The arrival of a new invasion of women had left Atair rather at a loss for what might be considered peace for one such as himself. The black stallion burned his days away beneath the great eye of Ra as he trekked the sky above the dunes. He was knighted of Sekhmet. He was meant to be the warriors own spirit, He was the anointed of Montu, might of his brother made flesh. His practices had bored him, left him unwilling to even attempt their victories. He walked away almost nonplussed rather than glorying in them.

He once had brawled with his brothers-in-arms on the daily, taking teeth and hoof to them to prove he was worthy of their belief when they charged next into battle against a foe - greater numbers or fighting fury be damned.

To become suddenly a simple guardsman of women, no matter the quality of those women, smarted him somewhere deep in the core of himself where his parents had spent so much time cultivating warrior-only. In the nights, watching over the small group of mares, he lamented a part of him that felt so long lost, so entirely forgotten by his every cell. He knew his new sister-in-law felt some sort of hope for him, but he did anything he needed to dissuade her of such a naive endeavor.

He had not touched a woman save the Priestess of Min that took him when he came of age into herself and she had been frighteningly unprepared for the body of a blooded-warrior so unused to the kind treatment of a softer, yielding body, that she accused his lovemaking to be as bloody an ordeal as the genocide of the Set Tribe in the north. The accusation had hit home, having been there in the raid of the Tribe within his first year of warring alongside his father’s general. It had been his duty to blood his hooves in the head-matter of the lead stallion’s son, retribution for the death of his own sister in his mother’s womb. Stillborn for the assault attempted on her person by a rogue variable come in the guise of a Lady In Waiting meant for his mother’s most trusted.

He had never felt right, taking that life. It had not been in fair combat, the lad well beaten and held by Knights of his father… but his mother said it had been a mercy, castrated as he would have been otherwise and paraded through the streets to show the might of Mira.

Antares and Rigel had seen the prettier side of Mira. It was only too silly that they argued that Mahgrib was faulty in their presumption of barbarism. Atair knew better and liked it better here, save for the flaccid office he now held. Flaccid in more than he’d care to admit, having well enough noticed the change in his sister-in-law and his eldest brother.

He walks the crest of a dune above the gulley that housed the newest participants in their herd, spangled hide mirroring the stars above as though they’d dripped their mirror image atop his back. His eyes note the sleep of the gray mare, the dozing of his brother Aldebaran not too far from them but far enough that he could make a break for the horizon and get the aid of Maslakhat in the event of a tresspasser. He notes the cosmos painted on his brother who laid near the small oasis assigned to their guests. What his eyes still from traveling elsewhere for is the lady that had so often showed interest in what could never be hers.

She is beautiful, though his face says nothing to that effect as he looks on her. He had well learned his lesson there, knowing how things had gone the last time they’d spoken. Even now, his eyes on her, he is careful not to stare too intently so as to wake the jealousy of her protector. She was beautiful, but she was tenderfleshed. She was spirited, but she was uncalloused and untouched. He would only disrespect her if he indulged in more than silent looking. He feels the thief, stealing glimpses of her in repose, but he cannot help but skirt her awareness now and then for all his knowing that he was no fit match for her.

Sekhmet and Montu, the gods who bore him up, were gods of strength, power, of breathing the savagery of war and fighting. There was no act that would not be as a wound to such a creature as she was. There was no duty he could perform as Husband that would not be pleasure coated amply in pain and aching. The bloodfever was his constant companion, his only known talent. He turns his eyes away, looking instead into the night.

What he could not take, could not keep, he would protect.