered walking the finely-drawn line of dressing the part for these social events without ever appearing to rise above his station as a common-born man. It was an art form in itself.
Finding the Sirdsett lounged on the rooftop between two chairs, Zoser paused and pondered a moment a few steps shy of the rooftop. The entirety of the court now knew what had happened all those years ago, in a time well before Zoser had stepped foot on Egyptian soil. Yet, it did not stop Zoser from finding a friendship with Sirdsett Iaheru.
His expression was quick to correct itself from contemplative concern to a lightly inebriated smile as he mounted the final few steps and leaned his back against one of the posts that held the shaded covering over their rooftop terrace.
"Much like old times," he noted, his comment hoping to offer reassurance that the night was successful, despite the reduced numbers and apparent mildness. As if to reinforce it, he lifted his glass towards her and added, "I welcome it."
The slurring of her speech mirrored the relative lateness of the hour, despite the sun having not fully shrunk away from the evening sky. Sipping at his wine, he offered a slight shrug, finding safety in not making a reply to the comment of his misery.
This was not the first occasion that they spent on the rooftop of Hei Sheifa, usually though, accompanied occasionally by another. Still, their age and shared interests in Grecian wine sent them here to watch more than one sunset together, usually under the guise of official business.
"It was a splendid evening," he remarked, offering unnecessary reassurance in a truthful tone, "It is good to see that some...normalcy has resumed. It shows strength." And perseverance, and a stiff upper lip. It was a very Egyptian way to do things, and if there was one thing he knew about Sirdsett Iaheru, is that she was the ideal for such a visage. Smearing mud over gold did not make it change to silver.
Zoser chose not to respond to her comment about her family's recovery from her actions - it was not needed. Life moved on, as did courtly gossip. At least, it was pretty to think so, despite Zoser knowing full well that this issue could well affect the line of succession....at some point.
It was no secret that the noblewoman missed her son, Sutekh, dearly. In fact, he had been quick to note that there was little conversation regarding her family at all during the social hours of the event - a fact of which he was glad. His own knowledge of her children should have been limited to their brief encounters within the Hei and the more frequent encounters with Sutekh around the palace - and yet, he began to feel the heavy weight of knowledge regarding Neithotep's visits to the Evening Star more keenly, particularly sitting across from her mother.
Then, the Sirdsett's words sent his mind whirling a bit more quickly than necessary as he misinterpreted them - linking the thoughts of her son, Sutekh's, status as a bastard child...to his own status. It was a leap and a very unnecessary one at that, but with the knowledge that the Heis were having their records scoured for potentially missing royal funds, a lingering fear and a constant, silent in the back of his mind hoped that they royal accountants kept from looking too far back into the H'Moghadam records and get curious.
Zoser took another sip of wine, swallowing harder than was necessary and leaving his voice to rasp a bit, coughing a moment before asking, "I'm inclined to agree...yet, what makes you say that, Your Grace?"
Upon learning that Hei Sheifa would host once again, Zoser made a point of responding swiftly to the invitation when it arrived. Sirdsett Iaheru and her family knew how to entertain in the highest measure and despite the recent social doldrums inflicted by their family's scandal, it was a relief to know that these social engagements would resume.
While it might not be the most politically savvy thing to do, Zoser did not suspect that many people would care where the Royal Scribe threw his visible social support. It would surprise few, anyway, to see where the line was drawn between friendships and necessities of his occupation.
Many of the guests for the evening had drifted away, and Zoser found himself as one of the remaining few in the household. Making his way up the stairs to the rooftop terrace, he sought out the hostess for the evening, knowing her habit of retreating to the roof following a night such as this.
The curls of hair that had grown on his visit to Judea had recently been cropped shorter for the formal occasion as Hei Haikaddad, where the Pharaoh had announced the Queen's pregnancy as well as the turning of the wheels of war against Greece. The choice to forgo a wig and a lifelong fidgeting habit had him running his hand across non-existent curls all evening. For the evening he wore simple, unjeweled gold pieces at his wrist and against his chest, with the Crest of the Royal Scribes the only true embellishment on them apart from a hammered texture across them. Beyond that, In his years among the court, he had all but mastered walking the finely-drawn line of dressing the part for these social events without ever appearing to rise above his station as a common-born man. It was an art form in itself.
Finding the Sirdsett lounged on the rooftop between two chairs, Zoser paused and pondered a moment a few steps shy of the rooftop. The entirety of the court now knew what had happened all those years ago, in a time well before Zoser had stepped foot on Egyptian soil. Yet, it did not stop Zoser from finding a friendship with Sirdsett Iaheru.
His expression was quick to correct itself from contemplative concern to a lightly inebriated smile as he mounted the final few steps and leaned his back against one of the posts that held the shaded covering over their rooftop terrace.
"Much like old times," he noted, his comment hoping to offer reassurance that the night was successful, despite the reduced numbers and apparent mildness. As if to reinforce it, he lifted his glass towards her and added, "I welcome it."
The slurring of her speech mirrored the relative lateness of the hour, despite the sun having not fully shrunk away from the evening sky. Sipping at his wine, he offered a slight shrug, finding safety in not making a reply to the comment of his misery.
This was not the first occasion that they spent on the rooftop of Hei Sheifa, usually though, accompanied occasionally by another. Still, their age and shared interests in Grecian wine sent them here to watch more than one sunset together, usually under the guise of official business.
"It was a splendid evening," he remarked, offering unnecessary reassurance in a truthful tone, "It is good to see that some...normalcy has resumed. It shows strength." And perseverance, and a stiff upper lip. It was a very Egyptian way to do things, and if there was one thing he knew about Sirdsett Iaheru, is that she was the ideal for such a visage. Smearing mud over gold did not make it change to silver.
Zoser chose not to respond to her comment about her family's recovery from her actions - it was not needed. Life moved on, as did courtly gossip. At least, it was pretty to think so, despite Zoser knowing full well that this issue could well affect the line of succession....at some point.
It was no secret that the noblewoman missed her son, Sutekh, dearly. In fact, he had been quick to note that there was little conversation regarding her family at all during the social hours of the event - a fact of which he was glad. His own knowledge of her children should have been limited to their brief encounters within the Hei and the more frequent encounters with Sutekh around the palace - and yet, he began to feel the heavy weight of knowledge regarding Neithotep's visits to the Evening Star more keenly, particularly sitting across from her mother.
Then, the Sirdsett's words sent his mind whirling a bit more quickly than necessary as he misinterpreted them - linking the thoughts of her son, Sutekh's, status as a bastard child...to his own status. It was a leap and a very unnecessary one at that, but with the knowledge that the Heis were having their records scoured for potentially missing royal funds, a lingering fear and a constant, silent in the back of his mind hoped that they royal accountants kept from looking too far back into the H'Moghadam records and get curious.
Zoser took another sip of wine, swallowing harder than was necessary and leaving his voice to rasp a bit, coughing a moment before asking, "I'm inclined to agree...yet, what makes you say that, Your Grace?"
Iaheru watches animated and sparsely worded lips. Rumors surrounded Zoser as well, mostly neutral and of lacking acetic undertones, but rumors nonetheless. Though she was no longer privy to courtly gossip, nor had she cared for it when she was, there was a beckoning, lonesome pull in her stomach whenever she happened upon women of station chuckling over wine and pate. Silence settled wherever she ventured, pulling on a chin tilted high despite the overwhelming pressure to tuck her head and bind her visage with submission. Now that she was Sirdsett, this waning exclusion frustrated her- as Retainer to Isetheperu, she was afforded greater privilege than as a mother of the Prince. If her tongue ever so brashly ran away from her, perhaps Sutekh was the true Pharaoh of Egypt. These were different stories for different decisions, events that led Iaheru of Cairo to Sirdsett Iaheru H’Sheifa was what concerned her the most these days as she emerged from her scandal incompletely untouched, lonely and stronger than any of her previous renditions. She rose from her lounge, briefly stumbling over her feet, allowing a fine shawl to drop away from her shoulders, and rested against the ledge of the roof on her elbows.
Wine had dulled her senses so; she girlishly pondered whether Zoser wrote poetry. She had heard of such rumors. Speckling gray hairs, the highest and most intense concentrations manifesting on the tips of curls not yet formed. His interpretable reservations, however, had been disregarded by the keen Sirdsett, her world so languidly and beautifully dredged in honey she didn’t know how she would cope other than to giggle profusely and smile with straight, white teeth. She leaned into Zoser with plush hips and a head that threatens to find the crook of his neck. The aforementioned orange lights trailed in her periphery, paint strokes bleeding together as they culminate on a handsome face. He just had to be a poet. This restrained elegance tickling her intuition, lending to Iaheru’s understanding that he was a talented poet. Dark eyes flicker with the fires lining the rooftop, highlighting his skin with the sparse, golden dust that coursed beneath the surface of all Egyptians, regardless of their true loyalties.
Onuphrious was a poet. Tenderness sept through every wrinkle and spattering of hair turned silver. Yet, as the old times Zoser referenced became increasingly older, Iaheru’s expectations of reconciliation lessened exponentially. These past thirty years, however, had bound Onuphrious to Iaheru as the moon balanced the tides, the stars guided ships, the rainy and dry seasons. Even when they didn’t speak. Iaheru and Onuphrious ebbed and flowed to each other’s shores: she was the only one that could organize shipments to thousands of ports on time and manage the wealth that poured into gold braziers and olive trees. He was the only one that could bolster his poetry with honeyed words of all varieties. Greek. Coptic. The guttural inflections of lands afar. His words molded to soothe any ear. Surely, Iaheru was gifted in speech, but every once in a while the fire restrained in all women erupted from her pursed lips. At their essence, Onuphrious and Iaheru embodied the charmer and viper, an act that catapulted both to prominence just shy of Evening Star itself.
“You are far too kind to me.” Iaheru lazily slurred, placing a hand atop of Zoser’s. Tipping back the golden chalice, she had obtained the point of drunkenness where the wine lacked the acidic twinge of tannins that involuntarily wrinkled her nose and throat. How warm his hand was. Wine exacerbated a need to touch, fingers had not fallen on her skin in some time. Perhaps it had been this friendly intimacy that characterized the woman more so than headwraps and heavy garments that led to her predicament. Yet, she would not allow the past to restrain her any longer. No longer would nightmares govern her or dead, weak men that masqueraded as Gods wrap her in their linen shrouds.
He was beautiful. Iaheru ruminated for a brief, boozed minute about her travels to Greece as a young woman, as a Retainer constrained by servitude. Later, she visited Greece on the conditions of passionate, equitable love and all the ambition of the known world. Her voracity unsettled Greek men that conceptualized women as feeble extensions of failed men, their utility emanating from fretting like wrens chirping for seeds. Would they have crossed paths? Would she have been smitten with Zoser in a way that modesty would complicate conveying? You are far too kind to me, lingered in the air. Would he have been gentle to her? Accommodating? Forgiving? These pervasive thoughts of other men unsettled Iaheru greatly. For so long she need not expound other possibilities because her world was perfect with the exception of a single night. She paced with an exaggeration to her straffe, pouring another helping of wine to her chalice, bringing the clay carafe with her and offering to top off Zoser’s own cup. She resumed her position, brushed against his warm body whether intentionally or as a result of influence, still bracing against him and still staring forever across the river with a wistful regret.
“I lack the Grace to have your deference. We both raised ourselves to new lives from those muddy banks,” she points with her cup. “You fared much better than I did. I think that beginning is something important we share.” Elbows plant into the smoothed tops of sand bricks, the lonely expanses between her fingers slightly pulling at the braided ropes that fell down her back, dotted in baubles and golden rings. Perfumed oil softened brambled tips and coats her scalp with a sticky slip. Iaheru tortured herself with all of these whirlwind thoughts, but then with Isetheperu. Would she have been better off to be bound by her husband by duty rather than love? The affair was of little disturbance to Isetheperu, perhaps a pinprick in her side on particularly sour days. Iaheru is called back to her studies and her travels to a Greek word called kairos, a defining moment of such insurmountable importance it causes a distinct shift that prevents one from ever returning to a preconceived existence. The night the Pharaoh pulled against her headwrap and his ringed fingers dug into her young flesh was kairos. It was not a reformative experience. There was no honor in having her body taken by a God on Earth. Was the Pharaoh Ra in flesh? The same Pharaoh she shared an advisory relationship with? A friendship? If this was the case, Iaheru could not put her faith in the sun and hoped for dark days. Iaheru genuinely prayed that every time Isetheperu, an old friend, looked at Sutekh, a mild mannered, gentle, handsome man that a twist of jealousy overtook her affects. Iaheru hoped it ruined her day in a fraction of the magnitude the caustic memory overtook Iaheru’s life.
It was this penchant for justice on her more righteous days, and revenge on the darker evenings with loose opium glittering the air, that led her to forsake Gods long ago with the exception of Anubis. Should her devotion and sacrifice please him so her enemies would know the same pain.
The evening was important, but also gilded. The return to normalcy, or as close to normalcy as she could approach, was nothing to assuage the obsession that tangled her entirety. “I did not want this. Why would I have hidden my son for so long if I had seduced Imopehatsuma for power?” She had no tears to blink away, her confidence didn’t falter when she refused to address the late Pharaoh by his title. He had already ruined her life beyond a charge of blasphemy. “I’ll never recover from it, maybe my family will, but I will never forgive the ones that go quiet when I arrive. And it doesn’t matter, does it?”
She faced him, eyes widened and mimicking the flames around them. “Because I will forever be Iaheru of Cairo that rose too quickly from a house near the ports. I’ll forever be a forsaken wife and a Pharaoh’s mistress.”
“The only fairness I can find is that Imopehatsuma’s children are golden,” Iaheru’s shoulders relaxed from their tautness, her body slacking against Zoser’s. “Her Evening Radiance is as gentle as Sutekh, both attuned to fairness and grace, and I know that you had great influence over that.” Yet another similarity, they both raised children with tyrannical blood to empathy, whittling their nature to amenability and mercy where there was none to be found in a harsh world.
Iaheru gulped down her wine, drunk enough to have words spill from darkened lips, but not too inebriated to know the consequence of what she implied. Yet, she espoused the same dissidence in the court with darting glares and veiled comments. Slender fingers wrapped around golden cuffs engraved with seals, twirling with anxiety, her carelessness indicative of a woman with nothing to lose, but still cognizant of her legacy. Indisputably, she had unfairly fixated on Sutekh because of his parentage, her other four children were just as imperative to maintaining the predominance of Hei Sheifa. Neithotep was the name that nearly materialized from her deep thinking as her daughter’s marriage to Narmer H’Haikaddad became more reality than mere plot. Akhenaten followed closely in her obsessions the way the two siblings did in practice.
Iaheru’s head finally rested against the wall dangerously close to Zoser’s chest, blankly counting the stars as she would have navigating at night. “This war is stupid too,” Iaheru whispered, giggling harder than she should have.
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Iaheru watches animated and sparsely worded lips. Rumors surrounded Zoser as well, mostly neutral and of lacking acetic undertones, but rumors nonetheless. Though she was no longer privy to courtly gossip, nor had she cared for it when she was, there was a beckoning, lonesome pull in her stomach whenever she happened upon women of station chuckling over wine and pate. Silence settled wherever she ventured, pulling on a chin tilted high despite the overwhelming pressure to tuck her head and bind her visage with submission. Now that she was Sirdsett, this waning exclusion frustrated her- as Retainer to Isetheperu, she was afforded greater privilege than as a mother of the Prince. If her tongue ever so brashly ran away from her, perhaps Sutekh was the true Pharaoh of Egypt. These were different stories for different decisions, events that led Iaheru of Cairo to Sirdsett Iaheru H’Sheifa was what concerned her the most these days as she emerged from her scandal incompletely untouched, lonely and stronger than any of her previous renditions. She rose from her lounge, briefly stumbling over her feet, allowing a fine shawl to drop away from her shoulders, and rested against the ledge of the roof on her elbows.
Wine had dulled her senses so; she girlishly pondered whether Zoser wrote poetry. She had heard of such rumors. Speckling gray hairs, the highest and most intense concentrations manifesting on the tips of curls not yet formed. His interpretable reservations, however, had been disregarded by the keen Sirdsett, her world so languidly and beautifully dredged in honey she didn’t know how she would cope other than to giggle profusely and smile with straight, white teeth. She leaned into Zoser with plush hips and a head that threatens to find the crook of his neck. The aforementioned orange lights trailed in her periphery, paint strokes bleeding together as they culminate on a handsome face. He just had to be a poet. This restrained elegance tickling her intuition, lending to Iaheru’s understanding that he was a talented poet. Dark eyes flicker with the fires lining the rooftop, highlighting his skin with the sparse, golden dust that coursed beneath the surface of all Egyptians, regardless of their true loyalties.
Onuphrious was a poet. Tenderness sept through every wrinkle and spattering of hair turned silver. Yet, as the old times Zoser referenced became increasingly older, Iaheru’s expectations of reconciliation lessened exponentially. These past thirty years, however, had bound Onuphrious to Iaheru as the moon balanced the tides, the stars guided ships, the rainy and dry seasons. Even when they didn’t speak. Iaheru and Onuphrious ebbed and flowed to each other’s shores: she was the only one that could organize shipments to thousands of ports on time and manage the wealth that poured into gold braziers and olive trees. He was the only one that could bolster his poetry with honeyed words of all varieties. Greek. Coptic. The guttural inflections of lands afar. His words molded to soothe any ear. Surely, Iaheru was gifted in speech, but every once in a while the fire restrained in all women erupted from her pursed lips. At their essence, Onuphrious and Iaheru embodied the charmer and viper, an act that catapulted both to prominence just shy of Evening Star itself.
“You are far too kind to me.” Iaheru lazily slurred, placing a hand atop of Zoser’s. Tipping back the golden chalice, she had obtained the point of drunkenness where the wine lacked the acidic twinge of tannins that involuntarily wrinkled her nose and throat. How warm his hand was. Wine exacerbated a need to touch, fingers had not fallen on her skin in some time. Perhaps it had been this friendly intimacy that characterized the woman more so than headwraps and heavy garments that led to her predicament. Yet, she would not allow the past to restrain her any longer. No longer would nightmares govern her or dead, weak men that masqueraded as Gods wrap her in their linen shrouds.
He was beautiful. Iaheru ruminated for a brief, boozed minute about her travels to Greece as a young woman, as a Retainer constrained by servitude. Later, she visited Greece on the conditions of passionate, equitable love and all the ambition of the known world. Her voracity unsettled Greek men that conceptualized women as feeble extensions of failed men, their utility emanating from fretting like wrens chirping for seeds. Would they have crossed paths? Would she have been smitten with Zoser in a way that modesty would complicate conveying? You are far too kind to me, lingered in the air. Would he have been gentle to her? Accommodating? Forgiving? These pervasive thoughts of other men unsettled Iaheru greatly. For so long she need not expound other possibilities because her world was perfect with the exception of a single night. She paced with an exaggeration to her straffe, pouring another helping of wine to her chalice, bringing the clay carafe with her and offering to top off Zoser’s own cup. She resumed her position, brushed against his warm body whether intentionally or as a result of influence, still bracing against him and still staring forever across the river with a wistful regret.
