It had been awhile since he...she..? had sat at her family dinner table. Elle was born the youngest in a family of three children. Her mother was a vain woman-- after having her first child, she was able to keep her figure and beauty. She had her second child and swore she would never have another. She still managed to keep her body in check. Diets, exercise, and the will to stay thin helped her through. She took birth control, did everything right, so why? Elle peaked towards the stairs to the attic and suppressed a shudder. The reflection room. How many times had she been broken down in that room? Everyone had thought she had committed suicide, in reality, she hadn't. However, she would have probably done so sooner or later. This was a family who pursued what they wanted with a tenacity that frightened even there closest friends. If he wanted to drive a competitor out of business, her father would not stop until it was done. If he wanted to rule his campus, her eldest brother would rule with an iron fist. If he wanted to be the top student academically in high school, he would become the top student in the world by college. If she wanted to stay young and beautiful forever, what was stopping her? Her mother would have found a way... if she had not been born. Elle was the only child in the family-- the only one in the family-- who did not pursue what she wanted. Maybe that attitude that was always compromising, always complementing, always the yes-man was what made her the black sheep of the family. She was a rabbit born to a family of wolves. She was a pretty child, but that was something her mother hated about her. She was a leech that sucked away all her beauty. Hours upon hours in the reflection room had taught her what she had done wrong. A thief. The one who stole her mother's looks and pride.
Elle forced her gaze away from that part of the house and tried to focus on cutting her meat. A shrill sound echoed through the house as her knife cut into the plate. Elle froze, not daring to look up.
"Is this how you've taught her?" her father eyed her mother. He got up and walked out. Her mother blushed, furiously, and grabbed her arm.
"How many times is this? How many more times do I have to tell you." Elle cried silently, and endured the pain in her shoulder as she was dragged from the table and shook. The crisp sound of her mother's palm striking her cheek, echoed through the dining room. She was dropped and cowered at her mother's feet. "There's only one place for you." Elle looked up.
"No! No! Mother, please!" she was dragged towards the reflection room, crying the whole way.
...
Elle knelt in front of the giant mirror. This room was surrounded in mirrors. There was nothing but wall after wall after wall. Silence echoed from the surface, and Elle was forced to sit and look at herself. All her imperfections, all the sins she committed, all of them were reflected back in the mirror. Elle glared at herself, sullenly.
"It's all your fault, you know." she muttered to her reflection, "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. Mother would love me and would look like a fairy queen. Father would be proud to have me as a daughter. My brothers would be like the ones I see at school, if it weren't for you." She watched as tears streamed down her reflections face. It was never until she left the reflection room, that she realized that she had been crying too.
"What the hell is this room? It's so tasteless." someone said. Elle spun around and looked at a lanky kid with dark hair.
"Are you a dark wizard?"
"Huh?" the boy gave her a look.
"Then, a dark fairy."
"Wait, why are you asking me this?"
"Cuz you're pretty but also all dressed up in black."
"So, what? You're an angel because you're pretty and dressed up in white?"
"I'm not pretty." The boy sighed and sat next to her.
"So what are you then?"
"Ugly and bad. Dumb, stupid, and clumsy."
"Who told you that?"
"Everyone."
"Wow. Everyone must be blind then."
"They are not."
"You're pretty."
"Am not."
"Are too!"
"Are not!" The boy grumbled.
"Fine. You're not pretty. You're not smart. You're not... not clumsy." Elle pouted and looked away, "You're beautiful, and brilliant, and wise... and clumsy."
"Is that the same thing?"
"No. You said you weren't pretty. I said that you're beautiful instead. You're apparently not smart, since your mother said you were stupid, so you must be brilliant. You're wise. And you're clumsy." The boy held her close, "C'mon."
"Come where?"
"You aren't planning on making your husband go back on his own are you? Ming Ran, let's go."
...
Ming Ran opened his eyes to find that he was floating in a lake of stars. He looked around and remembered that he had been here before. A figure appeared before him.
"Elle." His reflection smiled back at him.
"Been awhile. I won't be able to see you again, just so you know. This time, you're going to have to figure out where to go without your reflection to talk to."
"Where are you going?" The reflection shrugged.
"I'm tired of being left behind. Everything else has moved on, but me. If the past lives on as if it is still in the present, how miserable would that be? Everything has its time, and mine has long since passed. You and me both. We're going to go where we want to go. I'll be waiting for you. One day, when finally you're ready to move on and live in the present, I'll meet you again. At that point, the two of us can finally be together as one person."
As though a mirror was shattering around them, the sky lake disappeared alongside the reflection that had so long been tainted with self-hate. Like that, Ming Ran woke up to find a large cluster of stars around both him and his husband. Cang Mu smiled gently at him, and kissed his forehead.
"Welcome back." The stars all gathered in their wrists. They had beat their first dungeon.