Shadows and Bones
One hundred Skulduggery Pleasant drabbles.
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Chapter One-Love
Tanith couldn't remember any time her feelings had been so intense, so bright against the inside of her head. It was strange, to live her life so fully, to feel as swift and powerful as she did. Not bad, exactly, just strange. She couldn't remember any time when her love had filled her so completely, not before the Remnant had entered her heart.
Tanith loved few people. She'd loved Ghastly Bespoke at one point. She still did, but she knew that if she went to him he's just tear the Remnant out of her and break her in pieces, like she was before the Remnant came into her heart. Her love of Ghastly wouldn't make her come back to him, not when he didn't understand what the Remnant had done for her. She didn't like that, but there it was.
She loved Billy-Ray Sanguine in a knife-sharp, angry sort of way. It was hard to love him sometimes, but he was the only one there, and both the Remnant and Tanith needed someone there to love. Anyway, he really was a sweetheart once you got past the insane murderer bit. He understood about killing, even if he was dense about other things. All the same, she loved him. It was hard not to.
But the person she loved best was Valkyrie.
Or, maybe it was better to call her Darquesse. The swift figure drenched in blood that she'd seen for a few brief minutes at Macgillycuddy's Reeks. Before the Remnant had made its way inside her, Tanith had been terrified of her. She was vicious and indiscriminate, killing without remorse or even thought, and was seemingly unable to be defeated. Tanith had seen her eyes, empty of anything but a smirking bloodlust. She was beautiful. Tanith knew that Darquesse must be brought out again (a conclusion reached at the urging of the Remnant, when they had both been a bit more than one). Beauty such as hers could never be kept bottled up inside. That lovely, terrible force of destruction, raw and untempered, like a storm.
Tanith loved her, truly and deeply.
Before she and the Remnant had joined, Tanith had already loved Valkyrie, loved her like a little sister. She would have been willing to die for her little sister, fierce Valkyrie all in black. Of course, now Tanith realized that kind of devotion was all well and good, but it just wasn't enough. One had to be willing, had to want to kill for someone they loved for their devotion to be worth anything. Tanith understood that now. It was one of the things she'd come to realize when the Remnant had locked itself to her.
Killing for love was good. It was something strangely pure to kill someone and know they were dying for a noble cause, even if they didn't realize it. Not that killing in its own right was bad, or anything (something Tanith was almost uncomfortable with, but ignored the discomfort in favor of the fun), but it was different when you killed for someone you loved. Was there any other way to express your devotion?
No. Not to Tanith, there wasn't.
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I know it's really short. Really, really short. I kind of like it, but what I want most is feedback, especially since I haven't posted anything in such a long time.
Hopefully I'll get another few drabbles up soon.
-Creepygirl