CASIMIRA
dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah
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.
@atrox