One of them was me; Atrox

[atrox]

hangman hooded, softly swinging; don't close the coffin yet, I'm alive

Atrox enjoys his vantage point in the trees.

If he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that these forests are the forests of his home in the Chamber. He can pretend that he can hear his heart thumping somewhere beneath the surface of the dirt and feel the strange gravitational pull of the kingdom beneath the soil—as though it was crooking a finger his way.

But, in the end, it’s never his true home.

The pine is not nearly as strong, the fog not as dense, and his heart is so far buried beneath the soil and soul of Beqanna that he has no hope of ever hearing it ever again. It leaves him a little bored and a little without anchor—making him purposeless and vicious because of it. There is only so much of his boredom he can scratch with cutting words and observing the meaningless lives of these new inhabitants.

Still, he tries.

He lies in his panther form in some of the lower hanging branches, two souls standing sentinel beneath him. They are as equally silent and useless as the others so far, but he doesn’t mind their presence—even though they still reek of the death he has escaped so many times before.

When she wanders by, clearing hiding from something, it piques his interest. He angles his wide, heavy head, yellow eyes narrowing as he calls down to the vibrant girl below.

“You should be careful coming so deep into the woods.”

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING