[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

He is not used to feeling himself grow soft. Unaccustomed to the feeling, but he does not shy away from it—doesn’t try to shove away the warmth that sparks in his ribs at the idea of having a family again. One that is not marred with war or famine, ripped apart between two kingdoms, bent to the will of others.

Atrox had never thought he was anything outside of the Chamber.

He is pleasantly surprised to find little weight to the thought.

So he watches with a bemused expression as she heals herself, wiping away the physical pains of labor, as though it had never happened at all. He leans against her for a moment, his scarred chest twinging as she touches the children and he looks on with a lightly detached look, even though is sharp eyes scrutinize.

It’s then that she voices the very question he had been thinking. He rolls his shoulder. “I’m not sure,” he answers, reaching to touch her neck. “I had to bargain to keep you here.” They could just go find another home, he knows, but he has grown accustomed to the Hyaline mountains. Grown comfortable with the ridges and the peaks—the climate that suited him nearly as well as the Chamber had in his prime.

He was not keen on the idea of resettling.

Even less keen on the idea of having to do it to abide by someone else’s laws.

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING