The Woman With Too Many Teeth

Merildwen's plans to take over the world were one made out of necessity. The idea that these humans could be trusted with nuclear bombs was ludicrous. If she were trapped in this place now, then she would have to take steps to make sure they didn't blow themselves and, more importantly, her up as well.

However, such plans didn't last more than twenty-four hours since she found herself in the middle of Colorado. That night, her camp had been found by what she now called The Woman With Too Many Teeth.

She didn't know what the entity was, except definitely not human, wielding incredibly bizarre reality-warping magic, bulletproof and intent on kidnapping her for unknown reasons. She kind of reminded her of stories told of the fey of the Winter Court, except that didn't precisely fit, either. 

She cursed the owner of the body she was in as she was simply dragged physically by an ankle through the forest. The landscape changed rapidly, making it clear that she was not solely being dragged through mundane means. It started off the same as the forest in Colorado, then shifted to a desert, a swamp and finally a forest again, thick with brambles whose thorns seemed to tear at more than just her flesh.

Eventually, they arrived at a large mansion surrounded by leafless trees as if the area was in perpetual autumn. It reminded her of a number of places she and her parents had lived in, but they had been literally haunted houses.

As soon as the woman let go of her, she tried to make a run for it, but the woman opened her mouth and said, in a voice that echoed in her soul, "Stop."

Fuck. That was stronger than even her dad's enchantments. She couldn't move a muscle. She couldn't even breathe. Did this fucking monster know she had to breathe? Well, this would be a quick kidnapping if she didn't.

It, unfortunately, wasn't.

---xxxxxx---

It had been at least a decade. Merildwen's job in this mansion of horrors was as simple as it was horrific. She was a living mirror. Somehow, The Woman With Too Many Teeth knew she could cast illusions and transmutations.

For some reason, mirrors were completely forbidden here. The one time she had asked about them, she had been beaten almost to death. Even just thinking about the concept of reflection too much inside the manor would make the Mistress of the house vibrate in anger. Literally, vibrate—like a small earthquake.

So, since mirrors were an impossibility here, her job as a slave was to use transmutation and illusion magic every single day to transform into a copy of the Woman so she could know how she looked in a particular outfit or body. The woman was a shapechanger, like a doppelganger.

Most of the time, she picked a female shape and one hundred per cent of the time, it was in the uncanny valley, looking monstrous up close. Some days were easy, and she would only change one or two things. Other days were hard. If it occured that Merildwen ran out of spells for that day and couldn't cast Alter Self, Major Image or Disguise Self anymore... well, that was a bad day. Shrieking, inventively disturbing tortures, and the like followed, all the while the Woman berating her for her ineptness at magic.

Merildwen couldn't do anything to stop any abuse she received. She had been under the effect of that "Stop" enchantment for the entire time. Just before she had passed out so long ago, the Woman gave her permission to breathe. 

From then on, occasionally she would be granted permission to do something new, for example, cast illusion or transmutation spells, or even walk around the mansion after one surprising day several years ago when the Woman seemed pleased with her efforts when she no longer had to cast spells to change her body. Now, she could shift her body exactly the same way the Woman could, which really frightened her, actually.

Today was one of the days that the Mistress of the House was gone. This happened a few times a month, and it was one of the few days of peace that she had. She had tried going downstairs to try to communicate with the others but had been rebuffed.

She wasn't the only person here, but since nobody here could speak, it was difficult to communicate. They were all under the same enchantment. Especially since, as the one that was the closest to the Woman, seeing her every single day, they didn't trust her. They thought she was lying when she intimated she couldn't speak because she could cast spells, some of which required verbal components. 

But she could only speak to cast spells. And even then, the Woman really disliked it, so she hadn't done so in years, still managing to cast while eliminating the necessity of verbal components altogether. It would have been an incredible magic achievement, one she would have liked to share with her parents if she were anywhere else.

Their treatment of her was infuriating because she would do almost anything if only she didn't have to see their captor every single day. These fucks who just had to cook food or be gardeners never saw that fucking bitch!

However, she had to admit that they might be disturbed by her appearance because she probably looked somewhat like the Woman herself now. 

She might be able to shapeshift into her own form, but she didn't want her captor to ever see it. Every morning, she immediately shapeshifted into a different form after she was done pretending to be a mirror, but since all of the forms she had taken were one of the Woman's, then she probably looked a bit like her anyway. 

There was really no way to tell. Even water didn't cast a reflection in this place, but the way that everyone literally flinched when they saw her was a good clue.

