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It's weeks, before Yang manages to look in the mirror. She stays in the spare room, where there isn't one. Avoids the one in the bathroom when she showers, lets hot water run until it's steamed up, until she can't see herself looking back.
She doesn't want to see herself.
She's spent years feeling just a little at odds in her own skin, in the way people see her. Remembers getting ready for the Beacon dance (Beacon, Pyrrha, Penny, Blake–), staring down her own reflection. The girl in the white dress had looked like somebody else.
And now... now that feeling multiplies a hundredfold, because living in her body before at least brought familiarity, if not comfort. And now, now she's too light on one side, unbalanced. Now she reaches out, fingers ready to curl around something, and remembers those fingers aren't there anymore. Now the hand that is there shakes, won't stay steady. Now she has to relearn every movement that used to be instinctive, has to think through things that were like breathing, before.
The first time she manages the mirror, it's by instinct, accident. She half-turns, tucking a towel around her chest awkwardly left-handed, and there she is. The steam's faded, because she sat for so long in the bathtub, forehead pressed to her knees, trying to breathe through pain. The pain of her residual limb, the pain of her body telling her her arm is still there, that it's hurting, how can it be hurting when it's not there anymore? Pain in her back, too, her whole body trying to adjust.
She sat there, and the steam faded, and now she's looking at herself, the whole of herself, for the first time since it happened.
Yang flinches back. The girl in the mirror is a stranger. She's been something of a stranger for years, but this girl is a ghost.
There are dark circles etched around her eyes; her purple irises look dulled somehow, hollow. She's thinner, even after just a few weeks, not wanting to eat, not wanting to do anything, left hand awkward round a fork or chopsticks, reminding her. And then her arm, the way it just ends, the way a part of her is gone.
Her whole life, Yang's told herself she'll be okay if she can just be strong. Strength got her through Summer dying, through finding out about Raven. Strength let her raise Ruby. It doesn't matter if she's never felt quite comfortable in her skin, because at least she's been strong. It doesn't matter what people think when they look at her body, because her strength proves them wrong. Doesn't matter about the older men who leer, because Yang is strong; Yang can punch them halfway across a room without thinking twice.
But the girl in the mirror. The girl in the mirror doesn't look like any version of strength Yang's ever been shown. The girl in the mirror can't heft heavy bags without her one hand shaking. The girl in the mirror curls up on the floor under waves of pain. The girl in the mirror wakes up from nightmares screaming.
Yang has spent her whole life defining herself by strength.
Who is she now, if she's not strong?
Her reflection taunts her. She slams her left fist forward, feels it shake in its trajectory. Her knuckles scream in pain. The glass cracks inwards, and– red blade, red hair, red blood, agony. Yang stumbles backwards, feels her breath tear too fast through her lungs; tears burn the backs of her eyes.
There are footsteps outside, and she's not safe, what if it's happening again, what if he's found her–
“Yang? Everything alright in there?”
It's just her father. Yang breathes. Chokes on it. Opens the door and looks at him, blank.
“What do you think?” she says flatly, and walks back to her room.
Snow's falling, by the time she really gets out of bed. She's not sure how long she's spent, making the journey between the spare room and the bathroom the only route she really travels.
Ruby's gone. Her little sister is stronger than she is, and so what does Yang have to give her anymore?
Nothing's really better, but Tai's been asking her to get up. Yang finally agrees.
It's the first time she's worn anything but pyjama pants and a t-shirt since it happened. She goes back to her and Ruby's room, opens the top drawer of her dresser listlessly.
Her old clothes are still there. Jacket, crop top, shorts. Her father must've washed them, stowed them away. The same clothes she wore her first day at Beacon. The same clothes she wore when she became partners with her. (She's been trying not to think the name, can't bear the sting of it.) The same clothes she wore for the Vytal Festival Tournament. The same clothes she wore when she saw him, all red, standing over B– over her. The same clothes she wore when she flung herself in front, and red, red, agony like she'd never known.
Yang fumbles for them, bundles them against her body, shaking hand grasping for the pieces that fall. She walks down the stairs, finds her father in the kitchen. He smiles to see her, because she's barely even gone downstairs at all, not since– and then his smile falls as she thrusts the bundle at him, fabric scattering to the floor.
“Burn them,” she says, and her voice tightens around it. She turns away. Doesn't want him to see her cry.
“Yang–”
“Just do it,” she cuts in, feet already on the stairs again. “Please.”
He doesn't protest again, doesn't follow her, and Yang heads back to the dresser, curls her hand into a fist, tries to breathe.
What does she wear now?
Even before she lived one of the worst days of her life in them, the old clothes never really felt like her. But weren't they what the world wanted, what was expected from her?
And now. Now it doesn't matter how she dresses. Now her body will never be what the world wants. Now her arm will always, always be the first thing they see.
The thought tangles round her, and through its thorns, she thinks she sees a hint of freedom.
Because now she will always be different. Now there's no point trying to be the world's idea of what a girl should be.
