Disclaimer: I don't own any of the books, musicals, or movies entitled Phantom of the Opera.
Reflections
A face is a curious thing, changing and shaping itself throughout a lifetime. There are few creatures, if any, outside the human race that can boast of such a change.
Christine's face reflected back from her gilded mirror. Today was her sixty-third birthday. The lines that had etched themselves onto her surface were not mere indicators of age. Only children thought like that. No, there were crows feet beside her eyes, for years of laughter with her children. There were lines across her brow from years of thinking, reflecting. The lines beneath her eyes came from rubbing them a thousand times over, especially on nights when she'd cried herself silently to sleep.
She sighed with both heaviness and bemusement. Every woman is a little vain, of course, somewhere inside.
The ache in her joints is from dancing, something she misses more and more with her growing age. Or perhaps it's youth that she longs for, to be lithe and limber and able to jump across a stage without needing bed rest immediately afterward. This thought makes her chuckle, drawing out the smile lines. She looks at herself with concentration, and this too draws out lines.
The hair around her head, fully white for some time now, tells of the trials and terrors that have bleached them clean. Her skin, though not as supple as it once was, is still fair enough to make her a lovely dame.
It's almost like a picture book, she muses to herself. Like a story drawn eagerly by time across the expanses of our own person.
She leans back, sitting up straight in her chair like a proper lady, and her image becomes blurred. Eyes, after years of letters both fond and sad, tend to get old too. Every piece of her that's seen and felt reminds her of the past. Perhaps it's that she has much more past now, compared to when she was a girl of sixteen. The unsteady pitter patter of her heart, a reminder that it too has been well worn, tells her that perhaps it's because the past becomes nearer before it leaves us all together.
A deep breath focuses her mind, and she rises regally from her chair, straightening her gown needlessly. It is her birthday party, after all, and it would be a shame to be late. Tucking a single rose, a birthday gift from a ghost, into her hair, she muses to herself that reflections, though remarkably accurate about what HAS happened to us, still fail to portray what we are. They're like a mask.
Inside, beneath the worn bones and white hair of Viscountess de Chagny, is Christine Daae. She longs to dance, loves to sing, misses her father, and is educated constantly, whether he means to or not, by the memory of Erik, professional Phantom of the Opera.
A knock on the door followed by a voice as a servant tells her that the guests are about to arrive. She glances back at her hazy reflection, and Christine Daae is gone, hiding again beneath the mask that makes her feel confident enough to live in the world outside.
Her regal figure descends the stairs, eloquently greeting guests. The party spins around her like a dream, and she wonders to herself if it could be. She certainly doesn't feel like it's really her sitting there, discussing children and grandchildren all in the same breath.
She glances at the dancers enviously, her fingers nimbly tapping the familiar rhythm. She finds, in this moment, that all the security in the world doesn't make the Viscountess de Chagny a pleasant person to be. She would trade all of her fancy dresses and expensive jewels just to be sixteen again, and free.
For those of you who don't know, in the movie Christine dies at the age of 63 (if you look at the birth and death dates on the tombstone). This would have been her last birthday.
Hopefully you liked it, and I didn't depress you thoroughly with my brooding 'end of life' fanfic.
Thanks for reading.
Kiri