[private] with this love like a hole, swallow my soul - Atrox

[atrox]

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

Atrox had never paid particular mind to the changing of the seasons. For the most part, he regulated them to the back of his mind—pushing them to the side and ignoring them entirely. Still, he was not immune to the knowledge that time was indeed passing. The winter grew colder, the weather becoming harsher. That such time passed and the angel had not yet left him does not elude him either, but this is a truth that he is most comfortable with when he is not looking too closely at it—not comfortable yet with its weight.

In such ignorance though, there was always the knowledge that seasons changing has meaning.

He cannot ignore the curve of her belly forever.

So when she leaves him tonight, peeling off into the shadows, there is a part of him that knows—and then a part of him that is surprised that he does. He had never paid much mind to the beginning of life. It had never been of much consequence to him, after all, but he finds that he pays mind to it now. Watching with a lazy eye as she grows, tracking the days and watching as her symptoms show in slight, mild ways.

So he is not surprised when she leaves.

And she is right that he is nearby.

He stalks the area near her, considering the hunt, but leaving the two souls standing guard. He does not leave to sink his teeth into the throat of innocent prey and when one of the souls comes to find him, it is with enough urgency on its lifeless face that Atrox knows that the time has finally come.

He shifts from cat to horse and makes his way toward her, reaching down to brush scarred, black velvet lips across the glowing white of her skin. There is a twisting within him at the question, and the meaning behind it, but such things do not show on the sharp edges of his face. Instead, he just whispers. “Like us,” he says with a laugh that is never far from him, “but not.” They do not have the darkness within her yet or the scars he carries. “The girl is white, like you, with hints of gold. The other black with the same gold.”

It feels fitting that they mirror one another so.

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING