Chapter Text
HER, IN THE FADED MIRROR
By
FattyAtomicMutant and TsundereAnubis
*Della Ducks Experiences on the moon have left an indelible scar on her soul. One such nuance is that she spent months in a staring contest with herself in order to stave off the lonliness of no human contact and detests mirrors as a result. But what if, through sheer force of Will and a touch of the old McDuck Weirdness, she managed to snap her mirror image out of their routine and had them act out their own selfhood! And what if this reflection is a lethally jealous friend to have?*
She had forgotten her time on the moon once, finally reuniting with Earth, her Family, and Home.
Time after time, her experiences would be brought back in sharp relief, sometimes even in casual conversation.
One thing remained even more persistent than the others. Della's absolute obsession with avoiding mirrors.
"Come on, you hapless harpy! You need to sit in front of the mirror so that you can get your hair cut!"
After a while of butchering her own hair just to avoid a mirror, Scrooge attempted to have Della hold still so that Beakley could cut at Della's hair and make it somewhat amenable for staff photos. "Della! Please hold still! For Heaven's Hassles it's just glass!" Della squirmed and fussed, with a manic strength, in an attempt to get away from Beakley, out of her strong grasp.
"Heck no! I know what your game is! You want me to look decent and proper! I can't get near any Mirrors! Not one!"
"You looked at plenty of reflective surfaces by now surely!" Scrooge sputtered, baffled that Della would be fighting this hard to avoid seeing herself in a mirror. Beakley almost had managed to get her feet into view-
-"Trust me on this one, you think I'm bad? My mirror image is worse! They're the exact opposite of me in every way!"
Scrooge seemed discomfited by the words, Della derailed enough that Beakley was able to get Della to sit in the tall chair in front of the Mirror. Della cringed, shutting her eyes tightly. "Fine! Just get it over with!" Scrooge was about to chide her before something caught his eye…..and Beakleys…
Namely that Della's reflection was gone. The Duck sitting in the chair did not show up in the mirror at all! "What in the name of-" muttered Beakley. "Lass, explain yourself." Scrooge sputtered, head reeling. "Ye kenne be a vampire. It's daylight and the windows are open. What, exactly happened?"
Della opened one eye, then the other. "Oh F-"
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It was around the third year in the empty, airless surface of the Moon that Della first met Her.
It was entirely on accident. She had already spent an entire year before, as a sort of thought experiment, to have conversations in front of the mirror. Conversationsthat were at first one-sided became two as the cracking Duck buckled under the strain and let loose her internal monologue as answers.
Little by little, she could sometimes swear that the reflection of herself in the shard of glass recovered from the wreckage felt...off. Somehow. It seemed to delay sometimes, moving out of sync with her movements.
She felt sure she was going insane when, one day, when. She turned to face the mirror suddenly to get some tape out of her hair that the mirror image seemed so wrong.
What was wrong, namely, is that the image did not reflect a duck tangled in electrical tape, but herself, pressing against the glass as one would a window. "Not doing so good, huh?"
Della's blood froze in her veins. She shook her head, as if to clear it out. But no, the mirror image remained there.
"I hoped I would have utterly failed in getting back before I would hallucinate at least." Della said, finally freeing the tape from her hair, tearing a chunk of feathers from her scalp in the process. "Mother of PEARL!"
"Oh, you finally managed to get the cussing somewhat under control." The reflection mused, pulling away from the other side. "We haven't really properly spoken, but, I guess, between the two of us? At least you aren't alone anymore." Della stumbled to the mirror, trying to make sense of this.
"So you're like, what exactly? A lunar apparition to replace me when I sleep!?" Her reflection chuckled, knocking on the mirror's surface, the odd tink tink of glass ensued.
"Can't really explain it at all myself. Suffice to say there's a whole world over here. Chrome-skinned cops and everything." Her reflection said, trying to step back to reveal...the makeshift room about them."Okay so you can't really see it from there, but I swear to you, it's true. We literally exist to sort of Be reflections of you. I guess, after talking to me for so long you kind of break up the pattern..." She sheepishly confessed, tracing circles in the glass. "Keep it on the down low, but at least you aren't alone, right?"
Della swallowed hard, breathing given way to keening as she slumped against the wall beside the mirror. "This isn't happening I've gone bonkers, I've gone bananas! I've gone nuts! The cheese slid off my cracker!”
"Honestly it's more that I just stopped caring about the whole act...erm, let me introduce myself! I'm MIrror Della also don’t-holy heck don’t throw that spanner at the mirror!” Della’s hand clenched tighter at the spanner she had grabbed on reflex, its flanged bits clacking in tandem with her rapid breathing.
