He stands there like the sentinel he is, protector of the People that Antares gathered to himself through each of the brothers and women as they settled and yearned for more bodies to fill around this more accessible oasis. Sayyida and Antares were indulging themselves, he was sure, and only the better that there were no more jests about his remaining stoic in regards to the black mare below him as he stood on the mountainous dune.

He traces the stars with his eyes, looking across that starscape for the star that he was named for. The Eagle, he is told, a creature that was bold and brave and capable of great battle in the suspension between sky and earth. He wonders after those who named the constellations, perturbed why an Eagle was chosen to connect the dots that littered Nut’s glorious form. He craved the night since he was a young boy, freed of burdens and given leave to commit himself to stoic wakefulness. Laugh only when he meant to, smile when he was glad, glower when he was not...

"Allat would be jealous," the source of his despondency of late speaks, the scent of her so heady that he closes his eyes on the stars above to brace himself and act like the gentleman she and the gray lady deserved - nay, had learned to expect. She remains a subtle distance from him but it does not spare him the burning in the pit behind his gut or still the flinching of his flanks. Her poise is misleading, her eyes cast upwards and so he does not think she means him, so clearly as her attention was to the heavens.

“Allat possesses them already, isn’t it so -- there is nothing to be coveting.” Not for Allat, at least. Atair, however, was not so lucky. Just out of range, she is all the tease any mare could hope to be without so much as lighting a touch to a man. Was this what Antares had felt when he had fell on Sayyida with famished haste? All-consumed with every inch of her until he was sure that he would rend her to pieces so that he might touch even the secreted heart behind her chest?

He disgusts himself, not only in the violent nature of his possessiveness but the fact that he could have been glad to possess this creature who was too beautiful of body and too uncalloused of spirit to possibly bear his love without wound. She curls her head, neck bowed like the frond of a palm, and he imagines how easily he could trace the ridge of muscle even her lithe neck possessed in such an angle. "Your home here is quite beautiful, especially at night," she says, soft, seductive in spite of the innocent words. Why was it that the place in which he normally took the most peace was his greatest torment beside her?

Perhaps it is that they are so dark, pieces of the night made flesh and set upon the earth. Perhaps it is because the night was so often meant for the darkling throng, nefarious dealings and less-than-innocence doings run rampant. He snaps his tail against his haunches, eyes kept averted to stay his reckless self from damning her and him to a night of regret on both sides. For all her fine breeding, a unwed covered mare would be rendered no better than a Bondwoman of Qetesh despite all the shining jewel of her body’s beauty. She deserved better, was worth more - and he was determined that she would not be bound to a beast no better than the blood he had washed off his legs.

“I am sorry you sleep ill, my lady. If there is something I can do to aid you, say the word and it shall be done.” Yes, any office that could be assigned - even to the furthest northern Isle… anywhere that would take him out from under the burning temptation displayed in a gently sloped withers, a lock of mane blown out of line from it’s brethren, and a rounded swell of hips. “I am not well versed in herbs like my brother Rigel, but I might find some other purpose more easily done.”