A/N: If y'all look to my last a/n you'll notice a little thing I wrote where I mentioned I was getting sick - well I was out for a real long time. Tbh I barely remember posting that chapter. It WOULD be Valentine's day that took me out (shakes fist at Cupid). BUT I'd like to give a huge THANK YOU + multiple fist bumps to all the awesome reviews and follows! Some people have posted really kind words about my story and it was pretty cool to read them through my fever/hallucinations (never feel pressured to give reviews, btw, I just wanted to say thank you!). I hope you like this next bit! We still have a loooonnnnnggggg ways to go, but everyone that's stuck around so far: Thanks. Again. (Also cliffhangers annoy the crap outta me as a reader, but I couldn't avoid them. HEH.)

Iron Clad

She got out the words, "I'll be -" and then mushrooms were growing against their hands, forcing them open and apart and she screamed at their slime as they wove in-between her fingers, and she slipped and fell back into the forest, into squelching mud and darkness.

"- Fine…" Sarah breathed out. The air was dead. The climbing wall in front of her grew thicker and thicker and now there was no light, there was only a gray glow, and the groan and soft pop as hundreds of new surrounding caps emerged.

"No! NO! Nononono -"

She was trapped.

(No, no, don't think that do not think that.)

Her chest was heaving to breathe from adrenaline and panic, and that smell. The mushrooms were still growing, surrounding her, caging in the tiny patch of earth where seconds ago she'd been holding -

(Maybe there's a path - a path, it's part of the Labyrinth, I have to find - there's still a path here somewhere, right? It'll get me back, right? Look. Really look.)

There was nothing. There were only small mushrooms and large mushrooms, and a very tiny patch of grass that she stood on, grass that had belonged to the outside world, and now it was dying, the green stripped away and rotting even as she stared at it.

(Will it do that to me? Will I -)

Sarah tried to fight the panicky voice in her head, the voice that said she was trapped, trapped and going to die, held away from him and separated forever from Hoggle and Didymus and Ludo and now even Toby and alone, all alone again -

She stood up and kicked the wall of mushrooms. "No! Come on, I am not trapped, I'm fine. I. Am. Fine. I'll get out, I'm not trapped, I'm not alone, I'm not lost -"

(But I'm sure as hell not found, either.)

She felt tears prickle up and brim. She tried calling out but nothing responded, nothing except for the popping and stretching mushrooms. (Don't waste your breath, idiot. And stop crying.)

She couldn't.

(I'm not alone, I'm not trapped, I'm here, I'm right here in front of you, I just saw you, I know exactly where I am, and just - just find me, come on, and -)

(He already left you for a year and then some. That's twice now he's just let go, isn't it.)

"Then I'll just have to… Find him." She tried to force her voice to sound optimistic, but it was cracking against the lump in her throat. (Again. You'll find him again. Again and again and last time it only took you a year and most of your sanity -)

(Yeah, that.)

(Whatever. I'll make it. It's time to go, time to make a plan and move, Williams. Always time to move on, right? Never stay in one place for too long. Plus, you've been lost in the Labyrinth before, and you've - you've always -

… Gotten out - )

But Sarah couldn't move. She squatted on her patch of dead grass, trying to stop the heaves of sobs that were coming from her body as shock began to pour over her.

(I'll solve it, I'll fix it, I'll beat it -)

(He's gone, I'm stuck, I'm trapped, I'm alone again -)

(I'll solve it -)

(I'm alone I'll fix it I'm trapped I'll beat it he's gone and I'm not strong enough and it's all my fault I'm trapped, I'm stuck, I'm forgotten and I'm…

… I'm alone again.)

(No, no, there's a way to beat this, there's a way, it's just a fairy tale and fairy tales have rules and I have studied and I have learned and I know this, come on, think, think and get back to him please, you just have to -

- have to beat this -)

Memories flooded her.

Sarah had always read fairy tales, but she'd begun studying after she'd left the Labyrinth. She read and re-read her favorites, and then, when everyone had disappeared, had poured over variations, over myths and ancient tales, had cross-referenced folk lore with cultural legends -

And she'd begun to study mazes, as well.

