About time, right?

Disclaimer: I don't own the fairy tale.

One morning, the Damsels, Inc. crew was lounging around, comparing stories. Enya was in the middle of a particularly funny story about this nobleman she'd stolen from shortly before coming to Damsels, Inc. when Richard snuck in through the front door, carrying a large, flat, rectangular package. Enya stopped her narration and stared down the hallway at him.

Guinivere was the first to notice where Enya was looking. She stopped laughing and craned her head around to look where her friend was. "Richard!" she caroled, her voice carrying easily down the hall. "What are you doing and what are you carrying?"

Richard started and looked at her guiltily. "Umm. It arrived a few minutes ago. I offered to carry it the rest of the way," he explained hesitantly.

"What is it?" Beryl demanded, walking down the hall toward him.

"It's a magic mirror," Richard proclaimed. "See?" He tugged the cardboard—which Beryl could see had already been opened—off of the package, revealing an ornate mirror.

"Pfft. No such thing as magic mirrors," Guinivere said.

"Is so! And it is a magic mirror!" Richard shot back. "See? It's got a picture in it and everything!"

Guinivere stared at him for a few seconds. "That's called a reflection," she said slowly. "It's what mirrors do."

"Nuh-uh! The picture doesn't look like anything in here!" Richard protested. "Look at it!" He held the mirror up, showing them the picture.

Wonder of wonders, he was right. The picture in the mirror didn't look like the hallway they were standing in. Nor was the girl in it similar to any of the Damsels, Inc. women.

Guinivere leaned closer to see the image. "Is it not a mirror or something?" she wondered aloud. "That's really weird."

Suddenly, the image started to move. The girl's face became animated, and she started gesturing. Her mouth didn't move once.

"What's she doing?" Enya had come up behind Guinivere and Beryl.

"I can't tell," Deidra said. "Looks kinda like she's trying to tell us something."

The girl in the mirror made a flapping gesture with her fingers, then pointed above her, then at herself. "Umm. She wants to fly?" Guinivere guessed.

The girl in the mirror looked exasperated. She grabbed a piece of paper and charcoal, scribbling something quickly. "Why couldn't she just do that in the first place?" Keira muttered.

The girl in the mirror held up the paper. It read, "I'm a princess, and my brothers were turned into swans by an evil witch. I don't know how to help them, but someone told me that giving up what I most love (after my brothers) would help them. So I gave up talking until they're better. Help please?"

"Wouldn't it have been easier to just send that, instead of a mirror?" Guinivere whispered to Enya.

"She doesn't seem too bright," Enya whispered back, laughter shading her voice.

The girl, who had clearly heard them, glared in their direction. She scribbled something else on her sheet of paper and held that up to the mirror.

"Oooh, testy, are we?" Guinivere taunted in response to what the girl had written. "Wanna do something about it?"

"Enough," Beryl snapped. "All right, who wants to go help?"

All the women exchanged glances. None of them really felt like dealing with a moody princess. Finally, Caitlin sighed. "I'll do it."

Beryl nodded. "Good. Leave as soon as you can." While Caitlin left to go pack, Beryl turned back to the mirror. "Write down everything you can remember that might help Caitlin help you, and have it ready before she gets there. Otherwise she'll take longer than she otherwise would. Understand?"

The girl nodded stiffly, still shooting dirty looks at Guinivere and Enya. Guinivere smiled sweetly at her before the mirror blanked out.

"Well, that was pretty cute," Guinivere remarked. "I'm gonna go see if I can make it work for other mirrors." She grabbed the big mirror, toting it out to the living room. Enya followed her.

"I'll never understand either of them," Tara muttered. The other women smiled.

Caitlin checked the slip of paper she'd taken from the mirror's packaging. It had the return address for the mirror attached to it, and it matched the address on the little cottage in front of her. "I didn't know that cottages in the middle of nowhere had addresses," the older woman grumbled. She went down the little path to the door and knocked firmly on it.

The girl from the mirror answered the door after a few seconds. Her face lit up.

"All right, I'm here," Caitlin said grumpily. "What've you got for me?"

The girl pulled out a somewhat thick sheaf of papers and handed them to the woman.

"Oh, no, no, no," Caitlin mumbled. "I don't need an essay. I just wanted a summary. Got that?"

Sighing, the girl grabbed two sheets of paper that had been next to the thick sheaf.

"Much better," Caitlin said approvingly. She read it quickly, nodding. When she'd finished, she looked up at the silent girl. She was watching the old woman expectantly. "All right. Here's what you have to do: You need to replace the shirts that your stepmother sewed with shirts of your own. Now, this is going to be hard. It'll take you a long time. Are you sure you want to do this?"

The girl opened her mouth to respond, then shut it quickly and nodded, her expression determined.

There was no real reason that Caitlin could think of for the girl to remain silent while she tried to cure her brothers. But from the way she acted, and what she'd written while communicating through the mirror, Caitlin had a feeling that she didn't want the girl to talk. So she just didn't mention it. "All right. Then here's what you're gonna have to do: You have to collect nettles, with your bare hands and prepare the plants to be made into shirts for your brothers."

The girl pulled a face.

Caitlin shrugged. "I told you it wouldn't be easy. You have to do that, then give them the shirts when you're done," she said. "You can't stop in the middle, or your brothers will be stuck like that forever." All of it was complete crap, of course. But as a witch, Caitlin had a reputation to uphold. She couldn't make breaking any spell seem too easy.

An expression of determination crossed the girl's face and she nodded resolutely.

