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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    [private]  don't close the coffin yet; ryatah
    #1

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

    It makes no sense that he is irritable, but he is. It is something that snakes through his veins and bites at the back of his mind. It coils under the surface of his skin until he is stalking around Hyaline, watching the few horses that live here (he has no idea why) and noting that Ryatah is nowhere to be found.

    Perhaps it is the fact that somewhere in the deep black hole that is his consciousness, he knows he made a mistake. He hadn’t intended for the interaction with Agetta to go anywhere other than the fight that they both typically craved. He hadn’t intended for anything but a few snarls, thrown insults and split flesh.

    But it had.

    The fire and teeth and anger had morphed into something else completely different and he hadn’t exactly put a stop to it. In the throes of his fury, it had felt natural for the fight to become sex. It’d felt right.

    It was a mistake though. Perhaps the first time he’d felt that way about coupling.

    Agetta was more than just his old enemy. She was Ryatah’s friend. He and Ryatah had never discussed any kind of formalized relationship—in fact, the two of them had been more than glad to avoid the topic altogether—but that didn’t stop something like guilt from weighing on him. A line had been crossed.

    It was easier then to turn his guilt into frustration and irritation. Easier to deflect and stalk the land as a panther, growing more irritated the longer time past. When he finally does see her, beautiful in that painful way of hers—deceptive in the innocent tilt of her head—his mind roars, going blank.

    Mood black as his coat, he moves toward her, shifting at the last second.

    He stands slightly apart, sharp yellow gaze briefly over the swollen curve of her belly. It’s never bothered him to know that she has other trysts so he doesn’t quite understand the tightening in his chest when he realizes that she’s with child and that it’s not his own. His agitation grows and his smile is cruel.

    “Have fun out there?”

    His teeth are sharp when they show behind his velvet lips.

    ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
    [Image: atrox.png]

    now be defiant, the lion, give them the fight that will open their eyes

    #2
    “I know when you go
    down all your darkest roads
    I would have followed all the way
    to the graveyard.”
    She doesn’t feel like she had been gone long, but time had long since lost its relevance. She has been alive and dead and alive again too many times, an endless sick carousel, and it made it hard, sometimes, to accurately judge the passing of time.

    It was long enough, she realized, that her sides had already grown swollen with what she knows is Illum’s child by the time she returns. She was not a creature prone to regret, though,  and he was no exception. Her regrets extended only to herself, at the way she could not help but to break off another piece of herself, how he made it so easy to pretend there was something right with her when she knows everything is wrong.

    She isn’t sure why she had chosen this particular flirtation to fixate on—Illum was not the first, and likely not the last. There wasn’t a discernible reason for it to keep her away from Hyaline, and away from Atrox.

    Perhaps it was the way Illum called her angel, and she almost believed it.

    She didn’t stay with him, though. There was something about here that constantly pulled her back, some sort of strange magnetic pull that drew her back to Atrox. It was different from whatever inexplicable force tethered her to Carnage; he was like an addiction, one that she didn’t plan to quit. But Atrox almost felt like home, or as much as she would ever allow anyone to ever be.

    They were different, but both so tightly interwoven right into her veins and her bones that only they could sever it.

    When she sees Atrox stalking towards her in his panther form she instantly recognizes the tension that simmers beneath his infinitely black pelt, and she stops, uneasy. When he shifts back into himself steps from her she fights the urge to recoil back from the sharpness of his eyes and the calloused edge to his smile, because while it wasn’t uncommon for him to be irritated for one reason or another, this felt like something else entirely.

    “I guess so,” she answers him, afraid that no matter how she answered it would be the wrong way. With her head angled down, she is reluctant to meet his gaze, and she remains quiet as she tries to not wilt beneath his scrutinizing stare. He has never laid out any kind of boundaries – has never told her what was right, what was wrong, and he didn’t seem to mind when Echis was not his.

    It would not be the first time the rules were changed on her, though.

    The wind toys with the gilded feathers of her wings, lifts the light colored forelock that stirs beneath the soft amber glow of her halo, and finally she dares to say softly, tentatively, “You seem mad. Did I do something wrong?”
    ryatah
    #3

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

    That irritation continues to grow in the back of his mind. The storm cloud of emotions that towers above all else, thundering in his brain as he tries to make sense of it all. Why would it matter to him that she had a child with someone else? Why would he care when he had never cared before? He was too old, she was too old, to try and tie themselves down into a monogamous relationship again. That was for another life.

    He had no desire to let the lie of it lead him into the flood again.

    But here he is, glowering at the thought of it—rage snapping its jaws against the back of his mind as he turns all of his attention toward her flirtations instead of thinking about what he himself has done.