“I lack the Grace to have your deference. We both raised ourselves to new lives from those muddy banks,” she points with her cup. “You fared much better than I did. I think that beginning is something important we share.” Elbows plant into the smoothed tops of sand bricks, the lonely expanses between her fingers slightly pulling at the braided ropes that fell down her back, dotted in baubles and golden rings. Perfumed oil softened brambled tips and coats her scalp with a sticky slip. Iaheru tortured herself with all of these whirlwind thoughts, but then with Isetheperu. Would she have been better off to be bound by her husband by duty rather than love? The affair was of little disturbance to Isetheperu, perhaps a pinprick in her side on particularly sour days. Iaheru is called back to her studies and her travels to a Greek word called kairos, a defining moment of such insurmountable importance it causes a distinct shift that prevents one from ever returning to a preconceived existence. The night the Pharaoh pulled against her headwrap and his ringed fingers dug into her young flesh was kairos. It was not a reformative experience. There was no honor in having her body taken by a God on Earth. Was the Pharaoh Ra in flesh? The same Pharaoh she shared an advisory relationship with? A friendship? If this was the case, Iaheru could not put her faith in the sun and hoped for dark days. Iaheru genuinely prayed that every time Isetheperu, an old friend, looked at Sutekh, a mild mannered, gentle, handsome man that a twist of jealousy overtook her affects. Iaheru hoped it ruined her day in a fraction of the magnitude the caustic memory overtook Iaheru’s life.
It was this penchant for justice on her more righteous days, and revenge on the darker evenings with loose opium glittering the air, that led her to forsake Gods long ago with the exception of Anubis. Should her devotion and sacrifice please him so her enemies would know the same pain.
The evening was important, but also gilded. The return to normalcy, or as close to normalcy as she could approach, was nothing to assuage the obsession that tangled her entirety. “I did not want this. Why would I have hidden my son for so long if I had seduced Imopehatsuma for power?” She had no tears to blink away, her confidence didn’t falter when she refused to address the late Pharaoh by his title. He had already ruined her life beyond a charge of blasphemy. “I’ll never recover from it, maybe my family will, but I will never forgive the ones that go quiet when I arrive. And it doesn’t matter, does it?”
She faced him, eyes widened and mimicking the flames around them. “Because I will forever be Iaheru of Cairo that rose too quickly from a house near the ports. I’ll forever be a forsaken wife and a Pharaoh’s mistress.”
“The only fairness I can find is that Imopehatsuma’s children are golden,” Iaheru’s shoulders relaxed from their tautness, her body slacking against Zoser’s. “Her Evening Radiance is as gentle as Sutekh, both attuned to fairness and grace, and I know that you had great influence over that.” Yet another similarity, they both raised children with tyrannical blood to empathy, whittling their nature to amenability and mercy where there was none to be found in a harsh world.
Iaheru gulped down her wine, drunk enough to have words spill from darkened lips, but not too inebriated to know the consequence of what she implied. Yet, she espoused the same dissidence in the court with darting glares and veiled comments. Slender fingers wrapped around golden cuffs engraved with seals, twirling with anxiety, her carelessness indicative of a woman with nothing to lose, but still cognizant of her legacy. Indisputably, she had unfairly fixated on Sutekh because of his parentage, her other four children were just as imperative to maintaining the predominance of Hei Sheifa. Neithotep was the name that nearly materialized from her deep thinking as her daughter’s marriage to Narmer H’Haikaddad became more reality than mere plot. Akhenaten followed closely in her obsessions the way the two siblings did in practice.
Iaheru’s head finally rested against the wall dangerously close to Zoser’s chest, blankly counting the stars as she would have navigating at night. “This war is stupid too,” Iaheru whispered, giggling harder than she should have.
Iaheru watches animated and sparsely worded lips. Rumors surrounded Zoser as well, mostly neutral and of lacking acetic undertones, but rumors nonetheless. Though she was no longer privy to courtly gossip, nor had she cared for it when she was, there was a beckoning, lonesome pull in her stomach whenever she happened upon women of station chuckling over wine and pate. Silence settled wherever she ventured, pulling on a chin tilted high despite the overwhelming pressure to tuck her head and bind her visage with submission. Now that she was Sirdsett, this waning exclusion frustrated her- as Retainer to Isetheperu, she was afforded greater privilege than as a mother of the Prince. If her tongue ever so brashly ran away from her, perhaps Sutekh was the true Pharaoh of Egypt. These were different stories for different decisions, events that led Iaheru of Cairo to Sirdsett Iaheru H’Sheifa was what concerned her the most these days as she emerged from her scandal incompletely untouched, lonely and stronger than any of her previous renditions. She rose from her lounge, briefly stumbling over her feet, allowing a fine shawl to drop away from her shoulders, and rested against the ledge of the roof on her elbows.
Wine had dulled her senses so; she girlishly pondered whether Zoser wrote poetry. She had heard of such rumors. Speckling gray hairs, the highest and most intense concentrations manifesting on the tips of curls not yet formed. His interpretable reservations, however, had been disregarded by the keen Sirdsett, her world so languidly and beautifully dredged in honey she didn’t know how she would cope other than to giggle profusely and smile with straight, white teeth. She leaned into Zoser with plush hips and a head that threatens to find the crook of his neck. The aforementioned orange lights trailed in her periphery, paint strokes bleeding together as they culminate on a handsome face. He just had to be a poet. This restrained elegance tickling her intuition, lending to Iaheru’s understanding that he was a talented poet. Dark eyes flicker with the fires lining the rooftop, highlighting his skin with the sparse, golden dust that coursed beneath the surface of all Egyptians, regardless of their true loyalties.
Onuphrious was a poet. Tenderness sept through every wrinkle and spattering of hair turned silver. Yet, as the old times Zoser referenced became increasingly older, Iaheru’s expectations of reconciliation lessened exponentially. These past thirty years, however, had bound Onuphrious to Iaheru as the moon balanced the tides, the stars guided ships, the rainy and dry seasons. Even when they didn’t speak. Iaheru and Onuphrious ebbed and flowed to each other’s shores: she was the only one that could organize shipments to thousands of ports on time and manage the wealth that poured into gold braziers and olive trees. He was the only one that could bolster his poetry with honeyed words of all varieties. Greek. Coptic. The guttural inflections of lands afar. His words molded to soothe any ear. Surely, Iaheru was gifted in speech, but every once in a while the fire restrained in all women erupted from her pursed lips. At their essence, Onuphrious and Iaheru embodied the charmer and viper, an act that catapulted both to prominence just shy of Evening Star itself.
“You are far too kind to me.” Iaheru lazily slurred, placing a hand atop of Zoser’s. Tipping back the golden chalice, she had obtained the point of drunkenness where the wine lacked the acidic twinge of tannins that involuntarily wrinkled her nose and throat. How warm his hand was. Wine exacerbated a need to touch, fingers had not fallen on her skin in some time. Perhaps it had been this friendly intimacy that characterized the woman more so than headwraps and heavy garments that led to her predicament. Yet, she would not allow the past to restrain her any longer. No longer would nightmares govern her or dead, weak men that masqueraded as Gods wrap her in their linen shrouds.
He was beautiful. Iaheru ruminated for a brief, boozed minute about her travels to Greece as a young woman, as a Retainer constrained by servitude. Later, she visited Greece on the conditions of passionate, equitable love and all the ambition of the known world. Her voracity unsettled Greek men that conceptualized women as feeble extensions of failed men, their utility emanating from fretting like wrens chirping for seeds. Would they have crossed paths? Would she have been smitten with Zoser in a way that modesty would complicate conveying? You are far too kind to me, lingered in the air. Would he have been gentle to her? Accommodating? Forgiving? These pervasive thoughts of other men unsettled Iaheru greatly. For so long she need not expound other possibilities because her world was perfect with the exception of a single night. She paced with an exaggeration to her straffe, pouring another helping of wine to her chalice, bringing the clay carafe with her and offering to top off Zoser’s own cup. She resumed her position, brushed against his warm body whether intentionally or as a result of influence, still bracing against him and still staring forever across the river with a wistful regret.
“I lack the Grace to have your deference. We both raised ourselves to new lives from those muddy banks,” she points with her cup. “You fared much better than I did. I think that beginning is something important we share.” Elbows plant into the smoothed tops of sand bricks, the lonely expanses between her fingers slightly pulling at the braided ropes that fell down her back, dotted in baubles and golden rings. Perfumed oil softened brambled tips and coats her scalp with a sticky slip. Iaheru tortured herself with all of these whirlwind thoughts, but then with Isetheperu. Would she have been better off to be bound by her husband by duty rather than love? The affair was of little disturbance to Isetheperu, perhaps a pinprick in her side on particularly sour days. Iaheru is called back to her studies and her travels to a Greek word called kairos, a defining moment of such insurmountable importance it causes a distinct shift that prevents one from ever returning to a preconceived existence. The night the Pharaoh pulled against her headwrap and his ringed fingers dug into her young flesh was kairos. It was not a reformative experience. There was no honor in having her body taken by a God on Earth. Was the Pharaoh Ra in flesh? The same Pharaoh she shared an advisory relationship with? A friendship? If this was the case, Iaheru could not put her faith in the sun and hoped for dark days. Iaheru genuinely prayed that every time Isetheperu, an old friend, looked at Sutekh, a mild mannered, gentle, handsome man that a twist of jealousy overtook her affects. Iaheru hoped it ruined her day in a fraction of the magnitude the caustic memory overtook Iaheru’s life.
It was this penchant for justice on her more righteous days, and revenge on the darker evenings with loose opium glittering the air, that led her to forsake Gods long ago with the exception of Anubis. Should her devotion and sacrifice please him so her enemies would know the same pain.
The evening was important, but also gilded. The return to normalcy, or as close to normalcy as she could approach, was nothing to assuage the obsession that tangled her entirety. “I did not want this. Why would I have hidden my son for so long if I had seduced Imopehatsuma for power?” She had no tears to blink away, her confidence didn’t falter when she refused to address the late Pharaoh by his title. He had already ruined her life beyond a charge of blasphemy. “I’ll never recover from it, maybe my family will, but I will never forgive the ones that go quiet when I arrive. And it doesn’t matter, does it?”
She faced him, eyes widened and mimicking the flames around them. “Because I will forever be Iaheru of Cairo that rose too quickly from a house near the ports. I’ll forever be a forsaken wife and a Pharaoh’s mistress.”
“The only fairness I can find is that Imopehatsuma’s children are golden,” Iaheru’s shoulders relaxed from their tautness, her body slacking against Zoser’s. “Her Evening Radiance is as gentle as Sutekh, both attuned to fairness and grace, and I know that you had great influence over that.” Yet another similarity, they both raised children with tyrannical blood to empathy, whittling their nature to amenability and mercy where there was none to be found in a harsh world.
Iaheru gulped down her wine, drunk enough to have words spill from darkened lips, but not too inebriated to know the consequence of what she implied. Yet, she espoused the same dissidence in the court with darting glares and veiled comments. Slender fingers wrapped around golden cuffs engraved with seals, twirling with anxiety, her carelessness indicative of a woman with nothing to lose, but still cognizant of her legacy. Indisputably, she had unfairly fixated on Sutekh because of his parentage, her other four children were just as imperative to maintaining the predominance of Hei Sheifa. Neithotep was the name that nearly materialized from her deep thinking as her daughter’s marriage to Narmer H’Haikaddad became more reality than mere plot. Akhenaten followed closely in her obsessions the way the two siblings did in practice.
Iaheru’s head finally rested against the wall dangerously close to Zoser’s chest, blankly counting the stars as she would have navigating at night. “This war is stupid too,” Iaheru whispered, giggling harder than she should have.
For once, the Archives were empty of Zoser’s presence, and Neithotep stood amongst the scrolls with the look of a lost child overtaking her pretty face.
It had been yet another night of many wrapped up in the Pharaoh’s arms, subjected to his violent whims by no choice of her own. The only good thing to ever come of those nights were the hours after, the hours she spent in the scholarly room with Zoser and Maut’s little kittens. This was the first time she’d come here to find him gone, and it struck her heart a little more than she thought it should. After all, he had a life of his own. There was no reason he should always be at her beck and call, especially if she hadn’t even told him she was coming. It should not upset her to find that he was spending his late hours elsewhere.
Disappointed nonetheless, she reached down to give the cats little scratches behind their ears before exiting the room and pausing outside as she contemplated where to go. There was nowhere else in the Palace she wished to linger, and wiling away the rest of the night in a tavern for once didn’t sound all that appealing. She knew her mother had been hosting an event at the saraaya some hours previous, but surely it would have ended by now. At this point, she might as well head home. Surely the gardens or the terrace would offer some reprieve. She could watch the moon set and the sun rise while she relaxed away the ache in tired and throbbing muscles.
It wasn’t a very long walk from the Evening Star Palace down into the Ghani district where her family resided, the brief distance hastened that much more by the speed of her step. She had no wish to linger overlong on the dark streets of Cairo, at least no longer than she had to. Her attack the week before had served to increase her caution, if nothing else.
Nia’s entrance into the saraaya went unremarked and unimpeded, sandaled feet nearly silent against the cool tile floor. Numb hands drifted along the painted walls as she walked, idyllic scenes of indolent beauty carelessly passing under her fingertips while she fought to maintain her balance. Her vision swam through curling apparitions of poppy dreams, sluggishly blinking to clear the clouds from her eyes. It was by no means unusual for her to partake of such indulgences, but her use was always particularly marked on the nights of her trysts with the Pharaoh. It was the only thing that could dull the pain, that could soften the edges of a cruel night to the point of becoming bearable.
Unguided footsteps clumsily ascended the stairs until she found herself atop the roof, breaking into the velvet night with a deep and cleansing breath. Stars and galaxies were woven into the sky like a celestial tapestry, a pregnant moon shining brilliantly with a bright opalescence that nearly put the sun to shame. She basked in its beauty for a few quiet moments before the unexpected sound of voices slowly drew her back into reality. Apparently, she wasn’t alone.
One voice was clearly her mother’s, slurred with drink but with that strong resonance that leant an air of authority to everything Iaheru said. The other took her a little longer to recognize, just for the simple fact that she did not associate it with her home. Coming into clear view of the roof’s other occupants, Nia paused dead in her tracks while her mouth dropped open in confused shock.
“Zoser?” the young noblewoman asked in blatant confusion, glancing between the scribe and her intoxicated mother with a lack of comprehension shining in her eyes. Why was Iaheru leaning in so close? What were they doing up here alone, anyway? Disapproval warred with an unasked-for jealousy while she stared at her mother’s hand on Zoser’s. What exactly were they doing?
Her own shaking hand adjusted her rumpled kalasiris to better hide bites and bruises, though Nia doubted Iaheru would be able to see much of it between the encroaching darkness and her own wine-blurred eyesight. “Forgive my intrusion, I… I did not think anyone else would be up here.” Her words were hardly much clearer than the Sirdsett’s, even if they were slurred from a different intoxicant. Dilated pupils threatened to overtake already dark eyes, lending her an almost otherworldly look in the midnight darkness.
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For once, the Archives were empty of Zoser’s presence, and Neithotep stood amongst the scrolls with the look of a lost child overtaking her pretty face.
It had been yet another night of many wrapped up in the Pharaoh’s arms, subjected to his violent whims by no choice of her own. The only good thing to ever come of those nights were the hours after, the hours she spent in the scholarly room with Zoser and Maut’s little kittens. This was the first time she’d come here to find him gone, and it struck her heart a little more than she thought it should. After all, he had a life of his own. There was no reason he should always be at her beck and call, especially if she hadn’t even told him she was coming. It should not upset her to find that he was spending his late hours elsewhere.
Disappointed nonetheless, she reached down to give the cats little scratches behind their ears before exiting the room and pausing outside as she contemplated where to go. There was nowhere else in the Palace she wished to linger, and wiling away the rest of the night in a tavern for once didn’t sound all that appealing. She knew her mother had been hosting an event at the saraaya some hours previous, but surely it would have ended by now. At this point, she might as well head home. Surely the gardens or the terrace would offer some reprieve. She could watch the moon set and the sun rise while she relaxed away the ache in tired and throbbing muscles.
It wasn’t a very long walk from the Evening Star Palace down into the Ghani district where her family resided, the brief distance hastened that much more by the speed of her step. She had no wish to linger overlong on the dark streets of Cairo, at least no longer than she had to. Her attack the week before had served to increase her caution, if nothing else.
Nia’s entrance into the saraaya went unremarked and unimpeded, sandaled feet nearly silent against the cool tile floor. Numb hands drifted along the painted walls as she walked, idyllic scenes of indolent beauty carelessly passing under her fingertips while she fought to maintain her balance. Her vision swam through curling apparitions of poppy dreams, sluggishly blinking to clear the clouds from her eyes. It was by no means unusual for her to partake of such indulgences, but her use was always particularly marked on the nights of her trysts with the Pharaoh. It was the only thing that could dull the pain, that could soften the edges of a cruel night to the point of becoming bearable.
Unguided footsteps clumsily ascended the stairs until she found herself atop the roof, breaking into the velvet night with a deep and cleansing breath. Stars and galaxies were woven into the sky like a celestial tapestry, a pregnant moon shining brilliantly with a bright opalescence that nearly put the sun to shame. She basked in its beauty for a few quiet moments before the unexpected sound of voices slowly drew her back into reality. Apparently, she wasn’t alone.
One voice was clearly her mother’s, slurred with drink but with that strong resonance that leant an air of authority to everything Iaheru said. The other took her a little longer to recognize, just for the simple fact that she did not associate it with her home. Coming into clear view of the roof’s other occupants, Nia paused dead in her tracks while her mouth dropped open in confused shock.
“Zoser?” the young noblewoman asked in blatant confusion, glancing between the scribe and her intoxicated mother with a lack of comprehension shining in her eyes. Why was Iaheru leaning in so close? What were they doing up here alone, anyway? Disapproval warred with an unasked-for jealousy while she stared at her mother’s hand on Zoser’s. What exactly were they doing?
Her own shaking hand adjusted her rumpled kalasiris to better hide bites and bruises, though Nia doubted Iaheru would be able to see much of it between the encroaching darkness and her own wine-blurred eyesight. “Forgive my intrusion, I… I did not think anyone else would be up here.” Her words were hardly much clearer than the Sirdsett’s, even if they were slurred from a different intoxicant. Dilated pupils threatened to overtake already dark eyes, lending her an almost otherworldly look in the midnight darkness.
For once, the Archives were empty of Zoser’s presence, and Neithotep stood amongst the scrolls with the look of a lost child overtaking her pretty face.
It had been yet another night of many wrapped up in the Pharaoh’s arms, subjected to his violent whims by no choice of her own. The only good thing to ever come of those nights were the hours after, the hours she spent in the scholarly room with Zoser and Maut’s little kittens. This was the first time she’d come here to find him gone, and it struck her heart a little more than she thought it should. After all, he had a life of his own. There was no reason he should always be at her beck and call, especially if she hadn’t even told him she was coming. It should not upset her to find that he was spending his late hours elsewhere.
Disappointed nonetheless, she reached down to give the cats little scratches behind their ears before exiting the room and pausing outside as she contemplated where to go. There was nowhere else in the Palace she wished to linger, and wiling away the rest of the night in a tavern for once didn’t sound all that appealing. She knew her mother had been hosting an event at the saraaya some hours previous, but surely it would have ended by now. At this point, she might as well head home. Surely the gardens or the terrace would offer some reprieve. She could watch the moon set and the sun rise while she relaxed away the ache in tired and throbbing muscles.
It wasn’t a very long walk from the Evening Star Palace down into the Ghani district where her family resided, the brief distance hastened that much more by the speed of her step. She had no wish to linger overlong on the dark streets of Cairo, at least no longer than she had to. Her attack the week before had served to increase her caution, if nothing else.
