Once upon a time there was a powerful enchantress. She was unlike all the fairies and witches that had ever live before her; she lives without consequence and lived on desire and desire alone. She gave herself anything and everything she wanted, never caring how or who she might hurt by doing so.
One day the Enchantress decided she wanted the whole world, and sought it one kingdom at a time. There weren't as many kingdoms to conquer back then, especially after the Enchantress put Sleeping Beauty's kingdom under the sleeping curse.
Very late one winter's night two villagers heard banging on their doorstep and found a young maiden shivering on their doorstep. She was with child and was exhausted from running, she had just escaped from someone or something, but the villagers couldn't ask questions, because she began delivering the child right then and there. The maiden dies giving birth to the child that night. Despite the mystery surrounding the maiden, the villagers adopted the child. It was a baby girl, which they named Evly.
Evly grew up to be a very beautiful young woman. She was a kind and good-spirited girl, and everyone in the village loved her, especially one young man her age, a boy named Mira.
He was a poet and used to recite poems to her all day by the edge of a lake a little way from their village. Evly tried to impress him with her own poems, although they were never very good. She would say to him everyday "Mira, Mira, by the lake, my heart is yours to take." They used to laugh together and hold each other in their arms until dusk each day. The two fell madly in love and were engaged.
However, on the eve of Evly's wedding, the Enchantress came for her, claiming she and her birth mother belonged to her. The Enchantress killed Evly's adopted parents and took her into the far northeast to castle deep in the wilderness. Evly became just one of many slaves who belonged to the Enchantress. She had very big plans for the newest addition: Evly was groomed to marry Prince White, the future king of the Northern Kingdom, and the Enchantress would control the kingdom through her. But Evly resisted; her heart already belonged to one man.
Mira looked for Evly for many years and eventually found her, locked inside the Enchantress' castle. They wrote letters to each other and exchanged them through the bars of Evly's cell. Unfortunately the Enchantress discovered the letters. But the Enchantress was smart; she knew killing Mira would be too easy punishment. So she imprisoned Mira inside a magic mirror for eternity. Evly was heartbroken. From the moment Mira was trapped inside the mirror, she refused to continue with the Enchantress' plan. She pretended to go along with it, gaining the Enchantress' trust and becoming her protégé. The Enchantress had a room full of potions in the castle, and Evly spent hours every day in that room, immersing herself with the substances, learning everything about them.
She concocted a poison so strong and deadly that all the trees and flowers for miles and miles around were killed after three drops hit the ground outside her cell window. Evly was positive the poison would bring the Enchantress to her end, and it did. The poison weakened the Enchantress, who was once so powerful, to the state of an ailing human. She ran from the castle and died in the forest nearby, unable to take care of herself without magic.
Evly freed all the slaves from the castle, including a big, strong man who had spent most of his life hunting. The man chose to remain with Evly to pay off the debt of his freedom. No one knew his name, and so they merely called him the Huntsman. The one person she wasn't able to free, however, was Mira. He was trapped in the mirror, and there was no way to get him out.
She traveled all over the kingdom for many years, seeking help from every witch and fairy, but no one knew how to free the man from the mirror, the curse was too strong. Seeing the man she loved every day through a layer of glass, unable to touch him, or kiss him, or hold him was unbearable. She was more than heartbroken. The pain was so deep she could barely breathe. She was sure her heart would eventually stop beating if she didn't do something for it.
So Evly found an old witch named Hagatha, deep in the dark Dwarf Forests, and she begged the witch to help her. The witch, like everyone else before her, could do nothing about the mirror, but she did something about Evly's heartbreak. She cut Evly's heart out of her chest, and turned it into stone. Only when Evly touched the stone heart did she feel any heartbreak, pain, or emotion whatsoever, and she kept this heart of stone close by her wherever the went.
After that Evly decided to become queen. She figured being a queen and having a monarch's power would give her the authority she needed to find a way to free Mira. Prince White, the man the evil Enchantress had once wanted her to marry, had become king, and was recently marries. Soon it was announced that his wife was expecting their first child, and Evly decided to strike before the heir was born.
Her plan was simple. She used a love potion on the king, and he became enamored with her. That was easy, but getting rid of his pregnant wife was the difficult part. Evly poisoned the queen's knitting needles and waited until she pricked herself. One cold night, while making a blanket for her future child, the queen's water broke and she pricked herself with one of the needles from the shock of it. She died, but her handmaidens were still able to save the child, a child with skin like snow, hair like ebony, and lips like blood. The named the child Snow, and Show White grew up to be a beautiful princess.
A few months after Snow's birth Evly was married to the king, and he was dead a few months after that. Evly, now the queen, was able to continue her quest to free Mira. Unfortunately, being inside the mirror for so long began to affect Mira. His mind, his memory, and his appearance all started fading away. He began speaking in verse, like his poems when he was younger. He could see things happening in the world that were mile and miles away but couldn't remember his own name. He was no longer man; he was a reflection. Had Queen Evly's heart not been turned to stone already, watching the man she loved so much slowly forget who he was would have killed her for sure.
Queen Evly was growing older, and Mira barely recognized her anymore. She ordered every beautician in the kingdom to her palace and underwent ever beauty regimen possible for years and years to preserve the little youth she had left. Word of her new activities got out, and the kingdom criticized it, saying she was vain and obsessed with beauty.
As the Queen got older, so did Snow White. She became more and more beautiful everyday. Snow longed to find some motherly companionship in the Queen, but Evly had none to give. Snow White would sneak into the Queen's chambers and watch her undergo preservation treatment for hours.
One day, Snow White snuck into the Queen's chambers while the Queen was away and discovered Mira in the mirror. Ironically, Show White looked very similar to Queen Evly when she was Snow's age, and Mira believed Snow White was Evly. For months and moths, Snow White was all he could talk about. "My Queen is fair to see, but Snow White is far fairer that thee," he would say. He had a new face and a new name for all the love he felt for Evly.
Queen Evly wanted Snow White dead. And the man whom she had freed from the Enchantress, the man whom they called merely 'The Huntsman', was ordered to take Snow White into the woods and kill her. Snow White escaped, but the evil Queen tried again and again to kill her herself. Every time the Queen showed up at the Dwarves door, Snow White let her in. Not because Snow White did not know who the old lady really was, but because she hoped that the Queen would change, and show love towards Snow. But that was never the case. The Queen was convinced Mira would come back to her once Snow White was dead, but it was too late, Mira was gone. He had faded into a featureless face that spoke only in verse. The Evil Queen was never truly reunited with Mira ever again.