One thing should be said before this story progresses. Loneliness. Those who have experienced true loneliness would all agree that it was the most torturous pain. No physical hurt could ever compare, no amount of anger could ever beat the force of the terrible feeling, it could bring anyone to their knees if they fell victim to its poison. And after extended periods, it starts to decay your mind, body, and most if all -your spirit. You become empty and unable to feel. Emotionally and physically drained from the tearing pain echoing around in a hollow husk of a person, entwined with their mournful screams of sorrow and despair.
This terrible feeling was what Pitch Black felt every single moment of his entire life since he committed suicide right before the dark ages. Scaring people made him feel a little more alive as he felt their hearts pound and their terror rise. He could feel their fear, and when you can't normally feel anything, you enjoy the fleeting moments of terror. Even though the terror of the people that fall victim to him becomes his own terror, it was good to feel something. To feel anything, just like the power that he wanted desperately back. It gave him a feeling, a wonderful feeling, and it had been so long since he'd felt anything like it, but if he had to guess, he'd say that the feeling was confidence, and confidence is a strong weapon to wield when you're dead inside.
So much he had felt alone, that he felt no one else could feel his pain. But what he didn't know, was that he was wrong, and the answer to his pained screams and cries and pleas for help, came in the form of a young girl. Except she only looked young, in reality she was one of the oldest spirits there was. She was the spirit of Mortality and emotion. She was life and death and everything in between, and she'd neglected her duty. She still brought an end to the lives of old men and women, still fed life to the children when they got sick, and still brought emotions in times when they were lacking, but she'd neglected one job one duty. To heal.
It was one of her duties in day-to-day life to not only break hearts, but to heal them. She'd gone by many names over the ages, Eros, Eris, Ker, Sophia, and many more, all birthed from different emotions. And then there was the one that The Man in The Moon decided to 'bless' her with, the one she despised and refused to accept: Cupid. Love, the most powerful emotion she held within herself, it was who she was, but pride forced her to deny it. Pride was one of the other feelings that was inside her. And that was one of her problems, being the spirit of emotion led to some...complications. Thoughts and ideas, morals and opinions, all constantly clashing until one stood above the others.
While some emotions are just plain stronger than others, the more powerful the emotions become, the small their range of effect is, which is why love was consistently a losing party inside her. Then there was hate, and love's polar opposite, surprisingly, the weakest emotion, but thats why it was constantly ruling her mind. Don't get it twisted, in a sad time she would be sad, in a happy time she'd be full of glee, but there were times when emotion was lacking inside her heart, times where she felt empty and the hate leaked in, tainting her usually pure intentions and mind-set. TImes when the loneliness of a life where very few believed in you, became to much, times where spite would rear its ugly head and turn her pretty features to scowl.
Hate was right on down there with anger and fear, then there were the emotions more towards the middle, like concern or confusion, and the strongest emotions of Love and happiness, other emotions fit into the scale in other ways and different places, the whole entire range of emotion laid out with an equal amount of good and bad. To keep the balance. Mortality; Life and death; Creation and destruction;...Chaos and peace. Such things bundled up in one tiny package. Emotion was a strong thing, life was strong, death was strong. This one ancient little girl was strong. And she was forbidden from picking a side. Angel or demon, guardian or monster? The answer? Neither. All of the spirits and all of the immortals were a manifestation of her emotion,no, they didn't pop out of her head when she thought of something. So how could you pick a side when you were the one creating both of them? Easy.You didn't, but you were allowed to have an opinion, an opinion which was usually crushed if it wasn't for her need to rebel and reach out to the ones who couldn't see her.
All of them had a center that was birthed during their mortal lives, when they died they had recently gotten a strong dosage of that feeling, or had lived a life where they had just attracted that feeling to themselves. Nicholas St. North had been given a shot of amazement before he died of old age. E. Aster Bunnymund had been given given a hefty amount of hope, and had then had a heart attack, ironically caused by his own happiness- but he'd done that himself, she had had anything to do with it. Pitch Black had been pumped full of fear before he committed suicide after the murder of his daughter, and only family member, now that was something she was guilty of.
That was where two very different emotions of hers would create a fierce fire inside her. Pride and guilt. Guilt was weaker, but had a larger range of effect. She created life, and took it away, unless the person in question took it away themselves. But there was always a reason they gave it up, and she was that reason. Whether it was the breaking of a heart caused by a lover's end, or too strong a dosage of sadness or spite, she always had a hand in the end of ones life. Or the creation of of it. There was always tragic deaths, and she felt guilty, but sometimes they were necessary...for the balance. That word had become the answer for so many unholy deeds. That word was one thing that would never cease to create hate inside her.
