Chapter Two: The Little Princes Return.
Unto each child of the Stars a unique gift was bestowed. For some it was the power of compassion or serenity, a subtle control of the environment or the power to make others laugh. For centuries no two gifts spawned from the same womb had ever been alike, and thus the Imperial Twins were an anomaly. Many held that since they shared such a strong bond between siblings, both had developed the same gift of being able to make those around them temporarily forget all that was worrisome or stressful. Jareth had often scoffed at the theory and proposed his own in return: one twin likely had a power that was so asinine it did not make any sort of impact when in manifested.
The Twins, for their part, kept their silence on the subject. They knew precisely which brother caused the forgetfulness and what it was the other brother could do. It was a strange burden for a pair of tricksters to bear: one knowing the anxiety he caused in those around him, and the other diligently keeping his brother's secret while hiding his own power so that they would have to suffer the responsibility together.
It was no secret to them that Imm caused the chaos and Laim cleaned it up.
Though not twins by birth, the two brothers considered themselves to be twins by soul; two halves of the same whole. They had watched each other's backs for centuries, had become so tuned in to each other that communication barely required words anymore.
And that was how, standing in the blackness of Sarah's balcony, they managed to reach a solid decision without ever even making eye contact. One twin would touch the door on the way in, and the other would touch it on the way out.
Sarah hiccupped into the pillow she'd grabbed to burry her face in, and immediately dissolved back into sobs. They were sobs of the uncomfortable, rib-wracking variety and, though it was a relief to finally let out some of the bottled up emotions she had inside of her, it was quickly becoming painful. She had obviously kept this in for way too long.
A tentative feeling stole over her, silencing her cries for a moment. Something cool and concerned seemed to whisper over her empathic senses; soothing, and yet at the same time perhaps a little triumphant. Was it meant to be a reassurance from a broken Jareth, or was it not aimed to her at all? After everything she had done to him, it didn't seem right that he, in all his inner chaos, should still be reaching out to her.
The thought would have made her cry even harder if her balcony door hadn't chosen that moment to melt into a strange puddle of wood pulp and melted glass. She sniffled and eyed the mercurial ooze that was slowly spreading toward her carpet then stared into the gaping hole that had once been a door, at the shadows beyond it that seemed to whisper.
Sarah frowned and strained her ears. As a matter of fact, the shadows were whispering.
"Perhaps we should have knocked first; this seems a bit dramatic for our purposes."
"Look, it was either that or explode the thing off its hinges, which definitely would have given the wrong impression."
"Again, knocking probably would have been a good idea."
"Well it's a bit late now, isn't it?"
There was a sheepish sort of silence that followed, in which Sarah got off of her couch as quietly as possible. She had nearly made it to the front door, her fingers twitching over a 9 and a 1 on the phone she had snagged along the way, when the voices finally got themselves sorted out.
"O Mighty Destroyer of Stoves," a familiar voice carried through her apartment, "may we come in?"
"We would knock," the other, equally familiar, voice added, "only there isn't much of a door left on which to do so."
Sarah's heart lurched painfully and she was surprised that she didn't breakdown into sobs again. Her time had obviously run out; for five years she had managed to avoid the past, knowing that sooner or later she would have to pay for the decisions that she had made, and it seemed that tonight the Reaper had come to collect; or rather, Reapers. She turned around in a slow, jerky move, but already knew what she would see behind her.
Framed in the open doorway was Imm, a boy who was so vibrantly alive that he seemed to repel the shadows that surrounded him. When they had first met, Sarah had thought that he looked to be around her age; she had grown in the years between, but he had not. Imm appeared to be a boy in his late teens, with sun-kissed dusky skin and hair that fell in a short and wild, butter-yellow mop that just grazed the back of his ears. He wore dark breeches and boots, like his eldest brother, but his shirt was a vivid, flashing green that nearly matched the color of his eyes; the boy couldn't have personified the spring any better if he had tried.
Slightly behind Imm was his 'twin'. Laim now appeared to be her equal in age, though he was doubtlessly centuries older. This twin brought to mind everything that represented autumn. He had skin of a warm light brown, and eyes the exact shade of burnt-orange that leaves took on just before they fell from the trees. The feature that drew her attention, though, was his hair. Laim had locks of dark auburn that he always pulled back into a loose braid. He was similarly dressed as his brother, but his shirt was a fiery red rather than an energetic green.
"What do you want?" Sarah blurted, backing up a few steps when they cautiously made their way inside.
