He is stunned by her noted reaction, instantly backtracking to find out his mistake in what he spoke -- but what she asked and how she ended her asking told him enough. He is taken aback that she would believe it of them, still be so biased in believing the worst in them because something had not gone per the schemes of her own mind regarding her Husband. His ears face backwards, her eyes not lighting on him again. There is a part of him that does not deserve her praise, that gets offended moreso now than when in Mahgrib, over her learned biases and prejudices. When she finally ends the question meant to cover up her sidelong accusation, he snaps his tail down at the dirt.

“Sayyida… she took us on as a warrior.” His voice is cut short, hurt and prickled frustration evident in his usually softened tone that might once have only exhibited a ‘tsk tsk’ sort. “I clearly have not spoken clear enough to inform you past what your People accuse mine of.” He sighs, evening his normally hard-to-raise temper back down to something more like a teacher than a brother again.

“She fought my brother and he was so in awe of her skill, that he brought her to face myself, eager to show me he had found a woman as talented in battle as those from Mira. I, of course, was eager to see if she could best my twin in his own office. Atair pettily felt the need to see if she might best Aldebaran because he has often been of the mind that none could catch him, much less do anything to him. We fought her one by one and all lost...” His voice turns disheartened, “I spoke to you like a brother about an encounter my brother entrusted me in confidence because you are his other half and deserve to know of him everything he has faced and endured.”

“Lady, he was given into the Priestess of Min when he came of age - so that no one Son could claim right of the heirship over his others and so the Temple was protected from the evil of Kings who defied the gods choice. So too, he had been betrothed early and thus he was taught rightly so that he might please his First Wife, a princess of a noble People they wished not to offend with a poor handling of their daughter. There is a child in the Temple who has forsaken his lineage and yet bears his blood nonetheless. Your father did not explain this to you? He was meant to explain to you that all Royal Colts of the King and Mira undergo such training as prevent them from injuring the alliances that were made through the daughters that were betrothed to them. Each of us underwent such a thing because it gives the Temples protection from hateful kings springing up and eliminating Faith to usurp all-consuming power.”

He looks upset now, but this time it is not at her assumptions about himself and his brothers, “I cannot say I am not furious at your father, Sayyida. Of all the rest of the things they say of us, why would that be something they withheld from you?” He lifts himself up from their relaxing pose on the earth, too affronted in his heart to remain still anymore. “So Antares was not the first born of Sirius and his Mira, Sirius was not the first born of Polarius and his Mira. There was not a firstborn King of Mira, as you see it, in eons. We treat those as are born to Priestesses of Mira to be consecrated to the Goddess and belonging to no mortal bonds.”

He sighs, shuddering from wither to toe, “I am sorry for my tone, Mira of my Brother. I simply chafe under the perception of your People after months living in your one-time world. I have seen plenty of prejudice and bias and experienced being thought of as so sex-mad and senseless as you implied.” He faces her, dropping his head so that he was not talking at her looking down on her but across to her. “He was embarrassed to have lost proper faculty in the heat of a battle with the Lady Indira. He did not make the decision because he was flippant or disrespectful to his First Wife -- whoever she was to be.”

“He was barred from covering any woman save you the moment of your betrothal. He was sent into war where women were a part of his troops, where their heat was his constant torment, and still he denied himself for respect of you - who he did not love or know enough to do more than respect your title. He fed all that torment and frustration into fighting Mira’s enemies. He had confided in me that he thought he might be like Atair and utterly wasted for any gentle office. He had to kill those who begged forgiveness because his father commanded it of him. He had to give women to men they did not love because his father said that was the price of their capture… a reminder that his own match would not be for love and he had to put duty over heart. He poured himself into all that hate because he never thought to have love to give. He told me when we arrived that he did not think women might hold anything but pain for him, that he might never be saved from his time in war, to be worthy to have a First Wife.”

He lifts his head at last. “Lady Indira was a warrior. He was surprised at her defiance against a storm. It spoke to him, her loss in her eyes, her scars. He challenged her because they both were in need of pain of the physical kind to smother the pain of brokenness. In his new life, this new world, she acted as Priestess of Min.” He sounds pitying, pained to have been his brother’s confidante, and even a little glad to speak it aloud now to one who was as his brother. “He was different than he is now, Sayyida. He sounded so hollow. She did not fulfill him, that I know because he confesses such things to me, but she did show him that he could still feel Min’s fire, that it was not only the desolate heat of Sekhmet that he was destined to. She didn’t give him what you do - but by the gods I am glad he was found out by Indira before he was so enamored of you that you were beset upon by such a hollowed out man as he had been. You deserved better and her sacrifice gave you the Husband you deserved, the Husband who was fit to be a Husband at all and knew what love was.”

At no time does he remind her that she had been just as willing to bed a total stranger that she found pleasing in the heat of her season. At no time does he bring it to her attention that she was only lucky that it had been him first that came across her. “As for meeting her, I will pray that Maat show you to her. And perhaps, I might also pray that you think hard about the behavior of your own young men who do their own share of carousing that ends in shoddily patched marriages, if not simple slandering of the women involved thereafter. It is not many women who have the first of their husbands among your own People.”

He forgets that she asked about his brothers and his arrival, walking a few steps to a patch of oasis grasses so he might take a bite… seeming to only recall once he had swallowed his first bite. “As to our arrival, Malik Maslakhat found us come to his shores first. We scented the desert here from all the way across the strait. Ra led us, Shu made sure we kept on the right track. I bartered for us and gained us the eastern side of his territory.”