He is soothed by her reply, glad to have been missed no matter the discomfort it caused his beloved. To be missed was to be wanted and it was a point of pride for men to be wished-for in his homeland. Wished-for and less than burdensome. She drinks, not disturbed overmuch my his coming, and he is all too happy to take his time appreciating her very touchable self. She had been more welcoming than he had any right to hope on the nights that had led up to this one, though he had been more tender with her after the great wash of her heat had begun to peeter off. He could smell how Qetesh pulled her fiery wantonness back from Sayyida, Isis commanding her body to instead look to the care of a child rather than her husband. Still, it had been a great long while that he’d withheld himself since the Priestess of Min and he had learned enough self-control to give her as little grief as he might.

Indira had burned out of him the madness of bloodfever and suddenly unbridled lust, giving way at last to a man who could treat this precious gift with the care and undivided attention she deserved of him. Even when she twists her ears against his attentions, she had sated him well for her first season and the years spent tucking away his boyhood amorousness gave him some traction now against the urges of Min. Perhaps it had needed to have been so hard on him, learning to tamp down that unruly burning in that pit behind his guts. He does not trust it, his father so brutal natured, but it could have served a purpose not originally intended all the same.

“Do not fear my touches tonight, Beautiful One. I savor a memory, that is all.” He knows she is sensitive to his desires, that his heady possession of her on numerous nights for numerous interludes had to have led to some qualm about his ability to abstain - but he tries to soothe those frets. She appears to respond, pressing herself nearer to him so that he almost thought she changed her mind - but she distracts his thoughts fair easily with her scent so calmed, soothed by the quickened womb. “I would not be kept from you, not this evening.” He speaks to her warmly, his heated breath brought to the hollow of her jaw and away from places that might have persuaded him to sway her towards their past occupations in the night.

“There is a stallion and mare who visit. I beseeched Maslakhat to allow them to be our Guests and have given them leave to bed down with my brothers and the ladies that have come to seek Ra with us.” He does not name them, keeping a tender mindfulness to her jealousy. “The two seem to be siblings. Part of the People, but part of another people too.” She interrupts his story with a forward dancing movement that perks his ears and draws his attention out of his exchange of report. "Tell me while I bathe the sand from your coat. I cannot tell where your marks end and the sand begins."

He smiles, all too glad for a bit of cool water to stem the distractions still brought on by a lithe woman’s body he knew so intimately, so well, and so dearly. Her sigh goads him the last inch he needed, finding himself easily chest deep and slapping the water with a newly wetted tail snap. “I will wash you after, Wife, to take the last edge out of my yearning for the night.” It is a reminder than he is still Man and she is still Woman, that he had noted the ebbed passion but felt no less desire for her.

He leaves her to make of his body what she will in the water and focuses back to the two visitors. “The stallion is one called Bahadir, a lord of this place before Montu forsook him. The mare is his sister Bhaskara. Atair took exception to his mentioning a former ownership of the Dunes, but I do not think we will see trouble from the pair. Apparently Rigel has heard that he has a station of Vizier amongst the Badlands. It is likely enough to quell any ambitions he’d have to hamper us.” He was not a pacifist persay, but he does sound relieved and allows her washing to soothe his tensed muscles back into relaxation. “Rigel also spoke to me of a flaxen mare that has come to us by way of a visiting Teke like Maslakhat. She knows us from tales, apparently. It bemused Rigel to be recognized, I think, so far from home.”

He hums, shuddering for the freshness of being washed and the touches of his Wife. “Atair mentioned that you had hopes to venture out into the unknown, too.” He looks to her with only a little concern, but mostly with appeasement and acquiescence. “Only promise to listen to his counsel, for the sake of my anxiousness. It was a frightful thing, my urge to go and fetch you back from the badlands. I admit that I perhaps was too heavy handed against my brother when I had discovered you had left.” Sheepishness, that is how she knows the depth of her control over him. No other could be allowed, would be allowed, to see this weakness in him - doubting himself aloud was simply not done. Not on punishments meted out, not about things regarding his command of others. He opens up to her because she is his own soul, flesh, and mind. No safer place could he be than here in the oasis with her washing his hide and tending to him as a First Wife might in her pleasure of him.