Into the Villain's Mirror

Chapter 9 - Hastened Return

Lucy thanked whatever deity reigned in this strange realm that the muscle-memory of her current body was intact.

Otherwise she would have surely long been thrown to the ground, broken bones as witnesses to her efforts. The horse's sides heaved against Lucy's legs, warm and smelling of sweat and fur, a strangely sweet scent. Lucy felt like an imposter while astride its back, the Queen's posture automatically adjusting, speaking of long hours in the saddle ingrained into her flesh, something Lucy could never claim for herself. If it had been her original body sitting atop the tall, palomino mare, she would have looked horribly slouched and probably been skipped right off.

Leaving the castle felt just as strange as being able to perfectly ride, as if the world unfolding beyond its stony walls had been purely hypothetical up to that point. But now that Lucy was surrounded by fragrant firs, calling birds, dappled shadows and moist air it seemed almost too real.

At least the last vestiges of surreality were upheld in her ridiculous riding dress, heaped with embroidered tassels, and the demure ladies in waiting who were riding one step behind her but looked no less graceful doing so.

Lucy and her lady-squad were accompanied by some knights who fanned around them in an illusion of privacy, not that any scandalous topic had been broached yet. Mostly the ladies had tittered about Lucy's fabulous dress (and they even sounded like they meant it), her beauty, her excellent horsemanship before switching their compliments to their environment, the weather, the season ... All Lucy had to do was to look either appreciative or give a tiny nod in agreement, which was received with the same enthusiasm that a clergyman would hold towards the Pope's benediction.

One of the ladies, a Countess dressed in flamboyant red and astride a black gelding, was even more eager to please than the others, continuously claiming how grateful she was that they finally had a chance to go for a ride, and how tedious court could grow without Lucy there to provide such stimulating ideas and so on and so forth. Lucy was happy to allow her to take the lead for the other women, remembering that she was one of the most favored ladies in her retinue, at least according to the information the mirror had given her previously.

Lucy's own thoughts were on something else entirely. After learning everything she could and trying to give her plan a concrete shape, this was the first and most important step towards its completion.

She couldn't fail now, killing it in its cradle.

In the glen, behind the mountain ...

Honestly, Lucy's plan could barely be called a plan. It was more a spiteful attempt to trick fate, a preemptive strike almost.

If Snow White was destined to return, why not do so under Lucy's terms?

They were riding along a brook winding through the forest, gurgling merrily as if it was laughing at Lucy's tightly stretched nerves, birds twittering in the branches above her head to accompany the melody. 

Follow the stream once you find it, had been the mirror's direction, simple enough really. But she had been following it for a while now and Lucy was quite unsure how long the Queen's excursions usually stretched but certain that she couldn't keep the ladies cantering through the woods all afternoon.

And just when she started to grit her teeth so hard she felt a click in her jaw, she saw it.

Just at the edge of that same stream she'd been following, bathed in a shaft of soft sunlight, sat a girl. Hair like black silk fanned across her slim back, her skin gleaming like ivory, flushed with a pink blush across her cheeks, complementing the deep color of her lips and down-turned lashes. Her features were as delicate as those of a porcelain doll, perfectly proportioned and formed. She would have looked like an exquisite renaissance painting come to life, if it weren't for the woven basket of laundry next to her while her slender hands were busily scrubbing a pair of small brown boots - twin to six other, identical pairs piled in her lap.

Lucy had frozen, and her mare with her, the animal trained to react to its rider's cues. And just as the mare had been trained, so had the women of court been told to never overtake their queen, to rather fall from the horse and break a leg before allowing someone to ride in front of their monarch. And so they too halted. And once the party of ladies came to a stop, so did the guards, looking at what had caused this abrupt stop.

A dozen horses being pulled to a sudden halt, neighing and stomping their hooves in protest, weren't exactly quiet.

The fairy-like young girl looked up at the commotion, deep, dark eyes widening as she spotted all the strangers in her small clearing. Her eyes flitted over the guards, the adorable blush fleeing from her cheeks, but it was only when her eyes alighted on Lucy that a small scream escaped her lips.

The girl stumbled upright, boots tumbling from her skirts to pepper the riverbank like forgotten toys, trembling hands pressed protectively against her chest heaving in panic. "You - No, how could you have found -"

And then she fainted, crumbling down as if her strings had been cut.

For a few echoing heartbeats Lucy wasn't quite sure what to do. She stared at the still form, the girl she had searched for, the axis on which her destiny turned and wavered, the centerpoint of this whole worldscape ...

"Your Grace, did this peasant washwoman cause offense? Shall she be taken to the dungeons?"

"Quiet!" Lucy didn't even have to fake the thrumming band of tension in her voice. Slumped in front of her was the girl who had haunted her nightmares, who had so casually asked for her head, who had watched as Lucy burned and burned ...

And she looked so beautiful and innocent, even dressed in faded, coarse linen and with dirtied foam tipping her delicate fingers as if it were a precious adornment, bedded in mud and grass.

Snow White.

Taking a deep breath Lucy forced herself to address the leader of her Guards. "Watch your tongue, lest you lose it. Do you not recognize your own princess?"

There was a second of stunned silence, as though even the crickets hiding in the grass were surprised by her words and then almost on unspoken command everyone in her party turned back to look at the girl again. And truly what they found could not be contested - hair like ebony, skin like snow, lips like blood ... But -

"Your Grace," the leader of the Guards was the only one brave enough to speak up. "Her royal highness disappeared almost a decade ago - how can you be sure ...?"

"Would a mother ever not recognize her own daughter? Stop stalling, quick, someone check up on your princess, make sure the men's fierce appearance hasn't startled her into illness!"

No one contested Lucy's claim of motherhood, though everyone knew that she certainly wasn't the one who had birthed the princess. But Lucy was the queen and so the princess was her daughter, if only in name. To protest that would be the same as asking for a hangman's noose.

No one dared to step forward for the longest time until a Baroness, lowest ranked among Lucy's retinue and so often tasked with thankless ordeals, came to the front, carefully cradling the girl's wrist as if it were a white snake that might flare up and bite her. There was a second of silence and then she declared that the princess (and there was only a slight hesitation when she used the title) had simply suffered a fright.

And no one commented on the basket of dirty laundry next to the fainted princess, filled with men's garments, or the assortment of small boots Snow White had been washing.

But no one would easily forget either and Lucy was counting on it.