111. Rock Friends, Water Friend

THE HEDGE MAZE, THE LABYRINTH

Lancelot led Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Sarah, Bastian, and Helena all the way to a twisting hedge maze, where walls of leafy green surrounded a circular stone courtyard studded with vases and statues of pale marble.

"I remember this," Sarah muttered.

"Do you remember the way through?" Helena asked her.

"I think I do," Sarah confirmed, though she wasn't one hundred percent certain.

"There are a lot of different paths we can try," Twilight observed. "It might be a good idea to split up a bit again and see if another way is faster."

"Maybe we can ask him for advice," Bastian suggested, looking at a marble chair situated across the yard. In it sat an old man, white-whiskered, dressed in raggedy robes, with a hat perched upon his head that resembled a long bird's neck and head, somewhat similar to an ostrich.

"I don't know," Sarah told him. "He wasn't much help last time. But maybe he will be this time. He'll want to be paid for whatever advice he gives, though."

"Not a problem." Rarity withdrew from her Hammerspace inventory a purse filled with several gems and coins. "I've got some to spare. Now, let's see what that gentlepony has to say, shall we?"

As the group approached, all could see that the old man was asleep. "Maybe we should come back later," Fluttershy whispered.

No sooner had she made the suggestion than the man stirred with a grunt, prying open his eyes to see the travelers before him. "Oh, it's you again!" he said upon seeing Sarah. "And several others. They must be your friends."

"What an excellent deduction." This sarcastic remark came from the man's hat, which blinked and breathed; it was alive.

"We merely wanted to ask you a question," Rarity said politely. "Would you please lend us your assistance?"

"For a contribution," the bird hat insisted, and the old man held out a little wooden box.

Rarity deposited a bright, sparkling blue gem inside before asking, "We have an idea of which way is certainly going to lead us to the center. But which is the quickest way?"

"Sometimes," the old man answered, "there is no quick way back to where you want to be now that you've taken the path you did. It's too late for a quick way. But there is a slow way forward, and if you take it, you will get where you need to go. It is a hard road, but that much was to be expected, wasn't it?"

"That will be all!" the bird screeched. "And no refunds! Not our fault if you weren't satisfied!"

"Oh…well, thank you," Sarah answered, though she and everyone else minus one were having the same thought. "Goodbye."

The man was already asleep, and the bird hat was cackling to himself, thinking what a profit they'd made off completely useless advice.

The travelers regrouped in the center of the terrace. "Well, he said absolutely nothing helpful," Helena whispered, and all but one nodded in agreement.

"Actually…" Twilight said softly, "I think he answered one of my questions."

"Which one?" Bastian asked her.

"I'd…rather not talk about it," she told him. Though she thought it was somewhat obvious that there was an action she wanted to take back. "Let's just focus on how we're gonna split up."

After some talk, it was decided that Sarah would guide Bastian, Rarity, Lancelot, and Fluttershy down the sure path while Helena, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight would investigate an alternate route. They branched off at the first fork in the hedge and went their separate ways.

...

Sarah picked out the path through the hedges as best she could from memory, leading Lancelot, Bastian, Rarity and Fluttershy around corners and through twists and turns.

Once they reached a great stone wall that ran parallel to the hedges to form the next hall, Sarah knew she was headed in the right direction. "I remember this!" she cried. "This is where I met Ludo."

"Was this Ludo a friend of yours?" Rarity asked.

"Yes," Sarah answered. "I found him here, when he was being attacked – "

That was taken as a cue; a shrill voice cried out "ATTAAAAAAACK!"

"WHAT IN ALL THE WORLDS!" Rarity huffed as a troop of armored soldiers leapt out from behind corners and over the wall, landing in a circle around the group. They were each about the height of the ponies, shorter than the humans and much shorter than Lancelot, implying that they were goblins, but they were so heavily armored, with spiky helmets that covered their faces. Each bore a long lance tipped not with a point, but with a peach-colored lizard that curled around the shaft like a chameleon, snapping its sharp teeth rapidly.

Lancelot instinctively let out a loud roar at the soldiers, one that echoed throughout the immediate vicinity and made the spiked helmets vibrate with sonic waves. Instead of shaking the warriors or causing them to back down, it just inspired them to laugh high-pitchedly.

"We are the first order of Goblin City's Pester Knights!" one of them announced. "And we're going to make sure you don't get past!"

They advanced, sticking out their lances so that the tiny lizards could get in bites at the ponies, humans, and bear. Lancelot whimpered as he felt the punctures from their tiny teeth.

"AGH!" Bastian put up an arm to shield his face; a lizard clamped its teeth down on it. "If only I had a sword, then maybe I – "

Upon hearing this, Fluttershy realized she had a sword she could offer. She summoned up her katana, passing it to Bastian without a second thought: "Here! Take mine!" Perhaps she had assumed that since he had spoken of a sword, he would know how to use one.

Bastian had vivid memories of his time in Fantastica, when he wielded the magical blade Sikanda, which had leapt into his hand whenever he needed a weapon and done the striking at his enemies for him. Wielding a sword without that type of enchantment in a world where he didn't call the shots was altogether different. He swung the blade awkwardly out at the spear of the nearest Pester Knight, severing it in half and causing the lizard that had bitten him to drop to the ground and scuttle away. Bastian continued whipping the katana back and forth, with mixed results. On one hand, his erratic swinging caused all the Pester Knights to back off a ways. On the other, he managed to accidentally saw a curl off Rarity's mane (making her gasp in absolute horror), sever the large bow from Lancelot's ribbon, and smack Sarah in the face with his elbow; "Sorry!"

"He's INSANE!" one of the Pester Knights cried.

"All the more reason to GET HIM!" another screeched, and the troop charged once more, careful to duck the wildly flung katana.

By that time, Bastian was getting the hang of maneuvering the sword, and the first blow he'd landed gave him an idea. He aimed not for the soldiers, whose heavy armor would just cause the blade to bounce right off, but at the lances. He severed each one, and once the lizards hit the ground, they scurried away.

"RETREAT!" one of the Pester Knights cried upon realizing that the entire squadron had been deprived of weapons. "RETREEEAAAAT!"

The Pester Knights turned tail and bolted into the depths of the hedge maze, leaving their targets alone.

Feeling quite proud of himself, Bastian lowered the sword, turning and offering it back to Fluttershy, who'd ended up hiding behind Lancelot during the battle. "Thank you," he told her.

"Oh, you're very welcome," Fluttershy said as she stepped back into view.

"EXCUSE ME!" Rarity barked. "Aren't you going to apologize for what you did to my mane?"

"Sorry," Bastian said nervously. "And sorry about your bow, Lancelot."

"It's all right," the bear told him, though his despondent tone betrayed that he had been quite attached to that ribbon.

"I can't believe them," Fluttershy said frustratedly. "Using poor innocent animals as weapons like that…"

"They weren't exactly innocent," Bastian told her, peeling back his sleeve to reveal where the lizard's bite marks had drawn blood. He hoped the wound wasn't venomous.

"They didn't know any better," Fluttershy argued. "They were probably starved to make them more fierce. And when somepony throws you at a giant, of course you're going to want to defend yourself. But we should still do something about that."

Lancelot's fallen ribbon ended up becoming a makeshift bandage for Bastian, which he deemed good enough. The bite was relatively shallow anyway; it just needed something to stop blood from dripping everywhere.

"Hopefully now we won't have to worry about running into them again," Sarah speculated. She turned back to the path.

One of the pink lizards darted out into the center of the road ahead, hissing at her. Sarah recoiled, practically leaping backward with a shriek.

"Oh!" Fluttershy, curious, stepped forth to see the tiny reptile. "Hello…"

"Fluttershy, what are you DOING?" Rarity asked. "I know you love animals, but this is a bit ridiculous, if you ask me!"

Fluttershy didn't pay her any mind. She bent down before the lizard, looking at him on his level. He hissed at her; she kept a respectable distance. "You're not so bad, are you?" she asked.

The lizard eyed the pony with suspicion, taking a step backward.

"Do you have somewhere to go?" Fluttershy asked.

The words seemed to strike a chord with the lizard. He took a few curious steps toward Fluttershy. She put out a hoof, the lizard climbed up it without the slightest sign of wanting to bite.

"I knew you weren't so bad," Fluttershy giggled.

"Fluttershy," Rarity groaned, "we don't need yet another animal companion tagging along with us. Especially not one that…vicious."

The lizard turned its head to hiss at Rarity in particular.

"Don't mind her," Fluttershy told the lizard. "She can't see just how CUTE you are!"

"It's really ugly," Bastian murmured.

"Don't say that," Sarah told him. "It's a little weird…but she likes it."

"Do you want to come with us?" Fluttershy asked the little lizard. It responded by climbing the rest of the way up her leg and over her shoulder, settling down and making a nest of sorts in her mane. "Okay!" Fluttershy said happily. "But first, you're going to need a name. They called themselves the Pester Knights…can we call you Pester?"

The lizard made a guttural burbling noise of approval.

"Then Pester it is!" Fluttershy declared.

"It looks like we made another friend," Lancelot observed.

"I suppose we'll learn to live with him," Rarity sighed. "Just make sure you keep him over there and well away from me."

"Pester will behave!" Fluttershy insisted.

"Let's just keep moving," Sarah suggested. "We don't have much time left."

...

On the opposite path, Twilight, Helena, and Rainbow Dash found themselves on a road that led distinctly uphill. The hedges still fenced the path in, but a mountainside loomed up over the group as well.

"So…what's your story?" Rainbow Dash asked Helena. "I know Sarah ended up here because of basically the same reason Twilight's here, and Bastian had this whole thing where he got sucked into a book and ended up writing most of it from the inside, which actually sounds like something I wanna do, but what about you?"

"It's a funny story, actually," Helena answered. "Well, I suppose they all are. Back in Brighton, my whole family was part of a circus. It drove me crazy. I didn't want to be stuck in a maze of garish tent walls my whole life. I've always been an artist. I drew what I thought the real world looked like outside of the circus. What I wanted to see for real. My own personal adventure. But that wasn't enough. One day, I had a bad argument with Mum about it, and…something…bad happened." She took a deep breath. "She fainted, and they rushed her to the hospital. I was afraid I was going to lose her. And I thought it was all my fault.

"That's when it happened. I somehow…found my way into my own drawings. The ones that I'd put up on my wall. They all joined together into this massive, strange world filled with sphinxes that asked riddles and flying books that didn't like having their feelings hurt. They explained to me that I was in a land made up of two kingdoms: Shadow and Light. The Light was losing a war to the Shadows because the White Queen who ruled over it was in a magical sleep. Just like Mum. That was when I knew I had to find a way to save her and the rest of her kingdom. If I couldn't help Mum, maybe I could help the White Queen.

"They told me she needed some sort of charm, called the MirrorMask. There was a very strange young man, a juggler named Valentine, who got caught up in all of it, and he and I became traveling companions for a while. More than that, actually. We became friends. And depending on how you look at it, maybe we became more than that, but that's something for later.

"As Valentine and I tracked down that MirrorMask, I began to find ways to look out the windows of the drawings back into my room. And that's when I found out that I didn't just go in. Something else got out and took my place. The Princess of Shadows. She looked exactly like me, and so when she went to my world, everyone thought she was me. I suppose she just wanted to go see the real world, too, but she made an awful mess of it. She was treating my family horribly and ruining my life by letting everyone believe she was me! She even started burning the drawings! It wasn't just my work; it was her own world! It made me wonder…was I really that mad at my own family, like she was with hers?"

"You couldn't have been." Twilight shook her head. "You said yourself that you felt bad for your mom getting sick, and that you offered to help the White Queen because of her."

"Looking back, I still wonder if I mightn't have gotten as bad as her if things hadn't changed," Helena said rather mournfully. "Perhaps I would've wanted to burn down the circus. I would never actually do it, but all the same… Anyway, Valentine had been working for both queens the whole time. He traded me in to the Queen of Shadows in exchange for money."

"Some friend," Rainbow Dash scoffed.

"Just wait till the end of the story," Helena encouraged. "I promise it gets better. The Queen of Shadows thought I was her daughter, because we did look alike, after all. She used some sort of strange magic to make me think I truly was her daughter. I lived in that court for a while, but it felt…empty. I had everything a girl could ask for, but it wasn't enough. Eventually, Valentine grew a conscience and came back to break the spell on me so I could see everything I was missing. We found the MirrorMask in the Princess' room, and we raced to bring it back to the White Queen! Turns out that's how the Princess had done it. Swapped us, I mean. She used the MirrorMask. So once I had it, it was easy to switch back again, and I trusted Valentine to make sure the White Queen woke up. I know he did. After all, Mum was all right after that.

"After that, I talked with my parents about a compromise, and they agreed that I could study art in the States if I got accepted to a good school. In the meantime, I almost got a reason to stay with the circus after all. We took on a new juggler, and he looked EXACTLY like the Valentine I knew. When he said that his name was Valentine, too, I knew there was a connection! It was easy enough to make friends with him. He doesn't know it, but I'd already made friends with him once in another world! This time, though, it was…different. We're together now. I'm not completely sure, but I think I might love him. I think he might love me, too."

"If Rarity were here," Twilight broke in, "this is where she'd go absolutely nuts."

"She LOVES sappy love stories," Rainbow Dash confirmed. "Uh…not that your story was sappy."

"It's a little sappy," Helena admitted.

They paused a moment to take a gander at an interesting landmark: a one-story-tall dome of stone, with windows carved in it to reveal it was hollow inside. It seemed to be a house of some sort. Boulders were arranged around it in a neat circle, as well as smaller rocks making up pleasing patterns inside.

"I wonder who lives there," Helena mused.

"I don't think we have time to find out," Twilight said, and they pressed on, unaware that they were going to meet the house's owner in a matter of minutes.

"So did you ever tell the Valentine in your world about all that MirrorMask stuff?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Not yet," Helena admitted. "I'd never told anyone until all this happened. I didn't think anyone would believe it."

"If you love him," Twilight insisted, "you have to tell him someday. That journey was a big part of you. Just like Sarah, Bastian, and Richard's journeys were all part of them."

"Did Richard ever tell you his story, anyway?" Rainbow Dash asked Twilight.

Twilight shook her head. "It didn't come up."

"After all that's happened, perhaps Valentine has been on a journey of his own too, just like the rest of us," Helena theorized. "Wouldn't be surprised if our whole world had been and we're all just too afraid of being thought of as crazy to say it to each other."

"What if the Valentine from the drawing world is actually the same guy as the Valentine you know now?" Rainbow Dash gasped.

Helena shook her head. "I doubt it."

"But MAYBE, right?"

"Perhaps."

During this time, the trio wandered out onto another high path, bordered on one side by the steep mountain wall. Several feet up, a gathering of large boulders was amassed. They were precariously balanced on the face of the mountain, awaiting only the slightest tremor of the earth to set them off. A human and two ponies walking by was more than enough. The rocks began to shift. Then they altogether tumbled.

The sound of the rolling and scraping alerted Helena, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash to look up. When they all saw the avalanche headed toward them, ready to bury them, all three froze in shock for a moment.

An echoing howl resonated through the air. As it sounded, the rocks slowed, halting before they could crush the trio of travelers. The deep, low howl continued, and to the surprise of Twilight, Helena, and Rainbow Dash, the boulders began to defy gravity and roll uphill, situating themselves in places where they could safely balance.

"That was close!" Twilight breathed. "What stopped it?" She twisted her head, looking around.

Lumbering up behind the trio on the path was a stranger. He was as tall as Lancelot, but a little bulkier, covered in long and shaggy chestnut-colored fur. Two small horns curved outward from his temples, framing a face that sported two shining eyes and a mouth with two prominent fangs studding the lower jaw.

