the Rift


[PRIVATE] Your pride and my pride [welcoming]

Tsavo Posts: 13
Absent Abyss atk: 6 | def: 9.5 | dam: 4.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: 6 HP: 63.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Eshe :: Masai Lioness :: None Kiki
#1
PAINTED IN FLAMES ALL PEELING THUNDER
BE THE LIGHTNING IN ME THAT STRIKES RELENTLESS

The lioness wasn’t sure what to think about this place – this Helovia.  It certainly wasn’t Dorobo, and for that she supposed she should be thankful.  However, she had no idea what she was doing here or what she was supposed to do here.  Everything about her life in Dorobo had been structured.  She had had defined roles.  Expectations.  She had been born with a task and a position and a purpose.  Of course, over time, she developed her own reasons for doing things that were somewhat divergent from what was expected from her, but still.  Here, in this place, she was nothing.  She had nothing.  That was as terrifying as it was comforting, considering what had happened and the role she had played. 
 
The Edge was nothing like Dorobo and nothing like she expected.  She wondered what, exactly, had drawn Tembovu here.  Was it the fact that it was so different from the sun baked plains they are so familiar with the draw?  Was it the fact that there was no risk of these forests and the eerie mist triggering an unwelcome memory of times long gone? If that was the case, Tsavo could appreciate that.  There was certainly nothing familiar here.  It was very foreign feeling.  Though it did make her wonder how Tembovu had climbed so quickly.  The cynical part of her wondered who he deemed expendable this time around – who had fallen so he could rise.  But she knew that there was more to the elephant than that, even though she was loathe to admit it even to herself in her scorn.

She felt adrift, lost in her own mind.  The lioness still struggled with her decision to stay here in Helovia.  The decision to come to the Edge and put her trust in Tembovu again, after what had unfolded before.  So many questions twisted in her mind and though she knew that the answers she so desired may do little in the way of providing closure, it didn’t stop her from wanting the answers.  There was opportunity here.  She knew that. Tsavo was many things, but she was not foolish.  Yet she felt that the opportunities would be barred from her until she could cast off the shackles keeping her tethered to the past.  Too much time had passed already.
 
So she let out a huff and drew herself up to her full height – the resolve evident in her bright blue eyes, and stepped out to meet her own fate and find the answers that she needed. She wasn’t going to sit idly by and watch her second chance slip past.  The lioness knew that Tembovu wouldn’t be difficult to find. 

T S A V O
Lines


@Tembovu

Please tag Tsavo in all posts.
Force & magic are permitted, please ask before inflicting serious injury.

Tembovu the Elephant Posts: 805
World's Edge Captain atk: 7 | def: 9.0 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 18hh :: 10 HP: 77 | Buff: SWIFT
Mbwene :: African Elephant :: Ashen smitty
#2
tembovu
Indeed, the Elephant King was not difficult to find. He never had been— that is why he had always hidden in plain sight in Dorobo. Who suspects an affable clod? Who distrusts the order-following general? Stroke their egos, deploy troops, and all of Makutano would eat whatever story he told.

All except one. Tsavo, the lioness, hadn’t trusted him in the usual sense of the Council. No, their relations had been more of an agreement than a trust. A deal, trading of information and, on a night of too much of Kiuaji’s wine, a sharing of loneliness. At least, it had been for Tembovu. They lived a truth in clandestine shadows, flirting with a gruesome death by the Makutano should they breathe one word too many into the wrong ear.

Those had been dark, destructive days for the Elephant King. He had carried out orders based on greed, directed troops to innocent camps of the Debwani, to ensure that they did not suspect him. He had relied heavily on the trades he had deplored Kiuaji for when they were colts, he had physically beaten Adaeze to ensure any trace of his duplicity was covered, and he had used Tsavo both for information and for alleviating his isolation.

