Nature's great masterpiece : an elephant ; the only harmless great thing.

With a chest filled with anguish for his friend, he left Mauja to grieve his dead daughter in peace. The man did not need an audience for the shattering of his soul. He had offered what aid he could, there was nothing but time, now. They say time heals all wounds. But they are wrong. There is no amount to time that can heal that loss.

With a weight in his chest, the mammoth trekked back onto the battlefield. He was glad to see that Nyx had left and chosen to protect the life inside of her instead of following her warrior’s spirit. But Rexanna— his miserable azure gaze scours the chaos around him. Rexanna had seen him with Nyx and then thrown herself into the battle with no concern for her safety.

He closes his eyes against the image of her delicate, gilded-cream body being swatted like a doll. He snorts in concern, immediately regretting the moment as his broken rib rattles in his chest. There was so much death and destruction after this battle, the Tigress had put up an almighty fight. His anxiety grew as he did not find his golden princess among the throng of bleeding equines.

He began to move faster, hooves splashing in the salty waters. The movement broke the weak clots in the claw marks on his shoulder, sending gushes of blood anew from the deep gashes. “Rexanna!” His deep voice is hoarse from all the tar-smoke he has inhaled during the battle.

and you, you knew the hand of the devil.
and you, you kept us awake with wolf’s teeth.

The battle was intense in itself. I had managed to strike the Tigress, dealing little to no damage but definitely feeling the bruising begin on my face. My joints ached, and when it was all over I really didn’t need to stay around. I had seen enough – not of the battle; but of death and heartbreak. However, these things were too close to home for me. Mauja, someone I had begun to look up to had just lost someone so close and dear to him. It was terrifying to think that it could have been any one of us to lose the other part of our souls. Whether it be partners or children. Then I remembered that gray mare that Tembovu had been so gentle with and it worried me.

I probably shouldn’t worry so much, but the look that crossed his face was a look that I knew. It was that particular look that gave life in my bones. The look that rejuvenated my soul after I had thought it was exhausted of all opportunity. That look that chilled my bones when I saw it focused on someone that wasn’t me. I began to think that maybe I was a little too naïve to believe that he could’ve chosen me of all horses. Me. I wasn’t anything special, just another face. Then I remembered that perhaps my fate was destined just as much as Caleb’s in the fact that love just didn’t work when it came to us. Maybe I needed to go talk with Caleb and just avoid this place for a long time.

I turned away from the God, feeling my headache disperse and all things attached with the black lung gone, I didn’t want to see anything else. I missed what had happened after I struck the Tigress with my hooves. I turned heel and began to walk away. I didn’t need to stay. There wasn’t a good enough reason to keep me surrounded by this. I waded into the water, about chest deep before I heard a loud booming voice.

‘You’re kidding me, right?’

My ears flattened slightly, my face bruising vibrantly. The golden horn that jutted out from my face had been accompanied by a redder and nearly purple coloring under my pale pelt. My neck craned ever so slightly as I looked to see who spoke my name. Though, when I saw I wasn’t surprised. I turned my head back forward, debating on whether I should continue to go forth and just disappear or at least listen to him. I figured listening would be the best option as of now, since he was kind enough to listen to my affair. So with a heavy sigh, I turned and walked further back to the shoreline, water dripping from my chest and neck ever so slightly. The liquid translucent in the comparison of the crimson blood that dripped from the elephant. Anger pushed aside for mere moments – replaced by concern. I rushed closer to him, reaching my nose out to touch his neck gently. Then remembering that she had probably done something similar, I pulled my head away after the act and let my blue eyes search his. And one question was all I could muster from the cluster of questions that filled my brain.

“Why?”

"Talk?"

Nature's great masterpiece : an elephant ; the only harmless great thing.