"Uh…hi?" Twilight said nervously as Helena and Rainbow Dash turned around to survey the newcomer. "Did…you stop those rocks from falling on us?"

The stranger nodded slowly. "Rocks…friends," he said by way of explanation.

"Well, thanks!" Rainbow Dash said happily. "We were almost pancakes! Well, I woulda flown out of the way at the last second, but the other two were almost pancakes!"

"How did you DO that?" Twilight asked in astonishment. "I've heard of elemental manipulation, but nothing that tied to voices. Is that some kind of special magic?"

The stranger pondered it. He didn't really think of it as magic. It was something that his parents and grandparents had all been able to do. Telling the rocks where to go was as natural to him as the flexing of his fingers. "Don't know," he answered at last.

"Do you happen to know if we're on the right track to get to the center of the Labyrinth?" Helena asked. "Our friends had a path written down, but we're trying to see if we can't make it there faster."

The stranger nodded. There were many ways that led to the center, and this was certainly one of them. Whether it was the fastest or most reliable was yet to be determined. He was confused as to why these three would be traveling apart from their friends, though. The Labyrinth was no place to go wandering around alone unless you lived there, and even if you did live there, there was no guarantee you wouldn't one day find yourself trussed up and hanging upside down while the Pester Knights jabbed you with their strange animal sidekicks. "Friends?" he said questioningly.

Twilight nodded. "Our friends. Rarity, Fluttershy, Lancelot, Bastian, and Sarah."

The last name said struck a chord with the stranger. "Sarah?" he repeated, eyes wide.

"You know her?" Helena asked. "She's been here once before, some time ago."

The stranger nodded enthusiastically. "Sarah friend!"

"Well, when we see her again, we'll be sure to tell her you said hi," Twilight promised. "What's your name?"

"Ludo."

"We'll tell her Ludo said hi," Twilight resolved.

"Ludo…go with you?" Ludo asked. "Sarah's friends…Ludo's friends. Help you?"

"I don't see why not…" Twilight looked to Helena and Rainbow Dash.

"The more the merrier," Helena said with a shrug.

"You could use your awesome rock powers to help us get past the bad guys!" Rainbow Dash emphasized.

"Well?" Twilight looked back at Ludo. "If you wanna come along, you're more than welcome."

Ludo lumbered forward to keep pace with the group. "Your names?" he asked as the group continued walking.

"Twilight Sparkle."

"Rainbow Dash!"

"Helena Campbell."

"Where Sarah?" Ludo asked.

"Kind of a long story," Twilight answered. "See, it started when my friends and I were on a star-bound ship, crossing the great chasms between spaces and times of worlds innumerable…"

...

GOBLIN CITY, THE LABYRINTH

Pinkie Pie removed the tray of marble cupcakes from the oven of the castle kitchen (or one of them, at least). It was now time to ice. The kitchen was well stocked with seemingly everything Pinkie Pie could think of to bake with, and several piping bags filled with neon-colored icing were easily at hand. One by one, each cupcake took on a topping of a completely different shade, declaring each to have its own personality: shocking pink, tranquil blue, a green that clashed defiantly with everything else on the tray.

"Each one is unique."

Pinkie's head snapped up once she heard Jareth's voice. He was there, lying across the countertop, a single cupcake nestled delicately in his hand. Pinkie looked quickly down at the tray to see the missing space that cupcake had once occupied.

"Well…I try," Pinkie answered. She felt considerably less hostile toward him since their dance, though she wasn't quite sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. "They're all the same on the inside, but that's mostly just because that's how I have to make them at the bakery back home. I like making them all look different. It's more exciting when they're not the same!"

"Exciting and unique," Jareth capitulated, turning the cupcake round and round in his gloved hand. "Much like yourself."

"Look, I'm really not in the mood to be flattered, okay?" Pinkie said indignantly. "I've already been flattered by ONE super magical evil kidnapper, and that didn't turn out well one bit!"

Jareth took his eyes off the cupcake to look at Pinkie Pie. "And when was this?" His expression was neutral, unreadable.

"Loki," Pinkie practically growled. "My friends and I were teaming up with all sorts of superheroes to stop him, except we didn't know it was him we were trying to stop because we kinda thought he was dead until Thor saw him glamoured up as a woman after a fight and that's when he suspected that Loki really WASN'T dead but I still didn't have any proof he was all THAT bad, so when I lost a fight to a couple of his craaaaaazy henchmen, he took me in and let me stay at the Asgardian palace with him and let me think he actually LIKED me. There was this whole thing about me meeting him in his past. Time travel, am I right? But the entire thing was a SETUP so that my friends WOULDN'T have the Elements of Harmony when they faced him! And when I found out what he did, did I ever make him pay! IN CHANGE!"

"And yet you haven't yet made a move against me," Jareth observed.

"Well, you didn't lie to me," Pinkie pointed out. "At least…NOT THAT I KNOW ABOUT. IF I FIND OUT YOU DID…" She leaned in menacingly, one eye almost popping out of its socket. Then she snapped back to a leisurely standing position. "But for now, blasting you with all the magic I have seems kinda rude. Even for being kidnapped."

"On Loki, it was most certainly warranted," Jareth commented. "His mischief is infamous throughout every nation of goblins in the worlds. We've crossed paths, of course. He seems affable enough, but is simply impossible to work with at the end of the day."

"Not impossible," Pinkie corrected. "Well, okay, there was a time when it was more possible. Well, okay, there was a time when I THINK it was more possible. I don't know anymore."

"Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. I'll have to find out someday if that was the case."

"I don't know if Loki HAS a right foot. Not that he has two left feet. He dances too well for that."

That inspired a smile from Jareth. He took a delicate bite from the cupcake in his hand. After swallowing it, he commented, "So you're a baker back home."

"I was," Pinkie confirmed. "But now I'm an adventurer! You're looking at the bona fide hero of a ton of different worlds!"

"Apparently including Asgard," Jareth remarked.

"DEFINITELY including Asgard," Pinkie confirmed. "Technically, twice!"

"Impressive." Jareth nodded. "You do seem more than a mere baker. And you do seem to belong quite well here."

"I'm not staying, if that's what you're getting at."

"We'll see," Jareth insisted. "But for now, it was a mere observation. My subjects all speak quite highly of you. You seem to have made several friends in this court."

"Maybe I have," Pinkie replied. "Why do you do all this, anyway? You can do literally ANYTHING you want. Why do you bother with kidnapping people and making their friends race for them? Is it really all just for fun?"

"Does it have to be something more?" Jareth smirked. "Perhaps you've stumbled upon the problem. I can do literally anything. Change the world, conjure up endless amusements…but that can only go so far before it becomes a bore. The people I bring to this world give me a reason to be creative about it."

"I get wanting to show off to everypony else," Pinkie replied, "and I get being inspired by everypony else, but if I could control a whole entire world, I'd NEVER get bored of finding new things to do with it. And I'd try to use those things to make everypony happy!"

"From what I've seen of you so far, I don't doubt it," Jareth observed. "Perhaps you have more ideas than I do."

"If I did stay, would you let me suggest things?"

A silence hung between them. It was the first time Pinkie had suggested to him that she might not be rescued in time.

"If you stay," Jareth told her, "you can make as many demands as you wish, and I will listen."

"Thank you."

There was another silence before Jareth announced, "It's been a while since I checked in on how your little friends were doing. Perhaps they've made some progress."

"I guess it's too much to ask what's happening to them now," Pinkie sighed.

"When last I saw them," Jareth told her, "some of them had made it to the tunnels underground, while others were wandering the forests. They've still a long way to go if they wish to arrive on time."

Pinkie wasn't sure if she could believe him. Ultimately, she decided this answer was more sincere than those that had come before, since it didn't come packaged with a hint that they weren't coming at all. "That's good to know!" she announced with a nod.

Jareth took his leave then, bringing the cupcake with him, tearing delicately into it. Perhaps Pinkie Pie was more than he'd originally estimated. Perhaps she was something he needed. Perhaps thoughts of her could drive out the thoughts of other things, another woman, that he didn't want loitering in his mind any longer than they had to be present.

