Event log: Mirror, mirror

[hadrielmods]

Who: Anyone and everyone!
What: Hope gives everyone mirrors with visions of their most hopeful future inside.
Where: Throughout the city.
When: March 14th-18th
Warnings: None so far!

On March 14th, all characters will stumble across mirrors at some point on their daily journey. Maybe your mirror is right under your pillow, maybe it's on your bedside table, or in the sink in your bathroom. It could be in a random store that you're scavenging, or somewhere along the path that you're taking to go to a friend's place. Wherever it is, it's positioned perfectly for you to find it- though you might want to be quick so someone else doesn't nab it first.

Each mirror is predetermined to hold one person's future and will be placed somewhere that they can find it on that day. Upon looking in their own mirrors, each character will see a version of their future that will fill them with hope. This vision has to be possible- or they have to think it's possible- even if it's unlikely. Picking up someone else's mirror will not change the image inside; you'll instead see that person's vision for their future.

In addition, during the first four days, until March 18th, characters will want to look into any mirror they can find, not just their own. So be a little careful if you want to guard your innermost hopes- someone might be trying to peek.

► This log covers March 14th-March 18th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► Please report any character deaths right here!

Comments

ciri | ota

[ichaer]

✖ Midaëte (march 14 - 16)

[ it's during her morning practice that ciri almost steps on the hand mirror. it's become routine for her to visit the park, spend time mediating and then get to work with her swords.

she moves gracefully through each step. its a style that seems rather dance-like and acrobatic in nature, no parries or ripostes. she simply follows steps, moves ecasiving and pirouettes. for anyone with a keen eye, they might notice the flashes of green-white light that seems to coat both her and the sword. it suddenly comes to a halt as something catches the light, shining on the ground under her feet and ciri has to turn awkwardly to avoid stepping on it.

curiously, she bends down and picks it up. her brows furrow, turning the mirror over in her hand and taking in the details. she turns it over again, expecting to find her reflection but finds something completely different greeting her.

it's kaer morhen. though, it is different than the old keep she remembers living at. it has been rebuilt in this vision she sees, it is a grand and beautiful sight to rival the mountains around it. movement within the vision gets her attention away from the keep, surprised to see herself running through the courtyard with a smile. following behind is geralt, a snowball in hand and a grin on his face. he throws it with perfect precision but she moves, dodging his throw and returning the throw with one of her. he is less awkward on his feet, decades of practice have him sidestepping the throw and her snowball explodes into powder on nearby steps.

not far from them, yennefer sits with softened features and a warm smile. she looks the part of an exasperated mother but ciri cannot help smiling at the sight and watches as her self in the vision raises her arms, calling out. yenn answers with a wave of her hand, words she cannot hear that causes a bigger smile to bloom on geralt's face and ciri to grin as if she were a child again. she can even see eskel and lambert nearby, cutting up and laughing. geralt reaches down, building another snowball in his hands and tossing it at her back as she is distracted by something lambert has said. it comes close to hitting her but she spots it at the last minute and vanishes in a flash of greenish-white light, re-appearing at geralt's back to dump a handful of snow atop his head.

in their distraction, they do not think of where the snowball that missed her landed until the wind picks up and kicks up flurries. immediately, their eyes go to yennefer at the snow stuck to her black and white outfit. the pendant around her neck glows and she raises her hands slightly, the snow picking up as both geralt and ciri make a run for it. still, they're both laughing even as the sorceress gets back at them with magic.

she snaps back into focus then, blinking and looking around at the park. how long had she been watching this thing? that alone is enough to get her to set it back on the ground and step back, raising her sword. she will not be tricked by these gods, she will not let them weaken her with visions of her family and friends. yet, she cannot bring her sword down on it. ]

Damn it all. [ she curses, lowering her sword arm and bending down to pick the mirror back up. she couldn't do it. she couldn't destroy the one thing that allowed her to see adopted parents both happy and smiling with her. ]

