tembovu

An ear flicked to the side as Myrrine approached, but his dark gaze did not waver from Mauja’s face even as the butterfly spoke. There was concern that leaked into her voice and radiated from her form was palpable— but that is not where his attention was focused. His mind was focused on the dropping staff, navy eyes flickering once towards its forgotten thud on the snow dust, before retraining on the white, ink-splattered face.

He hadn’t known what to expect from his friend— but watching him crumble before him was cruel to his mind; he wanted to move forward to embrace him. But— “I killed you”— he was held in place by shock. What was he saying? Dark eyes follow the waving tip of his horn as he choking words eventually halt.

“I am alive, Mauja?” His deep roll ends in a question, “I am alive, with a purpose, and am able to build rather than destroy. My heart feels for you, for the Edge, for—”

“Kill me.”

Mbwene, hovering at her big man’s haunches, grumbled a trumpet at the sudden, roiling waves of turmoil that flooded through their bond. What had been triumph and pride at the end of the meeting had morphed to agonized concern and now imploded into confused pain. And she was annoyed with this rollercoaster— as well as alarmed at the sudden powerful, dark undercurrent that spanned their bond. Tembovu’s demons had awoken.

They were thrilled at this prospect. They rolled form the back of his mind, sweeping their blackness to the front of his skull, sheathing the softness of his eyes into shadows. They pounced on the grey area that the Elephant found himself in— there was no right or wrong here. There was no real death. And there was a reason to cave to Mauja’s entreaty.

The reason was guilt. Guilt made him reluctant to deny this man his request (any request). How, after burning him alive— a fate he knew, in his own way, to be awful— how could he deny him his wish? What right did he have? And the Frozen Light (he could not think of him as friend in this moment, for one does not murder kill friends) would not die. He would live, he had life eternally. (Forever damned or forever saved?)

A low, shaken breath expelled from his black nostrils. Navy eyes had widened, white rims stark against the hard cobalt. A low whine came from Mbwene’s trunk as it wrapped in uncertainty around his hock. His head began to drop, jaw tucking as his thick horn skated through the air— such close quarters to the Frozen’s face. It dropped to the level of his chest, sharp point aiming to begin to press against the white flesh there.

His mind raced. And it was blank. The shadows reigned. And yet light burned as bright heat behind his eyes— blinding as if to sear this moment out of existence before it even occurred.

And then his unseeing eyes sudden saw the gentle, delicate outreached muzzle of Myrrine. The speckled velvet moving out of emotion, out of a need to help. The image stayed his horn, the gentle push of the the sharp point against muscle halting as he began to try to withdraw, Mbwene trunk squeezing tightly against his hock.

“Of all things to ask of me, why this?”

the elephant king