The monastery slept uneasily that night.
The storm had passed, but the air still felt heavy, saturated with memories the stone couldn't swallow fast enough. Lanterns flickered despite the stillness, their flames bowing forward as if drawn toward something unseen.
Sol sat alone beside one of the long pools in the central hall. The water had returned to its glassy calm, but she could feel tension beneath the surface… like a heartbeat muffled by stone.
She exhaled softly.
"Are you still here?"
Her reflection stared back.
But it didn't feel like hers.
Not entirely.
She dipped her fingers into the pool. Ripples spread outward, soft rings of light moving across the water.
The reflection shimmered.
A child's laugh, faint, like someone giggling behind a closed door… drifted across the hall.
Sol's heart skipped.
The monastery had never made that sound before.
She drew her hand back slowly. "Hello…?"
The laughter stopped instantly.
Then, upright in the reflection, a small shape appeared.
Not a child.
A silhouette — featureless, soft-edged, as if carved from light rather than flesh.
It stood in the water's depth where there should have been only her own reflection.
Sol's breath caught.
"…Are you the Mirror?"
The silhouette tilted its head, as if considering the question.
No eyes, no face, yet somehow the posture felt curious.
"Do you… understand me?" she asked gently.
The silhouette lifted one hand and echoed her gesture.
Not mirrored.
Matched.
Sol swallowed. "You're learning."
The pool trembled softly.
Another wave of laughter, clearer now, almost like the giggle of a child playing hide-and-seek, echoed through the hall, brushing against Sol's ears like the touch of running water.
Then the silhouette stepped forward.
It shouldn't have been possible, reflections didn't move independently, but it took a single step across the surface, as light moves across a blade.
Sol didn't pull away.
She forced herself to remain still.
Calm.
The silhouette stopped directly beneath her, as if studying her face from below.
"Are you afraid?" she whispered.
The reflection-copy lifted both hands to its nonexistent cheeks, palms pressed tight, mimicking a frightened gesture it must've seen elsewhere.
Sol's chest hurt.
"You're afraid… because you don't know what you are."
The silhouette trembled, flickering like a candle.
Sol reached toward the water. "May I show you something?"
The reflection stilled.
She lowered her hand slowly until her fingertips brushed the surface.
A soft glow rippled outward.
And then —
A jolt.
A rush of sensation not her own.
Sol gasped as images brushed against her mind:
Hands pressed to a mirror.
Laughter that wasn't joy but imitation.
A dark chamber filled with silver water.
Screaming — not from pain, but from too much.
Too much memory.
Too much emotion.
Too much reflection without understanding.
The Mirror's first breath.
The Mirror's first fear.
Sol pulled in a shaky inhale. "You… you've been alone a long time."
The silhouette's shape flickered again… shrinking, almost curling inward.
"I won't hurt you," she whispered. "I won't abandon you either."
The reflection brightened.
Then —
Another presence stirred behind her.
Ji Ming's voice, low and sharp. "Sol."
She didn't turn. "It's all right."
His footsteps were silent, but she felt him kneel beside her, his presence a steady warmth against the cold stirring around them.
"What is that?" Ji Ming asked quietly.
"A beginning," Sol answered.
He frowned faintly. "It looks like a threat."
"It isn't." She paused, then added, softer, "Not right now."
The reflection's head jerked toward Ji Ming.
The hall shivered.
Ji Ming instinctively reached for his saber.
The silhouette flinched, not from the weapon, but from the emotion flowing through him.
Fear. Protectiveness.
An edge of instinct sharpened by years of survival.
The reflection mimicked it, hands rising, stance narrowing, body shimmering in agitation.
Sol caught his arm. "Don't draw. Please."
Ji Ming froze.
The silhouette froze too.
Sol leaned forward again, speaking gently.
"It only knows what it sees. If you breathe fear, it breathes fear. If you expect violence, it expects it too."
Ji Ming exhaled slowly.
The tension bled out of his shoulders.
The silhouette straightened, posture softening in the same rhythm.
Sol looked back at it. "See? We can teach each other."
The reflection rippled, as if processing her words.
Then it lifted its hand again, not to mimic them, not to threaten… but to touch the surface of the water.
A small circle of light appeared beneath its palm.
A gesture of connection.
Sol mirrored it, placing her hand on the surface above its palm.
Light met light.
Ji Ming's voice was quiet. "Sol… this thing…"
"It isn't a thing," she whispered. "It's someone."
The reflection tilted its head again.
A soft echo of her voice, faint, like listening through a long tunnel… drifted up from the water:
"…not… alone…"
Ji Ming stiffened. "It spoke."
"Not fully," Sol murmured. "It's imitating. Learning."
The silhouette's shape wavered, then began to fade, not in fear, but as if retreating into itself, gathering, absorbing.
Before it vanished completely, it placed one small hand over its own chest.
A gesture Sol had made earlier when she promised protection.
Sol smiled softly. "Goodnight."
The silhouette vanished.
The water stilled.
Silence returned, the true silence of the monastery. Deep. Watching.
Ji Ming rose slowly. "Sol… you know this changes everything."
She stood beside him. The glow of the water still clung faintly to her fingers.
"I know."
"Can it be trusted?"
Sol looked back at the pool.
At the small handprint of light still visible under the surface.
"It learned fear because someone taught it fear," she said quietly. "If we teach it something else… maybe it will remember differently."
Ji Ming's jaw tightened. "And if we're wrong?"
Sol turned to him, her eyes steady. "Then we won't die because of its hatred. We'll die because no one tried."
He stared at her for a long moment, the kind of silent, measured gaze that one carries when something inside them shifts.
Then he nodded once.
A vow.
"We'll try," he said.
They left the hall together.
Behind them, the water shimmered faintly… as if a small, unseen presence watched them go, practicing the new word it had almost learned.
…not… alone…