And it was then Sarah started noticing a distinct pattern. A pattern of humans and mazes. Of how many people had died at the hands of the Minotaur. How Tom Sawyer had barely escaped with his life in an endless series of underground tunnels. How many people died in catacombs and caves, or trapped in the passages of the pyramids, entombed and buried and lost. When she'd run her Labyrinth, she'd gotten help, she'd bargained, she'd begged, but mostly she'd been lucky. The place she'd encountered as a child had been… Gentler than this. Child-like. The oversized rocks, the comical creatures, the fairy tale that followed so perfectly. It was all stylistically over-done. But it was exaggerated because it was a distraction, the sparkly light and the bright colors and loud noises - it was all hiding, covering up. Because under that was a danger, under all the stories was a danger, because the game was fun to play and enjoy, but if you lost - if you failed - if you broke the rules of the story, didn't say the magic word or treat the old lady kindly, or stay on the path, or pick the right weapon to slay the dragon, didn't do the exact right thing at the exact right time - then the consequences were very real. There was something there, something under the surface of all the stories, something whispering behind the words that not all fairy tales are for children, not all fairy tales are fair, and not all fairy tales end with happily ever after…

(Ok, well, no fairy tale ended with 'and then the princess cried herself into a puddle until someone rescued her and/or she died'.)

(Besides,) Sarah wheezed out a shallow breath, then forced herself to stand on weak knees. (This is me. I am the knight. I am my own hero. I fought my way back on my own and I will save myself now if he can't.

In fact, I'm supposed to saving him, too. I promised. And I won't break that.)

"Ok, good, cool, this is a piece of ca-" Sarah froze. Had she really just said that? (Come on. What next? It's not fair?) She tried again.

"Ok, Williams. What's the plan here?" Her voice was shaky. She couldn't stop the tears but she wasn't going to let them keep her from getting out of here. The fact was that she didn't know how far she was from him. If the mushrooms had circled her and pushed her back, there was a good chance they were moving forward on the other side and forcing him away, further. And right now they were getting closer and closer to her. Closer and taller.

(So the plan is get the fuck out of here, any way possible. Maybe I can climb on top of them.)

She stepped on top of a toadstool, her foot squelching. "Gross."

She hopped onto another cap, and it broke under her weight. Sarah yelped, falling into the mushrooms, her legs getting trapped between two. She wriggled free, looking into the wall.

(I know he's beyond that, somewhere. I just have to get - to get into it - which means going into a wall of solid spores.)

"Fuck."

She did not want to go into the wall, let alone touch it, but she also wasn't going to stay put like this. Not held hostage by mushrooms. She reached out and grabbed a stalk, testing it. Nothing happened. The skin felt like a warm fishbelly, but it gave as she tore into it, her fingernails digging into the flesh. Sarah threw it behind her, and caught sight of her patch of earth, which was now almost invisible. Spores were everywhere, strewn across the ground, they were about a foot behind her, small but shooting up fast.

(I'm not going to have room to stand.)

She began trying to rip the stalks apart, but the more she shredded, the more started sprouting, hitting her feet, pushing against her ankles, and suddenly, she being pushed forward and off balance, her left leg trapped in-between them.

"Fuck! FUCK!"

The wall was bubbling with round tops, little buttons that shot up to join the mass of swaying fungi and Sarah thrashed her trapped foot, completely losing her balance and falling forward, falling into it, her arms sinking in. It felt like reaching into a bowl of very thick noodles. Noodles that were warm and rotting and smelled of decaying mushroom flesh.

(Think, think you idiot. Think or you die. The mushrooms will surround you, you will get sandwiched in the wall, or they'll pin you in from the back and you will be stuck, you will be stuck and surrounded and you will die, Sarah. You will run out of air or room or something but you will die if you don't get out now. You're not playing the game right. Follow the story, follow the logic. How do you beat a mushroom?)

(You don't! Light does, light and fire!)

She had neither. She unwedged her arms with a sucking noise and began punching the wall, clawing, the mushrooms breaking into chunks, getting in her nails, her hair.

(Why did it separate us? Why did the forest keep coming? We beat it.)

(We didn't beat it, he outran it. So it kept coming. Because - because it wanted him.)

(No, it didn't take him. It took me.)

(Why?)

(IS THIS IMPORTANT!?)

Sarah strained for air, but there was no air here, there was only musty hot, the scent of death and mold, her chest was so tight, she was clawing and clawing, clawing and being crushed, but she kept trying.

(It's important because I'm not going to die! We must have done something wrong, we must have not beaten them right, so figure out the rules, or the story, or whatever's going to get you out of here!)

(I was walking and the mushrooms were sprouting up, he had to carry me - why? Why did he grab me at that exact moment?)

