Of all the infirmities we have, the most savage is to despise our being. - Michel de Montaigne
He didn't do it often.
Karina - his chosen whore of the night - had said, "You have such pretty eyes." She was sweet like that sometimes. But tonight it lingered in him, longer than the sweat and the sex.
"Such pretty eyes."
She was asleep, and he had left the warmth of the bed to cross to the mirror above the washbasin. And, after a few hesitant moments, he summoned to himself the magic that was so much a part of him it might as well be his blood, and he did what he normally couldn't stand to do.
He made himself whole.
He glamoured himself to look as he should have been, were it not for a fiery night long ago. The scars smoothed away, his other eyebrow appeared... he mirrored the side of his face that hadn't been burned by the heat from magical flame. He didn't mirror the hair, it wouldn't look nice like that, but he created something appropriate for himself.
And he looked in the mirror at what, in another lifetime, Dylan Priest could have been. He didn't do it often. It was hard to look at his mother's nose, harder still to look into his father's eyes. No, not quite. Father's eyes were always cold, hard. Had been. Had been cold and hard. Make the past definitive, because Father was dead and so was Mother and there was no magic in the world that could change that.
Look at this handsome young man who would have had ladies swooning for his smile, who would have had the world at his feet with the twinkle in his eyes. A man like everyone else. A man who had never unleashed mythical fire and destroyed his family.
He banished the glamour in disgust and turned away from the mirror. That wasn't who he was, and it wasn't who he was meant to be. He was destined to be this, scarred and half-hairless, a man who had to buy love because he would never, ever have it on his own.
He'd accepted that long ago, but it stung tonight, made him want to scream at Karina, wake her up and tell her to get out, though that was absurd, this was her room in this house of ill-reputed delights. He wanted to hate her because he hated himself... for just a moment. It passed. It always passed. He didn't truly hate her; it wasn't her fault, and she was so sweet and innocent-looking in her sleep. They all were. He wondered if he looked "innocent" in his sleep. He doubted it. Innocence wasn't permanently marked by its sins.
He felt deflated, defeated, and he slumped into an overstuffed chair, a bit shabby from years of use, but still comfortable and elegant-looking, from a distance. He felt the tears come and didn't fight them this time. He was too worn down to try.
He wasn't sure why he was crying though. Mourning a lost life, a lost face, a lost family? Loathed self-pity? He didn't know but he knew he couldn't stop the tears. This was always what happened. The glamour, the disgust, the weakness and tears. This was the last step. He didn't do it often. But he knew he'd have to go through the whole thing.
"Pretty eyes."
He wondered sometimes why his other eye hadn't been burned, why it hadn't popped or melted or otherwise been destroyed. Perhaps so he could better see himself for what he was: killer of his parents, ruiner of lives. It was only right that he had to face that, that he had two eyes to stare into in the looking glass. His father's eyes.
Perhaps his eye had been saved because it was as cold as his father's stare, colder than the hottest flame. He didn't think himself at all like his father, didn't like to, didn't want to. Sometimes he still hated the man with childish passion. Sometimes he even blamed him for that night, and it felt triumphant, like a little boy who stomped his foot and demanded a new toy and got it.
But it was wrong. It was his fault, it always had been and always would be. Wrong to blame his father, unless it was to blame the blood in him. Part dragon. That had been a surprise. And his mother had known, and that was why she'd gone along with it. "My little dragon."
He closed his eyes against the tears. He couldn't really hear it in her voice anymore, but somehow he could still remember the way she'd said it: fondly, a touch of amusement. She'd known. He didn't blame her for not telling him; as a child, he wouldn't have understood.
He stood and made his way back to the bed, pulled the covers back just enough so he could slip in beside Karina, whom he'd chosen for her wicked grin, flashing eyes, and marvelous tits. She was sweet with her words sometimes though, as had been proven. She liked to cuddle in the afterglow, despite his face and his scars. He liked that. He didn't cuddle up to her, rolling onto his side so his back was to her. He stared out into the room until his eyelids were too sleep-heavy to stay open. No more gazing in the mirror at someone who looked like him but wasn't him, could never be him.
He didn't do it often.
