YCH from the talented  belassa!

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“It will be easier than you think,” my sword said. “Nightfall cannot stand against the power of the sun.”

I sat back and looked over the sword. It had not stopped glowing with the reddish magic since I had left the temple. The first time its voice had whispered in my mind, I had no idea what I was hearing. I’d looked behind every tree and under every rock, searching for the source of the voice. The sword – or the spirit that was enchanting it, or however this magic worked – seemed to think it was funny to leave me in the dark until it felt like revealing itself.

Still, I glanced at the moon, rising high in the sky, and thought.
“I always like to think it’ll be easier,” I said. “But it never is. No matter what power I may have at my disposal, I…”
“Have you ever had power at your disposal?” the sword interrupted. “You’ve always been lesser. You’ve never…”
I looked down to the blade, a low growl rising in my throat.
“Oh, you’re such a scary lizard. Quell yourself, it’s a compliment!”
“I fail to see how.”
“No power, no special abilities, no authority to command vast armies, no…”
“Get to the compliment?” I wanted to badly to wipe the smug grin that the sword was surely giving me.
“It means everything you’ve done has been pure you. Is that not a compliment?”
“In some roundabout way, I suppose.”

The rest of the night passed in silence. I didn’t know what to expect; what would a sword, or a spirit inside a sword, or whatever it was, even have to talk about? I’d asked questions when it first spoke to me, of course. But the accursed thing would never give me anything more than frustratingly vague answers of “You will learn in time” and “It is not for us to know or whatever”. All while trying to stifle mocking laughter, no doubt.

But, talking sword or not, the spirit did have power, power which I now wielded. It had sliced through stone, severed darkness without effort, wielded by my hand. The spirit was annoying, but it was effective. That was what I needed.

---

I awoke many hours later, still shrouded in darkness.

“Nightfall strengthens,” the voice whispered in my mind. “You’re running low on time, hero.”
“You still haven’t told me who you are,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. “This Nightfall threatens my world, but you have no stake in this battle. Why do you guide me?”
“Is it so strange that someone simply wishes to defeat a great evil for the sake of it?” the sword replied. “To save the world out of sheer…goodness?”
“It isn’t,” I replied. “But I don’t believe for a second that you’re one of those types.”
“You’re smart,” the voice said.

Then silence.

“Care to elaborate?”
“I do not.”
I sighed and held the sword aloft. “So, how do I do this?”
“Just focus,” it said. “Feel the power of the sun…”
“It’s still night.”
“You really have to reach for it. I feed upon it, drink it in, grow with its power. Feel it, hero. Feel how it…”
“You cut through darkness without the sun before,” I said. “Why do you need it now?”
“What happened the last time someone tried to explain a magical power to you?”
“…I tuned out and started thinking about unicorns.” I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to picture the sun in my mind. I remembered its warm glow, its welcoming light, its life-giving fire. I breathed in deep, trying to feel the sun, wherever it had gone…

“Do you have it?” the sword said.
“I’m trying,” I growled. “How do I know if it’s working?”
“You don’t. You’ll just have to trust me. You’ve always trusted your sword, right?”

With a roar, I stepped forward and slashed the blade down.

The air provided unusual resistance to the strike, like a blunt blade trying to slice through paper. Still, the blade glowed with the same red magic I had seen in the temple, a more intense light now in the darkness of the unnatural night. I held my breath and growled as I summoned my strength to push the blade down, to slice through the darkness enshrouding me. The red light intensified, as though slicing the darkness released a terrible fire within.

“More!” the voice called in my mind.

My wings flared open and I pushed down, like slicing through bone.

And with a final slice, I ripped a hole in reality.

---

Before I knew anything else, I was surrounded by tendrils of darkness. By sheer instinct, I lifted my shield and pushed back against one of the things that had lashed out towards me.

The tendril struck, and knocked my shield aside like the wind bending grass.

Another came to me, and I barely rolled aside.

The ground beneath me was dark, but it was a different kind of dark than the night I had found myself in mere moments ago. The cool wind had been replaced with a cold stillness; not so much as a breeze. I felt no ground beneath my feet, but stood firm nonetheless.

“Is this Nightfall’s world?” I growled as I leapt away from the lashing tendrils of darkness.
“He wishes,” came the voice from my sword. Before I could ask for further clarification, something wrapped itself around my ankle, something cold and numb, and pulled me to the ground.

The sword glowed red again, and I sliced it towards one of the tendrils, severing it. A horrid wail filled the air, and before I could blink, the tendril faded to nothingness.
“Darkness is cold,” the voice said as the blade sliced through another tendril. “It is sterile and unmoving. That is the world Nightfall wants! His perfect world, frozen in time until…”

The glow spread to my shield, shoving back another tendril. Then, all of a sudden, we were alone in the frozen darkness.

“…okay, lost myself a little,” the voice said. “But we’re here now.”
I stood, taking in deep breaths and gazing into the darkness for any more of those tendrils. “And where is ‘here’? Could you at least tell me that?”
“A world that Nightfall has already stolen,” the spirit in the sword said. “A once thriving world of light, of life, of fire and warmth, that fell to his whims. A world that shows you what fate awaits your own, should he remain unchecked. My world.”