[private] hangman hooded; ana

[atrox]

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

She looks the same as he remembers, although it has not been so long since he has seen her.

It is the strange way of Beqanna—the way that the old souls can sometimes find one another. The way that their paths can cross for even a moment, like gravity tying them back to the things that are the most familiar. They have several children due to that strange gravity; the youngest less than two and wandering somewhere. Not that Atrox has any sentimentality tied to their trysts, and he knows that she has even less. Whatever warmth resided in her once had long ago been bled away to be replaced by the shadows.

He has no complaints about the change.

She picks up the conversation as easily as he had known that she would, and the grin that he gives her in response is entirely feline—languid and arrogant, pulling on the edges of his mouth. “What a shame. I do believe a beating heart is central to a thriving kingdom.” He kicks lightly at the rocks below. “Although this place does not strike me at the place that would keep a heart so much as just devour it.”

Atrox has no great love for Carnage or the Valley, but he does not see the dark god here and he has no real reason to avoid a place for its origin. So he lazy smile remains when she claims that the place is theirs, looking around before bringing his gaze back to her. Beneath the swath of tangled forelock and above that deceptively languid smiles, his eyes sharpen. “I have no desire to go quietly anywhere,” a moment, as he studies her unreadable face. “Although I’d prefer to make noise from somewhere a little more green.”

He sniffs.

“There are some places that have potential, perhaps. With a little extra fog, maybe some pine trees.”

A shrug.

“Lakes are not the end of the world.”

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING