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"Tell me what you see."

The little girl looked at herself in the mirror and sighed irritably.

Same old wolf. The short brown hair with the little green-dyed flecks on the ends, the brown face framing large green eyes and glasses. She rubbed a paw across her cheek, where a few white spots of cheek-ruff competed with a tangle of black whiskers. The lovely blue dress and ruffled white bodice rustled as she squirmed a bit on the chair.

"Nothing. I just see me."

The larger, older wolf knelt next to her to look into the mirror as well. "Oh I see so much more than that," she replied kindly, and nuzzled her cheek. "I see a beautiful little girl taking her first steps into theatre. And you're going to be wonderful, just you wait and see, little one."

Miliki swallowed as she looked at her reflection again. "I see a scared, perfectly ordinary girl. And I can't believe I let the elders talk me into doing this. I have ZERO talent!"

"They would never have chosen you had they thought otherwise. You should consider this a blessing. The play is absolutely lovely, about a princess and a dragon and..."

"I know the story, Margaret. I had the script pounded into my head for weeks, remember? You watched me." She sighed. "You always watch me..."

The elder wolf chuckled. "That's right. Is it so bad if I care about you? About your feelings? I'm supportive because I see a younger version of myself, I suppose. Am I so bad?"

Miliki turned to look at her. For the first time, she smiled - a faint smile but a genuine one. "No...you're not, Margaret, not at all. I'm-I'm sorry, it's just nerves, that must be it. This is my first REAL performance." She lowered her voice after looking around them, making sure they were alone. "You should see some of the other girls. All looking at themselves in these mirrors like they're all that, when they're clearly not..."

Margaret covered her mouth and giggled softly. "I know," her blue eyes twinkled as she looked at the girl fondly. "They seem so obsessed with what they are, how they look. Without those mirrors, if you think about it, there's nothing really...guiding them, I suppose. There's no, well," she reached out and toyed with the girl's hair, "there's no direction for them. They need the mirrors to see. Only, the problem is, they see what they want to see in those mirrors, and not what they should see. Sometimes they see a lie, and sometimes, like you, Miliki, they see the truth."

The girl cocked her head curiously as she gazed at her reflection. "I don't understand..."

"Of course not. This is only your first performance. You need to have done several months, even years of plays before you start to notice it..." She smiled and tilted her head against Miliki's, the two wolves now gazing fondly at the reflection. "Do you see me there in the mirror?"

The girl nodded. "You seem different somehow. Like...the way you look to me, when I see your face, and...the way you appear. There's not a LOT of difference but...you seem brighter somehow. Your eyes seem more blue when I look at yours up close and-"

"Go on..." the woman urged, and poked at her side. "What else?"

"Um...your hair is different. Like the lights shine on it more than it does in the reflection. And," She looked harder at the image before turning her head to bump noses with her. "It seems weird but...your fur seems shinier too. That's so crazy. How is that possible?!"

"My child, it is because you're just starting out on your journey. You've probably never tried to look at your reflection so much before, have you?"

"Well, only when I'd get dressed, or to brush my teeth or something. I mean, how do I know if my teeth are clean if I don't look?"

"Precisely. How would we look at ourselves if we did not have the mirror to guide us, right? We would have to rely on what others saw. We'd have to leave our homes confident that we look just fine. No dirty teeth, no wrinkled blouses, nothing hanging off our noses..."

"Ewww..."

Margaret giggled again and nuzzled her cheek. "You know, I used to look at my reflection sometimes 50 or more times a day. I always saw something wrong with me and demanded the make-up artist fix whatever it was." The old wolf's eyes slowly lost their twinkle. "But I wasn't like you. I saw the lies in the mirror..."

She sighed and looked at their reflection as Miliki's ear twitched in thought. "What do you mean...about the lies?"

"Pride, my dear. Let me explain. Tell me something you did that you're really super-proud of. It can be anything..."

Miliki shrugged and looked into the mirror. "Once...I...um...I climbed the highest tree around our home. It was amazing! I'd never gone up so high before and I couldn't help but yell out from the branches and get Mom and Dad to come out and look up at me. You should have seen their faces! Some of my friends just looked up at me and they were sooo jealous." The girl started laughing and Margaret watched warily as the reflection's green eyes suddenly started to spark. "And I've always been an athletic girl. No one can hold a candle to me when I run. I'm the fastest one in the forest..."

The spark became a steady glow and Margaret quickly nudged the girl's side again. That quick flash of light only she had seen faded. "Okay, so...I know it made you feel good to do that. Because you weren't good at other things, I imagine..."

