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Riz had a complicated relationship with mirrors.
It hadn’t stemmed from the Nightmare King incident either. He had had ups and downs with mirrors since the very beginning. Since the first day of school when some bastard bully made fun of the way he looked. Mocked his crooked, pointed ears and made fun of his sharpened fangs.
He didn't like looking in mirrors for the longest time.
When he grew a bit older, he understood that the word was unfair and unjust. There would be people who would judge him based on his looks, but as he got older, he didn't pay much attention to those. Those were second thoughts; he had more pressing issues than worrying about how others may perceive him. For example, whenever he looked in the mirror, he could imagine that he was the spitting image of his father.
He had seen his father’s childhood photos. Riz looked exactly the same growing up, a healthy mix of both his mom and dad. Though, with each glint of the mirror, each turn to look at himself, he was only constantly reminded of the great loss he and his mom had endured. The gap in his heart that may never get filled. The gap in his mother's heart may never get filled either.
Then Penny went missing.
Penny had understood him on some level. Deeper than anyone he had ever met and she had been nice too. She was kind and hadn’t mocked him. She taught him about her own culture and in exchange Riz got to ramble about his knowledge of his own culture too. She was unapologetically welcoming and, for a moment, he forgot about his worries and his dad and his slightly odd relationship with mirrors and the fact he needed to pick an adventuring school soon and friends weren’t-
Then Penny went missing.
He had searched. He had scoured for clues and had collected as many hints as he could. Somewhere along the way, he had somehow accrued a ragtag adventuring team who he was proud to call friends. They were supportive of his search too (and made sure to tell him to take breaks when he needed to as well). They all searched. They were dragged into something so much bigger and far worse than they could ever imagine. They searched even harder, taking them to an arcade.
Then he got trapped in a gem.
Or crystal. Or palimpsest. Or rock. The details did not exactly matter at that moment in time.
He was surrounded by crystalised walls. Shiny and reflective, his image projected back at him. Hopelessness plastered across his face, teeth bared into a nasty snarl. His hands bleeding, his skin rubbed raw at the way his claws scratched at the impenetrable surface.
Eventually, he managed to escape that trap.
(Though sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could still see his depraved reflection glaring back at him. Sometimes, when he looked in the mirror, he saw bloodied claws– the ones that had held a gun at another student and blew two fingers straight off.)
The life of an adventurer was constant. He had learnt that it was ever-moving and there was sometimes never a chance to take a break. They had managed to find Penny and the rest of the girls. It seemed that everything had been dealt with and was over. The prom was saved. Then Auegfort was rambling on about a Nightmare King and a stolen artefact. They were hiring others and starting on a new journey, clues revealed and questions unanswered.
And then Baron came along.
At first, it had been a lie. A story made up so his friends didn't see him for who he truly was (a stupid fear, he would come to realise. His friends loved him and supported him all the same. Even if he didn't crave the intimacy the others desired. There was something to a deep, meaningful friendship that Riz so dearly appreciated). Baron should never have been real. It was beyond impossible to think of how he was formed, how they watched from the mirrors and waited. Like predator and prey.
Millions of tiny shards scattered across the room. Around him, Riz could see the visage of himself and the demonic creature lurching for him captured in the endless mirror fragments. The thing– Baron, apparently– had shot through the mirror like it had been made of air, a shard had slit Riz’s cheek as it went flying. Another he just barely managed to dodge. Then, suddenly, he was being dragged by cold skeletal hands. Their grip was unyielding as he was dragged back further towards the mirror. Towards another hell that he may not be able to escape this time.
Then, Baron was putting pressure on either side of his head, pushing his neck unnaturally far. With a sudden twist and snap, the mirrors around him dizzying, the world faded away.
Baron had not been a figment of his imagination. Or perhaps at one point he was but then manifested into existence. The probability of it did not make sense– but a lot of events on his journey to the Nightmare forest had not made sense. He has been haunted by a mannequin who claimed to be his lover. Stalked by a shadowy image of a tabaxi woman. Kalina always two steps ahead, always waiting and watching.
He grew wary of mirrors once more. The skittish, childlike fear he thought he had grown out of returned, swinging at him with full force.
He refused to look in the Hangvan mirrors when had been sat, coddled by blankets, in the front passenger seat. He wondered if Gorgug had noticed. (He most probably had. Gorgug was perceptive when it came to the people he cared for.)
He had been to literal Hell and yet all he could think of was that the moment he felt a breeze on his shoulder, turning right to look in the mirror, shadows came to light. Kalina towering over him. Only to find Fig hadn’t noticed and Riz was well and truly alone.
A mirror shard in his hand, refracting the light of a shoddily hidden pathway. His father– the one who had died when he was only young. The one he had thought he had lost, sat in front of him. Close but too far to reach out. The shard was gripped so tightly it drew blood. His father a beaten mess, spitting out crimson sandwiched between insults and words Riz wanted (needed) to forget.
His reflection from the water in the nightmare forest, Kristen next to him. The water revealed them both to be scratched up, each cut stung– worming its way into his very core. Kalina’s smile was reflected too and then suddenly Kristen was using magic far beyond Riz’s comprehension and the cat’s smirk disappeared. The scratches gone too. All he knew what to do at that point was to run.
Then, as soon as it had all begun, it was over.
(Though, not quite. Because the story was never truly over, now was it?)
He still couldn't look in the Hangvan’s mirrors. And when he had to, when forced to capture the Night Yorb and travel far and wide, he was always distantly fearful that the whisps of black shadowy fur would appear in his peripherals.
Even after they had saved the world, again, he thought about how things could never go back to the way they used to be. He saw it in his friends, how they had been changed too. Of course– nothing was bad, per se. Just different. They had been tainted with experience and forced to witness sin.
Yet, through it all, they had made it out the other side. They had all survived and got to live their lives together, as friends. Riz, when he was a young kid, had never seen the importance of friendship and now he valued it so deeply he would do anything for the Bad kids. The best part was he knew that they all felt the same way too.
They had survived. They lived.
(And the mirror in his office continued to be covered by a blanket. The spare room locked, left to collect dust until the end of time.)