Shadow Slave

Sunny blinked a few times.

”The Demon of Imagination created a system of huge dams… to produce mirrors?”

Saint shook her head.

”Not produce mirrors. To create mirrors.”

He raised an eyebrow.

”What is the difference?”

While Saint considered the answer, Sunny looked around the dark church once again, noting the infinity mirrors stretching into the endlessness all around him. The colorful radiance of the stained-glass windows was trapped in them, creating beautiful kaleidoscopes. It was indeed a whimsical and beautiful sight worthy of the Demon of Imagination… and yet, Sunny could not see how Mirage and mirrors were connected.

He knew that there was a connection, though. There had to be.

After all, True Bastion was hidden in the reflection of the illusory Bastion, and two Great Mirrors — the real one and its reflection — were at the heart of two great castles. True Bastion was contained within the false Great Mirror, while the Palace of Imagination was contained within the true one.

And that was where the Others came from.

As far as Sunny knew, there was no other place in the Dream Realm where one could encounter the Others. At least he had not encountered such a nightmarish region yet.

So, it was hard to argue with the fact that there was a odd bond between Mirage, mirrors, and the Others.

But what was it?

Finally, Saint found the right words:

”According to myth, Mirage created mirrors. As in… she did not simply craft one, or even the first one — she crafted the very concept of reflections, and allowed the world to see itself for what it was. That is why other deities disliked and shunned her… because she showed them the most cruel sight of all. She showed them the truth of what they looked like, and of what they were.”

Sunny blinked a couple of times.

Effie was busy carrying boxes out of the trunk of her car, while Morgan was staring at her reflection with a peculiar expression on her pale face. So, he was the only one left to ask questions:

”What do you mean, crafted the concept of reflections? That does not make any sense. What did the world look like before she invented mirrors, then? Were there no reflective surfaces anywhere at all?”

That sounded quite preposterous.

But then again…

That was a daemon he was talking about. Hope had invented the concept of writing, while Nether had created a whole race of living beings.

...Weaver had created the Nightmare Spell.

So who was to say that Mirage could not have invented the concept of reflections? Saint shrugged.

”This is a myth, after all. Myths do not need to follow logic or reason… at least not the kind of logic or reason we would recognize as such. It all seemed perfectly reasonable to people who invented these myths, though.”

She looked into one of the mirrors decorating the church.

”According to myth, Mirage was sad and lonely one day. She could imagine anything in the world, but she could not imagine herself. So, she decided to make something out of nothing to do what she could not, and entertain herself.”

Saint pointed to her reflection.

”So, Mirage found a place where water flowed across the mountains and created a series of dams and complicated lock systems. That was how the Mirror Lake was born, even if it was not called that back then yet. The Mirror Lake was vast and perfectly flat. Its surface was meant to become the first mirror.” ℝ𝐚NŎᛒЁⱾ

Sunny could not help but blink a few times.

’Huh.’

So that was the secret of the great dams and vast artificial lakes Mirage had created?

Those lakes… were simply massive mirrors of her making?

The first mirrors to ever exist.

That definitely gave the name of the Mirror Lake a new meaning.

’Leave it to daemons to do everything on a completely ridiculous scale.’

”So what happened next?”

Saint looked at him evenly.

”According to one myth, she took mist from a distant mountain chain and trapped it in the water. Strange creatures dwelled in that mist, and they became trapped in the lake, too — those creatures were shapeless and only existed when one looked at them, but she bent them into taking the shape of whoever looked into the water, and whatever faced the water. The first thing the creatures beheld was the moon, and so, the first mirror was born when moonlight touched the surface of the lake.”

She sighed.

”According to a different myth, she trapped nothing in the water, and imprisoned nobody in the lake. But when the moon rose above the world at night, Mirage imagined touching it, and so, nothing became something, giving birth to the first reflection. In any case, after that, the creatures created by the Demon of Imagination out of nothing spread, eventually populating all of existence. It is just that they dwell in a place between somewhere and nowhere — the Mirror Realm — and rarely come in contact with the real world.”

Sunny stared at her with wide eyes.

’Wait… why does that… make sense?’

If he were indeed to believe that Mirage created the very concept of reflections, then she would have needed building blocks to realize her grand design. The mist from a distant mountain chain… that had to have been pure nothingness from the Hollow Mountains.

Sunny had noted once that the Nothing Creatures and the Others were alike, in some regard. After all, the Nobodies only came into existence when they were perceived by someone. Similarly, reflections only took shape when one stood in front of a mirror — if there was nothing to reflect, the mirror remained empty.

The Others thrived on being witnessed, too.

So wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that the Nothing Creatures and the Others… were kin?

It was just that the former were wild and untamed, while the latter were domesticated and reshaped by the Demon of Imagination, becoming a closely related, but entirely new kind of beings.

Like wolves and dogs.

Mirage had first created the Others in the Mirror Lake, and from there, they spread everywhere, until mirrors and reflections were commonplace throughout existence. As if an addition was made to the universal laws forming it.

Building an entire new concept on top of the universal laws of existence. That… would indeed have been an accomplishment worthy of a daemon.

Saint smiled faintly.

”Mirage beheld herself and surrounded herself with reflections. So, she wasn’t sad or lonely anymore.”

Sunny shivered.

’The great taboo placed upon the daemons by the gods.’

Daemons had been prohibited from siring offspring, and many — maybe most of them — had tried to rebel against that prohibition in one way or another. Weaver had created the Lineage, Nether had created the Stone Saints, Hope had settled among humans and nurtured them, Ariel had raised the Jade Queen…

So what had Mirage done?

Had she created the Others, populated her Palace of Imagination with them, and enjoyed their companionship to lessen her solitude?

If so, then the Palace of Imagination might not have been merely a daemon’s playground…

It might have been a place where her own fantasy had come true.