"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
He could hear them in the distance; the drums of war. It was as steady as a heart beat, thrumming not only in his mind but in the very marrow of his bones. There was a certain electric-like quality to the air, the static of which licked against his scarred hide. The clouds were gathering on the horizon, building and building upon themselves. Eventually they would burst, and he would be there in the thick of it. War was his heritage, war was his blood right. He had been bred for it, born for its purpose. It was written in the sharp angles of his wickedly shaped skull, etched into the thick muscles along his shoulders and back. War had written its story in his skin, leaving its tales in the form of silvery scars. War was his beginning and ending and the pieces in between. Where others ignored the drums, to him they were a sirens song. He would not, could not, deny them.
Though he hadn’t laid eyes on him, he knew his father was still here. The panther was never far, dutifully holding his position as sentinel of his (their) beloved kingdom. Warship climbed up onto the rocky outcrops, though his journey was more difficult than it would be for a cat. He had to stick to the trails, whereas his father could climb straight up. Lucky bastard. Finally he reached a small grove of evergreens, clinging precariously to the side of the mountain. They had no business here, but their ruggedness impressed Warship. The smell of cat was overwhelming but Warship was not afraid. It was a distinguished mix of horse and panther. “Up here in the trees you’ll be missing out on all the fun.” said the General smoothly, a trace of a grin on his weathered lips. He knew that if the proverbial shit hit the fan, his father would be highly unlikely to sit it out. If nothing else, Warship got his bloodlust honestly.
Atrox would have to be blind and deaf to not hear the stirrings throughout Beqanna of the war to come, although the panther-stallion did not leave the ridges of the mountain often. He did not need to when the rest of the kingdom was so verbal with all of the happenings. All he needed to do was find a comfortable roost in one of the tree’s branches and listen in on the gossip. For all of their secrecy and smarts, some of the Chamber’s residents were quite careless in their conversations. Flapping tongues, the lot of them.
He smiles his predatory smile when he sees his son make his way up the mountain and takes no little pleasure in the struggle of an equine traipsing the panther-made trail. So he does not make his way toward Warship to make the journey smoother, but he also does not move further up the mountain to maintain his privacy. He was not overly fond of any of his children—it was hard to become a father figure when he was approaching triple digits in offspring—but he liked Warship perhaps the most. He was not a child of Twinge (the panther stallion had a soft spot for their children, especially the ones with her sharp tongue and buckskin coloring), but he served the Chamber and served it well. It earned him a favored spot.
“Who says I want to have any fun?” he replies in his characteristic drawl, his voice lazy and spending too long on syllables. He yawns, stretches, and then makes his war toward his son. He was smaller than a horse in his panther form, but he was formidable—larger than the average cat. Grinning his feline smile, he shifts into the black stallion, rugged and scarred. The yellow his eyes stayed the same though. “So I hear you may be waging war on your brother soon.” He says it off-handedly, although his gaze is sharp and watchful. “Of course, you knew that your brother was the Gate’s general, I am sure.”
Not that Atrox particularly cared. He liked Magnus if only because he was, in many ways, the spitting image of Twinge, but he could not be responsible for the stallion’s poor choice in home. He had become soft when he met Joelle and had abandoned both the Jungle and his spot as the Chamber’s Lord. If he was willing to fight for the quiet, silly kingdom, then Magnus could die for it. Atrox would not protect him. “The Gates is an easy target, but they are also a fun one.” Atrox remembered all too well the raid that he had helped lead on the kingdom once upon a time; back then, Agetta had come back as a snow leopard to fend him off. “I would not mind some bloodshed. Perhaps I could be persuaded to join in on the fun.”
As if Atrox would ever deny the Chamber his mind and body were war to come to her.
He had never really given his “extended family” much thought. Certainly he knew they existed, and possibly in an innumerable amount. Despite his rock-hard façade, his father seemed to have a way with the ladies, and this was the one footstep of his sires that he had never had an urge to follow. His parents hadn’t been in love, or anything even close to that. He, Warship, had been created in much the same manner that Erebor had been created- for the good of the Chamber. Maybe his dam had loved his sire, or at least in her own way. If she did love him, it would have been for what he could do for the kingdom and not for who he was.
But the news of his brother being general of the Gates was interesting indeed. It didn’t change the way he felt about the light kingdom- they were still a sniveling bunch of lightweights, whining and flouncing in place of throwing hooves and teeth. It also didn’t change the fact that he would down him on the battlefield if possible, but it certainly added an extra bit of flair to the impending battle. He wondered whether his brother had inherited that same war lust from their father that he had, or if he was built from more of an even keel. If they have that particular bit of their sire in common, then heaven help them all.
“Call it a wild guess.” he said wryly, cocking a hind leg as he relaxed. It would be odd to passers- by (if there were such a thing in the Chamber) to see a stallion relaxing in the presence of a panther, but to Warship it was entirely normal. But the panther doesn’t last long, and soon the panther becomes another black stallion. Wilder in some ways than Warship himself, lacking the refinement in the skull he had inherited from his mother, certainly more scarred. “No brother of mine would serve the Gates.” he said ruefully, shaking his head. Of course, he didn’t mean brother in the literal sense. They may have shared blood but that was where their similarities ended. “The Gates is pitifully weak. All you hear from them is sniveling and whining about what they would like to do and very little of actual doing it. I almost feel bad for the Chamber attacking them.”, though he said this with a smile. Of course he didn’t feel the least bit bad; if anything, his appetite had been whetted. Brother or not, the Gates would have their war.
![[Image: atrox.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/XBppy9VY/atrox.png)
