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[ . The hovering mirror shows Robbie, in his hodgepodge of clothing and mess of hair. How to keep one’s crown smooth to achieve that perfect summer ponytail is one issue of Seventeen that he definitely missed.

He looks like hour 28 of a shipwreck, tired and unable to sleep but desperately trying to look awake and healthy so nobody throws him out of the lifeboat to conserve resources. His eyes keeping flicking away to something beyond the network mirror, and he can barely keep his eyes off it.

When he talks, Robbie can barely contain the world-weary eagerness of someone who knows there’s no Nigerian prince, but god damn it would be the solution to all his problems if it were true. Mostly because he’s pissed at himself for asking what’s obviously a stupid question. This is like the mirrors that show the Elves true forms: magic. ]

What do you see in the mirror?

[ He spins the hovering magic mirror. The mirror is showing … a mirrored surface, possibly catching the light a little. It’s not reflecting back a hovering communications mirror, though. That’s the first sign that something's wrong.

Robbie’s reflection … isn’t his. The young man is very like him, with the same bright blue eyes and shaggy, albeit shorter, blonde hair. He’s healthy, clean, and kitted out in a pair of crisp, dark blue jeans and a Yale t-shirt. With a cheery, charming smile, he looks like he’s never wanted a day in his life.

He’s in a schoolyard, and there are kids running around playing games. The school looms behind them, with the name set in the stone above the main entrance: Stamford Elementary.

The banner hanging below it announced a town hall with Governor Justin Baldwin. The governor might be the best suit on the stairs, shaking hand after hand, as does his lovely companion. They're in their fifties, but could pass for 40.

After a moment, the mirror Robbie turns and runs over to join them, kicking a ball back to the kids on the way. The suit claps him heartily on his shoulder, and there’s a burst of energy bubbles and light. Mirror Robbie is now in a superhero uniform, and everyone looks to be laughing good-naturedly. The governor is beaming proudly. ]

It’s just me, right?

[ OOC note: the mods have said that the others will see what Robbie sees, because they aren't in front of the Mirror of Erised and magic. ]

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[After spending time in Rivendell, Dixon's looking much better for the wear, having been able to bathe with warm water and put on clothes that haven't spent the last few weeks being beaten clean with river rocks. Most of the people lounging around in Rivendell are starting to shed off the appearance of being unequipped, underslept ragamuffin campers.

It's what makes it such a surprise to see Robbie looking like hell dragged up. Dixon's face scrunches and his head jerks back in honest concern and alarm.]

Robbie! The fuck's happening over there in- [He mouths the rest of the sentence but his voice seems to disappear into a confused chirp as Robbie turns the mirror. It's showing him what almost seems like a window into another world, a schoolyard covered in green grass and filled with happy kids, everything a bit more pristine and wholesome than what Dixon's seen at an elementary. He takes a moment to squint at it]

I see you looking like hot shit with the Governor and a bunch of schoolkids. Is that what you see? That your past?

[The more he looks at it, though, the more he realizes that that might not be the case. The image is a little too perfect, the kind of thing you hope and dream for and never actually see exactly like that. It's never a picture-perfect day; there's always rain or a headache or road construction or some small speckles of details detracting from that hundred percent of the image you hope you get to someday.

He'd know. That's how he saw his Someday up until life came and crushed it like a bug on a windshield, the validation, the symbols of heroism. His dreams probably involve a clap and a smile from the governor in a suit too.]

[ As soon as gets confirmation that other people can see it, the mirror whirls back around. That’s his view, and it cuts so close that he doesn’t want anyone to see it. It’s shameful, and somehow lurid. It’s private. ]

Hey Dixon. I’m always the hottest shit in the room.

[ He’s answering the voice – his eyes don’t focus on the network mirror for a moment, and he doesn’t really sell the bullshit. There’s no zip to it. ]

No…. that’s not my life. I don’t know who it is.

[ But he wants it to be. He’d give up limbs and worse to make even half of it “his.” ]

Uh huh. [He gives the mirror a skeptical look as the real Robbie comes back into the frame. If Robbie's not selling the boldness enough that Dixon is picking up on the lack of confidence, then he really is in poor shape.]

It looks like you. [He feels like he's stating the obvious - he is - so he continues, trying in his smudgy, clumsy way to take a little heat off Robbie.] I mean, I didn't get a close look. Maybe it's someone else. All you blonds look the same from a distance. You got a brother?

Yeah, but that’s not really saying much. I look like Johnny Storm or that kid from Parker Lewis Can’t Lose or probably a million other guys.

[ The annoyance is ramping up quickly. If Dixon can see it, too, then it’s real enough. It’s not a complete hallucination; ergo, he can keep staring at it in the name of research.

But he can’t hang up on a mirror conversation. It’s rude, and Dixon’s the sort who’d get all bent out of shape and hunt hum down to demand an apology. Robbie only wants to wait for the picture to progress, for something to happen to explain the images. To reveal how to make them real. Ending conversations is tricky without fabulous wordplay or a door to slam. ]

I’m an only child. I don’t think they could’ve survived two of me.

No, that's not what I... [He'd been trying to give Robbie a flippant out, as if they could both agree like hey, strange coincidence that the guy in the mirror looks like you, how unusual, moving on now. Hitting that resistance, Dixon feels flustered and discouraged, and even looks a little hurt. As is typical with him, hurt starts to teeter towards sullen defensiveness.]

Look, you asked a question, I gave you an answer. You're not the only one gets to ask questions, alright? [Which brings him to his second question.] Are you alright over there? You look like hell.

[ That would require some higher functioning, capable of reading between the lines and tugging a conversation to and fro with ease.

But the misstep is clear. Even with his blinders on, there’s no misinterpreting “You asked a question, I gave you an answer” unless someone’s incredibly naïve. Robbie opened himself up to this discussion – he has to do better about actually discussing things.

With a sigh, he gives the hovering mirror his full attention, but he can only scrounge up a half-hearted smile. ]

Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I’m a little distracted, but I’m good. Great, if I can figure out how to make this new mirror work.

[ Because it has to do more than this. It’s a portal or something. It’s not just a window. He’s been seeing this neverending scene for days. ]

How do you mean, make it work? [Dixon, never the best at tracking the thread of a conversation, has to work at piecing together Robbie's exact goals, the nature of the interplay between Robbie's frantic state and the vision in the mirror and the magical Brugh realm. It takes a second for it to click, and another to come up with something to say, as they're still laboring under the kindness that the hailed person in the mirror has nothing to do with Robbie.]

We don't even know what that mirror is. Maybe it's like one of those flowers that lures people in and eats them. We been dealing with enough dark magic out here that you gotta second-guess any kind of unusual you run into, especially if it's getting in your head.

[It must be a blue moon, because Dixon's actually advising someone to think before acting.]

You know, make it work. [ His frustration just oozes all over his tone. ] I keep watching and waiting, but nothing ever happens. They play new games, they shake hands with new people, but we never get to what’s next. They’re always here, and the sun never sets.

[ He wants it to be real, but it never moves on. If he could just see more, if he knew that they were happy and alive out there in the multiverse, he could finally stop watching this mirror. Robbie knows he could. ]

It’s not like that, Dix. I come in here all the time, and it’s just the same frozen screen over and over. There’s nothing to get in my head.

[ But he looks back at Erised now. ]

Maybe it's just really shitty entertainment. [Dixon shrugs.]

I mean, if it's getting you all riled up. That's what I mean by getting in your head. [Because while Dixon's fine with playing along that it's not Robbie in the picture, he's not going to bother pretending that Robbie doesn't look completely absorbed in this in a bad way.] How long you been looking at it?

[Dixon's going to estimate that it's probably less than the time they've been here in Rivendell, but probably since long enough that Robbie should have eaten or slept a while ago. If that even matters in the mirror realm - Dixon's never been, so he's working off secondhand information and a limited imagination.]

Edited 2018-07-13 01:59 (UTC)

It’s no Shark Week.

[ He hits that one just right, because it has the benefit of truth (and truth that he’s not uncomfortable with. It’s not Shark Week nor is it a third as entertaining.

Five times as hard to turn away from. ]

A few hours, I guess.

[ About 7 since he last peed, and somewhere in there he hit the 24 hours awake mark. He’s not running on fumes yet but the low fuel light’s been on awhile. He’s spent most of the past week in this room. ]

But it’s not in my head. You’d want to know more about it if you were me.

Man, Shark Week's great. [Dixon gives a wistful whistle, because honestly, of course he loves vegging out in front of the TV watching sharks swim around. He and his parents made popcorn for the event back when they had cable. It was a whole thing.

But he's getting sidetracked.]

I probably would, but I'd want to eat and sleep too, and you look like you ain't done that in a while. Maybe it's like a watched pot. Won't boil if you're busy looking at it the whole time.

I don’t think that’s how fire and a pot of water work.

[ A little smile and some sarcasm may go a long way to proving that he’s all right. Robbie’s not that calculated though. They’re real. ]

Shark Week’s riveting, man. Blink and you miss it stuff. What if this is like the Impossible Shot? You can watch for days and then look away the wrong three seconds and it’s gone. You might never see it again.

[ His eyes flicker away and back. ]

I don’t need a lot of sleep, anyway.

There's a saying about it. [Dixon offers that as counter-evidence, as if a wive's tale about impatience is able to stand equally to actual physics and logic.]

Your plan is to just watch it forever on the off chance that maybe something'll flash across the screen? [Well, mirror surface. Glass pane? Dixon's not sure the best way to phrase that, so he barrels on forward.] That's a stupid plan. No offense.

Maybe someone else can help you watch it a while so you can get a chance to rest and stretch your legs.

Yeah, that’s my plan! It’s not like I’ve got a lot of options here! There’s no tech for the space genius to analyze, and smashing it to see if there’s a portal behind it is a one way ticket cause I don’t know how to put a magic mirror back together!

[ Dixon is beginning to get irritating. Robbie knows he’s no genius, but it stings to have his plan called stupid when he’s only trying to do what feels right. Following your heart is supposed to be the honourable choice. ]

... maybe someone else watching it could be okay, if it’s not anybody flaky. I haven’t seen anybody else around today.

[ Because he’s been holed up here. ]

[Dixon jerks back a bit from his own mirror as Robbie gets combative. His brow furrows into a sharp look.]

Hey, I'm just trying to help. You look like shit, and it's probably from sitting in front of that thing for hours. But you know, you come and tell me how well that sitting and watching it thing works out for you. I'll wait.

[He doesn't want to be getting pissy at Robbie, but it's not like he's great at showing concern, and there's something clearly off about this situation - about how Robbie looks, about how he's not copping to being the guy in the images in the mirror, about how Robbie's insisting there's something beyond a pretty picture of his fantasy - and Dixon wants to do something about it but can't seem to figure out what asides from trying to talk sense into Robbie.

Which doesn't appear to be going well, and Dixon's never been all that great at processing not getting what he wants.]

Has anyone told you that mirror does anything?

[ The conversation is rapidly deteriorating. Robbie, for his part, feels like he’s being accused of something that wasn’t even illegal ten minutes ago. The mix of guilt, defensiveness, and the somewhat ingrained automatic default to want to comply with what’s right isn’t helping him see straight. ]

It’s just a tricking mirror! There’s nothing wrong with looking at it. And you can keep waiting, cause I’m not going to tell you if I find anything either.

[ He huffs and pushes his hair back to underline his point, as of to somehow say ‘I’m not worried about how I look’. ]

Brainy said they show you what you want to see. Which is science bullshit for “I don’t know so I’m going to blame magic since there isn’t a telepath to A. blame it on or B. call me out on this.”

Well, Brainy talks a lot of bullshit. [At least they can agree on that. Dixon's taken to just avoiding Brainy, which is easy now that Brainy's in the mirror. There's only so many times you can feel like the only idiot in the room who isn't able to follow the conversation before you just want to go find a squirrel to antagonize to get the drinking shield activated.] But if it shows you what you want to see just try telling me that ain't you in that picture.

[There's a flicker of uncertainty over Dixon's face as he says that, because if he had been on the receiving end that would be hurtful. The subtext would be "so what did you do to fuck it up?". Dixon imagines his heart's desire would bear similar fruit but he has a tangle of regret and bad decisions choking off the vine, a tangle that chokes him up just to think about, much less talk about.]

Go take a fucking bath and a nap. You need it whether you think you do or not.

( Must be some weird devil fruit, although ... the nature of these places, so unlike his own home, is baffling and new. Where he's from, he pretty much knows the rules.

He's not sure what to do or say for a moment. )

Looks like nothing back where I come from, that's for sure.

( He does not know this man, and the next words he speaks are thought up; chosen and spoken deliberately. Maybe it'll snap this guy out of it. )

Whatever it is. Doesn't look like it's doing you any favors.

[ After the initial confirmation that others can see this impossible, unreal, still standing school, he’s spun the mirror 180 degrees so that it shows only him. The vision is embarrassing – he prefers his shame in private.

He manages a decent glance at the magic mirror, long enough to apprise the speaker. Robbie doesn’t know him, but he looks all right. His eyes return to looking off in the distance (or more accurately, at the Mirror of Erised. ]

What’s yours like? Because it doesn’t look exactly right to me, either. I know that school, and it got demolished a few years ago.

[ A little girl twirls through the extreme foreground, and, although no one else can see her, Robbie’s reaction is palpable. His eyes shoot wide open in surprise and then droop as a nauseated ache of guilt washes over him. What color he had is almost gone. ]

No… [ He gets quieter still. ] No, it’s good. Maybe it’s showing me an alternate universe.

[ Reaching to touch the Mirror of Erised, Robbie’s disappointed when his fingers meet glass. ]

Haven't looked.

( At the look of shock, he feels something like a pang. This guy seems really torn up about what he's seeing, and though Sanji doesn't know him, he knows what it's like to want or miss something you can't have. )

There's still things to be done that aren't staring at something that isn't there.

( It might be a touch harsher than the sort of empathy he does feel, but he's never been one to pad his words to spare feelings. )

But, hey, I'm not your keeper or anything.

[ Robbie shakes his head, mostly to clear it. He fails, but it doubles as a response. ]

In Madame Tussauds? What am I supposed to do, poke the elves? This might change. They’re eternally frozen.

[ Or temporarily until certain conditions are met. He can’t remember the precise bird-fortune legalese the Ravens used to couch their words. ]

Heh, you wouldn’t want to be. I’m the king of not listening. It keeps the leader on his or her toes.

[ So in a way, trying to get others to tell him something that would make him leave the mirror was doomed from the start. ]

[Brainy is in the library of Rivendell, sitting at a desk, surrounded by heaps of books. He looks up at his magic mirror, trying to see what's beyond with interest. The image in it is... not unexpected. Something idyllic from Robbie's world isn't strange to see when he clearly hasn't had the easiest life, judging from his reaction to the dementors.]

The mirror is capable of minor telepathic intrusion, via some unknown possibly-magical mechanism. It shows you your conscious and/or unconscious desires.

[He knows this partly because of what he'd seen when he'd explored that room. It was a beautiful picture, one he'd first pegged as a memory, of the Legion doing a flyby of the crowd during Legion Day. But there'd been a few inconsistencies: uniforms that were the most recent iteration each team member had worn before they'd lost their world, yet worn at a time other lost team-mates had still been alive and on the team. The lineup had been wrong, too, with every single member that had ever been on the team all there at the same time, even though some had died before the tenure of others.]

[So it was an impossible dream: their universe intact, the entire team alive and whole, all at the same time, the dead Legionnaires resurrected perhaps.]

[He doesn't say that, though. Instead he explains with something else he noticed.]

The inscription on the mirror is an infant's word puzzle, in English. It reads "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi." In reverse that's "I show not your face but your heart's desire" with the spaces re-sequenced to occur in the middle of several of the words instead of between them.

[ When he started broadcasting, this was the reaction he told himself to expect. – some logical explanation of how it wasn’t real and didn’t matter. Hearing it outloud, from someone he respects as a pretty smart dude, sucks. Brainy's explanation leaves very little wiggle room for other theories, but Robbie isn’t ready to give up on the awful hope twisting his stomach and allowing his head to do gold-medal mental gymnastics to construct scenarios that debunk Brainy’s theory. ]

I don’t care what the mirror says – that’s not my heart’s desire!

[ The school still standing, yes, and the implication that all those people are still alive, even more so. God, yes, that’s all he wants.

But the inclusion of him, and his parents, like they matter at all when stacked up against all those lives. That’s not his heart’s desire. He doesn’t care that much about what happens to himself.

The mirror responds by shifting the focus of the image, bring the Baldwin family to the foreground. Their body language is painfully open and loving. They’re a bad Lifetime Christmas movie family, all wholesome toothy smiles and unnecessary hugging. Robbie doesn’t miss that mirror parents still have their wedding rings. ]

That isn’t what I want! My parents never got along – I’m telling you it’s something else, because I would tell them to get divorced years before they did!

[Oh grife, it seems he's having some Personal Issues. He's very bad at navigating those, but Brainy wants to help so he still tries his best. ]

[Brainy doesn't know what's truly fueling said issues but given how badly the dementors preyed on Robbie, it's not hard to guess that he has traumas in his past that are making such a direct confrontation more than a little upsetting.]

Desires aren't always rational.

[It's not easy for him to talk about his mother but with the greater grief of losing his universe and people that genuinely cared about him, like RJ and Shvaughn, there's not much room for the old grief from past wounds. They don't sting anymore. There are scars but scars are rarely painful.]

My mother abandoned me at birth. Then years later, she committed mass murder, set up a reunion, and tried to...ah.

She hurt me. Badly.

[He doesn't sound upset about it, just a little hesitant. But it's not repression. It's just...a statement of fact now.]

And yet I still had dreams of growing up and being raised by her, of her standing there smiling during engineering competitions, of her reading me bedtime stories as a small child, of her baking me cookies.