Nia’s entrance into the saraaya went unremarked and unimpeded, sandaled feet nearly silent against the cool tile floor. Numb hands drifted along the painted walls as she walked, idyllic scenes of indolent beauty carelessly passing under her fingertips while she fought to maintain her balance. Her vision swam through curling apparitions of poppy dreams, sluggishly blinking to clear the clouds from her eyes. It was by no means unusual for her to partake of such indulgences, but her use was always particularly marked on the nights of her trysts with the Pharaoh. It was the only thing that could dull the pain, that could soften the edges of a cruel night to the point of becoming bearable.
Unguided footsteps clumsily ascended the stairs until she found herself atop the roof, breaking into the velvet night with a deep and cleansing breath. Stars and galaxies were woven into the sky like a celestial tapestry, a pregnant moon shining brilliantly with a bright opalescence that nearly put the sun to shame. She basked in its beauty for a few quiet moments before the unexpected sound of voices slowly drew her back into reality. Apparently, she wasn’t alone.
One voice was clearly her mother’s, slurred with drink but with that strong resonance that leant an air of authority to everything Iaheru said. The other took her a little longer to recognize, just for the simple fact that she did not associate it with her home. Coming into clear view of the roof’s other occupants, Nia paused dead in her tracks while her mouth dropped open in confused shock.
“Zoser?” the young noblewoman asked in blatant confusion, glancing between the scribe and her intoxicated mother with a lack of comprehension shining in her eyes. Why was Iaheru leaning in so close? What were they doing up here alone, anyway? Disapproval warred with an unasked-for jealousy while she stared at her mother’s hand on Zoser’s. What exactly were they doing?
Her own shaking hand adjusted her rumpled kalasiris to better hide bites and bruises, though Nia doubted Iaheru would be able to see much of it between the encroaching darkness and her own wine-blurred eyesight. “Forgive my intrusion, I… I did not think anyone else would be up here.” Her words were hardly much clearer than the Sirdsett’s, even if they were slurred from a different intoxicant. Dilated pupils threatened to overtake already dark eyes, lending her an almost otherworldly look in the midnight darkness.
It was apparent that, in her state, Iaheru had a number of things on her mind but few of them seemed horribly cohesive with one another. It was like when ink pigments were dripped into water but before they were blended, sending swirls in various colors before combining them into the desired shade.
Zoser had been cautious not to consume terribly much. Things within the Palace were precariously balanced enough as it was, and the last thing needed was one night of dalliance to let the house of cards topple down.
For many years, Zoser had held a clever closeness with Iaheru, much as he held friendships with others his age at the University in his youth. Sparring with words and ideals and philosophies over drinks, as well as stirring in the spice of tasteful gossip and delicious intrigue. With Iaheru's reintroduction to society after the revelation about Sutekh's upbringing, Zoser wanted to be present to show his full support, despite the wounds still being raw.
Seeing the state of her since arriving on the rooftop, there was an amusement that he held, knowing that he would once again need to help her descend the stairs as she lost her senses to the cupfuls of wine. It was not the first time nor would it be the last. Her musings, though, were hard to follow yet kept him with a warm smile on his lips.
That smile faltered slightly as he at first offered a hand to help her move to standing, but withdrew it back to the railing as he noted her movement toward him. Careful to keep his expression from showing too much, his eyes watched her step closer and closer, until their bodies touched in a way that was not merely supporting intoxication. No, this was seeking support elsewhere...
As if in preparation, Zoser set his wine goblet aside, balancing it cautiously on the railing the full length of his arm away before placing his hand against the rail again. Zoser softly swallowed his last sip of wine as his gazed trailed down his arm to where her hand touched his....and where their hips were flush against one another. Coupled with her smile, Zoser felt a wash of human desire over him, begging for it not to reveal the heat of it through the fabric that separated their skin.
Iaheru had always been considered one of the most beautiful women in Egypt, despite her modesty of hiding away her hair and remaining so covered. Perhaps, that very modesty is what drew the curiosity of men - not only himself in this vulnerable moment, but the late Pharaoh as well, who it was now proven had the power to see what was hidden beneath.
"It is not difficult to be kind to you," Zoser offered, his own smile returning as if to beg hers to reveal itself again. He selfishly enjoyed making her smile. Convincing himself it was merely a friendly maneuver, he allowed her hand to cover his, but turned his own slightly to allow his thumb to caress her skin delicately. It was sinfully soft, which was enough to heat the embers within his belly and remind him of his oft abandoned desires.
It was Iaheru who invited him here. It was Iaheru who first approached to place their bodies this close. It was Iaheru who smiled at him. Had...this been here for some time? No, they had just been friends in all these years - sharing wine and drinks and tall tales of Greek lands and beyond. Yet, never had they stood so close before, despite his own wine-drenched silent thoughts that remained between him and the rim of his goblet.
No sooner had he nearly convinced himself of the plausibility of the situation did Iaheru move away, taking with it the embrace of temptation for all too short a moment. It did not stop his eyes from lingering on her, darker than before as he reached for his goblet once again. As she returned, he offered it to be refilled and drank deeply as she spoke, his eyes following her point along the to the Nile, which captured the faintest glimmers of lamplight on the far shore, before his attention was drawn to her physical return, pressing against his body.
This time, his free hand drifted down to rest upon the small of her waist, fitting and curving around the supple arc that was hidden beneath the kalasaris. The heat of her body against his palm felt so wrong that it began to feel right and his fingers wide splayed across her hip.
"That is not true," Zoser offered, his voice low as he spoke, a new resolve behind the words as he clarified, "Of our shared beginnings, I would argue that you fared better than I. You are titled, wealthy, well-travelled, and blessed with a family - yes, blessed." He stopped her before she could argue a point by pressing his palm against her him strongly a moment before continuing, "Despite the issue origin and the current fractures. I argue you are blessed to have those issues than to have none at all."
Taking a moment, he took a deep draught from his wine goblet, one eye watching her reaction a moment before setting it down again, drained and empty, as if encouraging the lines to blur further in order to provide him an alibi should he need it.
As her tone shifted, the raw emotions lingering on her voice if not in tears on her cheeks, Zoser felt his brows downturn in sympathy as his free hand shifted up to rest on her shoulder, feeling the tension there as he let the words flow from her without interruption, his hands shifting away from temptation and into support for a friend who bore her heart out to him. It was a natural response from him, the softness of his technical 'Greek' upbringing to feel empathy to one who was hurting, even if emotionally.
As her body relaxed against his again, so did his hands, and a soft smile touched his lips as she spoke of Queen Hatshepsut. The young girl had was truly golden, as Iaheru said, and while he was not a father in his own right, he bore a sense of pride when it came to those speaking of her knowledge and her grace - one of which he had a hand in forming, but the other was as natural as a sunrise.
"I selfishly accept whatever part I may have played in that," Zoser added, a laugh on his lips, once again stealing an opportunity for a laugh or a smile from the woman who bore too much sorrow.
As he watched her lean back to gaze up at the stars, the suddenness of her statement followed by a laugh resulted in a laugh from him as well, looking down at her upturned face with an almost fondness that still toed the line of friendship but danced very closely to the edge.
"On that, we can agree fully," Zoser replied a laugh still in his voice as he raised a brow, "It will be more trouble than it is worth, damage finely crafted relations, and it goes against all I taught Her Evening Radiance over all these years...all undone for one, selfish moment of shin-"
"Zoser?"
In a sudden motion, Zoser both stilled and removed his hands from Iaheru's form, the suddenness of his motion causing his hand to knock his pewter goblet from the railing into the sand below. Not even registering the familiar voice for a moment, his head turned to see Neithotep standing atop the steps, like a nymph from the sea. Her eyes were wide and dark, the sheer fabric of her cloth wild as her hair around her.
"My Lady Neithotep...I was just..." he started, the words dying on his lips as he glanced between the two women, both of whom he shared a distinct closeness with in their different ways - but neither of which knew the nature of his closeness with the other, or the secrets he held that tied them to one another. If he kept talking, the guilt one way or another would reveal itself, so he simply ran a hand across his short cropped hair and looked to Iaheru.
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Nov 11, 2019 16:10:33 GMT
Posted In Bear Witness on Nov 11, 2019 16:10:33 GMT
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It was apparent that, in her state, Iaheru had a number of things on her mind but few of them seemed horribly cohesive with one another. It was like when ink pigments were dripped into water but before they were blended, sending swirls in various colors before combining them into the desired shade.
Zoser had been cautious not to consume terribly much. Things within the Palace were precariously balanced enough as it was, and the last thing needed was one night of dalliance to let the house of cards topple down.
For many years, Zoser had held a clever closeness with Iaheru, much as he held friendships with others his age at the University in his youth. Sparring with words and ideals and philosophies over drinks, as well as stirring in the spice of tasteful gossip and delicious intrigue. With Iaheru's reintroduction to society after the revelation about Sutekh's upbringing, Zoser wanted to be present to show his full support, despite the wounds still being raw.
Seeing the state of her since arriving on the rooftop, there was an amusement that he held, knowing that he would once again need to help her descend the stairs as she lost her senses to the cupfuls of wine. It was not the first time nor would it be the last. Her musings, though, were hard to follow yet kept him with a warm smile on his lips.
That smile faltered slightly as he at first offered a hand to help her move to standing, but withdrew it back to the railing as he noted her movement toward him. Careful to keep his expression from showing too much, his eyes watched her step closer and closer, until their bodies touched in a way that was not merely supporting intoxication. No, this was seeking support elsewhere...
As if in preparation, Zoser set his wine goblet aside, balancing it cautiously on the railing the full length of his arm away before placing his hand against the rail again. Zoser softly swallowed his last sip of wine as his gazed trailed down his arm to where her hand touched his....and where their hips were flush against one another. Coupled with her smile, Zoser felt a wash of human desire over him, begging for it not to reveal the heat of it through the fabric that separated their skin.
Iaheru had always been considered one of the most beautiful women in Egypt, despite her modesty of hiding away her hair and remaining so covered. Perhaps, that very modesty is what drew the curiosity of men - not only himself in this vulnerable moment, but the late Pharaoh as well, who it was now proven had the power to see what was hidden beneath.
"It is not difficult to be kind to you," Zoser offered, his own smile returning as if to beg hers to reveal itself again. He selfishly enjoyed making her smile. Convincing himself it was merely a friendly maneuver, he allowed her hand to cover his, but turned his own slightly to allow his thumb to caress her skin delicately. It was sinfully soft, which was enough to heat the embers within his belly and remind him of his oft abandoned desires.
It was Iaheru who invited him here. It was Iaheru who first approached to place their bodies this close. It was Iaheru who smiled at him. Had...this been here for some time? No, they had just been friends in all these years - sharing wine and drinks and tall tales of Greek lands and beyond. Yet, never had they stood so close before, despite his own wine-drenched silent thoughts that remained between him and the rim of his goblet.
No sooner had he nearly convinced himself of the plausibility of the situation did Iaheru move away, taking with it the embrace of temptation for all too short a moment. It did not stop his eyes from lingering on her, darker than before as he reached for his goblet once again. As she returned, he offered it to be refilled and drank deeply as she spoke, his eyes following her point along the to the Nile, which captured the faintest glimmers of lamplight on the far shore, before his attention was drawn to her physical return, pressing against his body.
This time, his free hand drifted down to rest upon the small of her waist, fitting and curving around the supple arc that was hidden beneath the kalasaris. The heat of her body against his palm felt so wrong that it began to feel right and his fingers wide splayed across her hip.
"That is not true," Zoser offered, his voice low as he spoke, a new resolve behind the words as he clarified, "Of our shared beginnings, I would argue that you fared better than I. You are titled, wealthy, well-travelled, and blessed with a family - yes, blessed." He stopped her before she could argue a point by pressing his palm against her him strongly a moment before continuing, "Despite the issue origin and the current fractures. I argue you are blessed to have those issues than to have none at all."
Taking a moment, he took a deep draught from his wine goblet, one eye watching her reaction a moment before setting it down again, drained and empty, as if encouraging the lines to blur further in order to provide him an alibi should he need it.
As her tone shifted, the raw emotions lingering on her voice if not in tears on her cheeks, Zoser felt his brows downturn in sympathy as his free hand shifted up to rest on her shoulder, feeling the tension there as he let the words flow from her without interruption, his hands shifting away from temptation and into support for a friend who bore her heart out to him. It was a natural response from him, the softness of his technical 'Greek' upbringing to feel empathy to one who was hurting, even if emotionally.
As her body relaxed against his again, so did his hands, and a soft smile touched his lips as she spoke of Queen Hatshepsut. The young girl had was truly golden, as Iaheru said, and while he was not a father in his own right, he bore a sense of pride when it came to those speaking of her knowledge and her grace - one of which he had a hand in forming, but the other was as natural as a sunrise.
"I selfishly accept whatever part I may have played in that," Zoser added, a laugh on his lips, once again stealing an opportunity for a laugh or a smile from the woman who bore too much sorrow.
As he watched her lean back to gaze up at the stars, the suddenness of her statement followed by a laugh resulted in a laugh from him as well, looking down at her upturned face with an almost fondness that still toed the line of friendship but danced very closely to the edge.
"On that, we can agree fully," Zoser replied a laugh still in his voice as he raised a brow, "It will be more trouble than it is worth, damage finely crafted relations, and it goes against all I taught Her Evening Radiance over all these years...all undone for one, selfish moment of shin-"
"Zoser?"
In a sudden motion, Zoser both stilled and removed his hands from Iaheru's form, the suddenness of his motion causing his hand to knock his pewter goblet from the railing into the sand below. Not even registering the familiar voice for a moment, his head turned to see Neithotep standing atop the steps, like a nymph from the sea. Her eyes were wide and dark, the sheer fabric of her cloth wild as her hair around her.
"My Lady Neithotep...I was just..." he started, the words dying on his lips as he glanced between the two women, both of whom he shared a distinct closeness with in their different ways - but neither of which knew the nature of his closeness with the other, or the secrets he held that tied them to one another. If he kept talking, the guilt one way or another would reveal itself, so he simply ran a hand across his short cropped hair and looked to Iaheru.
It was apparent that, in her state, Iaheru had a number of things on her mind but few of them seemed horribly cohesive with one another. It was like when ink pigments were dripped into water but before they were blended, sending swirls in various colors before combining them into the desired shade.
Zoser had been cautious not to consume terribly much. Things within the Palace were precariously balanced enough as it was, and the last thing needed was one night of dalliance to let the house of cards topple down.
For many years, Zoser had held a clever closeness with Iaheru, much as he held friendships with others his age at the University in his youth. Sparring with words and ideals and philosophies over drinks, as well as stirring in the spice of tasteful gossip and delicious intrigue. With Iaheru's reintroduction to society after the revelation about Sutekh's upbringing, Zoser wanted to be present to show his full support, despite the wounds still being raw.
Seeing the state of her since arriving on the rooftop, there was an amusement that he held, knowing that he would once again need to help her descend the stairs as she lost her senses to the cupfuls of wine. It was not the first time nor would it be the last. Her musings, though, were hard to follow yet kept him with a warm smile on his lips.
That smile faltered slightly as he at first offered a hand to help her move to standing, but withdrew it back to the railing as he noted her movement toward him. Careful to keep his expression from showing too much, his eyes watched her step closer and closer, until their bodies touched in a way that was not merely supporting intoxication. No, this was seeking support elsewhere...
As if in preparation, Zoser set his wine goblet aside, balancing it cautiously on the railing the full length of his arm away before placing his hand against the rail again. Zoser softly swallowed his last sip of wine as his gazed trailed down his arm to where her hand touched his....and where their hips were flush against one another. Coupled with her smile, Zoser felt a wash of human desire over him, begging for it not to reveal the heat of it through the fabric that separated their skin.
Iaheru had always been considered one of the most beautiful women in Egypt, despite her modesty of hiding away her hair and remaining so covered. Perhaps, that very modesty is what drew the curiosity of men - not only himself in this vulnerable moment, but the late Pharaoh as well, who it was now proven had the power to see what was hidden beneath.
"It is not difficult to be kind to you," Zoser offered, his own smile returning as if to beg hers to reveal itself again. He selfishly enjoyed making her smile. Convincing himself it was merely a friendly maneuver, he allowed her hand to cover his, but turned his own slightly to allow his thumb to caress her skin delicately. It was sinfully soft, which was enough to heat the embers within his belly and remind him of his oft abandoned desires.
It was Iaheru who invited him here. It was Iaheru who first approached to place their bodies this close. It was Iaheru who smiled at him. Had...this been here for some time? No, they had just been friends in all these years - sharing wine and drinks and tall tales of Greek lands and beyond. Yet, never had they stood so close before, despite his own wine-drenched silent thoughts that remained between him and the rim of his goblet.
No sooner had he nearly convinced himself of the plausibility of the situation did Iaheru move away, taking with it the embrace of temptation for all too short a moment. It did not stop his eyes from lingering on her, darker than before as he reached for his goblet once again. As she returned, he offered it to be refilled and drank deeply as she spoke, his eyes following her point along the to the Nile, which captured the faintest glimmers of lamplight on the far shore, before his attention was drawn to her physical return, pressing against his body.
This time, his free hand drifted down to rest upon the small of her waist, fitting and curving around the supple arc that was hidden beneath the kalasaris. The heat of her body against his palm felt so wrong that it began to feel right and his fingers wide splayed across her hip.
"That is not true," Zoser offered, his voice low as he spoke, a new resolve behind the words as he clarified, "Of our shared beginnings, I would argue that you fared better than I. You are titled, wealthy, well-travelled, and blessed with a family - yes, blessed." He stopped her before she could argue a point by pressing his palm against her him strongly a moment before continuing, "Despite the issue origin and the current fractures. I argue you are blessed to have those issues than to have none at all."
Taking a moment, he took a deep draught from his wine goblet, one eye watching her reaction a moment before setting it down again, drained and empty, as if encouraging the lines to blur further in order to provide him an alibi should he need it.
As her tone shifted, the raw emotions lingering on her voice if not in tears on her cheeks, Zoser felt his brows downturn in sympathy as his free hand shifted up to rest on her shoulder, feeling the tension there as he let the words flow from her without interruption, his hands shifting away from temptation and into support for a friend who bore her heart out to him. It was a natural response from him, the softness of his technical 'Greek' upbringing to feel empathy to one who was hurting, even if emotionally.
As her body relaxed against his again, so did his hands, and a soft smile touched his lips as she spoke of Queen Hatshepsut. The young girl had was truly golden, as Iaheru said, and while he was not a father in his own right, he bore a sense of pride when it came to those speaking of her knowledge and her grace - one of which he had a hand in forming, but the other was as natural as a sunrise.
"I selfishly accept whatever part I may have played in that," Zoser added, a laugh on his lips, once again stealing an opportunity for a laugh or a smile from the woman who bore too much sorrow.
As he watched her lean back to gaze up at the stars, the suddenness of her statement followed by a laugh resulted in a laugh from him as well, looking down at her upturned face with an almost fondness that still toed the line of friendship but danced very closely to the edge.
"On that, we can agree fully," Zoser replied a laugh still in his voice as he raised a brow, "It will be more trouble than it is worth, damage finely crafted relations, and it goes against all I taught Her Evening Radiance over all these years...all undone for one, selfish moment of shin-"
"Zoser?"
