11-02-2019, 03:41 PM
<link href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Nothing+You+Could+Do" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><center><table border="1" bordercolor="black" width="600" bgcolor="6E6E6E" cellpadding="30" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr height="0"><td><div align="left"> <font color="000000" face="Nothing You Could Do" style="font-size: 40pt"><i>a t r o x --</i></font></div><div align="justify"><font color="black" face="times new roman" style="font-size: 9pt"> Their love has never been a tender one. It was many things—passionate, powerful, earth-shattering—but it was never tender, and he does not expect it now. She doesn’t either, he knows. Instead, they regard each other with a gaze that is both cool and heated—furious and needy at once. He smiles, that familiar roguish smile tilting up scarred, weathered lips and his yellow eyes flicker as he studies her face, memorizes it.
“Twinge,” her name feels so right on his bastard tongue that he nearly shatters with it, but he has always been so good at keeping these things hidden—at pretending that they don’t even exist.
Until he finally breaks the space between them.
Between the two of them, it was always him.
His steps toward her are not hurried or panicked, even though they both know this moment isn’t meant to last forever. They are confident, sure, and he steps into her as if he was always there. His nose in the tangled, matted pieces of her hair, her teeth against his neck. He feels the way she tests the flesh, and he remembers the spice of her—the way her small body always felt collided against him.
She doesn’t give an inch and takes more than he in these moments, but he doesn’t care. He loses himself in the familiar patterns of it, the weighty feeling of stone in his chest—the anchor of her through it all.
And before he can possibly understand, he is hearing the woman’s voice and he growls in frustration. Snaps his suddenly feline teeth together as Twinge rolls her eyes at him. <i>“It was never meant to be forever,”</i> her voice is fainter than he remembers—the only piece of her that does not feel rooted in this moment—and he looks down, frowning. “I know,” he mutters, inhales sharply before laughing.
She nips at his jaw.
<i>”You left me here, remember? You don’t get to complain now.”</i>
There’s nothing for him to say about it because it’s true. He had picked her over the Chamber during the flood and then the Chamber over staying here forever with her—and now? Now that the Chamber was long gone, he was choosing himself. Perhaps his greatest love of all, if he was ever being honest.
And, in the end, there is no conversation about whether she was coming with him. She has no place in this new Beqanna—he barely has a place—and she has long since accepted her death in a way Atrox never could. So he doesn’t let the moment become anything more than it is. He accepts it and presses a rough kiss against the dirtied swirl of her forehead before pulling away. “I know the way,” he says with a wink, painfully cavalier because it was easier than untangling the knot of emotions in his empty chest.
And she nods, fading without another word.
Until it’s just him.
Atrox takes a moment to gather himself, to gain his bearings, before he feels that familiar tug in his belly. He finds the path he has walked before, hooves heavy and thudding against the hollow ground, until he sees the faint glow of the gates. So embarrassingly literal, he thinks, with a huff, before pausing, looking for the guardian that he knows well, his teeth set in a straight line when he sees him—old and blind.
Recklessly optimistic, he shifts into his panther form and begins to move forward, crawling along his belly, barely making noise as he pads along. He nears the gate, nearly reaches it, before he hears that thunderous voice of the guardian, and he groans. <b>“I would know you anywhere, Atrox,</b>” the guardian shifts—younger now, made of bronze—but still blind, sightless eyes peering into nothing.
<b>“Not many approach without a heart.”</b> Atrox rolls his eyes.
“Yes, well, it appears I have misplaced my keys. I got lost and wandered and somehow ended up here. I forgot to feed the dog,” he yawns, showing his incisors to no one in particular. “I can keep going if you would like me to, but really, I just want to go home and sleep for a while. So if you don’t mind.”
The guardian laughs, but it is a mirthless sound.
<b>“And you thought because you passed once that I would let you pass again?”</b>
“Well, that was the general idea. Be a pal.”
The guardian shakes his large, metallic head.
“You know there is no such thing as free passage. Not even for you, heartless one.”
