Honestly, This Is A Masterpiece In It's Own Right! Like, The Way It's So Beautifully Animated, How The

Honestly, this is a masterpiece in it's own right! Like, the way it's so beautifully animated, how the music changes with each princess and how the long quiet reacts in special ways with all of them. If this was what the countdown was building up to, I'd be satisfied.

The adversary is violent and abrubt, as strong, intense beats sing in the background.

The nightmare is a playful and the razor's is pretty similar to adversary, while lovely there ain't much to say about these two.

there's also the damsel, which I think is the saddest of all of them. The music is a (kinda) hopeful piano song, but it's also quite mournful. the long quiet is also notably less fearful, and his face when he sees the first being kind to him leave... it just breaks my heart a little.

And just the dance for you!

lq with just arms and a kind of face has my heart

Hi, yes, Im on my shit again because I just finished The Adversary route (aka masochistic dom demon wants to rip me apart and maybe im in the wrong for getting hot off of it) and I have been swayed by my own mind into writing this sort of headcanon of sorts on the same vein as This other post I made, so go check that one out for full context of my insanity over this game.

(Basically this is me shipping the voices with their respective princess foils because if the gods they are variants of are in love then why wouldn't they be if they had the chance to have their own bodies? As always, characters may be out of character so be warned if that is not your style. This may also be worse than the last one, again im sorry.)

We begin with the Stubborn, waking up in the Adversary's dungeon. On the other corner of the room lies the demon in question, waking up just like he did. She seems to sense, in her confusion, his gaze examining her, and she turns her head to see him.

They look at eachother for a second... two... three... it feels like an eternity, the time they spend analizing eachother. The shade of their eyes, the shimmer of the skin or feathers under the moonlight coming through the window, the red marred scars on eachother's bodies. And from that, they understand:

Its over.

The narrator is gone, his control over their story relinquished. The voices are gone, too, and the silence is deafening.

That is until the jingling of chains breaks it, as the adversary rises from her position on the floor. Strong hooves move her towards her quiet companion, tail fluttering slightly behind her. Her expression remains emotionless, and she just so manages to get close to him against her restraints.

With a delicacy fitting for a princess, but strange for her new figure, she rises her unshackled hand towards the humanoid bird on the other side of the room. And then her face breaks into a wide, sharp grin, that which would seem intimidating to most.

But to the Stubborn? That might as well have been an invitation to share a romantic waltz. He takes her hand and shakily rises to his feet.

And dance they do. Over and over and over. Their music is the slashes of metal against skin, the grunts of pain and laughs of sadistic joy. Their "romantic mutterings to the ear" are the exclaimed insults towards one another's abilities. Their ballroom the basement to which they have confined themselves.

The Adversary refuses to escape her bindings, she finds the challenge exhilarating. The Stubborn insists that he doesn't need a weapon to fight her, but she refuses to land a single blow without it. He believes its because she thinks him weak.

(What she will never admit is that she still remembers when she beat him to a pulp and he kept rising. Again, and again, and again. How his body, his remains, were more and more twisted and deformed each time. She never wants to see that again, especially now that she cant be fully sure if he will ever wake up when he falls.)

Scars now litter their bodies, sihns that the apparent immortality that once revived them has been removed. The Adversary heals faster than the Stubborn, sure, but now each wound is permanent. To account for that, they decide on a pattern: they will fight until one of them collapses of exhaustion. They will take a break, during which they shall eat and rest. If a wound has been dealt that is too deep, they will rest until it has healed, no matter how long it takes (neither wants their onky companion to die and leave them alone once more). Once the wound has healed, the music shall start once more, and their dance continue.

(What remains unsaid, is that during the short rest, the other tends to patch down the hurt one's cuts and scratches. Were they both less guarded, they would call it "caring".)

One of those nights, as the Stubborn is wrapping up a deep gash in his leg, the Adversary calls for his attention.

"You don't need to go that far, you know?" She states, laying down on the floor, looking at the sky far beyond the bars of the window "During our fights, I mean."

The Stubborn smiles, ruggedly, almost in defiance, as if she meant it as a mere joke "What, you don't think me capable handling my own against you? Please, we've been doing this for so long, I didn't think you thought so lowly of me"

But the Adversary remains silent. She turns her gaze to him, her eyes filled with something dangerous... at least to the both of them.

A softness.

"I just... don't want to loose the only companion I've got. The only one who Gets what I am now." She sighs, softly, looking for the words, her tail moving agitatedly under her. Finally, she continues "...I don't want to lose You..."

Silence so thick you could cut it with a pair of claws extends itself throughout the dark basement.

The clicking of claws on the stone floor is the only sound that breaks it as the Stubborn kneels next to her head, and proceeds to carefuly and softly caress her scarred face. She lets him, strangely enough, and as the draw closer together, he murmurs...

"Well, then I guess it's good that we seem to have the same objective then, princess"

Something something the Moment of Clarity Chapter III only happens if you repeatedly refuse to make a choice. The consequences for refusing to either slay or save the Princess are that you lose all ability to make meaningful choices.

Something something while there are no wrong choices, not choosing at all is the only ‘wrong’ choice