[private] my heart has started to separate, atrox

[atrox]

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