Mirror Mirror

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Entry:

The mirror never lies. Or does it?

Niclas used to be able to make it lie for him. It used to be that there was not a hair or thread out of place. That a well-practiced smile, warm and polite, greeted him every morning. Now, it was getting harder to hide the evidence of the sleep deprivation and the stress. The darkening circles under his eyes; the tinges of bloodshot; the deepening lines of constant worry. He could no longer force the edges of his lips to curl in any smile. And his eyes… There was no escaping his eyes. When had they become so dull?

There was nothing majestic to behold about the newly crowned king.

His losses were beyond his comprehension. His brother, dead. His older sister, disappeared. His mother, after two decades of being missing, had finally returned but behind her trailed two bastard children. And the father… Niclas looked down from the mirror, leaning against the vanity the mirror hung above, his knuckles pressing against the wood. He had to decide what to do with the father. It should have been an easy decision. The man was a Bloodwarden, oath-bound to protect the royal family- and to celibacy- but began an affair with the queen regardless. The only practical decision was to have him executed. For the honor and reputation of the Bloodwardens as well as his own family and by extension the throne. For the personal betrayal to his father. For himself.

But he had felt forced to execute before. He had washed his hands in blood in the name of righting a wrong and he was not so sure it did anything good for anyone at all. In fact, he was quite convinced all it did was bring death to those who need not die.

He had taken the time to look upon the man’s children, to speak with them. For all his pain, he could not rightly blame them for their birth, nor could he claim they deserved to lose to their father. Who did? Niclas had not been close to his father, but his death had hurt all the same. There was love there that could not be devalued.

Love.

His mother… loved that man. Would Niclas take something so dear from her as well? She had to have known… She had to have… She was cruel to come anyway. To force him to decide the fate of a man he himself had held in such dear memory. Yes, he remembered the man who now sat in the dungeon with nothing more to do but think and think and think on his crimes. Niclas had cherished the memory of him. Now it was little more than tattered, embittered remains of a warmth he had once clung to.

He raised his eyes slowly to the mirror again, the expression of upset reflecting deep in watery blue eyes. How dull would those eyes be if he executed the man? If he put to death a beloved father? If he burned away the last of that memory? He did not want this decision. He did not want this weight. He did not want to know that he could live with himself afterwards.

If he could… who would it be looking back at him then?

If only the mirror would lie for him again. It might be easier then.