    “I don’t know, have you?” he snaps, teeth glinting behind his velvet lips. There is enough logic left in his nearly feral mind to know that he isn’t being fair, but the way she yields so softly to his temper only seems to stoke the flames higher. She should at least fight back, he thinks. At least stand him to the grossly unfair way he lashes out like this, but instead, all she does is look up him from behind her lashes.

    It was infuriating.

    Atrox’s tail flicks against his haunches as he fidgets, adjusting his weight. “Do I seem mad to you?” he asks, coming back to the question again. He takes a step in her direction, yellow eyes sharpening, the scar on his chest nearly throbbing with unspoken feeling. “I’m not,” he lies with a twist of his lips. Another step as he presses a cold kiss to her cheek—a dull thing. “I don’t have anything to be mad about, right?” 

    ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
    [Image: atrox.png]

    now be defiant, the lion, give them the fight that will open their eyes

    #4
    “I know when you go
    down all your darkest roads
    I would have followed all the way
    to the graveyard.”
    She is trying to understand what she did differently to make him angry. Her mind is racing, a frantic hum as it searches back through everything she has done recently, and how she could possibly remedy it. The need to please had been carved into the very marrow of her bones over a hundred years ago, back in the jungles of a land far from here.  It became such an intrinsic part of her that she wonders if it had always been there. It ate her alive from the inside out most days, because she was destined to tangle herself with men that would never be satisfied.

    It meant that she would give almost anything to avoid being looked at the way he is looking at her right now. Only a few could look at her like that and spark anxiety until she wants to crawl out of her skin, make her heart pulse in her throat, and the blood rush until she can hardly hear anything else around her.

    And of course, he is one of them.

    She had attached herself to him in a kind of unspoken agreement, and the idea of him being so thoroughly irritated with her was enough to send her spiraling.

    It doesn't occur to her that his anger could be a deflection. It doesn't occur to her to harden against his rage and demand to know why he is suddenly so furious.

    She doesn't let herself wilt any further, though. She stands, with her heart leaping into her throat when he steps forward, and then feeling it drop like a stone at the feel of his cold, impersonal kiss against her cheek. “No,” she says softly in response to his question again, her sable eyes finding the sharp yellow of his, searching for the answers she knows she isn't going to find. Her mind again settles on Illum, and how that is the only thing she can see that could have possibly angered him.

    There is a tense pause before she says cautiously, “I always come back, Atrox. You know I do.” She looks again at the hard lines of his handsome face, keeps herself from reaching out to touch his familiar jawline or the tension in his neck, and adds quietly, “But if you want me to stay in Hyaline, all you have to do is ask.”
    ryatah
    #5

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

    His own knowledge of his unfairness does nothing to dull his reactions. It does not bring a softness to his eyes or a sense that he should perhaps back off. Instead it drives him further into the darkness. It lights a fire that he has long ago ignored, a cruelty that time has not dulled but at least let him ignore. He was never meant to be kind, he thinks, not from the first. He was bred into this world. Carved from his anger that sits like a cold stone in his chest. He should never have let her soften him into this domestic thing.

    This was her fault, he thinks.

    “So now I need to beg you to stay,” he snarls, lips peeling back from his teeth. “How little you must think of me.” The fact that there is part of him that wants her to stay wars with the pieces of him that are glad for her freedom—glad to give her a place to rest while not holding in place—and all of it wars with the deep-seated guilt that flares in him. He doesn’t peel away from her though.

    Doesn’t break the closeness.

    He can feel her breath, he thinks.

    Yellow eyes glance down to her sides and his chest tightens again. “You don’t need to stay. I certainly don’t.” He throws this out, finally unleashing the emotions that coil in him. “In fact, Agetta will likely be bringing our new child here soon.” He rolls his shoulders, feeling all the sharpest pieces of him rise to the surface. “If you’re going to leave, you may want to stay long enough to say hello to our friend.”

    The sentence tastes like a self-inflicted bullet wound, and he wonders how quickly he’ll bleed out from it.

    Perhaps she will leave for good this time, he thinks—

    ignoring the way the thought makes everything in him howl with anguish.

    ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
    [Image: atrox.png]

    now be defiant, the lion, give them the fight that will open their eyes

    #6
    “I know when you go
    down all your darkest roads
    I would have followed all the way
    to the graveyard.”
    “That isn’t what I meant,” and this time she cannot hide the crestfallen look on her face before she manages to will it away, though the bruised look in her quiet eyes remains. She cannot find it in herself to be mad at him when she knows that this – the way that she feels, the way she is so close to falling apart – is her own doing. It was rare for her to let herself think she meant anything to anyone. It wasn’t like her to slowly begin to let her guard down around someone like Atrox, the way that she has.

