[open] don't close the coffin yet; any

[atrox]

hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive

Hyaline was his.

It had not been difficult—not that he had thought it would be. The land was practically a ghost town save for those few souls who haunted its borders. There was no thriving kingdom that required him to overthrow its source of power. There was no army to face off against. In the end, it was simply him and an old friend and the sassy mouth of a young girl who was all bark and no bite. Nothing he could not handle and nothing he would not mind handling again in the future—it was just noise.

The fact that he is now left the leader of a dead land bears no real weight on him. He feels no sense of duty to grow it into something more, although the old ambition still scratches at him. Perhaps with time, it would grow. Perhaps he could feed it enough life that it would slowly rise from the ashes.

Or, perhaps, it would simply continue to serve as a place to call his own.

A place to hunt and sleep and bring the occasional woman home in peace.

Atrox was, after all, a man of simple needs (at least, he was at a cursory glance).

Today though, he leaves his lakefront home and wanders into the common lands. He doesn’t bother to shift into his feline form, although he does remain blanked by the blue-eyes sentients that he has called from the afterlife for the trip. They stand several paces behind him, silent, as he stalks forward, the heavy weight of his mane falling over both sides of his neck. He is not hungry today, although the thought passes through briefly, and the breeding season has left him content if not fully satisfied.

So he is not sure what else drives him forward if not simple boredom.

He comes to rest beside a large tree, growling lightly when the souls get too close and only ceasing when they take several steps back. When he feels he has enough space, he settles in, looking like nothing more than a stallion lazing beneath the autumn leaves—except the eyes. The sharpness always gives him away.

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING

[Agetta]

Agetta is lost in blissful thoughts when she spots him. The daydreams about the foal she is carrying come crashing down and she feels the anger that she felt on the beach rise up in her. She should just walk away, should just continue living in this new half-life avoiding Atrox. It had been easy to forget that he existed here once they had stepped into the afterlife and everything that had happened since. She had spoken with death, had the love of her life returned to her, been to the Deserts, gotten pregnant, and been given some strange and confusing gifts since the last time she had seen the wretched creature standing beneath the tree. A lot has happened in such a short time. Agetta knows that it would be wise to turn away. Although she is aware with how she has already started to swell up with her pregnancy, there are some wounds she cannot seem to help but pick at. There is happiness in her life again but the anger feels so much better than the emptiness of being lost and she still craves any emotion she can get. She eyes the two spirits nearby, wondering if they are tied to the monster or if they are simply there by chance. In this world where the dead are returning, it’s certainly not easy to say one way or the other. She does not enter underneath the tree but stands a few strides back from the dripline - her dark eyes burning. Would that Death had taken memories of him and freed her from this pain that has not dulled at all over the years. Agetta cannot possibly know that worse memories had been taken from her, that Atrox is not the villain in her story. Far from it. “Couldn't you have just stayed in the afterlife?” we are made of starstuff

artwork by yoricade

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[atrox]

hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive

She is but one of many opponents he has faced during his lives, but she does stick out to him. There had been a particular fire to her—a courage beneath the otherwise blandly good exterior—that had made him give her a second look. It had not hurt that she had come back as his counterweight, the light to his dark.

He had been vicious then, cutthroat and hungry, and although he is not kinder now, he does not so quickly snap to her jugular as he once might have done. Instead he yawns, settling down and feeling something like anticipation war with his innate ability to relax. For a second, he says nothing, although he does make a sudden, jerking motion of his head toward the two souls who flank him—a quick shake of his head.

He has no need of them.

At least, not yet.

“What would the fun be in that, Agetta?” he muses, his voice casual and drawling, as though they were two friends merely catching up with one another. “This Beqanna has so much new to it,” so much that is boring and dull, he thinks, despite the fantastic and dizzying array of dolor, “but there is still some things that are worth exploring, things that are worth a dead man’s time.” His tail flicks behind him.

For another moment, he rests, yellow gaze wandering to the horizon before coming back to rest on her, something deceivingly calm about the way that he assesses her, studying this new woman.

“How is our son by the way? I have not seen him in so long.”

In forever, if he was being honest—he had no interest in all of his offspring—but it seemed like as good of a conversation as any. So he smiles, a flash of white against the scarred black of his lips.

