#beau clearshard

[spacechild-glitchypix]

A Mirror in a Locket

It used to be like looking in a mirror.

The picture in Willow’s locket was that of a woman with pale, fair skin, rose-pink eyes and bright orange hair, freckles splattered on her face in the exact same spots that Willow’s own were. The woman’s hair is down with two parts windowing her face, one of those parts in a braid. Willow used to have her hair like that at one point, an attempt to copy the woman in the locket. She never knew why she did it, maybe some force of nature just guided her hand or maybe she subconsciously hoped that copying her appearance would get the woman to reveal herself somehow.

Willow had this locket when she was found unconscious at the steps of the orphanage at the age of five. She didn’t know where she’d gotten it or who the woman within the picture inside of it was. Admittedly though, she didn’t know much of anything really, she couldn’t remember anything except her name, birthday and age. An amnesiac five-year-old, certainly an unusual addition to the orphanage’s already diverse roster of children but she managed to fit in with the other kids all the same. Maybe a bit too much as it turned out as she was never adopted, always overlooked for all the other kids. Not that she really cared, she had all the family she needed, not only in the woman in her locket but also in Endric.

Endric, her childhood friend.

She and Endric had left the orphanage at the age of 15 with enough money to buy a cottage and a stand to sell flowers that Willow would grow and tend to. By the time she was 18, she had fled from her hometown. She’d left behind almost everything. The locket was one of the only things she took with her, kept in her pocket and out of sight most of the time. Every so often, she would take it out and stare at what used to be like looking in a mirror. At the woman with the pale white skin, the pink eyes and the ginger hair. The only family she had.

She’d always assumed this woman had been her mother, not like there were many other people it could be. It was also the only thing Willow had to tell her she had any kind of family before the orphanage. She had dreamed of going looking for her when she was younger and that never really faded, even as she tried to convince herself that it was pure fantasy, that she didn’t even know if the woman in the locket was her mother and that she was probably dead anyway. Besides, she had Endric and he was like her cool brother who she was going to run a flower shop with, where would she even find the time to go looking for some woman in a locket when she had flowers to tend to and Endric. Endric, who had parents that he knew were dead and gone because he witnessed their deaths. Endric, who was the only person to approach her when she first joined the orphanage. Endric, who had been completely alone before she came to the orphanage. Endric, who she’d promised she’d stay beside and start a flower shop with. 

Endric, who she started that flower shop with. Endric, who she had almost up and abandoned without a word to go chasing after the woman in the locket. Endric, who had caught her just after she’d finished packing and started arguing with her, begging her to stay. Endric, who reached out towards the locket.

She panicked. She reached her hand up towards him- no idea why, she just did. There was a bright light and she was knocked backwards into a wall. She couldn't see for a second. Then she could.

Endric was lying motionless, his chest completely still and facing away from her. There wasn’t an obvious wound, she didn’t even really know what she’d hit him with but it didn’t take long for her to process what had happened. She had shot off some kind of spell in a panic and had hit Endric. She started hyperventilating as she managed to rush to his side, shaking him lightly as if trying to wake him up, punching him gently on the arm, grabbing a vase from the window sile and pouring the contents on his face and hoping for something, anything to prove that she didn’t just do what she thought she did! When none of that worked, she shakily placed her hand to where his pulse would be.

She couldn’t feel it. She shifted the placement of her fingers all over his wrist and then his neck but still, she couldn’t find it. Then she placed her head to his chest, hoping that maybe she would feel it if she went directly to the source. She lay there for a few seconds. Then a minute. Then five. Nothing happened. There was nothing there. Willow choked back a sob as she lifted her head.

She did this. She’d done this to him. She had done this to Endric, her best friend, her brother! She tried to break her promise to him and then she-

It was at that point she realised the very real, very serious repercussions of her actions. If people had found out what she’d done, she could be sentenced to prison, maybe worse! She was going to be executed for this, what had she done?! She couldn’t stay here anymore, she had to go! She needed to run!

