Such Fooled Hearts Chapter Two, a labyrinth fanfic

'Tis another very long chapter for your personal enjoyment... or so I hope. :) I own nothing except my characters and ideas. Not even the cute little worm. Aww.

Thanks for everybody who's reviewed so far! Any type of feedback is encouraging and very welcome. ;)

You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep

'Cause they'd fill the open air
And leave teardrops everywhere
You'd think me rude
But I would just stand and stare

'Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance...

I'd like to make myself believe
That planet earth turns slowly
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay
Awake when I'm asleep

'Cause everything is never as it seems
When I fall asleep

It's hard to say that I'd rather stay
Awake when I'm asleep
Because my dreams are bursting at the seams...

~ Fireflies by Owl City

Thunk.

"Owwww," Kath groaned. She lay unmoving on the hard ground, struggling to recapture her breath. Lights danced in front of her eyes, then subsided. She stared up at the strangely vibrant sky above her, her dark hair tangled around her face, waiting as the pain in her stomach subsided. After a while, she decided to try sitting up.

Thump. "OOF." A squeal. Amelie fell out of nowhere to smush Kath back into the hard ground.

Breathe in, breathe out. "Give me back the breath that you have stolen," Kath mumbled dazedly at the girl sprawled on top of her.

Seemingly unaffected by the fall – probably due to Kath's role as a convenient human cushion - the small French girl popped to her feet almost immediately and looked around.

"Holy merde..." she breathed in wonder. "Kath... you did it. You took us to the Labyrinth!"

Then, without warning, she released a high-pitched scream of glee and began jumping up and down, squealing too fast for Kath to comprehend in her confused current state of mind. Kath tuned her out, listening to her own breathing instead.

She spent a few moments thinking about how brittle and sandy the ground under her was. She realized that was a little strange. But then again, so was randomly falling down through a too-blue sky when she should be hanging out in Amelie's room. Everything was just so strange... so she thus concluded that she must be dreaming. That made much more sense; Kath tended to have the strangest dreams. Since she was dreaming, she decided, in this dream, that there was little chance that something else was going to fall on top of her again, so she risked sitting up.

The two girls were on top of a tall, sandy, orange-tinged hill that led down to...

Kath had no idea how to describe it; the complexity, the immensity, the strangeness, the beauty of it. The labyrinth stretched on for what seemed like miles, twisting and knotting like a vast, intricate Celtic design, rising slowly but steadily to the hazy outline of a castle in the far distance. It was fascinating and frightening at the same time. She realized that her mouth was open and slowly closed it, then got to her feet to get a better look of her surroundings.

Behind her, opposite the labyrinth, was just empty, flat desert for as far as the eye could see. If she squinted, she could almost see sunlight glimmering of the outline of mountains in the distance. Gnarled, stunted trees sparsely dotted the dreary landscape. She took a step forward, and the dry sand crunched under her heels. There seemed to be sparkles or something embedded in the ground.

She turned back and looked at the labyrinth. It shimmered, almost glittered, like a snake in the oddly golden sunlight, but it seemed strangely ominous to her. "Like, vibes. Vibes of unwelcomeness," she mused, and chuckled at how silly it sounded, especially spoken out loud. She shook her head, amused. "Geez, this dream is so overly detailed and weird.."

Amie bounded up to her, grabbing Kath's hands excitedly as she began twirling her around, both of their ridiculously out-of-place dresses swirling around them. "I have never been this hyped in my entire life... this is a total dream come true! The only thing that would make it more perfect… technically, Jareth should be here. And the movie made it seem less... dead." She looked around critically, a little annoyed. "Well, I know what I have to do, anyway. This is going to be a piece of cake! Come on, Kath!"

Kath blinked. She could have sworn she had felt a faint, ill-boding tremor in the air at the words 'piece of cake,' but she wasn't sure where it had come from. She shrugged and let the triumphant Amie drag her down the hill. It was just a dream, after all.

The walls to the labyrinth suddenly loomed above them, tall, gray, and imposing, heavy with a forbidden air. Around the base, several small glowing lights zipped around, leaving trails of light, like a shooting star, hanging in the air. Brittle grass grew tall around the walls, but none actually touched the stone... investigating, Kath could only see a shriveled one-foot zone of brown and black around the wall. Curious. She shrugged.