...

THE HEDGE MAZE, THE LABYRINTH

"There should be a pair of doors right around here," Sarah announced to Bastian, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Lancelot as she turned a corner. "All we have to do is knock and the door will open, and I know which door to take."

As Sarah had thought, the doors were there waiting, set in a great stone wall. Both were carved of a dark wood and each featured an ornate iron knocker in the shape of a face. The door to the left, with an arched frame, sported a knocker with a rounded face and a ring that went through its ears to allow for knocking. The door to the right was squarish, and the face of its knocker was big-nosed and angular, with a ring set in its mouth.

"Hello!" Sarah greeted, waving at the doors. Bastian, Fluttershy, and Rarity were confused at first (Lancelot knew better). Then, when both knockers replied – or tried to, at least – it was apparent that both were alive.

"WHAT?" the left-hand knocker snapped, the ring in his ears preventing him from hearing anything.

"Mm mmph!" the right-hand knocker grunted around the ring in his mouth; he looked less than happy to see Sarah.

"Are these friends of yours as well?" Rarity asked.

"Sort of," Sarah explained. "I had to knock on a door to go through it, so I had to put the ring into that one's mouth. I don't think he's happy with me about it."

"YOU'D BETTER NOT BE TALKING ABOUT ME BEHIND MY BACK!" the left knocker insisted.

The right knocker tried to inform his companion that it was him they were talking about instead, but it just came out muffled.

"How did you pick that door in the first place?" Bastian asked.

Sarah shrugged. "I took a guess."

"Should we split up?" Rarity suggested. "Some of us could take the other door. I bet it leads somewhere fascinating!"

On cue, a noise sounded from beyond the other door: the noise of several feet stepping. The left hand door opened from the inside, and three familiar faces exited it.

"Finally, we're out of those damned tunnels!" Hoggle sighed with relief.

"Rarity?" Applejack was taken aback to see the others there. "Fluttershy?"

"Applejack!" Rarity and Fluttershy replied happily.

Noticing the tiny creature curled up in Fluttershy's mane, Applejack adopted an expression of suspicion. "Fluttershy, did you go and adopt another pet?"

"His name is Pester," Fluttershy said proudly.

"I wouldn't get too close to that thing," Rarity said softly as she approached Applejack to be sure she wouldn't be heard. "It's got a nasty temper."

"RICHARD!" Bastian barreled forth, sweeping Richard up into a tight embrace. "I was almost starting to get worried about you!" he laughed.

Richard's face flushed briefly before he returned the hug. "Eh, I get worried enough for me," he replied. "You don't have to do it." When they backed off, Richard informed him, "We found a place that I think you'd LOVE if it wasn't trying to kill everyone."

"And who's this?" Hoggle sized up Lancelot.

"This is Lancelot," Sarah introduced. "He's a friend. Lancelot, this is Hoggle, Richard Tyler, and Applejack."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," said Lancelot.

"Pleasure's ours!" Applejack replied.

"Well, I'm quite glad that we've all run into each other again," Rarity pointed out, "and furthermore, this removes our need to investigate that second door."

"Speakin' of which," Applejack brought up, "I'm guessin' Twilight, Rainbow, an' Helena went off to check out another road."

"Maybe they'll get there before us," Sarah suggested.

They were interrupted by the right-hand door knocker insisting that if they were going to knock on the door, they should get it over with soon, but none of the words came out intelligible.

"I think he wants us to knock," Sarah translated.

"I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE SAYING," the left knocker interjected, "BUT I THINK HE WANTS YOU TO KNOCK ALREADY!"

Sarah moved to the door in order to do just that, but Fluttershy called out, "Wait! If that ring is really bothering him that much, we can't just knock and leave."

"Sometimes, you have to!" Hoggle pointed out. "What we really can't do is sit around here and let Jareth get to keep your friend forever because we don't want to knock on a door!"

"Could I talk to him, please?" Fluttershy asked.

Sarah mulled it over. Removing the ring would be easy enough, but getting the door knocker to put it back in his mouth would be a bit of a battle. Nonetheless, she could see where Fluttershy was coming from, and perhaps the others would have new solutions to offer. So she grasped the ring firmly, pulling it from the door knocker's mouth.

"Let me guess!" the knocker spat as soon as the ring was out. "It's going to go right back in my mouth again!"

"Is that the only way to knock on the door?" Fluttershy asked. "We can't just use a hoof?"

"You have to use the ring," the knocker clarified.

"And does the ring have to be attached to you?" Fluttershy went on.

"It has to be affixed to the door," the knocker told her.

"So all we have to do is figure out how to stick that ring to the door without putting it back in your mouth," Fluttershy figured.

"That would be very nice," the knocker confirmed.

"Too bad that pen don't work out here in the real world, right?" Applejack told Richard.

Richard removed the pen from his pocket and looked at it. "I wonder," he muttered.

"Wonder what?" Applejack asked.

"If I draw something on one of those pages," Richard contemplated aloud, "would it still stay inside the page, or would it become three-dimensional out here?"

"I guess we'd know that if we had one of those pages to draw on," Applejack suggested. "But we don't."

"Could you go back and get some?" Bastian asked. He wasn't sure what pages they were talking about, but context had given him enough clues.

"We could try," Richard answered, "but it'd probably be dangerous. The way back in might still be blocked by a page that leads to a forest with a monster inside."

"I'm going anyway." Bastian approached the left-hand door. "This one?"

"WHOA!" Richard threw himself between Bastian and the door. "You do NOT know what you're dealing with down there."

"What am I dealing with?"

"That place I said you'd love if it didn't try to kill everyone. Focus on the part about it trying to kill everyone."

"How did you escape?" Bastian asked.

Richard produced the pen. "This. It draws on the pages, and anything it draws there becomes real. You can change the illustrations with it."

"Then if I take the pen, I'll be fine," Bastian pointed out.

Richard reluctantly handed over the pen. "I know you've been on some kind of adventure too, but – "

Bastian looked him right in the eye. "You do enough worrying for me," he told him. "I can take care of it this time."

Richard blinked, nervously adjusting his glasses. "Okay," he said at last, "but I'm going with you. I know what's down there."

"You don't have to if you're afraid," Bastian reassured him.

Richard shook his head. "I made it out of there once. I can do it again." He turned to grasp the ring on the door knocker's ear, giving it a single knock.

"Maybe we should all go – " Sarah began.

"Richard and I can do this," Bastian reassured her confidently.

"Just let them go," Rarity whispered, a great big smile plastered across her face.

"What do you know that we don't?" Applejack hissed to her.

"Oh, nothing…" Rarity winked.

The door opened wide, letting Richard and Bastian back down into the tunnels. As soon as they'd passed through and the door had slammed behind them, it hit Applejack: "You're tryin' to set those two up, aren't you?"

"Well, isn't it OBVIOUS there's something between them?" Rarity argued.

Applejack looked from Rarity, who was holding her ground that her playing matchmaker was going to pan out, and Fluttershy, who was having a chat with Pester off to the side of the group. Then she smiled contentedly. "Good to know some things don't change."

After a few minutes, the left-hand door burst open once more. Bastian rushed out, clutching the pen, and Richard soon followed, holding a sheaf of blank pages high. "WE DID IT!" Bastian crowed triumphantly. "We stole these right out of one of those machines before they could start attacking us again!"

"We didn't even need to use the pen!" Richard confirmed. "Though on our way out, they did try to hit us with a page that had something that looked suspiciously like Cerberus on it."

"An' that's a dog even Fluttershy can't tame," Applejack pointed out.

"Now, let's just see if this works." Richard took a sheet of parchment toward the right-hand door, kneeling below the ringless knocker. He held out a hand; "The pen, please?"

Bastian handed the pen off to Richard, and Richard began by putting the page up on the wood of the door and drawing small, filled-in circles on the corners, giving the appearance of the page being nailed to the wall. When he took his hand away, the page remained, as though it actually were fastened there. "And now, the moment of truth," Richard muttered, beginning to draw a hook as three-dimensionally as he could make it look, one that would protrude from the door and hold the ring. Once he was done shading, he reached out and tapped it. It was as though a decorative hook actually had been affixed to the wall, jutting out from the page into existence. "YES!"

