His watchful gaze does not miss Marembo’s careful ministrations as the polecat rearranged the grass around the drowsy twins. Nor does it miss the flames with leap along his daughter’s spine—curious lion cubs shuffling about in fiery curiosity. His overbright, glassy eyes reflected the filly’s light in the dim cave, though his ears remained tilted back, listening for Rexanna’s answer.

He shifted, keeping a small amount of space between his hot, sweaty hide and the Thief’s silken one as she slipped beside him. Though, despite his conscious efforts, his massive body still leaned towards her in basic, natural need. Even the magnitude of her deception and falsehoods regarding their children and her companionship with him in the Edge could not entirely abolish the connection his viscerally felt.

“This is Kianzo…” His gaze stayed on his son as she told him that the colt took after him—he did? How? A flicker of pride, truly a hubris in its ignorance, lit among the sadness and elation in his chest. A chest so broad he was named after an elephant; but, not quiet broad enough to contain all of these emotions.

”This is Kiada…” A flower’s first bloom, blossom born first of Rexanna’s womb and with magic. Never, in all his years of yearning for fatherhood, had he thought his loin could sow magic. It wasn’t a possibility in Dorobo, so it hadn’t even been considered to be a possibility in Helovia. Wonder gleamed in his eyes as Rexanna sighed softly alongside him, the foals beginning to stir as their parents stood over them, but then—

“Kianzo? Kiada?” his deep voice rumbled, still hushed but his was a voice trained for battlefields and great open plains, not sleeping cave nests, “How did you find Dorobian names?” Though pride and elation had replaced the broken undercurrent of his voice. Happiness at his children carrying Dorobian names—proud, right, good names— smothered the loneliness that had threatened to overwhelm his chest.

“I came to the Edge before they were born…”

Silence, save for the muted sounds of Tallsun that drifted into the cave met Rexanna’s quiet, unbidden explanation for her absence. But the Elephant’s body was anything but silent; a ripple of gray skin crossed over his thick hide in a wave. His jaw clenched, eyes narrowing slightly in both confusion and hurt. Only two knew of his history with Rexanna: Orithia and Nyx. And only Orithia knew of it so thoroughly and recently…

His ears had slipped back, beginning to pin flush with his skull as his eyes suddenly blazed with an anger; who she—who was anyone to keep his children from him? to keep Rexanna from him? “Who was it?” His voice, no longer quieted, asked in a deep and somewhat dangerous rumble, “Who wouldn’t let you pass?”

And then his eyes swung to her, almost accusing, about to ask why she didn’t come see him anyway— “I didn’t eat to push her, not in the state I was in.” And, as Rexanna had the uncanny knack for doing, she answered his question and calmed his temper before it could rise further. His gaze gentled on hers, muzzle finally reaching out towards hers in a silent acceptance of her explanation and absences. His nostrils flared as he reached to stroke her lips with his, breathing in her longed for scent of sunshine and lilies. “I’ve missed you,” his genuine rumble, again, was quiet and hoarse.

But his now-quieted voice could not erase his earlier outburst. And so the twins began to stir, long limbs beginning to unfold and tangled into each other. Eyelids sleepily raising and short, slender necks unfurled, matching blue eyes half-open and blinking towards the two figures that stood over them.

And Tembovu smiled broadly then, light finally overwhelming the shadows in his gaze. “Jambo, children,” his voice was warm, low, and sweet.

---

Jambo = hello