Kath looked at Amie and raised an eyebrow in question, seeing as her friend seemed to be running her dream so far. She realized that probably didn't bode well for their waking relationship.

Amie was at a loss. "Um.. This isn't how it's supposed to happen at all... someone's supposed to challenge us, or something...and then there's this dwarf..." she trailed off helplessly.

"A-hem." They both jumped at the unexpected new voice and glanced wildly around.

"I'm not that short, am I?" the voice grumbled. Right in front of them – Kath wondered how they could have missed it before – stood a shoddy, makeshift table. Behind it lounged a rather bored-looking... for lack of a word, Kath had to say it was a dwarf, though it didn't really look like the gruff, bearded little men that normally popped into her mind when she thought 'dwarf'; it looked a little bit more like a lumpy, hairless gnome. In front of the gnome-dwarf sat a large wicker basket of peaches. Kath pinched herself. This dream was just getting bizarre.

He gave them a critical, low-browed glare. "Not a very friendly pair, are ye? Not even a 'hello', or mebbe a 'good afternoon', or the King forbid, a 'how do you do'?" He tsked and huffed simultaneously, making an interesting sound that Kath wanted to try to recreate sometime. "Mortals. They just get more an' more ill-mannered." He gave Amie, who was staring at him wide-eyed, a pointed look. "Didn't your mother ever tell ye it's rude to stare?"

Amie was still staring at the gnome, and Kath really had no idea what to say. Heedless of their silence, the gnome continued bitingly. "Well, I assume yer here for Jareth. Everyone is. Unfortunately, he's currently and permanently unavailable. I'm his secretary, to put it nicely, but really I'm just a bouncer. He's not taking any wishes, he doesn't want anything to do with ye mortals, he doesn't want yer spare babies, he's not going to recreate the bogdamnit movie, yadda yadda. So he put me 'ere for redirecting ye people who said something stupid and want to take it back, so he doesn't have to deal with you annoying humans." He shot them another shifty glare. Kath was really just getting more and more confused, but by now she could tell two things; this was one unhappy little dwarf who worked for one grouchy King.

"Well, I guess wish-aways are pretty rare nowadays. So I just sit 'ere. Awful boring job. Don't think yer the first to happen across the right words... but ye can just scooty along like the rest of 'em. Don't want ta risk bothering him." He gestured to the beautifully succulent peaches before him. Kath eyed one, a little bit consideringly; they certainly looked tasty, perfectly fuzzy with a delicious blush of pink… "Just a bite of one of these, you'll pop right back into ye nice warm boring safe mortal world. Smart, really. Awfully convenient. His majesty might be a little broody, but he doesn't skimp on stuff that gets rid of ye horrific lot..." A quote came unbiddingly to Kath's mind: "You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes..."

"Wait." Amie's eyes were wide with horror. "You mean... we have to go back? We can't solve the labyrinth? We can't meet Jareth?"

The gnome snorted with derision. "Well, if ye have a death wish, ye can just not choose the peach. Then the clock starts, and ye have thirteen hours to get through that god-forsaken place alive. Just eat the peach. It's easy as one, two, three, plus ye don't have to worry about any catty King disemboweling you!" The gnome had acquired a persuasive telemarketer voice. The girls just stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"No, but seriously. Two young girls like ye, wouldn't stand a chance. The Labyrinth's changed; the King's changed. He's oh so bitter about that movie ye stupid mortals made. He'll slip anyone who even mentions it around him into an oubliette, and if yeh talk specifically of the Last Champion..." He shuddered. "Anyway, he's touchy right now, and obviously doesn't want ta concern himself with the mortal-related part of his job right now. If I were ye, I would be running, the other way, not trying ta see him, seeing as he's practically dying for something to take out his moods on." The gnome kicked his legs up onto the table and directed his beady dark gaze at Kath. "Especially you. Ye look way too much like her. He hates everything and everyone that reminds him of her. Just eat the damn peach.."

