Pharaoh's First Love

55

This may seem like mumbling to others who were just walking in. But to Shelyn this prayer was all she had to start anew.
Within fifteen minutes Calion returned with a male guard who had carried the trunk full of Shelyn’s things into the pharaoh’s domain, past the living room area and deeper on back towards the bedroom where his eyes fell upon Shelyn with the towel wrapped around her body and her hair, darkened by the dampness, lay behind her.
“Thank you, you may return to your post.” The pharaoh said before soon it was the two of them once more. “Ask and you shall receive my dear, of course if there’s anything else you might desire you need just speak with those pretty lips and I’m sure I’d be more than happy to accommodate you. Would you like for me to brush your hair out?” Calion offered, and while she might find it odd the pharaoh would ask to do such a thing for her undoubtedly, he had a ‘price’ she’d need to pay.
Hearing him, her prayer ended before she turned to face him. Bunny in arms as She walked over once the guards had gone and kneeled at the trunk before opening it.
Within it her things were neatly folded. She set the bunny and slip within it.
"I didn’t think you even knew how to do such a thing."
She teased. After all he didn’t even feed himself. She pulled out a dull green wood brush. The paint faded and handle splintering. Such an old brush nearly on its last leg. Then she sat on the foot of his bed.
"Why the interest in doing it for me?"
He chuckled softly, grabbing her wrist as she sat on the bed, taking a seat beside her. “I gather you think I am spoiled rotten. On the contrary, there’s quite a bit I am capable of, but it’s typically more fun to have another do it for me. As for my interest…” He bit his cheek and reached forward to take the old wooden brush and inspecting it, assuming it must have been passed down at least one or two generations.
“Perhaps I just want an excuse to be close to you?” Calion leaned back, his upper torso was completely exposed, the fine Egyptian cotton towel wrapped around his waist. “Of course, I would expect you to take a seat in my lap. Don’t worry, it’s less ‘sinful’ than how I held you within the bath. Now, will you be a good girl and have a seat? Or are you going to leave your pharaoh’s lap cold and vacant?” He raised a brow, biting his bottom lip as he still held onto her wrist lightly.
>//> "Why must you say such lewd things. You act as if I have left you lonely and alone for years by the way you talk."
She had not even agreed to him doing it and yet she found her decisions were already being made for her.
Her brush, however, should he even ask, was only ever hers. Simply worn down by the 19 years of usage by her. But she just couldn’t bare to part with it like the hand stitched and very old bunny she clung to.
But reluctantly she moved to sit into his lap. Giving in to what he wanted since it seemed so important, she be a sort of blanket. "So, is that you’re lazy?" She smirked with her reply finally. She had yet to snatch away. But figured if she did, he might start taking it as a challenge and tackle her. Who knows what he might do tonight?
Narrowing his eyes he stared at the back of her head as she took a seat within his lap, his left arm wrapped around her waist to keep her firmly seated in case she dare try and leave, and with his other hand he began to brush out her hair slowly along the full length. “Keep up with that sort of talk and it might not just be my words that are lewd.” He mildly threatened by way of a heated whisper against her neck. With a towel wrapped around her body her neck and shoulders were entirely exposed and it wouldn’t truly be too difficult to unwrap her further if he desired.
“Is it so wrong for me to want to appreciate and spoil you? It’s rare for me to be with a blonde, perhaps I just wanted to take some time and savor the moment.” He whispered, shutting his eyes behind her as he breathed in deeply her scent and exhaled against her flesh, if only to make her a little anxious as he otherwise continued to brush her hair. “So, what’s up with the bunny? Childhood toy you can’t part with? You didn’t take me as the type of girl who needed a stuffed animal to sleep with at night.”
"It... was a gift. Helm made it during his first trip away. He came home just for my birthday that year to give it to me. I’m afraid I’ve just been attached...my parents had given me dozens..but..this one I liked most. I know it is silly"
She replied. The subject made her smile. Even though her heart was torn apart.
"I’m grateful Jin brought it back...otherwise it’d be another thing lost that I will never be able to replace. I mean...I can always have a family of my own to love...but I can never had a brother like Helm. He made that brush for me too. It was a welcome to the world gift. I just don’t see a reason to get another..."
In truth her connection to these things was a bit manic. Unhealthy if that. But considering her parents did work so much of raising her fell to Helm. Even 10 years apart and he was a big part of her life.

"I remember my first trip to the palace. I was probably 9 at the time. Helm was busy with the soldiers. Talking to them or something. But I remember seeing a young man holding a small baby...I remember my parents stopping to talk to him apologizing to him. Bowing and pulling me away. But the man looked really sad. When we finally reached Helm, I ran to him. He was holding me so tight I thought I thought he would break me. I ask what was wrong and all he told me was that he loved me. Calion....was that you I saw that day?"
The topic seemed to jog a memory of something else. Bit by bit.
Calion nodded and listened quietly, an innocent question to which held some deeper and sentimental meaning to her. “It’s not silly, you at least have a very rational reason for keeping hold of it.” He admitted while continuing with her hair thinking upon a few things that she had mentioned. “If you’d like I could sand down the wooden handle to make it smooth again and apply a green lacquer to keep it protected. It would almost look new, but hold all the same value, of course I won’t mind if you deny this I only mean to offer as a nice gesture.”
Calion finished, wrapping his other arm around her now and holding her warmly as the brush rested in her lap, his lips finding her shoulder and crook of her neck as he closed his eyes.
“Seems Helm and I have some similarities. He became an official parent to you, raising you and keeping you safe through the years, whereas that day you recall would have been the funeral day of my parents. Their ship had been met by a storm upon returning from a country across the sea only to be driven into rock outcroppings upon their return. We never found their bodies, and little baby Jin was too young to even remember their faces, so unofficially I became his guardian while also ascending to becoming the pharaoh at the young age of 19.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t say I remember or took notice of you. Little did I know about a decade later that very same girl would be spending her nights back within the palace, within the pharaoh’s room. Rest assured Shelyn…” He kissed her neck tenderly. “I don’t mean to replace Helm, but I will protect you, teach and guide you just as he did. Jin himself never had a mother figure to look up to, I imagine… the longer you stick around the more he’ll see you as such.”
She looked at the brush as he spoke. Listening carefully. Seemed they were destined almost to be like this. Offering to each other what the other were needing. What they were missing.
"You don’t have to worry about my brush. It is as old as I am. I suppose it is just a means to finally get a new one." She reassured him. Not that she didn’t appreciate it, but it was ok to let some things go.
She leaned over and set her brush in her trunk and sighed.
Left hand crossing her chest and grasping her right shoulder. "Should we go to bed now then?"
“We may.” He mumbled against her neck as his hands traveled from her lap and up to her bust as he unwrapped the towel from her pale body. Calion applied some pressure from his waist and against her bottom as a gesture for her to stand so that he too may she would himself of his towel.