A/N: This is the first thing I've really written in a while that could be published here, and I figured what the hell?
This little thing happened when my friend gave me a one-word prompt and I just kinda... ran with it. All things considered, I'm happy with it.
Rating this K because on my second and third read-throughs at 2:30 in the morning, it seems suitably tame. If you think it needs adjusting, let me know.
Allen didn't like glass, most of the time.
That's why he had to throw that bit of bark into the otherwise mirror-smooth lake near their campsite.
He recalled suddenly the artists of Italy; those that took molten nothing (little more than sand, then copper or gold or cobalt for a vibrant green or red or blue) and shaped it, molded it to their fancy using just air. That glass, perhaps, was alright. It was expression, perception, design. It was humans taking something that could harm, maim, burn them and coaxing it into submission. Asking it kindly, patiently to cooperate, bend just a little further before it rests. It was a small, man-made miracle.
He crouched on the shore, glancing around his feet, hand sweeping across the twilit ground before he picked up a smallish stone, not yet worn smooth by the occasional shifts of the tide.
Clear glass was a strange thing, if he thought about it. Well-made, it was like looking through crystal. All-revealing, if not all-seeing. It had nothing to hide. If less well-made, its flaws were bright on display. Bumps, curves, hills and valleys in the surface that distorted the truth of things behind them, tiny pockets of air that were trapped within, holding a small part of the place they were made. A tiny time capsule that no one would ever open. It seemed such a waste to him. Either completely transparent, hardly noticable, incapable of hiding even important things, or so confused and half-formed that it can't tell what's what.
Standing, he flung the stone out onto the lake with perhaps more force (venom, malice) than he had intended, watching with some satisfaction as it shattered the perfect plateau of nature's own imitation of glass.
Glass that was etched or frosted at least had the ability to keep the secrets that it felt needed keeping, allowing selective glances of the facts and truth for scrutiny.
Mirrors are the worst, though, he thought as he sank to the ground, watching the ripples smooth back into a perfect reflection of the sky. Mirrors forced you to look at things, cruelly lighted and stripped of their secrecy.
It was a wonder Allen hadn't smashed every reflective surface he saw in the first week. He saw something in them that no one else saw, but everyone feared.
The hollow feel of his chest sharpened when he heard Link's whisper-quiet feet behind him. Turning to face him, he pulled his face into his usual bright smile. Back to acting, he supposed.