He pushed the basket towards them with a dirty foot. Kath stared at the extremely enticing peaches, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. She was so confused, and the gnome's incessant talk really did nothing to help that. All of the Last Champion references and stuff went right over her head. "This is the lamest dream ever," Kath muttered despondently.

Amie straightened up, shook her cropped fair hair back, and squared her shoulders. Kath nearly groaned, recognizing Amie's transition into her Brave Heroic Princess Mode.

"We choose to run the Labyrinth," Amie declared strongly. "Offer me no deceitful lies or temptations of sweet fruit as distractions!" Kath smothered a giggle as Amie barreled on. "I've finally come here to run the Labyrinth. We can't turn back now!"

With a deep sigh and a scowl, the funny little man turned to Kath. "She's made her wish clear, but don't ever say I didn't warn ye. Do ye also agree to refuse the peach?

Kath shrugged. What the heck, maybe it would make the dream less boring. "Uh, sure, I wouldn't let Amie do this alone."

The gnome gave them both a level, calculating look. "As ye wish." He cleared his throat self-importantly and began to intone flatly, his voice suddenly layered with a strange resonance. "Ye have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth before ye become the property of the Goblin King … forever. Or for whatever amount time he specifies. And if you give up at any time, you forfeit everything to the King."

The girls stood there, waiting expectantly.

"Well, shoo," he gestured irritably, scowling. As they glanced at each other and headed towards the walls to the labyrinth, Kath could have sworn she heard the gnome murmur words that the breeze carried softly to her ear.

"Such a pity."

When she looked back, the gnome and his peaches had gone.

They approached the labyrinth walls a little hesitantly, treading heavily through the verdant grass and kicking up those little sparks of light. There was no visible door, or outline of a door, or any clue to any sort of entrance. Even the patterns in the stone were exactly the same. Kath tentatively reached out a hand to touch the weathered surface, then yelped as a shocking pain shot through her fingers. She retreated back into the green zone and cautiously examined her hand. There was no visible mark, but it had been a surprisingly sharp and realistic sensation for a dream.

"Um." Kath plopped down into the tall grass. "I have no idea what's going on, or how we're supposed to get in, and that hurt, so it's all yours, Amie." The French girl shot her a disgusted look, muttered, "Lazy bum," and began exploring down the wall, careful not to accidentally touch it.

Kath grinned and lay down in the soft grass to stare up at the sky above. She stayed absolutely still, slowly breathing in and out and letting go all of her thoughts, pretending she could feel the slow rotation of the earth under her. Within just a few moments, many of the sparkling bright light things flew into her field of vision. She watched them make intricate loops for a while, the trails of light they left interweaving into complex patterns, and vaguely wondered what they were. They were moving too fast for her to be sure, but they looked like an interesting cross between a dragonfly and a lightning bug. As the firefly-like lights slowly spiraled down toward her, and Kath squinted as she tried to discern their shape.

To Kath's intense surprise, each light was actually a miniscule fairy clad in dark beetle-shell armor. Each sported dozens of pairs of tiny dragonfly wings that beat so fast they were only discernible as a faint vibration. The furiously beating wings themselves seemed to be the source of the radiating light. Though a fairy itself was about as big as her thumbnail, the glow it gave off was disproportionately bright. Kath couldn't help but marvel at their unique beauty.

A miniature fairy hovered above her curiously, then finally came to a perch on the very tip of Kath's nose. She held absolutely still, crossing her eyes in an effort to watch the beautiful creature as it rested its wings. As its various pairs of wings slowed down and stopped, the warm glow they gave off also died down.

"Hello," she murmured to the fairy. Alarmed, it took off again, and several of them swarmed above her face in a kind of mesmeric chaos.

hello hello ello hello, many little whispers echoed her spiraled back down around her, and the previous fairy returned to hover right above her nose again. Kath smiled. "Decide to come back?"

come back back to come back come decide come back

Even more glow-fairies seemed to join the ones curiously zooming around her face. Two more landed on her nose, so tiny Kath felt only a slight tickling sensation, like a tiny current of static electricity, at their arrival. Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming urge to sneeze.

