He retreats because he knows that he is too much, she has said so herself, and he can only feel it as the earnestness grows. He leaves her to Sayyida as she asks, though she needn’t have asked at all. He had entreated her as Voice of Wosret and by that name, her will was binding. He had laid his soul at her feet, to sew it to the one who he leaves with her or to cast it back to him. It was to be her determination if Eness was worthy of him and if he was worthy of her.

It had always been left to the Mira to determine the First Wives among the royalty - though it was often an office of less burden than Sayyida would find it. Normally a Soul Sewn simply ‘knew’ it and the Mira only presided over the betrothal in preparation of the wedding festival. She had the added complication of determining the nature of the Soul of an uninitiated figure into the faith.

He knows already what the bride’s price to be. Celibacy till the next season was torment, but worthy payment to find the other half of his entire being. He has no doubt after Eness shrunk back from him, spoke her own mind on the matter of his and her fires comingling to create in her what was created in Sayyida… and somehow it seemed fitting that Sayyida should alone bear a First Wife’s Treasure in the spring season. A new land and only a single heir to claim it. For him, he could spend the rest of the season in payment for Eness’ bond and oath, celebrating their betrothal now and then uniting beneath the winter moon as Husband and First Wife.

He turns and makes a purposeful line towards Rigel, the other stallion rising onto his feet with some bleary eyed grumbling. "You look out of sorts, brother, what danger is there? Shall we herd the women towards the stone cistern?" Atair hardly has an answer, so tongue tied that the silence in response seems to shake Rigel straight out of Nephthys’ veil. "What, Tair, what!?" He bites off, looking utterly flabbergasted.

"She is it, Rigel-- I begged Sayyida to act as Voice of Wosret… what do I do?" The wide and unmasked brother he had not seen in years fumbles and stumbles through his words and Rigel looks at him as if he’d seen him die and resurrect right before his eyes. "You did what!?" He says, wide eyed, snapping a look at where Sayyida walks with Eness - noting the distinct absence of Sakhmet and Aldebaran with some intrigue. "You idiot, I had not finished teaching her of her role as Wosret! She does not know the binding words to prepare your souls and bind them in betrothal!"

Atair’s eyes widen, seeming to have gone into a bit of shock over his utter indelicacy in putting Sayyida so on the spot. And Eness, what must she think of him - so abhorrently bold as to expose her to the self behind his outward behaviors, so disgustingly laid bare without having her acceptance to his proposal. To not go to Sakhmet, even, to first gain her good will!!

Rigel, however, is not so bombastically at a loss for how to proceed and it means that the bluish-black brother with a cosmos painted on his body leads the stunned starry-hide twin towards the women who still speak. "No!" Eness seems to shout, waking Atair from his utterly useless state with a stunned halt as though his whole world might shatter. No? He stops with a look of utter despair, of wondering how he might have been so broken to have mistaken the other half of his soul. The fires of Min had never so blinded him - had he grown weak in his breaking from their homeland, betraying his god Montu by aiding the abdication of his brother?

"No, brother mine, you did not hear the rest. Do not take that no as rejection simply because you are too distracted not to hear what was asked." He bites his brothers shoulder in irritation, "Sayyida asked if she wished her bride-price to be to wait for her answer till the first of winter -- and she says that she wishes you to know!" The elder twin rolls his eyes, so unused to this Atair who was so out of sorts that he would make so many mistakes in such a short time.

"...that i feel the same for him as well. That by the blessing of my moon my soul yearns for him, and as long as he will have me despite my conditions, then I will forever stay by his side."

At last Atair hears it, from her own lips, that she feels for him what he does for her. Out of habit, his mask slams back into place, formality taking hold and giving him a crutch by which he might stay standing instead of collapsing to the sand like the fool he had been. "Sister, and soon-to-be sister, do not mind the stone creature behind me," he says as he approaches ahead of Atair’s form, "I do think he was dropped on his head as a foal and he needs a moment to collect himself. He nearly fell over when she said that her soul yearns for him."

Rigel’s eyes look at Sayyida pointedly, as good as raising his eyebrows at her so far accomplishing the purpose of Wosret barring the words needed to perform the office of binding their betrothal in preparation of being wed at the next month’s full moon. Atair seems to make himself a little less like stone at the teasing of his brother, but still he is not so unraveled as he had been since giving her a blink behind his mask. "I will pay whatever bride price the Voice of Wosret deems right to make me worthy of binding my soul to yours." His voice cannot hide the thread of elation that leaks past the solemn promise his words imply. He is in aw of her in that moment and couldn’t be expected to do much more than reach out, the longing in his eyes explaining the breathlessness, trying to touch muzzle to muzzle - to breathe her breath with her.

"ⲧⲁϭⲟⲓⲥ," he says in that same breathless tone as shone in his eyes, "as'alak ⲗⲁⲥ ⲁⲩ Ⲟⲱⲩⲥⲣⲉⲧ, hi yasmae almukalama' min biladi ruhi?"