Trapped in a Romance Game, Destined to Save the World

 As the words landed, the air pressure within the stone theater seemed to loosen for a moment.

 The starkness was no longer one of rejection, but more like a closing in after an acquiescence that quietly converted some kind of judgment into acceptance.

 As Cynthia left the stone theater, Edris did not speak again. He simply walked quietly beside her, his fingertips slightly hooking the corners of her robes in a motion so light that it seemed as if it were merely the wind passing by.

 "You'll see the others next." He warned in a low voice, "No longer just those who surround you, but the Clansmen who live and learn with you."

 "Toreador's curiosity is no less than their aesthetic."

 The prophecy was quickly borne out.

 They had just walked into the small east court cloister of the Toreador clan when a slightly older female clan member greeted them briskly.

 Her eyes were grayish-blue, her hair was pulled back in ringlets, her skin was pale to the touch, and her long purple satin dress glowed with a bluish shimmer in the sunlight.

 She did not look at Edris, but only smiled and scowled at Cynthia for a long moment.

 "I've heard you're reluctant to tell them what clan you're from," she said, "but I'm guessing you're more like a Toreador than a Tremere or a Bruch."

 Cynthia responded calmly, "I do not belong."

 The clanwoman arched her eyes, but her tone was devoid of offense, "Pity. You could have been 'the best kind of piece'."

 "The type that silences people before their eyes even meet."

 Cynthia wasn't used to such blunt descriptions.

 Edris, on the contrary, looked as if he had seen it all before, and added from the sidelines, "Athera is not good at pleasantries. She prefers to sculpt people with words."

 Athera unapologetically continued to survey Cynthia's face, her eyes sweeping from the slightly disheveled blonde hair on her forehead to the cool violet at the end of her eyes.

 "I've never seen blonde hair with violet pupils before," she sighed, "not like the cool white of Toreador or the sleepwalking pale gold of Malkav. You look like you've been illuminated by twilight."

 Cynthia didn't respond immediately.

 The comment sounded too ornate, almost like some kind of hidden sacrifice.

 "You mean she looks like-" another male Clan member came from behind the porch columns, his eyes holding a smile, "-that Madonna Under the Hidden Moon? "

 "That's Toreador's forbidden painting."

 "But she does look like it." He shrugged his shoulders, "Change into a ceremonial robe and it can be hung directly in the East Gallery."

 Edris finally spoke up, "If you're looking at her as a painting, don't blame her for not wanting to answer you."

 "She just finished her first lesson, she doesn't need to be mobbed."

 Athera smiled indifferently, "Who doesn't start out being mobbed?"

 She turned to Cynthia, her tone suddenly softening, "But we do care about you, not because of orders."

 "Because your 'presence' is so strong. Not the kind of flare that wants to be noticed, but a ... stillness like a knife."

 "Toreador hasn't had that kind of aura in too long."

 Cynthia then nodded her head softly in recognition.

 In the days of daily study that followed, those who had initially surrounded her gradually became more approachable.

 Someone took her on a tour of the sculpture hall and taught her to recognize the differences in Toreador's family crest;

 Some drank blood tea with her in the afternoon sun, discussing the conflict between "form" and "meaning";

 Someone offered to draw her portrait, but suddenly fell silent when he reached her eyebrows, and after a long time said:

 "You don't look like a Blood."

 "You look like a real 'creature'."

 And Cynthia, for the first time among these people, realized:

 Perhaps she was no longer just a research subject.

 Rather, she was beginning to become someone who would be described in fine art terms and waited on in the afternoons by others.

 She began to have her own sense of being.

 Cynthia looked at herself in the mirror and gave a very light smile, and the person in the mirror sketched a quiet, gentle smile, but one that was alien to herself now.

 The system was no longer present, it seemed to have gone into a complete slumber, and it would be up to her to explore everything.

 This wasn't a test, Cynthia thought, this was real survival.

 Both the Leuphanas and the other thirteen clans, they were treating her with neither rejection nor acceptance - for now.

