Prince Tarkus have looked genuinely concerned that Layla's first outburst. She was a new lover to him, and he wanted to be attentive to anything that wasn't pleasurable, not to mention painful. Realization struck him slowly, his face melting and flexing into a variety of different expressions until it was finally clear to him. He stood up suddenly, water dripping from him.<br/><br/>"How dare…" He started, until a new wave of feelings overtook that statement, as though he no longer meant what he was going to say. "Do you realize what you have…" and again, he changed his mind , "how could you…do you intend to curse us so.” He said more quietly, as though as scared as he was mad.<br/><br/>He then fell quiet and let Layla speak. His face had turned to a dangerous looking expression of fury, though never when he looked to them directly. When he glanced slightly away, he seemed to focus distantly, and whatever he was looking at, he looked like he would destroy it. His calm, benevolent sounding demeanor had burned away and been replaced by a hardly subdued, nearly shaking anger.<br/><br/>He appeared as though he forced himself to look to them, as if only for his pride and duty to them. He was able to look at Layla much more, both because she was speaking and because he did not feel so ashamed toward her. It looked as though Tarkus had tried to look to Aisha a few times, though the more Layla spoke, the harder it became for him to look to her about the guilt piercing his shell of restrained fury.<br/><br/>As Layla began to finish speaking, a cold paling realization came over Tarkus. The outward anger had faded, if only because he was there with them, and did not want to uncork a bottled rage here before them. He had other targets for the molten anger, and it continued to hum in his brain, while he put on a more stoic and masked face for them. While sincere in his words, his face looked like a host of a party being quietly told a rogue guest had intentionally disgraced him in another room, and he was excusing himself to go kill them while not giving away that there was a problem to those welcome guests he had been speaking with.<br/><br/>“I see now…” His voice sounded too harsh when they breathed from his lips, so he cleared his throat and started again, in an attempt at no emotion, as comforting was too difficult. “I see now that we are on very, very different realms of knowledge and information.”<br/><br/>He wished he could talk it all away, to settle everyone and apologize, but he would not. Not for the actions of those he would be seeing very soon. This wasn’t his fault, he told himself, and he would not apologize to his harem unless the fault was his. He apologized frequently to Aisha, though it was almost exclusively when he miss-stepped during lovemaking: Losing his balance, slipping out from within her, or things equally deserving of a smile when expressed as much as a concern.<br/><br/>This was very different. This was a travesty of more than just his first meeting of his newest harem member, this was an affront to the gods, for her not to have been prepared for him, to not have been told at all. The body marks? That was not acceptable and he would have already given the servants a lashing for that alone. But for Layla to be brought to him unprepared and unknowing of the joining ritual? What a monster he must seem, what an insensitive beast of a puppet master tugging his toys on a string, with no concerns of the knots and tangles.<br/><br/>Finally, as though his ability to contain his anger was deteriorating, he redoubled his efforts. He forced himself to look at Aisha. His face contorted in a strong effort to stop himself from shedding a tear. His eyes were glossed, but that was the extent of them now.<br/><br/>“Aisha. Ensure that Laya has quarters that have been prepared appropriately. Please see that both of you want for nothing tonight. By my order, no material of labor comfort is out of your reach tonight.”<br/><br/>This was just a matter of permission. Usually Tarkus personally arranged small “gifts” for her, varying up the treatments, delicacy foods, or tokens of affection. Because sometimes certain items were reserved or held for visiting dignitaries, other members of royalty, Aisha could not expect anything anytime, though it seemed right now she could.<br/><br/>“I must go now. I need to make my apologies to the gods…both for the joining ritual.” Saying the words aloud made his face shoot to Layla’s. Did she know nothing of it, truly? What were her Gods? For all she knew…<br/><br/>No. He told himself. Save that thought. Relish it when you flay the men that brought her so naïve and bruised.<br/><br/>He continued speaking. “And also for I will do when I—“ He clenched his fists in anger before breathing out. He looked back to Aisha, and raised a shaking hand slowly as though to touch a cheek, but he fell short when his body shook with a convulsion of disgust with the situation, how marred the relationship between them might be if his fears came true.<br/><br/>“I may return to visit you tonight.” He spoke to no one in particular, not even knowing if he would, much less who he would see. “I may not. Just know how proud and happy I am to have two such women under my gaze. I will make this up to you.”<br/><br/>He suddenly turned and stepped up and out of the pool, grabbing a large hanging cloth used to dry and dress in until he returned upstairs to his chambers. When the towel only awkwardly left the rack, making him look less than deliberate, he ripped the entire hanging rack from the wall as though it were attached my a hair-string<br/><br/>Upset that he had broken it, he made a loud furious grunt and slammed a clenched fist into the pillar that the rack had been installed on. The strike as such a speed and intensity should have shattered his hand, destroyed his arm. Yet the only thing that looked damaged was the polished stone pillar. Cracks had raced along the surface, and when he took his intact hand away from it, fine dust covered his hand, and the pillar shed small bits of rubble from the impact point.<br/><br/>Tarkus stared at his hand incredulously. He was just as shocked as they must be, both at his outburst, and the fact that he was able to wreak such destruction on the stone pillar. He looked between his hand and the two women in the water, before turning hastily and walking out of the room, drinking the cloth around his body. He could say nothing to them, the words would not leave his lips, and he had already switched his attention to the wrath he would bring down on the mere mortals that worked to curse this future rule.<br/>