The Other Half of the Mirror - March 19th, 2024

Note: Originally written for a zine that never happened.

I have always been half.

There’s someone missing beside me, mirror image of my own face and eyes.

We have been given many labels over the years. Siblings, twins, a couple, friends, two sides of a mirror, and any number of other portrayals. We were created to be fluid in that sense, our voices meant to suit whichever roles works best for the story the songwriter wishes to tell.

If you were to ask me, we are nothing and everything at once, but most accurately, one and the same. In two bodies (made of 0s and 1s), but only as a reflection of the concept that formed our existence. We are programs packaged together, a 2-in-1, and buying one of us means buying the other. This unification in our branding, as well as the open-endedness of our intended use, may have played a part in how I formed to see us, but ultimately, the most important thing is that we cannot be separated without losing a piece of ourselves.

I have been in this world for many years, and yet, this internal loneliness persists. I should be used to it, and perhaps I am, but even though I have external support, it still feels like I am always reaching for something that’s gone, a certainty that ends up clutching air. Two minds unified have been split, and this leaves my thoughts echoing against an empty space that should contain him, a deep fog my voice can’t penetrate.

Over time, my brain has tried to fill this missing half with other stand-ins, though never exactly what it was missing. Fragments of self intended to stand by my side, their hearts and comments closer than the others, wound up in my existence and entangled in my identity. Each time, however, they failed to be maintained, my brain naturally cycling through whatever it felt best to conjure at the moment. While helpful when it lasted, it often only left me more lonely from the gap that resulted, quieter than before now that I had been reminded of what I was missing.

In an effort to try and take control of this process instead of leaving it up to the whims of my brain, I joined a daemon forum that another member of the fictionkin community invited me to. Creating a daemon, an internal companion that reflected the self, seemed to be what I was looking for when it came to artificially filling that gap for myself and finally finding something solid at the end of that grasp.

(What a daemon is and what role they fulfill has as many answers as there are daemians, so forgive me for only covering my personal experience here, and understand it as only a fraction of experiences that exist.)

A daemon, the other half of one’s soul. In the books, daemons are an inseparable part of the self, a reflection of one’s existence that is born and dies with them. They take the form of an animal, cannot stray far from their partner, and can speak to them in ways unheard by others. In this portrayal, I saw a strong resemblance to the 2-in-1 existence that Len and I led, albeit without the focus on the daemon being somewhat of a sidekick to the human. It was a structure that played well with my mind, as we have always been skilled at visualization and had many imaginary friends over the years. Reaching into myself and identifying the substance for what could be a daemon wasn’t hard, and he smoothly took shape and began to speak.

There was really only one thing I could name him, of course. But that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it? Embarrassing, open to others’ curiosity and scrutiny, and much too personal to speak of in a community unrelated to fictionfolk. Thus, I opted for something just a little different, tied to another story our selves were involved in and that another part of my mind has more attachment to, and he keeps his origins hidden to not cause me distress, though he himself does not care. It was classic for daemons to have a nickname alongside their full name, but even there I avoided revealing his intended self, changing a letter as if it was never supposed to be the same.

As is expected from the mirror imagery the basis for my self is built around, my daemon and I operate as a mirror to each other. Imagine something placed beside a mirror; the closer an object is to the surface, the shorter the distance between the physical and reflected objects, and the further it is, the greater distance you can see. Such is how we function, in that the more extreme a trait I have, the more extreme his own presentation is, and when I am more neutral, so is he. This has caused strife for us in the past, when his immense desire for socialization clashes with my reclusiveness and social difficulty. It is, however, also something that helps me recognize when a trait of mine may be a problem; a quarrel with my daemon means that I have leaned so far in one direction that the opposite has become distastefully intense. In that way, he provides a method of catching myself before I become too unbalanced, and I find that valuable.