"Ah... ah... ah-CHOO!"

ah CHOO ah CHOO ah ah CHOO ah CHOO! They all lifted up in a mass cloud, zipping around wildly as they imitated her violent sneeze, creating a haze of bright yellow light around her. ah choo ah CHOO ah choo ah ah ah CHOO! Kath couldn't help but laugh, and they joined in, sounding like the soft tinkling of bells.

Then, in a blink of an eye, they all suddenly disappeared. Blinking, trying to see past the light imprints on her retinas, Kath sat up to see Amelie returning from her search.

"Find anything?" Kath asked cheerfully.

"No!" Amie grumbled indignantly. "There should be but that weird dwarf thing left before I could ask it the right question and..."

"Gnome," Kath corrected absentmindedly, and stood up. The bright light was still seared across her vision, painting random glowing splotches on the world around her. "Hey, was that there before?" She pointed at the light outline of a small, modest door on the wall in front of them, squinting and rubbing her eyes.

"What are you talking about? There's nothing there. You need to get your eyes checked, lady," Amie sighed, looking defeated.

"Geez, Amie, I didn't know you were such a quitter... and we're not even in the labyrinth yet," Kath teased. She walked toward the spot in question on the wall. Depending on how she looked at it, the outline was clearer and more visible if she tilted her head a certain way. As the spots faded from her vision, so did the outline of the door. Taking a risk and acting on her impulse – well, it was a dream, anyway, how risky could it turn out to be? – she reached out and put her palm against the stone where she estimated the handle was...

She steeled herself for a shock that never came. As she came into contact with the ancient-feeling stone, it dissolved away under her fingers to form a square tunnel through the thick wall. Kath eyed it dubiously; in order to get through without touching the sides or top, they'd have to carefully go through on their hands and knees.

"How in the world did you find that?" Amie asked eagerly, jumping forward.

"I guess the lightning-fairies helped me open my eyes, so to speak," Kath mused.

"What fairies?" Amie asked curiously, looking around.

"You know, the glowing things that were flying around everywhere. They're gone now."

"I didn't see them," Amie pouted. "How come they came out for you but not me? That's not fair."

"Uhhh, sure. Anywho, aren't we on a time limit here? Wanna go first?" Kath had claustrophobia issues resulting from being locked in a boiler room as a child, and even though the tunnel was only a few feet long it still made her a tiny bit nervous.

Amie got down on her hands and knees and easily crawled through in a few seconds. Kath followed more slowly, trying not to think about whether it would shock her if she touched the walls and about the stone all around her.

They emerged only to find another wall straight ahead. To both their left and their right, the passageway continued on to infinity without any seeming turns. A strange glittery powdery coated the walls and the rocky ground.

"Ummm..." Kath began, confused again. "Isn't a labyrinth supposed to have... turns? You know, like a maze?"

Amie hovered for a moment, undecided, then walked purposefully down the left passageway. "There's supposed to be an opening somewhere on the right that was just can't see... un illusion.."

Kath caught up to her brisk pace and raised an eyebrow. "So what, we just randomly try to chance across the illusion?"

"I don't know!" Amie hissed, suddenly frustrated, breaking out into a wobbly run on her heels. "Everything's so different!"

"Hey hey, wait up a second, mademoiselle Mabouf." Kath grabbed at her arm and halted her. "Just calm down and think it through rationally before you do something rash and break an ankle. You've been doing awesome so far, we have plenty of time." Kath found it a little funny that even in her own messed-up dream, she was still in the role of always comforting Amie.

Amie slumped into a dejected slouch, her moods changing yet again. "I guess," she grumbled, and began walking slowly down the passageway, inspecting every inch of the wall to her right. Kath followed closely, leisurely taking in her surroundings.

"Whoah. That is trippy." Kath poked a strange-looking growth on the wall, like a mossy nest of eyeballs. They hissed at her touch and quickly withdrew into themselves like anemones. "...Or just weird." She wondered what their purpose was, or if they really had any.

Kath watched Amie walk on down the passageway. Even though she encouraged her, it really didn't seem like there was any way through. She sighed, not wanting to see Amie disappointed, or even worse for both of them, ready to make a tantrum. She leaned against the wall, then remembered how that hurt her before and belatedly jumped back. It didn't shock her, and she just felt foolish.