    She remembers now, with stark clarity, why she doesn’t.
    And she knows that she cannot blame him for behaving exactly as he always has, as she has always known him to be. It had been a mistake on her part to expect anything else.

    She is already retreating from him – physically, by taking a step back, and emotionally, by drawing back into herself – when he delivers a blow she hadn't been expecting. She doesn't know if it's the actual act of what he did, or the fact that he is using it like a weapon on purpose, but it doesn't change the way that his words feel like a blade between her ribs. It makes her suck in a sharp breath, makes her eyes flicker to his face faster than she would have liked.  “But you don't even like Agetta,” she finds herself saying, disbelieving and dull.

    The panic that she can feel squeezing at her chest is alarming. She can't remember the last time she was overcome by such an overwhelming urge to run –  to leave, to disappear. She quells it, or pretends to at least, with a forced smile, and an artfully placed mask that she has not had to wear in years – not since Dhumin and Sage, lifetimes ago. “At least you two get along now,” she holds his gaze with hers, unwavering despite the tempest of emotions brewing inside of her chest, despite the fact that she knows that once she leaves this conversation, she is not coming back.
    ryatah
    #7

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

    He should feel flushed with victory at the pain in her eyes. That he has managed to slip the knife into her ribs so that she can feel the same agony that he himself feels. But all he feels is compounded pain. He feels his empty chest contract, his stomach twist. He feels his mind begin to race as he realizes that he has set their house ablaze to escape facing his own sins in the mirror. What a fool, what a fool.

    But he is too proud to back down now.

    Like an animal with its leg caught in the trap, he twists it further, mindless in the way he snarls and snaps his jaws. “I liked her just fine,” he says and is surprised at how quickly the lie comes, how smoothly it rolls off the edge of his tongue. His eyes roam over the swell of her belly and he clucks his tongue at his pointed teeth before he jerks his chin. “I’m sure as much as you enjoyed whoever caused that.”

    He meets her gaze, cold and washed clean of emotion despite the fury and hate and self-loathing that rages within him. Atrox rolls his shoulder, apathetic to the last. “We do,” he says, a hint of a smile curling the edge of his lips. “She was more than pleasant. I can see why you like her so much.”

    He doesn’t even remember, he thinks. Barely remembers anything but the fight and then the coming to his senses in the aftermath, body bruised and sore. He studies her eyes before he tilts his head slightly to the side. “Don’t worry, Ryatah. I always come back.” He mimics her previous platitude with a cold smile.

    “If you want me to stay, all you have to do is ask.”

    ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
    [Image: atrox.png]

    now be defiant, the lion, give them the fight that will open their eyes

    #8
    “I know when you go
    down all your darkest roads
    I would have followed all the way
    to the graveyard.”
    She doesn’t think anyone has ever tried to purposely hurt her, emotionally. Dhumin had been cold and aloof, but she cannot recall him ever saying anything quite as scathing as Atrox does right now. Not even Carnage has ever come at her with words whose only purpose was to cut and scar. She finds that she would rather drown or have her throat torn open a thousand times than to withstand this sudden verbal assault. She isn’t sure what it says about her, then, that she is more prepared for physical pain than emotional – and that she is not equipped at all to handle the latter.

    He launches insults at her like grenades, and they all hit their mark.

    She is not as well practiced as she used to be, and she can feel her guard slipping. Though she clenches her jaw, she can feel tears burning in the back of her throat, and it is only because she lived a hundred years without eyes at all that the tears never reach them – no longer familiar with that path, it seems. 

    “Okay,” she finally relents, the word edged with the anguish she tries to conceal, and when she at last allows herself to look back at him she repeats herself, quieter this time, “okay.” 

    “I get it,” she continues, despondent and defeated. Her heart twists and clenches in her chest as she fights to keep her breathing even –  fights against the panic and the flight that tries to override the sorrow and the want to fight with (for) him.

     “I would always ask you to stay, if it were up to me,” she tells him around the ache in her throat, meeting his cold, granite-like face. “But it’s not. This – this, whatever this is –  is up to you.” She shakes her head, looking to the ground, and when she looks back to him she is no longer trying to hide anything that she feels. It reflects in her eyes, in the dimming of her glow, and in every hushed word she speaks. “I’m not a fool. I know I don’t really have a say in anything, and especially not in how anything between you and I plays out.”
    ryatah
    #9

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

    Were he not so practiced in the art of cruelty, did it not come so naturally to him, perhaps he would slip here. Perhaps the mask would fall to the wayside and give a glimpse to the turmoil that somehow, some way, churns in him. The thing that makes him still alive, heartless as he may be. It reminds him of the pain he had felt when relinquishing Magnus’ memories of him. When the Chamber fell away. This bitter reminder that despite it all, he is still a man. That he still cares. That there are things he holds dear.