(I was hurt! We needed to move!)

(But we needed to move before then. He knew something was happening. What did he say to you?)

She closed her eye, trying to remember, feeling the stalks press into her from the back, pinning her legs, pinching against her knees. 'Tell me, human. Do you know what a fairy circle is?'

(It's a portal, but -)

But that hadn't been his question. His question had been, do you know what it is, not what does it do.

(Why didn't he just tell me!?)

(Maybe he wasn't sure, maybe there wasn't time to explain. Just like right now there isn't time to debate this! Now: What is a fairy circle?)

(It's…)

She was sinking into them. Her legs were pinned together and her weight was pulling her down as the mushrooms were pushing up. She twisted, trying to use her forearms to pull up, the crushing feeling against her already-sore legs becoming painful. Her back was also beginning to spasm in protest - the mushrooms were pressing her bag into her from behind and Sarah could feel every stupid object she'd put in there against her spine.

(A fairy circle is just that - a circle. A ring. A ring in the ground, of moss, or stones, or flowers like daisies, or -

- or mushrooms.)

(Mushrooms.)

Sometimes, in some places, it was mushrooms, white, small, mushrooms that grew in a perfect circle, and woe betide the human that dared step foot inside, for they were now trapped, they were stuck, they couldn't go forward or back -

(So… I'm in a… A forest of mushrooms, in a magical land. Even the trees are just giant mushrooms, mushrooms that move forward onto the ground and chase you and block the path and try to - )

(They try to trap humans. It's a giant fairy circle. And I'm the only human. And it wants me.)

Or it wanted something. Usually fairy circles trapped their victims in fairyland, but she was already here, and it didn't feel like it was exactly going to let her leave or live.

(How the fuck do I beat an army of mushrooms!? How do you beat a fairy circle!?)

(Think! Think! Come on!)

Her arms were hanging in front of her, propped up on mushroom caps, her hands ached, clawing endlessly at nothing but rubbery pulp. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, to remember as she wheezed in thin scraps of air.

(Rope. You could pull someone out of a fairy ring with rope.)

(I don't have rope.)

(You could bargain with the fairies.)

(That option seems to have run out. Or rather, been trapped out.)

(You can dance around the circle in the opposite way until they let you go.)

(I can't even move.)

(You could switch places with another person.)

(There's no one but me. I'm the only human it wants.)

(You could -

… - You could fall asleep forever and not have to worry about it, Sarah.)

"OW!" Her eyes snapped open to the dark grey surrounding her. Something in her bag had all but stabbed her in the back as the mushrooms pinned it against her. She wriggled, twisting the bagstrap away from her, pulling it and trying not sink in further. The mushrooms had risen to her armpits. Her arms tugged, and finally the bag slid out, covered in slime. If she was going to die, she didn't want to be stabbed by her bag AND crushed.

(There's got to be a way to beat fairies, Williams. Is there anything you can use in there?)

She rummaged; her pencil, sewing kit, bandaids, crystals, a glow stick, salt packets, powerbar, extra crystals -

nothing stood out.

She whimpered exhaustedly, head sagging down.

(I didn't even bring a knife!?)

(That's right, because I used the knife to get through to this place, and then it hit the ground and that was the end of that. Fuck me. Goddamnit, brain. Even if a knife couldn't cut through them, I would've been able to use it somehow! Just stabbing them repeatedly, or maybe even the iron from the blade, I could've used -

could've -

… Iron - )

Her head snapped up.

(Iron beats fairies. Iron beats fairy magic.)

(So do I have iron!? Anything - anything - )

She rummaged again, pencil, sewing kit, bandaids, powerbar, crystals -

Nothing.

"Fuck! No, no, come on, please, please -"

Her whisper was absorbed into the squelching around her. She'd sunken up to her shoulders now, the mushrooms pushing her arms up to her face as she went through her bag. (Goddamnit. God-fucking-damn it.) She tried to search through again, but the strap adjuster was getting caught on a stalk, threatening to tug away from her. (No!) She tugged back on the strap, pulling it towards her, bending the mushroom until her fingers closed around the buckle. She yanked it off the stalk, the metal buckle rubbing against her grimy fingers, sizzling.

(… Sizzling?)

Metal.

(It's metal.

… It's iron.)

