Tembovu watched this with amusement, further relaxing in the face of Ros’s bark of laughter. His hips slanted, a thick hind leg cocked slightly as his thick tail swirled in the cold, ocean breeze. His liquid, navy gaze drifted back to Ros as she asked about his control, “Today is the first time I’ve used it since—“
Ros’s electric eyes remained in the ephemeral mist that hung over the cliffs as she answered his question. He, therefore, allowed his eyes to closely study the profile of her face as she answered, gaze following the sharp line of black and white that skated along her cheek. It was a study he committed to those who lived within the Edge— to know and see them. To pull them into his mind, so that he would recognize and—
”How’s Lee?”
The blurted question was perplexing. “Lee?” The question was out of his mouth, speaking over her stammers. Though he heard her exaggerated ”Mow-ya” just fine. He would always hear that name, no matter how quietly or haltingly spoken around him.
Just as Ros’s demeanor shifted from casual to sneering stiffness, the Elephant King’s stance morphed to rigidity. Mbwene betrayed the sudden pulse of anger through their bond with a short, belligerent trumpet. “Mauja is—“ he paused, wondering just how to answer this question. “He is a different man than what I thought. But I still hold him as a friend,” did he? or was that political-speak? “Though, I think, he needs a different friend than I, right now, to help him sort his mind. I cannot be what he needs.” His cryptic, yet still forthcoming, answer ended on a low murmur, ears tilted backwards and eyes casted down.
“Why do you call him Lee?” his last words were a question, halfheartedly asked beneath the sea of grief and anger that roiled in his head.
ooc| Have Mbwene's ear-pinch work or not! And I wrote her as walking away, but he can interrupt her or PP or whatever ;) @Roskuld