“This isn’t real this isn’t real. It's just a hallucination, it's just being alone, it's just-” Della’s brain was boiling over. The Other Della shushed her down, finger over her lips, a higher octave that descended down, a coo of a shush. Della felt her heart relax, slacken in its beats. She gathered her breath, remembering to chew her gum. “Okay, okay, yeah, Mirror world? That’s bullshit right there, Miss. Mirrors just bounce back light, they don’t contain multitudes.”
Mirror Della did a pirouette, arms outstretched behind her. "Shows what you know! It's weird, but it's what we do."
"I have so many questions, but honestly I am still positive I'm quite insane…" Della approached the mirror she made from polishing the ships' hull tentatively-
-a hand reached out from the mirror, shining and silvery. The hand was cold to the touch, and felt less like feather and flesh and bone and more like-
"Glass?"
"Yeah! It's not quite brittle since it's a solid chunk. But there's a lot of ways to hurt it and break myself apart. But let's not get into that…" Mirror Della pulled her arm back in, now resembling Della's own. "I am not supposed to do this. The penalty for acting out is being ground to dust. But you looked so lonely, and I honestly could use a break from copying you. So how about we make a deal?" Mirror Della asked.
Della shook her head rapidly, crossing her arms over the other in the ‘No way’ or ‘Time out’ Fashion. “Uh uh, no. I already gave my old name away to the Fae to get the name I have now, and I know very well how down South deals can go with any sort of supernatural critter.”
“Now that’s rather cold for what’s essentially been with you since you were born and, hang on, it's hard to talk like this. Here! Reach in and pull me out!” the Other Della stepped back, offering her hand, just at where the glass ‘wall’ would be.
Della’s brain worked on overdrive. On the one hand, this is uncharted territory, with a supernatural-esque being of which she would be totally alone with and completely defenseless against. Even if she was made of actual chrome-like glass, it wouldn’t do to get injured in a fight alone and several trillion miles from hospitals.
Yet the desire for company that could talk back, the desire to be around a *person*, was overwhelming. “Okay, how about this then. I can’t get pulled in if I just let go of this.” Della gently nudged the Spanner she held in her hand against the glass-
-The glass that now yielded and responded like an amorphous membrane, just enough give to push the spanner in without breaking it but firm enough that it took effort to push the tool through the mirror. The odd way the light struck the surface made the Spanner cant at an odd angle, like a straw in a glass of water.
The other Della reached out, and grabbed tightly, but did not pull. “Okay, now, yank me out. This will work best with an Actual like you pulling me out.”
“Actual?” Della questioned, before pulling with all of her might-
-and causing the Other Della to be yanked from the mirror and atop her own body, and holy-fudge she was *heavy*, dense. Clearly an inorganic creature imitating an organic one.
Other Della’s hair drooped about her head, framing it as she pulled herself off of Actual Della, offering her a hand to her feet. Della found offering her hand was met with a surprisingly strong, and cold, grip that hoisted her to her feet with little effort. No doubt due to the overall uniform construction of her body, as opposed to a series of muscles and tendons at work. “It's how they sell how we aren’t but Copies. They call all of you here ‘Actuals.’”
“You keep saying ‘They’ and all I can think of is-” Della was trembling. Here was a living being. Something with a presence nearby. Weird or Supernatural or not, Della reached out to hug the entity, grabbing tightly, tears flooding her eyes. “Oh, oh, you’re real. You’re solid and real and this is a living person and-”
“Whoa there sport! Slow down!” Other Della chuckled, prying Della’s hands off their neck and shoulders as if pushing a hyperactive Terrier away. “Okay, settle down, this is going to be a good, long one.” “Oh, well.” Della flopped into her chair. “I don’t have another chair, but you can sit on any console that has the least amount of buttons…”
*****************
“I cannae believe you did it again!” Scrooge hopped up and down in bewilderment and fury. “You went and talked to something faerie and struck a deal!”
Della’s hair was now more reasonably prim, but still a little asymmetrical due to the fact that her reflection was still quite, and totally absent. Beakley managed to make do, giving Della some modicum of relief.
“I dont know what to tell you! I was lonely and desperate and I needed something, someone, *anyone*.” Della gripped at the sides of the chair to stabalize her sense of self before speaking. “In any case, It gets worse from here.”
Beakleys’ eyes narrowed, having finished cleaning the various styling tools and trimmers. “Is this a situation where we need to fortify the manor, particularly now?”
Della shook her head, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. “No. No…Its…She’s gone now, forever, I think. Here, let me get something strong to drink. Not booze, but something bitter. Tea, Coffee? Something with some pep. This story is a long one.”