"Once upon a dream I think I
Lived inside a fairy tale
Where someone brave was lost
Where some dark void was crossed
And I was tossed in my sleep"
--Wildfire Theme

"Can’t stop what’s coming,
Can’t stop what is on it’s way"
--Tori Amos, Bells for Her


Sarah was screaming.

Jareth snapped awake beside her and heard it as he had every night for two weeks. No sleeping draught would stop the nightmares. No spell. And each night Sarah dreamed herself into horrors she couldn’t remember, the words "Don’t let her go" coming from her like a warning siren.

He grabbed her and shook her. The ritual was tiresome but his concern for her outweighed any irritation, and the shaking was gentle. "Sarah! Sarah!"

"Jareth!" she cried. She threw her arms around his neck and pressed her face against his shoulder. There were tears on her cheeks, wetting his skin. "Jareth..."

"Aeris again?" he asked her.

She nodded, wiping away the tears. "I don’t know what I dreamed, I just know she was in danger."

He sighed, knowing what was coming. "I’ll check on her."

"Thank you," she said, her face showing her gratitude.

"But Sarah, this will be the last night Aeris spends in our castle."

Her eyes went wide. "No! She has to stay!"

"We’ve indulged this irrational fear long enough, Sarah. Aeris is fine. She’s been fine for the entire two weeks you’ve kept her here. She only stays because she loves you. She knows as well as I do she has a life she has to go back to."

Sarah frowned. "I told her I’d send a gardener over to look after her roses."

"Sarah. Don’t be this way."

Her face was set and obstinate. "Jareth, I want her to stay. You don’t know if its an irrational fear. Are you willing to take that chance? She’s your best friend."

"Is not," he said immediately, but he knew it was an outright lie. Aeris was his best friend. And she was Sarah’s. And he wasn’t willing to take that chance with her.

Sarah only snorted her derision. "Yeah, right. Just go peek in on her, all right?"

"I’m sure she doesn’t enjoy my interrupting her sleep."

"Go!" Sarah prodded, pointing at the door. "It won’t take a minute. Just make sure she’s still there and still breathing."

He was beaten. It was her eyes, they won every time. And gods, how he loved her. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling at her as he got up and put on his robe. He started down the hall.

The Herald was staying in her old guest room, virtually the prisoner of the Goblin Queen. Two weeks ago, Sarah had awakened in the middle of a night with her first nightmare, and sent goblins off to conduct Aeris to the castle at three in the morning. Aeris had complied sleepily, willing to indulge Sarah almost anything.

Aeris had never had a female companion aside from her mother...at least, not since she was nine. Calypso’s madness had begun to take hold by then, and Aeris lost her only counterpart. She and Sarah had clicked in a beautiful, strange way. Their first meeting at the engagement party had been the start of something incredible between them. Both were strong and imaginative, and perhaps in a way, they were exactly the same; Sarah so much older than her years, and Aeris a thirty-six-year-old woman in the body of a nineteen-year-old. They adored each other.

Jareth walked through the richly decorated hallway--it was now carpeted with thick eggshell pile and there were crystal wall sconces. Sarah had taken it upon herself to redecorate the castle, her elegant taste and imagination supplemented by Aeris’ practical, let’s-do-it encouragement. Together, they’d turned the fortress into a palace, a showplace. He smiled as he passed a light switch on the wall. He’d had the entire castle wired for electricity. The kitchen was now a modern marvel, really. But he never used any of it. His world was meant for candlelight. Perhaps Sarah knew that too; the lights were as soft and flattering as possible in the castle. It was hardly a place for goblins, but they’d more than adapted. Sarah contended that if they were treated as human they would act like it, and her philosophy was holding true. He sincerely wished he’d thought of it when he’d become king.

He opened the Herald’s door (she kept it unlocked, knowing Sarah would send Jareth to check up on her), and looked in. Aeris slept peacefully in her bed, snuggled beneath the covers. Jareth stood there for a moment, thinking. There was something else in his lovely new world. Something dark and poisoned. There was a secret there, flowing through everything like an underground river.

He could never tell anyone about what had happened a year ago. He could never speak what they had forgotten. Stephan and Oberon alone knew, and they would stay silent as well.

He and Aeris had betrayed Sarah. It was ugly and dark and above all, necessary. He had simply needed to go on with his life and put away his feelings for the Herald. But Sarah had stumbled into it. And he had very nearly lost her, lost everything.

Jareth put a hand over his eyes, rubbing out the image of Sarah in the clearing, her dress and hair soaked, her eyes wild with fear and sorrow, her love for him dying like a cut flower. No. She and Aeris had taken the peaches. They’d forgotten. It was as if it had never happened. And he would keep the secret.