She would often wonder why the balance was sooooo important. Why she could never put action to her opinions. Why she couldn't pick a side. Why she was forbidden from creating enemies, or forging alliances. The mortals always walked through her, and the immortals were just plain incapable of seeing her, unless she did something to make them believe, but they all thought Cupid was guy, so did the humans, and she was incapable of telling them otherwise. She knew how every life began, and how every one of them ended, or didn't end. So, forced to live out her never ending existence in solitude, all the while knowing her biggest dream, greatest wish, and undying hope, wasn't supposed to come true. Unless someone tipped the balance, unless someone ridded her of the burden she was forced to carry, day and night.
How wonderful it would be if the balance was thrown off, if one side rose above the other, it didn't even matter which side held the upper hand, if the balance was destroyed she could use the emotions tied to it to manifest herself into their line of sight, she could tell them that Cupid existed, that she was the holder of emotion and mortality. That she was the one who aided in EVERYTHING...except she wasn't Cupid, she refused to accept the name that TYRANT had given her. He placed the duty of maintaining the balance in her hand, and she couldn't throw it off, if she tried, if she attempted to stop, thought of throwing off the balance herself, then it would come back to bite her. Mim would come down to restore it himself, and she'd face the 'consequences' for it. She'd face the 'consequences' for being lonely, for being tired, for feeling betrayed by everything she'd ever known.
So, she decided to be blunt, give herself a name that would convey the meaning of her being without her having to explain it, not that it actually mattered considering no one was around to hear it. But she felt compelled to have one, and didn't really know why. So she chose one, not a name, but a title, a personification as to who she was: Lady Longing. Because that was the one feeling that never left her, while the hate would come and go, like a wave or a tide, the longing was constant, the want, the need for something, anything that would give her at least an illusion of freedom. How wonderful that would be...but it was an imagined lie, and when she was done with her work, when she had a brief time to rest, she'd let her mind wander and she'd lie to herself, she'd imagine her life if she found love, if someone could see her, touch her.
But that's what it was, a lie, hopes and dreams were a topic of spite, they were a poison, giving people false imaginings, yet she could never completely eradicate it from her being, it was a feeling afterall, so she lived with her curse, because a spirit can't kill themselves, because when they fall the wind catches them, and when they are wounded they heal. It doesn't matter how horrible the injury, it always healed. She sometimes wondered if she'd once been believed in, and this was where you go when that belief dies, doomed to solitude, but she thought that to be slightly irrational, but never wrote it off as completely impossible.
She could give her lifeforce away, but that meant shed have to curse someone else with her way of living, and the pieces that remained of her soul, her sanity, her morals, wouldn't allow it. Even if she hated their guts and would do ALMOST anything to see them suffer, she wouldn't do that, no, this pain was to great to wish upon her non-existent enemies, and to great to unload onto her non-existent friends. Release was impossible. Unless the balance was overturned, but she couldn't do that, not on her own.
She could heal Pitch's broken heart, but that would mean giving up her only chance at tipping the balance, her only chance to interact with someone. It would mean giving up her sanity. She hadn't meant to make his life so painful, hadn't meant to wound his heart so badly, she never did. But they were so alike! Mim had forced him to continue his painful existence as well, prolonged his lonely, aching, horror-filled life without asking him if he wanted otherwise. So in this case, her opinion favoured him. Partly because they had both been wronged, and partly because she felt she owed him for making his life so miserable.
Sometimes she go to his lair, she'd stand or sit there, watching him. his demeanor was usually the same, angry or discontent, almost always lost in deep thought. But there were times when he seemed disheartened, when the loneliness he always fought to keep at bay would start to show. SHe like those times, because then she'd have the power to give him what little amount of happiness she could, and she'd feel happier when she saw that rare, small, and charming smile light up his usually grim features. But then she'd remember that no one could see her when he walked through her. It happened every time, he always managed to walk through her, and snap her out of her fragile yet happy moment. Those times made her feel a little less guilty.
But it always ended the same, being walked through. At first you got the trace of warmth, like they were just grazing you, and you felt a little more alive. But that was just the beginning. Then the feeling would end and you'd feel cold, imagine hypothermia, then multiply it by ten thousand. But there's more, in the moment when they were basically in the same exact spot as you, you'd feel what it was like to be alive, but then the feeling would end in a split second and leave you gasping for breath and hollow inside. Put into simpler terms, it was terrible.
And it was even worse when you had only moment before, been feeling something borderline romantic.