Blood. There was so much of it.

It gushed from his nostrils, it slid down his massive horn, it covered his forehead— leaked into his eyes that were blinking to clear themselves of the red liquid and darkening corners of his vision. He needed to breathe. Even as eyelids swept away the blood from his vision, navy eyes still found more blood pooling and staining the coral-dipped rose to red.

Hooves dimly registered the crack and splinter of bone beneath them. A wing was so fragile against his ivory shields. They were a raging beauty when held aloft; but when ground beneath terra-bound hooves, they crumbled into fragments. Did that not mirror this venomous woman?

His head twisted as the unearthly and enraged scream shattered through the roar of labored breathing in his own ears. Darkened, mildly distressed eyes found the open, blood-painted lips and teeth bared and gaping— they were lunging (she was lunging) for the thick hide of his throat.

In the oxygen-deprived addling of his mind, the desert rose’s bloodied face morphed— her feral fury so akin to the predators of the plains that it awakened a memory on his air-starved retinas. A lioness, claws and canines already streaked with his own russet, leapt towards his thick neck. Paws outstretched, reaching to sever the adrenaline-laden arteries of his throat; her hunting-mate already gripped and growling for a feast at his haunches.

And so instinct gripped the beast, ripping it from its hypo-oxygenated slumber and forcing it towards the rose’s thorns. A roar, choked by blood and mangled mucosa, ripped and gargled from his throat. The memory flashed and faded from his vision as corded haunches bunched. His forehand rose to an unearthly height, her gaping teeth scoring a third rivulet of superficial blood on his chest- but this barely registered in the instinctual drive of his mind.

The Elephant’s massive forelimbs lashed out, cream stained with the crimson streaming from his nose. Red-spattered, ivory hooves tried to strike towards the oncoming snake that emerged from the rose’s blossom. He did not reserve his strength, he ignored the scrape of low branches against the crest of his neck and the gravity that pulled him backwards down the hill.

His eyes saw only the pupil-less pits of coral hatred and the crushed skull of a dead lioness upon the golden grass. The rest was blackness as roaring breaths were sucked into starving lungs.

A:3/3
WC: 414
Damage Tracker: lightly scraped chest; broken nose/nosebleed; bite on chest
Summary: Tembo's oxygen-deprived brain has flashback to when he was attacked by lionesses so he rears up and strikes out towards her as she goes to bite his neck.
@Orithia Thanks for the fun fight, Eris! :D