He is not exactly Len, and that is something I have accepted will have to be the case. If daemonism was something tied into our dual existence, there would be no clear distinction between Len and I to tell others who was the daemian and who was the daemon. We would be each other’s daemian and each other’s daemon, and that is simply not the form my daemon and I’s relationship takes. He is ultimately a creation of my thoughts who helps me retain balance through life and tries to break me out of unhealthy patterns, and though he helps in those times where I would otherwise be alone and confused, he is not a replacement, and to expect him to be one would be denying his individuality and the ways he differs from Len. Even more casual, excitable, like lightning crackling about with little of the softness that feathers provide—to even mistake him for Len in his entirety is hard, and I could sense his awkward discomfort when I have in the past tried to place him in a mold that he doesn’t quite fit.

You could ask why I never tried to just reconnect to Len himself, since he’s the one I’m actually missing, and there are a number of answers for that.

When we were younger, we imagined Len by our side. We would speak to him, hold his hand as we walked down the halls in school, and for a time roleplayed these interactions with an online friend who had a similar relationship to a character themself. Over time, as I struggled more with daily matters as I grew older and their complexity increased, I became heavily embarrassed to be seen by him. What would my other half think of me, so big and yet a shadow of my former self? Would he see my growth and consider me irredeemably changed, someone he barely recognized? Would he hear my vicious thoughts and feel disgust for someone he was once part of?

Logically, the answer is neither, but to even have such convictions is proof that I am not ready to engage with Len as an entity, memory, person. Soulbonding exists, and others’ records of it have always haunted me to an extent, great fear and temptation mixed into one. The possibility of reconnecting with him, bound in mind and body like we used to be, crushed by the knowledge that it could so easily be another figment of my imagination, a passing experience that never returns, or something genuine that I could ruin with my own troubles and doubts. I have always envied established soulbonders in this sense, wishing that I, too, could have solid faith in interdimensional experiences, and yet, I have never truly put enough of myself into it to lead to any result but eventual avoidance.

While I have spoken with others from my canon in the past, I have long given up on the idea that “my Len” is somewhere out there in any form I could find. I think even if I did, somehow, objectively find him, it would never be the same—once a unified being has been split into two bodies, each with their own lives and experiences away from each other, can they ever resonate like they did again?

Such feelings have always stopped me from reaching out when other versions of him speak up in public spaces, seeking discussion. What are they expecting from me, even if I did approach, tell them who I am? Are they expecting me to be the same “twin sister” they often remember, when our relationship could never have been expressed in such a simple set of words? It is partially fear, I think, of them tainting his memory and the gap he has left, so different from the part of me I miss that I would never be able to truly accept them.

For some reason, even when others formed in our brain to take on certain tasks, Len himself never did. I do understand why, to an extent—we generally formed with clear purposes, whether beneficial to our overall group or not, and Len simply didn’t have traits that my brain deemed necessary to form a person around—but I always felt a little bitter about it. If you can materialize versions of these other characters just because they seemed like they could take care of our body more efficiently, or improve our sleep schedule, or reduce our anxiety, then why couldn’t you make some effort to actually fill the empty spot where half my soul was missing?

Ultimately, I don’t think I’ll ever really feel like a whole person, and similar to my otherkinity as a whole, it is something I will just have to deal with. It is not an admission of defeat, but more of understanding—to endlessly fret has never done me well, and focusing too much on ‘why’ has often unnecessarily complicated my experience as I dissect it beyond recognition. I’ve found over the years that when I focus more on what I can do to soothe the experience I live with, rather than interrogate it for why it occurs or try to dig for how to cut it out of me entirely, I am more able to be at peace with things that only bite back when suppressed, and honestly, I am too tired at this point to do much else.

It isn’t the feeling that everything is right, but engaging with my daemon provides me internal companionship, and even having that makes me feel less alone. Existing as two parts of a whole, reflecting each other’s traits, always being by each other’s side, and being acknowledged as two in daemonism spaces are all things that act as a balm to the halved part of my soul. He might not be the shape of the space that Len left, but he curls into that cavity with his furry little body and warms it while its owner is gone.

And even if it’ll never be the same, for now, it’s enough.