Thorns

The bathroom is dark but for a single light trained upon her face. The glass is clear and unsteamed as the girl applies dark kohl to her eyes, but there is a moment where her image in the mirror starts as if spooked, and shies away from her. She puts down the stick of kohl, fingers shaking slightly.

“Speak, Nameless. What have you to tell me?”

The mirror girl sighs imperceptibly, giving up all pretense of following the girl’s movements. Her lips twitch with a sudden thought.

“Nineteen. There, I’ve said it.”
The girl nods, impassively.
“But that’s not what you wish to speak about.”
“No.” There is a pause while the mirror-girl arranges her words. “What is she doing?”
The girl sighs deeply, looking down at the washbasin, and on her fingers curled tight about its marble rim.
“I don’t know.” A pause. “Yes I do.”
“What?”
“She is pushing me away again. I saw it in the back of her eyes that night, that I have gotten too close to her core and now she grows thorns to keep me back.” She looks up from the basin. “It’s not as if I haven’t done the same, when I feel the hunting hound’s teeth at my heels.”
“Does she realize what she’s doing?”
“I should think not. I suspect that she’s adult enough to tell me, if she knew.”
“Does it make it easier to let her go?”
“In a way, yes. It dulls the pleasure of her company, certainly. It makes it easier to…” the girl stares off into infinity for a moment.
“To?”
She starts back to herself, “To follow other trails on the hillside. There are many creatures that would hunt fox, you know. It helps me to remember that she is not the only one out there.” Her lips quirk with a memory. “And it helps me to focus on those who do want me. The Sunbeam, the Wheel, Orion’s Follower, the Dancing Wolf, and…” she pauses again, searching for a word.
“…And the Mask.” The mirror-girl supplies. The girl grins in acceptance.
“Yes, and the Mask.”
“So what then of the Tigress?”
“She is lovely. But each time I looked into those fey eyes of hers, I saw only lust. And standing back, I saw naught but a vector.” Her brow furrows. “I would not be on the end of that chain, not if I could help it. Even as much fun as we had.”
The mirror-girl nods. “Our gift, and our curse, is Sight.”
The girl nods resignedly. “To see beyond flesh, into the tangled mind’s intent, and beyond. It is a hard thing, to read the pattern on the world’s loom, and have none believe you when you tell the shape of the weaving.”

There eyes lock through the glass, and they share a weary smile. The world shudders slightly, and as one the girl reaches again for the stick of kohl.