It had worked— marginally. He had felt some kind of connection with the lioness. Though how could he not? Though their lips were tightly shut and their exchange between each other as careful as with any Makutano member (trust was deadly in those times), they had still been united. They still had a common enemy: the Council. Even if their reasons for distrusting the Council differed, their hate still allied them. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ right?

The arrival of Tsavo to the Helovia, and her joining of the Edge, resurface these thoughts with a vengeance. Did guilt swirl beneath the memories? He hadn’t felt it at the time— he had been so blinded by justice and revenge. But now, that time and circumstance had distanced the King…

Navy eyes, clouded with such heavy thoughts, land on the culprit of all these notions. Walking columns of legs paused mid-step for a moment, gaze sweeping the warm steel of her coat, the proud spires of her impressive horns, and the land on the patch of white beneath her chin. He had lipped and nipped that splash of ivory—

He shook his head, trying to clear his great skull of such thoughts (of such memories). But, still, he was immensely glad (relieved?) that the independent and proud woman had joined the Edge. Why? Perhaps to make amends, perhaps to ensure nothing ill befell her again, perhaps to just be near to answer unasked questions from their pasts…

Mbwene was strangely quiet and obedient at the Elephant’s heels. The multitude of confusing emotions pummeling her through their bond was overwhelming. The sadness was simple, she could handle the shadows that had plagued their bond since her hatching. But this… This was a barrage of conflicting emotions that baffled the elephant calf. So, yielding to the deluge, she trailed in his wake.

“Tsavo,” his low voice was quiet, cobalt gaze fixated on hers, “Thought it is not a sight I ever thought to see, I am glad you call the Edge your home.” He paused, eyes could not help their glance between her own bright blues and the oh-so familiar white splash at her muzzle, “How do you find Helovia? And the Edge?” There was a sincere, intense curiosity beneath the seemingly mundane question. He wanted (needed) to know.
@Tsavo

Please tag Tembovu.

Tsavo Posts: 13
Absent Abyss atk: 6 | def: 9.5 | dam: 4.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: 6 HP: 63.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Eshe :: Masai Lioness :: None Kiki
#3
PAINTED IN FLAMES ALL PEELING THUNDER
BE THE LIGHTNING IN ME THAT STRIKES RELENTLESS

She steeled herself when she saw him.  He moved through this place with such ease, yet the very sight of him brought a distinct sense of unease to the lioness.  She did her best to mask it, but the restlessness she felt was hard to conceal – even for one so apt at concealing everything she felt after watching everything she’d seen in the Council.  
 
Her head ached with the flood of emotions she had both been expecting and dreading.  Resentment.  Anger.  Respect.  Attraction that she both couldn’t deny and hated herself for. Admiration.  Frustration. Guilt.  All of them pounded behind her skull like an angry pulse.  It amazed her how one person could make her feel safe and completely vulnerable in the span of the same heartbeat.  She’d never trusted the elephant-stallion during the course of their arrangement or whatever you wanted to call it.  But she also never found him to be someone openly malicious.  Perhaps that’s what troubled her the most about the entire situation.  Had she judged him so poorly?  Was he exactly the type to stab her in the back and discard her like a used toy when he was finished with her?  Again, the cynic wanted to say yes and close the subject for conversation.  But she wasn’t sure she was able to believe that he’d be so openly hurtful, even considering the terms of their relationship.  But Kunja had found out somehow, be it from Tembovu or spies of his own, and it had sent the world crashing down upon her.  

When the pieces rained down and the dust began to settle one thing was perfectly clear.
Tembovu was nowhere to be found.
 
With her mask only held in place with the most fragile of threads, she opened her mouth to speak, thankful that her voice came off with her usual decorum.  “Tembovu,” she said, his voice rolling off her tongue smoothly, though her tongue felt like sandpaper in her mouth.
 
