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Barbara blinks.
The figure in the mirror blinks back.
They gaze at each other. Their faces reveal their disbelief at the other’s existence. One of Barbara’s hands comes up and touches her cheek. One of the figure in the mirror’s does the same. They both feel cool, stone skin. It’s theirs. Hers.
There aren’t two different people on opposing sides of a mirror. There’s only one person in the room, Barbara herself. She clenches her fists, and then unclenches them when she feels her claws did into her skin. She looks down, at the fading, half-moon indentures now in the palms of her hands. Thankfully, she didn’t draw blood.
Her blood isn’t red anymore. It’s more of a bluish-indigo. She’s glad she doesn’t have to see it.
Barbara looks down, away from the mirror and her reflection. Her gaze falls on the glamour mask sitting on the vanity. Her fingers hover over it. She gulps, and then picks it up. Barbara closes her eyes as she puts the mask on. She breathes in as the wave of magic washes over her and the illusion goes into affect. She breathes out as she opens her eyes.
The person in the mirror now is human. A woman in her forties who’s yet to show too many signs of aging. Her hair is long, but smooth (not an unkept mane that refuses to be tamed). Her fingers thin, nimble, almost dainty (not rough and clawed). The tips of her ears are rounded (not pointed), her nose small (not broad), her skin pale (not grayish-blue).
Barbara could go out like this, leave her girlfriend’s apartment, and no one would think anything changed at all. She is Barbara Lake, the same old doctor who’s worked at Arcadia General Hospital for years. Only a few were there when all that changed. No one else has to know. She could continue as herself. She could. Really. It’s a possibility.
Except, it isn’t.
The person in the mirror won’t age, won’t change. She’s incapable of being anything but a stagnant figure. To go masquerading as her would be…not quite wrong, but not quite right either. She is—was—her once. But she isn’t. Not anymore.
Barbara presses one hand to the mirror, and her old self does the same. She doesn’t realize how hard she’s pressing until the first crack splinters the mirror. The slightest shift of her hand, and more join it. A web of fractures race across her reflection, breaking it apart into innumerable fragments. Barbara snarls. Her fingers curl into a fist and slam into the mirror. Its broken shards cascade down. The picture of her masquerade gone.
Barbara takes off the glamour mask and throws it aside. She turns away, wraps her arms around herself, drags herself over to the bed, and collapses down on it. Barbara wiggles to the center of the mattress and pulls the blankets around herself in a tight cocoon until the world seems distant, unreachable.
An amount of time she can’t be certain of later, the world comes reaching in for her. Fingers pull away the blankets and graze over her horns. Barbara growls, but she doesn’t have the energy to make it threatening.
“I don’t want to talk,” She protests as Nomura excavates her head from the blankets.
“Then don’t.” Nomura pulls Barbara’s head and shoulders into her lap. “I’m going to sit here with you.” She runs her hands through Barbara’s hair.
Barbara wants to protest, but she also doesn’t want Nomura to go away.
They sit in silence for a while.
“If you let me, there’s something I’d like to show you,” Nomura says, breaking the still.
“What is it?”
Nomura smirks. “It would ruin the surprise if I told you.”
“I don’t want to be surprised, Zelda. Not right now.”
“Do you trust me?” Nomura’s hand comes to rest on Barbara’s hair.
Barbara gazes up at her. “Always.”
They end up in the woods outside of town. Nomura leads Barbara until they reach a long meadow.
“Zelda, what are we—?”
“Run.”
“What?”
“Run with me.” Nomura races away.
Barbara stares after her, but her girlfriend isn’t coming back. Barbara grumbles to herself, but she takes a step, and then another. She has no choice but to run if she wants to catch up with Nomura.
She picks up speed rapidly. Her troll legs are capable of far longer strides than her human ones, and she had long legs before her transformation. Barbara bounds across the meadow. She leaps over a boulder. Exhilarated by her weightlessness, she laughs. She lands solidly and uses her momentum to propel herself forward.
“You caught up fast,” Nomura comments when Barbara finally, finally runs alongside her. “But, I wonder, are you willing to follow me all the way?”
“Zelda, what are you talking—?”
Nomura leaps off the edge of the small cliff at the end of the meadow. Barbara skids to a stop. She watches as Nomura falls—gracefully—and lands in what appears to be a deep pool at the bottom. Barbara gulps. She can’t. This is absurd. She can’t.
She does.
She gets a running start and then leaps after her girlfriend.
The current yanks Barbara when she plunges underwater. She has no choice but to let it take her wherever it wants.
Barbara gasps for breath when she’s deposited on a gritty beach. She pulls herself up farther on land—sweet, sweet land—until she’s out of the water. She looks up and sees Nomura smirking down at her.
“What the actual fuck, Zelda?” Barbara heaves herself up. “Why did I just jump off a cliff?”
Nomura chuckles. “You enjoyed it, you know you did.”
“Yeah, okay, maybe I did, but still, do you know how dangerous—”
“Look, I’m not good with words, especially comfort ones.” Nomura sighs. “I didn’t know what to say to make you feel you better, so I thought I’d show you how good it can feel to be a troll.” She approaches Barbara and places a hand on her shoulder. “I know you’ve lost a lot that you can never get back and that hurts.” She looks down. “But there are things, abilities, you’ve gained too. Being a troll, changing into one, it isn’t all bad.” She puts a finger under Barbara’s chin and lifts her head so their eyes meet. “I need to admit something. I hope it doesn’t change how you think of me.” She cups Barbara’s cheek. “I love you like this. I loved you before, but now, now there are things I’ll be able to share with you that I wasn’t able to because you were human.” She takes a breath. “I will always be here to support you when you need, but I was also hoping I could show you all the possibilities that have been opened to you.”
Barbara grins. “She says she doesn’t have a way with words, yet she speaks so very well.”
“So…?”
“Got anymore cliffs we can jump off of?”