The Mirror was tall and black and sleek. It stretched up and high and on forever.

There was just she.

“Hello,” she called. The Changeling shifted and moved, her forms changing as fast as her Imagination could speed through the changing.

“Hello,” a voice called from inside the Mirror. “Would you play with me?”

She walked up to the Mirror. A Boy, or a girl… The Image changed so fast was on the other side.

“And what shall we play?” she asked.

“You could be boy, and I could be girl,” the child inside the Mirror said. “And we will pretend…”

“I love to tell you stories,” she said from the outside of the Mirror.

“And I love to grant your wishes,” they said from the inside of the Mirror.

And just like that, the First Friendship was born.

***

And so it was in day and night and through always, the one on the Inside of the Mirror and the one on the Outside of the Mirror played and played… Weaving Story, Make-Believe, song, and logic that wove itself from every fantasy and word.

“What shall we play today!?” they asked from the Inside.

“Pirates and Dragons,” they said from the Outside.

***

“What if we swap sides?” they asked one day. “What if…”

***

Truth is, both had played for so long now that neither could remember the Original, and no one could tell the Reflection.

A Storyteller and her Genie Lamp.

Through Story and Play, it was they fell in love. Which is to say they fell into a state of Nourishing Growth for the other, where they valued and grew to care for each other without profit or gain.

And so one continued to weave story.

And one continued to grant wishes.

So that when it came to pass, one fine day as they lounged outside of the Mirror, The Storytelling Side said, “I wish to live every love story with you.”

And the Wish Granting side said, “And how should we remember? Which side should we take? For not all love stories are gentle?”

And the Storyteller side thought about it long and hard with the Wish Granting side until the Storyteller side said, “Which side suffers the most? For, to spare you the greatest pain, I will take the side that suffers the most.”

But they had already lived all the Stories. For they began this Make-Believe as One Gender.

“How would we know who suffered more?” the Wish Granting side asked.

“Well,” the Storyteller side said. “We would have to live each story in each other’s shoes. And then we would know. And then, I would take the most painful of Sides so that, when we wake up and we remember, I will have lived through the most pain to spare you.”

Because the Storyteller side knew just how much the Wish Granting side felt pain.

“As you wish,” the Wish Granting side said, and the Storyteller blinked.

But before she could even open her eye from that blink, the Story of Two was gone.