He cannot run any longer, has sworn to pay the dues, and he finds himself thrilled that having a binding oath makes bearing her season a little easier. It had always been easier to obey than to commit to self-organized control. His whole life was built around obedience and tactics and standing in the way of armies so that your men made it back alive. He still is scalded by the fires he senses in her, burned in the pit behind his guts, but he will withstand because the Voice of Wosret has spoken for her and has claimed her heat this cycle as his proof of devotion. It was not his, therefore, and he had never stolen anything from a god…

Not until his brother.

Still the bridle of the bride price was firmly fitted and he extends his nose to her, ears pinned hard forward to catch every wisp of breath he might hear of her. She traces the line of white, a comet streaking up his nose, to where the constellations begin at his brow around it. He calls her his Night Siren, and she finds humor in it, releasing her tension enough that she finds herself comfortable to take liberties in touches that taunt while she hovers so close and looks him in the eyes. "I have fought your spellweaving since I came to the side of my brother on the Crossing. Tonight I simply could not fathom denying my other half over again. You were meant for me since the dawning of the world-- and only past evils kept me from accepting the truth." He whispers this, is obviously and audibly pained still by whatever secrets he still kept.

"I have no doubts as to your devotion, and in return i will show you how to love. I will show you that I am not so easily broken with just the slightest touch as you fear so readily," But he knows she does not understand, has not heard the tale of the Priestess who called him unfit, no better than a savage. The sadness in his eyes is only there a moment before the mask slips a bit more into place - leaving behind the happier self that touched nothing of the pains of the past. "i may not be able to give you my all right now my stars, but i will take whatever you may give, and give what you wish to take, for i am now yours."

"Had the Voice of Wosret not stripped me of that delight, I would not have been able to refuse your all. I am only too glad that she has bound me so that I might be worthy of you." He touches her gingerly, tentative and soft on her cheek as if he knew better than to believe her professions of strength defiant against his power. "So I will not take what I wish, only treasure what it is you may give. She bound you too, after all, in both of the prices she laid on me. You shall not feed my fire this season, but nor can you quench your own - even if you change your mind, I am bound to the oath or am forsworn and lose you forever. And when the season is upon you in the year that comes next, you will be the only relief and the first relief I have had since I was a boy. You will not, save if you relinquish it, be spared my attentions as you are committed to the Right of Golden Year."

He must, he decides, find a way to feed his bloodfever less - to learn a gentle hand faster - find a method to restrain his baser self better. At least in this, he would be able to spend a year before he satisfied the hunger he had felt since he had laid his eyes upon her. "Tell me, do you wish me to ask Sakhmet to follow you as Lady In Waiting? I would not part you from her. Your heart is mine as mine is yours - I know her absence in even this glorious moment is a great weight in you. I know what she is to you, what she yearns for you to be to her - and that I have caused a rift in my clumsiness.".