A flash of white, blinding against the darkness, seared his eyes once again. But this was not accompanied by the crack of incinerated wood and snap of boiling sap. No, a soft and sickening thump of giving fleshing and the acrid smell of singed skin and hair billowed out into the night.

Those eyes— those two, pale pools reflecting the oncoming elephant’s rampage— had met his own dark gaze above the beast’s back (but he was the beast, he was the monster). And those eyes, they seared into black eyes and lightened them to navy with their fear— their trust. But never trust a wild, injured thing. Too quickly does it turn, too ruled by instinct.

The explosion of his heinous creation splattered his chest and forelegs with scalding bits of molten rock, adding burns to his bruised and bleeding knees. His legs slowed, then stopped, as his vision was again robbed by the overabundance of light. Only roaring flames and the pungent odor of burned flesh filled his senses. He had been here once before, weaving among charred trunks, legs burned by residual flames and heat. The distant roar of flames had warned him away, the smell of singed skin a promise of what he would find.

Mind roiled between the past and present as the edges of his vision began to clear of their sunspots. But no longer did he see the great pines, branches lit from underneath by the ravenous flames that devoured the trunk (how much longer would that tree hold? would the fire spread?) No longer did his hooves fall on the softly needled pine floor, nor did his head fall to the charred flesh of his friend. No, now he was stuck in another time, another hell— also of his own making.

Heavy ivory hooves, burned by the smoldering coals on the forest floor, do not pause in their frantic pace. He had seen the smoke rising above the rainforest’s canopy, he had felt the awning hole that opened in his barrel, the numb dread that flooded his veins. Ears were ringing from the massive roar of flames he skirted to find the charred camp, while his vision was tunneled and blurred— searching among the ghastly standing trunks and fallen black logs. Smoke rose in lazy wisps from the scalded earth— there. There was a long and curved horn, starkly holding it’s shape against the coals. And its pair, the longest horns seen on a mare in the Plains; they belonged to Fatiishi, Mawindo’s woman.

Blue eyes sweep over the burned, collapsed hump that once was Dorobo’s dancer, incessant legs moving frenetically, now. Where had their tent been? He had only visited but for moments two nights previous… there. His pace slowed, then stopped above a small, limp form.

His great head dropped to the neck of Mauja, dark lips just hovering over the hot, cracked skin. What was once snowy and speckled was now black and laced with red. He didn’t dare touch— not yet. The steam and smoke rising from Mauja’s hide was enough of a warning for the Elephant. Still, he drifts his head carefully, cautiously over the fallen body. Down the neck, past the shoulder, to the chest. The chest, a place of life— but his own chest created only rage and destruction, was this not proof enough? Broad and pale, his muzzle hovered over the scorched chest of his friend. His own heart, the cursed and angry organ, pounded relentlessly in his roaring ears, begging for some kind of answer in the fallen Queen’s chest.

But there was no answer to his heart’s beating. No fast drums of a foal’s pulse nor the fluttering arrhythmia that was Mara’s gentle beat. His muzzle, broad and covered with ash, then pressed against their dead skin— so deceptively hot. A low moan leaked from his chest, navy oceans spilling saltwater to douse the flames that incinerated his family. But they were too little, too late. An anguish swept through him, so crippling that it robbed him of his legs. He crashed beside them, rocking and holding black bodies leaking fluids— bodies that were once everything. They covered him with their sloughing, black skin. But he held them, held them until the heat had left and only cold carcasses remained. The pain was so resolute, so absolute, that it numbed and burned all at once.

But there was an answering beat to his questioning heart. A painful rhythm of life that flooded the Elephant, jerking him to the present. The rage in his soul had calmed to a smolder beneath the weight of what he had done. Perhaps it was satisfied, perhaps his past had outweighed the anger. Perhaps… perhaps it was the coldness that consolidated in him. It was heavy, new, and a rival to the heat of his flames.

It was fear.

Not the fear of what stalked him in the forest. Not the fear of losing his friend (though that still coursed strongly through him). It was a fear of himself, of this destruction over which he had no control. Heavy and icy, it sank in his chest and pervaded his mind— freezing the demon in its new resident corner. And, strangely, he welcomed it.

Lowly groaning as his eyes drank in the sight of Mauja, he slowly sank to lay behind this man (his friend?). Carefully, his lips lowered to the down ear, gently opening to stroke the un-seared flesh. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” An apology, a prayer, for the past and present, was whispered on broken words to the dark night.

“You shouldn't have come. Those I love always burn— I am not worth this.” Eyes cast upwards, looking for his owls and hoping they would find help.

Tembovu

the Elephant King