The Monster in the Mirror - Velvet (Lost)
Jan. 21st, 2009 06:34 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
autumn-skald.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
writing_shadows((Another Velvet piece, written for the Isles of Darkness and I was going to hold off on putting up here until after that came out, but I am bored of waiting, so I am putting it up now. I'll warn, it's not happy or nice, but then nothing I ever write for this character is going to be, she's the most messed up in the head that I have. Still, I do hope it's enjoyable despite being a bit disturbing.))
When most people say that they hate their reflection it’s considered to be a form of reverse vanity. That, no matter what they truly look like, they think they could look better, be more beautiful or more slender. For me that is not what I mean, for me I am taking about my true face, the one I don’t usually show, the one the Lady left me with.
The skin is smooth, too smooth, there are not the usual marks and imprints you get on human skin and there is no trace of hair anywhere. I also have no ears or nose, just gaping black holes where they should be. She took my lips as well and left a mass of scarring where they once were. She left me my eyes, though they are now dark shadowy pits made of smoke and darkness with no real resemblance to human eyes. In fact all I really have that makes me think I might have been a person once is the scars, the neat lines of surgical scarring all across my face where every trace of who I once was has been erased.
Sometimes when I stare into a mirror I see a thousand faces reflected back at me, the faces I have stolen and used over these years, both in Arcadia and outside of it. I wonder if the one I was born with is in there somewhere, but no fragment of attachment remains to it, so if it is I cannot tell.
I recall another mirror, years before my return to this world. How old I was I cannot remember, a teenager perhaps? The Lady helping to make me seem beautiful, to smooth the stolen face into place so the disguise would be perfect. There was the unforgettable hideous sickly smell of corruption as she kissed my cheek and pressed the icy cold handle of a knife into my trembling fingers.
My first... I think I had all but forgotten, I think he was the first anyway. He was a general or leader of some sort, responsible for the armies of an enemy of my Lady. My Lady was never one for open warfare, why fight fair when you could have your minions kill off people one by one? She preferred whole armies to vanish screaming into traps or die quietly in the night, leaving nothing but bodies and the coppery stench of blood for her to bask in.
This one, he liked women and he liked to be cruel. I think he was Fairest, most likely one of that sort anyway. Looking like the pretty girl got me into his bed and when he was done with me and sleeping was when I went to work. For one moment I hesitated, but then I recalled his face earlier while he was using me for his pleasures and I felt a white-hot surge of anger, enough to give me the courage to do what I was sent for, to slide my blade across his pretty white throat and open his veins.
Watching someone die is like nothing you can possibly imagine. He jerked and gurgled, his eyes opened, staring wildly. So much blood pumped out that it coated everything, the coppery smell and taste getting in my mouth, in my nose and all over my body. The rush was so sweet I thought I would burst, like a million orgasms wrapped up into one.
To my Lady it was a job well done and another followed it, and another, more than I could count. The details shimmer and fade like reflections disrupted in a pond when a stone is thrown into the water. I am sure there are Lost out there whose lovers I killed, whose friends fell as victims to my blade. Someone could line up the accusatory fingers of the dead but I would only laugh. They were weak, they died, why should I care who I hurt in my work?
**A flash of her face lying dead in a pool of blood, black hair a knotted tangle caked with blood. A feeling of anger fills you, of wanting to watch the whole world burn for taking her away, for stealing all that was good left in it.**
No, her death was different and I will not apologise for what I am, for what the Lady made me. If you took away the killing, the blood, the pain and the thrill, would there be anything else left of me? I know what I am; I am what many would term a monster. I kill without conscience and for no motive but pleasure.
The hunger is rising again in me so I run my blade down my arm. The singing of my blood and the intensity of the pain fills me for a time. The blood sighs as it drips down onto the floor, dancing momentarily with the shadows as it goes sliding away out of my sight.
Soon this won’t be enough; the urge to kill again will become almost overwhelming. Hopefully by then I can find a fetch, or a Privateer or Loyalist. Someone no one will miss or care about. Patient, I must be patient, lest the hunter become the hunted.
