The Mirror stood against the eastern wall, not quite centered--that would have bothered her. A slight favoring of the left suited her just fine and gave the Mirror a sense of power, that it would stand where it wanted to stand. As it was, the Mirror was situated just so that it was the first thing she saw each morning when she awoke. Yes, the Mirror--several years before she had resigned to the notion that it was the Mirror itself and not her own lovely reflection she saw first. That did not matter, for the Mirror was well-crafted and she did not imagine she would ever find a piece half as stunning. And it was old, centuries old. That notion pleased her, for who said that beauty belonged only to youth? She liked to awaken each morning from her bed of silk and know that each day only brought more refinement as a woman to her image, and the Mirror was gracious enough to tell her this.

Yes, the Mirror was good, for it was Truth and everyone knew that Truth was the most beautiful and perfect thing of all. Why had she feared the Mirror and Truth so much as a young girl, when all it had done was announce that she was indeed the fairest in the land? Well, the Mirror had long since forgiven her.

She stood directly before the Mirror now--morning was in its middle and a servant had already made the bed. The Mirror showed Truth. She saw herself as she was, beautiful and fair, delicate skin of winter, blueberry eyes, hair spilling down her bare breasts like waves of nightfall. Her nose was sharp, but turned upwards to the sun--everyone praised it. Her cheekbones were high and gently rounded, an elegant combination of aristocracy and sweetness. She never bothered with make-up, but her full lips were yet the color of rose petals. Her husband the King loved to kiss those lips.

Now they would speak, and ask for assurance of what the King already knew, had told her countless of times.

"Mirror, Mirror, on the wall: Who is the Fairest of them all?"

She waited, gracefully, knowing full well the answer, the same answer declared all those years before.

But the answer did not come. Instead the Mirror's reflection changed to show a young girl, a blossoming maiden, reading in the garden. The Princess. She had not known her husband the King, then the Prince, was a young widower with an infant when he had rescued her in the woods.

Her lovely lips drew back in the scowl of an animal, a ferociously beautiful animal, and she turned spitefully away from the Mirror to fetch her robe. That young girl, without the maturity and grace of a woman, be declared fairer than she the Queen!

Yet she was not entirely surprised. It had been done before, and she wondered in innocent curiosity how many times in the history of the Mirror the answer had changed.

She ran to her clothes, chose her finest gown, the one that clung to her body in the way every man desired. She ran a comb, cleansed of poison, through her dark hair, and pinned the entire waterfall up before leaving her chambers.

She been declared the Fairest before, she would be declared so again.

She summoned her huntsman.

The Fairest was hers, from the moment the Mirror had told of her. She had suffered much for the title, had experienced much. The declaration of the Fairest had given her friends, given her courage. But she had suffered much for it as well. Waking up surrounded by glass… Had any other owners of the Mirror suffered for it as she had? Because of what the Mirror had declared?

She stood in the hall as the huntsman approached her. The knife was ready.

The huntsman bowed before her, humble and ready.

He spoke, not raising his eyes to her beauty. He had recognized it before. "What is thy bidding, Queen Snow White?"