In a sudden motion, Zoser both stilled and removed his hands from Iaheru's form, the suddenness of his motion causing his hand to knock his pewter goblet from the railing into the sand below. Not even registering the familiar voice for a moment, his head turned to see Neithotep standing atop the steps, like a nymph from the sea. Her eyes were wide and dark, the sheer fabric of her cloth wild as her hair around her.
"My Lady Neithotep...I was just..." he started, the words dying on his lips as he glanced between the two women, both of whom he shared a distinct closeness with in their different ways - but neither of which knew the nature of his closeness with the other, or the secrets he held that tied them to one another. If he kept talking, the guilt one way or another would reveal itself, so he simply ran a hand across his short cropped hair and looked to Iaheru.
Iaheru bristled against his touch, shocked that it had found the low of her back without resistance. A nearly inaudible purr emanated from her chest as she settled into Zoser. She took deep breaths, the slightest twinge of nausea overcoming threatening the back of her tongue should she move too suddenly. Lips so perfectly painted smeared outside of darkened lines, parting slightly when the slow circles of a thumb ran over four delicate bones leading to rings and painted fingertips. Whatever reservations she had towards infidelity, and even with the advent of the prior year, these reservations remained robust, were dulled by the heat, the wine, the opulence, and the intimacy of a moment alone on the roof. Their only guest in this orange paint stroked moment the sparsely curling white smoke from braziers emitting mosquito repelling incense.
Iaheru’s coverings protected her from the pinpricks of mosquitoes, but those were cast aside for the evening as a steady heat crawled across her body, her body taught against a flush of blood. The blood beneath her skin provided a frustrating itch, swelling that may not have been as petulant as a mosquito bite, but still begged to be scratched. A smile burst from beneath her lips, her eyes cast downward in her glee. Was infidelity the worst crime she had committed? Perhaps her greatest sin was her intent reservation- her beauty palpable and shrouded, how could men bear not to touch? Was that her appeal? The mere mystery of what laid below her wraps and dresses? If it was, Zoser was not influenced by it now that those garments had been cast aside, a rigid posture accentuating wiles unseen.
The grab against her flesh had her body grow even more taught, her breath staggered when his fingers dug into a spot reserved for only Onuphrious. Her eyes widened to his, opening herself by throwing her shoulders back and letting her fingernails tickle the side of his face. “You’re right. And it’s time people remembered it,” her disjointed mind recalls the disrespectful pull of her scarf on the street. A husband in Thebes that ignored her existence. Children that disregarded her wisdom. She was the mother of a Prince and one of the most prominent businesswomen in Egypt. Her fingernails, in their retreat to her sides, press into his neck, scratching along contours that her teeth yearned to ensnare.
And it pleased her so that he shared her distaste. She expected no less from a man so attuned to her own essence. A hearty laugh causes her feet to falter the slightest, glittering eyes fixated on a jawline her fingers just danced around, pirouetting around stubble and distinctive moles. It felt like the night would never end until the man retracted away from her, leaving Iaheru to brace herself against the wall. “My Lady Neithotep…”
Iaheru, in her heated frustration, her sudden movement, all culminating to the subtle lift of her chin to see the form of a daughter absent, felt bile and olives creeping up the back of her throat. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out, dumbfounded by the young Nia’s presence and the obscure happenstance. Iaheru could hear it now, tangled with the strife of the potential marriage, Neithotep’s insidious bite. The two women knew how to creep beneath each other’s skin, pressing outwards and stretching thin the already lacking patience, Iaheru gagged at the thoughts, a cold sweat passed over golden skin gone pale. “Neithotep,” she begins to pull herself to her typical posture, knowing that she couldn’t step away from Zoser for the purposes of image. Iaheru wasn’t sure of her strategy and wine didn’t lend to good outcomes. “I was just speaking to Zoser about retiring to our guest quarters. It is quite a strange night. Perhaps it is too cold for your liking?” Iaheru began to walk nearer to a daughter, concealed by the indigo night but noticeably timid for her nature. Iaheru stopped just short of seeing Neithotep through bleary eyes and clouded embarrassment, drunken intuition instructing her to oddly return to her perch next to Zoser, a friendly hand tenderly resting on his bicep, a gesture of goodwill if anything else. Her mouth fills with stagnant sickness. “Would you care for wine?” Iaheru offers in an artificial, motherly intonation that immediately conveys to Neithotep that the daughter was not welcome to anything other than taking her leave, politely, at that. “I believe that our party has cared too much for it tonight. Wouldn’t you say the same, Zoser?” Iaheru chuckled, her coolness exhibiting more anxiety than usual, her strafe off-balance for a woman so desperately committed to exacting oppressive control of her life.
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Nov 11, 2019 22:10:14 GMT
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Iaheru bristled against his touch, shocked that it had found the low of her back without resistance. A nearly inaudible purr emanated from her chest as she settled into Zoser. She took deep breaths, the slightest twinge of nausea overcoming threatening the back of her tongue should she move too suddenly. Lips so perfectly painted smeared outside of darkened lines, parting slightly when the slow circles of a thumb ran over four delicate bones leading to rings and painted fingertips. Whatever reservations she had towards infidelity, and even with the advent of the prior year, these reservations remained robust, were dulled by the heat, the wine, the opulence, and the intimacy of a moment alone on the roof. Their only guest in this orange paint stroked moment the sparsely curling white smoke from braziers emitting mosquito repelling incense.
Iaheru’s coverings protected her from the pinpricks of mosquitoes, but those were cast aside for the evening as a steady heat crawled across her body, her body taught against a flush of blood. The blood beneath her skin provided a frustrating itch, swelling that may not have been as petulant as a mosquito bite, but still begged to be scratched. A smile burst from beneath her lips, her eyes cast downward in her glee. Was infidelity the worst crime she had committed? Perhaps her greatest sin was her intent reservation- her beauty palpable and shrouded, how could men bear not to touch? Was that her appeal? The mere mystery of what laid below her wraps and dresses? If it was, Zoser was not influenced by it now that those garments had been cast aside, a rigid posture accentuating wiles unseen.
The grab against her flesh had her body grow even more taught, her breath staggered when his fingers dug into a spot reserved for only Onuphrious. Her eyes widened to his, opening herself by throwing her shoulders back and letting her fingernails tickle the side of his face. “You’re right. And it’s time people remembered it,” her disjointed mind recalls the disrespectful pull of her scarf on the street. A husband in Thebes that ignored her existence. Children that disregarded her wisdom. She was the mother of a Prince and one of the most prominent businesswomen in Egypt. Her fingernails, in their retreat to her sides, press into his neck, scratching along contours that her teeth yearned to ensnare.
And it pleased her so that he shared her distaste. She expected no less from a man so attuned to her own essence. A hearty laugh causes her feet to falter the slightest, glittering eyes fixated on a jawline her fingers just danced around, pirouetting around stubble and distinctive moles. It felt like the night would never end until the man retracted away from her, leaving Iaheru to brace herself against the wall. “My Lady Neithotep…”
Iaheru, in her heated frustration, her sudden movement, all culminating to the subtle lift of her chin to see the form of a daughter absent, felt bile and olives creeping up the back of her throat. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out, dumbfounded by the young Nia’s presence and the obscure happenstance. Iaheru could hear it now, tangled with the strife of the potential marriage, Neithotep’s insidious bite. The two women knew how to creep beneath each other’s skin, pressing outwards and stretching thin the already lacking patience, Iaheru gagged at the thoughts, a cold sweat passed over golden skin gone pale. “Neithotep,” she begins to pull herself to her typical posture, knowing that she couldn’t step away from Zoser for the purposes of image. Iaheru wasn’t sure of her strategy and wine didn’t lend to good outcomes. “I was just speaking to Zoser about retiring to our guest quarters. It is quite a strange night. Perhaps it is too cold for your liking?” Iaheru began to walk nearer to a daughter, concealed by the indigo night but noticeably timid for her nature. Iaheru stopped just short of seeing Neithotep through bleary eyes and clouded embarrassment, drunken intuition instructing her to oddly return to her perch next to Zoser, a friendly hand tenderly resting on his bicep, a gesture of goodwill if anything else. Her mouth fills with stagnant sickness. “Would you care for wine?” Iaheru offers in an artificial, motherly intonation that immediately conveys to Neithotep that the daughter was not welcome to anything other than taking her leave, politely, at that. “I believe that our party has cared too much for it tonight. Wouldn’t you say the same, Zoser?” Iaheru chuckled, her coolness exhibiting more anxiety than usual, her strafe off-balance for a woman so desperately committed to exacting oppressive control of her life.
Iaheru bristled against his touch, shocked that it had found the low of her back without resistance. A nearly inaudible purr emanated from her chest as she settled into Zoser. She took deep breaths, the slightest twinge of nausea overcoming threatening the back of her tongue should she move too suddenly. Lips so perfectly painted smeared outside of darkened lines, parting slightly when the slow circles of a thumb ran over four delicate bones leading to rings and painted fingertips. Whatever reservations she had towards infidelity, and even with the advent of the prior year, these reservations remained robust, were dulled by the heat, the wine, the opulence, and the intimacy of a moment alone on the roof. Their only guest in this orange paint stroked moment the sparsely curling white smoke from braziers emitting mosquito repelling incense.
Iaheru’s coverings protected her from the pinpricks of mosquitoes, but those were cast aside for the evening as a steady heat crawled across her body, her body taught against a flush of blood. The blood beneath her skin provided a frustrating itch, swelling that may not have been as petulant as a mosquito bite, but still begged to be scratched. A smile burst from beneath her lips, her eyes cast downward in her glee. Was infidelity the worst crime she had committed? Perhaps her greatest sin was her intent reservation- her beauty palpable and shrouded, how could men bear not to touch? Was that her appeal? The mere mystery of what laid below her wraps and dresses? If it was, Zoser was not influenced by it now that those garments had been cast aside, a rigid posture accentuating wiles unseen.
The grab against her flesh had her body grow even more taught, her breath staggered when his fingers dug into a spot reserved for only Onuphrious. Her eyes widened to his, opening herself by throwing her shoulders back and letting her fingernails tickle the side of his face. “You’re right. And it’s time people remembered it,” her disjointed mind recalls the disrespectful pull of her scarf on the street. A husband in Thebes that ignored her existence. Children that disregarded her wisdom. She was the mother of a Prince and one of the most prominent businesswomen in Egypt. Her fingernails, in their retreat to her sides, press into his neck, scratching along contours that her teeth yearned to ensnare.
And it pleased her so that he shared her distaste. She expected no less from a man so attuned to her own essence. A hearty laugh causes her feet to falter the slightest, glittering eyes fixated on a jawline her fingers just danced around, pirouetting around stubble and distinctive moles. It felt like the night would never end until the man retracted away from her, leaving Iaheru to brace herself against the wall. “My Lady Neithotep…”
Iaheru, in her heated frustration, her sudden movement, all culminating to the subtle lift of her chin to see the form of a daughter absent, felt bile and olives creeping up the back of her throat. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out, dumbfounded by the young Nia’s presence and the obscure happenstance. Iaheru could hear it now, tangled with the strife of the potential marriage, Neithotep’s insidious bite. The two women knew how to creep beneath each other’s skin, pressing outwards and stretching thin the already lacking patience, Iaheru gagged at the thoughts, a cold sweat passed over golden skin gone pale. “Neithotep,” she begins to pull herself to her typical posture, knowing that she couldn’t step away from Zoser for the purposes of image. Iaheru wasn’t sure of her strategy and wine didn’t lend to good outcomes. “I was just speaking to Zoser about retiring to our guest quarters. It is quite a strange night. Perhaps it is too cold for your liking?” Iaheru began to walk nearer to a daughter, concealed by the indigo night but noticeably timid for her nature. Iaheru stopped just short of seeing Neithotep through bleary eyes and clouded embarrassment, drunken intuition instructing her to oddly return to her perch next to Zoser, a friendly hand tenderly resting on his bicep, a gesture of goodwill if anything else. Her mouth fills with stagnant sickness. “Would you care for wine?” Iaheru offers in an artificial, motherly intonation that immediately conveys to Neithotep that the daughter was not welcome to anything other than taking her leave, politely, at that. “I believe that our party has cared too much for it tonight. Wouldn’t you say the same, Zoser?” Iaheru chuckled, her coolness exhibiting more anxiety than usual, her strafe off-balance for a woman so desperately committed to exacting oppressive control of her life.
“You know what? A glass of wine sounds just lovely.” Neithotep’s smile was as brittle as dry leaves as she stared Iaheru down, loudly and bodily pulling up a chair so that she might seat herself right between them. Grabbing a bottle and the first glass she saw, she tossed the remaining liquid to the side and filled it nearly to the brim. “But that’s okay, don’t worry about getting it for me. I wouldn’t want you to tax yourself.”
Seating herself in the chair she’d dragged over, she leaned back and took a long swallow, shuddering as she released her angrily pent-up breath. “After the night I’ve had, I’m completely certain I need it even more than you do, Mother. But it’s all right. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Turning toward Zoser, her look was almost accusatory, dark dilated eyes threatening to burn holes in his with the heat of their gaze. “I looked for you in the archives, you know,” she informed him, voice flat as she took another large swallow of the wine. She couldn’t even taste it for the overwhelming flavor of opium that still lingered in her mouth, but she could feel its warmth spreading through her belly. At least it was doing its job. “And you weren’t there. I was upset at first, but I thought, ‘you know, that’s okay, I don’t own him. He doesn’t have to be everywhere I need him to be. He didn’t know.’ But then I wasn’t sure where to go. I thought maybe I’d go see Sutekh, except this time for real.”
Her searing gaze turned on her mother instead. “You know, like all those times I said I was going to? I was lying. I lie quite a lot, actually, but it’s not like you really care about the truth, anyway. If you did, I think you’d ask more questions.” Hazy mahogany orbs lingered on Iaheru for several moments longer, not even breaking eye contact as she took another swallow of the wine. In spite of the slur of her words, her gaze was sharp as knives, berating her caregiver with a pointed intensity.
Abruptly, she turned away from the Sheifa matriarch and looked back at Zoser instead, continuing in a singsong-y voice, “Anyway, as I was saying! I didn’t go see Sutekh, because why in the world would he even be up so late? So I thought, ‘where should I go instead? Maybe I’ll just go home and sit on the roof to watch the sun rise, just as it does every morning, and remind myself that life goes on, that no matter how awful or strange things get, that the sun will rise every day and set every night, and things will get better and so on and so on…’ You know. Some poetic shit like that.”
Nia’s face was twisted in a bitter mask as she finished off the glass of wine, rising on wobbly feet to procure herself a refill. Shaky hands sloshed some of the liquid over the side, but she hardly seemed to notice. She was far too deep in her intoxicated ramble by then, though an inner voice screamed at her to stop before she said something she might regret. It was too late for that. She was filled with drugged up conviction and indignation, and by all the gods, she was going to say what she had to say. She’d practically caught her self-righteous mother falling into the scribe’s arms, and there was no way she was going to just let this go unremarked. Not with all the berating she’d gone through over the years for her own very… similar… behavior.
“But do you know what I found instead of the peace I wanted?” Still standing, she turned to face the both of them, accusing eyes glancing back and forth. “My drunken mother throwing herself at a man who isn’t my father, while during the day, she espouses the… virtues of honor and loyalty and honesty. Strange how all that goes away when it’s you shaming yourself and not me, eh, Mother?”
Her look settled on Iaheru, jaw clenching while anger and betrayal fought for dominance on her face. “But that’s what you do, isn’t it? You punish and reprimand me for the very things you do yourself behind closed doors when you think no one is watching. Things like… this.” She gestured between them in disgust with the same hand that held her wine, yet more of the beverage leaving its vessel and dripping down her arm. “But it’s okay, I know why you do it. You hate these things about yourself, you hate how human you really are, and you hate that I’m so similar to you, only I have no shame in showing it. But if you knew just how similar we really are…”
She looked back at Zoser, voice dripping with a sugary malcontent. “But Zoser knows. And maybe that’s why he’s here. Can’t resist the Sheifa women, huh? Seems like no one can. Everyone from scribes to lords to… Pharaohs.” She turned back to Iaheru with a lift of her brow, wondering if the woman was even lucid enough to catch onto her meaning. “A blessing and a curse, wouldn’t you agree?”
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Nov 19, 2019 4:26:49 GMT
Posted In Bear Witness on Nov 19, 2019 4:26:49 GMT
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“You know what? A glass of wine sounds just lovely.” Neithotep’s smile was as brittle as dry leaves as she stared Iaheru down, loudly and bodily pulling up a chair so that she might seat herself right between them. Grabbing a bottle and the first glass she saw, she tossed the remaining liquid to the side and filled it nearly to the brim. “But that’s okay, don’t worry about getting it for me. I wouldn’t want you to tax yourself.”
Seating herself in the chair she’d dragged over, she leaned back and took a long swallow, shuddering as she released her angrily pent-up breath. “After the night I’ve had, I’m completely certain I need it even more than you do, Mother. But it’s all right. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Turning toward Zoser, her look was almost accusatory, dark dilated eyes threatening to burn holes in his with the heat of their gaze. “I looked for you in the archives, you know,” she informed him, voice flat as she took another large swallow of the wine. She couldn’t even taste it for the overwhelming flavor of opium that still lingered in her mouth, but she could feel its warmth spreading through her belly. At least it was doing its job. “And you weren’t there. I was upset at first, but I thought, ‘you know, that’s okay, I don’t own him. He doesn’t have to be everywhere I need him to be. He didn’t know.’ But then I wasn’t sure where to go. I thought maybe I’d go see Sutekh, except this time for real.”
Her searing gaze turned on her mother instead. “You know, like all those times I said I was going to? I was lying. I lie quite a lot, actually, but it’s not like you really care about the truth, anyway. If you did, I think you’d ask more questions.” Hazy mahogany orbs lingered on Iaheru for several moments longer, not even breaking eye contact as she took another swallow of the wine. In spite of the slur of her words, her gaze was sharp as knives, berating her caregiver with a pointed intensity.
Abruptly, she turned away from the Sheifa matriarch and looked back at Zoser instead, continuing in a singsong-y voice, “Anyway, as I was saying! I didn’t go see Sutekh, because why in the world would he even be up so late? So I thought, ‘where should I go instead? Maybe I’ll just go home and sit on the roof to watch the sun rise, just as it does every morning, and remind myself that life goes on, that no matter how awful or strange things get, that the sun will rise every day and set every night, and things will get better and so on and so on…’ You know. Some poetic shit like that.”
Nia’s face was twisted in a bitter mask as she finished off the glass of wine, rising on wobbly feet to procure herself a refill. Shaky hands sloshed some of the liquid over the side, but she hardly seemed to notice. She was far too deep in her intoxicated ramble by then, though an inner voice screamed at her to stop before she said something she might regret. It was too late for that. She was filled with drugged up conviction and indignation, and by all the gods, she was going to say what she had to say. She’d practically caught her self-righteous mother falling into the scribe’s arms, and there was no way she was going to just let this go unremarked. Not with all the berating she’d gone through over the years for her own very… similar… behavior.
“But do you know what I found instead of the peace I wanted?” Still standing, she turned to face the both of them, accusing eyes glancing back and forth. “My drunken mother throwing herself at a man who isn’t my father, while during the day, she espouses the… virtues of honor and loyalty and honesty. Strange how all that goes away when it’s you shaming yourself and not me, eh, Mother?”
