Another drabble I did for iyissekiwa's Mirror challenge. It didn't place, but that's ok :)
A little InuMama angst for you. Enjoy!
-Ash
She lay the inlaid looking glass facedown, unable to come to terms with the woman who stared back at her. A gift from her father during better times, she had held onto the mirror as the last remnant of her formerly happy life, after selling most of her meager collection of beautiful things. Now it was her sole possession in this new life, this new existence she had forged for herself.
Who knows what people thought when they looked at her? Any number of descriptions could be used; the exiled princess, the woman in disgrace, the outcast…the whore. Each as true as the next, each with its own set of consequences and repercussions—but they meant nothing. Human or demon, it didn't matter what they thought-it had taken quite a while for her to realize that. A woman raised to serve as an ornament, to give the world the face they desired didn't understand at first how other's opinions could be cast aside. Image mattered. That's what her father had said.
But now she could see how ridiculous that was. Image didn't matter. People don't matter, demons don't matter. How she looked didn't matter when her son was hungry.
How her son looked didn't matter. It didn't-it shouldn't. He was a child, innocent of her crimes, of his father's lust.
Shaking her head, she picked up the mirror and hurled it across the dirty little hut she was occupying, grimly satisfied with the tinkling sound of broken, precious glass.