The girl frowned. "Well...I can't cook very well, even though Mom still compliments me. I can't sew a costume like this. I'm...well, I tend to care too much about what goes on, and I'm a bit rambunctious and take a lot of dares. And...I know I can't ACT, and I don't know why I'm in this stupid play!"

She angrily pulled away from the mirror and got up, scraping the chair hard across the floor. Margaret stayed where she was, waiting for the young wolf to calm down again, saying nothing, just watching her kindly, like she always did.

Presently Miliki got over her temper and sat back down again, facing her elder. "I'm sorry...I just...I don't see what they see..."

"Inside you?" the woman asked, her voice almost a whisper. "Sweet child, it doesn't matter what they see and nor what that mirror sees..." She gestured to their reflection again. "All that matters is that you only see the truth."

"Margaret, what are the lies?" Miliki wanted to know.

The older wolf pursed her lips and then ran a tongue over her fangs before answering with a deep sigh. "When I was a little older than you, I looked at my reflection every day. I saw a confident, strong wolf who could handle anything. When I first joined the stage, I saw so much. I saw bright lights, stars, a future no wolf could possibly dream besides myself. I saw me on a big stage, being cheered and applauded as loudly as thunder, with the spotlight focused only on me. The roar of the crowds would swell and drown out my calls of delight and admiration to them..."

She stopped talking for a moment, and glanced uneasily at her reflection. "Soon...I was so confident, so...proud of myself, that I started to change. When I looked in the mirror from then on, all I could see was how I looked. And I began to obsess with that image I saw, to make it better somehow, more pretty, more youthful. If I stood up, I never seemed thin enough for my outfits, and I'd start on binges, and I'd force myself to vomit in the bathroom right before a show...and..." She swallowed hard, and closed her eyes, "And the lies just got bigger. I...I took drugs to ease my depression, sometimes mixing them with anti-aging vitamins, or diet pills and...the mirror would keep showing me that proud, confident wolf. Soon I didn't even see the circles or redness in my eyes from sobbing, or the thin and gaunt cheeks, or the frizzled hair. And no one else did either. Even if I was at a party, drinking myself into a stupor, no one ever told me anything else but what I wanted, what I needed to hear. That I was as young and as beautiful as ever..."

She looked at Miliki, who was now looking wild-eyed at her. "That's horrible!" the girl shivered and then gently hugged her. "That's so terrible. And...the mirror...it did that to you?"

Margaret smiled softly. "I let it do that to me. When the end came...when I finally realized the truth, it was too late for me to change and I had to stop performing. No one wanted an old has-been like me..." she chuckled, "And so I stay here now. I look after the dressing room, and keep an eye on the girls who come and go. Sometimes they listen to me, and they avoid the lies and see the truth, like you, and other times..." She trailed off, gazing into the mirror again. "they only see the lies, and their pride..."

Miliki gazed at her reflection again. "I never realized that the mirror could do so much. I..." She laid a paw on the glass surface. "It's not real, is it?"

Margaret smiled and placed her paw next to hers. "It's not," she whispered softly. "You, my dear little wolf, are real."

The door suddenly opened behind them and a harried male wolf in a black tuxedo, carrying a stack of papers rushed in. "Five minutes, Miss Danders," and then turned and slammed the door after himself again.

Miliki's heart suddenly sped up fast enough to leap into her throat before Margaret gently nuzzled her cheek again and she relaxed, breathing deeply. As she turned to look at the mirror again, she smiled. "I'm never going to let it tell me lies." Her green eyes slowly filled with tears as she looked at her companion again. "I'm so...I feel so sorry for, well, for what you went through...that you couldn't get past it..."

The old wolf grinned and her blue eyes got that special twinkle again. "I'm happy now though. Especially when I can meet wonderful girls like you. And as long as you stay here, I'll help you...deal?"

The girl laughed and rubbed noses with her. "Deal." She got up from her chair and caught herself looking at her reflection again.

And then she looked at Margaret. "How do I look?"

The wolf looked up at her before standing up to hug her tightly. "A young wolf with a very bright future. Go break a leg, honey..."

Miliki quickly wiped her eyes of tears, nodding, and walked to the door, waving before leaving.

Minutes later, as the red curtain rose up, and a splash of light from the spots on top of the iron battens bathed the set, and as a little girl strode with purpose and pride to the center of the bare-wood stage and gazed out upon the audience, Margaret smiled and faded away without a trace.

END