Tembovu

It was frigid. It was dark. That peculiar type of darkness that comes just before the light. Absolutely pitch black, without stars or a moon. But the promise of illumination coming with each cold puff of breath. 

His coarse, wiry coat was coated in a frost of crystals as the cloud clung to his warmth and froze there. Strong hoofbeats and gusts of breath were the only sounds in the frozen pre-morning. Insomnia had plagued the giant stallion, so he had found the highest mountain to climb. Physical endeavors were much preferred to plaguing memories of fire and the stench of burned flesh. 

So the elephant found himself walking across a snowy field. The trek up here had been daunting, but satisfying. Though now he could feel the chill sinking into his warmed muscles. Damn, he hoped he didn’t tie up. He needed to keep moving, so he continued his slow progression across the snow.

It came up to his lower cannons. Not as deep as the snow he had trekked through to get here, but still a substantial amount. He was surprised, he thought it would be at least chest deep up here. 

He sighed, sending an ephemeral cloud around his muzzle. It faded, but ice crystals clung to the whiskers there. He was running out of meadow to walk on. He reached the furthermost East edge of the field, eyes searching the black horizon. Surely you could see the gods from here. He waited for the waking of the sun in silence, hoping his mind would stay as still as the blackness.

Tembovu

A thick ear flicked backwards, what did he hear in the snow? It sounded like nothing, but just a bit more— like the feeling of touch just before something actually contacts the skin. Then, a feline growl. His large head swung around, dark blue eyes probing the darkness. Reflections of eyes greeted his gaze and, with surprising speed for the mass of his body, he swung around to face the predator.

Adrenaline spikes through him as his head instinctively lowers to fend off this oversized cat. Perhaps this is needed, this will keep his mind busy and away from thoughts of burned, dead foals— but just as he squares himself and flexes his muscles, a striking grey stallion appears behind the white tigress.

The silver stud loped towards the elephant, who slowly relaxed as the tiger apparently revised her choice of meal. He slows, and walks up to him, silver eyes glancing over Tembovu’s own before surveying the valley that was just beginning to lighten with pre-dawn.

The giant pivots beside the now speaking man, so that he is facing the valley alongside him. He bobs his great horn in agreement, “Indeed, you feel closer to the heavens up here,” his deep voice rumbles quietly and almost melancholic. Blue eyes glance once towards the lightening sky.

“What brings me up here?” he repeats the question, as if asking himself. His thick black tail flicks in thought, gently brushing his own and the grey’s hocks, for they stand so closely side-by-side.

“Insomnia. Needing a distraction- needing to forget,” again, his deep voice his quiet, lacking his usual ease and good humor. He snorts softly, a shiver running over his buckskin hide, “I could ask you the same question, my good man?” His eyes leave the brightening horizon to study the side profile of the strong featured, quicksilver stallion.

Tembovu

Blue eyes flick away from the charcoal stag and towards the sudden reappearance of the tigress. She walks silently on the snow— and Tembovu finds himself eying her warmth, thick pelt with longing. “It’s alright, I can’t say that I wouldn’t welcome a spar with a tigress right now,” “Though I must admit, I’m envious of her coat, given this frigid Frostfall,” as if to drive his point home, his words form clouds around them in the frozen dawn air. He chuckles as the other stallion does, though it is short lived.

His eyes briefly bounce from the feline, to the equine, then come to rest on the lightening horizon. Quietly he waits for the man to think over his answer. It, surprisingly, is a comfortable silence. It is hard to feel awkward or strained in the peacefulness of predawn, especially so close to the heavens. That is why the elephant had sought out this field during his dark thoughts.

Another short, rumbling chuckle escapes him as Ciceron speaks, for indeed the silver stag voiced exactly the other set of concerns that plagued himself. Too many projects as Glazier— he was sure which to attack first. “I can reckon with having too much on my plate, as well. It’s like we’re kinsmen,” he jested through his chuckle.

His eyes leave the skies for the other’s face once again, studying it in time to see the happiness flee it. He was familiar with the feeling— the feeling of having past demons strip the happiness, the purpose from life. Empathy stirred in his barrel, as he watched the rapid blinks attempt to dispel the ghosts. He was all to familiar with that, as well.

He turns his head to the feline, feeling the predatory and inquiring blue gaze upon them. He nods once in greeting, large head swirling through the cold air, “I am Tembovu of the Edge.” He says simply, leaving titles for another time. He shifts his weight, resting a hind leg as the barest sliver of sun dared to peak above the horizon.

It would be a gentle sunrise. Muted purples, grays, and pinks softly painted their palette against the dark blue of predawn. A soft sigh escaped him, as he willed this peaceful sky into his wrecked soul. “What ghosts plague you, that you need to forget them?” He finds his deep voice rumbling, seeking an outward distraction from his own internal beasts. His question his quiet, not pushing the stud to answer if he does not wish. Though he cannot deny that his curiosity is piqued.

