[mature] don't close the coffin yet; ry

[atrox]

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

The months have passed slowly, and Atrox has watched.

Looking for any sign of shifting—any sign that perhaps beneath those onyx and ivory coats there would be the barest hint of something else. Something feline. Something predatory. Something other.

But it hadn’t come.

There was no sign of sharpened teeth. No sign of a growl. No sign of claw and padded foot. It hid away and he was left with the two twins—wondersome as they were—but perfectly and wholly equine.

And he has known.

He knew that Ryatah knew too. It went unsaid between them both as they stood and watched the twins find their feed and then find themselves. It went unsaid when the pair of them exchanged glances across their backs, something hidden in the thunderous look of Atrox’s crossed brow and folded mouth.

And when he saw Breach on the border that day, it went unsaid between them too.

He saw the blood on her mouth and the fierceness in her eyes.

And he nodded—because he knew.

Still, he does not deny that he walks especially slow to go find the grouping of his family. That he takes his time wandering the mountains of Hyaline, taking in the cliffs and the drops, the lakes and the morning fog. Takes his time thinking back on the previous months and the way it felt to be there for a child being born and then raised. He had never done that before—not even with Twinge who had taken their children into the belly of the jungle and then introduced him when they were nearly grown.

This was different.

It feels like a stone in his chest when he finally finds them, when he walks up toward her.

“Ryatah,” he murmurs as he presses scarred lips to her cheek.

And he hopes that she knows too.

He’s not sure he can say it.

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING