So much had happened since he’d brought Ayyüce home to rest and recuperate with Dhaniyā. The latter had come ashore not very much later than Zazu had left him and it may very well have been because of her arrival that she had taken her leave. The drive to be free was not as all encompassing as his own, it would seem. The former, though, had taken quite a while to adapt to having been so misused by her own body. Her headaches had of course subsided, but mostly that was due to her lack of motivation to revisit her history and he had therefore dropped the topic entirely.

Whatever had happened, Ayyüce had to overcome it herself - or she would end up only hurt the worst for his prying. And whatever had happened to give Dhaniyā the gall to leave her brute of a husband, well, she had to overcome her own self loathing for it.

So they stayed at his southernmost oasis, away from any prying eyes simply because there were no eyes to seek him or them out so far south in the Dunes. He had no women that anyone knew of and therefore there was not much purpose to go there unless they could not find it. And he had made sure that everyone could always find him.

Only Sidika knew of their presence, to his knowledge, but it would have to come out sooner or later. Rigel would have his head over one in particular, after all, and he had already tried to take a chunk out of his littlest brother’s neck and legs for his last foray into curiosity.

He lets the healing wound shiver as he thinks of it and approaches the oasis where the first of the ladies was spending her time. "Dhaniyā, I think it is almost time to tell the others that you are here. If you spend the season of Min and Qetesh with me, you know what my brother will do to me?" She had been the first to find out how violently Rigel had defended his slot-canyon oasis in the caves. "I know he will think I disgraced you… he is not the idiot romantic out here in the Dunes like he was in Mira. Something has him worked up."

He wonders for half a second if it was because he hide away some secret in there - a woman perhaps like himself with his two refugees - but the thought does not stick. He never much trusted hunches, at least not enough to make a problem where there was none. "If you insist on staying, then you must at least meet with my Mira. She will keep your secret and will protect me if Rigel decides to challenge me for your honor."