There she was. Entering the water, about to swim back to the mainlands during hightide, like a mad woman. But she was there and she was alive. He sees her ears pin as she faces away from him, and the weight in his chests shifts to his barrel. He sees her debate, nearly walking further into the water and away from him. The great organ in his chest stutters, hesitates—

And leaps back into a pounding, punishing beat as she turns towards him— chooses to listen to him. He sucks a sharp breath through his teeth as he sees her delicate face so brightly bruised, and he cannot hide the grimace that accompanies the breath as his broken rib grates against bone.

She does not approach him at first, and the distance between them is painfully tangible, consuming the relief that had just swamped him. He studies her, stock-still, waiting. He re-memorizes the angry look on her face, the chains adorning her brow that he had given her, her cerulean eyes rimmed in lashes and liner. And, most importantly, he sees the spreading bruise across her beautiful face. A bruise he might as well given her, himself.

And then he sees the effect his own injuries have on her, concern replacing the heartrending hardness as she rushes to him. Her nose against his neck is velvet pleasure, drawing a low hum from his broken chest— but it is cut short as she draw away from him. Stealing the painfully brief pleasure and relief from these fatal battles.

His eyes, which had closed as he leaned into her touch, snap open to meet her hurt eyes and accusing question. He knew the reason for the question, for the look. He had felt the battle pause for a moment when their eyes had met while he protected Nyx.

But, after seeing so much death today, he did not want a repeat of the Meadow. He wanted Rexanna, comfort, and life-affirming love. Gaze wide, wary, and wanting, he took the step towards her that she had taken away from him. “Rexanna—“ his voice was hoarse from smoke, emotion, need.

His movements were cautious, for he did not want her to leave him as her first inclination had been. “Why what?” He almost cringed at how moronic his deep, gruff voice sounded as he asked the question. But he was floundering, and needed more direction to answer her.

His gargantuan mass strained, leaned, towards her. Though he refrained from touching her as he warily waited an answer to his question, blood sluggishly dripping down his vast shoulder.

and you, you knew the hand of the devil.
and you, you kept us awake with wolf’s teeth.

I began to step away from the broken, bleeding mammoth momentarily before he stepped toward me, a hoarse “Rexanna” breathed from his lips. I lowered my head slightly. Did I really want to stay? I knew I needed to, but there’s a huge difference between needing and wanting. Though I suppose the same could be said for sex; something of which I feel like I was beginning to understand now. But was he?

“Why what?”

Why do you always get hurt? Why did you have to do that for her? Why did you look at her with THAT look. I realized it wouldn’t have been so bad if it just hadn’t have been that simple look from his sapphire eyes that I had fallen in love with. The idea that he could look at someone else that way didn’t sit right with me. What had he done with her that he had done with me? The best part about Caleb is you could barely read him. He flirted with others but never shared that look with another while I was around to see. For all I knew he was sleeping with someone else right now. But that was a given when I met him. I knew that was going to happen.

I never expected those actions from the elephant before me.

I was silent for a good amount of time before I raised my head slightly, light blue eyes sweeping across his face to his wounds. I figured I would let him tell me in his own time. He knew that I saw him – I saw that in the look in his eyes before I took off to fight the Tigress. It was his to explain just like mine was mine to explain. He never had to pry it out of me.

“Why do you always get stepped on or fallen on?” I offered him a small meek smile but it felt like there was no emotion behind it. I was confused and pained and I didn’t know what to do – I didn’t know what he wanted me to do either. He gave me an ultimatum last time and I chose him. And this is how it was turning out.

Now would be his time to explain. I only hoped it wouldn’t destroy my heart more.

“Why?”

"Talk?"

Nature's great masterpiece : an elephant ; the only harmless great thing.

A cold, but strangely calm, alarm began to squeeze his chest as she started to walk away from him. Though she tuned back towards him, it did not release. His heart only beat harder, painfully, against its grip. It was all he heard, the beating of that cursed organ, rushing blood through his ears, in the long silence that stretched between them. It was excruciating to wait her answer in silence, to see the pain glimmer from beneath a mask of emotionless while she waited and formed her answer.

