She shored up the Aspects into solid things, hardening like glass and marching in a circle around her. Which ones were she drew her most? In the middle of all of them, she hesitated to continue.
Fife wanted to make the mental reach for her Joy --
resilience, humor, happiness -- but she she could feel its opposite weighing heavily. There was no lying to herself and getting away with it; she couldn't be a good Empath if she couldn't confess basic truths about her own emotions.
Of course it was Misery.
Fear, anxiety, loneliness, insecurity. They had ruled her life as long as she had lived, clawing desperately from the darkness each night.
Touching the well of that emotion, she made... something. In her mind it was simple, small but incredibly dense. It was heavy and lifting it to put it on the mental pedestal took conscious effort.
She wanted to turn to Joy again, but she knew better. The tilt of her balance leaned to the side, toward an emotion she bent to her will so easily. Was that why it had been her first? Fife could barely remember the first time she'd drawn Fury.
Its shape came easier, more naturally. Jutting out violently in many directions, it was much larger, jagged and cutting.
Resentful, threatening, crude, and bitter, the emotions were as difficult to handle as the Miseries before it.
Joy was next, thankfully. Fife was resilient, finding humor and joy even in the darkness. She had pressed through a great deal and still found a way to come out smiling. It was light, buoyant, but large and distractingly bright. It begged to be looked at, something to focus on rather than the burdens opposite it.
The rest she didn't feel particularly strongly toward. Tranquility was the sense of
peace she felt in this place, something soft and warm in her hand and, oddly, large enough to hold in her arms.
Soothing, calming, positive feelings. Charity was a ring, like it could be carried or thrown away.
Caring and
friendly, it was much smaller than most of the other emotions she had felt now. Disgust was
hesitation, reluctance, discomfort. It was halting and misshapen, lopsided and weighted differently througout like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. She placed them without much introspection needed. She understood them well enough.
Avarice was more of a challenge. As Fife focused on conjuring her own feelings of
jealousy and
impatience, she was surprised by how easily it leapt into shape. It bubbled outward, expanding and growing. Letting go of it was difficult, and it was a vibrant, swirling mix of colors both light and dark.
Fife had saved the hardest for last. It was the part of herself she didn't want to think about, the one she shunned so readily in others. So rather than thinking on the obvious vein of lust at its center, she looked to its periphery. An odd, empty
yearning shaped itself. It was fibrous and brittle, and almost entirely hollow. Holding it alone was precarious lest she break it.
Feeling far less excited about this exercise, she placed the last of them and stood at her center, closer to her fears than her humors, more bitter than calm.
