This is a dark and tragic take on Snow White's Evil Queen and her search for beauty.

Pale Skin, Blood Red Lips and Ebony Hair

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

She would always ask that question, and the mirror shall show another's face. She knew, oh yes she did. She knew that the mirror would never show her reflection, that the mirror would never let her see her own pale skin, her blood red lips or her ebony hair. It was never her, it was always the other girl.

"It is she, my queen. She is the fairest of them all."

She would then touch the mirror, mystified in the picture reflected in it. Pale skin, blood red lips, ebony hair...it was so like hers. She would look at it and relish the beauty of the stranger, sucking in the picture of what seemed to be her.

She would stare and recount her features. She never looked at another mirror since...because she was afraid that they might tell her that it wasn't she who the magic mirror had called the fairest.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

The images swirled and she kept on looking. She had asked the mirror to show her different views of the beautiful face, she was too entranced by it. Yes, she was entranced. She was entranced by the beauty that she never questioned who it was. She was entranced by the pale skin, the blood red lips and the ebony hair. She was entranced by the resemblance to her. She was entranced...for she dreamt that she was her.

She had, in an insane manner, fallen in love with the reflection.

"Mirror, what is her name?"

The mirror hesitated, she knew it did. But it didn't matter. It was her own fault to have been so curious, to have been none the wiser. She was a queen, yes, a beautiful queen, but she was a fool. She had asked for a name, hoping that the mirror would tell hers...only to find out that the pale skin, the blood red lips and the ebony hair did not belong to her...but to another.

But she knew, anyway. She just couldn't accept it.

"Snow White, my queen."

And now she lay. She lay between the shards, holding her thumb to her lips, making them soak with her blood.

"Look at me," she told the shards in her dying breath. "Look into my pale skin (white as a ghost), my blood red lips (dripping, dripping) and my ebony hair (such silky chaos) and say, say that I'm the fairest of them all."

But the mirror was already broken and she was beginning to break. For she imitated the image that she had loved, the image that had consumed her well-being. She loved Snow White's pale skin, blood red lips and ebony hair. And as she lay within the shards of the once magic mirror she thought of her image and wished...wished, for the last time, that it was she instead of her husband's daughter.

It was a tragic story.