Work Text:
Rayla floated back against the cave wall, whatever brief moment of respite washed over by a new wave of anxiety as her sister and Mariposa shrunk into the distance.
“Boo!” From behind her, she heard herself-- but not herself-- exclaim, sending her into another shrieking fit as she propelled herself off that wall, coming face to face with her leering reflection once again.
“You! You were supposed to-- to go away!”
“I do not recall saying that,” she rolled her eyes. To Rayla’s annoyance, she couldn’t argue.
“What do you want?” With narrowed eyes and crossed arms, she continued floating backwards until she hit the other side of the cave. In an instant the voice echoed from that side, startling her out of her facade of bravery.
“I am you! I only want what you want! The glory, the attention,” Rayla stifled a groan at the reflection’s growing smirk as she nudged in her direction, “the greatest reward,” she teased, “but you--” she exhaled a loud sigh, and her demeanor shifted from playful to exaggerated disappointment. “You were too cowardly to go after it.”
“I was not!”
“But that is always how it was with you, you always tried to one-up her,” Rayla tried once more to turn away, only to face her one the other wall. Well… she should’ve seen that coming, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating.
“You cannot hide from yourself. Our style, our demeanor, we always followed in Rayna’s stead, but she was the one in charge. And now that you do not have her to follow, you cower; She had the courage to go on, but you, you were scared of your own reflection!”
It was true, they were similar in a lot of ways, and had been for as long as she could remember; they had been mistaken for twins countless times, even though there was a year between them. They competed and fought and tried to outdo each other at every turn, she was always the one to speak up, to yell at their attendants for being late, to tell off fairies who were bothering them or jump to Rayla's defense when she was the one being reprimanded, but that’s because she was just the louder one, right? Rayla had never thought of it as weakness, and yet... maybe the situation she found herself in was proof of that.
The fact that she’d stayed; not out of the desire to let them go on, not for any noble reason.
She stayed out of fear.
The voice was behind her now, louder, disconcertingly so, as if it were speaking directly into her ear, “...And now she will get everything.”
The sentence had broken her thought train of self-flagellation and put it into perspective. Rayla didn’t want everything, in fact what she wanted didn’t matter at all. So much more was at stake.
“This is not about that.”
“Is it?”
“...Not anymore. Rayna and Mariposa will find the antidote, I know it.” Her eyes darted about as she hovered to-and-fro without a clear direction. She was getting restless, fidgety, but there wasn’t anywhere to go where she couldn’t follow. Even the previous barrier-- Zinzie’s-- had clouded over and only served as another mirror for this twisted manifestation of her worst traits to mock her from. All she could do was try to stand firm and throw futile arguments at herself. Wherever the others where, she wished they would hurry.
“Hurry?” Asked the reflection, “aww, are you still scared of me? Well, you have always been the weak one.”
It made her sick, hearing the relentless belittling following her around no matter where she turned. She knew she was bad, but was she this nasty? She’d almost wished she had went on, but she knew they probably weren’t faring any better.
“I bet you want them to fail! You would too, of course, but is it not better than letting Rayna get all the glory? Or even worse-- that nobody? Yes, you want them to fail. Even just so you will not have to stand in their shadow. For all you know, they could be failing right now. Do you want to know what will happen if they do?”
“Shut up.”
“Of course you do!”
“Shut up!”
“You saw those Skeezites out there, ri-”
“SHUT UP!” Her shriek drowned out whatever the reflection had to say next. She huddled herself in the middle of the room-- as far away from her as she could get, and shoved her hands against her ears. The reflection sneered something or another at her but it didn’t matter. She buried her head into her knees, all she wanted was out of here.
Focus on anything else. Her heart thudding against her chest. The dull throbbing in her skull. Aything but her own voice bouncing from wall to wall, trying to get her attention.
The reflection wasn’t her, but it sounded so much like her. It had her mannerisms and voice and appearance, what if her behavior now was just a front?
What if she hadn’t changed?
Did she subconsciously wish for the success?
Was she just trying to convince herself that she’d grown?
The thoughts bore into her like a blunt knife, slow and piercing and painful, but in the cave of reflection… was the Rayla on the wall not a reflection of herself?
“You want rid of them.” A sing-song voice cut through her attempts at blocking everything out.
For however brief the moment was, the fog in her mind cleared.
“You do not know what I want!” Her shrill, desperate demand, and the fear that struggled not to escape with it, reverberated through the cave. Maybe Rayna was the more confrontational one, or she did have a habit of letting her take the lead. Maybe when she was younger she did follow in her steps, and what if that shaped how she had turned out? But she wasn’t weak, and she wasn’t going to take this.
“You are not me! You do not know what I want!” She repeated, to the version of herself through the mirror, as well as the one in front of it. “Mariposa-- Rayna-- they will get the antidote, and YOU will be gone! Forever!” She sounded like a child throwing a tantrum, pointing at the wall and blurting out these threats, but it got the reflection to shut up for five seconds. Not out of fear, nor offense, it might have been surprise at most, but she just stood there with her arms crossed and a wry smile.
Still. It was something.
“Rayla?” A voice that wasn’t her own chirped from behind her. She wasn’t sure when the reflection left, the rage had clouded over her mind and for a moment everything went blank, but she raised her head to find the walls had receded, and Zinzie by her side. “Oh, you don’t need to cry, they did it!” She cheered, bouncing circles around her. Rayla raised a shaking hand to touch her own face then looked at it… was she crying?
…Did they?
“How… do you know that?”
“Come on, they’re probably waiting!” Her paws wrapped around one of her fingers and started pulling toward the other side of the cave, though she wasn’t strong enough to have any success at dragging her.
Rayla pulled herself out of her stupor and hurried to follow Zinzie, never looking back. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to see her sister.