Her look settled on Iaheru, jaw clenching while anger and betrayal fought for dominance on her face. “But that’s what you do, isn’t it? You punish and reprimand me for the very things you do yourself behind closed doors when you think no one is watching. Things like… this.” She gestured between them in disgust with the same hand that held her wine, yet more of the beverage leaving its vessel and dripping down her arm. “But it’s okay, I know why you do it. You hate these things about yourself, you hate how human you really are, and you hate that I’m so similar to you, only I have no shame in showing it. But if you knew just how similar we really are…”
She looked back at Zoser, voice dripping with a sugary malcontent. “But Zoser knows. And maybe that’s why he’s here. Can’t resist the Sheifa women, huh? Seems like no one can. Everyone from scribes to lords to… Pharaohs.” She turned back to Iaheru with a lift of her brow, wondering if the woman was even lucid enough to catch onto her meaning. “A blessing and a curse, wouldn’t you agree?”
“You know what? A glass of wine sounds just lovely.” Neithotep’s smile was as brittle as dry leaves as she stared Iaheru down, loudly and bodily pulling up a chair so that she might seat herself right between them. Grabbing a bottle and the first glass she saw, she tossed the remaining liquid to the side and filled it nearly to the brim. “But that’s okay, don’t worry about getting it for me. I wouldn’t want you to tax yourself.”
Seating herself in the chair she’d dragged over, she leaned back and took a long swallow, shuddering as she released her angrily pent-up breath. “After the night I’ve had, I’m completely certain I need it even more than you do, Mother. But it’s all right. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Turning toward Zoser, her look was almost accusatory, dark dilated eyes threatening to burn holes in his with the heat of their gaze. “I looked for you in the archives, you know,” she informed him, voice flat as she took another large swallow of the wine. She couldn’t even taste it for the overwhelming flavor of opium that still lingered in her mouth, but she could feel its warmth spreading through her belly. At least it was doing its job. “And you weren’t there. I was upset at first, but I thought, ‘you know, that’s okay, I don’t own him. He doesn’t have to be everywhere I need him to be. He didn’t know.’ But then I wasn’t sure where to go. I thought maybe I’d go see Sutekh, except this time for real.”
Her searing gaze turned on her mother instead. “You know, like all those times I said I was going to? I was lying. I lie quite a lot, actually, but it’s not like you really care about the truth, anyway. If you did, I think you’d ask more questions.” Hazy mahogany orbs lingered on Iaheru for several moments longer, not even breaking eye contact as she took another swallow of the wine. In spite of the slur of her words, her gaze was sharp as knives, berating her caregiver with a pointed intensity.
Abruptly, she turned away from the Sheifa matriarch and looked back at Zoser instead, continuing in a singsong-y voice, “Anyway, as I was saying! I didn’t go see Sutekh, because why in the world would he even be up so late? So I thought, ‘where should I go instead? Maybe I’ll just go home and sit on the roof to watch the sun rise, just as it does every morning, and remind myself that life goes on, that no matter how awful or strange things get, that the sun will rise every day and set every night, and things will get better and so on and so on…’ You know. Some poetic shit like that.”
Nia’s face was twisted in a bitter mask as she finished off the glass of wine, rising on wobbly feet to procure herself a refill. Shaky hands sloshed some of the liquid over the side, but she hardly seemed to notice. She was far too deep in her intoxicated ramble by then, though an inner voice screamed at her to stop before she said something she might regret. It was too late for that. She was filled with drugged up conviction and indignation, and by all the gods, she was going to say what she had to say. She’d practically caught her self-righteous mother falling into the scribe’s arms, and there was no way she was going to just let this go unremarked. Not with all the berating she’d gone through over the years for her own very… similar… behavior.
“But do you know what I found instead of the peace I wanted?” Still standing, she turned to face the both of them, accusing eyes glancing back and forth. “My drunken mother throwing herself at a man who isn’t my father, while during the day, she espouses the… virtues of honor and loyalty and honesty. Strange how all that goes away when it’s you shaming yourself and not me, eh, Mother?”
Her look settled on Iaheru, jaw clenching while anger and betrayal fought for dominance on her face. “But that’s what you do, isn’t it? You punish and reprimand me for the very things you do yourself behind closed doors when you think no one is watching. Things like… this.” She gestured between them in disgust with the same hand that held her wine, yet more of the beverage leaving its vessel and dripping down her arm. “But it’s okay, I know why you do it. You hate these things about yourself, you hate how human you really are, and you hate that I’m so similar to you, only I have no shame in showing it. But if you knew just how similar we really are…”
She looked back at Zoser, voice dripping with a sugary malcontent. “But Zoser knows. And maybe that’s why he’s here. Can’t resist the Sheifa women, huh? Seems like no one can. Everyone from scribes to lords to… Pharaohs.” She turned back to Iaheru with a lift of her brow, wondering if the woman was even lucid enough to catch onto her meaning. “A blessing and a curse, wouldn’t you agree?”
Relief coupled with unwarranted anticipation as Iaheru’s fingertips slipped along the tendon of his neck, the sensation nearly emptying his mind of all thought and only evidenced by the flutter of an eyelid that he turned into a deliberate blink.
In an oddly out-of-body moment, his mind wandered decades into the past, into his lust youth when such tristes were common with fair-skinned Grecian maids. Had the gods decided to keep him in Egypt, would their paths have crossed? This moment resembled those fumbling, bashful adolescent explorations in such a distinct way, only with more grace and experience. Yet, the thrill of behaving badly was as intoxicating as the wine, and he could not help but chuckle lightly as her fingers carved paths through the rugged terrain of his stubble and newly shorn hair.
Of course, the risk of behaving badly was getting caught.
Seeing Lady Neithotep’s face as realization dawned on her, Zoser took a moment to respectfully look away, unwilling to meet her eyes. It was good as an admission of guilt, despite nothing more than a few intimately place touches were exchanged. Given the state of her, he held no question as to where she had been, and glanced sidelong at her, a masked guilt spilling out of the corner of his eye before glancing to Iaheru to ensure she had not seen it.
The crackle of tension between the women was palpable as Iaheru offered an explanation without removing herself from his side for support. As a guilty man would, his body wished to shift away from the scene of the crime, yet any movement he made now would simply serve as a confession of guilt for a crime that had not yet been committed. He knew how this looked.
As the women addressed one another, Zoser’s hand blindly reached for his goblet to offer some self-soothing mechanism in his hand, but grasped at the air twice before looking. Ah right, it had fallen when the young noblewoman’s arrival startled him. Instead he let his hand grip the railing and sent up a silent prayer that the gods would move the young woman from the top of the stairs so he could make a swift descent as opposed to the other desperate option of launching himself over the railing to drop one story to the ground below.
‘After the night I’ve had, I’m completely certain I need it even more than you do, Mother. But it’s all right. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you."
Zoser’s eyes flashed up and met hers, wide and incredulous that she would even taunt and tease the most serious subject of her whereabouts up until now. Good fortune had Iaheru inebriated and facing Niethotep, allowing Zoser jaw to stiffen and for him to give her a very sharp, curt shake of his head, silently bidding her to stop.
Alas, upon seeing that, she sniped at him about his whereabouts, the words cracking like a slave-drivers whip across his expression.
“Lady Iaheru’s gathering drew me away,” he offered plainly, his voice low and lacking its usual inflection as if to offer some simplicity to his answer instead of revealing the blow. Instead, as if to pour vinegar over the fresh lash, she continued dangerously forth and ripped away one of the safeguards he had put into place - the lie of Neithotep’s visits to Sutekh to cover her visits to the Palace.
“My Lady, please...”
At this point, Zoser could not stop his uncomfortable shift away from Iaheru as he throat tightened, knowing that this needed to be stopped before it became a speeding cart tumbling down the way. Running a hand down his face as she continued, seemingly overjoyed to pluck away the delicately woven fibers that he had machinated over the passing weeks, Zoser’s gaze shifted to Iaheru, wondering when the words would process and sink in.
Zoser looked desperately towards the staircase, blocked by Neithotep as she refilled her glass.
His eyes glanced up at the sky in an arc, as if asking the gods silently if they were having a good time watching this scene play out.
There was a dangerous shift in the young woman’s voice as she pinned his eyes, dawning realization that she was preparing to plunge into the depths of the truth.
His words came tumbling out in a rush, addressing them both, “This is hardly the time for such talk, the wine has words flowing too freely. I should go-”
Ah, there it was. She named him, incriminating him in that instant.
Zoser face contorted at the revelation, a sneer whether at the revelation itself or the part he played in it all, he did not know. A coward all his life, his feet had been moving towards the stairs in seek of an escape but they stopped, stilled by the knowledge that what was set out in the air now could not be returned.
Additionally, as his own mind processed the words, he felt a false incrimination that could be woven from them, his brows furrowing as the slightest urge to defend was little dignity and innocence he had in this situation bubbled up through the wine.
“...I only wanted to help.”
Yet, as the words bubbled forward, they sounded like an admission of guilt over a stoic defense.
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Nov 26, 2019 13:17:13 GMT
Posted In Bear Witness on Nov 26, 2019 13:17:13 GMT
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Relief coupled with unwarranted anticipation as Iaheru’s fingertips slipped along the tendon of his neck, the sensation nearly emptying his mind of all thought and only evidenced by the flutter of an eyelid that he turned into a deliberate blink.
In an oddly out-of-body moment, his mind wandered decades into the past, into his lust youth when such tristes were common with fair-skinned Grecian maids. Had the gods decided to keep him in Egypt, would their paths have crossed? This moment resembled those fumbling, bashful adolescent explorations in such a distinct way, only with more grace and experience. Yet, the thrill of behaving badly was as intoxicating as the wine, and he could not help but chuckle lightly as her fingers carved paths through the rugged terrain of his stubble and newly shorn hair.
Of course, the risk of behaving badly was getting caught.
Seeing Lady Neithotep’s face as realization dawned on her, Zoser took a moment to respectfully look away, unwilling to meet her eyes. It was good as an admission of guilt, despite nothing more than a few intimately place touches were exchanged. Given the state of her, he held no question as to where she had been, and glanced sidelong at her, a masked guilt spilling out of the corner of his eye before glancing to Iaheru to ensure she had not seen it.
The crackle of tension between the women was palpable as Iaheru offered an explanation without removing herself from his side for support. As a guilty man would, his body wished to shift away from the scene of the crime, yet any movement he made now would simply serve as a confession of guilt for a crime that had not yet been committed. He knew how this looked.
As the women addressed one another, Zoser’s hand blindly reached for his goblet to offer some self-soothing mechanism in his hand, but grasped at the air twice before looking. Ah right, it had fallen when the young noblewoman’s arrival startled him. Instead he let his hand grip the railing and sent up a silent prayer that the gods would move the young woman from the top of the stairs so he could make a swift descent as opposed to the other desperate option of launching himself over the railing to drop one story to the ground below.
‘After the night I’ve had, I’m completely certain I need it even more than you do, Mother. But it’s all right. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you."
Zoser’s eyes flashed up and met hers, wide and incredulous that she would even taunt and tease the most serious subject of her whereabouts up until now. Good fortune had Iaheru inebriated and facing Niethotep, allowing Zoser jaw to stiffen and for him to give her a very sharp, curt shake of his head, silently bidding her to stop.
Alas, upon seeing that, she sniped at him about his whereabouts, the words cracking like a slave-drivers whip across his expression.
“Lady Iaheru’s gathering drew me away,” he offered plainly, his voice low and lacking its usual inflection as if to offer some simplicity to his answer instead of revealing the blow. Instead, as if to pour vinegar over the fresh lash, she continued dangerously forth and ripped away one of the safeguards he had put into place - the lie of Neithotep’s visits to Sutekh to cover her visits to the Palace.
“My Lady, please...”
At this point, Zoser could not stop his uncomfortable shift away from Iaheru as he throat tightened, knowing that this needed to be stopped before it became a speeding cart tumbling down the way. Running a hand down his face as she continued, seemingly overjoyed to pluck away the delicately woven fibers that he had machinated over the passing weeks, Zoser’s gaze shifted to Iaheru, wondering when the words would process and sink in.
Zoser looked desperately towards the staircase, blocked by Neithotep as she refilled her glass.
His eyes glanced up at the sky in an arc, as if asking the gods silently if they were having a good time watching this scene play out.
There was a dangerous shift in the young woman’s voice as she pinned his eyes, dawning realization that she was preparing to plunge into the depths of the truth.
His words came tumbling out in a rush, addressing them both, “This is hardly the time for such talk, the wine has words flowing too freely. I should go-”
Ah, there it was. She named him, incriminating him in that instant.
Zoser face contorted at the revelation, a sneer whether at the revelation itself or the part he played in it all, he did not know. A coward all his life, his feet had been moving towards the stairs in seek of an escape but they stopped, stilled by the knowledge that what was set out in the air now could not be returned.
Additionally, as his own mind processed the words, he felt a false incrimination that could be woven from them, his brows furrowing as the slightest urge to defend was little dignity and innocence he had in this situation bubbled up through the wine.
“...I only wanted to help.”
Yet, as the words bubbled forward, they sounded like an admission of guilt over a stoic defense.
Relief coupled with unwarranted anticipation as Iaheru’s fingertips slipped along the tendon of his neck, the sensation nearly emptying his mind of all thought and only evidenced by the flutter of an eyelid that he turned into a deliberate blink.
In an oddly out-of-body moment, his mind wandered decades into the past, into his lust youth when such tristes were common with fair-skinned Grecian maids. Had the gods decided to keep him in Egypt, would their paths have crossed? This moment resembled those fumbling, bashful adolescent explorations in such a distinct way, only with more grace and experience. Yet, the thrill of behaving badly was as intoxicating as the wine, and he could not help but chuckle lightly as her fingers carved paths through the rugged terrain of his stubble and newly shorn hair.
Of course, the risk of behaving badly was getting caught.
Seeing Lady Neithotep’s face as realization dawned on her, Zoser took a moment to respectfully look away, unwilling to meet her eyes. It was good as an admission of guilt, despite nothing more than a few intimately place touches were exchanged. Given the state of her, he held no question as to where she had been, and glanced sidelong at her, a masked guilt spilling out of the corner of his eye before glancing to Iaheru to ensure she had not seen it.
The crackle of tension between the women was palpable as Iaheru offered an explanation without removing herself from his side for support. As a guilty man would, his body wished to shift away from the scene of the crime, yet any movement he made now would simply serve as a confession of guilt for a crime that had not yet been committed. He knew how this looked.
As the women addressed one another, Zoser’s hand blindly reached for his goblet to offer some self-soothing mechanism in his hand, but grasped at the air twice before looking. Ah right, it had fallen when the young noblewoman’s arrival startled him. Instead he let his hand grip the railing and sent up a silent prayer that the gods would move the young woman from the top of the stairs so he could make a swift descent as opposed to the other desperate option of launching himself over the railing to drop one story to the ground below.
‘After the night I’ve had, I’m completely certain I need it even more than you do, Mother. But it’s all right. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you."
Zoser’s eyes flashed up and met hers, wide and incredulous that she would even taunt and tease the most serious subject of her whereabouts up until now. Good fortune had Iaheru inebriated and facing Niethotep, allowing Zoser jaw to stiffen and for him to give her a very sharp, curt shake of his head, silently bidding her to stop.
Alas, upon seeing that, she sniped at him about his whereabouts, the words cracking like a slave-drivers whip across his expression.
“Lady Iaheru’s gathering drew me away,” he offered plainly, his voice low and lacking its usual inflection as if to offer some simplicity to his answer instead of revealing the blow. Instead, as if to pour vinegar over the fresh lash, she continued dangerously forth and ripped away one of the safeguards he had put into place - the lie of Neithotep’s visits to Sutekh to cover her visits to the Palace.
“My Lady, please...”
At this point, Zoser could not stop his uncomfortable shift away from Iaheru as he throat tightened, knowing that this needed to be stopped before it became a speeding cart tumbling down the way. Running a hand down his face as she continued, seemingly overjoyed to pluck away the delicately woven fibers that he had machinated over the passing weeks, Zoser’s gaze shifted to Iaheru, wondering when the words would process and sink in.
Zoser looked desperately towards the staircase, blocked by Neithotep as she refilled her glass.
His eyes glanced up at the sky in an arc, as if asking the gods silently if they were having a good time watching this scene play out.
There was a dangerous shift in the young woman’s voice as she pinned his eyes, dawning realization that she was preparing to plunge into the depths of the truth.
His words came tumbling out in a rush, addressing them both, “This is hardly the time for such talk, the wine has words flowing too freely. I should go-”
Ah, there it was. She named him, incriminating him in that instant.
Zoser face contorted at the revelation, a sneer whether at the revelation itself or the part he played in it all, he did not know. A coward all his life, his feet had been moving towards the stairs in seek of an escape but they stopped, stilled by the knowledge that what was set out in the air now could not be returned.
Additionally, as his own mind processed the words, he felt a false incrimination that could be woven from them, his brows furrowing as the slightest urge to defend was little dignity and innocence he had in this situation bubbled up through the wine.
“...I only wanted to help.”
Yet, as the words bubbled forward, they sounded like an admission of guilt over a stoic defense.
Paling skin juxtaposed the smudged kohl rimming rapidly blinking eyes, a desperate attempt to prevent tears and to beckon a new reality. Comforting darkness and the far-off glimmer of orange lights blurred into a nauseating marble. Surely, this was a poppy dream! Maniacal laughter and bile prick the back of the same tongue, but neither reaction materializes in the midst of Neithotep’s monologues.
From her daughter’s dry lips, Iaheru watched the young woman seize her birthright as the serpent parsed through straight teeth, venom like carmine smeared each lazy lash directed at Iaheru. In a moment of surrealism, Iaheru saw each word scribbled in a fervent yellow light, highlighting each curve of tangible Coptic before the brilliance faded away into the suffocating, curling smoke from braziers lining the rooftop. Drunken malaise entertained overstimulation and hallucination, altering reality into something more and aggressively less palatable all at once.
Iaheru’s inebriation did not dull her intuition and the revelations about the man supporting her caused her to recoil immediately from his touch. Betrayal rooted inside of her, tying intestines into knots and pinpricks coursing through her fingertips. “Why was she looking for you,” Iaheru responded, disorganized haze giving way to her inquisitive nature. Had her daughter lied about visiting Sutekh? To visit Zoser? Although their recent physical intimacy was misplaced, had her longstanding, intimate friendship with Zoser opened her daughter to exploitation? Iaheru had always admired Zoser’s reputation as the confidante to all of Egypt, but he was but one man, prone to his own faults and bias, and Iaheru felt herself stupid to have believed that a shared ear equated a silent tongue. Her fingers, adorned with thick golden bands and filed points, clenched around Zoser’s arm so that the skin turned white under her grasp. “I think you should stay,” Iaheru concluded with a wide smile and polite laugh, further punctuating her anger with the quick jerk of her captive. "We are nothing if not the messes we create."
As for her daughter, as for the revelations not quite resonating, Iaheru locked eyes with her accusatory foil. Nefertari took after Onuphrious. Neithotep took after Iaheru, with doe-eyes and a nose shared, Iaheru could see the physical correlation but it wasn’t until this moment that she empathized with her daughter’s pain. Eyes that were once squinted were now wide as enraged nostrils. Neithotep’s rants steeled Iaheru, pulling her chin higher, her posture tauter, her grasp on Zoser snaked tighter and tighter until she shoves the man from her.
Soft clicks of delicate sandals crunched against the thin sprinkling of sand on her rooftops. Like Neithotep stated, the sun would still rise and the slaves would sweep away the morning sand from everywhere it settled in Saraaya Sheifa. Indifferently, Iaheru approached her daughter, “What else is there to say?” She placed a hand on her hip, so close to Neithotep’s face that her daughter could likely smell the grapes on her breath.
