D: L&L - Part 25 | Lion: Mirror, Mirror

I watched Cu’ intently as he sat in the large, custom leather chair behind my desk. Reclined, with his feet crossed on the hardwood top, long paws cradling the back of his head. A head full of drink like mine, but his ears still up. Silently he mocked me, taking up my position. Any other time it wouldn’t have bothered me in the least. Tonight, it ignited a seething anger within me. I poured another drink from the bar, put the glass to my mouth and drank. How many had we had? And Cu’ pressing, pressing, pressing about the news in Munchkinland. Was it her? Had she done this? Or were the perfidious rumblings from Cu’s rancid mouth something else I should pay attention to?

A few more drinks had loosened his tongue. Loosened mine. I’d let slip things. Dark things. Things that no Lion should admit to, no Lion should hear, no Animal should know. Things that could end up in a death. A few more drinks and he’d slipped away while I tarried with the purple loon girl. And now, here he was. I’d let him goad me into talking, and I’d said the things that couldn’t be unsaid. She would know. She always knew when I was thinking of her. And now Cu’ knew. This was going to end poorly. She would be angry. So deliciously angry. I felt a stir, thinking about the rage behind her eyes.

“So sure of yourself, aren’t you, Dawg?” I spoke in a low, controlled voice, wishing I’d shut my yap. But it was too late. I glanced left and right, taking stock of a room I’d always felt so comfortable in. The cherrywood of the walls was lined with gold albums. Bookcase filled with books I’d never read and never would. The long green expanse of the billiards table. I’d taken her there not long ago. And the mirror. It sat on the wall like a hungry reflection, its tune playing through my head. I knew what it wanted.

Cu’ caught the tone, snapping his eyes open. He grinned, big tongue lolling. “How do I look, Boss?” The last word he spat out as if he was tasting poison. He stood up and started around the desk in my direction. “Do you think the transition will be easy? I’ll be making some changes around here when you’re gone.”

“You don’t have what it takes, Cu’. You’re all muscle, and unfortunately, you weren’t present when the brains were being handed out.” I felt the mirror calling to me as the tension in the room rose. It’s song pulled at me. Blood would beget blood. The thing fed, and then I would need to feed.

“Haha – Boss. Even kings fall; tonight, you’ll meet your fate.” Cu’ crouched on his hind quarters, his blue jacket and white shirt every bit as crisp as the day he walked into the studio and interviewed to be my assistant. Biggest Dog I’d ever seen, but not a match for The King. I knew what was coming, was prepared for it. Not just today, but for some time now. He’d always been curious, but there’s a line. And getting the boss drunk to let your curiosity run amuck was that line. He choreographed, but that was his over-confidence speaking.

I just needed to get a little closer. I walked to the center of the cavernous office, my claws tracing lines across the felt of the billiards table, and stopped only a few feet away, casually smirking at him. I could hear the mirror’s song now, calling me, a beautiful melody only I could hear. Did he suspect? Oh, the look on his face when he understood how I was always one step ahead of everyone. I set my glass carefully on the side table, widened my stance, ready to take the brunt of the attack. “Bad Dawg, No biscuit.” I waved a claw back and forth at him, as if scolding a child. “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” I teased, “whatever happened to loyalty?”

“Loyalty? To you? What a joke. The King of Deception questions my loyalty? What would your pathetic little friends say if they knew what you did? You’re a disgrace to lions. To Animals, the few of us there are anymore. Carousing with them, with her? We deserve better than you.”

He pushed off, leaping towards me, his fangs aiming for my throat. A swift, lethal kill for someone not expecting it. An instinctual attack. I countered left, slashing out with my claws, ripping into his flesh. The crescendo of the song vibrating through me. I need him, give him to me! Feed me.

Cu’ turned back on me, his well-studied moves expected. He was a master, but I’d mastered the masters since I’d found my Courage. He leaped at me again; this time, I crouched and came up beneath him as his form overtook me. Yesss…. Feed me! Using his momentum, I shoved up under him with my shoulder and pushed with all my might, my roar reverberating across the room. He soared at the wall behind me, the wall where it hung, paws flailing, his own roar reflected back at me, then silenced when he saw the silver shimmer of his destination, realizing too late that I’d sealed his doom.

A mercurial arm exploded from the liquid face of the mirror, snatching Cu’s head and pulling it into the swirling liquid. Paws flailing, he clawed at the wall, digging deep trenches in the delicate wood that would now have to be replaced. I stood back, watching, my maw gaping as Cu’s body stiffened and flopped against the wall, his head now in the unknown, his black and tan body, the beautiful coat, hanging limply from the mirror. Every time I’d seen the mirror eat, I was stunned into silence, and this time was no different as it slowly devoured him, his limp from inching up the wall until the frame seemed to snap and crack, and Cu’ was gone, leaving a simple, clean reflection of the room, my own muzzle staring back at me. My muzzle changing.

I stood staring at the now solid glass and watched myself as I licked my paw clean of his blood, but the image staring back at me in the glass was of a man: long blonde hair flowing over his shoulders, sharp chiseled facial features, blazing blue eyes. My paw a hand with long fingers. Fully human. A man. His actions mimicked mine, his human, blood-stained hand brushing against his tongue. I couldn’t pull my eyes away. That man is who I longed to be. She would love me then. I turned away as the pain ripped through my heart. I was always confounded how a really great night could turn to shit so damn fast.

I grabbed my cell from my pocket and turning back to the mirror, I dialed. Tell me what you need to see, the mirror’s soothing voice called to me. “You know what I want to see,” I stated.

The phone picked up, but all I heard was silence. “Yes, it’s me…. I know, I know I shouldn’t be calling, but we have a problem.” I explained the evening to my listener as I watched her in my very own private viewing. Damn, I love this glass.

“How are you going to explain this, you moron? Did you even think what the repercussions will be? Nevermind, don’t answer. Of course you didn’t. Animals don’t think.”

“Well, Cu’s gone; I can just say he took off. Animals wander and get lost all the time. But there was a Bunny at the club. Not the norm. And on a night when Cu’ goes rogue...” I let the connection linger. “We need to do something.”

“We do, do we? What is this we? There is no WE!” I knew she didn’t mean it. It was the animal in her coming out. She could be vicious. I did hate seeing her angry. And yet, watching her there in the mirror, blonde hair streaming down over a beautiful and terrible face, knowing what she did to me in those moments, I felt a stir.

“B-but I thought we were in this together. I love you, baby. I love you so much.” I felt like a cub again. Why couldn’t she just love me? She let me touch her, do things to her and she’d moaned with such pleasure. “Don’t I please you? I’ve done everything you’ve asked, and more. Soon baby, soon, I can be complete for you.”

“Don’t you say those words to ME, you grotesque creature! If you really loved me, you wouldn’t cause me so much … just shut up now! You love me-HA! That’s he biggest joke I’ve ever heard. No matter what magic you use, no matter how much like a man you make yourself, you will always be an Animal. You will never be a man, especially in my eyes. I will always know what you are, even under the flesh.”

“Oh beautiful, please. It’s for you. Everything is for you.”

“I want to make you happy,” she mocked. “I don’t know if you can. I want you to come here right now, see if you can make me happy.”

“I’ll be right over.” I stared at the luscious form in my mirror. She was laid out on her bed, one hand holding the phone, the other between her legs. All she had on were those red slippers. Did she know I could see? What that for me? Was her fury just another game? It never felt like a game when we were together.

“I will think of forgiving you when you get your ass here crawling like the Animal you are. Then you can beg me.” She cut off the connection and the mirror went blank.