the elephant king

The clenching muscles around his horn were tight, so very tight; the hard bone in Mauja’s chest resisted the Elephant’s driving, ridged spear. It said 'no, do not invade this place'; the spasming muscles pushed him out of the cold sanctity of the Frozen Light’s chest.

So tightly defiant were the tissues that he could feel the pulse of the heart he sought to pierce— but why? Blood welled, hot and slick, around his horn and dropped as small sickening promises for the vow he had kept to this man— his friend? This—this act was beyond friendship. It ran deeper than words; it ran with blood spilled on the ground that first brought them together. Yet now… now they came together for different reasons. Reasons fraught with pain and truth and heat and lov—

But suddenly the heat was gone, the resistance and tightness disappearing and a sound— a cry? a scream? some strangled, sordid moan—broke through the cacophony of confusion in Tembovu’s mind. Great skull jerked up, only to see tears— no.

Tears ran in streams from terrified eyes; blood spattered from his gaping chest, smearing in hoof streaks on the grass that now awned between them. The Elephant’s mind roared in confusion; he hadn’t done it, hadn’t felt the pulsing heart wall tremble and stop around his horn’s sharp tip. He hadn’t fulfilled his promise, kept his word to Mauja—

Mauja.

Bewildered blue eyes sweep up from the streaming blood (so glaring and insulting against the stark white of his skin). There were tears, terror haunting his face. “Mauja no—I’m—I thought you—I didn’t—” the barrage of faltering words spilled out of his black lips, eyes rapidly blinking away the red film of blood that stained his eyes and sealed his guilt.

His stumbling words halted as he stood, pinned by the weight of what he had just done that crashed down on his shoulders. And even they, as strong and broad as an Elephant’s, could not bear the gravity of his deed. He slumped for a moment, eyes burning with blood and shame, yet unable to tear his gaze away from the immortal man he’d nearly murdered. Down, down, the bleeding saint of an Elephant promise fell, a martyr stained with sins of pride or folly or both.

Thick legs which begged to buckle were jerked into motion, and once again the man found himself broken and cradling Mauja’s unmoving body. Lifeless but for the whisper of breath that immortality pulled and pushed from his chest.

Knees of ivory and ebony push into the man’s back, strong jaw hooking around the spotted neck to pull and hold it against his chest. Scarlet blood smeared across his pale muzzle— metallic and acrid to his mouth as his lips parted to ask 'why?'

But how do you ask accusing questions of the one whose trust you’ve violated and destroyed? So, instead, “Don’t die on me, Mauja,” a desolate command rumbled brokenly past bloodstained lips. Followed by a quiet murmur, “I love you,” echoing Mauja's earlier words as an excuse an explanation an apology... and a plea.


Far away, Mbwene had long since charged out of her pine needle nest, leaving the sleeping prince because she was pulled by the visceral emotions flooding her small mind through their bond. Frantically trampling on the scene, bright blue eyes are immediately drawn to the pooled blood around the two, entwined stallions. Fisting her trunk in mosses and leaves she trundled towards their collapsed forms, tiny trunk carefully pushing her makeshift clot into the shredded flesh and attempting to stop whatever blood was left from leaking out Mauja's chest.