"All right!" Sarah placed the ring on the hook, knocking once. The door swung open wide.

"It's almost too good to be true!" the knocker cried. "I'll never have to put that disgusting thing back in my mouth again!"

"Before we go," Fluttershy asked, "could we help out the other knocker too? I think he might want to be able to use his ears, and we do have a lot of pages."

"I think that's a good idea," Lancelot confirmed.

Richard set about the task of drawing another fixture on the other door to hold the left-hand ring. As he did so, Bastian watched over his process of drawing. "You really are good at that," he complimented. "Didn't you say you wanted to be an illustrator once?"

"I was thinking about it," Richard confirmed.

"You should do it," Bastian told him. "You could draw for stories I write."

"I'd like that," Richard said happily.

"I did get a few new ideas for stories from looking at the drawings on those pages," Bastian went on. "It tried to kill us, but I liked that place anyway."

"Whatever you come up with is gonna be great," Richard told him. "I always love reading your stories." Then he wondered if that might have been too far to go; he was quiet for a while.

"Thanks!" Bastian was thoroughly flattered. He was confident enough in his ability to write, but hearing it from Richard was different altogether.

When Richard was finished, Lancelot did the honors of removing the ring from the other door knocker and placing it on the newly drawn fixture. "Is that better?" the bear asked.

"Wha – I can hear you now!" the knocker was flabbergasted. "I can hear everything! I can hear birds chirping and bugs creaking and – "

"We get it!" the right knocker groaned. "You don't have a ring in your ears! You can hear! You don't have to make it a monologue!"

"And now I can hear him," the left knocker sighed. "I don't want to listen to his complaining for the rest of my life!"

"Now you know how I feel, being able to hear you and not talk back all these years!" the right knocker grouched.

"Well, you ARE situated next to each other," Rarity pointed out, "so you'd best get along. Though really, you've got a lot in common. You've only JUST both known freedom, and the new looks of your doors are quite stylish."

"She's right, you know!" the left knocker realized. "And now that I can actually hear your answers, I've got a lot of questions for you. I know absolutely nothing about what it's like to be on THAT door!"

"It isn't all it's cracked up to be," the right knocker sighed. "Sometimes, I wish I was on YOUR door instead. Your door looks wonderful!"

"It's just an average door," the left knocker replied. "At least, I think it is. I've never been on any other doors. I've never even SEEN any other doors."

As the pair of door knockers, now really just denizens of the doors who weren't designated for any particular purpose, had it out about what it might be like to be on another door and what doors were like in general outside of the basic facts they knew, Sarah waved her group on to move through the right-hand door.

Firing a glance off at Richard and Bastian, Rarity whispered to Applejack, "Trust me, if those two don't end up together by the time we're through, I'll eat one of my incredibly stylish hats!"

...

Twilight, Helena, Rainbow Dash, and Ludo's path led up the hill some ways, then down the other side. The hedges tapered off and disappeared halfway down, giving over to an altogether different vista. A great waterfall surged forth from an opening in the hillside, crashing down toward a lake at the bottom. While the waterfall's dropoff was sharp, the path next to it took a gentler slope, and all along it were staggered pools and ponds ringed in stone, with white and gray marble statues of all sorts, gargoyles and seraphs and water creatures, perched at their edges or rising up from the center of a pool and gently spewing a trickle of water. Larger fountains constructed of multi-tiered bowls towered from the ponds further down. The ground at the base of the hill was covered with water divided into partitions and speckled with an even greater host of statues, with only small isthmuses between or bridges across to mark a way across.

"It's beautiful," Helena remarked.

"If nothing else, Jareth has an eye for interior decoration," Twilight commented. "We should be careful. There might be something hiding in those waters."

The moment she said that, all four heard a "slop" sound, indicating that something previously on the surface of one of the ponds had quickly gone under. They turned in the direction of the sound to find only ripples coursing across the surface of the indicated pond.

"I don't like how that sounded," Rainbow Dash said nervously. "Something's spying on us."

"Jareth always spying," Ludo pointed out.

On that ominous note, the quartet set out down the path. Every now and again, one of the ponds would shimmer in the sunlight, drawing the eye. Twilight was certain that when she looked at a particular decorative pool, she saw the silhouette of something long and green beneath the surface, but as soon as she lay eyes on the exact spot, it was gone.

The sound of giggles was far more obvious, and a sudden clatter as though bricks were being dropped on the ground en masse…or, more properly, as though stone feet were running around. When Twilight, Helena, Rainbow Dash, and Ludo turned around, they were aware that most of the statues had switched places and were trying to pass it off as though they'd always been where they were now. One statue of a winged child was a bit too slow and was still moving by the time he was spotted; he quickly froze in place, spitting a weak stream of water sheepishly once he realized he'd given the game away.

"Well, that's not surprising," Twilight remarked.

"So long as they're not out to get us, we should leave them alone," Helena suggested. "They obviously don't want to be spotted moving."

"Moving?" Rainbow Dash repeated. "But they were always there."

Twilight was about to protest when Rainbow Dash fired her an obvious wink and mouthed the words "play along." "Right!" Twilight said as though just realizing it. "I don't know what I was thinking. My eyes are playing tricks on me."

"Now that you mention it, that IS how they were when we got here," Helena added.

They made an about-face to walk forward again, and as Twilight's gaze passed over a nearby pond, she saw it again: something green just below the surface. It flipped and dove down, almost out of sight, but a tail fin broke the surface of the water. Something was undeniably there, and Twilight didn't like it.

She saw bits and pieces of it a few more times on the way down. All she could figure was that it was deep green and had fins. It also didn't like being looked at, apparently, and was trying its best to stay out of sight.

At the base of the hill, when Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Helena, and Ludo had to figure their way over the small strips of land that broke up the waters, knowing all the while that the statues were still changing positions behind them and having a good laugh over it, Twilight thought to bring it up: "Something's following us."

"Like what?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I don't know," Twilight answered. "It's something green. That's about all I could see."

"Hmmm…" Rainbow Dash launched into the air, taking a look about. She spotted a head floating above water, a head that belonged to something mostly submerged. Its face and hair were quite green, and Rainbow Dash was immediately reminded of the fin-folk of Notland. "HEY!" she yelled at the face.

Flustered, the follower ducked her head beneath the surface of the water.

Rainbow Dash landed back on the path. "I saw it!" she exclaimed. "It looked like one of the fin-folk."

"What're fin-folk?" Helena asked.

"Friends?" Ludo added.

"Some of them are," Twilight answered. "And some of them aren't. They're sort of like humans, but more like fish. I'd ask what one of the fin-folk is doing in this realm, but frankly, I don't think anything could surprise me about this world and who lives in it anymore."

They pressed on, and it wasn't long before they encountered the stalker again. This time, it was Helena who spotted her, and she was resting one arm on the edge of a pool, revealing her green torso, clad in a rough spun tunic of teal that showed off her fin-studded arms.

"We know you've been following us," Helena called out to her. "It doesn't make much sense for you to hide anymore!"

"Helena, we don't know if it's dangerous!" Twilight protested.

But the follower heeded Helena's words, cautiously lowering herself into the pool and slowly swimming toward the path shore. Now all could see that she was more accurately shaped like a mermaid, with a single tail that sported a great fan-like fin rather than two finned legs, though from the waist up, she looked a good deal more fin-folk than human. She resurfaced, treading with her tail right next to the path.

"Why are you following us?" Twilight asked.

The mermaid simply stared with her wide, fishy eyes that caught the sunlight from above, reflecting it similarly to the way the waters did.

"Are you trying to help us?" Twilight continued.

The mermaid blinked a couple times. She then looked away sheepishly.

"I don't think she can speak," Helena whispered to Twilight.