Laim frowned at her question. "We're not seeking any sort of retribution or penance, Sarah," he replied gently. "You did what you thought was right; no one can blame you for that."
"But we think everyone has suffered enough," Imm added, flouncing on her sofa while unashamedly going through the box of her old things that she had abandoned there. "It's time to end it, don't you agree?" he asked while gently setting the hourglass on her small end-table.
Sarah's eyes snagged on the green glass and a lump settled in her throat. "What do you want?" she repeated thickly.
"We just want to talk," Laim answered gently, motioning to the chair opposite where he and his brother were seated, and she was briefly struck by the absurdity of being invited to take a seat in her own home.
"And get the ball rolling," Imm added, fingers still idly running down the intricate knots of the hourglass.
Oran was horrified at how thoroughly his son had planned things out in the event of his utter failure. The expansion and fortification of the Labyrinth, an act that had seemed ominously malicious at the time, hadn't been meant to keep people out but, rather, in. Jareth had somehow known what would happen to him after Sarah's continued refusal and, fearing his own powers under such a situation, had turned his Labyrinth from a maze into a veritable prison for himself. He had left detailed plans and instructions for his staff and the Imperial Court so that life over the next decade or so would continue on as it had for the past few centuries. And, most surprising of all, he had made provisions for Sarah's future protection.
From a young age Jareth had expressed an affinity for words, captivated by how easily he could hide the truth in plain sight. Word-games had been the first manifestation of the strange machinations that were typical of his son. This, though, was beyond anything Oran had seen before. Spread over his desk was a heavy piece of parchment, slightly less than a foot in length, yet packed with Jareth's strong writing. It was the contract that he had gotten Sarah to sign at the beginning of the whole ordeal. Oran had no doubt that the girl had been too distracted to read it, otherwise it wasn't likely that she ever would have signed her name.
Read over quickly on a basely literal level and it was simply a contract mapping out the agreement between two people but, from Oran's eyes, it was something else altogether. The document was carefully worded to the point that it was absolutely littered with phrases that had double meanings. In essence, Jareth had bound Sarah to a contract that could mean virtually anything he wanted it to. The only thing that hadn't been delightfully ambiguous had been the single stipulation that Sarah could not be forced Underground by anyone other than the Goblin King himself.
Oran was not part of the contract, so it didn't technically apply to him; however, knowing his son, he had managed to weave some sort of magic around Sarah that would still prevent his interference. Which meant that, though they desperately needed her to help them through this mess, the girl was beyond his reach.
But, true to Jareth's form, he had buried a useful trap within all those elegant words. The contract, in its purest light, had been meant as a waiver for the hourglass that would slowly registered how much of the thirteen hour debt had been paid back. There was a price to pay for failure to comply with the terms of the contract, though; if the hourglass was ever broken then Sarah would owe Jareth her very life.
It was a weak shot at a narrow target, but it meant that there was still hope.
It had taken a lot of coaxing, but the Twins had eventually managed to get her into a chair. Now, sitting across from their friendly and familiar faces, Sarah found that she had hundreds of questions that she wanted to ask and no idea where to start.
Imm saved her from having to choose. "Things are not well," he said in a solemn voice that was completely at odds with his usual nature.
Laim nodded. "You suffer from regret and heartache, Jareth has been splintered beyond recognition, mother and father have become downright obsessed with trying to find a way to bring him back, Toby still carries a fracture of Jareth within him, your parents have become neurotic about anything magical and, worst of all, we're having to act like responsible adults."
"It can't carry on like this," Imm added. "No one has the fortitude to endure more of this torture, and Laim and I, for one, are tired of standing between the realms just waiting for something to happen."
"And we're not the only ones," Laim interjected. "Between the realms that is."
Sarah frowned. "Does everyone know what I did?"
Laim shook his head. "This is a very dangerous time, Sarah. Jareth's powers are no less potent than they have ever been, but his control is frail. It was by his magic that the Underground was even created, a world away from the mortals. If his deterioration continues on as it has, that magic will undo itself and the Underground will go back to where it used to be."
"How do you think mortals will react to suddenly sharing their realm with every fairytale creature they convinced themselves wasn't real?" Imm asked. "There are already cracks between our worlds and those who are curious enough to take advantage of it. Doubtlessly you've seen a stray goblin or two by now; it will only get worse with time."
As if it wasn't bad enough just thinking that she had destroyed a man, now she had to contend with the fact that her actions could very well cause the chaotic merging of two completely different worlds. "So what are you here for then?" she asked. "To take me back?"
