the elephant king
He had ventured outside of the Edge on a hope—a small, bastard hope—that he would intercept Rexanna on her way to him and the Edge. But as each day drug on past that heartbreaking exchange with Elsa (once more the Icebound in both name and heart), and each day yielded no beautiful cerulean eyes nor delicately smiling lips of his soul’s siren, the happiness died. And, as the joyous and buoyant emotion deflated, it left a small core of painfully bright hope in his chest.
But it was becoming just that: painful. So he had wandered, out of the Edge’s eastern borders and towards the northern part of the Thistle Meadow. Mindlessly he wandered, mind purposefully empty while shadows and sadness clung and clawed at the edges of his consciousness. (They had shared meaningless words, things were broken, he was broken, not enough; he had destroyed the faith his Queen had in him for nothing more that baseless hopes and dreams.)
But, alas, before such thoughts could come crashing to the forefront of the Elephant’s mind, a glint of gold moving in the lush Birdsong grasses caught his eye. Hope, triumphant if only for a few agonizing moments (as hope always is), pressed against the ribs of his chest—
Only to collapse in a burning, tired ball once again. This golden body was not a woman’s, it was a youth’s. Still, though, the King was drawn to it for the momentary faith it had given him. And, as he drew nearer and recoconised the white-blanketed, red-spattered body of Rein, Rexanna’s love-child with a man she had claimed to bed out of fear, he inexplicably was drawn closer, rather than be repelled.
Perhaps it was because he was some connection to the woman. Perhaps it was because the last time he had met the boy, he had been a young colt full of wide, curious eyes and (most profoundly) love for his dam. And Tembovu had had nothing but anger and sadness for the colt.
So he drew closer, Mbwene hanging back at the sudden tumultuous swelling of emotions in her bonded. Though her sharp, bright blue eyes were trained on the colt’s peculiar movement, curiosity almost tempting her closer.
“Hello Rein,” the King’s deep voice rolled over the waving grasses, “You may remember me, we met when you were very little. I am Tembovu,” his thick horn dips in greeting as his navy eyes warm. “What is it you are looking for?” his dark gaze flicks to the ground that the blanketed boy was so closely studying.
Tembovu
No matter how fast or far a man runs
he cannot escape his fate.
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