"Um…well…we're not mad," Twilight reassured the mermaid. She certainly seemed to have less ill intent than other creatures they could have encountered, or she would have tried something nasty by now, Twilight figured. "It's just…could we ask you not to get in our way? We're trying to get to Goblin City at the center, and we don't have much time…"

The mermaid nodded understandingly. She then turned and dove below the surface, tail flipping and splashing at the surface of the water.

"Well, he…she…it didn't try to hurt us," Twilight observed. "That's a good sign. I'm just really not sure if it's trustworthy."

"If it doesn't try to attack us by the time we leave this part," Rainbow Dash suggested, "it's trustworthy. If it does, we kick its tail."

"I guess that works for me," Twilight said with a nod.

An enormous stone wall fenced in the garden of pools and ponds. Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and Helena were all surprised (Ludo knew better) to see it all of a sudden marking the end of their trail; they could have sworn it wasn't there a moment ago.

"Does this mean we have to turn all the way around and go BACK?" Twilight groaned in frustration, looking up and down the length of the wall to see no gate. There was also no other bridge leading toward the wall; it was adjacent to water and only water in either direction.

"Maybe it's like the front entry," Helena suggested. "Perhaps the door's in front of us, and we just can't see it."

They looked again, expecting fully to see a door, but there was none.

"Maybe I can fly over THIS one!" Rainbow Dash realized. She tried, but once again, she got in a race with an ever-growing wall that wouldn't let her pass over, and she was forced to land back on the ground inside its confines. "Never mind…"

"The path seems to lead right here," Helena reiterated. "Perhaps…" She looked to the waters of the pool to her left. "Perhaps if we can't go over, we can go under. There might be a passageway of a sort in there, or in one of the other ones." She rolled up her sleeves. "I'm going to go take a look."

"Careful," Ludo warned. The watery vista seemed all too beautiful for him. It was obviously something Jareth had put into place, and that never bade well.

"I'll only be a minute," Helena reassured the group, and before anyone could protest, she'd dove into the waters to the left, heading downward to look for a way through to the other side of the wall.

The water was clear in consistency, but the view was somewhat obscured by several long strands of kelp that reached up from the sandy bottom of the pond. Helena took a look around. There was a circular passage behind her, one that led to the adjacent pool; this was obviously how the mermaid had been following them from pool to pool. However, when it came to the great stone wall, it continued to the depth of the pond, with no way through.

Helena figured to go back up and try the right-hand side instead, but as she made to swim upwards, she was stopped by something sharply tightening around her leg. Looking down in a panic, she saw that one of the kelp strands had wrapped itself about her ankle like a tentacle. She reached down to try and loosen it, writing it off as a coincidental tangle, but no sooner had she done so than a second strand whipped the back of her hand, causing her to abandon her reach, and wrapped itself firmly around her other ankle. A third tangled around her waist, and all three stalks worked to pull her down.

"What's happening?" Rainbow Dash asked from the vantage point above.

"I think the kelp might be trying to drown her!" Twilight realized.

The sound of a feminine voice singing one clear note pierced the air, echoing against the giant wall. It was then followed by an aria of notes in a haunting timbre.

"It's a siren!" Twilight gasped. "WE WERE FOLLOWED BY A SIREN! DON'T LISTEN TO HER!"

She and Rainbow Dash threw their hooves over their ears, laying their heads on the ground. Twilight was in a state of panic, wondering how she could both protect herself and Rainbow Dash from the hypnotic song and find a way to free Helena from the deadly plants. Ludo, however, made no move to do anything of the sort, his gaze fixed upon the pool where Helena had gone down.

"LUDO!" Twilight yelled. "YOU CAN'T LISTEN! A SIREN'S SONG WILL…"

She trailed off when she saw Rainbow Dash standing up. Rainbow Dash lightly tapped Twilight's foreleg with a hoof; Twilight uncovered her ears. "Um, Twilight?" Rainbow Dash said. "Ludo's listening, and he's fine."

Twilight got up, noting a stark absence of any desire to get closer to the source of the song. Instead, she saw what Ludo was looking at. The water over Helena was displacing itself, becoming shallower and shallower, piling up in a large hill of gravity-defying water off to the pond's side. This watery tunnel dug itself deeper and deeper until it reached the pool floor, where Helena had touched ground. Her head broke the surface, and she gasped in a rush of fresh air.

The water rose all around her, forming circular walls, and through one of these walls she could see the mermaid, who was singing in order to direct the water. The mermaid reached out to give the kelp strands each a light slap, and the plants recoiled at her touch, letting go of Helena and retreating into the surrounding waters. The mermaid then looked to Helena, giving her a nod.

Helena nodded back, knowing she should get ready to swim.

The mermaid changed her tune, and the water slowly surged up beneath Helena, filling the displacement hole. Helena made sure to float and tread, and the water carried her back up to the surface, where she hurriedly clambered back up onto the path.

"Helena!" Rainbow Dash asked fervidly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm a little wet," Helena answered with a smile, "but I'm all right."

"Oh, here!" Rainbow Dash offered. "Lemme get that for ya!"

She took off in a circular flight round and round Helena, surrounding the young woman in a cyclone of rainbow. Helena got caught up in the momentum, spinning round and round herself, until Rainbow Dash landed and the rainbow subsided, leaving Helena to awkwardly regain her balance after the spin. She was then completely dry.

As the mermaid peered cautiously over the waters, Twilight made eye contact with her. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "You saved our friend."

The mermaid nodded, beaming.

"Water friend?" Ludo asked.

The mermaid nodded.

Twilight thought about translating, that Ludo was in all likelihood asking if the mermaid had the same relationship with water that he did with rocks, but somehow, she got the feeling the mermaid understood those two words completely.

The mermaid extended one arm over to the right-hand pool. When Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Helena, and Ludo turned to look, she sang once more, causing the water to empty out of one side and pile up to twice the height on the other. At the bottom of that pool, a gate was revealed, leading through the wall to the other side.

"I knew it!" Helena cried happily.

"Thanks again!" Rainbow Dash waved to the mermaid as the group lowered themselves into the pool and made their way through the gate.

Only when the mermaid was sure the quartet was safely through the passage did she sing the waters back into place.

...

THE FORESTS OF THE LABYRINTH

Sarah led the way through a heavily vegetated path; the canopy of the trees overhead blocked out the sun almost completely, making the forest seem swathed in night. Richard, Bastian, Hoggle, Rarity, Lancelot, Fluttershy, and Applejack followed with a sense of caution. They were confident that Sarah knew the way, but they knew that at any moment, another variable could change.

"So," Richard said in an attempt to strike up a conversation, "it's…Rarity, isn't it? What was your life like before – "

He was cut off when he set foot on what he thought was solid ground but instead fell through the forest floor, screaming as he plummeted to below.

"RICHARD!" Bastian yelled in a panic, rushing to the chasm in the ground. Looking down, he could see that Richard had fallen into a pit, not more than one story's worth of depth below the forest floor, and one that seemed to lead into another set of tunnels. As for Richard himself, he lay still, eyes closed, unmoving, his spectacles jostled by the fall and the landing.

Gripped by fear of the worst, Bastian cast his eyes around for footholds in the walls of the pit. Finding a rough enough patch to latch onto, he began the climb down, but eventually just had to drop straight to the bottom.

"Guess I'm goin' this way," Applejack announced as she watched Bastian descend. When Sarah hurried toward the pit's edge, Applejack put up a hoof to halt her. "Y'all keep goin'. Y'all know the way. I'll make sure they're okay."

"But – " Sarah tried to protest.

Applejack shook her head. "I've seen plenty of ponies survive worse falls. I'm sure he's fine. Y'all just focus on gettin' to Pinkie Pie before it's too late!"

Lancelot put a paw on Sarah's shoulder, and Sarah gave a resigned "Okay" before turning back to Rarity, Hoggle, and Fluttershy, all of whom looked equally concerned. They were spurred to listen to Applejack, however, and pressed onward, leaving Applejack to figure out how to descend into the pit herself.