“It’s different,” she offered, lamely.  But it was.  And that wasn’t a bad thing.  Especially accounting for the circumstances that lead her to flee Dorobo and come to Helovia in the first place. “That’s not a bad thing though, all things considered.  I’m not planning to run away any time soon, if that’s what you’re asking,” it’s a sad attempt at humor, an attempt nonetheless.  No.  I’ve done enough running, she adds, bitterly, in her mind.  She certainly didn’t miss Makutano and the stares.  But what had she run to
 
“I see you have a friend” she offered, tearing her gaze from the all-too familiar lines of his face to the little elephant that trailed in his wake.  She offered a small smile to the little thing – a familiar figure albeit a small one – before her bright blue eyes were drawn back to Tembovu’s.
 
”Tembovu,” she began, her voice trailing off for a moment before growing in resolve.  “You asked me a question when you found me.  But it wasn’t the right question.  You asked me how.  You didn’t ask why.”  Her eyes seemed to burn with intensity – and she refused to pull them from his as if attempting to pull the answers she’s so desperate for from him by his gaze alone.
 
“So ask me, Tembovu.  Why am I here?  Why did I come?” It was issued like a challenge.  She called upon all her prowess as a politician so she didn’t shatter to pieces now that reality was raining down upon her.  She wanted him to know what had happened, but she wasn’t going to make it easy on him.  (Had she ever?)   However she also wanted (needed) to know his piece in her story.  And she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to get it from him. 

T S A V O
Lines

Please tag Tsavo in all posts.
Force & magic are permitted, please ask before inflicting serious injury.

Tembovu the Elephant Posts: 805
World's Edge Captain atk: 7 | def: 9.0 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 18hh :: 10 HP: 77 | Buff: SWIFT
Mbwene :: African Elephant :: Ashen smitty
#4
tembovu
Ears twitched at the smoothness of his name on her tongue. The lioness was, as ever, composed and dignified— the same decorum that had garnered (demanded) respect from the testosterone-filled, bull-headed men of the Makutano Council. Long-dead irritation rekindled in his barrel as he had recalled the ease with which newer council members discarded the sharp-intelligence of Tsavo. It was a feat to stand on the Council as a woman. It was even more impressive to represent her old, powerful tribe.

And she had given it up.

Navy eyes, which had been cloudy with memories and attraction, began to sharpen as she answered his questions. He felt the shift in his chest, returning to the careful conversations with layers of meanings that they had traded in Dorobo. Despite there being no need for deception or secrets, old habits die hard.

So, carefully, he watched every part of her face and body. He watched body language, the ripple of skin at her flank that belied the same attraction he felt. The lines at her eyes that told of the tension underneath her sad attempt at humor. Ears perked forward, listening for rise and fall of her words; what syllables were stressed? What nouns or verbs began/ended her sentences?

In short, it was exhausting. And dredged up the hollow-feeling that had plagued him in Dorobo.

“I’m not planning to run away anytime soon.” He resisted the urge to look away at her words as they brought a sudden, piercing wave of guilt crashing through his skull. He had run, leaving them all to fend for themselves. He hadn’t even been sure of his own survival; his just retribution of the Fall had come and his purpose had fled. Without purpose, what was just? And facing the sharpening horns in a ring of council guards amid the destruction had expedited his exit from the Great Plains.

His attention did not shift, even as hers did, to the Mbwene. “Kukutana na dada yangu Mbwene,*” he broke his silent audience with the traditional introduction of their mother tongue— an echo to the days of introductions before their council. The small elephant brightened slightly, shuffling up beside the King with a gentle flap of her ears and slight wave of her trunk in greeting. Bright blue eyes studied the plains-marked mare— she was so similar to her big bonded. And there was something about her that smelled familiar; like home. So the calf inched forward, round eyes curious as her trunk slightly reached out, one ear flush with her head to listen for any rebuke from Tembovu. The multitude of emotions in their bond made her cautious. Still, though, she advanced on Tsavo.

Again, his ears twitched as her voice sounded his name again. He met her bright, burning gaze resolutely, though with each of her words a weight grew heavier in his barrel. It settled like a stone whose top was smooth by time, but whose bottom was still sharp and jagged— just waiting to be overturned.