"What're you looking at?" she growled, glaring the eye moss that was watching her with interest. "You're actually kinda creepy. My subconscious must be so messed up."

"'Allo."

Kath, startled, spun around. There was no one there.

"I'm right here, lady. In the left wall."

Kath slowly approached the outer wall, looking for the source of the tiny voice. She squatted down next to a little niche in the stone, where a vivid blue caterpillar-like creature sat. It had Einstein-like neon blue hair and an adorable little red scarf on.

"Why hello, sir. I'm so sorry I didn't see you before, there must be something wrong with my eyes. I love your scarf, it's absolutely dashing."

The caterpillar creature smiled warmly. "Oh, you're a charmingly civilized young lady. Haven't seen anyone of the likes of you in ages. Won't you come in and meet the missus? She's the one who knitted my scarf, you know. Why don't you come in, and have a cup of tea?"

Kath returned his smile. As far as dreams went, visiting a little caterpillar-worm's wife seemed like a perfectly plausible and enjoyable course of action. "Oh, I'd love to, thank you! A cup of tea sounds lovely right now. Let me just call my friend." Amie slumped into a dejected slouch, her moods changing yet again. "I guess," she grumbled, and began walking slowly down the passageway, inspecting every inch of the wall to her right. Kath followed closely, leisurely taking in her surroundings.

"What're you looking at?" she growled, glaring the eye moss that was watching her with interest. "You're actually kinda creepy. My subconscious must be [i]so[/i] messed up."

"'Allo."

Kath, startled, spun around. There was no one there.

"I'm right here, lady. In the left wall."

"Why hello, sir. I'm so sorry I didn't see you before, there must be something wrong with my eyes. I love your scarf, it's absolutely dashing."

"You can call me Mr. Worm. Yes, yes, you both come in and have a cup of tea..."

"Amie!" Kath called down the passageway. "Come back!" She stood up and waved until Amelie's figure began to listlessly return.

Amie was fuming as she approached into hearing distance. "Kath, I'm frustrated and angry and I can't find out how to get through and we only have thirteen hours and I want this to be exciting and so far absolutely nothing exciting has happened and -"

"Amie, it's okay, chill," Kath soothed, giving her a hug. "You shouldn't get all stressed out, this is just a weird dream, nothing more."

"But it's NOT," Amie wailed, pushing her away. "You're not even helping just because you don't realize just how real this is. Kath, you're not dreaming, for God's sake, this is totally real and I decided to run the Labyrinth like the movie, and now if we don't solve it within 13 hours Jareth is going to turn us into a disgusting bunch of goblins or something."

Everything around Kath seemed to settle into focus, like she was just recovering from dizziness after a long time spinning around in circles. She slowly stated, "Wait... this isn't a dream?" Somehow those words rang true in her mouth. Either this was the most unnaturally detailed and long dream she had ever had, or she was unknowingly slipped some crack and was now on some long random trip.

"No, it's not a dream at all. Or at least, then I'm totally dreaming too, and that would just be a lame piece of merde."

"And we can't both be dreaming the same dream so either one of us is dreaming the other one, or it's not a dream..." Kath mused, thinking through the logic and what she knew about dreams. Though her surroundings didn't change, she felt herself become more determined and in focus. If this wasn't a dream, there was something the gnome had said about danger and regretting the choice to run the Labyrinth. Kath shouldn't have had gone along with Amie this whole time; she made rash, illogical decisions a lot, which Kath felt like she had a responsibility to talk her out of. She had failed in that respect already. And it seemed like now they were stuck in the middle of the consequences; they had to get to the center of the labyrinth, past all of its tricks and illusions and traps and distractions, within thirteen hours or they could never go back. Kath groaned, putting her head in her hands.

"Aren't you going to introduce me, dear?"

Amie suddenly lifted her head curiously. "Where did that come from? Wait, you haven't seen a little blue worm anywhere, have you?"

Kath rolled her eyes. "What, like that one?" She pointed at the place where the caterpillar creature resided, watching them with interest. "Amie, meet Mr Worm. He invited us in for a nice cup of tea."

"And to meet the missus, don't forget that," Mr Worm added jovially.

