Loyalty - x
Hurt - x
Snow - x
what does y/c fear most? - x
how does y/c deal with love? - x
Jealousy - x
what does y/c do to calm down when stressed? - x
Alone- x
Change - x
Love - x
Sweet - x
Strength - x
Stars - x
Dark - x
Dream - x
Cold - x
Blood - x
Discovery - x
Burning - x
Distance - x
Label - x
Boundaries - x
Unique - x
Winter - x
Hatred - x
Lead - x
Frost - x
Answers - x
Fallen - x
Restart - x
Endings - x

loyalty

[571 word count]

Loyalty meant many things. Loyalty meant a bond to someone. Loyalty was a tether, weighing one down to another. For Nui, loyalty had meant her love for Ragyo Kiryuin.
She held devotion for none other but one. loyalty required trust. she trusted none. to put her faith on the heads of others was a joke. She could not rely on them. They were so soft. Too basic.

It’s been many moons since she was pulled from the womb. Artificial. Spun from threads alien origin and a sparkling heart beating. Made to serve someone else. Made for only one purpose.

Her loyalty to Ragyo Kiryuin was undying. Stronger than diamond, sharpened like the tip of a blade. perhaps it would be nui's downfall. But she believed it not to be so.

She remembers claws cradling her head. Her neck. The touch of a mother. The loving caress of a creator.
‘You are mine,’ her goddess once breathed. And then there were no more words to be said. Because simply, ragyo was right.

She had killed for her queen. Wreathed in glory and shining with the colors of a thousand rainbows. This was what loyalty felt like. This was true devotion. She worshipped the feet of her creator, brought back the head of ragyo’s opposers. Slain those who even spoke a word of blasphemy against her majesty. Ragyo saw her as useful. That was all she ever needed. Nui needed no more. Ragyo’s words were all she needed. She thrived on monarchy’s words. With affection, she breathed life into nui. And it had spurred on the girl’s faithfulness. Sharpened her resolve to do anything for her beloved mother. She would follow the other to hell and back. Would cast herself into the midst of war for her savior. Her glory. That was true loyalty.

But for all of her loyalty, she could never keep tethered to one spot.

She knew ragyo needed her. But she could go as she pleased, from place to place like a feather upon graceful winds. Ragyo had allowed it. And what was the trouble of disappearing for a month or two? To see the world for herself. To taste fresh air and walk and talk among the commoners?

--

Snowbound was a strange place. Full of snow and frigid and kind-hearted residents. They did not see her for who she was. They sensed no danger from her. She was their comrade. So oblivious. But it was a perfect place to settle.

She was not loyal to their group. She was loyal to no one else. How could she put her faith in them? With loyalty came time; but there was no dedication. She never placed her shakeable allegiance on anybody else. Nui felt as if she were the wind. Free to do as she pleased, at the expense of others with claws and teeth and a purple blade carved from metal. Chasing hedonistic pleasures and soothing herself on the blood of her targets with sadistic tendencies unveiled.

Perhaps it was the fact that most of snowbound had sat idle as the typhoon ravaged them. they rolled over and presented their neck and belly to the enemy, whimpering for neutrality. it was almost laughably sad. So how could she then, devote herself to beings so weak-minded as they? She could never see herself trusting them so deeply as she had with her goddess. Not anyone else. Not ever again.

hurt

[629 word count]

Hurt was such a strange word. It betrayed vulnerability to whatever it was applied to. Nui did not like the idea of being hurt. Certainly not herself, or miss Ragyo. She liked to believe that she could never be hurt.

But some things stated otherwise.

The first time Nui had set herself up for pain began when Dr. Matoi’s blade had sliced across her face, cutting across her eye and thoroughly removing whatever hopes she had of regenerating. Because his blade was special; meant to cripple the fibers that tied her together. Meant to kill any hope she had of recovering permanently from her injuries. Her eye would not come back. She knew that when a plume of blood and ichor came spraying from her face, her gasp had been more of shock and rage rather than that of agony and pain.

She had not felt the pain then, no.

Because the true hurt had not occurred when Dr. Matoi stole her left vision’s sight from her. But after. When she finished embedding the very scissor he used to slice her up in the old geezer’s stomach, warm sticky blood coating her paws as she trotted home.

She had only gotten partially of what she had been sent there to retrieve.

Mother did not scream, or yell, or glower, or lash out with her claws.

But her words were coated with disappointment. Etched in disbelief at the prospect of failure-- even partial failure. Ragyo did not believe in ‘partial’ failure.

And Ragyo’s words hurt more than any wound that any enemy could inflict upon Nui.

That was the first time she’d been humiliated. And the first time that she had felt hurt.

---

The Revoc’s Corporation’s base was less like a building and more like a palace. A fitting home for a queen, if anything.

Nui stepped into Kiryuin’s office. Many of the room’s lights were off, the office shaded with cool colors. The only luminosity emanating from her glorious ruler, of course.