He closed the door and turned back, going to his and Sarah’s bedroom. His wife was waiting for him, nervous. "Well?"

"She’s fine." He slipped back into bed and pulled her close. "Now sleep."

She rested her head on his shoulder and drifted back into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. For Jareth, it didn’t come so easy, but he finally drifted off, Sarah’s slow, rhythmic breathing calming him into a fitful doze.

But as soon as he’d closed the door to her room, the Herald had risen from bed, walked over to her table where her easel and paints were, and went back to what she was doing before Sarah had awakened in screams.

She went back to her masterpiece. It was a great work, but it was a terrible thing that she wouldn’t remember doing it...since she was not even awake, and had not been that night since her head hit the pillow. When it was finished she stood, eyes open but unseeing and dark, and slipped back into bed.

The peace in their world was about to shatter.

Aeris dreamed of Inigo Montoya. It was frightening and lonely there in that dream. She had no part of it, as though it was a vision rather than the familiar action of her subconscious.

Inigo was lying, face down, in a dark place. He was soaked. Choking out coughs and dripping water, he propped himself up on his hands, turning his dark eyes to something Aeris couldn’t see herself. And then came the laughter, echoing all around as Inigo’s eyes grew wider, terror swimming into them. Oh, it was so familiar, that laugh. She knew it well. But it belonged to some place inside her that her sleeping mind refused to access.

"No," she heard Inigo whisper.

Then the darkness became complete, and she was awake, but struggling to get back to the dream.

No, she thought. I have to go back, I have to save him...

The knocking on the door finally jerked her completely out of her sleep. She sat up in the bed, groggy and confused. Bright sunlight fell on her, and she blinked her eyes a few times, trying to focus in the brilliant glow. There was paint all over her nightgown, on the table. Her arm ached. Her brush was in her hand. She dropped it on the table and stumbled to the door, still trying to decipher what she’d been dreaming. She rubbed her face and smoothed down the loose strands of hair as she went. Aeris grimaced as she passed by the mirror. Sure, she knew she was physically nineteen, but her face looked every bit her true age that morning.

Sarah was there. Her hazel eyes flicked once over her, seeing the paint-daubed gown and the way she was rubbing her right arm. "Aeris, are you all right?"

She smiled weakly. "I will be." She noticed Sarah was not smiling back, and she looked at her friend closely. "What? What’s the matter?"

"You should come downstairs, Aeris. There’s someone here to see you."

Aeris looked back at her easel once, suddenly gripped by a strange fear. She didn’t want to see that canvas. She had to get out of there. She grabbed her robe, then turned to Sarah and followed her down the stairs.

And Jareth was waiting at the foot of the stairs, his face serious and quiet. "Herald. You have a visitor."

She looked past him, and there was a huge, familiar shape. A giant, towering over Jareth, his curly hair still wild, his eyes still kind and beautiful, but a sad, sad expression in them. "Fezzik," she managed at last. "What are you doing here? Where’s Inigo..." Her voice trailed away as she became sure of his mission.

"Aeris." The giant stopped with her name, looking mournfully down at her. He didn’t seem to know how to continue. So instead, he took his hand out from behind his back. He held a sword out to her. Aeris closed her eyes. It was Inigo Montoya’s sword.

"Oh, Fezzik, no."

"I tried to hang onto him," the giant blurted out. "I tried to, but it was too strong for me. The storm took him, Aeris. I tried..."

"No!" She turned and ran back up the stairs, barely feeling Sarah’s hand whisper over her robe as the Goblin Queen tried to stop her. She ran into her room and slammed the door hard. She walked over to the easel, five fast steps, and put her hand on the canvas, tilting it so she could see it in the bright morning sunshine floating in. She stared at what she saw, desperate to remember doing it. But she could not

It was madness in paint there. The work was chaotic, loosely divided up into strange, painted scenes. Inigo, his eyes turned up as in her dream, his face filled with fear. A transparent, disjointed hand with a yellow fish inside it. The figure of an old crone silhouetted by a lamp. A white dragon against a starry sky. Two golden sphinxes, face to face. A mirror standing in the snow. A tall white tower. A gateway, the entrance closed, "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here" at the top in lacy ironwork.

She felt the world slip away from her, going strangely gray then black as she fainted.

Then Fezzik was leaning over her, gently patting her face. "Aeris?" he bellowed.

She came to quickly, looking dazedly around the room. Sarah was there, looking at her, wringing her hands in worry. Jareth was looking at the canvas, his expression one of quiet awe. Fezzik placed her in her bed, lifting her up so quickly and easily she had no time to protest, Sarah fretting over her. "Be careful," she said, at least a dozen times.

Aeris reached out and pulled Fezzik’s collar, bringing him closer. "Inigo Montoya lives," she said quietly, her expression intense.

The giant looked at her, head tilted to the side. "Impossible," he said.

"No. He is alive, Fezzik." She sat up on the bed, locking her eyes with his. "He is."

"Where?" cried the giant, believing.

"Aeris," Sarah began, her voice strange. She sounded frightened. "I know you’re upset, but..."

She glanced at her. "But what?"

"He’s dead," Sarah said simply. "Fezzik said..."

"Did you see my painting?" Aeris pushed herself out of Sarah and Fezzik’s grasp, then off the bed, and she turned the easel around. Sarah looked away from it. "No, look at it, Sarah. Look at it!"

"No!" She stood up, her hands balled into fists. "Aeris, this is crazy!"

"Then it’s crazy! But it’s true!"

Sarah shook her head. "And so what? Where is he, Aeris? If he’s alive, why isn’t he here?"

She threw up her hands. "I don’t know! But I know he’s not dead!" She turned to Fezzik. "Fezzik, who can decipher all this for me?"

Fezzik searched his memory. He had gone many places and heard many stories, and he recalled one pirate from Hook’s crew, a rough, rowdy fellow who had spoken of a woman that lived in a cave beneath the water and could answer any question. "The...the Sea Witch."

Aeris’ eyes turned down, thinking. "The cave is closed, has been for nearly a hundred years. I can get Pan and Hook to open, it, I’m sure...but is she even still alive, that’s the question. And even if she is, she’ll only give one answer, and the price is steep--isn’t that how the story goes?" She glanced back at the giant. "Is there anyone else?"

"There are wisemen all over the Underground. But no one is as reliable, Herald."

"Then we’ll go to the Sea Witch."

Sarah’s mind filled with the Hans Christian Anderson story about the mermaid, and she immediately stormed around the bed and grabbed Aeris by the shoulders. "You’re not going there!"

"I have to!"

"Why? So some old hag with fins can cut out your tongue?"

"What?" Aeris blinked, then settled quickly back into her emphatic insistence. "Listen, sitting here and doing nothing while Inigo Montoya dies may be fine for you, but not for me. I’m going. And you can’t stop me."

"Jareth can!"

Aeris turned to the Goblin King. "He wouldn’t dare," she told Sarah, her eyes on Jareth.

"Oh, yes he would!"

"No, I wouldn’t."

Sarah glared at him. "Jareth! Jareth, please..." Tears filled Sarah’s eyes. "You have to stop her."

"Why?" he asked Sarah gently. "Why? For what?"

"It’s...it’s too dangerous! Something terrible is going to happen to us--I mean...her!"

Jareth looked at her for a long time, watching as Sarah put her hands to her face and started to cry. "What have you been dreaming? I know you know," he said softly, touching Sarah’s hands, prying them away from her face. "Tell me. You don’t have to be alone in this. And you don’t have to fight Aeris this way. Just tell me what it is."

Sarah touched the canvas. Her fingers touched the eyes of one of the sphinxes, unconsciously. "Aeris...you were going to die, and you were doing it willingly. You were walking into your death. And...and I couldn’t stop you..." She began to cry again. "And I didn’t want to! I wanted you to die!"

It was a shocking and horrible statement, but too ugly to be anything but the truth. Sarah fled the room, and Aeris was left standing there, stunned, wounded.

Fezzik spoke in the silence. "Herald," he said, in that thick voice of his, trying to be as reassuring as possible. "I’m sure she does not mean it."

Aeris slowly shook off her hurt feelings. "It was just a dream," she said. "And we’re going to the Sea Witch. I want to know what’s happening here."

Jareth suddenly touched her hand, grabbing it with his own gloved one. What Sarah had said frightened him badly, though in her own haze of violent emotion, he knew the Herald couldn’t see it. "Aeris..." His eyes sought hers, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. "Please...for Sarah, I ask you to reconsider this. I was having my doubts about her dreams, I confess that. But I feel differently now. While I will not try to stop you--I know too well what it is to be bound by irrational love--I must ask you not to go. There is danger here. You sense it, I know you do. Please, Aeris, if not for yourself, for the people who care so much for you."

She felt guilty, her mind turning back to that moment when Sarah had come upon them in the woods, the rain falling on them, the pain in her hazel eyes. Jareth had been right, in not twenty minutes, they had ended the tension between them and turned passion to innocence. But what a price...there was a curse on Heralds and Goblin Kings, and it apparently held. Sarah had almost left him, left them all. Had Oberon not created the forget spell for them, she would have gone, and Aeris would have never had been friends with her, never had the feeling of being completely understood by another soul. But she had, and Stephan had been the one who tricked Sarah into eating it. As far as Aeris knew, Jareth had taken his himself, but she had been terrified that if she forgot she would betray Sarah again, and she hadn’t taken the spell, had let her peach simply slip out of her hand and fall into the garden beneath her window. The roses around where it had fallen were turning black, a strange little fact she could have very well done without, but it was true. And so she had simply pretended, keeping her secret and all the guilt that came with it. Didn’t she owe it to Sarah, after all the pain she’d caused, to stay, to do as her best friend asked?

