* warning , this got long so feel free to scroll through this if you’d like ! i’ll be putting the second half under a read more hehe.
RELAXED : a rarity for zara , but when she is feeling relaxed her laughs sounds less biting and sharp. there’s a visible tension missing from her shoulders. she’s more playful and her smiles are more loose , less tight and less performative.
IRRITATED : her jaw clenches , her blood starts to pound louder in her ears , she’s more snappy and her irritation usually jumps right to full blown anger. she becomes less careful about her words and says whatever comes to mind first , no matter how mean it is.
LUSTING : i guess the best way to describe it would be . . . a hyperfocus / hyperawareness. she is very open about her lustful attractions towards people , in the right setting and when she’s in the right mood. her eyes move , taking in the person’s body , watching their reactions specifically and then acting accordingly. she lets them come to her before making her move. its a game to her really. she drops hints and messages and if they pick it up and proceed , golden. if not she moves on.
LONGING : when she’s , missing someone or wanting something , she climbs heights. she doesn’t know why she needs to sit on rooftops and look at the moon but she finds it , a comfort kind of. to project her want onto something out of reach so she doesn’t get crushed by the reality of the situation. her dreams , of having a better life for herself , of wanting something more than what society tells her she’s capable of , of wanting to preserve her friend’s memory who died too brutally and too soon , she looks up and just , expels. her longing moments are very private. and she doesn’t like to linger on them for too long.
HOPEFUL : she doesn’t like getting her hopes up but when she does there’s a smile she can’t hold back. she’s eager , little foot taps or drumming of fingers. she’s in a visible , slightly better mood.
CONFUSED : a frown , her eyebrows knit together , she doesn’t like to admit when she doesn’t understand something so she lets her inward frustrations project outwards. she also just stares at the person with a hard glare until they either a ) get the message that she needs an explanation and they should give her one or b ) move on.
AMUSED : ok ok so in this moment i see an amused zara resembling very like CHESHIRE CAT / A DIGNIFIED QUEEN THAT’S WILDLY POWERFUL AND WATCHING SOMEONE TRY TO STEP TO HER IS CHILDS PLAY AND HILARIOUS. when she’s amused there’s like TWO TYPES. the i’m definitely looking down on you amusement when her lips just quirk and she is so cONFIDENT and HAUGHTY and knows that this is just playful like a good beatdown when someone tries to fight her. and then there’s ah i genuinely find myself enjoying your company like when angelica was still alive angelica was so bright + bubbly and zara is not that but watching angelica was like watching sunlight constantly being reborn and she was also wearing soft smiles , her eyes crinkled , she’d laugh quietly , she was so at peace with her friend damn . . .
HAPPY : she’s quiet. and this is because she’s content but because she also doesn’t know what happiness really feels like so when the emotion takes her she becomes contemplative and also she waits for it to break. asdfsaldkfjasdf. she’s very pessimistic and doesn’t expect the good times to stay for a long time! but when she’s happy you’ll know she just like , sighs. a really long held in for years and years sigh.
ANGRY : OKAY THE BEST WAY TO DESCRIBE IT IS VOLCANIC. LITERALLY A POWERFUL ERUPTION OF HEAT AND IT FLOWS EVERYWHERE. she is very destructive when angry she does not have a proper lid of her emotions and this stems from a lot of issues she has yet to reconcile with ! but she will because her story is about healing , acceptance , loving yourself , and the power within but regardless when she’s angry things ? get broken. she blows up she gets hella loud she will probably hurt whatever has made her angry but that’s like , when she’s really hit her breaking point. if something pisses her off one minute she’s like ^_^ and then she’s chucking the nearest thing against the wall and she’s like : her voice gets so low , quiet like almost like a growl but it’s so from the gut and when she looks at you her gaze is dead and she shakes because like , she’s so aNGRY she shakes and her blood pounds and she gets a headache afterwards because normally the anger comes suddenly and she can’t asdlkfjsafsaf. build up to it.