His ears, once perked towards her, tilted backwards in his inner distress. Dismay creases the corners of his deep, darkened blue eyes that probe her lovely lighter ones. The stare out from the surrounding black skin, flecks of light blue straining to be seen. Just as he strains to be nearer to her— wanting physical closeness since emotional intimacy was impossible in the current moment.

Then she spoke, a weak joke accompanied with a meek, empty smile. But he still gripped onto it, because it meant she was staying there, with him, still. “I’m a large target. Easy to hit. Or fall on,” his answering humor and smile were as small and hollow as hers. “I should ask why you threw yourself so recklessly into this battle?” he mustered more meaning in these words, “To see you hit like that… and so bruised,” the reprimand gentle, but firm, as he trailed back into ominous silence. He begins to reach out with his muzzle to soothingly caress her bruised face, but stops himself.

He feels the awning, gaping chasm between them. It stretched with each tick of the silence, rocks crumbling into a void of unknown. He knew how it felt to lose her— he had lost her to the grip of black lung. She had wanted nothing to do with him, and that was a feeling he would do anything to avoid again. The need pulled the words, unfiltered, from his thick lips, “It meant nothing with Nyx. Nothing like what we have, Rex” his hoarse words tumble freely, quickly. “You chose the Basin— you called me a friend,” the word is leaves an ugly taste in his mouth.

But is friend all he can hope for, now?

No. He takes another step towards her, this one firm and meaningful. “Rexanna, please,” his rough voice issues the plea. For what isn't sure. Forgiveness? Understanding? For her to breach this cold distance she’d put between them? (That he’d put between them.)

His eyes leave hers, gaze downcast as his ears fall further flush with his skull.

and you, you knew the hand of the devil.
and you, you kept us awake with wolf’s teeth.

My smile stayed dull and quickly began to fade as he began to speak. He was a large target, perhaps in more ways than one. I shifted my weight slightly, dainty golden chains laying bright across my purple hued face – a gift from him. A gift from choosing him. I just listened, ears flickering with doing my best at keeping my emotions at bay. I wanted to be mad, but I couldn’t. I was the same person. I shrugged slightly, head shifting with the movement. My dual toned mane dripping with water, a silver and teal feather placed in my mane was also dripping wet with the water that surrounded us.

What could I say to that? The only thing I knew what to say about it. “I just wanted to? My mind hasn’t been in the right place since the Flats.” I admitted to him, remembering me screaming at him – mistaking him for my worst nightmare. Though it began to feel like that was becoming more of a reality. I turned my head away from him and looked out over the water for a few moments, pushing back that glassy gaze that managed to make its way into my eyes. The wind blowing onto my face slightly, causing a gentle pang of pressure on my bruises. My joints were sore and I was beginning to grow tired of standing. Lifting up a foot gently, I held it near my chest for a few moments before placing it back in the ankle deep water I was standing in.

Then he spoke. About her.

I felt my head swivel to face his as he spoke her name. Then he proceeded to compare it to my confessions. I at least gave it a chance. I shook my head slightly, head drifting down to avoid his gaze as it searched for mine. He steps closer to me and I nearly shivered away. “Why did you look at her like you look at me?” My voice became a hushed whisper, broken in a few places as I paused to piece it back together. I lifted my head – acknowledging his second set of words when he spoke my name. “I did call you a friend, you’re right. But I still chose you. I admitted my mistakes and I changed. I changed them because of you. Yes, I chose the Basin. It’s my home and I have responsibilities there, like you with the Edge. But we also have responsibilities in our relationship as well.” Hushed tones grew slightly stronger toward the end, but with that I turned my pained face away. He didn’t deny sleeping with her and the feeling let my heart hit the bottom of my chest. Near shock and sadness finding its way into my blue eyes as I stared off to the water. Maybe I should just go? "In the end, I still chose you."

"Talk?"

Nature's great masterpiece : an elephant ; the only harmless great thing.

“You wanted to throw yourself into danger?” His deep voice is disbelieving as she answers his question. “Rexanna— what— how— why would you do that? You know it hurts me to see you in harms way— to see you injured,” he cuts himself short as his floundering staccato of questions seek understanding from his woman. His eyes raise to hers and understanding flashes in his eyes as she explains that she has not been the same since the Flats and the Lung, “Ahh.” He murmurs to this insight. It made slightly more sense now… he guessed. He still was unhappy that she was so reckless with her safety.

“Why did you look at her like you look at me?”

He loses her gaze to the salty sea that playfully lapped their legs. His own eyes stare at her, willing her to look at him, to see the remorse that is written so plainly on his face, in his body. Her voice, the broken whisper, wrenches him. He had done this, he had inflicted this pain on his love. Hadn’t he just said how he hated to see her in pain? Yet, here he was, causing deep wounds.

He opens his thick lips— though is at a loss for what to say. What can he say? She saves him (as she has been, all along) by continuing to speak. But these words wrest his chest further, guilt and self-loathing growing and raising their ugly heads with each sad syllable she utters. She is still staring off into the water, “In the end, I still chose you,” dammit why won’t she look at him?!

“Rexanna, I could never look at her— at anyone— the way I look at you,” sincerity hummed in his deep voice, words aching with truth. “I love you, and I choose you. I will always choose you,” his voice begins to break, so he takes a sweeping step towards her, salt spraying their legs. If he cannot gain her eyes, he will gain her touch. He presses his blood smeared chest against her, wrapping his thick neck around her slender form, holding her tightly to him.

He know she will not like what he is about to tell her, that he is about to confirm her suspicions and cause of heartbreak. So he grasps onto her tightly,a way to hold on or a last embrace. “I am not sure if I am the sire to her child, Rexanna,” he pauses, taking a deep breath. His broken rib grates his protest, but he cannot feel it, "I had to protect her— if it is mine," there was a pleading in his voice, surely she would understand the need to protect a child.

His blood stains her gilded coat, the water, their love. The axe had dropped. Would heads roll?

and you, you knew the hand of the devil.
and you, you kept us awake with wolf’s teeth.

His voice rumbled deep, questioning me about my recklessness that nearly cost me more than just the bruising on my face. I didn’t want to look at him – but his voice dropped away. The only sounds remaining were the gentle roar of the water as it reached the shore and pulled back out to sea once again. Reminding me of our situation even more. The fact that I pulled away from him but thrust myself back at him only to have him be the one to pull away this time. The feeling was crushing.

I just kept my gaze off of him, our bodies close to one another, but not close enough. I lowered my head slightly, eyes shutting briefly as his voice began again. He spoke and I listened, partially. I couldn’t hear what he said after he said he couldn’t look at her like he looked at me. My ears pushed back to my skull for mere moments before I lifted my head a bit higher. “But you did… I saw it.” I whispered in more of a haste – completely forgetting he had spoken afterward.

But there wasn’t much time for him to repeat it as he pushed toward me, pressing me into his chest. His blood mixing into my pelt. The vibrant coloring blending with my cream tones looked like a massacre had happened. He held me tightly and the heat of his body could’ve caused me to melt as the wind blasted my other side with a cold spritz of the water as it reached back to us again.

“I am not sure if I am the sire to her child, Rexanna.”

And there it was. Everything had happened so suddenly right when I thought things were getting better between us – this happens. Was it my fault? Was it because I didn’t go to the Edge? What had I done wrong to drive him into the embrace of another’s? I felt like collapsing right there – drowning myself in the water. But I didn’t. Instead, I pulled away from his embrace. Careful of his wounds even though I probably shouldn’t have. I pulled back, stepping further into the water from him. Blood covering my body now, face a shade of purple, eyes staring and heart shattered.

