They say it's what you make, I say it's up to fate [KINGDOM]

[Ribcage]

He spat and yowled.

His ears flattened against his head and he spun in place, whirling and hissing, on the shift of warm sand and thick mud. Sand filled his nose and congealed the blood on his face and lips; it yielded under his paws, thick and giving, offering nothing to hook his claws under. Behind, to his left and right, grit walls rose from nothing but ash and blood and char.

Sand.

Sand tumbled down walls of itself like a hourglass.
Sand stung his eyes and choked him.
Sand blinded him.

An animal cornered panics.
An animal cornered finds a way.
****

He healed.

Not completely, yet. But the aches are ironing out in their own time and for days after the war receded, he slept under the worried eye of sister (and maybe mother – he hopes so; he had dreamed of her there by his side, gently caressing his forehead – he has not seen her for some time). He slept deeply and unhappily. He tossed and turned and his body made steam with cold rock.
Sister watched him.
For days – or weeks – he stayed in their stone home.

Funny, when the moment had come, their enemy had been his, too. Just like that. Mother would say he owed them nothing for the nothing they had given him. She would have called him a foolish boy. But he had come all the same.
(The heady scent of gore wafting from the battlefield had played more than just a small part in that, to be sure.)

And when he hears the call – well, he comes then, too.
“Can we go?” sister asks sweetly,
“Just stay here, for now.”
“I’d like to meet a king,” brother Rake squeaks, eagerly.
“Stay.”

He pads through the pinewoods, over scars harrowed into the earth and past blackened and felled trees. He couldn’t say he felt too sad about the state of the Chamber. For such a very long time, he hadn’t known what it looked like at all. It had been the sweet smell of needles and dirt and the caw of ravens and his mother’s ribs. It had been the scraggly fringes of the misty kingdom, tucked away and cooed over, where mother paced and talked roughly to the other woman.

He had spilled blood here but whether it had been for the Chamber… he couldn't figure it out. (It should have been someone else, either way. It should not have been her.)

He remembers his smell, and his voice. He does not shift right away. When duty calls, it might be that it is best to operate without his feline yes, but here he finds no reason to allay their prey minds should anyone startle. He should be a familiar stalk by now, anyway, in both his peculiar forms. The tiger stays just long enough to note the crown and new king, and then he meets darkness again. It is not unwelcome, just different.

“Thank you. I cannot say I found fighting particularly palatable,” he tilts his head, turns it this way and that, seeking sight where he will not have it – a habit. “I am a much better use to you this way, with the no eyes.” With the eyes, he was made to kill – from head to tail tip – but the cat does not get rid of the boy when he comes out. He is always a passenger and his softness had almost gotten him killed. It will be easier to talk with the tiger inside than fight with the boy. “If you ever have anything specific for me... I'll have to navigate with my eyes but I will enter lands, at least on first go, as I am now, so as not to come off as hostile.” He nods and knows the thoughtful quiet is a release.
Ribcage shifts again, blinking at the king and the tree (mother had once told him it could show the future – at the time, he could not imagine seeing anything at all, let alone peeking through a rift in time). For a second, he considers approaching Killdare, asking him the truth of it all. But he is so very sick of magic. He chuffs softly and turns, padding silently into the devastated forest.