✖ Midinvaerne (march 16 - 18)

[ it is tiring to keep it close all the time. ciri doesn't want to look at it but she does, more and more. time passes by without her noticing as she watches the visions play out, reminding her of powers long lost but these were so much happier. there was no death, no heartache. it was her, happy with geralt and yenn.

still, she hates it. this was nothing but another plot by the so called gods of this cave. although she does not know what they play at, ciri is vigilant and tries not to let the mirror draw her attention away from this mission.

after a few days, it becomes to much and she allows herself to be careless with it. when she practices, she leaves it out in the open to hopefully be stepped on and broken. when she looks through stores, she leaves it out so someone else might take it and rid her of it. after all, she finds it hard to destroy it herself and hates herself for that. ciri knew that she had to be strong here, she couldn't fall into the traps of these gods or else she would never see geralt and yennefer again. it's what finally gets her to simply take the mirror, pull her arm back and throw the damning thing as far as she could muster.

she is sorry to anyone passing by that might have a mirror unceremoniously land near them or sail by them with the force of an angry woman with a damn good throw. ]

[quaerit]

[ Gansey is innocent enough that he does not expect random projectiles to sail through the the air and crack on his head. He is used to a far more civilized world where these things just don't happen. But, being that his world is some distance away from here, he finds himself subject to that very fate now. The mirror crashes into his temple, and he instinctively catches it even while the blow makes him stagger. ]

Hey!

[ With one hand holding his head and the other holding the mirror, he looks around for the culprit. This isn't very successful, considering that he's still blinking stars out of his eyes. ]

Who threw that?! I'll find you one way or the other.

[ He tips the mirror up to look at, and finds that it's full of magic - literally, given that it catalogues what appears to be two magicians using their power very differently. ]

Magical snowball fight. You don't see many of those. Someone confess right now, or I'm putting it on the Network!

[ichaer]

[ ah, well... damn. perhaps she should have taken a better took around before flinging the hand mirror like a dart? that, or perhaps, just thrown the damning thing on the ground and been done with it. now, ciri is left to watch as her mirror meets the forehead of an unfamiliar man.

she must say that he took it all rather well considering how hard she threw it.

likely a nasty bruise though but right, she should probably say something. ]

Now that is a first. Usually, whenever I am threatened, it involves swords or the breaking of bones. [ she says, stepping forward. there is a small smile as her hand goes to the scar on her face, rubbing it in embarrassment. ] Do forgive me. I was not... well, I wasn't expecting it to crash into anything but the ground where it would have hopefully been broken.

[ so much for that. ] You're not hurt badly, are you?

[quaerit]

[ Ah, well. There would be the culprit, then. A second glance at the image in the mirror confirms to Gansey that she's one of the people in it. He's now got an aching headache, and a rising bump on his temple where it connected. Coming forward, he holds the mirror out to her. ]

It would seem a shame to break it. It's not a terrible scene.

[ And he wonders why she'd even consider it. He would never do that to his own. Maybe it's not as positive an image as it seems. ]

I'll live. At least I know your aim's as sure as it is in the picture.

[ichaer]

[ she takes it, rather carefully for someone that had just throw it with the intent of breaking and destroying it. cradling it in one gloved hand, ciri watches the vision for a moment before shaking her head. ]

It's not at all terrible, it's wonderful even. I do not like these so-called gods peddling out gifts with images of my family though. After all, their last gifts with the food hardly ended well for us.

[ it's why she worries about this mirror. what might happen, what seeing her family might mean for the future this time. still, she smiles in the end. ]

I had to practice a lot. If I didn't, I'd never stand a chance of landing a blow against my father.

[quaerit]

So, a family portrait.

[ She doesn't look immediately like the daughter of the others in that picture. It doesn't matter, though. It's clearly a family portrait. On one hand, he's pleased to have seen it. On the other, he feels like he's intruded, even though she did just hit him over the head with it. ]

They don't read much like a threat, these gifts. If we were supposed to turn on each other because of the wendigos, I'm not sure what this was about. Mine makes me happy.

