He had come to known Varajakshi in a manner he had never known another soul. Every cell of her body, every fiber of her mind, was his to tend and care for. It was not at all taxing as she sometimes implied, only illuminating in the manner of seeing how every piece of her was a puzzle fit into his own being. He struggled, sometimes, to see her as an entity of shame and forsaken sacrifice - struggled to know who would dare strike down this creature of such promise and beauty for the sake of any gods. His own, let alone someone elses. It was reprehensible and he strove every day to make her aware of his mind in that regard.

It was strange to feel so varying in the same emotion with three perfected creatures as the women who had wheedled themselves into his life. Shahrazad with her stories and the beauty of his own people shining bright enough to burn out the Teke upbringing. Dhaniya, rescued and redeemed to his heart by her own strength of will and her daughters cleverness back home, he is certain-- she was the mystery of forbidden love made legal, wholesome because he had called her home to him as wife should she be accepted by his Mira and given over to him properly as she was due.

But Varajakshi was no young lust blossomed to passionate love. She was no ‘coming home’ tale with highborn mind and self-respect. In her he found the uttermost depth of himself. If she had been Arabian, and his brother not been the one who bore a soul, he might have believed her to be his Soul-Sewn. It does not occur to him that there had been other breeds amongst the masses -- that perhaps other breeds too could have matched his soul. It is not that any breed was greater - only that the temples had spoken of souls to mean only yoked to those ‘of their own kind’. He does not realize that before history had its annals, there was a time of no border between the breeds and so no border hindering the bond of one soul to their own splinter from the mother tree, so to speak.

When he finds her today, hovering in the more open space nearer the cave mouths, he is surprised. His feet had stepped carefully until then and he makes certain the slough his feet through the sand some in order to forewarn her of his approach. "It is farther than I have seen you venture, Varajakshi. I am warmed by your comfort in exploring even out the fringes of your safe haven."

He wants to touch her, wants to feel what that wine-colored coat would feel like beneath his touch, but he is afraid to do so - afraid that he might dishonor her with a heart made too voracious with his new wellspring of opportunities. The flavors of love had begun their addicting processes in him and Qetesh teased him so mercilessly in this liver sabino flesh.

"You are beautiful this morning," he says, his voice unintentionally filling with the heat he would have felt in his cheeks and straight up into his ears if he had been human. "It is a shame that the sun cannot see and admire you as well. I do not know your gods well, but mine would be jealous of my proximity to you." The lilt in his tone is teasing, knowing well she took gods for violent and fickle things. "Isis and Hathor would protect you, though. The value more in a woman than beauty - and I have found myself to be more in Hathor’s favor than I ever imagined I might be."