"From the Looking Glass"
Cirucci is gone. There is no one left in her palatial quarters. No one except Ren, hunched over and wizened as he polishes an oddly-shaped, melted stone again and again.
"What's going to happen now, what's going to happen now?" he whispers out loud. "She's buzzing, yes, buzzing, like they say the Queen of the Storm did. I think I saw her. Or maybe I ate someone who did. No, I couldn't have. My mask's been broken too long for that. She wasn't that long before Barragan, I think. Memories, that's the problem, too many memories, all welling up and spilling out of my head. There's too much stuff in this old, tired world. Time is stretched too thin. Actually, I don't think it's stretched too thin. I think we eat it." He shudders. "Not sure if I'm being metaphorical here. I can't remember."
Putting down his cloth and his stone with a solid thud, he rises, pacing the hallways. His hands are shaking. One is still covered by a glove, hiding the scars of time from that fragment of the Old King's crown ("Not that he was really an old king, oh no, oh no, if you'd seen what I'd seen he'd seem to be just a young upstart"). He makes sure everything is in its proper place. Everything - except for the mistress' private quarters.
He's not allowed to go in there.
But there are things in there, precious things, ancient things that she keeps around as trinkets because they 'look nice'. He needs to clean them. He needs to make sure they're in a good condition.
Opening his third eye, he feels for the presence of any other souls. There are none. That's enough reason for him to let himself into the master bedroom.
It's a painfully neat place. When the Thunderwitch left this morning, she made sure everything was ordered and precise, to the level that it looks like no one really lives here. The bedsheets are fresh; the desk is empty; any female accoutrements (Ren isn't sure exactly what the two ladies wear under their uniforms, because his only interest in female clothing is how it relates to long-dead cultures) are safely away where he doesn't need to look at them.
"It's like a tomb," he decides. "Silly woman. We don't get tombs. Not really. Even when we build them the little Hollows and the Gillians infest them. Our tombs become warrens, homes, l-living spaces. Because we're dead. We always live in tombs."
But that's just his mouth running while he thinks about the precious things she keeps. There; a necklace of grave gold carefully laid out. Here; a polished carving of a long forgotten king. Over there; a blade's hilt, melted and warped - she'd told him that that one had belonged to a shinigami who'd chased a Hollow through a Gargantua, become trapped in Hueco Mundo and wandered into her domain.
He's not sure if he believes her. So many Hollows have stories like that, but he's never seen it happen. If shinigami really did wander through open Gargantua as often as claimed, he'd expect to have seen one over the course of his long, long life.
Something catches his attention. There's a mirror of black glass framed in tarnished silver that he hadn't wanted to give her, which sits on her dressing table. Images of a flower, an owl and a dolphin surround it. He hadn't felt any particular power in it, but it was fragile and beautiful in its own way.
"Obsidian, blood-silver, gnawed into shape by the F-Fog Serpent-Queen," he whispers, frowning. He wondered what happened to her. She had been a peer to the first generation of Espada, a colossal snake of bone and silver who had kept some of her once-Gillian size. She hadn't joined their ranks. Perhaps they'd slain her - though he'd heard tales that she'd been too much of a coward to approach Aizen and had fled down to the Forest of Menos, lurking down in the lowest levels where mists of stagnant reiatsu might be enough that she could hide even from the shinigami and... no, no, focus Ren! That's not important. That's not important at all.
Not like this.
There's a crack on the mirror. A crack, right on the edge. Like it was dropped at some point.
"No no no," Ren moans. "That stupid bi-... no, keep it together, have to keep it together, she might come back and you don't want to be whipped again, no, no, you don't. But she's broken it. She didn't even know what it is and she's broken it." He squats down, looking at it from many angles. "Oh, how like a Hollow. That's the curse of our kind - well, one of our many curses, we're a cursed breed - but one of the self-inflicted ones is how we destroy our past and our present alike. Everything can be broken. That's just what we do."
He rushes over to it. It's broken. The obsidian has a fracture, right at the frame. Not enough that a vain, stupidstupidstupid creature like the Thunderwitch would care. It still shows her face well enough. But it's damaged! It can't be fixed! No no no!
And he can't shout at her, firstly because she's much stronger than him and she'll have him whipped, and secondly because he's not going to admit to her that he was in her bedroom even if she's stupid and selfish and damages things without even thinking!
The reflection isn't quite matching the room. Ren tilts his head, peering at the damaged mirror with his mismatched eyes. There! Something flickers on it.
the thunderwitch walks through a different room - but she's smaller, gentler, weaker
a dark figure broods on top of pillars, moth-like cloak ragged, hair-messy
little nemo - taller, colder - fights yammy while the not-thunderwitch desperately cheers in support
"Oh," Ren says, lips dry. "The Fog Serpent-Queen, yes, yes, a witch, but not a little witch like the servants of the Tercera. A witch-queen. This thing must have been one of her scrying mirrors, or at least something she made for a servant. There's power in it, yes, but power turned askew. It's meant to show what's happening. Broken, d-damaged, yes, it's showing what couldn't have happened. It's showing what isn't. A broken mirror turned askew. That stupid, stupid..."
His blood runs cold. There's something else wrong here. Something creeping up on him.
His senses - so finely tuned for sniffing out ancient mysteries and finding the facts behind the spiritual desolation of Hueco Mundo - are whispering warnings to him. The hole in his head, his third eye, can taste the air, and there's something off here. Something slow and ponderous and dense, dense like lead and stone and history stacked all up on top of each other. He sniffs, he tastes the air, he closes his regular eyes and reaches out with his mind.
There's something leaking from the broken mirror. Slowly, imperceptibly, something is escaping it - spiritual energy so dense and spiritually debased that even he can barely feel it. It's creeping out into the world and slowly, every so slowly saturating this room.
He recoils away, as if he was surrounded by vipers.
"I don't know what this means, but I'm fairly sure - no, I'm really sure - that it's probably not safe to sleep in here. Or, ha ha, do other things than sleeping. Yes, yes, I wouldn't do that if you paid me... well, we don't have a currency right now, but we probably will given time. It's one of the affections of the kings of Hueco Mundo, yes. Got to have your face on a coin. Good thing, too. It's a good declaration of 'I was here'. People like me can find them later and wonder who you were. Maybe that's why the new one hasn't done it yet. He doesn't think he can lose. Fuck all shinigami with their libraries and their stores of knowledge and their ability to go five minutes without some stupid bitch breaking a magic mirror in her bedroom," Ren mutters to himself, mouth running out of nervousness. Oh, this is bad, this is very bad.
What does it mean that the Thunderwitch and her servant have been bathing in the energies leaking from the broken mirror that show things not as they are? That's bad. That's very bad. But if he removes it, she'll know he was in here - and accuse him of stealing. It's not stealing! It's protecting her stupid self! But she won't see it like that and she might beat him again.
He'll... he'll just leave it here. And get nice and safely away. Away. Yes. Away from this broken witch's mirror that's bleeding out spiritual power. And then he'll see if he can find his books and sort through his memories until he can either forget about this thing, or realises what it's doing to them.
As he turns his back, the mirror shows one more thing.
a great monstrosity, scorched and maimed, opens its world-eating jaws and bites down on the firebird, snuffing out its light forever
The idea is amusing. Have 25xp.