"Good." Caitlin stood up, dusting off her skirt. "You get started on that, and call if you need anything. We still have your silly mirror, so just use that." When she was sure the girl understood, Caitlin left. She didn't go in the direction of Damsels, Inc., though. She went in the opposite direction, toward a kingdom that she knew had an eligible bachelor as a king.

Shortly before she entered the city, Caitlin made herself look older and more bent over. "Why is it that the only prophetesses that are taken seriously are bent over old crones?" she muttered. "Why can't they just be old? It'd be so much easier on me." She walked through the city streets, calling out random fortunes and other mumblings. In front of the palace, she collapsed in a violent-looking seizure and yelled for the king to come out at once.

He came, rushing as was proper for someone about to receive a fortune from a trusted prophetess. Caitlin stood up shakily and pointed at him. "You! If you go hunting in the forest—no, not the forest you're thinking of, the other forest—oh, just give me a map and I'll show it to you. Anyway. If you go hunting in the forest, you'll meet a beautiful maiden who you must bring back here to stay with you. If you do, something good will happen to you. Got that? Excellent. I'll be on my way, then."

Still calling out to the people on the street, Caitlin hobbled back out of the city. Once well enough away from it, she undid the spell and stretched. "Much better," she sighed. "All right. Now to set everything up." Caitlin set off for the long walk back to the girl's cottage. She had a lot to explain and not enough time to do it in.

When Caitlin reached the cottage she had everything she was going to say straightened out in her head. "All right," she said as soon as she stepped through the door. "Here's what's happening." And she told the girl her plan. When Caitlin finished, the silent girl looked kind of nervous. "You'll get used to it," Caitlin said reassuringly. "Come on, we have to get ready." The two bustled about, preparing for the king and his hunting party to arrive.

A few days later, the awaited moment arrived. Caitlin hid herself and the cottage with a simple illusion. The king's hunting party rode right by, with no one even glancing at the place where Caitlin lounged. She smiled slightly before standing up to follow them. She had to make sure that everything went as planned.

It did. The king found the girl, who didn't say anything, sitting under a tree and took her off to his castle, abandoning his hunting expedition immediately. Caitlin followed at a discreet distance. She reached the castle before the king and his entourage, and set herself up by a window to watch the proceedings.

She couldn't hear what was said, but apparently the king had decided to marry his foundling. The king's aunt didn't seem to take to the girl at all. She glared at the silent girl all throughout the night, unaware that she was being observed.

"That one's going to be trouble," Caitlin remarked softly. The festivities lasted well into the night, and Caitlin watched them to the end. The aunt whispered with some of her minions at various times, shooting venomous looks at the mute girl, who was sitting there, weaving her shirts. "Yes, she will be a lot of trouble." When the impromptu party was over, Caitlin went back to the town to find a place to sleep for the rest of the night.

A few days later, when Caitlin had relaxed her guard a bit, the baby of one of the live-in servants at the castle was discovered to be missing. The next morning, Caitlin's ward was found sleeping with blood rimming her mouth and staining her nightgown. She was blamed for the disappearance of the child, and called a cannibal. She spoke not a word in her defense, but merely kept weaving. Her husband made excuses for her, and he was left alone.

However, the same thing happened a week later. And again, ten days after the second time. The fourth time, when all of the girl's shirts were nearly complete, she was locked in the dungeon. She was not allowed to take her nettle-shirts with her, the king's aunt having cited them as an article of her witchery. Defeated, she wept silently.

But Caitlin still had some tricks up her sleeve. She snatched the shirts from their hiding place, before anyone could find and burn them. While her charge was sitting and moping in her prison, Caitlin plotted.

Two days after she was locked up, the silent girl was taken from the dungeon and escorted to a stake. "The only way to take care of a witch," the gathered audience murmured over and over. Caitlin shook her head. How she hated ignorance and superstition.

As the girl was led to the stage, Caitlin tossed the shirts at her. The girl almost didn't catch them, but managed to at the last second. A huge smile split her face, and she searched the sky. One shirt wasn't ready, but surely that wouldn't matter. Everything would turn out fine anyway. Right? She was sure it would.

As she scanned the sky, the girl saw six shapes winging towards her. Those shapes were her brothers, she was certain. It wouldn't be a fairy tale if everything didn't turn out all right. She struggled valiantly to stall for time.

There was nothing else Caitlin could do, until those shirts touched the six swans flying closer and closer. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the six brothers were close enough. Their sister threw the shirts into the air, and the swans caught them and landed gracefully on the platform where their sister was supposed to be executed. The audience had frozen, confused. Caitlin muttered a few verses, and there was a flash of bright light. When the light cleared… the swans were still there.

Cursing, Caitlin realized she'd used the wrong incantation. She chanted the right one, smoke surrounded the swans, and when it cleared six men were standing there.

Something was wrong, though. One of the men had a swan foot! That wasn't supposed to happen! It must have been because the shirt he'd gotten hadn't been finished.

"Finally," the girl said, brushing herself off. "I can talk again." She turned to her shell-shocked husband. "These are my brothers. They were ensorcelled by an evil witch. The same witch," she said, "who framed me for the kidnapping, murder, and consumption of babies." She turned to the king's aunt. "You, madam, are a mean woman." The aunt cowered, not denying anything.

Somewhat satisfied with her work, Caitlin made her wandering way back to Damsels, Inc. On the way, she wondered what she could have done differently to make the sixth brother not be a cripple for life.

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