Just Smoke and Mirrors
Why doesn't Jack look at reflective surfaces?
It's an old story that mirrors reveal your deepest secrets- the ones you hide away and pretend you don't know until imagination becomes reality, and then you look in a mirror and all those secrets come back. Even if you aren't aware they are there…
Jack, in all his three hundred and two years of having the last name of Frost, has only once looked into a reflective surface- even his ice was opaque, unable to reflect any figures. For the first three hundred years, Jack couldn't pinpoint as to why he adherently refused to so much as glance at his reflection again, no matter how many times he looked through a window, the reflection was ignored.
It was only after he regained his memories from that golden box that he realized why.
The ice that day was smooth- no cracks, no ridges, perfect for skating. But it wasn't- it was too thin, and Jack paid the price with his life for making a mistake. The ice reflected the fear in his sister's eyes, disoriented by the cracks that kept growing larger. Then the sounds like gunshots and the water so cold it burned. Then darkness, then the moon, and three hundred years of cluelessness.
The one thing that upset Jack most, though, wasn't the silence or lack of touch. Oh no.
It was his reflection.
It was, at first, just like him- blue-eyes-white-hair-pale-as-death-him. Then, it morphed, snow white and icy blue turning to earthen brown and chalky white returning to peachy skin… then it shifted again, brown hair changing to the deepest black, irises changing to storm grey without snowflakes, skin turning sickly grey and clothes changing to that of a dark prince's, lavish materials all coated in the darkest black with hints of gold and white.
It was the last one that scared him right to his very core, and he vowed to never look at his reflection again, lest he once again see the fearsome image. And he held true to that for three hundred and two years. Until one day, the Guardians had a meeting at the North Pole. Believe it or not, they actually did change positions for the meetings, but it was about every twenty years or so and all social gatherings were held at the Pole unless otherwise stated.
North, being the personification of wonder, had pretty much everything in his castle of a workshop.
Including a hall of mirrors.
Jack, however, didn't know this, so when he was exploring (a habit he was prone to- something new? Explore it,) he stumbled into it. He froze in sheer horror at his reflection, waiting for it to change.
It did, going to what he realized was the human version of him, the colonial kid named Jackson Overland, the one who drowned to save his sister from icy water so cold it burned.
Then it shifted again, to the Dark Prince version, something Jack had nicknamed Jack Night. Expensive looking clothing that belonged to an age long gone, no more snow white or chocolate brown hair, instead, hair black as pitch (the material). Pale and peachy skin turning grey as storm clouds…
And most unsettling was the mischievousness in his eyes- the only thing semi recognizable, twisted though it was. The image still scared him, shocked him to his very center. He fell to his knees, staff clattering to his side, to horrorstruck to realize the sound it made had attracted the attention of the rest of the Guardians… and his little sister, Poppy, who had become the Spirit of Laughter.
It was Poppy, who Jack called Pippa to annoy her, who noticed the sound first, followed by Bunny, Sandy, North, and finally, Tooth. Poppy jumped out of her seat and ran straight for the sound, the others following her. Bunny was surprised at her speed- she was easily staying in front of him. But, he pondered as he ran, she was friends with the Wind and she had adrenaline fueling her.
Poppy slid to a stop as soon as she saw her brother, who was kneeling on the floor looking at a reflection of him. She couldn't really understand why his own image plastered that terrified look on his face (the only time she ever saw him scared was that day on the ice…) until her vision shifted, too, and she realized exactly why he was stone still.
Jack had told her, in great detail, how he became a Guardian. That included the encounter with Pitch in Antarctica and the offer he was given. He admitted to being tempted, but he gave himself a minute to look through Pitch's sugarcoated words into the truth.
That minute, he told her, had carried the world, for if he had agreed, he had no idea what the world would look like. All he knew was that there would be cold and dark and fear. And that's not what he wanted.
And, looking into the mirror, Poppy and Jack knew- this is what would've happened if Jack had said "yes".
A friend of Poppy's had once told her that "those who have power or seek it for their own needs are often corrupted by it." Poppy was seeing that illusion now. But that's all it was- an illusion. And now she had to convince Jack it was.
Slowly, not to alarm him, Poppy crept towards the frost child, who couldn't turn away from the awful vision. She knelt down beside him, her reflection appearing next to Jack Night's.
"You remember little Timmy?" she asked in a low, innocent voice, "How he always wanted to be a magician and would always show us these little mind tricks? You always called him out, you know, because you used sticks to measure the distances and read the sentences backwards. You knew that it was showing you the opposite of what you saw. And when I asked you about it, all you told me was that it was 'smoke and mirrors and sun-addled thoughts of people who see what others want them to.' That's all this is Jackson- smoke and mirrors."
The use of his full name startled Jack out of his horror. His arms curved around his sister, who hugged him back. Jack dared another glance into the mirror, and this time he didn't see him, or human him, or Jack Night.
No, this time he saw himself, a mixture of his spirit and human attributes, with a pair of white wings on his back, the edges hinted with dark blue and frost.
Beside him sat his sister, looking she did now, as the Spirit of Laughter, only with blindingly bright golden wings with a thick thread between her hands. Jack's staff didn't look as worn; instead, it looked as if it had just been freshly carved. They sat on their lake, the full moon too large and too bright behind them for this place to be real.
Jack realized this was a vision of their true selves- Jack, as a Guardian, had wings, and as a Bringer of Winter, had his winter coloring.
But Poppy was the true hero- the one who made sure that the Guardian who kept his peers believing in themselves believed in himself as well.
Jack Night was just what Poppy said- smoke and mirrors, an image of what might've been but never could be.
This was just an illusion, too, but all illusions have a measure of truth to them.
This all happened within the span of a second. Jack pulled his sister even closer and whispered in a language long forgotten "Please don't leave."
"I'll stay till the end of time and beyond even that," Poppy replied in a language as old as the stars.
The language of the wind, which blew all the smoke away from the mirrors, revealing exactly what should be there:
A family not bound by blood, but by something far stronger- friendship and love.
A/N: Angst. Angst. MORE AGNST. Jack has enough angst, why am I adding more?
Anyway, this is an old Kataang week prompt that just inspires a lot in me. I took the last name Zorua Illusion for a reason you know! I always think of a dome of mirrors with smoke being pumped in, like a maze, where you're always lost because it's impossible to map and you can hardly see, but eventually, you either get lucky or destroy everything in your path to escape. Or, an image you hate, but can be blown away, like smoke. As I said, it's very inspiring to me, and thus, this was born!
And don't fret my lovely FiLiAL followers, and AKA… FiLiAL's next chapter is in the works, but is very slow, as is the next chapter of AKA. I apologize for the lack of updates in those stories, especially AKA.
About the Language of the Wind: The Wind was the only constant company of Jack for the 300 years we never saw. I always thought that eventually, he would come to understand it as well as it understood him, and perhaps it kept him out of trouble. Poppy can hear the Wind, as is mentioned in Poppy Overland, Spirit of Laughter, because of her relation to Jack and the fact that the Wind was elated to find someone Jack might've been able to talk to.