[ A little pause. ]

Yours incited violence, admittedly.

[ichaer]

Yes, it is all I have ever wanted. For us to live together in peace.

[ it almost happened once but then the pogrom in rivia happened and she was lost from them, again. ]

It is not the gifts themselves that I worry for. I worry for whatever magic lingers in these trinkets, the magic that compels me to stare at it for hours on end and urges me to gaze at the visions of others.

[ carefully, she raises it back up and sighs. ] I have had my family used against me before. It's not something I take kindly toward.

[ she remembers stygga castle and trying to exchange her life for yennefer. they laughed in her face, she would never allow such a thing again and that meant certainly keeping weird cave gods away from her family. ]

[quaerit]

[ Gansey frowns, thinking that over. It’s all she’s ever wanted. She says it so clearly, and he knows without really considering it at all that the same is true of his own mirror. The proof that he’s found Glendower. His friends around him, all content to be around him, all apparently happy. Even the part that involves Blue holding his hand, without any negative response from either Adam and Ronan, and particularly the part that involves Noah being alive. Suddenly, he feels more exposed than ever. ]

Mine is the same. It’s all I want. Maybe that’s the point.

[ But to what end? Is Ciri right to be so suspicious? Gansey doesn’t tend towards that, even when he should. Now, his mirror feels heavy in his pocket. ]

You don’t think that it’s some sort of threat? It didn’t feel that way to me. I suppose I didn’t really think of it like that.

[ichaer]

I suppose it would make sense. After all, this one does call himself 'Hope' so it would make sense that he should give us something that inspired that feeling.

[ her hope, huh. it was an odd little feeling but she could not deny it. she had dreamed about visions like this since she was young. ]

I didn't think of our last gifts as threats either but I saw what it did. I saw the monsters people became. I can't forgive nor forget that these so-called gods almost caused others to hurt those they care for.

[ it's sensitive topic for her: family, friends and other such loved ones. ] And so... I truly can't help taking this as a threat.

[quaerit]

No. I can't forgive that, either.

[ People had died. There'd been no choice in that at all, no way around it. The fact that they had been brought back does not negate the trauma of dying in the first place, nor does it erase the fact of what they had become. That will stay with them.

There is no forgiveness for that. ]

But they are not all to blame, either. It's clear enough that they want us to feel different things. I don't imagine we'd feel that hopeful if the mirrors suddenly proved treacherous, do you?

[ichaer]

No, they are not all to blame but how much sway can two hold over one? After all, fear and rage sometimes go hand in hand. They would stand to get a lot of things from us if our hopeful little baubles suddenly turned treacherous.

[ she can think of a hundred and one ways this all could go wrong. ]

Perhaps I am being over cautious. Paranoid, even. [ a scoff. ] But I cannot allow myself to be caught off guard.

[quaerit]

You could be right. I'd not much like being caught in the middle of the gods interfering with each other.

[ Because surely it wouldn't go well if one of the other two corrupted something Hope had done. Ciri is right to be wary, in the end. Gansey could do with being a little more so.

He's too given to optimism for his own good, even now. ]

It's difficult for me to think of such a good thing as dangerous. I suppose anything good can be, if the wrong person twists it around.

[ichaer]

My mind seems to immediately always go to the bad. How can this hurt me? How could this hurt my family? I've been forced to be on guard for a long time.

[ but now the wild hunt was gone. they were gone and now...

now she was trapped here. ]

But it is good you're an optimist. Even if I am concerned, it is good to have other views on the matter and especially so if they're good ones.

[fictionalised]

[ he's just an innocent(ish) person, minding his own business... (ish). okay, he's really just looking for mirrors to snatch up like kleptomania's going out of style. he's crouching down to pick one up and...