And Tsavo was turning it over with a vengeance. Her questions were a challenge, and he understood why. His time in Korofi had been brief, but not without ruin. That Tsavo was here, in Helovia, rather than in Korofi with Kunja…

“Then why are you here… and not in Korofi?” his words were low, quiet, but firm. Though he thought he knew the answer to the question. The answers to her burning curiosity would come soon enough.

*Meet my sister Mbwene

@Tsavo I suck for taking so long. Sorry bb <3

Please tag Tembovu.

Tsavo Posts: 13
Absent Abyss atk: 6 | def: 9.5 | dam: 4.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: 6 HP: 63.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Eshe :: Masai Lioness :: None Kiki
#5
PAINTED IN FLAMES ALL PEELING THUNDER
BE THE LIGHTNING IN ME THAT STRIKES RELENTLESS

“Mbwene,” she echoes, lowering her dark nose to meet the little one.  A strange thing, to see one so small, but the familiarity causes Tsavo’s heart to lurch uncomfortably in her chest as she meets the little one’s soft trunk.  Tembovu had introduced the little one as his sister, which drew her thoughts to her own blood siblings, still back in Dorobo, likely lost to her forever.  She stepped back from the Mbwene slowly, even though her own thoughts had taken a dark turn, and raised her head again, turning back to her brother-bonded.  
 
She watched his reactions carefully, though his reaction and the tension that had settled in the air between them, did not lead her to soften her approach.  She needed this.  She needed the answers.  She needed to find away to bury the shadows that followed her.  In her mind, this was the only way forward.  Not that the stubborn mare knew any other way. 
 
“He knew, Tembovu,” she said, simply, for she suspected that the elephant general already knew what she had to say.  Why else would she be here?  Why else would she confront him so?
 
“About the arrangement.  About us. About everything. And he cast me aside.  He could have killed me. You know how justice on the plateau works as well as I do.  I don’t know what stopped him. Maybe it was some lingering affection that saved me or maybe he just didn’t care enough to waste the effort and get his hooves dirty.  Though there were many days I wished he had.” Her voice never breaks.  The stone and composure holds.
 
However, her statement was the first indication to elephant king that not was all as it seemed.  There was a darkness in the lioness, one she struggled to control day in and day out.  A darkness that had followed her here.  One she knew she needed to purge if she was to find a way to live…
 
“I had no choice but to return to Makutano. I didn’t know what I was walking in to.  The rumors arrived before I did. I lost everything, even my family.”  She knew that she didn’t need to elaborate.  If anyone could understand the destructive power of whispers, it was Tembovu.  He knew how the diseased capital worked, and even the fall of the Council had not been enough to purge the sickness from Makutano.  She just needed him to understand that in the end, she had become yet another casualty.  She had paid a hefty price for Dorobo’s freedom. 
 
That is what led her here.
She too had fled from burdens that had become unbearable.
And her demons were still very much alive.
 
“How did he know, Tembovu?” she asked.  There was no pleading in her voice, but it was there in her eyes.  “I hate that I have to ask, but…” She cracked then.  Turning away and squeezing her blue eyes shut against the onslaught.  For the first time the composure of the lioness falters.  The stone walls that she’s so carefully built shift and begin to crumble. 
 
What she really means – what she finds so difficult to say – is that she hates that she cares so damn much.  She hates that the unknown is eating away at her like a poison feasting on healthy flesh, leaving her necrotic and dying inside.  The implication is evident in every curve of her body, in every strained muscle, in every pained line of her face.  The cool composure had contorted into something much more primal and something much more unfamiliar to the lioness.
 
She hated it; hated the weakness, the confusion, the overwhelming memories that flooded her mind.  But it was a feeling, so at least for the time being the emptiness that had plagued her for months was gone.  Finally turning back to him she set her eyes upon his, her gaze wrapped in hurt and in anger and in steely determination.  

