He had often wondered, as he stood before the morning mirror, what had changed in his face overnight.

He'd lean forward, so close that the mirror would flare with his breath, and inspect himself with great earnestness. Of course, he had been so young; he had no need to worry. But still, his face had commanded him, each morning, to examine it. Perhaps it wasn't so much that he had sought signs of aging, but rather, he'd catalogue every feature of his face, predicting what might happen to it years from then.

His eyes, he had decided with sickness, would be the first to go. That exquisite curve of his lower lids would sag and subside in bags of wrinkled skin. His thick, dark lashes, so long that Kunzite used to say they "kept his cheeks clean", would drop out one by one until they no longer beautified and barely protected. And his eyes themselves, his beautiful moss green eyes, would be stolen upon by creeping blood vessels, a thought that had made Zoisite lean back and rub his face.

And then there'd be his mouth. His lips, then full and red, would grow pallid and shrivel, framed by creases running perpendicular to them. When he'd smile, it would be a lipless baring of the teeth, something he'd shudder to greet Kunzite-sama with.

What disturbed him most, though, was his hair. How long would it be, he had thought, until he started changing colour? Some people went grey very early, after all. And for each collection of golden strands he’d pull out on his hairbrush, he’d wonder, how long until they stopped growing back? Worse yet, what if it they to were start falling out?

He'd stare into the mirror, every morning a prisoner of things he could not yet see, helpless to do anything but search and scour. Kunzite-sama would chuckle at him, asking him what in the world he was doing admiring himself like that, when someone else should be doing the admiring for him. For Kunzite, frozen in age as he was by Metallia, could never look old. He could never understand. But Zoisite, left at the mercy of time, had thought to himself, Some day I will look older than Kunzite-sama. In the night, when Zoisite, not yet sated, would try to impel another round, Kunzite would push him languidly off, saying with a grin, "You're far too young for me." Before the mirror in the morning, that statement would fill Zoisite with horror. This is what he thinks of me. What will become of me when I am no longer full of youthful energy?

But on the eve of Zoisite's twenty-first birthday, all his fears before the mirror had been swept away. For on the eve of Zoisite's twenty-first birthday, Beryl had raised her hands to her scrying ball and blasted Zoisite to the ground.

Blasted.

Such a weak word for what had happened. But it didn't matter now.

Smiling gently to himself, Zoisite rose his seat and turned to leave. Kunzite-sama was coming to meet him to-day.

But as he was about to leave, he turned once again to glance over his shoulder. With flawless green eyes, his reflection looked back at him from the little table mirror, porcelain skin and full lips forevermore.

"Thank you, Queen Bery-sama," Zoisite whispered.