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING

[Agetta]

The casual tone that Atrox uses with her is infuriating. As though she does not have many justified reasons for hating him. She has to wonder whether she’d find a reason to be angry with him over everything - she could watch him save the life of a foal with a scowl on her face. Not that he would ever do something so kind, so instead she is just set fuming by the little things - like when his yellow gaze flickers from her and then back. She’s made so many friends with strange eyes lately, the orange of Garbage. Even the golden of Set she can find beauty in. But the yellow of Atrox? The worst of them all. There is one thing keeping her back from lunging at him when he brings up their son, and that is the new life growing in her now. She sees read for a minute though. It does not matter how many years have passed, she has not forgotten what it felt like to be overpowered by the stallion standing before her. That autumn scene plays in her head, as well as the birth of their son. A boy born steel grey, a perfect blend of his parents. Caught between them from the very beginning. A savage father and a weak mother. Everything about Abner’s kidnapping, his growth as another mare’s son, the way he was twisted against her, does not exist in Agetta’s mind. To her, he is just another of her children that she has failed by not being present. Another time she failed herself when she did not fight off an assailant well enough and bore a child out of hatred instead of love. The fire fades, flickers into embers (can it ever truly fade away in Atrox’s presence?), and leaves behind a sad, somber truth. “He is better, I think, for not being in either of our company.” Surely, if nothing else, they could agree on that. we are made of starstuff

artwork by yoricade

[atrox]

hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive

He doesn’t expect her to relax in his presence, but he is surprised when she grows more somber. He tilts his head slightly, an ear swiveling toward her before shrugging and making a non-committal noise in the back of his throat. His children had never truly needed him, and he has never needed them. There were only a few that he was even an absent presence for—the ones with Twinge, mostly, although he had ended up taking in Anastasia and training her for several years. He has no doubt that they miss him little.

“I think most children do well without parents there to mess it up,” he muses out loud, his yellow eyes moving away from the white of her to the shadows that exist beyond, thinking briefly about his own. His father, a general who had set his path from a young age, and his mother—weak and useless and Atrox’s first taste of murder at such a young age. It is a strangely introspective thought for the stallion and one that he shakes easily, his crooked, apathetic grin sliding back into place as he shakes the dust away.

His eyes sharpen again as he studies her once more, wondering just what she would have found of interest in this new world. Would she have found a replacement for the Gates? Another cause for her to pick up with the same eagerness that Magnus had tried to fill the Heaven shaped whole in his chest? The comparison leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, a strange ache that he was unused to, and he turns toward her with a new sharpness, a casual cruelness that pulls his scarred mouth into a flat line.

“So how does it feel to live as a ghost in a world that has long forgotten your name?”

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING

[Agetta]

She does not respond to his musing about parents, her midnight gaze on him but unfocused, lost in her own thoughts as (though she does not know this) he is lost in his. Agetta loved being a mother, had adopted almost just as many foals as she had physically birthed, but that did not mean she was always good at it. Were they better off without her? If she had her memories of Anaxarete, she would agree with him without question. So many of her babies had burned because of that mare, because of Agetta and even because of Atrox - since it was through his association that Agetta had even stumbled across the shadow mare. She refocuses when he speaks again, a sharpness in him that wasn’t there a moment ago. It’s a cruel taunt, to be sure, but does not earn him a flinch from her - just a sad smile. His words, venomous and harsh, are only echoes compared to the wickedness of her own thoughts over the last century. It is difficult to bruise an ego that barely exists in the first place. These words do not cause a rush of hatred or fire within her (none more than the steady beat of hatred being in his presence causes). The somber feeling does not leave her, there is barely even a bite to her voice when she replies. “It has never mattered to me whether I was remembered.” Which is, at least, only half a lie. It would have soothed her better if she had been, and perhaps it had bothered her for a time, but now those feelings are distant. The world moves on quick - she had been a ghost even back in the days after their battle. A remnant of the history the Gates had moved on from.  The world might not remember her name, but at least one old friend had recognized her when she returned and that had been enough. And now, she has made new friends, she will be starting a new stage in her family, and she has the love of her life back. Returning to Beqanna had been difficult, but it has blessed her and made her feel like finally, finally, she had made the right decision. As for being a ghost… she does not respond specifically. He deserves no answer, and she doubt he is interested to hear that she is less one than she was a year ago. That she is growing more solid, more alive, with each night that passes. But she does return the question of sorts, a spark of curiosity in the way her attention focuses on him. They may be something close to enemies, but he is as much from the Old World as she is (just a younger generation). Surely this prick of a stallion hasn’t had a significantly easier time adjusting than she has. Or does the depth of his depravity extend so far that he has formed no bonds, so he can pass between times without a care? Did he go into the afterlife that day on the beach and find no soul there to guide him? As much as she loathes him, she finds this hard to believe. Everyone else she has met from before had seemed to feel similar to the way she did. Like her, Atrox had once given everything he had to a kingdom that now many don't even know the name of, never mind the history of, and she cannot comprehend the idea of living through that change completely unscathed. “And you, Atrox? Have you never feel like a ghost in this new world?” Saying his name makes her skin crawl, though she does her best to hide the discomfort behind the curiosity as she watches him across the distance between them. we are made of starstuff

