Disney REBEL - Anthology / CLOSED

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall by @Edenrose11

Mirror stood in her prison of crystal and enchanted glass and tried to remember. There was a time, she knew, when she'd gone by a different name. A time when the forest, green and dense and full of life, had been her home. A face swam in her foggy memory, of a man handsome and strong. His eyes were as blue as a cloudless summer sky, his hair as richly colored as corn silk.

But he had betrayed her, this man she loved.

Her last memory, before the Queen had sent her into the enchanted glass, was of those beautiful eyes, twisted with cold cruelty and rage. Black threads of dark magic had been wrapped around his wrists like ebony shackles.

She struggled against the pressing, consuming fog of her enchanted prison, raged against that magic that kept her mind and heart locked in darkness. But to fight was futile. The tears soon flowed freely down Mirror's glass cheeks until she finally wept herself into a fitful sleep.

~*~

"My magic mirror on the wall, I bid you wake and show me all."

Mirror's eyes opened and met the Queen's identical gaze.

Though the Queen's eyes matched Mirror's in color, the women shared little else, for the Queen's black magic had unnaturally augmented her beauty.

The Queen studied the glass face trapped in the mirror with a satisfied smirk. "If only you had obeyed me, sister, you could be standing by my side, helping me to rule. Do you see what your disobedience has cost you?"

Mirror looked out at the Queen and remembered. Sisters, yes. Twins.

But other memories surged forward unbidden. Her sister crowned queen. The King murdered in the dead of night. And again, that man with cerulean eyes, staring down at her with an undisguised hatred that broke her heart.

"My husband." Mirror breathed the word as the truth settled in her heart.

The Queen laughed, a low and dangerous purr. With a snap of her ruby adorned fingers the door opened and the man from Mirror's memory stepped over the threshold. "Your handsome husband serves me now, sister."

The Queen held out a fair hand to her husband, who came forward and took it in his own. "He is bound to me," the Queen explained, gesturing towards the black threads around his wrists. "He is much more than the Huntsman now." Green eyes slid to Mirror with predatory intent.

Mirror felt her glass heart shatter in her fragile chest. She was powerless. She couldn't save her husband from her sister's evil heart. She couldn't even remember her own true name. "Why have you done this?"

The Queen waved the Huntsman away and crossed to her. "You are the last Wood's Witch, sister. You inherited our mother's power, though I was forced to gather my magic in other ways. Your gifts are the only power strong enough to threaten me. You see, my twin, what I've done is a mercy. You are trapped in the mirror, yes, but you still live. My only other choice was to kill you, and that is one thing I could never bear to do."

"This mirror is powerful, sister. It will strengthen your gifts but keep you bound to me. Magic to magic. Blood to blood. The mirror will allow you to see what I command you to see."

Mirror could feel the truth in the Queen's words. The fog that swirled within her glass prison was laced with silver threads of an ancient, powerful magic. "And what, my sister, do you wish me to see?"

The Queen stood, her green eyes suddenly troubled as she pressed her palm to the glass. When she spoke, her words poured forth in an agitated torrent. "I have ended the coven of Wood's Witches. You are the last of their order and the only one I've allowed to live. But are there others, sister? Others with power enough to threaten my reign?"