Thanks for the tag again, friend :D
Struggle - from "Alone", chapter 2
Moving was a struggle, each slow and clumsy shift of its body, of its limbs a far cry from the grace it used to have. Each scrape of its claws and shell as it crawled – crawled, like some lowly and cowering thing – towards its nail too loud against the far walls. The screech of the metal against the stone echoed louder still, too loudly.
The grip of the hilt on its hand was the lone sensation that did not feel alien, that did fit amid the chaos it was submerged in. A single support to stand up with, from one of what little it could truly call its.
Joy - from "Dreamshaping" (provisional title)
“Do you like it here, just as it currently looks?” he had asked, and it… it was not sure how to answer.
Did it enjoy? Did it? Could it?
No, it was not to feel joy, not to feel anything. Feelings killed and destroyed everything that had once mattered, everything that was to stay eternal. Feelings could begin that rampage anew, only it would be tainted black rather than sweet light.
It was to ignore these impulses, it was not to act.
(And yet its inaction had ripped Her out of its chest, drowned Her in the void when She was to stay with it in an forever frozen nighttime.
All for nothing in the end, the voice of the Dawn was clear, full of Her sharp sweetness. Isn’t it how that always is for you, my night? So passive, so slow to even acknowledge the world around you...)
Gaze - "Alone", chapter 4
It had watched away. Had given in to the frantic impulse of its void, to that wretched part of it that wanted to cower under that gaze. The part that wanted to run and hide in whatever crevice it found until the world and everyone in there forgot about it, until it forgot about itself and disappeared not unlike a shadow in the dark.
(There was no everyone, not anymore. It had made that a reality.)
But even so, there was another side twisting inside it, equally wretched thing that it was. That one was a wave of warmth that swiftly replaced the biting cold, filling the cavity in its chest not unlike rot. That one set its spikes into bristling, and was pressed fiercely against the fracture on its mask.
The part that defied Him, the part that defied Her.
Magic - "Alone", chapter 3
Cold distant lights and cool air clung to its form even long after the water from the hot spring had dried up, leaving it as foggy as the cloud in its mind.
Its only guide among the walls of fossilized shells and broken stone alike was a single and wide cobbled path, littered by the occasional old carriage and vegetation growing sparsely around it.
So it walked next to this empty and seeming endless road, reveling in a haze of the pains and aches that slowly returned with each movement it made, sensations brought back without the gentle touches of magic flowing through its battered body.
Tagging uh @mostlydeadallday @akirameta84 @tiger-lily-55555 and whoever wants to join ^^
Your words are: hunger, flicker, peace, rage.