“Temb… Why? I can understand the fact of protecting the foal – but… you don’t know?” I felt my body grow hot with the anger that flustered my face and brain. “I admitted my affair with you. I didn’t have a child with him.” My words fell from my lips as my head dropped lower, gaze drifting away from him to the water that waded around his legs – blood mixing with the blue of the waters. “What even are we now?” My voice grew hushed once again as I refused to look at him. My chest grew tight and my face throbbed with pain.

"Talk?"

Nature's great masterpiece : an elephant ; the only harmless great thing.

She started to melt into his embrace, and for a few mere moments it was all okay. It was fine. It was fixed.

But then she turned to stone: cold, hard, and unforgiving against his touch. She pulled away from him, leaving him bereft of her soft warmth. Achingly, he noticed her care of his claw marks— the motion sickly twisted his gut. He did not want to let her go, he wanted to hold her tighter, pin her to his body. But that would make him as selfish as the men of her past. Using her for their own pleasure, instead of looking out for her.

And then she was staring, painted with his ruby blood, purple face, and accusingly blue eyes. They looked straight through him. Her words are angry now, throwing the feelings that warmed her face and hardened her body. He took the blows, absorbing the anger. But the pain— the pain he cannot take.

Anger at himself flares within him while she questions him not knowing the sire of Nyx's foal. “No, I don’t know! She was not in heat when I took her. It did not mean enough for me to revisit her after—” his anger pulled the bitter, unfiltered words yet again from his lips, but he cuts them off as he realizes what he is saying. These were not the words his gilded princess wanted, or needed, to hear.

His ears pin flush with his head in shame and irritation. “You admitted it to me as I am to you, Rexanna. I was hurt— I thought you did not want me…” his rumbling voices grows quiet as he trails off, realizing that this is not important. It does not matter the why of what he did (despite her question). What matters is that he had done it. He could explain until his broken rib punctured his lungs, it would not make a difference. He had hurt her and had thoroughly broken what trust they had managed to grow since the Labyrinth. “Rex, I couldn’t look at her the way I look at you. Do you think what we have is so easily replaced?” his deep, hoarse voice is laced with hurt, now, “Surely you, of all beings, would understand my need to protect a child.”

“What even are we now?”

The question chills his heated blood instantly. It sends a thread of cold panic weaving through his barrel and chest, wrapping around his heart and mind with a sharp squeeze. He lowers his neck, hesitantly (pleadingly) stretching his head towards her, halting halfway. “We are what we have been,” he says lowly, “Two broken souls trying to find solace in each other…” he takes a deep breath, “But we’re only breaking each other further.”

A fish hawk keened, a lonely cry above the gentle surf.

and you, you knew the hand of the devil.
and you, you kept us awake with wolf’s teeth.

My entire body grew hot. Hotter than I ever felt before. Hotter than when Calstron grabbed me within his magic and ravaged my brain. Hotter than the feeling of regret I had after seeing my child dead at birth. Hot to the point where I felt shattered in a million pieces. He spoke, but my feelings didn’t get better. They burned, tortured. I could understand his upset during the whole Caleb situation. But this situation was different. He spoke of her not being in heat and I cringed away from the word. My throat tightening with a ball as my eyes burned with hot stinging liquid. Tears. Tears of which I wouldn’t shed.

Not in front of him, at least. I shrunk into myself, growing numb from the heat and pain. Numb from the salty waters that weaved between my gold and ashen legs. Shaking my head briefly, trying my best to get rid of the pain I felt reaching the surface, the gift he had given me wavering across my forehead ever so slightly. My face was more sensitive now due to the bruises and I could’ve cringed at the feeling of each single loop sliding to one side of my head. There I stood, motionless. Covered in blood and pain, trying my best to suck in my sadness.

It began to feel impossible.

“I was hurt – I thought you did not want me…”

I kept my head away from him. “If I didn’t want even a chance with you, I wouldn’t have called you my friend.” My voice quivered, visibly with a small shake of my body that was entirely uncontrollable. I wasn’t going to break in front of him. I had already. Too many times. Strong women didn’t do this. I was strong, wasn’t I? After everything I had been through, all the years of struggling I had succumbed to, I was strong. But I was breaking at a simple word emitted from someone I had only just met. Perhaps my best bet was to just fade away. Pretend that none of this happened. But I knew deep down that this wouldn’t work. I couldn’t just pretend this never happened. I couldn’t pretend that we didn’t happen. There was far too much emotional stress tangled up in this to just fake it. Not like I had before. It felt like losing my child again, but in such a different way.

“Do you think what we have is so easily replaced?”

I nodded. I did think that. That’s how it had ALWAYS been. I had always been replaced. Never once had I been asked to stay. And suddenly I couldn’t control my waterworks any longer. Hot tears streamed from my black lined eyes, lids shut tightly before I opened my watery blues to face Tembovu. Was it for the last time? Did he want that? Did I want that?

“You don’t understand.” Voice wavering, tears streaming. “All the love I’ve ever given has been easily replaced.” I cried.

Breathing in, shuddering, my body vibrating with broken inhales and wavering exhales. I turned from him again as he spoke again. We were broken souls. But two broken souls could not be mended together when the pieces don’t fit. Maybe that’s what we were. Puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. And as much as it killed me to think that way, it was becoming more of a reality as time slid on. Hawks crying in the distance, water lapping against my legs. I shook my head again. How could I even reply to that? He was right. I didn’t know what to say to him. I needed to say something to him, but I couldn’t. Between the shaking of my body, steaming tears, and the shattering of my broken soul, I couldn’t say anything else. And even if we were two separate puzzle pieces – would we ever fit?

“I loved you Temb. More than I’ve ever felt before. I can’t imagine a life – this life – anymore without you. But we can’t keep doing this to each other.” My head lowered, defeated. Standing like silhouettes against the waves. Blood stained, broken souled, silhouettes. Ready to be washed away at any moment.

"Talk?"

Nature's great masterpiece : an elephant ; the only harmless great thing.

Ears swing backwards on his outstretched head, tilting away from the tears that make her exquisite eyes over-bright. But they do not fall— though this does not bring relief to the elephant, for she recoils, shrinks, trembles within her delicate, elegant skin before him. And then she takes her head, herself, away from him as she turns. His entire hide twitches as he feels the denial of her touch, wholly.

She tells him that she had wanted him, despite calling him a mere friend. He had realized that after the fact, in the Green Labyrinth, after having mounted Nyx and after being trapped beneath a dying God. But… but this didn’t matter. This explanation would have been a justification for betraying Rexanna— and, for that, there was no absolution.

Then she nods, affirming his question. Ears perk forward in shock, eyes widening as he watches her. Then they swing backwards once more, pinning against his skull as his eyes crease and jaw clenches in anger, confusion, and guilt. How could she think that?

She faces him, (finally, finally) giving him her eyes. But it is a bittersweet victory because now they are streaming tears. “All the love I’ve ever given has been easily replaced.” She is right, he does not understand because, “All the love you’ve given me has been irreplaceable,” his voice quiet, low. But he sees that his actions have made this seem untrue— have made him like the stallions of her past, like Caleb. He has made her feel used, discarded. Guilt overwhelms his anger, burning him from the inside out.

“I loved you.” His remorse swells. “loved.” It crests. “loved.” It crashes within him. He barely hears the rest of her remarks, he only registers the past-tense of that fated, ruinous word. He had lost a love once before. But he had never lost the love of a lover. As his chest collapsed in on itself, becoming an oppressive weight of wretchedness, his shock-numbed mind found no purchase in his painful memories. This was newly, acutely agonizing. “Loved?” The crushing blow whispers on his hoarse voice.

