For FE Contest challenge 12. This ended up taking on a more supernatural feel than I intended. Blame the fact that I'm reading The Picture of Dorian Gray.
She is as beautiful as she day she came of age, and she would remain beautiful until her dying day.
She watches her traitor sister-in-law's beauty fade with the ravages of abuse and sickness and emotional torment before her well-deserved death. She watches the same happen to the other, feeling a special satisfaction at seeing the once lovely Queen of Alster a weepy wreck.
Hilda's skin will never be sullied by wrinkles and age lines. Her hair will never lose its lusture, her eyes will always remain sharp. Despite giving birth to two children, her figure is as perfect as it should be.
She is beautiful, and the mirror knows better than to tell her otherwise. Why should it, when she can manipulate it through her own means?
Magic can do anything these days, they say. The more power one has, the more they can do with it. If she casts a spell on the mirror to show her exactly what she wants to see, is that so wrong?
So she ignores the fact that her dresses feel a bit tight on her, and no one calls attention to the tiny crow's feet around her eyes. Any hair looking the slightest bit gray is removed without a second thought. She is perfect, she will always be perfect, until the moment she draws her last breath.
(Ishtar finds her mother lying on the battlefield, pain etched into her wrinkled face, graying hair matted with blood. A grotesque sight, she can't help but turn away in horror, and looks on sadly as the men gather Queen Hilda's body and prepare her for burial. They will make her look beautiful again, Ishtar reassures herself, and she will remain so for eternity.)