Sagas

Which side of the mirror was which? They answered her question in hushed, worried tones, clouded with concern. What does she mean, they asked? She didn’t know how to state it any clearer. Am I the reflection, or is he? Does it matter? They didn’t know how to answer her questions. Her questions scared them.

She is told she was a strange hatchling, a fey light behind her eyes, spending her free time staring down at puddles, at windows, at anything reflective. And her reflection did not match. It always showed another Mirror, her age – scarred and scared and lost.

She was curious, so she watched him. They tried to stop her, replaced her mirrors with books, tucked her away in a room, covered her windows and brought in all manner of child psychologists and therapists. She was... inconvenienced by this. None of the adults she spoke to understood. None of them ever tried to understand. She asks until the words sound silly and stupid to her ears.

She grows very tired of asking.

They tried their best, but there was no way to dodge giving her water, and down there, at the bottom of the glass, was the boy her age, staring back at her.

Which side of the mirror is which, she asks? And they answer, it doesn’t matter. But it does. It does to her. She knows, deep in her gut, there is something beyond this world of rigid rules and hurried scrawls, the hungry desire to understand her instead of simply letting her exist. To fix her when she is not broken. The other world might not be better, but it is different. She is starting to crave ‘different’.

They gave her a name, and she left it behind. Too much power for someone to have over you, letting them name you. She named herself Sagas, the name settling onto her soul. Yes. Sagas. That was a good name. Poetic and practical. Harder to twist, the same way back and forth. Harder to lose if it couldn’t be reversed.

She would do what her ancestors had done. She would cross the mirror. She would go home.

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Part 2 by Helix

He fascinated her like nothing else in this world. Within the trite constraints and dull constants, he was her sole beacon of absurdity. Her reflection, so different, so scared and worried while she beamed curiosity and wonder. She ached for another look, a chance to touch or contact, to speak and be understood. To ask of his world beyond the borders of their portal.

The answers given on her half are too worldly, too grounded in its own form of sunk cost fallacy. They do not care to answer, too immersed in constant cycles and routines she grows progressively exhausted of. Every day a hunger grows, a seed roots. A gentle crack that yawns into a bottomless pit; a desire to be swept up into the unfathomable.

Her solitude is not without merit– she is given knowledge, but none can compare to her singular obsession. Before they banned any mention of ‘mirror’ to her ears, she learned so-called water dragons would scry the heavens and earth within pools of water. And now, months later, she does the same. With what precious little she is given, she receives a reprieve from captivity, a glimpse into someone’s life within a world she desperately wishes to join.

Her subject grows uneasy from her increased surveillance. He freezes the instant she is given her water, looks straight into her eyes. It amuses her, that fear. Why so afraid? Is he not bored as she is?
But he begins to ignore her!

He barely reacts the few times she can glimpse him, at most an eye that flicks to her, ignoring her for another task. His image rippled, squashed and stretched with the vibrations of her shaking hand. The second time his form wavers with no motion, dissolving at the edges. And on the third he moves like a drop of ink, dissolving into her cup.

Within three days her throat is like parchment, her skein fat with the fruit of desperation. A basin, once for washing but now useless in her limited supply, became her personal scrying pool, filled to the brim for her sole wish to see.

No reflection greeted her, not even her own. Her soul, stalwart in singular goal, finally cracked. She cries at the base of her makeshift scry and succumbs to relentless thirst. No longer does she pursue reflection, if all she is met with is none. Her days pass in molasses, the full weight of confinement bearing down.

Eventually, the door is left unlocked. She finds her answer in silence: the side of the mirror she stands upon is what matters. She cannot escape age, hunger, thirst, time. Pursuit of frivolities left her naive, inexperienced, a step behind for what is expected of her. And she accepts it, like the roaring of her heart for that which she will never see.

She keeps her basin full, a testament to her mistakes, a reminder as she bids life to let her catch up. It, like the routines and constants, is merciless. Time, once lost, cannot be regained, those younger than her given opportunity as she is passed by.

The frustration reaches a boil, losing an apprenticeship to a hatchling breaks her again. Her bedsheets rip, her books scatter, her jewelry flung and torn for some measure of control. This unfair world, absurdly simple, is unfit for her.

A trinket, a silver broach set with a sapphire, clatters against the wall, ricocheting against stone and ringing sharp against the surface of the water.

The sound chills her rage; her eyes locking onto the silver, perched on top of water solid as glass. And when she locks eyes onto it, the trinket is pulled down, reeling her in with an alacrity she only possessed in her youth.

For the first time in a decade, she sees her reflection, calmly inspecting her jewelry. He is no longer that terrified hatchling; his eyes turn to what she lost. Her heart pounds in her ears, her fingers grip the basin until her claws crack.

Slowly, deliberately, he holds it to the surface, muscles straining as he pushes. At once, the broach pops up, leaping up only to ping against the water, chiming as it spins. Her eyes follow it, her mind blank until it roars into action.

Her penmanship is swift, her wrist aches from the strain. Her letters are chickenstratch as she hurries, using spilled ink and broken quill. Simple, short, a plea. A letter she slaps on the water, desperation weighting her chest.

He still watches her, silent and emotionless, much like she was in her hatchlinghood. This time, she is the emotive one, scared and scarred, terrified. Work, work, work, she pleads, throwing her strength, enthralled by paper that refused to wet.

Her hand crashes through water, knuckles rap on metal. But when she raises her hand…

The note is gone.