Atrox shifts, tilting his wide-jawed head back, yellow eyes narrowing. “You must be a real treat at parties,” he snarls. “It’s not enough that I’ve been dead, had my heart ripped from my chest, lost the only person that I’ve ever cared about to this godforsaken place. Now I need to pay just to go home?”
The guardian rolls a shoulder, but says nothing more.
For a moment, Atrox just stands there, feeling the heat of a familiar rage wash like the tide against his chest—before he locks it away with the rest of his emotions—and shrugs.
“Take whatever you want,” his voice is weary. “Just let me go.”
<b>“You say that you only cared about one,”</b> the guardian muses, thoughtful, staring into the nothingness that surrounds them like there was something. <b>“But there is one other.”</b>
Atrox frowns, confused for a moment, before he finds his mind wrested from his control. He sees his memories begin to play back. Visions of Twinge and the little golden son by her side. The boy growing up wild and free in the jungle before coming to the Chamber and then, to his disgust, leaving for the Gates. The boy who became a man who loved too fiercely. Who fought wars and led raids and died. Who fought the tides of death like him and came back stronger than ever—who found it in him to love again.
It takes everything within him to keep his face still, to bite back the rage.
“What do you want with Magnus? He’s a weak-hearted fool who barely speaks to me.”
The guardian chuckles.
<b>“It is so easy for you to fool others, Atrox, that you sometimes fool yourself.”</b>
A pause, a breathless breath.
<b>“But not me.”</b>
Atrox says nothing, feels his throat constrict.
<b>“You recently fought a war for Magnus. Have settled in the hills of his home for him. You watch over him because he is the only child you ever truly felt anything for—that you ever loved.”</b>
Silence.
<b>“And now he will forget your name. He will know nothing about you. Your name will be like dust in the wind and his children, and his children’s children will never know your legacy.”</b>
The guardian shifts, considers. <b>“But I am not entirely cruel,”</b> the gates open and he steps aside to open up the way for Atrox. <b>“He will remember you again, will know even more of all the ways you have silently helped him over the years. That is, when you get your heart back.”</b>
Atrox feels something like grief, like hatred, flood him as he bounds forward into the light.
And the only sound that he hears chasing him is the ringing sound of the guardian’s laugh.
And that faint pounding of a beating heart buried in a place that no longer exists.
<div align="right"><font color="000000" face="times new roman" style="font-size: 9pt"><b>panther-stallion | ex-king | forever chamber guardian</b></font></div></font></div></td></tr></tbody></table></center>
“Twinge,” her name feels so right on his bastard tongue that he nearly shatters with it, but he has always been so good at keeping these things hidden—at pretending that they don’t even exist.
Until he finally breaks the space between them.
Between the two of them, it was always him.
His steps toward her are not hurried or panicked, even though they both know this moment isn’t meant to last forever. They are confident, sure, and he steps into her as if he was always there. His nose in the tangled, matted pieces of her hair, her teeth against his neck. He feels the way she tests the flesh, and he remembers the spice of her—the way her small body always felt collided against him.
She doesn’t give an inch and takes more than he in these moments, but he doesn’t care. He loses himself in the familiar patterns of it, the weighty feeling of stone in his chest—the anchor of her through it all.
And before he can possibly understand, he is hearing the woman’s voice and he growls in frustration. Snaps his suddenly feline teeth together as Twinge rolls her eyes at him. <i>“It was never meant to be forever,”</i> her voice is fainter than he remembers—the only piece of her that does not feel rooted in this moment—and he looks down, frowning. “I know,” he mutters, inhales sharply before laughing.
She nips at his jaw.
<i>”You left me here, remember? You don’t get to complain now.”</i>
There’s nothing for him to say about it because it’s true. He had picked her over the Chamber during the flood and then the Chamber over staying here forever with her—and now? Now that the Chamber was long gone, he was choosing himself. Perhaps his greatest love of all, if he was ever being honest.
And, in the end, there is no conversation about whether she was coming with him. She has no place in this new Beqanna—he barely has a place—and she has long since accepted her death in a way Atrox never could. So he doesn’t let the moment become anything more than it is. He accepts it and presses a rough kiss against the dirtied swirl of her forehead before pulling away. “I know the way,” he says with a wink, painfully cavalier because it was easier than untangling the knot of emotions in his empty chest.
