forgetting all the blood we drew

[atrox]

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

She’s gone.

She’s gone, and she’s right. He knows that she is. Knows that he set their home aflame simply because he could. Simply because it was easier than admitting that he had grown accustomed to it. Grown to like the way he felt when he woke up and she was there next to him, glowing softly. He had grown to like knowing that he could home from a hunt and she would be waiting for him down by the water.

Grown to love the way she felt underneath him—the way she set him aflame.

Grown to love the quiet in the moments after.

The sharp laughter when she said something surprisingly dark.

It leaves an ache in his chest that he only knows how to fill with violence. A need to cut his teeth on something living. Something real. He stalks Hyaline as a cat and finds that he hates every inch of it. Hates every rolling hill and every steep drop. It is not the Chamber. He does not feel his heart beat underneath him. Does not feel what she has taken. The thing that he was not supposed to have at all.

Furious, he picks up the scent of a nearby elk and follows it until he is close enough.

He barely remembers the kill, but when he comes to, he finds that his mouth is smeared with blood. The animal is ripped apart in a display that has nothing to do with natural hunger. He swallows hard and tastes the copper of the kill, glancing about at the splattered blood and gore. It does nothing to dull everything that he feels inside. Without waiting, he pulls on the tie he has to the afterlife and barely looks up when he sees the two souls walking forward from the shadows behind the trees, their eyes glowing.

“Destroy it,” he growls underneath his breath and watches with a steely face as they wreck havoc to the area before him. To the place he called a home. To the place where she is no longer.

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING

i don't really expect anyone to reply although if anyone wants to they can.

he's basically just letting two souls damage a corner of hyaline because he's a drama queen.

[Locheed]

She is growing restless. Nursing an ache to explore, a need to feel rage or lust or something forbidden. She is old enough to be considered grown, but young enough to need to prove it to herself, and every day she hates Tephra a little more.

Nothing exciting would ever happen there.

So, she leaves. With a quick whisper to a half-asleep twin, she leaves. Tracing the borders of the kingdoms and territories she weaves across the continent. Her enhanced vision allows her to keep a distance from any strangers she would have crossed paths with, and the dragon-mare never ventures too far inside any of them to be considered trespassing. No goal or destination drives her, except for maybe a loosely-formed idea to see the eastern coastline. It was as far away from home as she could get. She had never imagined thinking of what was beyond that.

Days pass.

The Mountain comes into view one dawn, but after a morning of walking, she can't think of anything to ask for. A northern trail presents itself, and she follows it into what she assumes is no longer Loess. The trail rises, her hooves clicking on stones, and when she glimpses the vast, blue eye of the lake, she knows she found Hyaline. Piecemeal stories of old family ties surface in her mind. Some portions of her family ruled or lived or conquered this place once. She is wishing she could remember which side it was when the sounds of destruction cause her heart to jump into her throat.

There is only the beat of a heart between the moment she hears the first splitting tree-trunk and the moment the world erupts. But Locheed finds herself in the tick of it. Trees fall like stacked sea-shells, and the brown mare dives over and under the rubble, until one leap brings her face-to-face with a shadow-creature. Ears pinned, she bares her sharpened teeth, but she does not wait to see if the threat is taken seriously. Peeling her lips back further, her mouth opens wide and a blast of blue light roars out towards it like dragon-flame.


@[atrox] she really wanted to reply. please tell me if this isn't how the souls work and i can change anything!

[atrox]

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

His mood is black as he watches the destruction. More pathetic than anything. A useless attempt to feel better, but he has never been above such things. The souls have no great powers, no magic to wield beyond their physical form, but he still enjoys watching them scour the corner of Hyaline, the earth rumbling beneath them as they do what they can. It’s when he notices something very real amongst the very dead. Cocking his head to the side, his eyes narrow, but he makes no move just yet.

Wordlessly, he directs the souls in her direction, watching as they square off with her.

They feel no fear, which he can appreciate, but they have no hunger for blood, which he finds rather dull.

When she blasts the light toward him, his eyes widen a little and, for the first time, he feels something other than blood-curdling rage for the first time that day. Still, he sits back for a moment longer, watching as the light slices through the souls. “A pointless endeavor,” he calls out, not yet shifting from his panther form. His claws flex and dig into the earth beneath him. “Although, feel free to fight the dead.”

Atrox rolls a shoulder as he jerks his chin toward another soul to the right of him. There’s a pause before the movement becomes a little more insistent. Almost with a sigh, the soul moves forward and then the rest gather before dissipating into nothingness. Leaving just him amongst the destruction before her.

He tastes the anger and the bitterness of regret on the back of his tongue.

He shows neither on his face. Rather a callous apathy he has come to know well.

“I can call them back, if you would like.”

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING

[Locheed]

The beam of light almost sends the dark mare tumbling backward; she had never used it with such commitment before. Just in time, her hooves find purchase in the stony soil to anchor her, and when her eyes open again, she sees her opponent has been split in two. But there isn't much time to feel satisfied with her accomplishment before a very alive voice is speaking to her from beyond the battleground.

With a glance away from the dead-things, she finds a rather bored-looking big cat watching her. There is a lull in the destruction, and she studies the speaker for a moment before looking back to the souls swaying between them. But the subjects of her scrutiny are quickly fading, and as they disappear entirely, her hard, black eyes return to their maker. 

Locheed isn't sure if his offer is a threat or an honest offer for practice. She had met so few outside her immediate family she isn't sure exactly what to make of most strangers, and the few she has met were nothing like him. She shakes her head -no- still catching her breath, and tries to swallow her hammering heart.

"Why," she says between heavy breaths, her slim chest rising and falling from the exertion of such use of her magic, "why did you want to destroy this place?"

She had never seen such power used so freely. So efficiently.