i'm on the wrong side of heaven; atrox

[atrox]

a t r o x -- Atrox would have to be blind and deaf to not hear the stirrings throughout Beqanna of the war to come, although the panther-stallion did not leave the ridges of the mountain often. He did not need to when the rest of the kingdom was so verbal with all of the happenings. All he needed to do was find a comfortable roost in one of the tree’s branches and listen in on the gossip. For all of their secrecy and smarts, some of the Chamber’s residents were quite careless in their conversations. Flapping tongues, the lot of them. He smiles his predatory smile when he sees his son make his way up the mountain and takes no little pleasure in the struggle of an equine traipsing the panther-made trail. So he does not make his way toward Warship to make the journey smoother, but he also does not move further up the mountain to maintain his privacy. He was not overly fond of any of his children—it was hard to become a father figure when he was approaching triple digits in offspring—but he liked Warship perhaps the most. He was not a child of Twinge (the panther stallion had a soft spot for their children, especially the ones with her sharp tongue and buckskin coloring), but he served the Chamber and served it well. It earned him a favored spot. “Who says I want to have any fun?” he replies in his characteristic drawl, his voice lazy and spending too long on syllables. He yawns, stretches, and then makes his war toward his son. He was smaller than a horse in his panther form, but he was formidable—larger than the average cat. Grinning his feline smile, he shifts into the black stallion, rugged and scarred. The yellow his eyes stayed the same though. “So I hear you may be waging war on your brother soon.” He says it off-handedly, although his gaze is sharp and watchful. “Of course, you knew that your brother was the Gate’s general, I am sure.”   Not that Atrox particularly cared. He liked Magnus if only because he was, in many ways, the spitting image of Twinge, but he could not be responsible for the stallion’s poor choice in home. He had become soft when he met Joelle and had abandoned both the Jungle and his spot as the Chamber’s Lord. If he was willing to fight for the quiet, silly kingdom, then Magnus could die for it. Atrox would not protect him. “The Gates is an easy target, but they are also a fun one.” Atrox remembered all too well the raid that he had helped lead on the kingdom once upon a time; back then, Agetta had come back as a snow leopard to fend him off. “I would not mind some bloodshed. Perhaps I could be persuaded to join in on the fun.” As if Atrox would ever deny the Chamber his mind and body were war to come to her. panther-stallion | ex-king | forever chamber guardian