THWACK.

who the HELL is throwing mirrors around all willy-nilly. ]

Now that's just impolite. It isn't my fault you were unhappy with your reflection—

[ hawke picks the mirror up, staring into it. he nearly says aww, finding himself wondering how an image like this made her angry enough to throw it aside. he likes his; the negative reactions he keeps seeing are nothing short of bizarre. it all feels a bit like looking a gift horse in the mouth. ]

A snowball fight, that's adorable. This is what made you angry enough to throw it at my face? Do you hate kittens, too?

[ichaer]

[ ah... ] Hate is quite the strong word. Still, I prefer horses to cats.

[ nothing ever comes without a price.

this is, unfortunately, the way ciri has had to live since her youth. it is the reason that she finally gave up and threw the damning mirror away. the compulsions to keep looking at it and at the mirrors of others doesn't exactly sit with her either.

no matter how lovely the scene is. no matter how much she adores seeing her parents, ciri rather refuses to deal with anything brought to them by these 'gods' in the cave. still, the woman with two swords frowns and considers the rest of the question. ]

No, the compulsion to look at that thing for hours on end is what lead to me throwing it. Your face being in the way was a rather unforeseen part of the equation.

[fictionalised]

[ he's no cat person, but horses? for shame.

hawke frowns and raises an eyebrow. ]

I hear it helps to look where you throw things.

[ you could argue that he just gives in too quickly to the compulsion, but in all honesty, he doesn't need to be compelled to look at it. it's better than looking at anything else in this dismal city. it isn't a horrible demonic mirror that kills people as far as he can tell, so it's already better than some of the ones he's seen. hawke is of the mind that if you want to do something, you should do it — if someone wants to see the people they love, then look in the damn mirror. there sure isn't anyone he loves here. ]

Couldn't you just— oh, I don't know, not look at it? I'm all for violence, but it seems a bit unwarranted in this situation. It's a mirror, you aren't going to wake up in the morning with it staring at you and holding a knife.

[ichaer]

I'm sure you'll survive.

[ she's rather reminded of lambert at the moment. he certainly had a hard head, perhaps it's the same for this one too? ]

Would the mirror be the same size, you think? Perhaps it would have even held an equally tiny knife in its hand! [ ah, she cannot help but laugh. ] Nevertheless, I was quite sure before that I wasn't going to awaken to several people possessed by cannibalistic spirits and turned into monsters just from eating meat given to us by the same gods. Thankfully, I am not a betting woman.

[ her brows furrow. ] And it is called a compulsion for a reason. I found myself looking at it even if I told myself otherwise, even if I distracted myself with other tasks and attended to other duties. No matter what I did, it was always on my mind and I even found myself wanting to look at the mirrors of others. Certainly not the best way to make new friends.

[fictionalised]

Really? [ he purses his lips. ] I'm making lots of friends. There's nothing like peering into someone's private life to make you bond.

[ no, there really is, but that would require hawke having things like shame and manners. as it is, he's entirely blatant about his ethical depravity. of course he's picking up mirrors and looking into them. what are they for, if not that? perhaps people shouldn't leave them around if they don't want them to be looked into.

or throwing them.

when it comes down to it, he has morals. he just doesn't happen to care about this. it's not like he's kicking puppies. most of these so-called embarrassing visions are more boring than anything else—there hasn't been a single truly humiliating one yet. it's disappointing. ]

Curiosity won't really kill the cat. Horse. Whatever it is you're into.

[ichaer]

Mm, admittedly though I'm still undecided if that way or my way is the better one when it comes to bonding.

[ her own is rather cute, it's not bothersome for others to see because most of her displeasure lays with the ones that created them and sent them out in the first place. though she did not wish for others to know of her powers in such a way but whatever, right?

it's not like she has the wild hunt to fear here. ]

Curiosity will not, no. I'm more concerned about the owner considering many of our kidnapped fellows are rather good with a sword and some with magic or perhaps even both. People here can be rather... intense, I suppose.