Nui stared expectantly up at her ruler, singular eye gleaming. The other left a bloody socket. Ragyo’s attention was instantly drawn to the injury, eyebrows quirked to attention.

She remembers the gush of information, streaming effortlessly from her mouth. She remembers relaying that the doctor had built a weapon to cease the life fiber’s regenerative abilities. It was a dangerous ability indeed; and Nui brandished the scissor blade liberally, displaying a part of the weapon that had so seamlessly injured her.

She had killed Dr. Matoi. Stripped him of his life with an expert slash and stab of his own weapon. It had been so seamlessly perfect. So poetic, to be destroyed by his own creation. He should be glad, really, to go out in such a way. He should be glad that she killed him.
But in the end, she did not take the kamui from him. She did not find his secret creation.

She had forgotten of that. Of the kamui, long after the adrenaline and the excitement had left her, and she was preoccupied with the acknowledgment of the loss of one of her eyes.

“And where is the kamui?” Ragyo inquired, her imposing frame shadowed by the backdrop of her office.

Nui was snapped from her thoughts. Hesitated for just a fraction of a second before she dutifully responded. “I could not retrieve it, m’lady,” her voice is concise; to the point and straightforward, yet she could not keep the tint of regret from her voice.

“Very well then,” Ragyo rumbled, though her voice was filled with dissatisfaction. Perhaps she was placated at the thought of offing the haggard scientist? But the acknowledgment of the ounce of displeasure within her creator’s voice made Nui falter slightly.

And the knowledge of her failure stung.

snow

[668 word count]

Snow was a curious thing. Powdery white. Soft, just like her shallow, cheery outward demeanor.
She has stepped in it before; played in it, when she was young and not yet completely molded into the tool she was yet to be.

She saw snow when she wandered her way uphill towards snowbound’s territory. Everywhere. Blanketing the ground and white.

Snow, drifting lazily from the heavens and flecking her belt. It was lovely. Simple in all of it’s beauty. Even while she had seen it within the city of her origin, it had been rare and a thing of circumstance. Snow had always been a wonder. It reminded her of red noses and necks tucked cozily into scarves. Of warm coffee and mittens and sitting inside as the hearth crackled heartily. Of snowmen and snowballs. Though it had snowed before in the city, snow had been rare.

Now, it seemed as if there was never ending snow.

The frosty chill seeped into her veins. Gave her a comforting shiver. Seeped into her bones like frigid winter and stayed there. It made her feel something.

--

Warm smoke lazily drifted from her cup of hot cocoa, curling in front of her snout. Nui stared out her dustied, ancient window out into the graced world. Fresh, snow-laden fields painted beautiful scenery of rolling white hills.

She huffed, pressing the tip of her maw to the coldness of the glass window and sat there, letting the calm sink in.

--

Nui emerged from her cabin, pink scarf wrapped around her neck. She breathed in the fresh air deeply, savoring it’s taste. She wasn’t unfamiliar with appreciating the scenery around her. Feeling free and more lighthearted than she had in months, Nui lifted herself upon eager feet and flung herself into the snow.
It was childish, yet she did not care. She was always childish at heart, at nature. She let herself enjoy this. Let herself roll within snowbound’s powdery grounds.

But for all Nui’s outwardly light demeanor, there were few things she actually, truly enjoyed.

A whisper of a thrill sent lacing through her body. It was so funny how she could get a rush from the slightest things.

It’s been a while since she’s ever allowed herself to feel soft in this way.

Twisting to her feet, she rubbed her paws together, bunching snow beneath her and rolling it into a ball. That would be the base of her little snowman, she had decided, as she rolled and rolled until it gathered mass. Breathing life into a new creation, as trivial as it may be.

Next was the abdomen. She remembered this from her younger days; though she had never created a snowman herself before. She only knew of this experience from watching others create their own. From TV screens and movies filled with laughter and light-hearted adventure. Those moments were only the ones that existed in fantasy, Nui once thought. Framed on big screens and cozy little television sets. And then Nui realized that she could have that too.

Sliding the sphere of frost and white onto the base, Nui stepped back to admire her work. There were lumps where imperfections remained, but that was fine. Nothing was exactly perfect on the first try. Especially snow. So shapeable and malleable, ready to be molded by her careful touch.

She added a head. Smoothed it’s top into little lopsided triangles that would serve as ears. And then she remembered distinctly that snowmen had details. Eyes. Nose. Mouth. The girl pondered on this for a moment, before disappearing into her cabin.

When she once more stepped out into the glacial air, a scarf was tossed over her back and buttons were pinned between her teeth.

Every good work needed detail. Without that, a work of art was incomplete. Unfulfilled.

But when Nui wrapped that scarf around it’s neck and replaced that empty canvas of a face with ebony little buttons that gleamed like a shined stone,

it didn’t look so unfinished anymore.