    He hates himself for it more than he hates her and it drives him further into the fury.

    Makes his resolve like granite, even when she finally crumples before him.

    “You didn’t though, did you?” his voice is cold again as he bleeds away all of the emotion, emptying himself of everything that hurts. “Don’t play the victim, Ryatah,” he spits, nose crumpling and his yellow eyes sharpening on her. “If you’ve had no say it’s because you’ve never bothered to speak your mind.”

    He studies her again, ignoring the ache in his hollow chest, this feral hunger that forces him to drive the knife deeper. He shakes his heavy-jawed head, tasting blood coat his tongue from where he had bit down too hard, from where he punishes himself with every moment. “Let’s not pretend this is anything special. You’ve had a millennia of relationships just like it. You walk away today and you’ll have someone else tomorrow—and you can convince yourself it’s love as long as they tell you what to do.”

    Atrox swallows and feels ice in his throat.

    “And don’t worry about me. I’ll have someone else too. I always do.”

    Guilt settles into his bones. Grows more and more concrete. Loathing laces around it. And somewhere, deep in that rotten shell of him, he feels something like love and only knows it for the sound of its throes.

    ATROX | THE PANTHER KING
    [Image: atrox.png]

    now be defiant, the lion, give them the fight that will open their eyes

    #10
    “I know when you go
    down all your darkest roads
    I would have followed all the way
    to the graveyard.”
    He has already split her open and yet he doesn’t stop. Even though she does not retaliate, even though she does not point out the hypocrisy of his statements, he keeps going. He is no longer chipping away at her – he is destroying her. Every word, every blow, widens the wedge that he insists on placing between them, until it is a chasm so deep she does not know if it will ever close.

    She has learned, over the years, to be content with what small affections she is offered. She has learned to purposely read too much into small gestures, to accept that she may not ever get any kind of affirming words, but that she had to instead place her trust in other things.

    Such as him bringing her here at all, or the way that he has touched her and held her.

    She has known all along that there was a risk to this. That she could be reading it wrong, because men like Atrox didn’t love women like her. Not when he had already had someone that matched all his strength and ferocity; Twinge was everything sharp and unyielding, and she was anything but.

    He dismantles every romanticized notion with every word that he speaks, he tears everything down with the precision of the predator she had known him to be.

    What a fool she must be, to be surprised when the predator finally turned on its prey.

    She is silent for most of it,  having effectively closed herself off enough that even when he reminds her that they are nothing she does not react (it burrows into her mind though, like a thorn, where she will pick and overanalyze it later), until he needles her with mentioning her string of relationships, if they could even be called that. That is enough to make her flinch, to spur the tears that had been trapped in her throat to spill tracks down her porcelain cheeks, shimmering beneath the light of her halo. “I already know what I am, Atrox,” she says, painfully soft, the words watery with the tears that she chokes down. “You think you’re the first one to tell me I’m a slut? You think I don’t know there is usually only one reason anyone wants anything to do with me?”

    By now she has taken several steps back, trembling as she struggles for breath against the panic that continues to close around her chest. One last time, her tear-soaked gaze locks with his, and the strength in her voice entirely betrays the way she is so clearly falling apart. “Of course I won’t worry about you,” she tells him, and there is a rare, almost unheard of edge to her voice, “even when you don’t have a woman next to you, I know you’ll have your pride to keep you warm.”

    Another step back, and a glance towards the path that will lead her back to Taiga. Her common sense tells her that leaving Illum and Taiga had been a mistake; that she had been stupid for missing Atrox, for thinking any of this was real. She looks at him again, and that fleeting moment of anger fades, replaced entirely again by pain. Because in a single glance she remembers the feel of him holding her against his chest, the look on his face when he was trying not to smile or pretending to only be half-interested in what she was saying. She looks at him, and she remembers why she had been convinced it was real, and does not understand why he is suddenly pretending it wasn’t, but she knows that today it is going to be a losing battle. 

    “You’re going to miss me,” she whispers to him, all the sorrow again on her tongue, bittersweet like the tears that sting her throat, “and I only hope you eventually realize that you miss me more than you love your ego.”

    She doesn’t give him the chance to answer. She turns, and she disappears, reluctantly taking all the pieces of her that he broke with her.
    ryatah




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