He has been making himself a potent presence along the borders of the Desert and the southern shoreline. It took time to go to and fro through the dunes, but always he returned to his Wife and paid her the respects she was due-- the respects and disrespects she desired, rather. It had seemed almost too good to be true, at first, but time had softened her scent to something less heady - less debilitating to his good sense. He didn’t make a spectacle of himself as much of late, did not fuss about her in that suffocating manner he was so prone to when the flames of Qetesh were burning her to the quick.

This is not to say that she did not still make him yearn for her, that she was any less beautiful or desirable… only that the time spent beside her was far more frequent than above and atop her. His tendernesses were more tender, his respects more respectful, and his disrespects… well, less potent if ever they were indulged. His brown eyes never seemed to tire of taking their fill of her, even when he could not be with her. From afar he checked on her often, her and the few women that were his to defend along with his brothers, but mostly her. The black rabicano mare was fine, the flaxen woman was well enough, and the Sekhmet crowned sister might have been attractive if she had held any attraction to him -- but it is Sayyida still who holds him so rapt.

She is yet his siren and once again he comes as the sunset begins to creep reds and purples into the skies above them. The others would not be here this late, he is certain. The others would be where Atair and the other two brothers would stand their watches and keep the rabble from finding them out. Nights were, since their first coupling, Sayyida’s alone - only a sparingly few gaps put between them. It soothed him to be with her, to settle into the nights lull and then to wake up with her in the dawn. Sometimes bedded down like the gazelle, others standing so their weights held them aloft with their leaning one into another.

When he crests the dunes that barred him from her oasis, he weaves through a good bevy of the palms to find her. He is glad for the greenery, for the wondrous heft of their protection. They softened the noises made, the words spoken, so that his new Wife, First of his Wives, Only Wife while she was in the Golden Year of her first season beneath him, wouldn’t feel the burden of an audience any longer.

“ⲕⲗⲟⲙ ϩⲓⲙⲉ.” he coos to her as he comes upon her taking a sip from the cool waters of her sanctuary. His muzzle is careful, his touches are tender and fleeting as he follows the soon-to-swell round of her barrel. He hums when he finds the marks he had left in her withers, pressing his touch there with intent and a heady rush of possession. His. His and his alone. He breathes a hot wash of air there, grazing a subtle brush of teeth over the mark without any intent to aggravate it. “Your ϩⲉⲓ returns to you.”