The Enchantress, the Knight and the Mirror Part 1

It was a complicated minute.

For Sir Joan, the minute began when she threw open the ebony doors of the Throne Room. The echoing sound filled the great stone space, stopped under the forceful clank of her armour as she planted one foot forward, brought her silver greatsword up and glared through the slit of her helm at… an empty room?

There was no-one there to answer her challenge, no Demons, no Lust Knights, and absolutely no Evil Enchantress. There was only just an empty room, two burning hearths casting a shifting red shimmer over the empty, black throne.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder-plate.

Joan spun, sword ready, but finding her target too close to strike. The last thing she saw was the slit of her visor being lifted, giving her a momentary view of red, smiling lips, moving in to kiss her own. Then there was nothing.

For Joan, the minute resumed when she sat bolt upright, fists ready. In half a heartbeat she took in the new place she found herself in, a small circular stone room, tower probably, dominated by an over-large, four poster bed, on which Joan sat. Her sword was gone, her armour too, only her leather underarmour left guarding her modesty. And on the other side of Joan’s gloved fists, a woman standing in the open doorway her red lips still smiling.

Joan’s voice came low and full of wrath.

"You!" she spat.

"Yes, ME!"

It was not the response Joan expected. She'd expected The Evil Enchantress to be more, well, evil! More 'Fear my wrath puny mortal,' more 'Look upon me and despair'. She had not expected The Great Deceiver herself to be just standing there, leaning against the door-frame with an expression of bemused glee.

Though at least The Enchantress looked the part. Black silk robes pooled around her legs, tightly cut at the waist to hug her figure. Long ridged horns curled up and over her black hair and back around to under her ears. Her smiling lips were painted a vivid scarlet, eyes rimmed in dark kohl, emphasizing their unnatural green color. But the eyes were NOT furrowed in a look of superior malevolence, or looking down her nose with thinly veiled contempt. Instead, The Enchantress' eyes were alight with mischief. And right now, that somehow seemed much worse.

"What -" Sir Joan demanded, "- is the meaning of this, Witch!"

"This?" The Enchantress looked surprised. "This is a bedroom, dear knight. Surely you've heard of them?"

"No - I," Joan clenched her fists against the silk sheets she sat on, the unfamiliar texture of the decadent fabric quickly shrinking behind the familiar rough warmth of her callused palms and cool tension of her scarred knuckles, the mixed sensation familiar and safe. Joan breathed in. "I demand to know the meaning of this!"

She thrust one toned arm up at the huge, gold-rimmed mirror spanning the top of the four-poster bed. But in the mirror, Joan's reflection did not point back at her.

No part of the reflection was right - while Joan herself sat upright on the bed, one fist tensed behind her ready to strike, her reflection was kneeling upright, her reflected hips moving in an unmistakably erotic way. While Joan sat there feeling flushed and angry at the unfamiliarity lewd sight, her reflection's body glistened with exertion, her reflected brown hair dark with sweat, her reflected mouth open and gasping with each thrust of her reflected hips.

But it was her mouth she was seeing, the tiny scar received in a duel with the Queen showing white against her lips, the mark as unmistakably identifying as the litany of scars decorating her broad shoulders and toned limbs. So much of her reflection was visible - while Joan herself still wore her leather underarmour, the 'clothing' her reflection wore seemed to consist of half a silk handkerchief, the small amount of fabric stretched between covering far too little of her chest and far too much of her groin. Too much, because between the odd reflected angle of her kneeling self and the covering between her legs, she couldn't see exactly what was happening there, what was making her hips move so.

Staring harder, she could only catch glimpses of glistening movement, flashes of fluid shapes, all stolen between the obscuring movement of her reflected hips thrusting over it, her reflected body moving into each thrust, her reflected mouth gasping out wider, wider, her breath catching, holding... her body tensed, and all at once her mouth closed over silent groan of despair. Her body fell forward, but her hips were still thrusting, more desperately than before, less riding something and more trying to catch up to something that was escaping just out of reach.

She looked down to see The Enchantress still smiling from the doorway.

"Surely, I don't need to explain to you what a mirror is, do I dear knight?"

"Rrrh," Joan groaned in frustration, "you know well what I mean Witch - I demand to know the meaning of this, this... lewd LIE you've created for your own twisted reasons!"

The Enchantress gasped, putting one finely clawed hand to her lips. "I'm offended! You've only just met me and you already assume I'm lying to you!"

"Yes!"

"... well okay that's fair."

The Enchantress walked over to the bed, moving with surprising ease and grace for the tightness of her clothing. She sat down on the far edge of the large mattress and Joan flinched, fighting equal urges to jump for cover and to see if she could use a silk pillow as a deadly weapon.

The Enchantress didn't seem to notice. "Let me tell you a secret, dear knight. Lies - are very hard!