When Bastian landed, slightly sorely from the long descent, he rushed and stumbled toward Richard's side, calling out the blond's name, kneeling next to where he lay.

Richard pried his eyes open, forcing himself to sit up. He felt very bruised, but lacking the sharp pain that would have indicated a broken or sprained bone. In that regard, he considered his landing very lucky. It could have been a lot worse.

"You okay?" Bastian asked in concern.

"Fine," Richard croaked; the wind had been knocked right out of his chest. Once he regained his breath, he repeated with his full voice: "I'm fine. I have no idea how, but I ended up without any broken bones or anything. That's just probably gonna turn into some interestingly colored bruises in a few hours."

The look of relief, almost joy, that swept over Bastian's face was beaming bright. "I was worried," he stated.

"I could tell," Richard replied somewhat coyly. And truth be told, it made him incredibly happy. Not on the principle that he'd had to make Bastian worry, but that Bastian had been the one to follow him and check up.

Bastian hustled to a full standing position before offering a hand down to Richard; "Here."

Richard grasped the hand, noting how much more broad and solid Bastian's hand was than his own slender and bony one, and let himself be pulled to his feet just as Applejack dropped in.

"Y'all okay?" she asked worriedly.

"Yeah," Richard replied. "Fine."

They took a good look at where they'd ended up. A wide and cavernous tunnel stretched out before them. Unlike the last set of tunnels Richard and Applejack had found themselves in, this one was studded with luminous crystals of all colors.

"Well, that's not as ominous as it could be," Richard remarked.

Bastian laughed. "I should've known you'd say something like that." He turned to Applejack. "Y'know, when he first started going to Henson, he was scared of all the ghost stories about the old buildings on campus."

"Hey!" Richard retorted. "I was more worried about structural integrity than ghosts."

"It wasn't anything I said about structural integrity that helped you stop being scared," Bastian pointed out.

Richard's face flushed slightly, and he found himself smiling out of instinct.

"What'd you say?" Applejack asked, curious.

"He told me that a lot of times, the ghosts are friendly and looking for someone to not be afraid of them," Richard answered for Bastian. "Not that I believe in ghosts. Libraries coming to life, yes. But not ghosts. It was still good to hear that the one that lives in the college library basement helps people out with their homework, and there hasn't been a single death attributed to ghost activity in any of the school lore. If there are ghosts on campus, which there aren't, they're probably sick of people screaming at them and running away."

"Don't take this the wrong way," Bastian told Richard, "but after I found out how much you love horror stories, I thought it was a little weird that you were so afraid of things like that."

Richard shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe I like the horror stuff best because it reminds me of all the fears I've actually faced head-on. I know that my local library's classical horror anthology was my favorite book. I think I read it thirteen times. Or maybe just twelve."

"We should get a move on," Applejack suggested. "We can keep talkin' about ghosts, but let's walk while we do it."

The trio set off down the road ahead. Applejack deliberately hung back, sensing that Bastian and Richard were mostly interested in conversing with each other over this new topic. She thought back to Rarity's certainty that the two had some sort of chemistry, and wondered if she'd see it either play out or become debunked.

"You know," Bastian told Richard, "you would have loved the Land of Ghosts in Fantastica. I never went, but I read about it in the beginning. I think it's the place where all horror stories come from. It was swallowed up by the Nothing, but when I put Fantastica back, I'm sure it rebuilt itself – "

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Richard said, putting up his hands. "Slow down. I kinda have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe start from the beginning?"
"Okay," Bastian agreed. "I don't think Applejack heard my story, either. When I was a kid…"

He launched into the tale of his finding of the strange book in Coreander's bookstore, then reading it in the school attic, then becoming a literal part of the story, then questing through the many variegated lands of Fantastica in his search for himself. It was almost the exact same story he'd told to Helena, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash earlier. However, when he came to a certain part, there was a key difference. He reached the tale of mining for secret dreams in the mines below Fantastica, looking for the picture that would remind him of his heart's desire and who he was.

"I found it," he stated. "It was a picture of a man in a smock, frozen in a block of ice. As soon as I looked at it, I remembered. It was my dad. I'd completely forgotten about him by that point, but as soon as I saw his face in that picture, I remembered my whole life again. My real life. And I knew I wanted to go back to it. Ever since Mom died, it felt like I'd lost Dad too. Like he was frozen, unable to move forward or backward in time or space. Losing Mom was something I could move on from. But not being able to really talk to Dad was killing me. The three of us were always so close. I hear stories all the time about kids who are abused by their parents, and that was never me. I was lucky in that way. And that's why it hurt so much when it felt like there was such a wall between us. He didn't understand me and I didn't understand him. All that time I spent searching Fantastica for my heart's desire, looking for more and more outrageous things, and what I wanted was back at home the entire time." He paused, realizing what he'd said. "I…didn't tell that part to the others, the first time."

"Why did you tell it now?" Richard asked.

"I don't know," Bastian said softly, though he had a bit of an idea. "I guess it felt too personal to tell everyone else, but it's different now with…you."

He cleared his throat and moved on, finishing the tale, sure to add at the end how after all was said and done, he had been able to share the tales of adventure with his father, and while his father thought it was simply a story Bastian had made up, it had finally hit both of them that they'd lost each other and needed to reconnect, and that was exactly what they resolved to do. It was a story that hit the mark for Applejack. She was sure that if ever she lost herself, a picture of Sweet Apple Acres would bring her right back.

"I'm glad you were able to talk with him again," Richard told Bastian empathetically. "And I'm REALLY glad you were able to come back with all your memories. I know we didn't meet until after that, so if you hadn't come back, I wouldn't have known, but I hate to think that we'd never have been friends…WAIT A MINUTE." A realization had hit him. "What year did all this happen?"
"1983," Bastian responded. "Why?"
"April 23, 1983?" Richard asked. "And you said that when you went into the book, there was a storm outside."

"Yes…" Bastian confirmed. "Where is this going?"

"The freak storm of April 23, 1983," Richard told him excitedly. "YOU caused it! You and that book! That was what made it all happen!"

"What did I make happen?" Bastian asked, more confused than ever. "The only place I made things happen was inside Fantastica."

"I'm SURE that storm had to do with you and the book," Richard told him, shaking his head. "It came out of nowhere. No weather channels had predicted it or anything. It just confused everyone. That storm was the reason I went on my whole adventure, Bastian!"

Bastian was awestruck by this claim. "What happened to you?"
"Okay," Richard began. "So I wasn't always the bookworm I am now. I actually used to…not see the point of books."

There was a pregnant silence. Then Bastian muttered, "Blasphemy." He gave Richard's arm a playful nudge to assure him that he was only joking.

"It all changed on April 23," Richard explained. "My school was actually closed down that day. Dad wanted me to work on the treehouse with him. I used to hate that treehouse, too, actually. It was Dad's idea because he thought that boys should run around and play outside and be active and all that stuff. I was barely able to talk him out of making me join football in high school. He was a little old-fashioned like that. Anyway, he started building that treehouse for me, even though I didn't want it, and he sent me out to town to pick up some extra tools from the hardware store.

"I went out on my bike because it was such a short trip and it seemed like a nice day, but on the way, I got caught in the freak storm. Seriously, that storm came out of NOWHERE. I had to stop somewhere and find shelter, and the nearest place was the town library. I had literally never been inside of it before. I just wanted to use the phone, but the librarian was…actually, he sounds a lot like he'd get along with that Coreander guy at your bookstore. He kept trying to get me to look at books, and he practically shoved a library card into my hand. I think it actually hurt his feelings when I said I didn't want any books.

"This is the part where things get weird. I fell in the middle of the library and hit my head on the floor. For a long time, I wasn't actually sure if what happened to me was real or a concussion induced hallucination, but they never DID diagnose me with a concussion. I somehow got…sucked into this alternate universe version of the library. My entire body turned into an illustration. It looked like it had been drawn with ink. This old man calling himself the Pagemaster showed up and told me the only way to get out of the library was to go through the Fiction section. So I went through the bookshelves, but something was off. First of all, three of the books actually came to life. An Adventure anthology, a Horror anthology, and an anthology of Fantasy and fairy tales. They decided to follow me on my way out because they were hoping I'd check them out. And to tell you the truth, they became my friends pretty quick. When I say that Horror was my favorite book, it's not just because I loved the stories, even though I did. He was my best friend on that whole adventure, too.