Tembovu

“Lately it's been the loss of my family.”

The semblance of calm he had begun to feel in the frigid dawn flees at the quicksilver’s words. He felt cold sink into his barrel. Colder than the icy earth beneath his large hooves. Colder than the air that condensed the breath around his broad muzzle. The cold rippled his thick, buckskin hide. Though, surprisingly, he kept his demons at bay and his face blank. That was unusual for the elephant.

Perhaps it was the possibility of hearing anther speak of a loss that struck his heart so deeply. To hear that another stallion might bear a pain such as his. These thoughts were selfish— heinously so— but somehow placating to the great antelope. For misery loves company. And though the giant would never (ever, ever) wish his loss on another, if Ciceron had already experienced a loss like his— well perhaps it would help to bleed the poison off. Or just commiserate together.

Tembovu really didn’t know. He had kept his past locked so closely to his chest. It had fueled the cold flame of revenge in Dorobo. And in Helovia, only Rexanna knew some of it thus far. He was trying to build a future here. He sighed, shifting to rest his other hind leg. It seemed, if wandering up the highest mountain in the darkest part of night was any indication, that his past would haunt him regardless of the future he built.

So maybe it was best to let it haunt him. To choose how it plagued him. So that maybe— just maybe— he could think of his mate and son with fond memories. Instead of images of their stinking, burnt bodies.

So his eyes, slightly darker despite the brightening sky, turn to the grey gaze of his morning comrade. “You’ve lost your family?” The question was simple. The tone was not. His deep voice was rough, with layers of meaning behind each word he tugged from his throat. There was a grave pleading in the lines around his eyes that asked the stallion to tell him. To reveal such intimate details to a stranger. But the meaning behind those words implied that there was no anonymity, no strangers, when it came to the acute pain of familial loss.

That pain did not care for race, species, color, gender. All who felt it were kinsmen because  they had lost kin. It was the universe’s cruel, inadequate apology for ripping open gaping holes in the soul.

Tembovu blinked, releasing the stallion from his intense gaze, and looked to the horizon once more.

Tembovu

His ear flicked toward the Kiara as she growls. They must be conversing silently with each other. Thoughts of connected souls drift through his darkening mind. The connection between companion and equine must be remarkably deep— if Mauja’s anguish after the wolf god battle was anything to go by. He almost envied it. But his thoughts were not coherent enough to truly form that emotion.

“They still live.” At this phrase, the anguished hope that had flared in him shatters into soul-crushing pieces. He had not found a kinsman in his loss of family. But still, he listens to the silver stallion silently. He can hear the pain in the other’s voice— it is obvious, thick, and palpable.

And he wants to feel empathy with this clearly devastated man. He wants to share how broken he is over the hatred of his son and distance of his daughter. He feels a vague twinge of responsiveness to the leaving of his mate— he knows how it feels to never see one you love again.

But they were all alive.

A deep, heartfelt sigh escapes the giant stud as he turns his eyes from the horizon. He glances at Ciceron— surprised at the composure on the quicksilver’s face. Tembovu did not think that he could speak of his own dead family and remain so collected. Though he was interested in such self-control, he did not linger his gaze on the other’s face to wait for it to waver. Others had done that to him when they had brought up the attack on the civilian camp, the attack that had killed them. It was a cruel thing to do; to stare in wait of the slippage of composure. But it was also like watching a wreck— it was just so hard to look away.

But, in that, Tembovu felt true empathy. So he did look away. He respected that much in the dappled unicorn. His words, when they finally came, were low and quiet, “I am not unfeeling towards your loss, Ciceron,” he pauses, gathering his words in the mess that is his spiraling brain, “But your family is, as you said, very much alive.” He pauses again, voice caught on unknown words that do not wish to come.

“Were my family alive, I would take them any way I could. Be it hated, distant,” he rivets his unseeing, bright gaze on Kiara, “And I think Mara would have to fight me horn and hoof to leave.” He blinks once, thinking aloud now, “Though, perhaps I only say that because I have lost her, and my son, to death.” Silence rings in his ears as he continues to stare at the tigress. Hoping that he can burn her alabaster fur into his retinas instead of the horror movie that begins to play on repeat behind his lids.

Tembovu

His intense stare does not leave the tigress as he fights the flames that lick his vision, his ears, his memories. He focuses his attention on the man’s words beside him— they are his lifeline, now. “You are stronger than I for being able to bare such pain and move forward.” Disbelief flashes through him, taking him away from the brink of his mental hellhole. Move forward? He had not moved forward. He had devoted years of his life to revenge and destruction of an empire.

But then Ciceron stops his saving words, and he begins to slip. Desperation pulls the very thoughts from his lips, “Our pain is different— one is not more weighty or worthy than the other,” he pauses as the silence stretches, pulling more words from his thick lips, “And I spent years avenging the deaths of my mate and son. I destroyed a nation.” Darkness clouds his face where pride used to gather at such a confession. He was proud of this no longer. “It was not until l came to Helovia that I began to truly move forward with my life…” he voice trails to silence, words of how he wished it had been sooner left unspoken.

He listens in silence as the quicksilver stallion speaks of his daughter. Then questions him, “Have you ever woken up one day and realized you were living a lie? That nothing you knew was actually the truth?” He could not know the angry memories that such a question would unearth in the elephant. Though the anger was preferable to the fearful black pit of despair that had been dangerously circling all evening.

He moves his stare to the bright horizon— so full of promise while they were so anchored by their past. “I do,” the anger timbre vibrated his voice. He half-heartedly tried to control it, though it kept the pain at bay, “The very powers I swore to serve murdered them. Murdered my family.” He was nearly vibrating with rage, though his voice was still even, “When I discovered that… It made everything I had done, what they had died for, a lie.”

He fell silent, reining in a temper that he thought he had controlled so long ago. Though, as Ciceron continued to speak of his mother robbing him of memories, anger on behalf of the dappled stallion roared in his ears, making it even more difficult to control.

This was the beast that he had funneled into revenge. Used for duplicity, for whispering the right things into powerful ears, for charming the influential. This monster had erupted from the ashes of his mate and sun and had been fed with vengeance for years. Now it was bored and hungry. It wanted a feast.

The mammoth trapped and wrestled this fiend, still listening to Ciceron. When he fell silent, he searched for words— words other than the disingenuous words the monster fed him. It wanted a voice, a being to destroy. But Tembovu would not give that to him. So he spoke the first, genuine thing to come to mind, “For what reason could a mother to that to her son?” He did not want to pry, but he needed to put his beast to rest.

Tembovu

His ears go flush with his head yet his large hooves stay rooted to the earth beside the dappled stallion. He did not want to hear the revelations of horrors crashing and shattering the morning’s optimistic pease. But he needed to hear it. Hooves tear into the frozen soil as he grips onto the earth— something, anything, to keep him in the here and now. To keep him anchored on this god-forsaken planet that deals out pain and destruction on whims. Why was he holding on? What was the point?

He had been through this cycle before. And, though he had at first felt like he was starting to make progress by talking to this silver stud, he now felt as if he was regressing. He had talked himself in this circle. Questioning his reason to go on. And he had told himself: Mara and Faxr would want it. And now, in Helovia: Rexanna, Mauja, the Edge. They all were reasons to continue on.

But maybe this wasn't regression. Perhaps there was no true progress, and this was just a cycle he was cursed to rehash over and over. His great knees nearly buckled as this calamitous revelation rocked his very being. The wavered, trembled, then locked, saving him from crashing to his knees in silent supplication for hopeless answers.

He grit his teeth, taking a deep breath of frigid morning air, attempting to collect himself. Attempting to gather the pieces of his conscience that were fracturing into oblivion. He leaned his broad side against the silver’s coat, his coarse hair sliding against Ciceron’s silken one.

“It means little, but I’m sorry for your loss. No man— no being— should have to go through that,” his voice is quiet, low, barrel rumbling against his at their point of contact. His body is firm in the empathetic touch, “I sincerely hope that your father is not of Helovia?” The beast that had awakened in him growled ominously in these words. This monster hoped that he still resided here, it would be a project to destroy. But the rest of Tembovu hoped, for the sake of the silver stallion, that his dastardly sire was rotting in the ground.

Tembovu

A long, relieved sigh escaped him as he Ciceron answered his question, revealing that his father was not, to his knowledge, in or of Helovia. But, beneath the relief, his inner demons wailed their disappointment— they had almost had a purpose again. Someone to hunt, manipulate, destroy.

The mammoth nearly snorts in disconcertion at the power and strength this remnant from his past self commanded. It did not feel as retired and swept away as he had thought it had become since the fall of Dorobo. In fact, at just the merest hint at someone to crush, it had leapt to attention and started to consume his thoughts.

Worry bloomed in his chest, perhaps adding fuel to the fire of his daemons. His ears tilt further back as he wrestled internally— none of this was good. It was so not good that it was terrible, awful, horrible.

Gently, if suddenly, he withdraws his touch from the quicksilver beside him, "Does one ever find peace or anything even remotely close?” His touch is suddenly burning cold in the frigid Frostfall morning. His mind, swept along in his mild chaos, fumbles to find an answer to the stallion beside.

But the only answers are bleak and bitter, fashioned from a man who has lost too much and gained too little. A man who has destroyed many lives and lost the meaning of his own. So his eyes darken further, nearly black as the markings on his face. A frown creases his brow, “One can hope for peace. But I have not found it, yet.” His normally expressive voice is flat, dead. Usually he is one to bring some sort of hope to his fellow comrades.

But his demons are shrieking their victory as he abandons his hope on this snowy precipice.

He turns his head away from the handsome stallion and striking tigress, “I apologize, my good man. Duty calls.” And, slowly, he begins his trek to the Edge through the world as frozen as the blood in his veins.