Tembovu

His great skulled cocked slightly at her humorless laugh and disagreement to his compliment of her—a wry grin crossing his features as he realized that Alysanne would possibly forever be contrary to whatever he happened to say. Though he did mildly regret the animosity fostered between the two from that fateful day in the forest, in this moment he found it wryly amusing.

Though his amusement faded as she asked for his help. It was all he could do not to break out in a satisfied grin—instead he focused on the seriousness of this moment. An opportunity to smooth over a relationship that was filled with sharp peaks and valleys of discord and mistrust.

And any thought he had of grinning was immediately doused from his mind as she further explained the favor she needed. “An injury?” he echoed as his ears tilted backwards slightly as his navy eyes studied her face—just as she was studying his. This was oddly reminiscent of Mauja asking him to ‘kill him,’ that fateful day where he had plunged his massive horn into his chest. His jaw clenched slightly, his mind immediately balking at the idea of repeating that tortuous experience.

But the Devoted had asked him. He had thrust her into Queendom, she had healed his wounds, and had aided Rexanna during her birth of his children. Though his mind wanted to refuse the request, his conscious knew that would be both wrong and selfish of him.

She wanted something that would not get easily infected: that eliminated anything low on her body. Though she was pegasus, from what the King had seen, the Devoted seemed to prefer to travel via her hooves rather than her wings. Thus, any wound low on her body would be exposed to too much filth to be kept clean. He had seen superficial leg scrapes kill soldiers on the Plains when they were not properly tended to.

And she needed the wound to be deep—well, ’not as superficial as a small cut or a bruise’. That removed her neck, face, back or wing joints. A deeper injury there, even if made with careful purpose of his horn, had the potential of causing too much damage to the critical structures that ran there.

Navy eyes had roamed over each of these places as he thought—not in a sensual way, though eyes did linger on the soft curve of her neck as he ruminated over his options. Then he nodded slightly to himself, “Your chest. It is lower than I’d like and more easily infected, but if it does fester, it easily drains. You will be able to clean it daily, and there is enough muscle here to provide the depth of wound you require.” His great skull began to drop as he spoke, a single sizzling drop of magma falling from his chest to the forest floor that he plunged his horn-tip around to purify it, though his cobalt gaze did not leave her emerald eyes as he spoke.

“I could do the top of your haunches, but that would be harder for you to clean on your own,” with the simple explanation, he lowered his horn tip and aimed to gently place it against her white chest, over the right pectoral. The further, eerie semblance to his piercing another’s equally pale and pristine chest—though that one had been spotted. And he had aimed for the heart, on the left side.

Then, should Alysanne allow it, he began to slowly push his horn into flesh—so soft and giving around his hard, sharp length. He did it slowly neither to prolong the agony nor because of reluctance. His sluggish movements were from caution: he did not want to push too deep and cause an unneeded wound.

When he felt he had slowly thrust far enough in, he gingerly began to withdraw, spinning his horn slightly so that the loose ridges would ‘screw’ out rather than rip flesh. Again, his dark blue eyes sough her bright green, “Are you alright?” His deep voice rumbled quietly. Wound sustained in battle were easily taken as adrenaline numbed the body. This, he suspected, must be excruciating.

He wasn’t sure how this would affect their relationship, but he certainly felt it changing.