Familiar
"Hello," she tells the looking glass. "Hello, how are you?"
Because this is their first time meeting, and she doesn't want to be rude. You always say hello.
She looks and looks, a memoir of blue eyes and olive skin, of familiar hands and an unfamiliar face. This is a ritual, one she will follow for the rest of her life; every day she meets a girl in the mirror. Sometimes they touch fingertips, sometimes they simply stare at each other, ever so often cracking a nervous smile, the awkwardness of a stranger.
But there is never a conversation. Katara feels too inadequate, not worthy talk to the girl in mirror; that girl is beautiful and she is so ugly ugly ugly with the blood of her enemies, blood she herself has touched, has bent, has controlled—as easy as it is to breathe, it is hers—stained, coated with crimson, she is guil—
She is inadequate.
She has nothing to offer to the girl in the looking glass. This is war, this world is a war, and there is nothing to be gained in war, only the magnitude of loss, how many were killed today?
She has killed. She has lost.
The girl, too, has never spoken. Maybe she is unable to. Maybe she is mute. Maybe there is war in that mirror world. Katara will never ask, the girl will never tell.
This is real. As real as she makes it.
The full moon makes her itchy. Nervous. Desperate.
She is careful to stay far away tonight. She knows what she could do by its power —"We have to fight these people however we can, wherever they are, with any means necessary,"—and insanity is contagious.
Once an idea is planted, it feeds upon will like a poisonous plant. These living beings—just sacks of water.
And she is Hama. Hama is Katara. There are no distinctions.
She meets the girl by the ocean tonight, pushing down and flattening the water so easily that it's mindless.
"Hello," she tells the looking glass. "Hello. How are you?"
Because this is their first time meeting, and she doesn't want to be rude. You always say hello.
And while that girl in mirror may never say hello, she will never say goodbye. The mirror between them dilutes her guilt, blurs the blood on her hands.
They don't know each other. But they are best friends, soul mates, the same person.
She tells herself this is real, and she is real, this war is real, and she's so ugly ugly ugly.
They will tell you the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But she will look into mirrors for the rest of her life, and it's as real as she can make it.