Amie bent down, her face suddenly lighting up. "Do you know the way to the center of the Labyrinth?"

He shook his head. "Nah, I'm just a worm. A little worm like me doesn't know the way. But you knew that already, didn't you? Come in, have a cup of tea."

Amie took a deep breath, like she was dealing with a difficult young child. Kath frowned slightly. "Sorry, we need to solve the labyrinth. We're stuck and we don't have much time."

"Aww, poor dearies. Why would you want to go into the labyrinth? The Goblin King's there, and we all try to avoid him," he nodded his head wisely.

"But we're trying to find him, don't you see?" Amie was starting to get frustrated again.

Kath carefully slipped in between her in the worm and knelt down so that he was eye level. "Mr Worm, are you sure you can't help us? Do you know how to get out of this passageway?"

"Oh, sure. It's easy. Come inside, meet the missus. A nice hot cup of tea will help you."

Kath caught Amie's eye, noticing that the blonde girl was gripping her hair, trying not to scream in frustration. She gave her an admonitory look and turned back to the worm. "That sounds very nice, Mr. Worm, thank you. We would love to have a cup of tea with you. But how do we get in?"

"Just come inside," he told them a little exasperatingly, and as he spoke the words with a strange, layered timbre, he seemed to get larger and larger. It happened so subtly yet so quickly, that Kath was facing him within a blink, the Labyrinth walls towering over her, seeming to stretch for miles and miles. Each little piece of gravel seemed to zoom up to the size of a pillow. Amie grabbed onto her as a rush of vertigo filled both their heads.

They stared into Mr Worm's friendly bright orange eyes, who was now almost exactly their size. The labyrinth hadn't grown around them, of course; Kath and Amie themselves had shrunk. They gave each other wondering glances

"Excellent! That's more like it! Now come inside, have a cup of tea!" He turned swiftly and waddled into a small - well, now door-sized - opening between the stones in the wall. Kath cautiously followed, Amie treading right behind her nervously.

They walked into the dark opening a little ways before Kath felt something heavy and soft in front her. Before she could freak out, she realized it was a hanging blanket and pushed past it, dragging Amie after her.

Tiny lights flared to life as the blanket fell back behind them, warmly illuminating a cozy tearoom full of cushions and other such fluffy things with tassels. Mr Worm excused himself, saying he'd go find the mistress, and disappeared behind a drape on the other side of the room.

Amie and Kath stood near the wall, unsure what to do. The room was inviting, and almost uncomfortably warm; every square foot –well, at this size, it's actually probably a millimeter– of stone was draped with layers and layers of soft-looking knit blankets. The air was relaxingly thick and languid. For some strange reason, Kath felt uneasy with the unnaturally relaxing and safe-seeming ambiance, and automatically checked the room for exits. She couldn't see any... oh yeah, the knit blankets cover the exits. Not being able to distinguish the exits and entrances from the rest of the room unnerved her.

A complex, enticing scent permeated the air from somewhere, seeming to reach into Kath's very bones and tug at every cell in her body. She found herself stepping forward, away from the entrance, as the blankets parted to reveal Mr Worm again, behind him, carrying a platter with a steaming teapot and two mugs on her back...

...was the missus. She was similar yet totally different from Mr Worm. Where Mr Worm was somewhat adorable with his round body and erratic tufts of blue hair sprouting from leathery skin. His missus just looked like... a grub. Her skin's texture looked like something on the sidewalk that you didn't want to touch, and it was a strange color that was a mixture between puce and reddish brown. Her face gave the simultaneous impression of both a pug and of a very, very, very old and overweight mother. Unlike Mr Worm, her hair more like small patches of red fur that randomly dotted her body like raised scabs. But despite her appalling ugliness – or almost because of it? – she embodied a strange draw, her homeliness attracting instead of repulsing.

And then Kath looked into her eyes. Completely at odds with the rest of the worm, they were wide, luminous, and utterly enthralling. They subtly shifted color, now the bright green of spring grass, now the turquoise blue of sea glass, now sunshine lemon yellow, now the deep crimson of a beautiful sunset, now a velvety purple fit for kings... The girls found themselves spellbound by their beauty. Kath completely disregarded how disgusting the rest of the worm was; the missus was lovely, trustworthy, kind, stunning...