"No seriously," she continued with great earnestness "telling the truth is so much easier than having to keep up a lie all the time! Take you," she pointed with a sharp finger, making Joan flinch again.

"Sir Joan Prudence the Third," The Enchantress intoned with mock grandeur, "Knight of the Realm, Champion of the Order of Virtue, High Defender of the Pure Faith... isn't it hard being you?"

"Of course it is," Joan snapped, not sure where this conversation was going but distrusting it on principle, "you actually believe it would be easy defending the realm from your abominable demons? Safeguarding the peasantry from your evil curses and vile machinations! Upholding the True Virtue of -"

"OH, SNORE!" The Enchantress collapsed theatrically against a bedpost, "how do you keep that up without sending yourself to sleep! So many delusions, so much dogma, so many lies - don't you ever get sick of it?"

"Never!" the word came instantly with no delay for thought.

"And there you go again! More lies, more self-delusions! You -" she raised her clawed hands to air-quote, "Knights - of - the - Order - of - Virtue - have been doing it so long you actually believe your own lies! You actually think you're happy being the arbiters of everything that's right and wrong in the world! And worse, you think the world should be thanking you keeping everyone repressed and intolerant of everything you deem wrong."

Joan gritted her teeth, her lips thin and her scar white against the tension of her jaw. "It is a better fate than succumbing to your vile temptations."

"See, that's where you're wrong." The Enchantress rose in one fluid movement which continued around the corner of the bed as she swung on one arm.

"Being me is SOOO easy! Because I'm honest." She seemed to think for a moment, "Well, and I'm the most powerful sorcerer in the last thousand years, but still, not lying to yourself counts for something! I wanted power, so I took it."

She slowly walked around the bed, coming towards the corner where Joan sat, tensed and ready. The Enchantress' green eyes glowed with an eldritch light. "I wanted an army, so I raised immortals from the demon realm to do my bidding." She stopped right before Joan, leaning down until their faces were nearly touching. "And I wanted the Champion of the Order in my bed, and here you -"

Joan struck.

Her swordmaster had told her that a true swordswoman is never without a blade. Joan's fingers were tense, her middle finger bent slightly so that the tips of her three longest fingers formed a single, solid edge. She stabbed straight into the center of The Enchantress' throat.

And there Joan's hand stayed, palm-deep in her target's windpipe. The Enchantress smiled. "Let me tell you something else that's hard. Illusions."

The Enchantress erupted in a flash of black smoke, Joan flinching back from the now empty side of the bed. She looked around frantically and nearly jumped off the mattress when she found The Enchantress sitting right behind her.

"They're finicky as hell, to be honest," The Enchantress said, idly examining her clawed fingers, "you have to get every detail right." She erupted again, to coalesce lounging against the bedpost.

"Everything - the way the light reflects off fabric and through skin." Another eruption and she was next seen standing at the beside next to Joan, twirling to a stop, the hem of her robes falling back to the floor. "The way clothes move."

Smoke billowed, and then Joan heard The Enchantress at her ear. "The way things sound when they're very close to you."

Joan spun, leading with the point of her elbow as though it were the pummel of a sword, half expecting it to hit nothing.

The Enchantress caught her arm. Those slender, claw-tipped fingers felt as solid as steel, holding Joan's bent frozen between them. The Enchantress smirked. "But reality is so much easier."

With a push of her palm she sent Joan sprawling back. "Take this," The Enchantress pointed up at the offending mirror, still showing an image of Joan thrusting over whatever was happening between her legs. "This," The Enchantress explained, "is no illusion."

"More LIES!" Joan spat, "If you're going to kill me just do it already that I may be spared your poisonous delusions!"

The Enchantress sighed, "And there you go again, believing the only proof you need for something to be evil is that you do not understand it. But don't worry, you will soon.

"Because you see, I don't need to kill you. I don't want to, and I don't need to, not when you're going to submit to me anyway."

Joan laughed, nervousness making it come out more suddenly than it should "What nonsense is this! You think I, The Champion of the Order of Virtue, High Defender of the Pure Faith, would ever, EVER submit to you!"

The Enchantress was still smiling, that mischievous, unsettling smile. "Oh, I know you will. I need only look up."

Together they looked up at the reflected image of Joan, her breath caught, body raised straining on the edge, her whole body shaking. Her legs tensed, then her whole body let go all at once. But it was not the release of victory - Joan could see it on her own reflected face, her glistening skin straining with grief and longing, a need for something taken away from her yet again. Her reflected body continued moving, continued its desperate thrusting over whatever was between her legs, her reflected face showing total, unthinking need. Total defeat.

"You see," The Enchantress stated, "this is not an illusion. True, it doesn't reflect you now - it reflects you forty-two minutes in the future."

Joan's eyes widened with disbelief. She held onto that disbelief with an iron grip. "More lies!"