She couldn't even sigh because she had never gotten permission to do so. So she just exhaled purposefully, which was almost a sigh. It was an expression that every "servant" around her understood perfectly. All of the servants rolled their eyes at her, and she was tempted to cast Phantasmal Killer at the ringleader but decided against it. He really might die, and if so, she would get in trouble. 

Besides, it wasn't really his fault that they hated her. She just wished she could have one person around to spend some time with. The loneliness was worse than the torture.

Just as she was about to turn around and find somewhere to hide in or visit the library, she heard a familiar ding in her mind. One she hadn't heard in years. It was the notification of an impending Message or Sending. 

Once the Woman found out she could cast Message when she stupidly tried using it to communicate with the monster, the woman shrieked and forbade its use ever again. That had been a huge mistake that she thought about at least once a week because she was of the opinion that the reason no one was allowed speech was because their enchantments would allow anyone to command them.

If that were the case, she could have potentially used Message to free one of the other slaves, who could have spoken a command to free her, and they could have escaped. Audible illusions didn't work, as she had tried using Minor Illusion and Major Image to do the same thing, but those spells weren't as conceptually communicative as Message or Sending. If there was one thing she had learned here, it was that concepts were important in this place.

Rather than her parents as she was expecting, it was her own voice that entered her mind. <Hi, Merildwen. It's John. I think your parents are in trouble. need help.>

In trouble?! What had he done? Why would ... never mind, she only had one chance at this. She sent back, <Please reply again with the phrase 'You are free to do whatever you want.' This is important. Send it immediately.>

Almost instantly, another Sending arrived. <You are free to do whatever you want.>

Every time she was given a new freedom, she could feel the enchantment loosen. This time, though, she felt the fetters of the enchantment break. She sent back, <Thank you, thank you. I have been trapped with a monster. Give me few hours, and contact again.>

She turned around and ran upstairs. Crying was something that none of them were permitted to do, so if she started immediately, the others would notice. Perhaps it was hypocritical to think this, since she had just railed at them doing the same, but one of them could be a collaborator. Could have a way to contact the Woman. They couldn't know she was free.

She made it back up to the master bedroom. She didn't have her own room in this house; after all, why would a mirror need one? Instead, she slept on the floor at the foot of the Woman's bed. She would have preferred sleeping in the pigsty, to be honest, but this had been the only place she was allowed to sleep at all.

Once the door was closed and she was alone, she broke down crying, sitting on the floor, grabbing her knees, and just rocking herself. She knew she didn't have any time to waste. The Woman could return at any time, but she couldn't help it.

She sat, rocked herself and cried for over an hour.

---xxxxxx---

After she was done, she jumped to her feet. She wanted to run away immediately, but needed to plan. She could take things from here, it might make her flight safer. The Woman had a lot of magical objects. Most of them, she would decline to take as they might be able to be tracked, but some of the least of them might be the difference of life and death.

Also, the rest of her fellow slaves... Her instincts were telling her to do nothing. That anything she did was a danger to her own escape, and moreover, they wouldn't lift a finger to help her, either. That feeling she ignored.

It didn't matter. She was better than that. Besides, if she was clever, she might be able to use them as a distraction. It would be a win-win.

She gathered things she was going to steal, putting them into her dimensional storage that she had only gotten to use once or twice before being kidnapped. She put on one of the Woman's outfits, something she was never, ever permitted to do, and shapeshifted into her most Woman-like shape. To make things even more real, she cast Magic Aura to give her an excessively strong, roiling magical aura.

She had a brief intrusive thought that she could instead just take over the mansion. She could kill the Woman when she returned, and then she would be the one in charge. She shook her head. That was madness. The Woman had reality-warping powers. There was no way to injure her. This was false mental feedback from taking her shape. She had instances of this in the past while performing her duties, but never this strong.

She ignored it and left the master bedroom. As soon as one of the servants saw her, they looked terrified, so she knew her disguise was working.

She found the head cook again. She tried to mimic the way the Woman spoke, filling her voice with magic and power, saying, "Gather all of the servants together. Immediately."

He rushed to obey. It was barely two minutes before all three dozen or so slaves were gathered in the main hall.

Once they were all gathered, she nodded. She had considered how to word this to get her desired result for a while. She couldn't just free them because then they would be allowed to contact the actual Woman if one of them thought this was a trick. Instead, she said, "Never contact me again. All of you are to leave in separate directions. Once you leave travel for an hour, you are free to do whatever you want."

The first order wouldn't last longer than an hour, but that would be enough. I cast Invisibility, cancelled Magic Aura and ran out of the room. Ran out of the house. Ran out of the grounds—into a forest full of brambles, whose thorns tore more than my flesh.