SAD : you won’t see her sad because she hides in her house so if you don’t see her even less than you normally do then she’s probably AT HOME unable to move and she’s lamenting and she doesn’t cry but she feels hollow and empty and she tries to distract herself with busy work but she can’t focus on anything and her mind keeps going back to what made her sad and she has to stop to like. process.
IN LOVE : i think the closest she felt love was towards angelica. she was her best friend but also one of the closest people to her. she found herself gravitating towards angelica , towards her warmth and kindness and angelica received her with open arms. they talked a lot about love. zara was very open that she didn’t really understand the concept: not for a familial sense , not for a romantic sense. and angelica would tell her that love came in all types of forms , big and small , a spectrum. zara thought about kissing angelica a lot , and they shared many kisses - multiple times - but never really established what they were or how deep their feelings went before angelica died. but when she was with her zara felt this strong , overwhelming desire to protect to care to be kind. angelica made her want to be kind , when she had wanted nothing more to be cruel - sharpened sword / bloody fists. she hasn’t felt this emotion in a while , this overwhelming but also pleasant undercurrent of blissful sanctification that there was someone else in the world who knew her intimately , even more so than she knew herself , and accepted her without hesitation. and she hasn’t felt in so long the desire to find peace staying at someone’s side.
JEALOUS : her jealousy is complex because it stems from a lot of things. seeing those in the higher social class / tier thriving because they were born a certain way , look a certain way , or act a certain way while she was treated poorly for being something outside her control. when she was younger she was jealous of the kids who , to her , blindly obeyed the history and knowledge being told to them , the sights they saw and the strict social hierarchy imprinted on her , when she herself could see through the fabrications thanks to her dormant powers. she would literally , at one point , stop speaking out about the inconsistencies that she just IN HER GUT KNEW WERE WRONG , and lied and assimilated to blend into the crowd. she was jealous of the kids she saw with straight , nice hair because when the caretakers would brush through her hair they couldn’t handle her natural kinks and curls so they would brush too hard and rarely acknowledged her cries of pain.
HEARTBROKEN : she’s devastated. it’s worse than she’s sad because when she’s sad she at least , feels something but the first time she felt heartbreak was after angelica’s death and she just. couldn’t move. she was both ice and wood , lifeless and cold and she felt no will within her to really , do anything. it’s only recently that she started to work again , to take over angelica’s little stall and sell her works. but also to train , to become stronger , with perhaps the goal to find the knight that executed her friend and take . . . revenge. but heartbroken zara normally goes to angry / self destructive.
LONELY : she’s a solitary creature by nature so she rarely feels lonely. but it would fall under the vein of longing when she misses someone dearly , and this has to be someone who is very close to her which is few , and she tries unconsciously to surround herself with things that remind her of them. angelica liked lilacs so she would find herself picking lilacs and end up coming with a bundle of them.
EXHAUSTED : she doesn’t know she’s exhausted until she collapses because she’s worked herself too hard and then she’s like, sleeping for two days but normally she feels sUPER REFRESHED afterwards so. you know. bonus points.
AFRAID : she felt real fear only a few times - the incident when the first sect of her powers manifested with the boy trying to cut her with scissors. with the queen’s raid and the loud booms , the gun smoke , the clattering of metal and the yells of men and children and - in those moments her mind starts going 100 miles a minute. she’s thinking of escape plans back up plans ALL the plans. she switches for FLIGHT first then FIGHT later because survival has told her if you can get away first , you can live.
SURPRISED : her eyes widen a fraction and sometimes her lips part and then she hums as she takes in whatever information or situation that surprised her in and then she starts calculating and saving the moment for later so she won’t be surprised again because VISIBLE SURPRISE IS SEEN AS BEING CAUGHT OFF GUARD TO HER AND SHE HATES BEING CAUGHT OFF GUARD ASFSAFSAFSDAF.
