don't close the coffin yet; any

[atrox]

a t r o x -- He had respect for anyone who loved the Chamber; it was about as far as his respect was willing to go. He had seen a lot in the decades (okay, centuries) that he had lived, and he knew that true loyalty was not something to treat lightly. There was plenty of those who would pledge empty promises and be gone when it actually came time to press their nose to the grind. He had seen those frail, pathetic Chamberlings before, and he knew that they were a dime a dozen.  But true loyalty? That was something to be prized. So he looks at the two with an appraising eye before he just grunts. “Pleasure to meet you, Killdare,” he says with just enough sarcasm in his voice. “Perhaps it is for the best that I did not make you tonight’s meal.” He would decide later just how much he actually believed that, but for now, he turns his yellow gaze to Straia. “You would be surprised at my resilience, little girl. Plenty have tried to end my life.” Tried and failed—or succeeded to have him surmount death later. If he had known her thoughts, he may have laughed at her thinking he was always gone during the bulk of the work, although he wouldn’t have been angry—he simply would have seen it as an error of youth. He had given his life to the Chamber’s work; he had recruited and battled and stolen and guarded borders and made visits to surrounding kingdoms and herds alike. What she saw as laziness, he saw as well-earned rest. Not that he wouldn't gladly put his back into years more of work. He was always up for it. “Now, now, Straia, can’t a guy just want to spend some time with you?” he grins through sharpened teeth, rolling his scarred shoulders. “The hermit life was beginning to bore me,” he finally confesses, flicking his tail harshly against his haunches, irritated at the restlessness in his veins. “So I thought it was time for me to grace you with my presence again.”  To stir trouble again is what goes unsaid. panther-stallion | ex-king | forever chamber guardian