Jealousy

(( To go with this song. ))

The mirror stares back at her, reflecting a face of exhaustion and scorn. Dark circles plague her eyes, which have only just enough brilliance in their glow to sate the standards of the Sin'dorei. Keepsakes of pictures that have faded from either wear or time litter the edges of the reflective pane, reminding the girl of times of a carefree bliss. A girl far happier than she smiles back at her.

Silence, empty of simple chores or casual study, haunts the girl's room, swallowing up what little manner of calm there is. Not even the usual annoying, although faint, hum of the arcane crystals that have been scattered in the room for decorative touches manages to break the void of sound. The room stands hollow of her vibrant cheer.

Such a pretty face.

Her dry lips twitch, a dodge of a smile. A flicker. A phantom. Her blank gaze carves into the face in the mirror, picking at the impurities; the drying skin, a small, pitiful rise of a pimple, even the embarrassing and stale trails of her tears that remain on her cheeks. Compared to the usual beauty that she easily keeps, the girl feels a fraud in her seat. She is an imitation of herself, somehow.

Beautiful brown hair.

The coarse bristles of her brush run slowly through her chestnut curls, smoothing and taming their stressed rings. As it straightens, a flash appears with a face, replacing her image with its own for a blink. The magess stills for only a moment, then returns to her idle grooming. Stroke, pet. Stroke, pet. Continuing, the locks are abused by the oils from her hands, causing a limpness and a shine of grease. Stubbornly, she keeps at it, as if combing and brushing and teasing her hair will make it return to a clean and tidy style. Her efforts are, needless to say, futile.

She slowly sets the brush back to its rightful place, beside her perfumes. A small tangle of her hair has been caught in the bristles, and lay restrained atop them.

And that figure! He cannot help himself.

Héra rises, allowing her body to be the object of the mirror's gaze. Her nightgown sits loosely over her hips, all the easier to shed in the heat of these stuffy rooms. A hand rests itself on her stomach, which only just begins to pudge out. She frowns, feeling the invisible weight of cinnamon rolls and pickled olives and candied goods and sweet fruit by the basketful. If disgust were fat, she'd easily fill the room with her folds of flesh and excess self.

The hand slides to her bottom, where a shame rises to the skin.

So new. So fresh.

She frowns, her bottom lip jutting out in a wrinkling pout.

So full of potential.

As eyes are cast upon the wall facing Jakobus' office, his young student exhales out a wisp of frosty air. A glint, a hidden display, of her displeasure cracks the mask she is so often to wear. She can almost hear it break, alongside the twisting mess that fills the pit of her stomach. Her memory of the night lingers and bites at her core.

Seems so easy to find, these days, mh?

Disgust shifts into uncertainty before her own eyes, while every feeling in her seems to sink lower, dragging their weight down her limbs. Her arms cross, to hold her diminished self. Exhausted cheeks droop with her frown. A peasant among her noble trappings.

One moment, you're all that he needs. And the next...

Fading into the world like a creeping darkness is the ticking metronome from her bookshelf. Its steady beats pick at the absence of sound, chipping away more and more of the girl's barrier of emotion. Tic tic tic tic tic...

How easily you've become...

She, herself, begins to tic-tok along with the metronome, twitching so faintly to its rhythm.

Just another pretty face. 

"SILENCE!!" It breaks, everything, with her furious shriek.

Frost, in sheets and spikes and crawling ice, cracks along the vanity table and spreads up the face of the mirror. How swiftly it consumes the simple structures of her nightstand, and juts out hazardously along the walls. A trail of thorn-like frozen rivets splinters over the wall pattern and up to the light fixtures, shattering their glowing crystals with contained, but powerful, bursts of energy. The bookcase creaks and groans under the unbearable change of temperature. A few of her glass figurines crack as they, too, are engulfed in frost.

"ME!! I AM HIS PROTEGE!!"

Héra turns, staring at the young scholar's wine glass that she had never placed back among its brothers downstairs. A cone of ice breaches from the table surface, sending bits of the fragile goblet into the air. Howling with her rage, she lifts an arm to block the shards from hitting her face. Her balance, like the magic so hastily wielded, falters and she staggers back. Her backside slams into the vanity, jostling it too harshly against its frozen state.

The mirror splits and breaks, casting the girl's fractured doppelgangers around the floor and surface. Stunned by her outburst, the magess gazes down at her wreck of breakage and melting ice. Down, caught in the cushion of her vanity seat, stares a warped mimicry of herself.

Jealousy always looked so ugly on you, dear.