"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
She had forgotten how warm Tephra could be. After years spent living in the mountains of Hyaline, the humid jungles of the volcanic kingdom felt heavy, like a warm weight that she couldn’t quite shake. She didn’t steal away from the kingdom often—mostly because she is afraid Savior would think she is unhappy with her decision to live there again, which is not the case—but ever since she had felt the first fluttering of new life inside of her, she was certain the sun had moved closer to the earth. The only semblance of relief she could find was to leave the kingdom for a few hours in favor of a cooler climate, usually favoring the forest.
Here, where the shadows of the trees stretched on for infinity, she could finally breathe a sigh of almost relief. Almost, because there did not seem to be anything that could displace the sorrow that rooted itself inside of her chest ever since her mother had been killed. Even though the winter air was cool against her skin—she felt a shiver travel down the length of her spine, chased by an armor of white scales—it did nothing to ease the ache in her heart.
Today she had landed along the river at the northernmost part of the forest, and she cannot help but to seek out the large mountain range that she knew just beyond laid her previous home. And when she feels a pang in her chest at the thought of it it is not so much because she misses the land itself (Savior, she had learned, was home, and returning to Hyaline never crosses her mind anymore), but because she knows that inside of it is where her mother rests, guarded always by her brother’s magic.
She wonders if she will ever find it in herself to return, but because running is the only thing she has ever known, she is almost certain she will not.
Adjusting the dragon wings at her side she turns her back on the mountains, surprised at how quickly she had decided she would rather return home, heat and all. But from the corner of her eye the faint afternoon sunlight reflects off something yellow, and in a blink her ice-blue eyes shift to something sharp and draconic, piercing the dark to find what she thinks are a pair of familiar eyes. “Atrox?” she says his name softly, almost hesitantly, and she feels her chest constrict at the thought of having to face maybe the only one that could lay claim to the same grief that she was drowning under.
hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive
He cannot outrun his pain.
He cannot outhunt his fury.
He carries it with him, day and night, and he feels himself changed by the weight of it. It is different from the kind of bloodlust that once brought him to rain down his fury on kingdoms and slit the throats of any who would oppose him. It is different from the pain of being rejected by the Chamber. It is different from the loneliness of being forgotten, the panther-king wasting away in the shadows of that pine kingdom.
This is eternal, and heavy, and he would break under it if he did not carry the hope of reversing it.
If he did not think he could find a solution to bring her back.
(He has to bring her back. He has to make this right.)
He has grown tired of terrorizing the prey population of Hyaline though and so his black mood carries him to the forest where he slaughters a different herd. His feline mouth is painted red with the lifeblood of the deer, but his belly is empty—he has no hunger for the things that he kills these days.
It is only when he sees the flash of blue and white that he pauses, shifting back into his equine self. He stalks forward, unafraid of the young dragon (maybe she would kill him and he could find Ryatah in the afterlife, heaven knows he is familiar with it). If the pain in her own face is a mirror, he ignores it. Instead he focuses on how the lines of her look so familiar to Ryatah that his throat constricts.
She is not his own, but she may as well be.
“Casi,” he says her name softly, unsure of where they stood but the thought of being close to someone so familiar nearly breaking him. His voice is thick with unshed tears, and he steps forward again.
“How have—“ he starts before stopping, shaking his head.
The way he says her name feels as though someone is trying to wring her heart in their hands, because while she knew he was grieving it was still so unlike Atrox to ever let any kind of emotion slip. But she hears it in his voice, sees it raw on his face, and she finds that now she has to bite back her own tears, swallowing them away before they can darken the ice-blue of her eyes. She had never met her own father, and growing up there had never been a man in her mother’s life long enough to pass as a stand-in. Until Atrox, of course, and though Casimira was fully grown by that point he had still filled a space she hadn’t realized she was bothered by being vacant.
Leaving Hyaline had felt a little like abandoning him during the worst possible moment, but she also knew he likely wanted to be alone in handling his grief.
She had lost her mother, but Atrox had lost his other half, and while they were both a different kind of heartbreak, she didn't think she would survive losing Savior.
“I’m okay,” she answers his half-spoken question anyway, forcing a wan smile. She can smell the dried blood that still clings to him, and while it causes her draconic eyes to briefly sharpen she pushes that hunger away. She tried to avoid hunting, especially since it was only in the last few years she had managed to gain any kind of control of her dragon form at all. But she cannot blame Atrox for the way he chooses to assuage whatever pain he might be feeling; she can’t say that she wouldn’t do the same.
“I went back to Tephra,” and she recalls how that was actually the first place she had ever seen him; the lone panther that stalked the jungle, who would later become the father to her half-sister, Aislyn. She doesn’t know the full story of why Atrox had chosen Tephra in the first place, or why he had decided to leave, but she knows enough that she feels as though she needs to tread with caution when mentioning the jungle kingdom. “Savior and I rule it together, but it still doesn’t seem right to call myself a queen. I have no idea what I’m doing. I wish my—” I wish my mom was here, is what she almost starts to say but she quickly stops herself, though not before her eyes catch his apologetically. “Everything is just hard right now,” she finishes softly, turning her face away from his.
hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive
He has never grieved in front of anyone before, except Ryatah, and it is a foreign sensation. There is no small part of him that tries to tamp it down. That tries to swallow it whole. But his grief is too large, too vast, too all-consuming and it pours out of him, radiating out of every inch of him.
His eyes sharpen on her as she lies, knowing that she’s not okay—could anyone be right now—but he doesn’t comment further on it. He may not be able to control his own sorrow but that did not mean he didn’t respect her right to her privacy. If she wanted to grieve in private, then he’d give her the chance.
Instead he waits quietly, feeling that non-existent heart of his squeeze painfully when she mentions Tephra. It’s been years since he ventured back there. Years since he forced himself to look for the sight of sun-dappled gold and the flecked eyes looking back at him vacantly. He’d take Magnus’ fury and hate over the bland pleasantries that he is sure he would see now—that emptiness where history should live.
But, regardless, it feels right that Ryatah’s daughter would be there.
That Magnus’ home would be in such safe hands.
“You are every bit a Queen,” he says with the barest curve to his scarred mouth and the emotions that flicker in his yellow eyes is unreadable. “I have seen more than my fair share of rulers, both very good and very bad, and trust me when I say that I know a good one when I see one.” He takes a chance to breach the distance between them, touching his muzzle to her cheek briefly. “The good ones worry.”
At what she doesn’t say, he swallows, his face hardening and mouth growing tight.
“It is hard,” his voice is roughened on the edges, “but she would be proud of you.”
He bites back the emotion in his throat.
“I’m proud of you.”
ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
now be defiant, the lion, give them the fight that will open their eyes
She resists the urge to brush off his reassurance, even though she knows Atrox is not the type to compliment someone simply to spare their feelings. But she has placed herself in the shadow of other rulers, such as her mother and Atrox, and Leliana and even Breach,, and she finds it difficult to believe that she could ever measure up. She is setting herself against a seemingly impossible set of standards, and while she knows if her mother were here that she would tell her she would be exactly the kind of queen she was meant to be, it did not keep her from being convinced she’s going to fail.
Would Tephra want her as her queen if they knew just a few short years ago she still had hardly any control over her dragon form?
Would they want her if they knew her recklessness had gotten herself killed, even if it was in an attempt to protect the volcanic kingdom?
She is afraid of failing the memory of her mother, of making Savior regret letting her rule alongside him, and she is so close to being sucked beneath the tide of her worry when she feels Atrox’s touch against her cheek.
She can’t remember if anyone has ever told her that they are proud of her, and to hear him say it causes her chest to tighten with an emotion she cannot name. Maybe because she had assumed she would never have anyone to look to as a father, and she knows that Atrox likely had never expected to be acting as one to a child that wasn’t even his. They were an unlikely pair, brought together be someone who was no longer even here, and maybe that is why she is most surprised—she had half expected the loss of Ryatah to be seen as his way out, and instead here he was, with her, telling her he is proud of her.
“Thank you,” she says, though the two words feel entirely lacking. She can only hope that he will understand the full depth of all she is thanking him for—for being all of the things that he did not need to be, but she is eternally grateful for. She touches her nose to his shoulder, and for just a moment the cold grief she has been carrying with her is overshadowed by warmth.
After a breath of hesitation, she offers cautiously, “Magnus is still there.” She does not know the full story—her mother was always careful to keep many things regarding Atrox private, but Casimira knew enough. She knew Magnus was his son, and one of the few of his own children that he actually cared for. She knew that something had happened that kept Atrox away from him now, and that Casimira had been warned by her mother to not bring up Atrox to Magnus should their paths ever cross. “He keeps to himself, mostly, but he seems like he’s doing well.”
Maybe she had overstepped a boundary with sharing that information with him, but she can’t help to think that no matter what his reaction might be, it would be something he wanted to know—whether he admitted it or not.
hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive
Atrox has been known for many things throughout his long life, but being a spectacular father was never one of them. He, instead, fathered dozens of children by dozens of mothers. He had generations of his offspring that he never knew about, let along interacted with. It was only, at first, his children with Twinge that he even paid attention and, even then, it was only Magnus who drew his attention fully. Magnus who had been wild and stubborn, talented but driven by entirely different motives than him. Who had risen in the Chamber ranks to spurn the kingdom in favor of the Gates where he had led their army instead.
Magnus who railed against his own nature to become everything Atrox was not.
Magnus who Atrox had followed and looked after.
Who he had then sacrificed.
Anastasia had come later and Atrox had taken her under his wing, but she was a feral thing and it had been more amusement and perhaps curiosity that kept him around. It was only when he had met Ryatah that he had found himself caring for his children again. In a way totally different from the way he had looked after his children with Twinge. It was a strange, even uncomfortable, experience, and perhaps because of it, he is not surprised to feel that alien affection for the rest of Ryatah’s brood.
Regardless of who fathered them.