It was a thought that was as appealing as it was frightening. To be able to fix the damage she had inflicted would be a balm to her troubled soul, but to have to face the reality of that damage, to have to face Jareth, was an idea that left her petrified. While trapped within his heart she had seen the truth that few others of his kind would likely acknowledge: beneath the courtly and mocking demeanor lived a wild and savage soul, born with more raw power than anyone was comfortable with. His amorality tended to stem more out of defense than anything else, but the fact remained that his reactions were, more often than not, brutal and animalistic. He had waged a centuries-long war against humanity for a slight that humans no longer even knew about, he protected that which he saw as his with a fierceness that was chilling, and day after day, century after century, he had utilized those vicious instincts to rule a kingdom. It was not a trait or a habit that he could be broken of; it was, at his very basest, who Jareth was.
Laim shook his head, interrupting her thoughts. "Jareth beat us to that punch long before we even knew there was going to be trouble."
"You should see the way he worded that contract," Imm said with just the vaguest hint of frustration coloring his voice. "It was a nightmare to wade through."
"But his stipulations never said you couldn't come into contact with any of us," Laim continued. "So we translated that in the opposite direction and decided to pay you a visit."
"We would have come sooner," Imm apologized, "we can't even imagine how awful it's been for you to suffer the full magnitude of this burden alone when we've had each other for support, but we had to look something up first."
Sarah raised an eyebrow. "It took you five years to look something up?"
Instead of answering, Imm asked, "May I see that amulet you're wearing?"
She leaned across the coffee table between them, extending the heavy metal medallion for the Twins' inspection. "I can't take it off," she offered quietly, though she had a feeling that they already knew that.
Two sets of hands carefully closed over the amulet and for a moment, time seemed to stand still. Warmth sizzled over the chain, followed quickly by a flare of coolness. Something skittered along her nerves then, a sense of something extra, a certain dimension that hadn't been there before. The moment was broken once the Twins let go, and the weighty charm settled back over her T-shirt, but that inexplicable feeling of more didn't go away.
She didn't dare ask, didn't think she handle the answer at the moment, but the question must have been in her eyes because Imm still answered. "Set the ball rolling," he said cryptically.
The boys rose in tandem and Sarah was gripped by an intense panic when they turned to leave. They were a connection to the Underground that she both craved and feared. The Twins could understand and sympathize with Sarah, a woman who had been forced to straddle the realms of the mundane and the fantastic, wanting neither and yet craving both, but they were another connection that tied her to Jareth, dragged her just that much further into his strangely faceted life.
"We ought to go before anyone misses us," Laim said quietly, "but we'll come back to visit soon."
Hundreds of questions still stampeded at the back of Sarah's mind—where was everyone, how were they doing aside from the obvious, was… was Jareth really in such poor condition—but faced with their imminent departure the question that burned heaviest on her tongue was undoubtedly the most frivolous. "What did exactly did you do?" she asked, waiving a hand to indicate the shadowed hole that led to her balcony.
Imm smiled devilishly. "Made it forget that it was a door."
"You can do that?" She wanted to gape in surprise, but the idea honestly didn't astound her very much after all the magic she had been exposed to.
"It took a lot of practice, and I doubt anyone else could do it, but yes," he replied.
Sarah shot a nervous glance to the shadows that lurked beyond her balcony doorframe, then focused on the clock behind her. "It's kind of late and I don't care for the idea of sleeping without a backdoor, so is there anything either of you can do?" When silence was her only answer, she swiveled back around.
The Twins were gone and nothing about the solid door in front of her suggested that, moments prior, it had been a puddle of miscellaneous components staining her living room carpet.
It was almost a relief to know that magic was bleeding back into her utterly mundane world, she thought as she stared bemusedly at the reconstructed wood. She had spent the past few years plagued by the choices she had made and living in a constant state of anxiety, never knowing if or when the axe would drop. Now that it had, she could breath a little easier and, as far as axes went, the Twins struck her as rather benign.
Emotionally drained and absolutely exhausted, she shuffled to her room for some sleep. With the first measure of peace that she had experienced in many years, Sarah settled into bed.
In a darkened corner of the room, something glinted a golden-silver. "The Twins are not so benign as they'd have you believe, Sarah sweet."
Her eyes snapped open as the eerie and amused voice washed over her.
A/N: Blech, is it the next chapter yet?
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Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the first chapter! I've never written a sequel before and I was worried that a lot of people wouldn't come back for it.
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Disclaimer: Not mine.