artwork by yoricade

[atrox]

hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive

Atrox is not often introspective—at least in the presence of others. He has made a habit of wearing an armor of indifference, an air of apathy that has served him well. He learned a long time ago that his sarcasm and lack of caring could be as cruel as teeth to the throat and it was a weapon he had adopted for so long that he can hardly remember not wielding it. So he is surprised to find himself thinking now, especially in the presence of someone who has stood for so long on the other side of the battle lines.

She is prickly enough that he doesn’t relax, necessarily, but he does consider her words, making a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat at the idea of not being remembered. Once upon a time, the very idea would have made his blood curdle. His hackles would have raised at the idea of all of his sacrifice and accomplishments being washed over. It had infuriated him to meet new members of the Chamber and for them to have no idea that it was his heart they stepped on, his pulse that kept time.

But now?

He hasn’t exactly softened, but he has let go of such notions.

It was impossible to cling to the need to be remembered when the world shifted and changed so much. First when the Valley and the Chamber had collided together and then when Beqanna had swallowed them both entirely. At first, it was enough to know that his tie to the New World, his son, had anchored himself and that he could watch as his direct legacy carved out a new land and a new sense of history.

But even that was torn from him.

Now? Now he was just a ghost.

Even with a land to his name and ties spreading throughout the kingdoms, he had no real sense of purpose and no real impact on the political world around him. He even had little ambition to speak of, except the pursuit of the vices that soothed his constant hunger. “I am a ghost,” he says with a wolfish smile, able to keep the turmoil from his slack face, his smooth drawl giving no hint of any pain he may feel.

“No sense in pretending I’m not.”

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING

[Agetta]

Although spoken with a predatory smile, Atrox’s honesty (or, what she assumes is honesty) causes a crack in the cement wall she keeps around herself in his presence. She wants to look away from him, wants to avoid the possibility that the damned crack could be seen, but she doesn’t. She keeps her midnight gaze on him, as though searching for something she does not see. Is there a soul in there? One that has felt the effects of time? She remembers the hollowness of being a ghost herself. The years spent on the fringes of being alive. More than once she had wondered why she still lived, but it wasn’t until she went to the afterlife and found Plume that she had ever thought of just stopping. She is uncomfortably aware of the growing sense of sympathy within her. If being a ghost was the same for him as it had been for her, it was not a pleasant experience. And while part of her wishes unpleasant experiences on him, that damned sympathy won’t let her spit the venom she had been hoping for. Again, assuming Atrox does feel. It would be easy to think of him as a shallow, one-sided villain but they’ve just (more or less) discovered that they have some things in common. Perhaps there is depth to his personality after all. This is the first conversation they’ve ever actually shared. Most of their history has been in passing. He has been a ghost to her - someone who has haunted her thoughts for decades. He is just one of a number of such ghosts, just another in a crowd that are faces to her own shortcomings. They do not haunt her at night, the stars had always soothed her, but in the unsympathetic light of the day as she wandered and reflected and fretted they reminded her of every failure. Her response is spoken softly, with a hint of kindness softening the edges - a hint she knows she’ll regret. “You may be one of my demons, Atrox, but I don’t believe you are a ghost.” After a pause, though, there is a flash of that fire in her gaze again and her voice continues a little stronger, some barb coming back into it -  tempered with something akin to mischief. “You're far too bothersome to truly fade away. But if you can wait until spring, I would be happy to prove your solid state by kicking you in the head.” The temptation of a fight is a strong one in her heart (she was a general, a warrior, once upon a time after all). Right now, though, she’s in no condition. She would never risk the life inside her for the simple and stupid thrill of battling one of her demons in the flesh. Thank the gods, she thinks, for the shapeshifting ability that could provide her an easy exit from this conversation if needed. we are made of starstuff

artwork by yoricade