So she did. Willow grabbed her locket, the money that Endric had stowed away in a safe and left in the register and a bag before bolting it out of town in the middle of the night, crying and trying to forget the sight of Endric laying on the floor of her bedroom. Eventually, she made it to the other town over and had spent some of the money she had buying new clothes, replacing her pink overall dress and gardening apron for a blue dress with purple sleeve ruffles and a pink corset. She replaced her blue wellington boots (that Endric had bought for her as a gift for her birthday) with a pair of brown lace-ups. For a final touch, she had bought a dark purple hooded cloak and a pair of fake glasses. Looking in the mirror, she thought it looked perfect save for one thing. Her hair.

She stared at the obvious orange locks, left down with one part in a braid and felt her ears fall as she realised that she was probably going to have to change it somehow.

She immediately decided against changing its length or colour leaving only the hairstyle left and, even then, she was hesitant. She looked back at her locket again, feeling her stomach turn as she thought about changing her hair at all. But she needed to, she needed to look different enough that she couldn’t be recognised if someone went looking for her. She looked at the different features of the woman before fixing her eyes on the braid. A braid. She could put her hair in a braid- no, two braids! Willow immediately pulled at the ribbon keeping her own miniature braid in-tact and looked at it before using her magic to turn the purple ribbon into two small purple hair ties and got to work, rearranging her hair and putting it into two braids.

She stared into her reflection from a nearby river, admiring her work as she placed the fake glasses in place and lifted the hood over her head. It was then she vowed that she’d find the woman in the locket at any and all cost. Even if the locket wasn’t a mirror anymore, she’d find the woman it depicted, her mother, no matter what.

She’d made that vow seven years ago, a broken yet resilient 18-year-old girl who placed way too much value in a woman in a locket she knew nothing about, so much value that she had accidentally murdered the only real family she actually had. Now, as a 25-year-old woman, Willow took one last glance at the locket. 

It wasn’t a mirror anymore, she had changed drastically in appearance with her fair skin now an almost sickly white, her rose-pink eyes now a sharp and frightening red, her bright orange her turned dark and dull and cut to shoulder length and her freckles having all but disappeared. She hadn’t meant to change so much, it hadn’t even been that long ago that the change had happened but change she did, it was either her looks or the memories of a member of her new family and she’d happily change her appearance all over again if it meant protecting that new family.

There was a vat of acid in front of her now, her two teammates dangling from a rope above it. It was either them or her locket the judge had said from beside her. She looked back up at her teammates, her family. River was staring at her sympathetically and something told Willow that he’d likely have completely understood if she decided to choose the locket which kind of pissed her off. She almost wanted to yell at him to put more worth in his own life goddamn it! Beau was reacting with an appropriate amount of concern and, honestly, Willow was just glad that at least one of her team members valued nis own life more than her stupid locket. Speaking of which. 

Willow glanced at the judge beside her, a smirk on her lips as she casually tossed the locket into the acid with nary a care in the world. Deep inside of herself, Willow could hear something break, could feel a small part of her wanting to reach out towards the locket as it flew towards the acid but she suppressed it. She wasn’t losing her family over that stupid thing ever again.

As the locket sunk into the vat, it all disappeared in a magical puff of smoke with River and Beau safely back on the ground. Willow looked towards them and let out a laugh. “You didn’t seriously think I’d actually kill you over a locket, right?”

“Considering how long you took to actually toss it, I honestly was,” Beau responded, wiping the nonexistent dust from nis labcoat while River rushed forward to pull Willow into a crushing hug. 

“I never doubted you for a second,” Willow didn’t believe that for a second but she let it slide as River put her down and the three saw an entryway open up from the wall of the room they were in. Beau was quick to make nis way towards it while River hung back for a second to pat Willow on the shoulder before rushing forward himself. Willow looked back at the stone judge and the empty space where the vat had been and shook her head before following her family to the next room.

She didn’t need mirrors anymore.