Daily artwork #446 // Pandora's box: Reflecion (Patreon)

And here we are! The final Pandora's box as we know it :) Featuring the thane, once again. This one is more special and magical than the previous ones for me. I really enjoy this bit of the lore and I feel it's incredibly important. It's also become incredibly important to me personally, as I can relate to it on a certain level. It gives me closure, it gives me joy and I am so happy to be able to play an important role in the making of this series!

As always, accompanied by a lovely short by Aksan. READ IT! <3

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Back up the hill a little, out of sight but not earshot, was the camp, his bonds and a chosen collection of daughters. No doubt fawning over their queens to their delight or at least amusement. Their faint voices were noticeable to him still, and he knew when he spoke they would be aware, but by now both bonds were comfortable enough with his foibles and knew well that he spoke to himself. Or so they all believed.

With a certain melancholy he laid his hand on the surface of the lake and watched the image in the water shift. “You aren’t my reflection,” he told the white-scaled form that looked back, lips unmoving. “You are no simple inversion of me.” Caspinarch paused, ordering the next thought in his mind, not intending to give the reins of the conversation to the hallucination.

“For my kindnesses are far less numerous than your cruelties,” the figure in the lake sneered, “Even in the foundations of your world view you are egotistical.”

No reply from the huge, lounging figure, just a long stare out over Lake Denok.

“And yes, even with your reformation, that holds true.” His laugh rang out over the water. “You may shine with nobility compared to what you were, but you are no paragon.”

“Then are you my conscience?” the Old Blood suggested, “With all the frustrations that my callous disregard for humanity has brought?”

“You, you, you,” the spectre mockingly called, still mimicking his posture beyond the rippling surface, “Still attached to the idea I must be some part of you.”

“If you aren’t, then why can only I perceive you?”

Mist hung with the question in the morning air. Beyond the hues and distortion of the surface the reflection became more recognisable, relaxing the great sire as the dissonance faded. Queensthrone was slowly emerging from the hazy vista. To think he’d walked so far this day to not see where he had begun. Not any more, with each minute he sat upon the shore and thought it grew clearer.

“I am not of you,” the reflection spoke, consigned to looking like the subject it spoke to this time, “I am of what you think you are, but not of your true self.”

It took him a little while, juggling the words and concepts until he thought them right. “For I am not my body, merely a passenger in it?”

“Good boy.”

“Then, if you are of my flesh, but not my mind; what would you hold yourself to be?” No answer for now. “Some Tenth Sire? The Eighth Sister? Something not Old Blood? You do seem–”

“The Eighth Sister,” the voice erased his to be heard, “I am fond of that.”

“Fond?” he murmured, “Is that a hint of positivity I hear from you?”

“I do have some.”

“I can’t say I’ve yet encountered it.”

“Of course not.” The reflection seemed distant now, broken by the waves of his shaking hand. With a harsh glare he stilled it as the now faceless image spoke on. “You are so self-obsessed. There is little space for my wants and hopes in your pitiful self-indulgence. How would you learn anything of me when your mind is set on rumination? You seek only forgiveness for your life and you will not find me in the fantasies that would grant it to you.”

“Yet, you are undoubtedly of the fantastical persuasion,” he muttered, eliciting a glow of some kind from beyond the surface of the lake. “Then let me ask now, as much as any mind might know it.” A mutual scoff. “What do you want?”

“Control.”

“Of?”

“That which you think of as you, but isn’t.”

“No.”