Back at it again with my annual Pride anthology! This time, the theme is the symbolism of the number 4, since this year is 2024. So tell me, readers, are you ready four it?
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"Scythe! Where is my scythe?!" Reaper clapped her hands, her red and black demon wings and tail billowing behind her.
"Pretty sure no weapons at Pride," Sonorhc sneered. Then she yelped as Reaper bustled by, one of her wing slapping Sonorhc's head. "Ow! Hey!"
"But I'm Reaper! I'm not complete without my scythe!" Reaper muttered to herself, not even noticing that she smacked Sonorhc. She was in the middle of sweeping the room for a third time when a large, billowing, black cloud suddenly phased through the bedroom window.
"Hey, Nevermore," Sonorhc deadpanned as the third and final member of the Dark Triad finally arrived.
"Nev! You seen anything?" Reaper didn't miss a beat, gliding past her, still searching the room for her scythe.
"H-huh?!" The cloud of shadow rematerialized into a plump, human body. "I- I- I just got here!" Today, Nevermore wore a black and white suit, accented with green. It was an instant cue to the other two that Nevermore was feeling a little more genderless that day.
So THAT'S why they've been shadow-traveling more than normal lately... Even though Nevermore's gender did not have direct causality with their shadow power, the correlation wasstill there. The more and longer they used their powers, the less gendered they felt.
"Oh, wait a sec, is that it?" The Umbramage adjusted their large, round, black glasses. It wasn't the glasses that helped, though. Their shadow magic meant they spent a lot of time in the dark, and their eyes were able to adjust faster than the average person/mage's. Through the slits in the doors of Reaper's closet, Nevermore thought they saw the silver shine of a sharp scythe...
"My baby!" Reaper gasped and beamed as, sure enough, she ripped open the closet to see her scythe resting inside.
"Eew." Sonorhc's nose crinkled as Reaper pulled out her scythe and kissed the blade on the way back to the other two.
"NOW my costume is complete!" A proud hand on her hip, Reaper brought the bottom of her scythe down on the floor, wings and tail shuddering.
"... Yeah, you're a real 10/10, Reaper..." Sonorhc smirked.
"You look great!" Nevermore cried, a little more sincere, tipping their top hat politely at the taller, thinner teenager.
"Hey, speaking of all that light stuff, why isn't yellow your shadow color?" Reaper asked suddenly, looking from her scythe to Nevermore.
"Oh, funny story about that!" The Umbramage chuckled. What were the odds they actually had an answer to such a spontaneous question, especially from Reaper? "I always liked the color yellow as a kid, and I remember that when I met you and Sonorhc for the first time, I thought it was funny that you two already seemed to have red and blue as your signature colors! We made the three primary colors!"
Green was just the one Nevermore selected to signal agenderness. "Not that green is a gender-neutral-only color, or anything like that!" they added quickly. "Yellow can be a nonbinary color too since it's literally in the nonbinary flag." Green was more associated with genderqueer or agender, by contrast, if one wanted to be specific about semantics and labels.
"But then why not make yellow your genderless color? Is it more feminine than green?" Reaper continued to ask, genuinely curious.
"Well, you know how my gender is somewhat depended on my Umbramagic, right?" Nevermore began. Reaper nodded. That was why she thought it would've been funny for yellow to be Nevermore's shadow color. "Well, even though you're right that red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors we usually hear about—I even mentioned them earlier—when it comes to the visible spectrum of light, it's red, blue, and green."
What a perfect connection, Nevermore able to signify not just their gender, but even their power—to some degree—and all just with colors.
"So yeah, there's technically four primary colors," Nevermore finished with an awkward chuckle. "Though there could be more if you view cyan and magenta as different from blue and red, since they're variations on RYB," they rambled, never able to stop without feeling more awkward.
"I swear, you know the most random of things..." Sonorhc muttered.
"Nerdy Nev, that's what I'm saying!" Reaper nodded in agreement, laughing. Nevermore chuckled embarrassedly again.
Still, their observations are correct, Sonorhc had to admit it to herself, mildly impressed. It wasn't as if she and Reaper sat down and had a conversation one day about signature colors, but that was just about what happened. The two girls met when they were just starting elementary school, and after their friendship finally took off, Reaper insisted that they choose favorite colors so she could get them matching best friend stuff.
"The colors better match too, ya know?" Reaper was half-joking and half-serious as she playfully warned Sonorhc, even tinier than she was today.
"Don't have one," Sonorhc drawled back. At first, Reaper was aghast. What?! What kind of little kid didn't have a favorite color?!
Well, I kin-assigned myself RED! Hero or villain, fire or blood, love or war, you can't deny, it's a BRAVE, powerful color! Reaper thought. Then she decided to kin-assign blue to Sonorhc, since blue went well with red, and Sonorhc was definitely a blue kind of gal!
Sonorhc gave Reaper another look of annoyance as she continued to swing her scythe happily. "I think I'm going to stick to my usual tee and shorts. It's June, so it's really hot, and I'm not trying to wear all th—"
ooo
Smack! Sonorhc sighed and slapped her forehead with a black, blue, and white glove. Somehow, Reaper managed to wrangle the shorter, stockier girl into an old Necromancer's robes.
That's how you KNOW they're ancient! That's an outdated term! The Necromage thought crossly.
"You have to wear at least some color!" Reaper insisted. "And dress up a little bit for Pride!" The robes were still mostly black anyway!
"It's summertime!" Sonorhc cried, gesturing to herself helplessly. "I'm gonna burn to death like this!"
"To be fair, gays will dress how they want, no matter the weather," Nevermore said suddenly. It was rare for them to join in on the teasing, but they spoke the truth. After all, they were about to attend Pride in a tuxedo. And Reaper was trying to channel her inner Carmilla, though Carmilla was a vampire rather than a reaper-demon (or demon-reaper). Sonorhc sighed again, still facepalming.
Yeah I get that Pride is supposed to be fun and all that jazz, but it's kinda serious too! I know being aro and ace isn't like being gay, but I've still had people ask if I ever want to get married or have kids. Some of them get so surprisingly offended if I don't say yes. Or there are the idiots out there that think being aro and/or ace means being loveless, unloving, or unlovable. Pfft! We just don't want all the sex stuff that comes with "normal" relationships. But I mean, come on! Surely even normal people have people they love that they aren't madly lusting over!
While Sonorhc continued to throw her little angst-fest alone, Nevermore and Reaper chirped and chattered excitedly around her.
"Come on, you, sad sack!" Reaper used her toy scythe like a crook to pull Sonorhc in. "Time for Sleeping Citadel Pride 2024! Also here, take this! If I'm Death, you're Time, and Time carried a sickle!" She shoved another curved, gleaming blade into Sonorhc's gloved hands.
Where does she keep getting all these weapons?! It was time to see if they could even make it past the gay-tes...
