He had known something was up since the time his wife had spoken to him of Naz and her strange visit, combined with Naz’s common destination even before her cloistering in Rigel’s little maze of canyon caves. He had known and yet this was not at all what he thought he’d find when Rigel came out with it finally. His proper, poised, law-keeping brother - standing there with wife and a newly minted High Priestess no less - producing two new children to be invited into the Sadim.

Surely he hears the pleas, sees the importance it holds for all three of those who stood before them, the children besides. His ears are back but remain unpinned, his eyes unhappy but not enraged as his father would have been. The progression of Rigel’s behavior made some sort of sense, after all. It made sense that he would obey the wishes of a seemingly abused mare. It made sense that he would give her the time she needed to heal. It made sense suddenly, too, why he had been so violent towards Aldebaran - though now he knew that that too required punishment.

But then Rigel compares their coming together to that of himself and Sayyida - and his ears do nearly flatten. They had all agreed at the time that Sayyida was a surprise blessing that absolved him -- Varajakshi could have been a goddess and she still would not have been Rigel’s betrothed from home. He looks to Naz when Rigel starts to regale them on her part. It felt to him that Naz had only done what she could with the knowledge she had and it begins in Antares to conjure the reality of what Rigel had done in order to maneuver law into his own will. It was done all by the scant scraping of the law - but so manipulated that his eyes darken slightly. And to take advantage of his Mira, his own student? To ask Naz to call up her friendship with Sayyida?

The sad tale of Varajakshi softens him some, certainly, but only towards her. Only towards Naz. Only towards the twins that hid behind their young mother. Rigel’s scattered thanks do not move him in the slightest. He risked Aldebaran being rendered useless over a promise he should have revealed to his Sheik and Mira. Sayyida’s reaction only seals Rigel’s own fate, the protector rising vehemently within Antares for the first time in a long while. Naz’s words turn his attention to her finally. "You are our Qasisa, my Mira’s second in all things of the Sadim, or so my brother seems to think. We would not have you leave, either. While the method is wrong, your hopes were not to harm anyone. You owe us nothing more than the devotion your title demands of you."

When Sayyida finally has woken to speak, he flicks his ears back in dismay at her deference. It riles the Prince in him - the one who had not disgraced himself in running off to new lands and had grown with power in his ever fiber - to see his First Wife, his Mira, turn to him for anything but matters of State and Love. She lowers her head and sees the dejection, but he would surprise her. He knew her to be honorable, refusing to take any less punishment than anyone else culpable. Instead of turning back, he feeds for her the demons of her depleted self-worth. "As your Husband, I love you too much and understand your circumstances too intimately to fault your trust in a friend -- who also only did what she did out of love and wishing good things for two souls in love. As your Sheik," he steps forward with an eye on Rigel that spoke of a moment of hate before he nips where his teeth marks yet scarred her withers. "I only remind you who your husband is, and what that makes you to this Sadim we have begun to fashion… You are Mira and need to ask no forgiveness for a power you gave to someone who I know is your dearest of friends."

His eyes soften, his muzzle nudging Sayyida to try and snap her out of the deferential nonsense his apparent negligence had allowed her to slip back into. "I am you husband and you are my wife. You are Mira." His whisper was only for her, but when he turns to the rest of them, he is all Sheik and not at all the Antares, the brother, Rigel had sought to entreat.

"You are not my brother here, Rigel. You are an Amir who has taken a woman without the grace given of his Mira. You are an Amir who sought to bend and manipulate laws meant to bolster his Mira against her - using tactics I have seen you use against our enemies when our father sent us against Mahgrib and the Desert Wastes. You have gotten bold because I had given you the duty to teach the ways of Miran Life to my First Wife, your superior in honor and duty. Your wife and children I absolve because they owe no fault than to have love of a faulty Husband and Father." He nods to Naz, to Varajakshi, to the children - but he presses into Rigel’s space and herds him away from the mouth of the cave, towards the walls that were the outside of his canyon cave home.

"You, and the laws that you clung to like a child, are dismantled. You will not teach your Mira - I was a fool to allow it. Your Sheik and your Mira will now teach you. You will be no different than our Uncle, an Amir seeking to restore honor and be given a purpose once more. Your purpose will be to be a father only and abide by the laws handed down - without question or quibble. You are not an advisor any longer, not until you have learned the laws of THIS land and find yourself as wholly given to their upholding as you once were in Mira."

He returns to Sayyida’s side. "I have let the reign and deference to Maslakhat turn me idle. Both in my household and in what was to be my kingdom. I will not be so any longer, Rigel. For your crimes against your laws, I take your duty and honor from you. For your sins against my Wife, the treason, however well meant, against your Mira? For that I say that until your Mira finds you worthy of the women who had precedence over this wife you have taken out of Hathor’s eyes - yes, even if she should be the answer your heart has sought in the absence of a Soul-Sewn - you will not be married to them. It will be her forgiveness and permission you will ask for, and no other. Naz performed a duty in the absence of your Mira only because you orchestrated the absence. It will not be so again."

He looks to finally acknowledge the power his wife should have felt was her own, should have known was hers to command over those that followed them. "You will perform every single trial and task she wills. You will earn her trust or be trusted to earn no other womans again." He looks to his Mira, then, only barely lowering his voice - and even then, mostly only removing his ire from his tone. It was not private what he would say, he did not need to hide it. "You and I were bred to rule, Sayyida. Not be treated like children by our own citizens - not even my own brothers. You would not have been treated that way if I had not let nostalgia command me, habit confine me, and familiarity steal away my duty to create this new world not in the image of Mira but the image of what we want the Sadim to be."

"As of this moment, Sayyida and I will be creating the Sadim’s law in and of itself. Do not presume any Miran ritual or law will be kept or deferred to, do not rest on the laurels of what you know. Rigel has taught a hard lesson. The celebration of his marriage, of his children, will wait until the end of spring when summer finally begins - but we do welcome Varajakshi and her beautiful children with open hearts, no matter how wounded we feel."

And at last he speaks to her directly, "For your love of my brother, fool that he is in matters of the heart, I also love you and those you both have brought into this world. He says you fear the wrath of gods, mine and yours, but I swear to you that I will strike down any gods who would take you from us now. You are ours, not theirs, and I will watch you and your children grow here with joy." He huffs a small breath from him to her, a softer greeting than he might have given if she had had sight to her advantage, before turning back to Sayyida. "Send Aminah to play with Jyeshtha, my Mira. I think we have a lot to discuss."

The mischief in the gleam in his eye was so much more himself than he had been in some time.