In all the grace she could muster, Iaheru placed her hand on Neithotep’s wine glass, the movement jostling the contents and spilling sticky, almost noxiously sweet, wine on her golden embroidered hemlines. Eyes scanned up bruised arms culminating in a darting, fearful gaze of a woman Iaheru had seen in herself before. Dread settled in the same pit as Zoser's betrayal, her grip on the wine glass intensifying before yelling with a similar desperation, “What else is there to say!” Iaheru wrestled to pour out the wine glass on the tiles, catching her breath as wafted perfume threatened her composure.
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Check out their information page here.
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Paling skin juxtaposed the smudged kohl rimming rapidly blinking eyes, a desperate attempt to prevent tears and to beckon a new reality. Comforting darkness and the far-off glimmer of orange lights blurred into a nauseating marble. Surely, this was a poppy dream! Maniacal laughter and bile prick the back of the same tongue, but neither reaction materializes in the midst of Neithotep’s monologues.
From her daughter’s dry lips, Iaheru watched the young woman seize her birthright as the serpent parsed through straight teeth, venom like carmine smeared each lazy lash directed at Iaheru. In a moment of surrealism, Iaheru saw each word scribbled in a fervent yellow light, highlighting each curve of tangible Coptic before the brilliance faded away into the suffocating, curling smoke from braziers lining the rooftop. Drunken malaise entertained overstimulation and hallucination, altering reality into something more and aggressively less palatable all at once.
Iaheru’s inebriation did not dull her intuition and the revelations about the man supporting her caused her to recoil immediately from his touch. Betrayal rooted inside of her, tying intestines into knots and pinpricks coursing through her fingertips. “Why was she looking for you,” Iaheru responded, disorganized haze giving way to her inquisitive nature. Had her daughter lied about visiting Sutekh? To visit Zoser? Although their recent physical intimacy was misplaced, had her longstanding, intimate friendship with Zoser opened her daughter to exploitation? Iaheru had always admired Zoser’s reputation as the confidante to all of Egypt, but he was but one man, prone to his own faults and bias, and Iaheru felt herself stupid to have believed that a shared ear equated a silent tongue. Her fingers, adorned with thick golden bands and filed points, clenched around Zoser’s arm so that the skin turned white under her grasp. “I think you should stay,” Iaheru concluded with a wide smile and polite laugh, further punctuating her anger with the quick jerk of her captive. "We are nothing if not the messes we create."
As for her daughter, as for the revelations not quite resonating, Iaheru locked eyes with her accusatory foil. Nefertari took after Onuphrious. Neithotep took after Iaheru, with doe-eyes and a nose shared, Iaheru could see the physical correlation but it wasn’t until this moment that she empathized with her daughter’s pain. Eyes that were once squinted were now wide as enraged nostrils. Neithotep’s rants steeled Iaheru, pulling her chin higher, her posture tauter, her grasp on Zoser snaked tighter and tighter until she shoves the man from her.
Soft clicks of delicate sandals crunched against the thin sprinkling of sand on her rooftops. Like Neithotep stated, the sun would still rise and the slaves would sweep away the morning sand from everywhere it settled in Saraaya Sheifa. Indifferently, Iaheru approached her daughter, “What else is there to say?” She placed a hand on her hip, so close to Neithotep’s face that her daughter could likely smell the grapes on her breath.
In all the grace she could muster, Iaheru placed her hand on Neithotep’s wine glass, the movement jostling the contents and spilling sticky, almost noxiously sweet, wine on her golden embroidered hemlines. Eyes scanned up bruised arms culminating in a darting, fearful gaze of a woman Iaheru had seen in herself before. Dread settled in the same pit as Zoser's betrayal, her grip on the wine glass intensifying before yelling with a similar desperation, “What else is there to say!” Iaheru wrestled to pour out the wine glass on the tiles, catching her breath as wafted perfume threatened her composure.
Paling skin juxtaposed the smudged kohl rimming rapidly blinking eyes, a desperate attempt to prevent tears and to beckon a new reality. Comforting darkness and the far-off glimmer of orange lights blurred into a nauseating marble. Surely, this was a poppy dream! Maniacal laughter and bile prick the back of the same tongue, but neither reaction materializes in the midst of Neithotep’s monologues.
From her daughter’s dry lips, Iaheru watched the young woman seize her birthright as the serpent parsed through straight teeth, venom like carmine smeared each lazy lash directed at Iaheru. In a moment of surrealism, Iaheru saw each word scribbled in a fervent yellow light, highlighting each curve of tangible Coptic before the brilliance faded away into the suffocating, curling smoke from braziers lining the rooftop. Drunken malaise entertained overstimulation and hallucination, altering reality into something more and aggressively less palatable all at once.
Iaheru’s inebriation did not dull her intuition and the revelations about the man supporting her caused her to recoil immediately from his touch. Betrayal rooted inside of her, tying intestines into knots and pinpricks coursing through her fingertips. “Why was she looking for you,” Iaheru responded, disorganized haze giving way to her inquisitive nature. Had her daughter lied about visiting Sutekh? To visit Zoser? Although their recent physical intimacy was misplaced, had her longstanding, intimate friendship with Zoser opened her daughter to exploitation? Iaheru had always admired Zoser’s reputation as the confidante to all of Egypt, but he was but one man, prone to his own faults and bias, and Iaheru felt herself stupid to have believed that a shared ear equated a silent tongue. Her fingers, adorned with thick golden bands and filed points, clenched around Zoser’s arm so that the skin turned white under her grasp. “I think you should stay,” Iaheru concluded with a wide smile and polite laugh, further punctuating her anger with the quick jerk of her captive. "We are nothing if not the messes we create."
As for her daughter, as for the revelations not quite resonating, Iaheru locked eyes with her accusatory foil. Nefertari took after Onuphrious. Neithotep took after Iaheru, with doe-eyes and a nose shared, Iaheru could see the physical correlation but it wasn’t until this moment that she empathized with her daughter’s pain. Eyes that were once squinted were now wide as enraged nostrils. Neithotep’s rants steeled Iaheru, pulling her chin higher, her posture tauter, her grasp on Zoser snaked tighter and tighter until she shoves the man from her.
Soft clicks of delicate sandals crunched against the thin sprinkling of sand on her rooftops. Like Neithotep stated, the sun would still rise and the slaves would sweep away the morning sand from everywhere it settled in Saraaya Sheifa. Indifferently, Iaheru approached her daughter, “What else is there to say?” She placed a hand on her hip, so close to Neithotep’s face that her daughter could likely smell the grapes on her breath.
In all the grace she could muster, Iaheru placed her hand on Neithotep’s wine glass, the movement jostling the contents and spilling sticky, almost noxiously sweet, wine on her golden embroidered hemlines. Eyes scanned up bruised arms culminating in a darting, fearful gaze of a woman Iaheru had seen in herself before. Dread settled in the same pit as Zoser's betrayal, her grip on the wine glass intensifying before yelling with a similar desperation, “What else is there to say!” Iaheru wrestled to pour out the wine glass on the tiles, catching her breath as wafted perfume threatened her composure.
The bitter taste of her own betrayal lingered on the tip of Neithotep’s tongue when Zoser looked at her with that stricken expression. Had she just destroyed her only place of safety in the thoughtlessness of her self-righteous soliloquy? Her face tightened for the barest of moments, ashamed apology shining in her eyes before she turned back to the true object of her ire. At that moment, the unfortunate man was simply fodder in a war that had been silently raging for the past twenty-five years.
Nia had always had a complicated relationship with her mother. Even as a baby, she had pulled away from Iaheru, intent on escaping with wobbly legs and a child’s determination. But even with the distance that grew between them practically daily, the Sirdsett was still her mother, and there was a deep, secret part of the young noblewoman that longed desperately for the affection and warmth she’d been denied of for so long. To be noticed and appreciated for who she was, instead of all the things she wasn’t. Perhaps that was the reason she was so apt to throwing herself at the first man to show her a smile—an unacknowledged desire for the validation and love that always lingered just out of reach in her own home.
She was not a cruel woman, not by any real measure. Her anger usually expressed itself in ways that were harmless to others—overindulgence in a variety of vices that would ultimately only harm herself instead of the ones that anger was directed toward. But watching her mother stride toward her with a fury in her step that reflected her own, she wanted nothing more than to lash out with the fire that forever smoldered within and rarely saw the light of day.
Manicured hands moved to seize the goblet Nia held, reflexively gripping tighter and jerking back to keep it from Iaheru’s grasp. The motion only succeeded in dousing them both in a viscous stream of scarlet liquid, though the irate daughter hardly seemed to notice the sanguine stains ruining the once fine fabric swathing her abused body. She cast the glass away from her in disgust, cold metal clattering to the floor in the echoing silence that poisoned the rooftop in a cloud of noxious gas.
And just like that, the fight drained from Nia’s body, staring at Iaheru with unseeing eyes blurred by sudden tears.
“What else is there to say?” she finally repeated in a cracked whisper, taking a stumbling step back from the Sirdsett. Slowly, her head shook back and forth, a pain radiating in her eyes deeper and more profound even than that the Pharaoh inflicted on her. Hinting at her dire situation in no uncertain terms, and this was what Iaheru had to say?
“Do I truly mean so little to you? Confronted with the agonizing truth of where I go night after night, and you can’t find anything to say?” She stumbled back even further, gathering her skirts with what little dignity still remained to her. An impatient hand raked over her eyes to hide the tears that gathered there, drawing herself up in feigned indignation that stood only as a hazy smokescreen to the hopelessness that threatened to crumple her at her mother’s feet.
“What else is there to say, indeed?”
She looked between Iaheru and Zoser without another word, swallowing hard before pushing past them to walk toward the staircase. Pausing at the landing, she spared them one last glance before releasing a shuddering breath and beginning her descent. This had been a mistake, but that was nothing new. Her entire life was mistake after mistake, stumbling in the wake of each more fantastic than the last. Maybe one day she’d learn. If she survived that long.
By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, sobs shook her body to the point that she was nearly falling over herself in her stumbling confusion. Bracing herself against the wall for only a moment, she took a breath to compose herself before pushing forward again until her steps carried her out of the saraaya and back onto the darkened road. She didn’t know where she was going and likely wouldn’t until she found her destination, but anywhere was better than here.
Even the arms of Iahotep were starting to sound more palatable than the mess she’d just left behind. At least she knew where she stood with him, no matter how pitiful that place was.
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The bitter taste of her own betrayal lingered on the tip of Neithotep’s tongue when Zoser looked at her with that stricken expression. Had she just destroyed her only place of safety in the thoughtlessness of her self-righteous soliloquy? Her face tightened for the barest of moments, ashamed apology shining in her eyes before she turned back to the true object of her ire. At that moment, the unfortunate man was simply fodder in a war that had been silently raging for the past twenty-five years.
Nia had always had a complicated relationship with her mother. Even as a baby, she had pulled away from Iaheru, intent on escaping with wobbly legs and a child’s determination. But even with the distance that grew between them practically daily, the Sirdsett was still her mother, and there was a deep, secret part of the young noblewoman that longed desperately for the affection and warmth she’d been denied of for so long. To be noticed and appreciated for who she was, instead of all the things she wasn’t. Perhaps that was the reason she was so apt to throwing herself at the first man to show her a smile—an unacknowledged desire for the validation and love that always lingered just out of reach in her own home.
She was not a cruel woman, not by any real measure. Her anger usually expressed itself in ways that were harmless to others—overindulgence in a variety of vices that would ultimately only harm herself instead of the ones that anger was directed toward. But watching her mother stride toward her with a fury in her step that reflected her own, she wanted nothing more than to lash out with the fire that forever smoldered within and rarely saw the light of day.
Manicured hands moved to seize the goblet Nia held, reflexively gripping tighter and jerking back to keep it from Iaheru’s grasp. The motion only succeeded in dousing them both in a viscous stream of scarlet liquid, though the irate daughter hardly seemed to notice the sanguine stains ruining the once fine fabric swathing her abused body. She cast the glass away from her in disgust, cold metal clattering to the floor in the echoing silence that poisoned the rooftop in a cloud of noxious gas.
And just like that, the fight drained from Nia’s body, staring at Iaheru with unseeing eyes blurred by sudden tears.
“What else is there to say?” she finally repeated in a cracked whisper, taking a stumbling step back from the Sirdsett. Slowly, her head shook back and forth, a pain radiating in her eyes deeper and more profound even than that the Pharaoh inflicted on her. Hinting at her dire situation in no uncertain terms, and this was what Iaheru had to say?
“Do I truly mean so little to you? Confronted with the agonizing truth of where I go night after night, and you can’t find anything to say?” She stumbled back even further, gathering her skirts with what little dignity still remained to her. An impatient hand raked over her eyes to hide the tears that gathered there, drawing herself up in feigned indignation that stood only as a hazy smokescreen to the hopelessness that threatened to crumple her at her mother’s feet.
“What else is there to say, indeed?”
She looked between Iaheru and Zoser without another word, swallowing hard before pushing past them to walk toward the staircase. Pausing at the landing, she spared them one last glance before releasing a shuddering breath and beginning her descent. This had been a mistake, but that was nothing new. Her entire life was mistake after mistake, stumbling in the wake of each more fantastic than the last. Maybe one day she’d learn. If she survived that long.
By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, sobs shook her body to the point that she was nearly falling over herself in her stumbling confusion. Bracing herself against the wall for only a moment, she took a breath to compose herself before pushing forward again until her steps carried her out of the saraaya and back onto the darkened road. She didn’t know where she was going and likely wouldn’t until she found her destination, but anywhere was better than here.
Even the arms of Iahotep were starting to sound more palatable than the mess she’d just left behind. At least she knew where she stood with him, no matter how pitiful that place was.
The bitter taste of her own betrayal lingered on the tip of Neithotep’s tongue when Zoser looked at her with that stricken expression. Had she just destroyed her only place of safety in the thoughtlessness of her self-righteous soliloquy? Her face tightened for the barest of moments, ashamed apology shining in her eyes before she turned back to the true object of her ire. At that moment, the unfortunate man was simply fodder in a war that had been silently raging for the past twenty-five years.
Nia had always had a complicated relationship with her mother. Even as a baby, she had pulled away from Iaheru, intent on escaping with wobbly legs and a child’s determination. But even with the distance that grew between them practically daily, the Sirdsett was still her mother, and there was a deep, secret part of the young noblewoman that longed desperately for the affection and warmth she’d been denied of for so long. To be noticed and appreciated for who she was, instead of all the things she wasn’t. Perhaps that was the reason she was so apt to throwing herself at the first man to show her a smile—an unacknowledged desire for the validation and love that always lingered just out of reach in her own home.
She was not a cruel woman, not by any real measure. Her anger usually expressed itself in ways that were harmless to others—overindulgence in a variety of vices that would ultimately only harm herself instead of the ones that anger was directed toward. But watching her mother stride toward her with a fury in her step that reflected her own, she wanted nothing more than to lash out with the fire that forever smoldered within and rarely saw the light of day.
Manicured hands moved to seize the goblet Nia held, reflexively gripping tighter and jerking back to keep it from Iaheru’s grasp. The motion only succeeded in dousing them both in a viscous stream of scarlet liquid, though the irate daughter hardly seemed to notice the sanguine stains ruining the once fine fabric swathing her abused body. She cast the glass away from her in disgust, cold metal clattering to the floor in the echoing silence that poisoned the rooftop in a cloud of noxious gas.
And just like that, the fight drained from Nia’s body, staring at Iaheru with unseeing eyes blurred by sudden tears.
“What else is there to say?” she finally repeated in a cracked whisper, taking a stumbling step back from the Sirdsett. Slowly, her head shook back and forth, a pain radiating in her eyes deeper and more profound even than that the Pharaoh inflicted on her. Hinting at her dire situation in no uncertain terms, and this was what Iaheru had to say?
“Do I truly mean so little to you? Confronted with the agonizing truth of where I go night after night, and you can’t find anything to say?” She stumbled back even further, gathering her skirts with what little dignity still remained to her. An impatient hand raked over her eyes to hide the tears that gathered there, drawing herself up in feigned indignation that stood only as a hazy smokescreen to the hopelessness that threatened to crumple her at her mother’s feet.
“What else is there to say, indeed?”
She looked between Iaheru and Zoser without another word, swallowing hard before pushing past them to walk toward the staircase. Pausing at the landing, she spared them one last glance before releasing a shuddering breath and beginning her descent. This had been a mistake, but that was nothing new. Her entire life was mistake after mistake, stumbling in the wake of each more fantastic than the last. Maybe one day she’d learn. If she survived that long.
By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, sobs shook her body to the point that she was nearly falling over herself in her stumbling confusion. Bracing herself against the wall for only a moment, she took a breath to compose herself before pushing forward again until her steps carried her out of the saraaya and back onto the darkened road. She didn’t know where she was going and likely wouldn’t until she found her destination, but anywhere was better than here.
Even the arms of Iahotep were starting to sound more palatable than the mess she’d just left behind. At least she knew where she stood with him, no matter how pitiful that place was.
Zoser imagined what it would have been like to have ended the night earlier, bid farewell to the hosting parties, sauntered through the streets in a pleasurable wine-drunk haze, and perhaps found his way to Tassos' brothel to continue the night with a bit of hemp, cheerful conversation, and a beautiful woman straddling his hips.
Instead, he released a hiss as Iaheru's nails bit into his skin. Her grip was surprisingly strong for a woman of her demure stature. His instinct, as with any unwanted touch, was to shake it off, yet years of existing in a lower social class gave him at least enough patience and composure to prevent himself from jerking his forearm from her grasp.
Neithotep's words drove on, clearly fueled by the inebriation of smoke and wine, Zoser's own wine-laden mind hesitated slightly with the passing of each word. He blinked in rapid succession as the first round of her soliloquy fell into place.
His worries were torn in several places.
First, being caught in such a compromising position with Iaheru by her daughter. Had it been any of her other daughters, Zoser would not have been as concerned, having confidence in the woman's hold over her family's ties. Yet, it had been Neithotep.
That was where the second worry gripped him as tightly as the noblewoman's hand on his arm. No more than a few days before had his closeness with Neithotep's situation nearly come to a head, causing him to question his feelings towards her but never voicing them. Was it desire or deep caring he held for her? He had wrapped his arms around her in comfort but had also battled against his feelings in that moment too.
Zoser would have loved to argue the point that every moment he spent with her was chaste, simply one person caring for the plight of another, but the lingering touches of their last time together kept his tongue silent.
Her word quickly spun a story that sent Iaheru's eyes glaring to him like embers.
Then, there was the final seal of it - the admittance of her affair with the Pharaoh.
Even given the conversation that had passed between himself and Iaheru only moments before Nia's arrival, their faces also too close for it to simply be a shared talk between friends, the circumstances were understood and weighed heavy in the moment that passed between mother and daughter.
That Iaheru shoved him aside was a relief, and the instinctive reaction of glancing towards the stairs nearly made him take a step in that direction, but they paused upon seeing the hurt and confusion pass between the two women. Both had at some point had no control over what passed between them and the respective Kings of Kings in their times, and Zoser felt helpless. He was trapped in this circumstance by some cruel joke. His kindness had turned to a confusing care for Neithotep. His friendship had tread into muddy waters with Iaheru in her current disgrace as the truth had come to the surface.
He did not belong here in this moment, but could not escape.