But then she thought of Inigo. And all the guilt in the world wasn’t going to make her stay.

"I understand, Jareth...but this is all ridiculous. I’ll leave and come right back, I *promise*! What could happen?" Aeris demanded, and immediately regretted saying it.

Jareth ticked off the dangers on the fingers of his free hand. "A trip through Neverland, passage through pirate waters, dealing with mermaids, actually getting information from the witch--who is mad as hatter, I’ve heard--"

"I will deal with it," Aeris snapped. "Leave me to do what you know I have to, Jareth."

His face softened. "I’m worried for you, Herald. And so is Sarah."

"Thank you. But I’m more worried for Inigo. I won’t sit here and do nothing when I know I could save him. I know it."

Defeated, he let go of her. "Aeris, you know this is only the beginning."

She looked down. "Yes...I know." And she went to find Sarah.

Predictable as ever. Aeris smiled to herself as she walked into the bedroom, the place that was always Sarah’s refuge. "Sarah?"

The Goblin Queen glanced up at her from where she sat at the window, but said nothing, only followed her with her intense, hazel eyes. Aeris sighed.

"Please...don’t be this way. It was just a dream."

"You don’t really believe that. And now you hate me."

Sarah looked too serious, and Aeris giggled, then clapped her hands over her mouth, appalled once again at her propensity for inappropriate laughter. "I hate you?" she said. "How could I hate you? Oh, Sarah, you’re my best friend!" She threw her arms around the other girl, and leaned her head on her shoulder, looking out the window with her. Morning rose across the Goblin City, beautiful and quaint from Sarah’s touch, reminding Aeris once more of all Sarah had done for her home, and making her love her all the more. "Don’t be silly. And don’t be frightened."

Sarah moved away and turned around to face her. "I can’t help that."

"I guess not. But I promised Jareth I would go and come right back. And I promise you."

"I don’t believe you."

"Sarah!"

"It’s true. I don’t."

Aeris folded her arms across her chest and faced off with her friend. "You didn’t have to say it. I could have looked in your eyes and known and all that...that way I could have pretended it wasn’t there. You don’t like to make things easy, do you?"

"Not this time, anyway. I don’t want to lose this, Aeris."

"Lose what?"

"You...Jareth..."

Aeris laughed a little. "Let me tell you something. That man has been in love with you since he was fourteen years old. You’re not going to lose him." She smiled. "And as for me...well...Sarah, fate looks after fools, small children, and apparently, the Herald Aeris. I’ve got the kind of luck that holds."

"Not anymore. You’re cursed," she whispered.

"What?" Aeris felt a cold wave of fear wash over her. Did she remember? Had Oberon’s spell begun to wear off? "Gods, Sarah, where is all this coming from?"

"I wish I knew," she sighed, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "It’s those fucking dreams..."

She touched Sarah’s hair, brushing it away from her face. "It’s all right...I’m coming right back. Just let me go with your blessing and not your worry. Inigo is very special to me, Sarah. Very special. And so are you."

"Okay. Okay, then. I love you and I want you to hurry back to us." She reached out and wrapped her arms around Aeris, hugging her tightly.

Later, as Aeris and Fezzik prepared to leave, Aeris turned to Jareth. "I...I need to speak with Oberon about something. Could you please relay a message for me?"

"Of course..."

"Tell him...Tell him that...oh, hell, tell him that I need to speak to him. Send Puck or something...I just need to get in touch with him."

Jareth gazed at her for a long moment, his head tilted, his eyes thoughtful. He was trying to decipher what she was thinking, and she didn’t like it. She closed her mind to him, and saw him smile. "If you want to keep it secret, I can live with that. Just come back soon, Aeris."

Aeris nodded, and put her bag on her shoulder. The painting, a harmless roll of canvas, stuck out of the top. It was a little frightening like that. It held so much power, and there it was, almost innocent, like any other painting. Jareth shuddered.

She and Fezzik headed out the door of the castle, into the bright sunlight of the morning. They would have to fly to Neverland, and it would be strange and awkward for both of them. He could spare them the embarrassment of watching. As he turned, he saw Sarah, standing almost timidly in the doorframe.

"What is it?"

She bit her lower lip uncertainly, then ran into his arms. "Jareth, I love you. Make it all right..."

"I will," he said, kissing her lightly. "I always will..."

She sighed, resting her head against his shoulder. "I’m so afraid you can’t this time..."


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