[open] and from the ashes we rise

[atrox]

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

He is close enough that he sees the flames.

That he smells the smoke.

That he feels the tendrils of what was once his home, what was once his greatest love, reach for him. But it’s not the same, is it? There’s something that twists in him. Something ugly and angry. Something that rejects the poison of this offering, spitting it into the ground with vicious contempt.

Perhaps the sound of his heartbeat is dulled. Perhaps it doesn’t exist at all.

Who is he to know what this faux Chamber brings?

All he knows is that it is a close enough relative to call to him, as it has always called to him. All he knows is that he pads closer to the painted mare with his sharp yellow eyes, his empty chest ringing and echoing with all of the things left unsaid. In this moment he is not the contented panther hunting the Hyaline mountains or the yellow eyed stallion who slept next to the fallen angel at night.

He is once and again King, General, soldier, servant of the Chamber.

He comes flanked by two souls, the reminders of his latest sacrifice to the hold of this very kingdom beneath him, and he pauses outside of the group. For a while, he says nothing. Merely stares at the gathering group and the entity he once knew as a young mare with big ambitions.

When he finally does speak, it’s with a familiar drawl, as if he felt nothing at all.

“How fascinating.”

ATROX | THE PANTHER KING