The beast, which had been subdued— conquered, even— by the gilded princess’s affection, love, and trust, stirs. Raising its head, it lazily stretches in his barrel, beginning to send its tendrils of destructive poison through his veins. His heart shivered, no longer accustomed to pumping such venomous anger. The monster peers out from the cracks in the elephant’s broken, blue windows of his soul, assessing the shattered silhouette of a mare before them. ‘My, my,’ it seemed to say, ‘You’ve been busy without me.’ And it tried to muster some sick sense of accomplishment in his barrel. Another being destroyed, another vindication.

But, it couldn't muster this response. The elephant had grown independent of the inner, destructive beast during its absence. And, in the face of Rexanna’s pain, it had no power. There she was, saving him even in her quivering heartbreak. The inner daemon of his past rages against this powerlessness, screeching with talons of fire within him. A tremor runs through his giant body, unused to caging such a violently wild beast.

A deep, shuddering breath fills his burning chest with tangy air. Its healing salt has no effect on the dense black hole that now resides there, and it has no influence on cooling the blazes flaming in him. He is losing traction, losing control, in the face of Rexanna’s pain and tears. His hooves bite into the sandy bottom, trying to anchor him so he can stay and try to salvage them. But there is no mooring for the elephant in this storm. He must get his daemon away from her, away from him.

He reaches out, a last benediction against her skin, as he so tenderly smooths a tear from her bruised cheek. He traces his thick lips against her soft coat, down her neck, hovering at her withers for a few, long moments. “My princess,” his whisper lips her skin, “I am so sorry.” He deeply breathes in her scent of sunshine and lilies.

Then he turns, taking his beast away from the gilded, broken doll.

and you, you knew the hand of the devil.
and you, you kept us awake with wolf’s teeth.

I stayed like that. Broken. Ankle deep in the salty waters that easily swept between us. His response to my wallowing cry couldn’t make me feel any better. If it had been irreplaceable, he wouldn’t have gone out and slept with her. If he knew how it would affect me, why is he still here? All of those who had done it to me before always left – but he stayed. Why? Perhaps to listen to the rest of my little rant? That wouldn’t have been good. And I could feel the salty air change as I spoke my last sentence. The air seemed to still, everything grew quiet. It was just him and I as he uttered the words I had just spoken. Tears still streaming down my face as he said “loved” as if he couldn’t believe it.

That makes two of us.

I was still trying to grasp the fact that he could go out and sleep with her if there was even a chance of us getting back together. And to not tell me he had done it until the possibility of her pregnancy also bothered me. I had confessed to him that I had been sleeping with Caleb. I didn’t wait until I was pregnant. And with that, I was both broken and also growing stronger. Sometimes everyone needs dark times in their lives to be able to enjoy the happiness. But at this point, all I had been suffering was darkness. I had enjoyed my times with Tembovu, but they were still shrouded in the darkness that was both of our infidelity.

He had grown quiet by now. I still couldn’t look at him. But I felt him move closer, if not for the water but the scent of blood that grew closer to me. His familiar warmth of his large mammoth body enveloping me in the heat as he reached with his muzzle to smooth away a tear from my face. I couldn’t move. My eyes just stared straight ahead as he continued. His lips gentle, like velvet. I began to wonder if this would be the last time I felt his touch. The thought killed me, but it was also comforting. Knowing that despite the things I had said, despite the things he – we – had done. He still appreciated me. I just didn’t know if I would ever be able to appreciate him as well. He stayed for moments before he spoke nearly breathlessly against my pelt. The feeling causing slight tremors to run down my back. Where it was usually a pleasant trickle, now held more of a surprised almost anxious tone to it. He told me he was sorry, called me his princess again. And when he turned to leave all I could do was look at him, watch him leave and utter a raspy, wavering reply. “Goodbye Tembovu.”

"Talk?"