Mr. Worm spoke, and Kath finally blinked and tore her eyes away to move to his orange ones, feeling disoriented. "This here's my missus. She's been dying to have company, you know, been always nagging me to bring someone in for some tea." He sounded full of pride at presenting her.

A soft melodic voice flowed from a lipless, crinkled mouth. "I'm very pleased to meet you," she twinkled, shifting her bulky body in between the piles of cushions as she headed toward a long wooden table. "No one's come in for a nice cup of tea in ages. Whoops!" The tea nearly spilled as it teetered on her back, and Kath darted forward to catch the platter and place it carefully on the table. The heady enticing smell intensified in closer proximity to the tea. Kath longed to learn what it tasted like, but the missus was speaking again.

"Why thank you, dearie. Clumsy me. What're your lovely names, hmm?" Kath wasn't repulsed by her misshapen smile, her eyes instead drawn to meet those beautiful, now deep purple jewels...

"Um, my name's Kath. This is Amie, and..." Kath trailed off as she tried to remember their original goal. "We're trying to solve this labyrinth and get to the castle, but we couldn't get past the second wall..."

"Of course you couldn't, dearie. He's sealed off that wall. He doesn't enjoy company as much as we do."

"Well, no one can really understand the King's mind nowadays. He's very unpredictable" Mr Worm added lightheartedly.

The missus tsked and maneuvered them almost forcefully to a seat upon the cushions. "Well I don't understand how anyone would want to refuse to see two nice girls like you. Please, please, ignore our jabbering and pour yourself a nice cup of tea. I would pour it for you, of course, but I'm afraid I don't have those utterly useful arms and hands that you amazing humans do." The two worms watched expectantly as Kath reached out for the teapot.

Steam swirled up around Kath's face as she poured the tea into the two mugs. It seemed like a many different sensory feelings assaulted her at once; she got a small taste of a strange mixture of all that she loved in life... without further ado she eagerly raised the mug to her mouth, not caring about if she burned her mouth.

She took a small sip, and everything around her seemed to roil and disappear as her senses overloaded.

Millions of images flashed through her mind, one after another, lightning swift glimpses of happiness, of lying in the grass on a warm summer day...

...up to her elbows baking a cake in the kitchen with her mother...

...curling up by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate...

...Jason's lips briefly on hers...

...singing along as her dad played their grand piano, the notes spiraling and interweaving beautifully around each other...

...giggling with Amie, nestled in a pillow fort, hair in pigtails...

...galloping on a chestnut stallion, reveling in the thrill as the wind rushed through her hair...

...rehearsing for the latest play in school with her peers...

...dancing in a late night club, feeling the rhythm of the music...

...standing outside in the pouring rain, laughing her head off as the water soaked into her skin...

Kath nearly dropped the cup, her eyes closing as her surroundings finally swam back into focus. Her first instinct was to gulp the rest of the mug down, relive the rest of those beautiful, happy, relaxing memories... she lifted the cup again, but some kind of alarm clanged in the back of her brain and made her pause.

...always check what you're drinking, especially if someone gives it to you, Kath...

She looked down into her mug. The tea pulled her in, tempting her with hints of those happy scenes, shifting colors like the missus' eyes did...

Kath suddenly remembered where she was, the room she was in, Amelie beside her. Amie was motionless, her eyes closed with the mug lifted to her mouth, a smile of bliss etched across her face. Amie is already susceptible. Any more, and we'll both stay here forever, doing anything just for another taste of the worms' tea… And they definitely didn't have forever to dawdle. They didn't even have thirteen hours. It was all Kath needed to break the hold of the tantalizing liquid, even as her body and mind yearned for more.

She let go of her mug, letting it fall to the carpeted floor. The tea splashed out all over the carpet, scalding her foot. The pain helped her further pull herself out of her languid, droopy state.

"Oh dear, oh dear, don't you like it, honey?" The missus worm had an anxious expression on her face, distorting it even further. Kath resisted the pull of her beautiful concerned eyes, forcing herself to look anywhere else. "No one's ever not liked it before."