That anxiety was both quelled and fueled by the haze of overflowing wineglasses that had kept him in such good spirits not even a half hour ago.
The hurt in the younger woman's eyes shone so brightly that it pinched his brows together in worry. Even with what had passed at the Palace, his heart ached to help erase that expression from her face for eternity. In a flash, she stood and began to make her way towards the stairs. Zoser's hand impulsively reached out a moment only for it to be pushed aside.
"Wait..." he started to say, but the young woman was gone down the stairs and out of sight before he could say anything else, leaving him alone on the rooftop with one of his oldest friends and the questioning betrayal that simmered beneath the surface.
He had to explain himself. His words were bound to fall onto drunk and deaf ears, but with so much that had been scattered across the rooftop like the wine pooling around their feet, Zoser could not let it stand without his own input - despite the fact that it was a terrible idea at that time.
Taking a slight step back and putting his hands slightly forward as if to diffuse the moment between them - or to block anything that may very well be thrown at him in that moment. "I found her one night leaving his chambers, she needed help. I offered assistance, a safe haven in the Archives....and a sound reasoning for her presence in the Palace. That is the reason for the deception."
It was admittance of guilt, but Zoser did his best to ration out his words, to spin them in a way that he was not the worst in this circumstance. He could see the accusations in her eyes, the impropriety of it all spread before them like the feast the Sirdsett had hosted only hours ago. Yet, he continued.
"If it were known what was taking place, it could ruin her. The Pharaoh is not denied...you know this."
Zoser paused, letting those words fall as they may. Taking a deep breath, Zoser squared his shoulders, trying to brace himself for the impending wrath from the Sirdsett, but took a moment to quickly add, "I only wanted to help."
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Dec 21, 2019 19:24:31 GMT
Posted In Bear Witness on Dec 21, 2019 19:24:31 GMT
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Zoser imagined what it would have been like to have ended the night earlier, bid farewell to the hosting parties, sauntered through the streets in a pleasurable wine-drunk haze, and perhaps found his way to Tassos' brothel to continue the night with a bit of hemp, cheerful conversation, and a beautiful woman straddling his hips.
Instead, he released a hiss as Iaheru's nails bit into his skin. Her grip was surprisingly strong for a woman of her demure stature. His instinct, as with any unwanted touch, was to shake it off, yet years of existing in a lower social class gave him at least enough patience and composure to prevent himself from jerking his forearm from her grasp.
Neithotep's words drove on, clearly fueled by the inebriation of smoke and wine, Zoser's own wine-laden mind hesitated slightly with the passing of each word. He blinked in rapid succession as the first round of her soliloquy fell into place.
His worries were torn in several places.
First, being caught in such a compromising position with Iaheru by her daughter. Had it been any of her other daughters, Zoser would not have been as concerned, having confidence in the woman's hold over her family's ties. Yet, it had been Neithotep.
That was where the second worry gripped him as tightly as the noblewoman's hand on his arm. No more than a few days before had his closeness with Neithotep's situation nearly come to a head, causing him to question his feelings towards her but never voicing them. Was it desire or deep caring he held for her? He had wrapped his arms around her in comfort but had also battled against his feelings in that moment too.
Zoser would have loved to argue the point that every moment he spent with her was chaste, simply one person caring for the plight of another, but the lingering touches of their last time together kept his tongue silent.
Her word quickly spun a story that sent Iaheru's eyes glaring to him like embers.
Then, there was the final seal of it - the admittance of her affair with the Pharaoh.
Even given the conversation that had passed between himself and Iaheru only moments before Nia's arrival, their faces also too close for it to simply be a shared talk between friends, the circumstances were understood and weighed heavy in the moment that passed between mother and daughter.
That Iaheru shoved him aside was a relief, and the instinctive reaction of glancing towards the stairs nearly made him take a step in that direction, but they paused upon seeing the hurt and confusion pass between the two women. Both had at some point had no control over what passed between them and the respective Kings of Kings in their times, and Zoser felt helpless. He was trapped in this circumstance by some cruel joke. His kindness had turned to a confusing care for Neithotep. His friendship had tread into muddy waters with Iaheru in her current disgrace as the truth had come to the surface.
He did not belong here in this moment, but could not escape.
That anxiety was both quelled and fueled by the haze of overflowing wineglasses that had kept him in such good spirits not even a half hour ago.
The hurt in the younger woman's eyes shone so brightly that it pinched his brows together in worry. Even with what had passed at the Palace, his heart ached to help erase that expression from her face for eternity. In a flash, she stood and began to make her way towards the stairs. Zoser's hand impulsively reached out a moment only for it to be pushed aside.
"Wait..." he started to say, but the young woman was gone down the stairs and out of sight before he could say anything else, leaving him alone on the rooftop with one of his oldest friends and the questioning betrayal that simmered beneath the surface.
He had to explain himself. His words were bound to fall onto drunk and deaf ears, but with so much that had been scattered across the rooftop like the wine pooling around their feet, Zoser could not let it stand without his own input - despite the fact that it was a terrible idea at that time.
Taking a slight step back and putting his hands slightly forward as if to diffuse the moment between them - or to block anything that may very well be thrown at him in that moment. "I found her one night leaving his chambers, she needed help. I offered assistance, a safe haven in the Archives....and a sound reasoning for her presence in the Palace. That is the reason for the deception."
It was admittance of guilt, but Zoser did his best to ration out his words, to spin them in a way that he was not the worst in this circumstance. He could see the accusations in her eyes, the impropriety of it all spread before them like the feast the Sirdsett had hosted only hours ago. Yet, he continued.
"If it were known what was taking place, it could ruin her. The Pharaoh is not denied...you know this."
Zoser paused, letting those words fall as they may. Taking a deep breath, Zoser squared his shoulders, trying to brace himself for the impending wrath from the Sirdsett, but took a moment to quickly add, "I only wanted to help."
Zoser imagined what it would have been like to have ended the night earlier, bid farewell to the hosting parties, sauntered through the streets in a pleasurable wine-drunk haze, and perhaps found his way to Tassos' brothel to continue the night with a bit of hemp, cheerful conversation, and a beautiful woman straddling his hips.
Instead, he released a hiss as Iaheru's nails bit into his skin. Her grip was surprisingly strong for a woman of her demure stature. His instinct, as with any unwanted touch, was to shake it off, yet years of existing in a lower social class gave him at least enough patience and composure to prevent himself from jerking his forearm from her grasp.
Neithotep's words drove on, clearly fueled by the inebriation of smoke and wine, Zoser's own wine-laden mind hesitated slightly with the passing of each word. He blinked in rapid succession as the first round of her soliloquy fell into place.
His worries were torn in several places.
First, being caught in such a compromising position with Iaheru by her daughter. Had it been any of her other daughters, Zoser would not have been as concerned, having confidence in the woman's hold over her family's ties. Yet, it had been Neithotep.
That was where the second worry gripped him as tightly as the noblewoman's hand on his arm. No more than a few days before had his closeness with Neithotep's situation nearly come to a head, causing him to question his feelings towards her but never voicing them. Was it desire or deep caring he held for her? He had wrapped his arms around her in comfort but had also battled against his feelings in that moment too.
Zoser would have loved to argue the point that every moment he spent with her was chaste, simply one person caring for the plight of another, but the lingering touches of their last time together kept his tongue silent.
Her word quickly spun a story that sent Iaheru's eyes glaring to him like embers.
Then, there was the final seal of it - the admittance of her affair with the Pharaoh.
Even given the conversation that had passed between himself and Iaheru only moments before Nia's arrival, their faces also too close for it to simply be a shared talk between friends, the circumstances were understood and weighed heavy in the moment that passed between mother and daughter.
That Iaheru shoved him aside was a relief, and the instinctive reaction of glancing towards the stairs nearly made him take a step in that direction, but they paused upon seeing the hurt and confusion pass between the two women. Both had at some point had no control over what passed between them and the respective Kings of Kings in their times, and Zoser felt helpless. He was trapped in this circumstance by some cruel joke. His kindness had turned to a confusing care for Neithotep. His friendship had tread into muddy waters with Iaheru in her current disgrace as the truth had come to the surface.
He did not belong here in this moment, but could not escape.
That anxiety was both quelled and fueled by the haze of overflowing wineglasses that had kept him in such good spirits not even a half hour ago.
The hurt in the younger woman's eyes shone so brightly that it pinched his brows together in worry. Even with what had passed at the Palace, his heart ached to help erase that expression from her face for eternity. In a flash, she stood and began to make her way towards the stairs. Zoser's hand impulsively reached out a moment only for it to be pushed aside.
"Wait..." he started to say, but the young woman was gone down the stairs and out of sight before he could say anything else, leaving him alone on the rooftop with one of his oldest friends and the questioning betrayal that simmered beneath the surface.
He had to explain himself. His words were bound to fall onto drunk and deaf ears, but with so much that had been scattered across the rooftop like the wine pooling around their feet, Zoser could not let it stand without his own input - despite the fact that it was a terrible idea at that time.
Taking a slight step back and putting his hands slightly forward as if to diffuse the moment between them - or to block anything that may very well be thrown at him in that moment. "I found her one night leaving his chambers, she needed help. I offered assistance, a safe haven in the Archives....and a sound reasoning for her presence in the Palace. That is the reason for the deception."
It was admittance of guilt, but Zoser did his best to ration out his words, to spin them in a way that he was not the worst in this circumstance. He could see the accusations in her eyes, the impropriety of it all spread before them like the feast the Sirdsett had hosted only hours ago. Yet, he continued.
"If it were known what was taking place, it could ruin her. The Pharaoh is not denied...you know this."
Zoser paused, letting those words fall as they may. Taking a deep breath, Zoser squared his shoulders, trying to brace himself for the impending wrath from the Sirdsett, but took a moment to quickly add, "I only wanted to help."
In her gilded memories, it was intimate parties like tonight that would have her skin pricked from the inside out in dual anticipation. His casual gaze, arrogance for a purported God on Earth (which she knew as merely a man, weak at that despite a warly khat and striped skin raised with keloids like braille her fingers reluctantly bristled), pounced from a wink above the rim of a chalice. In pride, each bow she gave lacked its previous depth and reverence, Imophatsuma seemingly uncaring at her petty disobedience as authority undressed the hidden jewel of Egypt with Onuphrious' name on her lips. Her tongue betrayed his name, instead it forced compliance demarcated by sober tears, all while drunk hands reached for what wasn't theirs in an advisory meeting where the Pharaoh found himself in his cups. Much like tonight.
Imophatsuma has split her in two that night in a way a woman could never be whole again. It was her child and her lie that stitched her back together the way Ra tore her apart- wholly and irreverently.
It was not merely her body taken, but her life. Her decisions. She has reached for Neithotep, outstretched with both arms trying to grasp her former self. "Zoser," Iaheru's sobering tremble is uniquely wine doused and still hearted. "How could you?"
It was not for him to summarize Neithotep's truth, nor hers. For so long, her secret had coiled around her ankles like a millstone, grounding and defining her secretly under the water. Now that all was revealed, millstone no longer grounding her, Iaheru was swept in a lulling undertow, bobbing in a desolate ocean. Neithotep's pained, opium confession was a spectre on a distant shore not of Iaheru's understanding.
She'd never been able to vocalize her trauma despite her proficiencies. No amount of well words, political maneuvers, mathematics, statistics, mercantilism prepares a woman to tell her daughter they were both brutally raped. Onuphrious, her true match, had never afforded her an ear once history had been willed to public existence. Perhaps, she thought, before fingers prioritized and burned with the need for touch, Zoser would be the recipient of her truth.
She begins to hike the hem of her kalasiris with tense shoulders and fidgety hands to descend her stairs inlaid with polished bone. The fabric splits up its golden seams to her thigh as she moves and collapses on the top step, her daughter claimed by the night, wounds left to fester between the both of them. Weeping silently, she tips at her earrings, throwing them down the stairs as quiet whimper form on painted lips. One hoop at the top ripped through cartilage, frizzy braids like jute sopping up the blood that wasn't left to her neck like bites 20 year ago. The pain does not register. Next to go were the bangles with wails to punctuate the clinks on tile.
Iaheru looks over her shoulder, crystalline tears the only jewelry to complement a ruby face hot with shame and betrayal. "That… that.. wasn't your truth to share."
She turns around so her once friend can't see her. "Once again, we've had something, a choice, taken from us," Iaheru sniffles. "You can't begin to know what it's like to be us! To be me! To be her!" She turns to throw a chunky bangle at his feet. "Much less your body like an object…'' She raises to her feet and clutches both of his wrists in desperation, "But your words taken as your soul as your life… Zoser," she shakes his wrists, "You don't know and yet you did this to us anyways."
She let's go and leans dangerously close over that balcony, tears still wracking a haggard chest raw from her sobs and congested from wine. "I want to be known," she whispered. "Only then you'd know how… how… defective I feel right now."
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Feb 4, 2020 13:29:07 GMT
Posted In Bear Witness on Feb 4, 2020 13:29:07 GMT
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In her gilded memories, it was intimate parties like tonight that would have her skin pricked from the inside out in dual anticipation. His casual gaze, arrogance for a purported God on Earth (which she knew as merely a man, weak at that despite a warly khat and striped skin raised with keloids like braille her fingers reluctantly bristled), pounced from a wink above the rim of a chalice. In pride, each bow she gave lacked its previous depth and reverence, Imophatsuma seemingly uncaring at her petty disobedience as authority undressed the hidden jewel of Egypt with Onuphrious' name on her lips. Her tongue betrayed his name, instead it forced compliance demarcated by sober tears, all while drunk hands reached for what wasn't theirs in an advisory meeting where the Pharaoh found himself in his cups. Much like tonight.
Imophatsuma has split her in two that night in a way a woman could never be whole again. It was her child and her lie that stitched her back together the way Ra tore her apart- wholly and irreverently.
It was not merely her body taken, but her life. Her decisions. She has reached for Neithotep, outstretched with both arms trying to grasp her former self. "Zoser," Iaheru's sobering tremble is uniquely wine doused and still hearted. "How could you?"
It was not for him to summarize Neithotep's truth, nor hers. For so long, her secret had coiled around her ankles like a millstone, grounding and defining her secretly under the water. Now that all was revealed, millstone no longer grounding her, Iaheru was swept in a lulling undertow, bobbing in a desolate ocean. Neithotep's pained, opium confession was a spectre on a distant shore not of Iaheru's understanding.
She'd never been able to vocalize her trauma despite her proficiencies. No amount of well words, political maneuvers, mathematics, statistics, mercantilism prepares a woman to tell her daughter they were both brutally raped. Onuphrious, her true match, had never afforded her an ear once history had been willed to public existence. Perhaps, she thought, before fingers prioritized and burned with the need for touch, Zoser would be the recipient of her truth.
She begins to hike the hem of her kalasiris with tense shoulders and fidgety hands to descend her stairs inlaid with polished bone. The fabric splits up its golden seams to her thigh as she moves and collapses on the top step, her daughter claimed by the night, wounds left to fester between the both of them. Weeping silently, she tips at her earrings, throwing them down the stairs as quiet whimper form on painted lips. One hoop at the top ripped through cartilage, frizzy braids like jute sopping up the blood that wasn't left to her neck like bites 20 year ago. The pain does not register. Next to go were the bangles with wails to punctuate the clinks on tile.
Iaheru looks over her shoulder, crystalline tears the only jewelry to complement a ruby face hot with shame and betrayal. "That… that.. wasn't your truth to share."
She turns around so her once friend can't see her. "Once again, we've had something, a choice, taken from us," Iaheru sniffles. "You can't begin to know what it's like to be us! To be me! To be her!" She turns to throw a chunky bangle at his feet. "Much less your body like an object…'' She raises to her feet and clutches both of his wrists in desperation, "But your words taken as your soul as your life… Zoser," she shakes his wrists, "You don't know and yet you did this to us anyways."
She let's go and leans dangerously close over that balcony, tears still wracking a haggard chest raw from her sobs and congested from wine. "I want to be known," she whispered. "Only then you'd know how… how… defective I feel right now."
In her gilded memories, it was intimate parties like tonight that would have her skin pricked from the inside out in dual anticipation. His casual gaze, arrogance for a purported God on Earth (which she knew as merely a man, weak at that despite a warly khat and striped skin raised with keloids like braille her fingers reluctantly bristled), pounced from a wink above the rim of a chalice. In pride, each bow she gave lacked its previous depth and reverence, Imophatsuma seemingly uncaring at her petty disobedience as authority undressed the hidden jewel of Egypt with Onuphrious' name on her lips. Her tongue betrayed his name, instead it forced compliance demarcated by sober tears, all while drunk hands reached for what wasn't theirs in an advisory meeting where the Pharaoh found himself in his cups. Much like tonight.
Imophatsuma has split her in two that night in a way a woman could never be whole again. It was her child and her lie that stitched her back together the way Ra tore her apart- wholly and irreverently.
It was not merely her body taken, but her life. Her decisions. She has reached for Neithotep, outstretched with both arms trying to grasp her former self. "Zoser," Iaheru's sobering tremble is uniquely wine doused and still hearted. "How could you?"
It was not for him to summarize Neithotep's truth, nor hers. For so long, her secret had coiled around her ankles like a millstone, grounding and defining her secretly under the water. Now that all was revealed, millstone no longer grounding her, Iaheru was swept in a lulling undertow, bobbing in a desolate ocean. Neithotep's pained, opium confession was a spectre on a distant shore not of Iaheru's understanding.
She'd never been able to vocalize her trauma despite her proficiencies. No amount of well words, political maneuvers, mathematics, statistics, mercantilism prepares a woman to tell her daughter they were both brutally raped. Onuphrious, her true match, had never afforded her an ear once history had been willed to public existence. Perhaps, she thought, before fingers prioritized and burned with the need for touch, Zoser would be the recipient of her truth.
She begins to hike the hem of her kalasiris with tense shoulders and fidgety hands to descend her stairs inlaid with polished bone. The fabric splits up its golden seams to her thigh as she moves and collapses on the top step, her daughter claimed by the night, wounds left to fester between the both of them. Weeping silently, she tips at her earrings, throwing them down the stairs as quiet whimper form on painted lips. One hoop at the top ripped through cartilage, frizzy braids like jute sopping up the blood that wasn't left to her neck like bites 20 year ago. The pain does not register. Next to go were the bangles with wails to punctuate the clinks on tile.
Iaheru looks over her shoulder, crystalline tears the only jewelry to complement a ruby face hot with shame and betrayal. "That… that.. wasn't your truth to share."
She turns around so her once friend can't see her. "Once again, we've had something, a choice, taken from us," Iaheru sniffles. "You can't begin to know what it's like to be us! To be me! To be her!" She turns to throw a chunky bangle at his feet. "Much less your body like an object…'' She raises to her feet and clutches both of his wrists in desperation, "But your words taken as your soul as your life… Zoser," she shakes his wrists, "You don't know and yet you did this to us anyways."
She let's go and leans dangerously close over that balcony, tears still wracking a haggard chest raw from her sobs and congested from wine. "I want to be known," she whispered. "Only then you'd know how… how… defective I feel right now."
Zoser was in over his head in more ways than he could count. Typically a man of decent judgement, this night seemed to pass before him like the life of someone else, because surely none of this actually taking place? This was a fevered dream fueled by too much drink, perhaps he had stumbled into an opium den and given into that rare vice and was now paying the price for it in curious and confusion dreams.
