I am Death, Destruction, the Muse of violence, who inspires the bloodiest wars and darkest hours of madness.
You may know my sisters, the Muses, those who inspire artists and poets and writers. They create.
I destroy.
But not right now. Right now, I watch him, my beautifully perfectly human, achingly wonderful mortal.
I sit in the imaginary world my sisters created for me, where I can not destroy or kill unintentionally. Everything is unbreakable.
But for me; I am breakable though immortal. I sit and watch him, my human, the boy I found one day gazing at the world I must not touch through the mirror I use to watch. We have met before, in his world, together, in love. He was ignorant of my powers.
I am in love.
It is forbidden. Immortals must not love mortals.
Yet I sit here, observing him, my heart throbbing with my fantasy of one day actually being able to hold him, to embrace him, to love him.

My sister the Muse of Music, enters my house. She is displeased.
I hide my mirror to him in a drawer. “Hello,” I greet.
“You treacherous little hypocritical impostor!” she creams.
I am shocked; I can do little more than stare at her.
“Because of you, with your stupid lover, every Muse is being examined for signs of affection for mortals so that we dare not defy the bans on immortal-mortal love!”
“Why have I not known of this?” I am appalled.
“Because they have ruled your own sorrow to be punishment enough… Is that a picture of him?” Suddenly my sister picks up the photograph of him I have had one of my servants summon for me.
I nod. I hope she does not ruin the picture. I treasure every last piece of him I have.
At last, all twelve of my sisters appear in my house. They all are angry.
“How could you?”
“Loving a mortal?”
“Because of you, we are punished!”
“We should invoke a revenge claim…”
I reach to take back my picture.
My sister breaks it, burning the photograph with an extension of her powers.
There are now ashes on the floor.
One of them finds my mirror to him.
“Is this him?” asks the Muse of Rhythmic Poetry.
“Yes, please, just give it back, please, please…” I am begging.
And then they all destroy the mirror.
It is silent.
He is gone.
“Go away,” I scream, and I am crying, such hot wet bitter tears that I did not think I could cry.
They leave, still angry.
The house shakes, the very world around it shakes. Everything fades into ash.
I find a shard of my mirror to him. I see him, his perfect mortal face as I do the only thing I can do, destroy.
They did not know, I reason.
They have not been alone, trapped, locked away as I have.
He was all I had.
And they had destroyed it, my momentary happiness that I was no longer alone.
Was it too much to ask that I have this one thing, this one mortal man to love, just for a while?
I curl up on my side, watching him through my shard of mirror.
All I had ever wanted was someone to embrace, to share my never-ending life with, to love.
It was forbidden.
I was alone for so long, unable to create, unable to destroy.
They had never felt such an awful grief.
And then he had come, smiling, my knight in faded Levi’s and Converse. He had made the terrible loneliness go away.
How could anything so wonderful be forbidden?