And she nods, fading without another word.
Until it’s just him.
Atrox takes a moment to gather himself, to gain his bearings, before he feels that familiar tug in his belly. He finds the path he has walked before, hooves heavy and thudding against the hollow ground, until he sees the faint glow of the gates. So embarrassingly literal, he thinks, with a huff, before pausing, looking for the guardian that he knows well, his teeth set in a straight line when he sees him—old and blind.
Recklessly optimistic, he shifts into his panther form and begins to move forward, crawling along his belly, barely making noise as he pads along. He nears the gate, nearly reaches it, before he hears that thunderous voice of the guardian, and he groans. <b>“I would know you anywhere, Atrox,</b>” the guardian shifts—younger now, made of bronze—but still blind, sightless eyes peering into nothing.
<b>“Not many approach without a heart.”</b> Atrox rolls his eyes.
“Yes, well, it appears I have misplaced my keys. I got lost and wandered and somehow ended up here. I forgot to feed the dog,” he yawns, showing his incisors to no one in particular. “I can keep going if you would like me to, but really, I just want to go home and sleep for a while. So if you don’t mind.”
The guardian laughs, but it is a mirthless sound.
<b>“And you thought because you passed once that I would let you pass again?”</b>
“Well, that was the general idea. Be a pal.”
The guardian shakes his large, metallic head.
“You know there is no such thing as free passage. Not even for you, heartless one.”
Atrox shifts, tilting his wide-jawed head back, yellow eyes narrowing. “You must be a real treat at parties,” he snarls. “It’s not enough that I’ve been dead, had my heart ripped from my chest, lost the only person that I’ve ever cared about to this godforsaken place. Now I need to pay just to go home?”
The guardian rolls a shoulder, but says nothing more.
For a moment, Atrox just stands there, feeling the heat of a familiar rage wash like the tide against his chest—before he locks it away with the rest of his emotions—and shrugs.
“Take whatever you want,” his voice is weary. “Just let me go.”
<b>“You say that you only cared about one,”</b> the guardian muses, thoughtful, staring into the nothingness that surrounds them like there was something. <b>“But there is one other.”</b>
Atrox frowns, confused for a moment, before he finds his mind wrested from his control. He sees his memories begin to play back. Visions of Twinge and the little golden son by her side. The boy growing up wild and free in the jungle before coming to the Chamber and then, to his disgust, leaving for the Gates. The boy who became a man who loved too fiercely. Who fought wars and led raids and died. Who fought the tides of death like him and came back stronger than ever—who found it in him to love again.
It takes everything within him to keep his face still, to bite back the rage.
“What do you want with Magnus? He’s a weak-hearted fool who barely speaks to me.”
The guardian chuckles.
<b>“It is so easy for you to fool others, Atrox, that you sometimes fool yourself.”</b>
A pause, a breathless breath.
<b>“But not me.”</b>
Atrox says nothing, feels his throat constrict.
<b>“You recently fought a war for Magnus. Have settled in the hills of his home for him. You watch over him because he is the only child you ever truly felt anything for—that you ever loved.”</b>
Silence.
<b>“And now he will forget your name. He will know nothing about you. Your name will be like dust in the wind and his children, and his children’s children will never know your legacy.”</b>
The guardian shifts, considers. <b>“But I am not entirely cruel,”</b> the gates open and he steps aside to open up the way for Atrox. <b>“He will remember you again, will know even more of all the ways you have silently helped him over the years. That is, when you get your heart back.”</b>
Atrox feels something like grief, like hatred, flood him as he bounds forward into the light.
And the only sound that he hears chasing him is the ringing sound of the guardian’s laugh.
And that faint pounding of a beating heart buried in a place that no longer exists.
<div align="right"><font color="000000" face="times new roman" style="font-size: 9pt"><b>panther-stallion | ex-king | forever chamber guardian</b></font></div></font></div></td></tr></tbody></table></center>
![[Image: atrox.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/XBppy9VY/atrox.png)
now be defiant, the lion, give them the fight that will open their eyes