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Meera is three and ten when she first really looks at herself in a mirror.
There was a boy she had seen in the swamps, with a handsome face and a strong build. Against her better judgement, she had found herself quite smitten with the boy. In her head she called him a man, because she was nearly a woman grown and he was older than her; she could tell because he acted mature, acted like a man.
She also knew that he was not a lords son but she did not care. She had never seen a boy with such a handsome face. She wanted him to love her as she loved him.
Except he laughed in her face when she told him this. He had not even realized who she was, had not even realized that she was a girl, what with her wearing breeches and with her hair shorn short.
So she looks at herself in a mirror. Tries to figure out why he could not tell that she was a lady.
She stands in her room, naked in front of the mirror. Despite starting her bleeding two years before, she noticed that her body had not changed much in other ways. Her breasts were flat against her chest, her hips barely jutted out from her side.
She thinks of her lady mother, who everyone considered beautiful. She pictures her mother in her mind, sees the softness of her body, and the draping of her clothes against her curves.
Meera quickly slips on one of her dresses and looks sadly as they don’t fall the same way. Where the cloth should embrace her at her chest and sides there is gaps, and she fingers where the dress sags.
She takes off her dress and looks at herself again in the mirror. The princesses in her stories were always beautiful, she thinks. Those princesses of old were supposed to be more beautiful than any other women in the world.
She tells herself that she is not beautiful, that she will never be a princess like in her stories. She will be married off to some lord’s son but he will not ever think his bride pretty because she is not that.
She glares at her face in the mirror. Her skin is dotted with freckles from being out in the sun too long. She looks at the green in her eyes. Green, she thinks, like everything else in the swamp.
Ordinary, she tells herself, you are ordinary.
She runs her hands through her hair. In the mirror she can see the dirt under her nails, she can feel the grime in her hair. It is short because long hair is too hard to deal with when she hunts. It is brown like dirt and mud. She has never hated it more.
She knocks her mirror on the floor and it shatters. She walks around the glass, puts on her breeches and tunic and cries.
She hears tapping on her door, strong fingers hitting the door as softly as possible. Meera stands up and wipes her eyes and answers the knocking.
Her father stands in her doorway looking into his daughter’s face with concern.
“Meera,” he stares her in her eyes, “I heard a crash from your room. What has happened?”
She looks at her father and stands aside for him to see the shattered glass on the floor, her mirror turned over. He stares at the mess for only a moment before motioning for his daughter to sit on her bed, quickly closing the door.
“My child, did you do this?” she looks him in the eyes, nods, and her eyes tear up once more.
He rubs her back and listens to her as she cries, nodding his head as she tells him through tears. Her shoulders shake as she sobs, explaining to him how she’ll never be a princess because she is not pretty; how she will never find love because she is ugly. She tells him of the boy who thought her to be a boy, who did not find her beautiful at all. She sobs harder when she says she will never be as lovely as her mother.
He holds her and she cries into his chest.
“My beautiful daughter,” he whispers to her, “how can you not see your own beauty? You are a hunter, trained by my own hand, and from that you have grace. In your eyes I see the green of the trees that provide us shade. Your hair is the colour of soil, from which all things grow. In your stories are the princesses not likened to the loveliness of nature? You are as beautiful and as strong as the forest.”
She looks at him, her eyes widening. He continues to hold her to his chest, rubbing her back.
“Your mother is lovely, there is no denying that, but you are lovely too. One day you shall be a tree, tall enough for everyone to see your beauty, grounded enough to not let words sway you unnecessarily. For the moment, Meera, you are but a sapling, and sometimes people will walk by you without noticing how beautiful you truly are. One day those same people will find you again and will be in awe.”
She smiles up at him and he smiles back, pressing a kiss against her brow. Taking his leave, he tells his daughter that he shall send someone to help her clean up the mess she has made.
When she is once again alone Meera picks up a piece of shattered glass, still large enough that she can still see her reflection staring back at her.
She looks in her own eyes and tries to see leaves, tries to see grass. She squints and thinks she can see the forest.
She runs her fingers through her short hair. She can feel the grime and sweat that keeps her hair matted to her face. There is still dirt under her nails, but she finds herself not caring.
She still wants to be beautiful, still wants to be a princess, but she does not want to lose herself. She does not want to give up her life as a hunter to sit and sew and be a proper lady.
Looking at her hair in the glass she decides she wants to make a change.
In her reflection she sees a girl who will one day be loved for her beauty and feared for her skill. She thinks of the women hunters of her home and how some of them keep their hair tied up and out of their faces.
Looking at herself in the glass shard she decides she will grow out her hair until it is long and lovely.
Trees, after all, do not cut their own leaves off.