Of course, that was not the case. This landed like a blow to the chest. Faced with the utter embarrassment of knowing he was undoubtedly in the wrong on a number of levels in this moment, he felt the rush of numbing heat to his cheeks and the pinpricks of numbness along his lips and fingertips, even so as he attempted to bring life to the dead digits by running them anxiously through his hair as he watched Neithotep disappear and offered what he thought was an explanation behind it all.
How wrong he was.
Men were idiots, so the women of the world said on a near daily - or hourly - basis, and for the first time in his life, he felt inclined to agree.
As Iaheru's words landed, if felt like a slash across his gut, spilling his insides on the tiles of the balcony. The realization of the brutality of her experiences - their experiences - as well as the shockingly drawn mirror image of it that they painted across the shared history of mother and daughter nearly made him sick to his stomach. Frozen as he watched the trickle of blood flow down her neck as he saw the jewel of the nile undone before his eyes, he never realized the moment that his hand came to rest over his lips, as if to stop himself from breathing in the truth that hung so viciously in the air.
His eyes watched the bangle clatter along the floor to him, lingering there a moment until they lifted again as she stood. His wrists were hers in that moment, the bite of her nails against his skin as she gripped hard could not measure to the hurt that seemed to flow out of every pour on her blemishless skin.
The accusation cut and while his instinct was to speak, to apologize, to explain - he remained silent, his eyes rounded in an unfamiliar shape of agonized sympathy to see one of his oldest friends suffering in this way - and knowing that he was in some manner a direct cause of it. It was a long-learned rule that the person who harmed could not decide how hurt they made the other, and though Zoser knew there was no way for him to understand the deepness of it, the blood of her pain right now was on his hands.
He feared this moment was irreparable. He did not understand it fully, so there was no solving it. Besides, much as his words should not have been said...perhaps this was also a problem of his not to solve. And that burned him.
As she stepped away, the force in which she flung herself towards the balcony had him stepping forward as if to catch her. In her state, every movement seemed both slow and exaggerated.
Her whispered words hung in the air for a brief moment and Zoser selfishly tried to puzzle out what was needed in this moment. His overly-soft demeanor wanted to offer her some comfort, but then she imagined it would be like being mauled by an animal only for it coming to rub gently against your leg.
Trust was broken, more fragile than glass or damp parchment. Once ruined, it was likely never to be repaired again. On one hand, the thought he had done enough damage for a night and considered simply slipping behind her down the stairs and into the night. But, that was a sin that would weigh his heart down until it was set before Anubis and Thoth, he was certain. That could not be.
"I am...so sorry....for everything..." Zoser said, his voice thick as if he had swallowed a jar of honey in one gulp. Swallowing a moment to try to clear it, he took a shaking breath as if to clear the cobwebs of numbness from behind his eyes and to string together a thought.
"I did not know..." he started, the usual life behind his voice gone and his timbre as easy to break as the winter stems on a tree. He measured his thoughts a moment and took another breath, steadying himself and cautiously taking a step towards her, yet placing a distinct distance between them - mirroring the gash in their decade old friendship that he had placed there.
"There is no way for me to understand," he said once again, repeating her words, but finally forming his own, "I would carry your hurt for you if I could to try to understand, I would." He would take hers, Neithotep's, Hatshepsut's, Osorsen's....everyones if he could, but that was not possible. Nor, in this moment, would it seem that Iaheru would trust his words to be truthful in anyway.
Frightened deep within and uncertain, he cast his eyes away, knowing that given the severance and betrayal he had placed here, this was likely an ending that he never saw coming. Yet, for all intents and purposes, they still had their roles in this - she was a lady and he was a common-born scribe in the end.
"Lady Iaheru...what would you have of me?"
Did she wish him to leave and never be seen again? Did she wish him to stay in order to be bludgeoned to death or shoved from the balcony for his betrayal? Did she wish to have someone to share her hurt as she bled from a wound that had lingered for a decade?
He wanted to know and only she could tell him.
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Mar 5, 2020 13:59:57 GMT
Posted In Bear Witness on Mar 5, 2020 13:59:57 GMT
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Zoser was in over his head in more ways than he could count. Typically a man of decent judgement, this night seemed to pass before him like the life of someone else, because surely none of this actually taking place? This was a fevered dream fueled by too much drink, perhaps he had stumbled into an opium den and given into that rare vice and was now paying the price for it in curious and confusion dreams.
Of course, that was not the case. This landed like a blow to the chest. Faced with the utter embarrassment of knowing he was undoubtedly in the wrong on a number of levels in this moment, he felt the rush of numbing heat to his cheeks and the pinpricks of numbness along his lips and fingertips, even so as he attempted to bring life to the dead digits by running them anxiously through his hair as he watched Neithotep disappear and offered what he thought was an explanation behind it all.
How wrong he was.
Men were idiots, so the women of the world said on a near daily - or hourly - basis, and for the first time in his life, he felt inclined to agree.
As Iaheru's words landed, if felt like a slash across his gut, spilling his insides on the tiles of the balcony. The realization of the brutality of her experiences - their experiences - as well as the shockingly drawn mirror image of it that they painted across the shared history of mother and daughter nearly made him sick to his stomach. Frozen as he watched the trickle of blood flow down her neck as he saw the jewel of the nile undone before his eyes, he never realized the moment that his hand came to rest over his lips, as if to stop himself from breathing in the truth that hung so viciously in the air.
His eyes watched the bangle clatter along the floor to him, lingering there a moment until they lifted again as she stood. His wrists were hers in that moment, the bite of her nails against his skin as she gripped hard could not measure to the hurt that seemed to flow out of every pour on her blemishless skin.
The accusation cut and while his instinct was to speak, to apologize, to explain - he remained silent, his eyes rounded in an unfamiliar shape of agonized sympathy to see one of his oldest friends suffering in this way - and knowing that he was in some manner a direct cause of it. It was a long-learned rule that the person who harmed could not decide how hurt they made the other, and though Zoser knew there was no way for him to understand the deepness of it, the blood of her pain right now was on his hands.
He feared this moment was irreparable. He did not understand it fully, so there was no solving it. Besides, much as his words should not have been said...perhaps this was also a problem of his not to solve. And that burned him.
As she stepped away, the force in which she flung herself towards the balcony had him stepping forward as if to catch her. In her state, every movement seemed both slow and exaggerated.
Her whispered words hung in the air for a brief moment and Zoser selfishly tried to puzzle out what was needed in this moment. His overly-soft demeanor wanted to offer her some comfort, but then she imagined it would be like being mauled by an animal only for it coming to rub gently against your leg.
Trust was broken, more fragile than glass or damp parchment. Once ruined, it was likely never to be repaired again. On one hand, the thought he had done enough damage for a night and considered simply slipping behind her down the stairs and into the night. But, that was a sin that would weigh his heart down until it was set before Anubis and Thoth, he was certain. That could not be.
"I am...so sorry....for everything..." Zoser said, his voice thick as if he had swallowed a jar of honey in one gulp. Swallowing a moment to try to clear it, he took a shaking breath as if to clear the cobwebs of numbness from behind his eyes and to string together a thought.
"I did not know..." he started, the usual life behind his voice gone and his timbre as easy to break as the winter stems on a tree. He measured his thoughts a moment and took another breath, steadying himself and cautiously taking a step towards her, yet placing a distinct distance between them - mirroring the gash in their decade old friendship that he had placed there.
"There is no way for me to understand," he said once again, repeating her words, but finally forming his own, "I would carry your hurt for you if I could to try to understand, I would." He would take hers, Neithotep's, Hatshepsut's, Osorsen's....everyones if he could, but that was not possible. Nor, in this moment, would it seem that Iaheru would trust his words to be truthful in anyway.
Frightened deep within and uncertain, he cast his eyes away, knowing that given the severance and betrayal he had placed here, this was likely an ending that he never saw coming. Yet, for all intents and purposes, they still had their roles in this - she was a lady and he was a common-born scribe in the end.
"Lady Iaheru...what would you have of me?"
Did she wish him to leave and never be seen again? Did she wish him to stay in order to be bludgeoned to death or shoved from the balcony for his betrayal? Did she wish to have someone to share her hurt as she bled from a wound that had lingered for a decade?
He wanted to know and only she could tell him.
Zoser was in over his head in more ways than he could count. Typically a man of decent judgement, this night seemed to pass before him like the life of someone else, because surely none of this actually taking place? This was a fevered dream fueled by too much drink, perhaps he had stumbled into an opium den and given into that rare vice and was now paying the price for it in curious and confusion dreams.
Of course, that was not the case. This landed like a blow to the chest. Faced with the utter embarrassment of knowing he was undoubtedly in the wrong on a number of levels in this moment, he felt the rush of numbing heat to his cheeks and the pinpricks of numbness along his lips and fingertips, even so as he attempted to bring life to the dead digits by running them anxiously through his hair as he watched Neithotep disappear and offered what he thought was an explanation behind it all.
How wrong he was.
Men were idiots, so the women of the world said on a near daily - or hourly - basis, and for the first time in his life, he felt inclined to agree.
As Iaheru's words landed, if felt like a slash across his gut, spilling his insides on the tiles of the balcony. The realization of the brutality of her experiences - their experiences - as well as the shockingly drawn mirror image of it that they painted across the shared history of mother and daughter nearly made him sick to his stomach. Frozen as he watched the trickle of blood flow down her neck as he saw the jewel of the nile undone before his eyes, he never realized the moment that his hand came to rest over his lips, as if to stop himself from breathing in the truth that hung so viciously in the air.
His eyes watched the bangle clatter along the floor to him, lingering there a moment until they lifted again as she stood. His wrists were hers in that moment, the bite of her nails against his skin as she gripped hard could not measure to the hurt that seemed to flow out of every pour on her blemishless skin.
The accusation cut and while his instinct was to speak, to apologize, to explain - he remained silent, his eyes rounded in an unfamiliar shape of agonized sympathy to see one of his oldest friends suffering in this way - and knowing that he was in some manner a direct cause of it. It was a long-learned rule that the person who harmed could not decide how hurt they made the other, and though Zoser knew there was no way for him to understand the deepness of it, the blood of her pain right now was on his hands.
He feared this moment was irreparable. He did not understand it fully, so there was no solving it. Besides, much as his words should not have been said...perhaps this was also a problem of his not to solve. And that burned him.
As she stepped away, the force in which she flung herself towards the balcony had him stepping forward as if to catch her. In her state, every movement seemed both slow and exaggerated.
Her whispered words hung in the air for a brief moment and Zoser selfishly tried to puzzle out what was needed in this moment. His overly-soft demeanor wanted to offer her some comfort, but then she imagined it would be like being mauled by an animal only for it coming to rub gently against your leg.
Trust was broken, more fragile than glass or damp parchment. Once ruined, it was likely never to be repaired again. On one hand, the thought he had done enough damage for a night and considered simply slipping behind her down the stairs and into the night. But, that was a sin that would weigh his heart down until it was set before Anubis and Thoth, he was certain. That could not be.
"I am...so sorry....for everything..." Zoser said, his voice thick as if he had swallowed a jar of honey in one gulp. Swallowing a moment to try to clear it, he took a shaking breath as if to clear the cobwebs of numbness from behind his eyes and to string together a thought.
"I did not know..." he started, the usual life behind his voice gone and his timbre as easy to break as the winter stems on a tree. He measured his thoughts a moment and took another breath, steadying himself and cautiously taking a step towards her, yet placing a distinct distance between them - mirroring the gash in their decade old friendship that he had placed there.
"There is no way for me to understand," he said once again, repeating her words, but finally forming his own, "I would carry your hurt for you if I could to try to understand, I would." He would take hers, Neithotep's, Hatshepsut's, Osorsen's....everyones if he could, but that was not possible. Nor, in this moment, would it seem that Iaheru would trust his words to be truthful in anyway.
Frightened deep within and uncertain, he cast his eyes away, knowing that given the severance and betrayal he had placed here, this was likely an ending that he never saw coming. Yet, for all intents and purposes, they still had their roles in this - she was a lady and he was a common-born scribe in the end.
"Lady Iaheru...what would you have of me?"
Did she wish him to leave and never be seen again? Did she wish him to stay in order to be bludgeoned to death or shoved from the balcony for his betrayal? Did she wish to have someone to share her hurt as she bled from a wound that had lingered for a decade?
He wanted to know and only she could tell him.
Iaheru's heart thudded so fast she was sure she'd fall victim to stroke. Never in her life had she been so inconsolable, and she was the victim of many inconsolable moments recently. She had never been weaker tonight, when wine had given way to her desperation for affection and validation.
In her daughter, her own past had been replicated, a Pharaoh more brutal than her own laid waste to Neithotep in nights where Iaheru's hair was braided before she slept into middle morning. Soundlessly. Would things be different had Iaheru questioned her daughter entering the saraaya during high afternoon? Had Iaheru not dismissed the woman's routine as childish proclivities Neithotep fancied anyways? As if it would matter. Whatever had fractured the mother and daughter in Neithotep's early childhood was now beyond repair. A relationship forever marred by the mistake of one night.
What else is there to say. Iaheru realized how cruel the words were. And, even worse, they weren't out of character. Her life had rendered her spiteful, bitter, without a caring word for her children at their lowest. So focused on her own pain, her own self pity engulfing the evenings under her olive tree with an attentive slave tending to her feet, she had failed all of her children. The fate of Hei Sheifa now intertwined with another, more brutal, less logical, Pharaoh she had no intelligence on or sway over.
But she needed Neithotep to say it in that red moment, Iaheru couldn't process the metaphors and rants, Iaheru doubted she'd be able to confront the shared trauma more poignantly sober. Iaheru needed Neithotep to summon strength the mother never had. Blood trickled down Iaheru's neck, Zoser's apologies falling on muffled ears as memories of her own overtook an evening meant to restore normalcy. She peels herself from the edge of the balcony, her theatrics dulling and her fingers curled around a cup of water. "It's impossible," she speaks in a straight tone that cut sharper than her passionate screeching and pleas, "But do excuse me for this evening."
She sways closer to him, fingernails drumming against brass as she maintains a respectful distance. "I appreciate you more than you'll ever know."
"It's harder than ever to find a friend in Egypt. I hope tonight hasn't ruined that. If not for me, for Neithotep. A friendship," Iaheru reiterates, her eyes narrowing further, "A friendship."
Her hand rests on his shoulder blade. The Egyptians were intimate people, but this simply felt wrong. She wasn't sure if an embrace would feel better or if the presence of touch was necessary at all. But yet, her hand fell on his shoulder, "Do as you please. The guest quarters are still prepared. I have horses that you're welcome to take to your archives." She manages a half smile, her hand drifting from his shoulder as she takes polite sips of the lukewarm water.
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May 11, 2020 0:07:21 GMT
Posted In Bear Witness on May 11, 2020 0:07:21 GMT
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Iaheru's heart thudded so fast she was sure she'd fall victim to stroke. Never in her life had she been so inconsolable, and she was the victim of many inconsolable moments recently. She had never been weaker tonight, when wine had given way to her desperation for affection and validation.
In her daughter, her own past had been replicated, a Pharaoh more brutal than her own laid waste to Neithotep in nights where Iaheru's hair was braided before she slept into middle morning. Soundlessly. Would things be different had Iaheru questioned her daughter entering the saraaya during high afternoon? Had Iaheru not dismissed the woman's routine as childish proclivities Neithotep fancied anyways? As if it would matter. Whatever had fractured the mother and daughter in Neithotep's early childhood was now beyond repair. A relationship forever marred by the mistake of one night.
What else is there to say. Iaheru realized how cruel the words were. And, even worse, they weren't out of character. Her life had rendered her spiteful, bitter, without a caring word for her children at their lowest. So focused on her own pain, her own self pity engulfing the evenings under her olive tree with an attentive slave tending to her feet, she had failed all of her children. The fate of Hei Sheifa now intertwined with another, more brutal, less logical, Pharaoh she had no intelligence on or sway over.
But she needed Neithotep to say it in that red moment, Iaheru couldn't process the metaphors and rants, Iaheru doubted she'd be able to confront the shared trauma more poignantly sober. Iaheru needed Neithotep to summon strength the mother never had. Blood trickled down Iaheru's neck, Zoser's apologies falling on muffled ears as memories of her own overtook an evening meant to restore normalcy. She peels herself from the edge of the balcony, her theatrics dulling and her fingers curled around a cup of water. "It's impossible," she speaks in a straight tone that cut sharper than her passionate screeching and pleas, "But do excuse me for this evening."
She sways closer to him, fingernails drumming against brass as she maintains a respectful distance. "I appreciate you more than you'll ever know."
"It's harder than ever to find a friend in Egypt. I hope tonight hasn't ruined that. If not for me, for Neithotep. A friendship," Iaheru reiterates, her eyes narrowing further, "A friendship."
Her hand rests on his shoulder blade. The Egyptians were intimate people, but this simply felt wrong. She wasn't sure if an embrace would feel better or if the presence of touch was necessary at all. But yet, her hand fell on his shoulder, "Do as you please. The guest quarters are still prepared. I have horses that you're welcome to take to your archives." She manages a half smile, her hand drifting from his shoulder as she takes polite sips of the lukewarm water.
Iaheru's heart thudded so fast she was sure she'd fall victim to stroke. Never in her life had she been so inconsolable, and she was the victim of many inconsolable moments recently. She had never been weaker tonight, when wine had given way to her desperation for affection and validation.
In her daughter, her own past had been replicated, a Pharaoh more brutal than her own laid waste to Neithotep in nights where Iaheru's hair was braided before she slept into middle morning. Soundlessly. Would things be different had Iaheru questioned her daughter entering the saraaya during high afternoon? Had Iaheru not dismissed the woman's routine as childish proclivities Neithotep fancied anyways? As if it would matter. Whatever had fractured the mother and daughter in Neithotep's early childhood was now beyond repair. A relationship forever marred by the mistake of one night.
What else is there to say. Iaheru realized how cruel the words were. And, even worse, they weren't out of character. Her life had rendered her spiteful, bitter, without a caring word for her children at their lowest. So focused on her own pain, her own self pity engulfing the evenings under her olive tree with an attentive slave tending to her feet, she had failed all of her children. The fate of Hei Sheifa now intertwined with another, more brutal, less logical, Pharaoh she had no intelligence on or sway over.
But she needed Neithotep to say it in that red moment, Iaheru couldn't process the metaphors and rants, Iaheru doubted she'd be able to confront the shared trauma more poignantly sober. Iaheru needed Neithotep to summon strength the mother never had. Blood trickled down Iaheru's neck, Zoser's apologies falling on muffled ears as memories of her own overtook an evening meant to restore normalcy. She peels herself from the edge of the balcony, her theatrics dulling and her fingers curled around a cup of water. "It's impossible," she speaks in a straight tone that cut sharper than her passionate screeching and pleas, "But do excuse me for this evening."
She sways closer to him, fingernails drumming against brass as she maintains a respectful distance. "I appreciate you more than you'll ever know."
"It's harder than ever to find a friend in Egypt. I hope tonight hasn't ruined that. If not for me, for Neithotep. A friendship," Iaheru reiterates, her eyes narrowing further, "A friendship."
Her hand rests on his shoulder blade. The Egyptians were intimate people, but this simply felt wrong. She wasn't sure if an embrace would feel better or if the presence of touch was necessary at all. But yet, her hand fell on his shoulder, "Do as you please. The guest quarters are still prepared. I have horses that you're welcome to take to your archives." She manages a half smile, her hand drifting from his shoulder as she takes polite sips of the lukewarm water.