[fictionalised]

If they come at you with a sword, just hurl a mirror at them! You've already proven you're good at that.

[ just ask the bump on his head. he rubs it for good measure; it doesn't actually hurt that much, but it's more for dramatic effect than anything else. ]

Double the effectiveness if your mirror is holding one of those tiny mirror-sized knives you were talking about with its... nonexistent mirror hands.

[ well, this mockery is starting to lose steam. now it's just awkward and not very witty at all. hawke moves on before she has a chance to say anything, shrugging his shoulders noncommittally. ]

Maybe if there were better entertainment here, I wouldn't be so curious. But as it is, there isn't and I am. So who are they? [ he nods at her mirror, referring to the stars of her snowball fight. ] Your family?

[ichaer]

[ ciri raises her brows as he continues, the smallest of smirks appearing and she moves to rest her hands on her hips. needless to say, she's curious and almost slightly disappointed when it doesn't continue. ]

There are certainly plenty of monsters to go around if you ever grow too terribly bored. [ she adjusts the weight of her swords and nods. ] And yes, they're my family.

[fictionalised]

Hm, [ he says thoughtfully as he looks at the mirror again. he gets it. what he'd give to have a whole family again. does it make her happy like the image of bethany had made hawke, or is it more of a reminder of what she doesn't have? it's a glass half-full/glass half-empty situation, he supposes. ] Mine, too.

[ hawke could chat all day about his family — the live members of it, anyhow — but he doesn't make a point of spilling his life story to strangers on the street, so he changes the subject. ]

Is getting attacked by monsters your idea of fun? [ girl. not that he doesn't appreciate the thrill of a kill, but— ] It wouldn't be my first choice of entertainment. A close... twenty-first, maybe? No, bump it up to twenty, it's definitely above paying taxes.

[ichaer]

It seems to be a common thing, I've noticed. Seeing one's family.

[ or the future of creating new families. still, ciri is grateful for the change of subject. she had been reunited with her own family but she was still separated from there, unable to return. ]

Attacked? [ ha! she smirks. ] As if I would give them the chance to actually attack, let alone the pleasure of landing a blow on me.

[ mastering the pendulum was a tougher task than beating these monsters. ]

But, in truth, I am compiling a bestiary of the monsters here. It would be good to know of their weaknesses and strengths since many monsters, even though that existed in my own world, are vastly different. I am sure it is the same for others.

[fictionalised]

So, no, you don't enjoy being attacked by monsters, but your idea of fun is doing work. [ compiling a bestiary! putting all those pages together sounds so tedious. ] Well, I can't trust anything you say on the matter.

[ it doesn't sound totally horrible, he'll give her that, but still. actually being the one to compile it must mean so much menial work. (well, he's glad someone is doing it that isn't him, at least.) he shrugs his shoulders apathetically. ]

I suppose it's sort of interesting. The monster part, not the writing part. [ yeah, have fun with that, mirror-throwing chick. ] If you ever want someone who'll actually get attacked to do some [ the vocal equivalent of air quotes, because come on, getting clawed at isn't real research: ] "research," I'm very good at it. Being attacked. My natural musk must attract predators.

It's still not my first choice for a pastime, but numbers one through ten are almost definitely out, so.

[ichaer]

There's a saying I heard once, something about choosing a job you love and never having to work a day in your life. [ she pauses, frowning. ] Or something to that nature. Besides, fighting monster is about as exciting as it gets around here unless you're absolutely intrigued by petrology.

[ either way, she waves it off. ]

I'm certainly not interested in writing another Ghouls and Alghouls. I actually want people to read it, the shorter and more the point? The better.

[ just thinking about hours lost as a child getting through that huge tome. ugh, it gives her the shivers. ]

Typically I use goats or sheep as bait when hunting but since I have neither here, you shall do. Better conversationalist too, I'd hope.