It was completely irrational and even ludicrous, considering I was terrified of her when I was awake. During my recovery, I spent hours pouring over the security protocols for the high security wing of the psych unit she was being held in.

It took some time for the dreams to stop, once I processed the trauma.

[It's a heavy thing to drop on someone, but it illustrates his point pretty well and he's comfortable talking about it at this stage of his life. And he suspects what Robbie is seeing in the mirror is drawn from past traumas, too.]

Sometimes one's subconscious ignores all practical realities and dreams up things that might have happened in an impossible world, instead of what good could possibly come of the world as it is.

I suspect the mirror works in a similar way to dreams. What it showed me was equally impossible.

Edited 2018-07-16 20:27 (UTC)

[ He might be largely focused on something else, but even half-listening makes it hard to miss the sirens that accompany Brainy’s words. Robbie doesn’t quite think of himself as a mass murderer, legal definitions being what they are.

But he’s thought it in the past, and others probably still do. He can’t help but wonder about Brainy’s mom. Is she the definition or interpretation of mass murderer?

Considering the source, she’s earned the term. ]

I’m glad you’re okay now. [ He flinches a little and shakes his head once. ] In a physical visible sense. You know, stipulating that you’re kidnapped, et cetera, et cetera. Standard set of cape caveats apply.

[ If there’s one thing Robbie’s gotten genuinely good at, it’s putting others needs first. If Brainy needs to vent, Robbie will listen. The mirror really doesn’t seem to be actualizing, while Brainy is. And there’s a lot more that can be done in an interactive conversation than staring at an unresponsive screen. ]

It’s not irrational or ludicrous. It’s biology, until I meet a humanoid that doesn’t thrive on nurturing.

[ Like he even knows that many aliens. ]

But... I don’t think the whole baking cookies, comes to all your childhood Events concept happens as often as you think it does. I don’t think my mom could bake store bought cookie dough. Not even the ones that came pre-sliced. She -

[ He wonders if she had any idea of what his security protocols were, if she’d agreed with them. Probably not. It doesn’t matter, but Robbie doesn’t feel right continuing to joke about her. A smile sounds the retreat to humour. ]

You think my brain is stealing the Impossible Man’s schtick? Ugh, but he’s so annoying. I only copyright infringe on the best. “Hi, kids, Captain Marvel says eat your zucchini!”

I see a distraction. An unkind one.

[She'd wandered near the mirror on her own and been struck near to tears at the unexpected sight of Kubo, whole and unmaimed, his eye restored, and Hanzo, uncursed and playing with their son in the courtyard of his fortress. The pair so happy to be together, so vibrantly alive and unharmed.

It was all she'd ever wanted to see. All that she could never possibly see in any version of reality. And it had hurt her so deeply to be shown it after all, what her world could have been, what their world should have been, what they never were allowed to have.]

If you're wise, you'll leave that room, and not go back.

[ That’s less than helpful. Robbie thought that he’s made it pretty clear: he’s curious about the mirror. An unkind distraction is something to be handled, not ignored. He doesn’t know why everyone’s so keen to abandon and ignore the mirror - that just leaves them all vulnerable to it in the end.

If it’s even truly unkind. Say Brainy’s right, and the mirror shows what you want it to. Is there anything wrong that. ]

“Wise” isn’t something I get accused of too often. Or, you know, ever.

Ahaha, you too, huh?

Uh, sure? There’s not anyone else here now, but, yeah, I’m getting the idea that I’m not the first one in here.

[ He’s apparently at least the fifth. But everyone else was able to let it go. ]

Well, there's only so many places we can go to while we're all stuck here.

Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we’re all going to start checking ourselves out in the mirror.

It kills a bit of time, at least!

[ He gives her a cockeyed look, and, for the moment, ignores the bigger magic mirror. ]

Do you forget what you look like often?

When you have a magic mirror and other things you can check out, why not take the time?

It's not like we have anything better to do.

I’m thinking we have better things to do. Especially since the hair products here are at the bear grease and pray stage.

It's not just you. Look, I'm not going to berate you over watching it, or tell you to stop. [It hadn't helped yet, after all.] What I am going to tell you is that you look like Hel. Literally, you look half-dead. Get some sleep. If it hasn't changed by now, it probably won't change in the next 8 hours. If there is anything to figure out about it besides the obvious, you'll have a better chance of doing so after you've had some rest.

[ Robbie half heartedly intimates feminine curves with his hand. ]

Like I have the tracts of land to be Hela. She’s hot enough to pull off half-dead, though.

[ He sighs, because he knows he himself can’t pull it off. The pattern of responses is becoming apparent. ]

Maybe a couple hours won’t hurt.

[ literally two. ]

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