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The problem with mirrors is, light only moves so quickly.
Braxiatel, who gazes into mirrors often, knows full-well about delays. Gazing into the future is not, inherently, gazing into truth. The delay between now and the future, between the future and the now and the moment observed, leaves just enough time for decisions.
It leaves, in fact, just enough time for consideration of the present instant.
(Somewhere, Leela burns with a rage mostly unknown to their kind, with the fury of those ephemeral, with the passion of those who know time for what it is: brief, passing, out-of-grasp. She dreams of her husband past, of a husband to come, of the beings she will love, of the people she would die for. Braxiatel is forced to ask a more important question—not, who would merit the sacrifices, but who would she, herself, sacrifice for? Leela would say, that is the real question—not who else could die, but what do we, ourselves, have to lose?)
(Somewhere, Romana lights herself on fire to save the rest of her own. She is brilliant, glowing, and Braxiatel blames herself in part for it. She did not ever want Romana to set herself aflame to light the way for others. But Braxiatel once compared Romana to the stars, to the blazing of suns, and how, now, can she be surprised by the outcome? Romana, brilliant, lights the way, dissolving, eating herself from the inside, and they have no one to blame but themselves.)
(Narvin, small, nitpicky, political, practical, stands steady. She always wore boots too heavy for her stature. She is like a gravitational pull, like the physics that guide the solar system. She knows her way. She knows what is right. She stands stark in her blacks and whites, in her simplicities and her dichotomies, and she makes things so simple. She makes things so, so simple.)
Braxiatel, wavering, looks into her mirror. She sees the future in the past moment—a reflection come to her an instant too late. She sees a smile arriving to her at a later time, smugness she can only comprehend if she holds still long enough to understand it.
Closing her eyes, Braxiatel takes a moment. The present, ever-heavy, ever-benedictory, settles on her shoulders. She weights, for a deliciously present moment, the gift of the now with the possibility of the future.
Braxiatel opens her eyes, and clenches her fingers. She lifts the sheet and covers her mirror.
She must know herself, now, rather than see herself.
How very odd that freedom will be.
The present, ever-gifting, offers its hands up. Braxiatel smiles, turns, and loosens her tight and controlling grip. That is, after all, the only way to accept an offering.
The sheets billow behind her. Walking away is not easy. But then, neither is gratitude. Neither is burning, nor brightness, nor earnesty.
Braxiatel closes the door behind herself and steps out into an instant, rather than a future.