So he comes to rest in the silence of her company, the mirrored grief both deeply painful and also comforting. Like finding like. It’s only when she mentions Magnus that he stills, breath stopping in his throat. It’s been so long since someone uttered that word to him and he closes his eyes, just for a second, to stop his instinctual desire to lash out in pain. He swallows and then forces himself to look at her, masking the agony that rises up his throat with a sardonic curve of his black lip.
“Good,” he says, instead of telling her how the name cuts him. Instead of lashing out at her for daring to mention it. Instead of asking all the questions he wants to know. “I wouldn’t bother telling him about me,” and this is a little more pained, even with the forced levity. “He didn’t particularly like hearing about me before and, now, well…” his voice trails off and he shrugs. “I just wouldn’t bother.”
ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
now be defiant, the lion, give them the fight that will open their eyes
She can sense the shift in the atmosphere, the way the air between them pulls taut after she brings up Magnus. She is unfamiliar with what the relationship between a father and child should be like—her own father was absent, as were most of her siblings’ fathers. Whatever she has gleaned over the years is only from what she has observed in Atrox. She knows nothing of the relationship between him and Magnus, whether it had once been good and was now broken, or if it has always been strained. But she does know that Atrox is not a bad father, or at least, not to the ones he chooses to be around (and maybe there is a part of her that knows that is not necessarily a good thing—that he has children that grew up wanting to know him just as she had always wanted to know her own—but she has always been too thrilled at being one of the chosen few that she was willing to turn a blind eye to that).
There is a part of her that wants to fix whatever may have happened between them; thinks that surely it must be something that is fixable. She feels almost guilty at being able to speak freely with him when his own son can’t.
But she remembers her mother warning her to never bring up Atrox to Magnus during her then frequent visits to Tephra, and now she has Atrox before her requesting the same. And so even though there is an uncomfortable tug in her chest, she nods her head. “I won’t say anything to him, I promise.”
She is reluctant to leave, finding herself clinging to the only parental familiarity she has left. She is sure the desperation is on her face, but her mother’s absence had left such a painful ache and something about having Atrox—someone her mother had loved whole-heartedly—close was like a balm.“How are things in Hyaline? I keep meaning to come back and see how things are, but…” she trails off with a half-hearted and slightly rueful smile. She knows she does not have to explain to him why she doesn’t go back. It is the same reason he doesn’t leave, she assumes.
hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive
Perhaps it should be surprising that there is peace in her presence when he has known so little of it in his duties of his father, when so much of her gaze reminds him of Ryatah, but in these moments, he feels it. He feels something warm in his chest, something protective, and he lets it grow slowly—like embers that catch kindling. Let him enjoy this one thing, he thinks, as he watches her, holds onto this moment.
Tomorrow, he will be alone enough.
Today, he can enjoy this.
At her promise, he just nods and makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. It is enough to assuage whatever fears he may have (the boy would not remember him either way, he knows, but there is something in Magnus acknowledging it that Atrox cannot bear) and he gladly turns from the topic. The less that he is forced to think of his failures as a father, at the loss he has suffered there, the better.
Instead, he focuses wholly on her, his mouth pulled tight. “They are…” his voice fades off and he looks in the direction of the kingdom, “fine.” He settles on the word and rolls his scarred shoulders. “Quiet in a way that they shouldn’t be, I suppose, considering.” He knows that Beqanna has once again shaken away. Has drowned kingdoms and resurrected new ones. But the dust has not settled from the population. They have, instead, tucked themselves away—buried their head in the sand. Let the ocean come.
“Which usually means that they will not be quiet for long.”
She has never considered herself much of a leader, and especially not a queen. She had watched Breach lead Hyaline, and then Mazikeen, but she had never had much interest in it herself. Even though at the time Hyaline had felt like more of a home than Tephra, she still felt like an outsider—something she is learning perhaps she will always feel, and that instead of trying to amend that she needs to learn to work around it. That she cannot continue to wait for everything to fall into place, because it may not ever happen. Choosing to lead Tephra was not a choice she would have made without Savior, and while she is sure there is someone far more fitting than her, it was too late to turn back now.
Outsider or not, she was now their queen, and all she could do was hope that when she surely stumbled she would not take the entire kingdom with her.
“Things do seem rather quiet,” she muses thoughtfully after he says it, a new thread of worry creeping into her mind. She should have noticed that without him pointing it out—that there was supposedly a new kingdom beneath the sea, that a land of ruins had recently been uncovered. Changing of lands and kingdoms, if history was to show for anything, almost always meant some kind of political unrest. Shifting her eyes back to his, she returns his tight smile with a small one of her own. “I should probably get back, actually.” After a moment of hesitation she reaches out to brush her nose lightly against his shoulder, and says gently, “I’ll be sure to come to Hyaline more often. The kingdoms should remain as allies anyway.”
Ignoring the ache building in her chest, she leaves him, Hyaline, and the memory of her mother behind, for now, and returns to Tephra.
![[Image: atrox.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/XBppy9VY/atrox.png)