Maybe, in just some small way, that makes her free.
With hesitant fingers, she rifles through clothes, brushes aside a dress, short shorts. There are other clothes here, too. Ones that feel more like her. Ones she inherited, ones she bought in a fit of bravery, ones she got for working, for being around the house, for not having to perform.
It takes longer than it used to, pulling her pyjama top over her head one-handed, sitting down to kick sweatpants off her feet because it's still a struggle to balance. But she's faster than she was the first week.
She tries half a dozen outfits, makes herself look in the mirror in between. It's hard. It stays hard, even after she finds clothes she likes, but something settles into her chest all the same. Something like the smallest fragment of healing.
The girl in the mirror wears a tanktop, loose cargo pants low on her hips. She still looks tired, still looks hurt, still doesn't look strong. But the clothes look good on her.
Yang stands there and breathes, and for a moment, air comes easily.
The cold's come and gone before she works again. Not the odd chore, getting groceries, feeling the weight of everyone's stares on her. Not making herself dinner. Real work, hard and physical, aches in all the muscles she's left unused too long.
She throws herself into it fully, because Madame Mallari is a healer. And maybe, maybe if Yang works hard enough, maybe Madame Mallari can help. Maybe she'll be strong again, maybe she'll know who she is again, maybe–
(She thinks it through, makes a plan of attack. The horse's hoof strikes her in the stomach, and she feels the energy burn through her veins, lets her Semblance fuel her. Kicks heavy wood, lets water burst forth and wash the barn floor. Swings an axe left-handed, cuts the dead tree clean in two. Somewhere inside her, a voice asks, is this not strong?)
That injury... it is beyond even my power.
Her heart sinks. Whatever strength she felt doing chores flees her.
But... Your body is your own, inviolate.
Your spirit, your choices, your reasons– these define your body, not the world.
And Madame Mallari, skirt lifting above two metal legs. The life she's built, and the healing potions, and the counsel she gives. It never occurs to Yang to see her as not strong.
Her muscles burn. Sweat makes clothes cling to her. She did all those chores, and she didn't do them how she would've done six months ago. But was the way she did them any less, for being different?
You must learn to treat yourself in new ways, too.
Before she showers off the day's work, Yang looks into the mirror. For the first time in so long, the girl there looks happy.
Yang studies her and for the first time thinks maybe, maybe, there's more than one way for her to be strong.
Time's blurred, by the first day Yang sees herself. The past few weeks of sparring, of learning her way around her new arm, of plans starting to form in her mind... they've paused, temporarily, the clock in her head, the one that's been counting time since it all happened. She's been falling into bed at night tired from sparring. She's still having nightmares, but not every single time.
She's halfway through getting dressed when it happens, back in her and Ruby's room, back where the mirror is. She's scanning the room for her pants, catches herself in her peripheral vision and almost jumps, motion blaring alarms through her muscles, phantom twinges, and she grasps her left hand with her right, stills the shakes with cool metal. It's only a reflection.
Yang looks at the girl in the mirror. She's dressed in boxer shorts and a tank top, a strip of her stomach showing between hems. The sun has dusted a handful of freckles on her cheeks, the tops of her shoulders. Her left arm is tanned, scattered with soft gold hairs, a handful of scars. Her right starts the same way, then turns to metal, gleaming black and silver.
The girl doesn't look like she should have two arms the same. Doesn't look like she should be in a dress, in underwear trimmed with lace. Doesn't look like she should shrink, should make herself less. She looks like she belongs in her own skin. She looks like she chews up expectations and spits them back in the face of the world.
For the first time in years, in lifetimes, in longer than she's ever really realised, Yang looks in the mirror and sees herself.
With nervous fingers, she detaches her prosthesis, lays it on the end of the bed, and looks back. The vision doesn't change. The arm looks right on her, but it's not the only thing that's making her look right. Whether she's wearing it or not, it's her in the mirror, her looking back.
Yang remembers staring at her reflection months ago, trying to find any trace of herself. Who am I, if I'm not strong?
The circles under her eyes have faded now. There are visible muscles in her shoulders again. She's stronger again, physically.
But maybe that's not the only way to be strong. Maybe strength was never defined by the fists she raised to the world, whether there were one or two, whether they were metal or skin. Maybe the strength was in the reasons she raised them. In caring, in all the different ways she's found to care, for others. And lately, for herself, too.
You must learn to offer that kindness and patience to yourself as well.
Yang thinks she wants to keep learning. To keep finding new ways of caring, new ways of being strong.
She reattaches her prosthesis, steps into cargo pants.
Soon, she thinks. Soon she'll go out into the world and find her sister, her friends. Maybe she'll find more of herself, too. Maybe her whole life, she'll keep learning new things about who she is. New ways to look, and think, and fight. New ways to care. New ways to be strong.
Before heading downstairs to spar, Yang takes one last look in the mirror. Sees Yang Xiao Long looking back. Gives herself a smile.