Mirror in my Hand, it Tells me so

 

The tsar left at midnight to engage in the battle for his kingdom, leaving his wife alone in her castle, who was pregnant with a soon to be daughter. She sat by the windows of her castle, staring into starless nights, waiting for his return. But each night was cold, lifeless. He will not come back until months have gone by. And during those long, dreary months, the baby has been born.

The newborn daughter was a beautiful angel-like girl. She took her mother's eyes, golden blond hair, and her gorgeous face. But along with all of her mother's features, she took her mother's life with the labor.

And on the same day the queen had passed away, the tsar came back home from war.

He grieved for months, for about a year. Until one day, when he found a new queen to take the old one's place.

The new queen was pretty, but jealous and moody. She had a strange habit of taking the mirror in her hand, a chant the words,

"Mirror, mirror in my hand, who's the fairest throughout the land?"

And the mirror would, as if by magic, respond back,

"My dear, you are the most fair. Your face and look are beyond compare!"

And then the queen would move on with whatever she was doing. Everybody in the kingdom knew of this habit of hers, which was why the townspeople found her crazy. But no one knew what this woman would do for this mirror.

The princess grew beautiful, and became a pretty, young woman. Many of the townspeople's young men became attracted to her, and wanted to become her future husband. But out of all of these men, there was one that the princess admired, Prince Elisey.

And soon, they became engaged.

As time went on, the jealous queen watched as the princess ran through the poppy fields, letting her hair flow with the wind. The queen started to wonder if this princess has become as beautiful as she was, and she was no longer the fairest in the land. Nonsence, the mirror said that the queen was the fairest and that she would always be.

But it wouldn't hurt to ask one more time...

The queen asked her mirror again, and the mirror responded, "You are pretty, my dear, but, I must confess, the fairest now is the princess."

And the queen snapped after that quote. She thought of getting rid of the princess, to reclaim her title. Throwing the mirror out into the field, and ran to find someone who could get this job done.

The chambermaid was then sent to tie the princess up, onto a tree. She had captured the princess, running off into the woods, and placed her down alongside a tree, ready to tie her up.

Out of compassion, however, the chambermaid had ran away, refusing to tie her.

And there, the princess lived, walking among the forest until she found a shelter for the night.

The day after, the queen went to speak to the mirror once again. To her surprise, she heard the same answer as before, meaning that the princess wasn't truly dead. Her chambermaid had disobeyed her orders.

That was when the queen had to take matters into her own hands. She ran off into the night, with a gift in her hand, searching for the princess. This gift was going to kill her once and for all.

In a creaky house in the middle of the woods, the princess was staying with seven knights for the evening, ready to come back home anytime soon. However, before she could leave, the queen, dressed as a beggar, knocked on the door.

The princess came to answer it. "Hello miss."

"Sweetheart, would you accept this gift, a juicy, succulent apple, for a loaf of bread?"

"Sure," the princess replied, reaching for bread with one hand and holding the apple in the other. The beggar was given the bread, and the princess was given a poison apple. Upon one bite, and she would never wake again.

The girl's body was slipped into a coffin in a castle room. Many had come to the funeral, and so did the king. Everyone had tears in their eyes, the king weeping harsly, and the queen watching silently. After the ceremony, the queen took the coffin away and put it into a cold, dark room. She locked the coffin shut.

And then she went to her bedroom, fingers crossed, asking the mirror one more time.

"Mirror, mirror in my hand, who's the fairest throughout the land?"

And the mirror replied, "You are beautiful, one can't argue. But it is also true, there still exists a beauty rarer. As before, the princess is fairer."

The apple trick didn't kill her, leaving the queen furiously agitated. She took the mirror, ran down the stairs into the basement where the princess's coffin was hidden. Planning to stab her as many times possible, she realized that the body was locked in. There was no use. She would starve.

When she reached the cold, dark room, instead of walking in to inflict pain onto the princess, she threw the mirror into the room and walked away.

The coffin would be found shortly after, when the king looked for her dead daughter to grieve once more. He found her hidden in the basement's empty rooms. When he saw the grave before him, he weeped once more. She was much like her real mother. And now that he has lost her too, there was nothing left.

The next morning the king was found, in the courtyard, flat on the floor. He had jumped off the balcony, for he had nothing left to live for.

Nights upon nights in the lonely castle, the queen slept alone in an empty room, with no one to talk to. She tried imitating the mirror and its responses to her question, "Who was the fairest?". But there was no responses. And one night, after all of those lonely evenings, she heard the mirror respond.

It was not a pretty one.

"Out of the people of this land, you are the prettiest. Your beauty is beyond compare, my dear princess."

And soon, anger pumped through her blood vessels every heartbeat.

And then it repeated.

Over.

And over.

The queen shot out of her bed, out the door, dashing out to the basement space where the mirror was sentenced to. The door creaked open as she stepped in front of it, leaving a glimpse of the darkness inside.

The door was then pushed open by the angered queen, displaying a dark room with an open coffin, and an excited princess set in the center of it all.

She held a mirror in her hand, whispering to it, "Who's the fairest in the land, who is it?"

She trembles. The mirror says the same response as the ones before, giving the princess something to smile about. She giggles.

"Young lady, what do you think you're doing with that?"

The princess stood up, clutching onto the mirror like wielding a weapon. Her smile still remains.

"Di... Did you hear that? I'm the fairest of them all! I'm above all! I'm above you, and everyone else! Don't you understand?"

The queen took a few steps back, waiting for the princess to continue her insanity. But everything after that was black. Just black.

She woke up tied to a structure in a dark, empty room. The princess sat next to her, giggling at the mirror. She gives the queen a quick glance, and then back to her mirror. It was a little while later until she finally resumed with her sentences.

"I'm the fairest. Everyone else is below my standard. They are nothing. They meant nothing to me."

A crackling sound could be heard from the distance.

"Listen."

"You are the fairest, my princess."

"The mirror told me so."