No, that was wasn't completely right. It was a buckle on a bag, and it was a cheap one at that, and while it might have iron in it, it could also be scrap metal, a fusion of different types all melded together -

She didn't have time to argue the logistics with herself. The buckle was hot in her hands, and the mushrooms were thrust up against her chin. Thin white stalks pushed into face, obscuring her vision, tilting her head back, pushing her arms up, pushing her away from the bag. She fought to see around them, to breathe through them, and she clenched her fingers around the buckle, hand thrashing, trying to pressing it into something, anything. She couldn't see, couldn't breathe, there was only grey, getting darker and darker above her as it closed in -

Her flailing hand connected with something, the metal pressed in, and she could hear a sizzle, it was very small but it was there and it bit into mushroom flesh and then something hot exploded against her hand.

Grey slime, like a molten marshmallow, hit her fist, and now she could move her forearm. She rotated blindly, pressing the buckle into something else - there was a high-pitched whine, and then a pop as something gave and now she could pull her arm -

(YES.)

She tore at the rest, pressing the buckle close to her face, against the stalks that were choking her, there was the keen, the whine, and then pop and the burst of grey as stalk sunk down, like air escaping a jar, deflating into blackness.

She sliced again, and again, and again. The heat hurt her hand as she carved the buckle into the mushrooms like a brand, searing them to blackness. The cap slime was everywhere, it was in her hair and on her hands, but she shielded her eyes, cutting and swinging blindly, wildly around her until her arms were free, her torso was free, her waist, her legs, she could move, she was slicing towards the wall, her hand was burning, she was cutting and cutting and cutting -

Her arm was on fire, and it started to feel heavy, dull, jerking movements, but even as she switched hands the stalks were trying to grow back, to push against her arm, to tangle her feet. She swung again and again, punching against them, her arm was soaked in their ooze -

And there was light, there was real light - there was a small hole, and then a slightly bigger small hole and it was enough for her, even as spores grew up around it to try and block her -

She shoved her bag through, bracing her legs against the spores that were still growing behind her. She followed her bag, the mushrooms trying to keep her in, to crush her ribs, to block her way, push her back, but she was thin, she was so thin, too thin, and she was making it through the impossibly small hole- `

Sarah Williams fell - exploded and fell - through a hole in a giant growing wall of mushrooms that continued to bubble upwards and outwards, and she fell a long way, her hair twisting up behind her as mushroom slime oozed out of the opening.

She hit a smaller wall of mushrooms that was growing up in front of the other others. She bounced, hard, then wedged between stalks.

She forced her head up, it was so heavy, and her eyes were closing - but they were growing, growing all around her -

Sarah slid through them, slid and fell into more, trying to wave her arm in front of her, still blindly trying to cut - she landed hard on grass, but that wasn't far enough, it was never far enough, rolling, rolled and rolled down a hill. A hill that ended in a stream, but the world was a dizzying blur and she couldn't see, she fell into it, hard, and this time she landed in sharpness and cold, stones and shallow water. Rocks and water and blood and Sarah, Sarah clinging onto a bag and a buckle even as it sizzled in her hand and the pain didn't keep her awake, it just kept her there. She couldn't think to get out of the water and she couldn't think to let go and so there she stayed, shivering in shock and pain. Was she crying? Was she breathing? Was she awake? She didn't know. She thought she heard a shout.

(I can't remember how to turn my head. How to think? How do I yell back? I hope something happens. Hope this feeling stops.)

Her teeth were chattering, and a wave of dizziness hit her. She sunk into the water, which was shallow, but you really didn't need more than a few inches to drown in, especially if you couldn't move. Her ears were ringing.

(Did I hear anything? Did anyone actually yell? Did I make it back… Did I help them… I promised… Promised… I would…)

She didn't know. Her stomach jolted suddenly and she dry-heaved, her body shaking in convulsions as she gagged repeatedly, black spots in her eyes. She wondered vaguely if she'd gotten any mushroom in her mouth, and then her stomach heaved again, but it was all bile, stomach acid and soon it would be blood, she knew. (At least it's getting washed away by the water…) She thought dreamily. The black spots were getting bigger.

Something turned her over, but she was choking and she wasn't, she didn't need to breathe, she didn't need to feel warmer, the cold was fine, because you could sleep in the cold, sleep and not worry about… Mushrooms, about anything…

She felt hands over her heart. A tiny memory flashed dimly in her mind of someone hitting her chest, and she hoped that the same sequence wouldn't repeat… Not that it mattered…