[mature] like dreams that turn to dust,

[atrox]

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

As much as Atrox enjoys his sharp tongue—cutting others down to size—he finds that the joy of it is nearly ruined when the receiving end simply absorbs it. So perhaps that is why he pauses, holds the retort that comes so quickly, and instead watches her. He nearly sits back, sniffing lightly, and studying her with a new gaze—trying to figure out the pieces of her that don’t match up, that don’t fit into a near picture.

He puzzles it out for a moment, as much trying to figure her out as trying to understand the strange restraint that keeps him silent. They had never exactly been close friends in their early lives. They had orbited around one another, sure, but Atrox had never been one to build a wall of close friends and Ryatah had her own hands busy with more than enough work and love and drama to keep her occupied.

So it’s not some shared history that stays his head.

Perhaps it is boredom, he reasons. Perhaps after centuries of being simply cruel, he is curious to know what it would be like to be neutral—to abstain from the easy kill. Perhaps he is simply a hunter at heart and does not enjoy taking down a target when it is so obviously weakened. Regardless, the reasoning, in the end, doesn’t really matter. All that matters is what happens, which is that he remains quiet.

That, for once in his godforsaken life, he almost listens.

“Say you did stop,” he considers with a shrug, rolling the velvet of his fur and saying it with the same lethargic apathy that he says all thing. “What then? Do you really think that you would feel better?”

The lazy way of speaking does nothing to dull the sharpness of his gaze though.

“Is there contentment to be found in giving up?”

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING