Had she meant for her words to seem so harsh? Eness had never been one for confrontation and the brother’s were still a mystery to her as far as they stood on the goings on. She expects Antares to respond differently than what actually comes from his mouth, his words giving her a pause to reflect on the whole picture. Horses had died recently, something she is not completely oblivious to but had chosen to keep her grief to a minimum for her son’s sake. Sidika had been there for her birth, and had helped deliver them both alongside Sayyida, so her loss was greatly felt. All were running on high emotions but it was the reality check they all needed to understand and come to terms with. Her lashes lower over her sad eyes, yet they continue to look over Ant as he speaks his dues.

All Eness can do in the moment is dip her head to each brother in turn as they speak their own apologies to her, listening carefully to what Aldebaran has to say about her husband that was meant for her ears alone. Yes, she knew what she was marrying indeed. Suddenly the words she had spit at him made it seem ten times worse, and she was in the wrong now. Her husband had a past, one she didn’t fully know or understand that made him the way he is and yet here she was berating the very thing that made him. Her eyes slide back to Antares a final time, inkling her head to his proclamation of owing her, something that could be discussed later given he departs soon after and leaves the husband and wife to their affairs of the heart.

A careful step is taken towards him, shaky and unsure; yet she halts when his flesh gives an automatic jerk from the very sound of the movement. His words break her inside. “You are here but you are not my stars,” she says to him, bringing forth the strength to push herself to his side again, where she had longed to be. Her touch is cautious, lips brushing over the very spot she had laid her own claim and then onto his neck where she lowers her head and presses it against his skin, “You restlessly wander the sky and I fear you’ll be gone from me.”

“Forgive me husband,” she is gentle still, as if speaking to their boy’s, closing her eyes and inhaling the musk of sweat he wears from his jaunt across the sands that soothes every fiber of her being, “your anger is you and I was in the wrong to suggest otherwise. You will not face me but where does this leave us if we are to be equal?”.