She stared into the mirror, examining the milky blue that stared back at her. A duller version of her right, her left eye was a haunting sight. Its gaze was distant and somehow knowing, yet it was truly the deadest part of her, as was evidenced by the thin white scar that stretched across it. A solidary tiger stripe on her face, four inches in length.
It had been a gift from this long war- delivered to her by a young enemy soldier. Only a few years older than she had been at the time, he had presented the stripe to her when she had been distracted trying to finish off another officer. It had seemed to be a mistake- Tanya believed that he had likely been trying to slit her throat and failed miserably. Nonetheless, when he flew up behind her and brought his knife around, it had struck her in what had been her most dazzling feature. She had returned him in kind (though the knife through his socket had been a little more forceful) and the soldier had been gifted an ironic form of immortality, as he would certainly never grow a day older.
The cut she received had been shallow- but deep enough still. Her face had been bleeding everywhere, giving the phrase 'seeing red' another meaning. Although, only one eye saw red. Only one eye could, from that point forward.
By some miracle, her eye actually didn't become infected. Perhaps the soldier's blade, much like him, was new.
Perhaps, like him, it hadn't been used like that before.
Or maybe it was her damned magic. Regardless, she had lived, sacrificing a fair amount of her depth perception. But, somehow, she managed.
It wasn't so bad really. It watered down that ridiculous flowery image her delicate body conveyed- still doll-like, but this time haunted. When she looked soldiers in the eye, they struggled to look back in a way they hadn't before. And so the eye, the stripe- it became a badge. Now a young adult, Tanya Degurechaff, with her pale porcelain skin, silky blonde hair, slight stature, and dead eye, struck fear into the hearts of men before they even knew her name.
Because now she was something else- a reminder. A reminder of all the women and children dead. A reminder of lost innocence. A symbol of horror, petulance, fear, and death.
A symbol of war.
And as she stared into the mirror, and the eye stared into her, she smiled. Because men fear nothing more than war.
And there was nothing that should be feared more than her.