I stare again at the mirror, at the face which isn’t really a face staring back at me and I laugh. The cold sound echoes through the room, followed by a smashing sound as I punch my hand into the mirror and it shatters. Pieces of glass fly everywhere, my hand is a bloody mess but I’m still laughing. People say that’s seven years bad luck, but I don’t care, it tastes like sweet freedom to me.
Did I mention that I hate mirrors?
When most people say that they hate their reflection it’s considered to be a form of reverse vanity. That, no matter what they truly look like, they think they could look better, be more beautiful or more slender. For me that is not what I mean, for me I am taking about my true face, the one I don’t usually show, the one the Lady left me with.
The skin is smooth, too smooth, there are not the usual marks and imprints you get on human skin and there is no trace of hair anywhere. I also have no ears or nose, just gaping black holes where they should be. She took my lips as well and left a mass of scarring where they once were. She left me my eyes, though they are now dark shadowy pits made of smoke and darkness with no real resemblance to human eyes. In fact all I really have that makes me think I might have been a person once is the scars, the neat lines of surgical scarring all across my face where every trace of who I once was has been erased.
Sometimes when I stare into a mirror I see a thousand faces reflected back at me, the faces I have stolen and used over these years, both in Arcadia and outside of it. I wonder if the one I was born with is in there somewhere, but no fragment of attachment remains to it, so if it is I cannot tell.
I recall another mirror, years before my return to this world. How old I was I cannot remember, a teenager perhaps? The Lady helping to make me seem beautiful, to smooth the stolen face into place so the disguise would be perfect. There was the unforgettable hideous sickly smell of corruption as she kissed my cheek and pressed the icy cold handle of a knife into my trembling fingers.
My first... I think I had all but forgotten, I think he was the first anyway. He was a general or leader of some sort, responsible for the armies of an enemy of my Lady. My Lady was never one for open warfare, why fight fair when you could have your minions kill off people one by one? She preferred whole armies to vanish screaming into traps or die quietly in the night, leaving nothing but bodies and the coppery stench of blood for her to bask in.
This one, he liked women and he liked to be cruel. I think he was Fairest, most likely one of that sort anyway. Looking like the pretty girl got me into his bed and when he was done with me and sleeping was when I went to work. For one moment I hesitated, but then I recalled his face earlier while he was using me for his pleasures and I felt a white-hot surge of anger, enough to give me the courage to do what I was sent for, to slide my blade across his pretty white throat and open his veins.
Watching someone die is like nothing you can possibly imagine. He jerked and gurgled, his eyes opened, staring wildly. So much blood pumped out that it coated everything, the coppery smell and taste getting in my mouth, in my nose and all over my body. The rush was so sweet I thought I would burst, like a million orgasms wrapped up into one.
To my Lady it was a job well done and another followed it, and another, more than I could count. The details shimmer and fade like reflections disrupted in a pond when a stone is thrown into the water. I am sure there are Lost out there whose lovers I killed, whose friends fell as victims to my blade. Someone could line up the accusatory fingers of the dead but I would only laugh. They were weak, they died, why should I care who I hurt in my work?
**A flash of her face lying dead in a pool of blood, black hair a knotted tangle caked with blood. A feeling of anger fills you, of wanting to watch the whole world burn for taking her away, for stealing all that was good left in it.**
No, her death was different and I will not apologise for what I am, for what the Lady made me. If you took away the killing, the blood, the pain and the thrill, would there be anything else left of me? I know what I am; I am what many would term a monster. I kill without conscience and for no motive but pleasure.
The hunger is rising again in me so I run my blade down my arm. The singing of my blood and the intensity of the pain fills me for a time. The blood sighs as it drips down onto the floor, dancing momentarily with the shadows as it goes sliding away out of my sight.
Soon this won’t be enough; the urge to kill again will become almost overwhelming. Hopefully by then I can find a fetch, or a Privateer or Loyalist. Someone no one will miss or care about. Patient, I must be patient, lest the hunter become the hunted.
I stare again at the mirror, at the face which isn’t really a face staring back at me and I laugh. The cold sound echoes through the room, followed by a smashing sound as I punch my hand into the mirror and it shatters. Pieces of glass fly everywhere, my hand is a bloody mess but I’m still laughing. People say that’s seven years bad luck, but I don’t care, it tastes like sweet freedom to me.
Did I mention that I hate mirrors?
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