T S A V O
Lines

Please tag Tsavo in all posts.
Force & magic are permitted, please ask before inflicting serious injury.

Tembovu the Elephant Posts: 805
World's Edge Captain atk: 7 | def: 9.0 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 18hh :: 10 HP: 77 | Buff: SWIFT
Mbwene :: African Elephant :: Ashen smitty
#6
tembovu
Mbwene lightly trumpets in delight as Tsavo’s lowers her dark muzzle within reach of her trunk, the long appendage reaching out to stroke the velveteen lips. But the proud woman who smelled of home was lost to her as she stepped away, and Mbwene vaguely began to understand the tension in the air and in her bond— she was quickly becoming exposed to a vast multitude of emotions through her bonded. Dejectly, she meandered to uproot and nibble on some partially dead grass, leaving the Dorobians with their pasts and ghosts.

Tembovu’s thick hide felt the careful study of her bright, sharp gaze as she answered his question. But he did not avert his eyes, he did not allow himself to fold in guilt. “About us.” Those words resound in his ears, and he parts his lips to ask, ‘What about us?’ but the question died on his lips as she continued, her voice as stony as her stare.

He kept his silence until she was finished, until she told him of her loss and turned a question on him. Her voice is calm, impassive, but it was the pleading in her bright eyes (a gaze that was once so familiar) that drew him into her. He took a step towards her, muzzle parting to answer, “I did not think he would make the connections—” his words broke off, ears pinning as he realized that his excuse would be just that: an excuse for causing the lioness’s ruin. Gaze turns to a glare as anger at himself sparked in his eyes, turning to stare beyond the lioness for a moment, “Kunja asked for proof— for a reason to believe the information I brought him. And I knew he, of all men, would not doubt information shared between lovers. We, both you and I, needed him to believe the knowledge you gave be of the Banderi and Makutano. And, as you said yourself, we know how justice is dealt in Korofi, and what would have happened if Kunja believed I was lying to him. So I told him how I came across the information— but I never gave him your name. I wouldn’t do that to you, Tsavo.”

His gaze, now dark and desolate, retuned to Tsavo’s face. First at the snip of white at her muzzle, then seeking her eyes, “I know you don’t want to hear this from me, but I’m sorry that you lost him and your family.” One ear flicked forward, listening for her reaction, the other tilted back at the guilt of his confession. But his great body was tense, straining and ready to either take or contain whatever reaction the lioness had to his admission.

@Tsavo BOOM goes the dynamite

Please tag Tembovu.

Tsavo Posts: 13
Absent Abyss atk: 6 | def: 9.5 | dam: 4.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: 6 HP: 63.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Eshe :: Masai Lioness :: None Kiki
#7
PAINTED IN FLAMES ALL PEELING THUNDER
BE THE LIGHTNING IN ME THAT STRIKES RELENTLESS

She breaks, but not in the way that would be expected.  There are no tears.  No rage. No insults hurled with no thought or consequence.
 
Instead, back fell the layers of decorum, shooing away the fury and the fire.  The stoniness – the passion – it quickly faded away into well-practiced placidity.  A comfort.  An act, perhaps. She wore it like a veil that kept her safe from angry sea of discomfort threatening to drag her under the surface. 
 
She released the breath she didn’t know she was holding, both pleased and disappointed at his answer.  She knew that Tembovu was not the architect of her undoing, nor was Kunja.  She was.  The blame rested upon her own shoulders – and perhaps some could be shifted to the system that had had only recently been dismantled in Dorobo.  All that she could hope that her own misfortunes would allow for something greater to rise from the ashes.  In the very least, she hoped her sisters would escape the fate of shame that had befallen her before she had fled.
 
The beating of her heart slowly fell back to its normal rhythm as the fire was sated, and then a new emotion crept into her eyes.  Regret?  Acceptance?  She took another great breath, dragging her eyes from somewhere near his hooves up towards his eyes.
 
