The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts

Luca stared at the mirror like he has never seen his reflection in one before.

Which, to be fair... he hadn't.

He leaned in slowly, squinting suspiciously at the strange grey-blue-eyed man staring back at him. His brows furrowed. Then relaxed. Then furrowed again. He tilted his head left, then right. The reflection copied him exactly.

"Oh stars," he muttered, stepping back slightly. "This guy's following me."

Kian didn't even blink from where he stood beside the polished mirror Isabella had painstakingly guided them to create. He was too busy checking the edges, making sure there weren't any sharp pieces that might hurt someone. Typical Kian—serious as a rock and twice as broody.

Meanwhile, Luca leaned in again and gave the mirror a cautious poke.

Nothing happened.

He poked again. Harder. Still nothing.

Then he tried to slap the mirror.

"OW!" he yelped, yanking his hand back. "He slapped me!"

Kian finally looked up, deadpan. "You slapped yourself, idiot."

"Did not," Luca muttered, rubbing his hand. "He did it first. You all saw it."

"Stop fighting with your own face," Isabella called out from where she sat on the boulder, chin resting on her palm. She was trying to look unimpressed, but her eyes were sparkling with amusement.

Luca squinted at her, then looked back at the mirror. This time, he really studied himself.

"Wait," he whispered. "So… this is what I look like? This is me?"

He ran a hand through his mess of dark curls, which suddenly felt wildly out of control.

"Is my nose always this... long?"

He leaned in even closer, nose practically touching the surface, and started making faces—puffing out his cheeks, raising one brow, then the other. He stuck out his tongue. Then blinked like he didn't trust his own eyes.

"Oh no," he said gravely, turning around to face Isabella. "You mean to tell me I've looked like this the whole time? Why didn't anyone say anything?"

Isabella burst into giggles.

"Luca," she said between laughs, "You look fine. Better than most, actually."

"I look like a startled goat," he said, pointing at the mirror accusingly. "My hair is doing things. My ears are pointing. And is my jaw supposed to be that sharp?!"

Kian rolled his eyes. "That is simply just your face."

Luca clutched his chest. "You wound me."

Isabella nearly toppled off the boulder from laughing so hard.

"Oh my stars," she wheezed. "This might be the greatest thing I've ever made. Not the mirror. You reacting to the mirror."

Kian muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "idiots, both of them," before going back to adjusting the angle of the metal.

Luca turned back to the mirror again, more serious now. He stared into his reflection quietly for a moment, and this time there was a hint of something softer in his expression. Awe, maybe.

"… I guess it's kind of amazing," he said quietly. "I never thought… I mean, I've only ever seen myself in ripples. Water that moves, or distorts. I always thought I looked like a blob. But this… I look real."

There was a pause. Even Isabella's laughter softened.

"You are real," she said gently. "Now you just get to see it too."

Luca turned back to her, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Do you think the others will believe this? We're gonna need a name for this thing."

"Call it Luca," Isabella teased.

He beamed. "Yeah, because it's handsome?"

Kian: "Because it won't shut up."

Isabella snorted, unable to hold back her laugh. She shook her head as she stood from the boulder and walked toward them, still grinning.

"I can't believe I just taught you how to look at your own face and you turned it into a drama."

"Not my fault," Luca said cheerfully. "My face started it."

Isabella now stood in front of the mirror, her hands clasped to her chest as the moonlight poured into the cave, casting a silvery glow over everything. The mirror gleamed, catching the light like some ancient magical relic.

She stared at herself with the reverence of someone beholding a divine being. Her divine being.

"Are you crying?" Luca asked, squinting at her like she'd grown a second head.

Kian's head snapped up from where he'd been adjusting the mirror stand, his expression suddenly alert, wanting to know what was suddenly wrong.

"I'm not crying," Isabella said, dabbing at the corner of her eye with the grace of a tragic theater queen. "I'm having a moment."

Isabella then turned to Kian slowly, her face a picture of gentle despair—until she broke into a grin.

"Kian," she said, voice soft and dramatically breathless. "I really am a goddess, you know."

Luca groaned, loudly. "Oh no. Here we go."

"I'd forgotten, honestly," she continued, completely ignoring him. "With all the dust and fighting and near-death experiences and—ugh, do you know how bad those cave reflections are? I've been walking around thinking I was like… cute. But I'm actually stunning."

She tilted her chin up, posing like a deity carved into marble, her hair catching the moonlight just right. Her shadow danced across the cave wall like a legend being born.

Luca folded his arms and stared at her. "This is embarrassing for all of us."

But Isabella was in her own world now. She stepped backward slowly, deliberately, like a movie star about to faint on a chaise lounge.

"Kian," she sighed dramatically, "catch me."

And without a shred of hesitation—or warning—she let herself fall back.

Kian caught her easily, one arm locking around her waist like this was just another Tuesday.

She swooned against his chest, head tilted up, eyes fluttering halfway shut in fake exhaustion.

"Gosh, Kian," she murmured, placing a hand delicately on his shoulder, "you really are genuinely lucky to have me."

Kian stared down at her with a blank face, expression unreadable.

"…Do you want me to drop you?" he asked flatly.

She gasped. "How dare you."

Luca, arms still crossed, looked like he was silently writing down a list of all the ways he regretted ever associating with these two.

"You know what," he said, gesturing vaguely at the whole situation, "I'm gonna go headbutt a tree. For balance."

But Isabella wasn't done. She looked back at the mirror from Kian's arms, blinking at her own reflection like she was surprised she hadn't been sculpted into a mountain yet.

"I mean, look at this face," she whispered. "Kian, seriously, if I were you I'd cry myself to sleep every night just from sheer gratitude."

"She's gotten worse," Luca mumbled to himself. "She's actually gotten worse."

Isabella grinned and leaned up slightly, tossing her hair over her shoulder with unnecessary flair.

"You know what? I might just start blessing people. I'll walk around like, 'You get a smile. You get a smile. You? No, you looked at me weird.'"

Kian finally cracked the barest hint of a smile, but quickly hid it by looking away.

At that moment, when giggles filled the air—Luca's reluctant snort, Isabella's triumphant laugh, and even Kian's silent amusement—

Hurried footsteps were heard.