A strange rift opens up showing a world where the powerful Wraithvine is as cruel and as arrogant as any elf could be. WITH all of hir abilities intact. The gentle one must confront, contain, and close the rift before that one enters hir world. -- Anon Guest
Always be wary of magic mirrors.
Some are useful, but most of them are traps made of vanity and narcisism. They will show a deepest desire, but that yearning is forever out of reach. The view in the frame is too captivating, and it never shows the means to reach the treasure the viewer has in mind. They will show a future, but the viewer can never be sure if it's the viewer's confirmed destiny, or a future that the mirror wants to happen. Mirrors like that one can kill the indecisive by inflicted inertia.
Mirrors of farsight might be helpful, but not often. They're extremely rare, and it's wise to test them. Fakes exist.
This one, according to the ever-readable runes on the frame, would show the world as it may be if the viewer made a different choice in their life. Naturally, Wraithvine approached it with every possible caution. Especially because it was a full-body mirror.
Mirrors like that were very often portals to worse realities.
It did not show an alternate Wraithvine, so that was a positive sign. What was ominous was Wraithvine hearing hir own voice from the mirror, repeating hir oath.
"I will make this world a better place before I die."
Hir decision in that moment, Wraithvine recalled with a chill, was what 'better' actually meant. So the view through the mirror was that of a nightmare. If ze had been as arrogant as every other Elf at the time, ze would have decided to make the world a better place for Elvenkind.
And Elvenkind alone.
No Dragons soared the skies of the world in the mirror. The continent showed a precise patchwork of Elven territories, centred on shaped trees or sculpted mountains.
No cities consisting of storied architecture. No interesting solutions to problems Elves would solve with magic. Arbordeep was there, but it was sculpted nature, not a nest of multicultural blending. Not a meeting place of ideas and Adventurers. Just the swooping lines of Elven aesthetics unchanged since the first of the Xenophobia Wars.
No change, no growth, just the perfection envisioned by the first Elves.
"There you are," cooed Wraithvine's own voice. Sweeping up on summoned wings, the Wraithvine who chose Elven idealism rose into view. Dressed in pristine Elven robes, hair dressed in a style that bragged hir status and rank to all, the other Wraithvine the Eternal looked haughty and proud.
Hir other self didn't have a Wizarding hat. No fly-dragon. No cat. No friends.
"What a mess you've made," said the Other Wraithvine. "A world full of mutts and misbegots. Hardly any space at all for perfection. I shall defeat you as easily as I defeated the others in our little battles. Then I shall improve that wreck of a world you made."
Of course the mirror was a portal. Of course the Other Wraithvine stepped through. Of course the Other Wraithvine summoned the most powerful magic ze knew.
Wraithvine, who had spent millennia learning from other people, countered it easily, and blasted hir doppelganger back to the world ze belonged to. "You stay in your world, and I'll stay in mine. And while you're there... do think about why I was able to do that. And why our goddess has yet to let you rest."
Then, without any further warning, Wraithvine shattered the mirror. All the better to protect people from its power.
[Photo by The Cleveland Museum of Art on Unsplash]
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