"Nope," chimed The Enchantress, "I told you - illusions are hard. You think I could have been maintaining this elaborate image the entire time we've been talking? Every fold of the sheets, every drop of sweat, every movement, every breath? I'm good, but no-one is that good, dear knight."

"But," Joan struggled for a way out, "but that's not possible! No mage can conquer time!"

"I can," stated The Enchantress, "I just decided not to. No, really," she added before she could be interrupted, "this wasn't originally meant to be a mirror - it was meant to be a doorway. I thought I could just pop into the future, see what was happening, come back and change things.

"And it worked too - but before I could step through, I saw myself standing on the other side, looking very tired and a little on fire, holding up a parchment saying, 'DON'T!'

"So," she continued with the levity of something describing their decision to take an umbrella on a overcast day, "I just sealed the portal, and now it works great as a mirror - just one that shows you forty two minutes in the future."

Joan couldn't look away from her reflection. Her throat felt dry, making her voice squeak a little as her mind forced her to ask, "Can you change it?"

"Haven't tried," The Enchantress shrugged, "I mean, I follow all the instructions my reflected-self sends back to me from time to time, and things have worked out pretty good so far. The one I got saying 'Sir Joan Prudence is coming to kill me/you!' was a very useful one - very long, detailing exact times and places and casualties."

Joan looked down, glaring daggers. That was how she'd done it! Joan had known something was wrong when she arrived at the Great Spire and found the sentries gone, the gates open, everything apparently deserted. She'd headed in anyway, assuming it was just another one of The Enchantress' legendary tricks, meant to scare her off. How wrong she'd been.

But then Joan realized what The Enchantress was saying, and found hope to hold onto. "So you can change things!"

"Maybe," The Enchantress admitted, "maybe not. Because now I've got to go show that same sign to my past self." As she spoke her hands moved over each other, black smoke billowing out and down then coalescing into a long parchment, filled with small writing and headed by the large words, 'Sir Joan Prudence is coming to kill you!'

"I knew what to write, because I'd already read it," The Enchantress explained in vain. "So now I just need to show my past self this parchment, describing events that didn't actually happen, so that my past self can read it and prevent these events from happening.... Look, it's complicated. I try not to think about it too hard."

"But," Joan continued with elated defiance, still grasping onto fading hope, "now I know your plan. Now I can stop you!"

"Do you?" The Enchantress asked with that mischievous smile, "Can you? I'm certainly excited to find out," she added when Joan said nothing.

"But first, schooch over," she instructed with a wave of her hand, a stream of darkness expanding from it and hitting Joan's body, pushing her back across the bed with an unstoppable force. Then The Enchantress lay down beside her, unfurling the parchment so it faced up to the mirror.

Joan struggled, but her body refused to move - every time she tried warm motes of black coiled around her skin, a sound like a deep, ringing chord resonating into her bones, making them shake with a coldness that made it impossible to move.

"Release - me - you -" she demanded between gritted teeth.

"Soon," The Enchantress soothed, "don't worry, I'm a fast reader."

"What - does -"

"Okay that should be enough," she said, discarding the parchment in a flash of smoke as she rose, Joan breathing out all at once as her body released itself.

The Enchantress turned around, a strange look of disappointment on her face. "As much as I would love to stay and watch, apparently I don't - at least I didn't when I watched in the past, until I had to run off and foil your plans.

"Besides," she added with a curious smile, "I want to give you very best chance at seeing if you can change things, dear knight. It'll be more fun that way, for both of us!"

There was so much Joan wasn't following, so much that didn't make sense to her, that her mind refused to make sense of, as The Enchantress briskly walked across the room to the lone, open door. She was about to leave, when suddenly she stopped.

"Oh, silly me," she said in the tone of someone who'd forgotten to add sugar to the cake, "I'd forget my own horns if they weren't attached to me."

She turned, raising one hand, clawed fingers splayed and reaching out darkness to Joan. It hit her like a wave, liquid warmth breaking over her, gone just as quickly, leaving her staring down at her nude self. Practically nude at-least, her toned, scar-decorated body now clad in the same handkerchief worth of white silk her reflection wore, the garment barely covering her chest and covering her groin.

Reflexively Joan reached between her legs, half expecting to find something there, fingers trying to grab at nothing for a few moments.

"Not yet," The Enchantress teased, "but soon." Her outstretched arm turned, splayed fingers twirling, sending a final spiralling chord of darkness to Joan. It hit her in the abdomen, passing right into her, leaving Joan fingers grabbing at the spot on her stomach where a warm feeling was retreating inside of her.

"What did you," Joan started, looking up to see The Enchantress closing the door on her way out.

"Ta ta," she waved over her shoulder, "and have fun, dear knight."

The door shut behind her, leaving Joan alone on the bed, under the mirror, wondering what was going to happen next.

And knowing full well what was going to happen next.

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