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What do you see when you look in a mirror?
Nov. 1st, 2005 10:50 amThere weren't any mirrors in Quortoth, obviously. Connor never saw one until he arrived in Los Angeles. There plenty of them in the Hyperion, but he was never sure he could trust their still surface more than he trusted the sea, or that they showed anything worth looking at.
"You're so much like your father,"
Fred declared more than once during the summer, and meant it as a compliment, of course.
"You truly are your father's son,"
Cordelia said later, and it might have been meant as a compliment, or as a complaint, he wasn't sure with her. Either way, the only occasions when he spent any noticable time in front of a mirror was when he wanted to find out. He couldn't see that much of a resemblance. The eyebrows, the nose and the hair colour, sure. Maybe the body language. After the sanctuary spell classified Connor as a demon, he distorted his face in a series of grimaces, feeling childish and yet needing to do it, and then he could see it. The resemblance. Of course, Cordelia caught him, and that was the end of that. He felt mortally embarassed in addition to being ashamed of having seen it.
Nobody at the Hyperion talked about his mother before Angelus did, but he found a picture of her in one of Wesley's books, and it was a precursor to the shock he felt when he saw her in the dusk of a slaughterhouse. Because yes, he could see it. Now he knew where he had gotten his eyes from, the form of his face and his mouth. He avoided mirrors even more after that.
A construct. This is what he saw in the mirror. Traces of both his parents, patched together to make up something that should not exist.
Connor Riley, of course, had no problem with mirrors, and they held nothing deeper than occasions to brush one's teeth and comb one's hair. After the memories came back, though, after defeating Sahjahn and going home with his parents, he looked again and noticed for the first time the scar at his throat, almost invisible but there. A knife wound. He ignored it as best he could and was determined not to look again, because now it was the construct who looked back, once more.
One of the strangest thing about mirrors was that they never showed you what other people saw. People were mirrors, too, in their own way, only they had the power to transform you into what they wanted to see. Justine saw him as Stephen and as Stephen only until she caught him meeting with his parents, and afterwards nothing was the same again between them, not really. Whomever she saw as Stephen was not a construct, though; he was real and his own person. When he was Stephen for her, before she saw Connor, he felt real, at any rate.
He wasn't sure what Harry saw. Not the son of anyone, which was one of the first things he found compelling about their relationship. And for a while, he thought that it watever it was Harry saw had to be the truth, because he did not make a conscious effort to become someone for him, or to hide anything about himself. But then Halloween came and went, and when he stood in front of the mirror afterwards, using a band-aid to cover up a fresh scar, he knew that whatever the truth was, it hadn't been enough. Not good enough. It had to wrapped up in a lie from now on. In a construct.
"You're so much like your father,"
Fred declared more than once during the summer, and meant it as a compliment, of course.
"You truly are your father's son,"
Cordelia said later, and it might have been meant as a compliment, or as a complaint, he wasn't sure with her. Either way, the only occasions when he spent any noticable time in front of a mirror was when he wanted to find out. He couldn't see that much of a resemblance. The eyebrows, the nose and the hair colour, sure. Maybe the body language. After the sanctuary spell classified Connor as a demon, he distorted his face in a series of grimaces, feeling childish and yet needing to do it, and then he could see it. The resemblance. Of course, Cordelia caught him, and that was the end of that. He felt mortally embarassed in addition to being ashamed of having seen it.
Nobody at the Hyperion talked about his mother before Angelus did, but he found a picture of her in one of Wesley's books, and it was a precursor to the shock he felt when he saw her in the dusk of a slaughterhouse. Because yes, he could see it. Now he knew where he had gotten his eyes from, the form of his face and his mouth. He avoided mirrors even more after that.
A construct. This is what he saw in the mirror. Traces of both his parents, patched together to make up something that should not exist.
Connor Riley, of course, had no problem with mirrors, and they held nothing deeper than occasions to brush one's teeth and comb one's hair. After the memories came back, though, after defeating Sahjahn and going home with his parents, he looked again and noticed for the first time the scar at his throat, almost invisible but there. A knife wound. He ignored it as best he could and was determined not to look again, because now it was the construct who looked back, once more.
One of the strangest thing about mirrors was that they never showed you what other people saw. People were mirrors, too, in their own way, only they had the power to transform you into what they wanted to see. Justine saw him as Stephen and as Stephen only until she caught him meeting with his parents, and afterwards nothing was the same again between them, not really. Whomever she saw as Stephen was not a construct, though; he was real and his own person. When he was Stephen for her, before she saw Connor, he felt real, at any rate.
He wasn't sure what Harry saw. Not the son of anyone, which was one of the first things he found compelling about their relationship. And for a while, he thought that it watever it was Harry saw had to be the truth, because he did not make a conscious effort to become someone for him, or to hide anything about himself. But then Halloween came and went, and when he stood in front of the mirror afterwards, using a band-aid to cover up a fresh scar, he knew that whatever the truth was, it hadn't been enough. Not good enough. It had to wrapped up in a lie from now on. In a construct.
