The air was heavy, the quiet almost reverent. Astra stood before the mirrored wall of the empty training hall, his reflection multiplied into infinity — a thousand versions of himself staring back. His coat shimmered faintly under the pale light, and for once, there was no audience. Only the performer and the echo of his own presence.
He tilted his head, a soft smile playing at the corner of his lips.
When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of elegance and fatigue — words meant for no one but the man in the mirror.
"To be seen… that was my folly, my desperate craving. How foolish I was, how laughably naïve—to be born into youth adorned in the blinding theater of adoration."
He ran a gloved hand across the mirror's surface, his reflection rippling like water.
"Every gaze that fell upon me became a mirror, reflecting not who I was, but what the world desired to see. I mistook their fascination for affection, their applause for understanding."
His smile widened — not in joy, but in quiet mockery of himself.
The reflection mimicked him perfectly, flawless and hollow.
"I reveled in their awe—the whispers, the stares, the way they worshiped my polish, my beauty, the very performance of being me. I was a peacock of perfection, every feather a gesture of control. 'Look, and I exist,' that was my creed. Yet even then, I wondered why they plucked my feathers bare when the show was over."
A pause.
A breath like a sigh centuries old.
He turned from the mirror, hands sliding into his pockets, shoulders relaxed — posture of someone who's too used to looking composed, even when breaking.
"The gullible are always led astray, and I… I was the most spectacular of fools. Perfect. Stunning. Magnificent. Mesmerizing. Glorious… Egocentric."
He let the words hang, tasting them — each syllable a confession disguised as poetry.
"Every glance from another became both a blessing and a blade. They adored the mask, never the man. None of them knew me. None of them could."
"To be known would require me to fall — and I was far too beautiful to be pitied."
A soft, self-deprecating laugh escaped him.
He leaned against the wall, eyes closing as he continued, voice dropping to a murmur.
"There was no one left to blame but the artist who mistook his reflection for his soul. The fall wasn't ruin; it was revelation — liberation from the tyranny of applause. I am Icarus, laughing not for flight, but for the fall. To fall is to remember what flying cost."
He looked down at his open hand, flexing his fingers slowly — the movement deliberate, graceful. Each motion felt like part of an act, even in solitude.
"So I perform. Always. My control is my philosophy; my beauty, my weapon; my composure, my confession. The stage is not my prison — it's my kingdom. But even kings grow weary beneath the crown."
He met his reflection again — this time not with pride, but quiet mourning.
The silence between them felt heavier than the applause of a thousand crowds.
"What is mastery if not a graceful cage? What is perfection but loneliness refined into symmetry?"
"They never see the artist behind the art — only the stroke, never the hand."
A long pause followed. Then his gaze softened — the faintest tremor of vulnerability breaking through his usual composure.
"And yet… when the curtain falls, when silence drowns the echoes of admiration… I dream. Not of grandeur. Not of worship. But of a gaze unblinded by light — one that could see through the pose, through the artifice, and find the pulse beneath the porcelain."
"I am Astra Harrigan."
"I dreamt of being seen for what I truly am." His voice faded, almost swallowed by the stillness. "If such eyes exist… then let them find me, even if only in a dream."
He stood there for a while longer, watching himself in the mirror — the flawless image of control and confidence, and behind it, the quiet ache of a man desperate to be understood.