I looked at the man in the mirror, looked him the face. I tried to see beyond his eyes, tried to judge him, his feelings, his emotions. That’s what I’ve always been good at, my gift and my curse. Empathy.

      And I saw.

      Fear, doubt, regret. They surrounded him, filled him, tried to suffocate him. But I also saw something else, a glimmer of a curious emotion, pride. But what was he proud about? That he had somehow entertained a god? That he had briefly been the recipient of such a powerful being’s undivided attention? Was that really something to be proud of? After all, he was a mere speck beneath her presence, the ultimate definition of powerlessness. Something she is simply toying with, playing games, ready to be discarded at any moment it gets boring. It was a feeling no different than that of a dog having brought back the stick his master had thrown.

      Yet, for some reason it persisted.

      I moved my eyes, beyond the meager form in ragged clothes and into the background. I had to focus to see her clearly, my mind still had trouble wrapping around the idea of a body the size of a mountain moving around like that, it all felt incredibly unnatural. She moved about as she dried her hair, having put on undergarments in the meantime. I turned around from the mirror image and looked at her real one from the spot she had placed me on top of a shelf of the bathroom counter after our bath. She was without a doubt the most difficult character I have ever tried to read, but I suppose it was befitting of her. She didn’t make sense after all, neither physically nor mentally.

      She finished with the dryer, and moved her hands through her blazing red hair, brushing them. Then she turned at the mirror, regarding her hair before proceeding to shake her head, naturally stringing the countless threads into gently waving strands. She stopped, satisfied at her appearance, and was about to turn when her green eyes fell on me, as if she had suddenly remembered something important.

      Naturally, I froze, mouth still gaping. That’s what her gaze did to you at that scale. Every damn time. It was hard to get use to. And when her characteristic soft smile formed on her lips, with some strands of her hair still spinning in momentum, I experienced something I never did previously: Tunnel Vision.

      It was like time had stopped, and I had fallen into eternal serenity. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but she had such a profound effect on me at that moment that I still remember it vividly, as if the image was etched into my mind with a burning piece of metal. I was suddenly filled with a raging inferno of conflicting emotions. Desire, lust, maybe even the first trickles of love, I don’t know for sure, but what I remembered the most was the profound fear. Not because of her power, no. At that moment, I feared that I would disappoint her somehow, that I would be forgotten by her, discarded, abandoned. At that moment, I became determined to do everything in my power and ability to become useful to her no matter what she would require of me. I never wanted to feel that dreadful feeling ever again.

      Ah... how little I did know at that time of the unspeakable horrors I would have to witness.