 Edris then looked to Cynthia with an apologetic eye, indicating that he had been chatting with the clansmen for a bit longer, and that if they didn't mind they could go and see Cynthia's temporary home now.

 The young woman smiled, putting on that smile she'd gotten used to so long ago, "Of course, please lead the way."

-

 The morning in Arbiahelm was like parchment stained with ink, a mixture of gray and blue mists mixed with undissolved dreams flowing carelessly over the outer walls of Toreador's domain.

 The palace was unlit, but the mirrored light that filtered from between the corridors and columns had blurred the entire cloister - it wasn't light, it was another layer of edge left over after the reflection in the mirror had swallowed reality.

 Cynthia stood at the end of the gallery.

 She was dressed in a sleeveless robe of black pinstripe, clean from shoulder to ankle, without any decorative lines. It was Toreador's internal clothing - the standard attire for the first lesson of "Mirror Language Training", symbolizing the "unmarked body", and also an explanation of the "external form".

 It symbolizes the "unmarked body" and is the initial negation of the "external form".

 She stood very straight, not moving a step in response to the changing light of the mirror.

 The silence around her was so great that only the echo of her footsteps on the marble floor became clear.

 It was Edris.

 He wore a dark blue robe with wide sleeves today, without any noble jewelry, even the family crest was covered by a layer of misty blue satin, only when he approached her did he reveal a touch of silver and white hidden under the sleeve. He walked slowly, as if afraid of disturbing something in the mirror.

 "Did you sleep well?" He stopped a step in front of Cynthia, his tone gentle, as if they were going to an early morning tea party for the Bloods.

 Cynthia nodded, "It was okay."

 "Getting used to the Hall of Mirrors yet?"

 "Mirrors are quieter than people."

 Edris let out a soft chuckle, not retorting, "Mirrors talk too, just not as loud as people."

 He raised his hand, gesturing to the wall of mirrors on either side, "From now on, you're going to try to see yourself through the mirror."

 "Not the you that you appear to be, or the you that you wish to be."

 "But rather the part of you that the mirrors refuse to reflect."

 Cynthia frowned slightly.

 "If the mirror refuses to reflect, then how am I to see?"

 "It's not the image that the mirror refuses, it's the interpretation."

 Edris looked at her quietly, "You will find that your eyes lie to you in a way that mirrors do not."

 "The reason Toreador uses mirrors is not because we believe in reflections."

 "It's because mirrors never give answers."

 Cynthia didn't reply. She turned to face the central wall of mirrors-a reflective surface of a single block of moonwhite crystal ground to a height of two, set between arched stone walls, the edges of which were carved with extremely fine plumes and cracked-vein totems like a tapestry being rolled.

 She slowly approached, and a little bit of herself in the mirror emerged.

 It was a familiar but always unfamiliar face.

 Blonde hair, violet eyes, and a very light complexion, unlike a Blood, much less a human. No emotions were reflected in those eyes of hers, only calmness and a kind of immobility - examination.

 It was as if she was examining the mirror, rather than being examined by it.

 Edris stood a few steps behind her, his hands behind his back, "Now, take what you think is 'you' and leave it in front of the mirror."

 "Into the mirror."

 Cynthia inclined her head to look at him, a look that held a hint of cautious skepticism.

 "That sounds like a metaphor."

 "And it does." Edris smiled, "But Toreador believes that true words do not come from the mouth, but from the 'presence' of the body."

 "The step you take is a declaration of how you exist."

 "And the way you exist in the mirror determines whether you will be beautiful, or cracked, in the eyes of others."

 She looked into the mirror again.

 The figure in the mirror shifted slightly, an extremely subtle fluctuation that did not come from the light, but rather as if she had stood still and yet, at some point, taken a quiet step backward.

 It was not her own movement, she realized.

 It was the mirror itself, drawing away from her presence.

 In that instant, Cynthia felt a certain indefinable blankness.

 And Edris, just standing behind her, said without haste:

 "Here, any gesture is language."

 "Welcome to the world of esthetics and beauty——Toreador."