“Thank you for telling me.  I know there were other ways he could have found out – the Korfi had many spies in Makutano – or so they had bragged.”  The fire was gone from her voice, the challenge gone from her stance, and the exhaustion of what had brought her to Helovia had begun to creep into the lioness.  But there was one statement that had given her pause.  ”I wouldn’t do that to you, Tsavo.”    

She went to speak again, but the woman who had made a career of words struggled this time. “I-I knew you wouldn’t – I never thought you would.  Not after…everything.  I certainly think more of you than to assume as such, Tembovu. But when it all falls apart you never truly know who to trust, do you?  You of all people know that, Tembovu.” She didn’t wish to insult the now-King.  She just wanted – needed – him to understand why she had come to him so impassioned. 
 
“I just need to be sure if I’m going to stay here… that I can count you among those I can trust.  That is why I had to ask, why I had to know.”  She hopes that that is an adequate explanation.  She wants to recoil at the idea of showing such vulnerability to the once-general, but she finds that she has little left in her to fight.  At least in this moment.  The fire will certainly return to the lioness. When he offer’s his condolences, a white hot pang of guilt sears her from the inside.  She holds his gaze for a moment before closing her eyes and looking away. “I appreciate that.  I do.  But it pales in comparison from what they took from you.  Because we both know who is to blame for all of this. And I don’t regret it, Tembovu.  Even now.  I never will.  I wish they all had further to fall.” There had been rumors – rumors that some members of the Council had fled.  The very idea that they were living somewhere with no accountability for their actions was enough to enrage and nauseate the lioness.  But she knew it was something she must let go of now.  There was little she could do unless one showed up here, seeking sanctuary in this strange land of cliffs. 


T S A V O
Lines


sorry i couldn't let it die ;-;

Please tag Tsavo in all posts.
Force & magic are permitted, please ask before inflicting serious injury.

Tembovu the Elephant Posts: 805
World's Edge Captain atk: 7 | def: 9.0 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 18hh :: 10 HP: 77 | Buff: SWIFT
Mbwene :: African Elephant :: Ashen smitty
#8
tembovu
Carefully he watched her— watched the long breath release from her nostrils and the slow, halting rise of her eyes from his hooves to his own, worried gaze. He saw the fire, the anger, extinguish— and he found that he sorely missed it. While the lioness was contained, she was a contained inferno, prideful spirit smoldering beneath the decorous exterior.

But he saw it flicker and die, in those bright blue eyes. Lines creased his own, dark blue eyes— muzzle pursing softly as another great breath came from her. An ear splayed sideways as she spoke excuses for him, voice laced with exhaustion. Shame and guilt, the two-headed beast, rose in his throat and roared in his skull as he witnessed this; as he witnessed the mighty lioness lose her roar.

“I understand, my lioness,” his low voice cuts through her struggling words, “You do not need to explain.” His eyes rove over her face, his lips wanting to part and say more— but what, he did not know. And when she said that he was among the ones she could trust, his guilt nearly overwhelmed his mind. For, although what he told Tsavo was true: he had not told Kunja it was her who had been the partner of his tryst; he had alluded that it was a woman from a powerful family. A woman trusted on the council. And, of those, there were few. And, of the few, there was only one that was beautiful. While he had not intended for Kunja to discover Tsavo, at the moment of staring down Korofi spears, he had not hidden as well as he could have.

But, he held his guilt and shame (or it held him) by the throat, instead nodding as she spoke of blame, ”I wish they all had further to fall”. His navy eyes darkened, “As do I, Tsavo,” he paused for a moment, sighing, “But Helovia, being so different from Dorobo, has taught me many things. Perhaps, most importantly, is to move forward. You cannot change your past, but you can choose how it will shape your future.”

He glanced towards the preoccupied Mbwene, before gently urging, “Find a purpose, a job, in the Edge. It will help more than you know.”

@Tsavo I'm glad you didn't <3 We can fade it here, though, if you want? And start a new one?

Please tag Tembovu.


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