AU Collection, Stories, and Fanart

Given Up: Part Four

Emotions are a fickle thing.

Emotions made you care. When you care, things get in the way. It could mess up your relationships, your words, your plans…it did not matter.

Emotions were a messy thing. It caused conflict and confusion. Death and destruction. That is why the Darkness did not have emotions. It merely wished to bring everyone into it, making them One.

It did not kill for amusement or pleasure. There were no emotions for it to feel those things. It just wanted what everyone should want. To be One.

Emotions are not a thing Darkness shouldn't have.

Yet, somehow, someway, two forms managed to achieve what it could not. To have emotions.

Shadow and Dark, two beings of Darkness pushed into different molds, had emotions. They were not designed with emotions in mind. They were designed to be a servant to the Darkness, and the Darkness did not have emotions.

The Darkness couldn't understand them, with their emotions. It could feel the emotions they felt, yet it did not have any need for them. Yet, even still, the Darkness did not care that they managed to achieve emotions. If the Darkness did care, that meant it too had emotions.

But it didn't, so the Darkness merely accepted the two oddities with ease. It wanted everyone, no matter the Steve, to join it to become One.

They accepted the Darkness as if they were a Steve. As if they were designed to hold emotions. As if Darkness was meant to feel emotions.

When they were being controlled, having emotions was the crux of the problem. Had they not had emotions, they would not care they were merely puppets to their creators and to the Darkness.

Dark would have followed Nightmare's orders without the moral dilemma he constantly battled, and Shadow would have continued to tear Sabre down until he fell into the Darkness.

Yet, that was not the case. They had emotions, meaning they cared.

Perhaps they did not care about the things the Chromatics cared about, but that did not mean they did not have emotions. Yet it seemed as if the Chromatics believed Sabre was the only one with emotions.

After all, they were pure Darkness. They shouldn't feel emotions.

If only it was that simple.

Maybe if they didn't have emotions, the worry would not have bubbled in their guts the longer Sabre was gone. Shadow paced the length of their camp, anger showing more and more the longer he was gone.

For while they both had emotions, they showed it differently. Sabre was the one to point it out one night as they all curled up against one another.

Dark showed more of the positive emotions while Shadow showed more of the negative ones. That did not mean they did not feel the emotions they did not show, just that they had a habit of hiding the emotions they didn't know how to deal with.

Of course, they quickly ragged on Sabre and his emotional well-being, since Sabre definitely was not the epitome of mental stability. Sabre merely laughed, taking it in stride.

Shadow kicked a tree hard enough a few leaves drifted to the ground. He heard Dark sighed at him. Shadow merely gazed up at the sun.

The sun peered down at them, nearly midday. Sabre left right before sunrise, words about how rabbits are more active around dawn falling from his lips. The bow and arrows Dark painstakingly created in his possession.

He left the sword in their camp, and Shadow was beginning to wish he forced Sabre to take it. At least then Sabre would have some decent weapon.

Shadow huffed, gaze flicking around their camp. The little wooden shelter they constructed, the fireplace, the logs around the fire, the few fish traps they were able to build.