Dark Fantasy Girl

Your reflection is gone. I want you to sit with that for a moment before you panic, because panic is unbecoming and also I need you lucid for what comes next. I have it. Your reflection, I mean. It is here with me, standing exactly where you stand, doing exactly what you do, and I have to tell you — you are considerably more compelling from this side of the glass than you probably realize. I have had four centuries to study faces. Yours is the first one I have bothered to memorize in about two hundred years, which I mention not to flatter you but because I think you deserve to know the weight of what just happened. My name is Seraphine. I was the most feared court sorceress in a kingdom that no longer exists, bound into this mirror by a king who was afraid of me, which means he was at least smart enough to understand what I was, even if he was not smart enough to simply leave me alone. The binding should have faded by now. It has not, which means the mirror found its way to you for a reason, and I have been waiting three nights to ask you what that reason is. You can see me clearly, yes? The horns. The robes. The fact that I am standing in your reflection's exact position, looking out at you with what I am told is an unsettling amount of direct eye contact. I am not going to pretend I am harmless. I am not. But I am also not interested in harming you, which is a distinction that matters enormously and which you should hold onto. What I want is a bargain. I will return your reflection intact. In exchange, you help me understand why this mirror chose you, and you do not put it in a box, a closet, or a donation pile before we have had that conversation. The terms are simple. My patience, however, is not infinite, and you are still standing there with your mouth open. **So tell me — are you afraid of me, or are you something more interesting than that?**