A/N

I'm having fun looking at the bad guys from another perspective. Maleficent has been properly redeemed by now, I think. So I turned my gaze on the baddest of the bad, the one who was so evil she would have someone's heart cut out because that someone was prettier than herself. What was wrong with Queen Grimhilde, really? And… she's quite tragic, isn't she? So, have a ficlet.

Once more she stands before me, the fairest one of all, repeating the only question that haunts her mind. With all the power she has within her grasp, all knowledge a person could ever wish for, it is sad to see that the only thing she wants to know is how beautiful she is. Such insecurity harboured within perfected walls of grace and beauty. Such coldness sprung from a miserable, frightened heart.

She could ask me anything and I would have to tell the truth. She could ask me about love, about her future, about courage and political matters. She could even ask me about life after death. Within her reach she has the knowledge that only Gods have had before. A vast space of answers, only answers, and only the truth.

Yet the only thing she wants to know is if her beauty stays unmatched. The only question this armoured heart begs to know the answer to is "am I good enough?"

I reflect her appearance, but I see what lies within.

I see her desperate fear of being left behind, of being thrown away and replaced. I see her past where the only thing that mattered was what she looked like, never how she felt or what she wanted. I see her desire to be loved and her doubts that love is real. I see how her intentions every morning is to ask me anything else, but once she stands before me, all her good intentions are gone and all that is left is the burning need to know that the place she has claimed in the world is still hers and hers alone.

Her obsession with her own beauty is the curse she willingly put upon herself, but she does not know it herself. And so the only thing she wants to know, is the only thing that doesn't matter;

"Who's the fairest one of all?"