"Missus made it especially for you," Mr Worm said, moving forward. Kath immediately perceived it as a threat, her mind finally snapping back to its safety-oriented state.

She grabbed the blissed-out Amie, knocking the addicting tea out of her hands, and leaped up, backing away from the two worms. They began to look a little pissed off. "And to think I thought of you as such a nice, polite girl," Mr Worm sighed, moving to blocking the curtain they had originally come through.

"And then you come in and spill me tea all over the knits. Really, that'll take forever to get out," the missus added, advancing on her.

"We just wanted to help you, dear. Why, if you keep on trying to get to the castle, when the King gets to you, it'll be much less pleasant than staying here would ever be." Mr Worm's voice was almost pleading. "Besides, look how much your friend wants to stay!"

Amie had tugged out of Kath's grip and reached for the teapot again. Kath leaped forward - for a second her mind clashing between seizing it to drink or throwing it at the worms - and dashed it off the table, out of both of their reach.

"Such a pity," they both chorused sadly, looking at the tea seep into the knits.

Not wanting to see what they would do next, Kath forcefully grabbed Amie and began frantically pushing against the layers of knits hanging on the walls, looking for an opening behind. Her main hope was that the worms weren't dangerous in and of themselves - they didn't even have arms, for Pete's sake - but she knew that if they stayed in the confined room any longer, they wouldn't be able to resist going back and begging for more tea.

Amie was tugging at her grip again, her eyes unfocused. Kath cursed inwardly as she slammed against the walls, edging around the room. Amie was already mentally fragile as it was, without any external forces like addicting tea or creepy charming worms. And Kath would do anything to protect Amie...

Finally! The drapes gave way under her pressure and they tumbled into a pitch-dark passageway that led... down. Well, there's no way in heck that I'm going back, so here we go! Kath stumbled down the narrow space, using one hand to follow the wall and the other one to keep hold of Amie, who seemed to be slowly recovering. She didn't risk running, not knowing what lay ahead. The worms could only move so fast without legs, and besides, Kath knew for some reason that they weren't going to try and recapture them once they had already escaped. The worms and their addictive tea was meant as a highly affective barrier to slow them down or even stop them, but everything they had said was true, she just knew. The only way to get past the opening layer of the labyrinth was to somehow get under the wall...

The stone's pores under her hands were unnaturally large, as big as her palm herself sometimes instead of almost intangibly minuscule as they should be. Kath worried about how they were going to get back to normal size, as she didn't even know how they'd become so small in the first place.

And suddenly, there was no more floor under her feet.

She grabbed on tight to Amie and they fell. It was a slightly different from the one she had had when she had first fallen into this world; she could feel a vast, dark space around her, but she had no idea how far below her the ground was...

A familiar glow suddenly flared up around her. She felt small hands surround her, catch her, slow her fall as the darkness fled to be replaced by warm yellow light.

Kath's heart lightened. The firefly-fairies from earlier now encircled her and Amie, holding them as they hovered in place, but now they were a third her size instead of a hundredth. "Hello again," she laughed.

They danced around her at the sound of her voice, twirling her and Amie in joy as they bobbed up and down in the air.

hello hello hello oh hello!

Kath could see their figures much more clearly now that they were bigger - no, now that she was smaller - and realized that they weren't wearing black beetle-shell armor, their skin in itself was shiny black and impenetrably hard, their limbs thin and insect-like in some respects, but their faces and figure were strangely human - childlike, to be more exact.

"Will you help us? Or can you turn us big again?"

They swirled around the two girls, enthralled by her voice, and the fairies tiring to hold them up in the cavernous space handed their burdens off to new fairies.

will help us help you will help help turn big again? They chattered softly among themselves, their words melding into a whispery hum. will help?

Suddenly some mass decision was made that Kath missed, and without warning they all simultaneously let go.

And once again, they were falling down, down into the darkness. Kath was furious, scared, and frustrated all at the same time; would nobody help them in this place? As the glow above her faded away, she braced herself for a painful impact against rock.. and she felt the strange sensation fo her skin stretching, her bones groaning and lengthening, her ligaments unfurling... Growing up hurt.