Tag: mirror

No more spiders

Her new mirror was probably worth more than the rest of her room combined. It was some sort of artifact and definitely didn’t deserve to be a piece in her room. Probably deserved to be in a museum. Her father had the odd tendency to find objects from the old kingdom. She could usually sell them for a decent amount, but this would be too big. He would know if she got rid of it.

For this, she was rather glad. The frame was a gorgeous bronze, textured like wood, with golden flakes pointed inward to the reflective surface. It was not like modern mirrors either, there was a silver tinge, coloring all of image.

Maybe she would have it restored. When she was gifted something else that would cover the cost. She turned away, picking up her hairbrush.

“Rivky?”

She dropped her brush. Wheeling about, she looked for who spoke, only to see no one. She was alone, wasn’t she?

“You came back?”

It was the mirror. The mirror, which knew her name. While part of her wanted to scream, instead, Rivky slowly squatted down and grabbed her brush. “What.” Not actually sure how to finish her sentence, she closed her mouth and stared at the mirror. It reflected her back at herself.

“No more spiders?”

She lowered her brush. As strange as this was, it was hard to feel threatened by a mirror whose voice, while deep enough to be adult, sounded like a child. “No spiders here, I would loathe to have them in my room.”

“Did the raiders leave?”

This mirror came from the old kingdom. Rivky considered this. “They came and left. A long time ago.”

She waited. The mirror said nothing. She wondered if it fell asleep. Sitting down in front of the mirror, she considered what to do.

First things first, she would not leave it in her bedroom.

She never did

A dusty and cracked mirror sat in the corner of the attic. The golden frame was tarnished and the silver glass was smeared. No one had payed it any attention for what? A thousand years? The mirror had lost track since the civil war, when Rivky had taken him up into the hidden attic and left him there so no one could steal him. It wasn’t as if he could stop anyone himself. His spells were tired and his magic drained. No one had the power to change him now.

Rivky was probably dead. He had grieved over her, because if he had not been a mirror, he would be with her now too. Not in an attic with almost absolutely nothing occurring. Every once in a while, there would be a spider which he would, fascinated, watch until it went away or died. They were mostly unnerved by the talking mirror, so used to talking with himself that he would burst into a story and they would skitter from their webbing. Instead of talking lately however, he had humored himself by sleeping. When he woke up, everything looked the same as it had before. He wasn’t missing anything. Even if his naps took twenty five years.

He remembered dutifully serving his king and queen. He remembered when Rivky came in the envoy of ambassadors, how she had stayed, how they had fallen in love. Sometimes he remembered the sorcerer. He remembered how something he had done had angered the other man. Maybe he had done nothing. Perhaps there was no reason. Perhaps it was simply his fate to become a mirror.

The queen had left him in his position. His brain was not altered, he could still serve them. The king had taken pity on him, giving him further servants for transportation and other necessities. He loved it most when Rivky took care of him. He had savored the long talks they had even now, remembering each word so as to not go crazy.

Despite it all, the fact was she had hidden him in the attic of a tunnel room so the revels would not try to take him for his gold and silver, for the jewels adorning him.

“I’ll be back for you,” she had whispered to him.

But she never did.