"Anyway, the other weird thing was that the places in the other books were real, and every time we entered a new part of the Fiction section, we ended up in the setting of another book. First we went through the Horror section, and I got chased by Mr. Hyde through his mansion. On the other side, we boarded up a boat to cross the sea of the Adventure section, but Moby Dick ended up destroying it, and we ended up getting fished out of the ocean by John Silver and having to follow him to Treasure Island. When we escaped from him there, we finally got to the Fantasy section, which was the closest to the exit. You would have liked that place best. There were fairies and castles all over the place, and Mother Goose was real! That was actually where I fought Smaug. And not to brag, but I won." Richard coughed nervously. "After getting eaten by him first, of course."

Bastian was astonished at this turn of events. "How did you get out?"

"There were books EVERYWHERE," Richard clarified. "Even in the dragon's stomach. All I had to do was find a book with 'Jack and the Beanstalk' in it, and you can fill in the rest. From there, it was a quick trip to the exit, and the Pagemaster showed back up again to show me how many fears I had to face in order to get that far. That was when I realized what good books really did for me. I was always so scared of everything, but reading books and living out other people's adventures through the words made me just a little bit braver. The Pagemaster sent me home, but I was sure to check out the three books that had helped me out so much. They weren't alive anymore by that point, by the way. The storm let up at that point, so I went right home and started reading. And actually, when Dad finished up the treehouse, I turned it into my personal reading room during the summer so I could read as many books as I wanted in peace. But it's all your fault, because you reading The Neverending Story caused that storm and made me go to the library in the first place!" On this last point, Richard sounded triumphant.

"Y'know," Applejack brought up, "sometimes, when ponies are meant to be friends, they get connected by things like that. Back on our world, we all get our Cutie Marks, these pictures on our flanks, when we figure out who we are and what our special talent is. Me, Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy all got ours at the exact same time 'cause Rainbow Dash caused a Sonic Rainboom that inspired all of us. Fluttershy got knocked out of the sky and met her animal friends for the first time, seein' that rainbow reminded me of my home and where I felt I belonged, doin' the Rainboom made Rainbow Dash confident in her flyin', Rarity got brought to this giant rock that cracked open and showed her what she was really like on the inside, Pinkie Pie got shaken up and realized she wanted to make her life a big party, an' Twilight got sent into some kinda…State where her magic got real strong, and she was able to hatch a dragon. Maybe that storm was the same for the two of you. It meant you were always supposed to be friends from the start, since it caused both of your adventures, and helped one of you figure out what ya wanted out of life and helped the other get over a lot of yer fears."

"I like that," Richard decided. "After all, when I met Bastian at college, I couldn't believe I found someone who loved books as much as I did."

"We talked about all the things we read for hours," Bastian recalled. "Sarah and Helena got pretty lost. I wouldn't be surprised if we were meant to be to…gether." His voice became soft, and he went silent after that.

Applejack's mind wandered back around to Rarity's hypothesis. It stayed there as she followed Bastian and Richard further into the tunnel, and all the while, the two of them didn't say a word. Perhaps they didn't want to talk about what was on their minds in front of her. If Rarity was right… "I'm gonna run on up ahead," she suggested. "Things look pretty safe now, but we don't know what's waitin' for us, so I should probably scout it out. I'll be back to tell y'all what I find, and we can figure out what to do with it then." She took off at a gallop, barreling between the two youths and heading further on down the tunnel, her hoofsteps echoing off the cavern walls.

Bastian and Richard walked together in silence for a while, looking around at the colorful crystals. Then Richard pointed out, "I think this is the longest we've been this quiet around each other. It's kinda weird."

"It is," Bastian agreed. "Is there anything you want to say?" He was rather hoping for a specific answer, one that he'd actually hoped could be the case for a while, but of all the strange things he'd seen in his life, he was sure it was next to impossible for the circumstance he wanted to actually happen.

"Yeah," Richard realized. "Is it really easier for you to tell me stuff about your dad and things like that than it is to tell the girls?"

"A bit," Bastian admitted. "We already talk so much about books and ghosts. And I know you never judge anything I have to say or think it's weird."

"Same to you," Richard told him. "You were the first person I wasn't afraid would call me girly for reading all the Jane Austens. And the first person who I knew would get it when I said I thought it was weird when Emma Woodhouse ended up with Knightley."

"I still have to read that one," Bastian admitted. "I'm a little afraid I'll actually end up liking Emma and Knightley. But whenever you talk about it, it sounds like she would have made more sense with Frank."

"I'm not sure it's your kind of book," Richard warned. "It's a bit of a slow-paced romance."

"I should at least give it a try. I do like love stories. I just haven't read many books that are only about the romance and not much else."

Richard cleared his throat. "So, uh…did you love anyone when you were in Fantastica?"

Bastian shook his head. "No. Not in that way. I didn't even think of it as something I wanted."

"You said Xayide was pretty…"

"Pretty is just pretty," Bastian clarified. "I didn't feel that way about her. I thought she was my friend. And she wasn't even that."

"What about Atreyu? You were pretty close to him."

"I didn't feel that way about him either," Bastian clarified.

"Was it weird that I asked that?" Richard said hurriedly. "About you and him?"

"Not as weird as you probably think," Bastian answered. He debated whether or not he should tell Richard why; in the end, he knew Richard wouldn't judge. "I…there was a greater chance that I'd fall for him than Xayide. That's just how I…am. I know that's probably the part that's weird to you."

"No, no!" Richard said quickly. "Actually, statistically, a lot more people are homosexual or bisexual than you'd think. Alfred Kinsey wrote years ago that being exclusively heterosexual is just one end of a huge spectrum. So you're not weird." He paused a minute, trying to clear his throat to gear up for the next statement, only to find there was nothing to clear. "And also…I'm the same way. Guess that's something else we have in common."

"Did you fall in love with anyone in the library?" Bastian asked.

"Who would I have fallen in love with?" Richard laughed. "Captain Silver, or Dr. Jekyll?"

The mental image of that got Bastian chuckling as well. "I wonder if they'd go with each other," he said once his laughter subsided.

"Nah," Richard told him. "Silver's too much for Jekyll, and Hyde's too much for Silver."
"I kind of thought that, but it was worth wondering."

"It was," Richard agreed. "And I like that we can come up with crazy stuff like that. I've always liked that about you, ever since we met."

"Thanks. I've liked you since we met too. You're a good…friend."

Then the silence returned.

"Okay, this is obviously gonna eat at me until I just come out and say it," Richard sighed. "But if I say it, you have to promise to not freak out. I'll probably be over it in a while and we can just be friends like always."

"Why wouldn't we be friends?" Bastian asked in concern.

"YOU HAVE TO PROMISE."

"I promise!" Bastian said sincerely. "Whatever you have to say, I'm not gonna freak out, and I'll still be your friend."

"Okay." Richard took a deep breath, then exhaled it. "Here goes." Another breath, in, out. "So…I have liked someone. It's just a crush. It wasn't anyone I met in the library. But it's someone I'm a little worried about liking. Because I still like him."

"Is this going where I think it's going?" Bastian asked.

"Probably," Richard sighed. "It's you."

"Really?" Bastian flushed, absolutely flabbergasted.

"Look, I know that just makes things complicated for our friendship, and that's why I'm hoping it'll all just blow over," Richard went on. "I mean, I know you don't feel that way about me. Though I did think you just plain couldn't because I thought you were straight. I don't know why I even thought that. I guess I just assumed. Anyway, I really love whenever we can talk about books and stories, and I really REALLY love the way you're always there for me and make stuff less scary, and maybe sometimes I've had daydreams about you and me getting married and being an award-winning novelist and illustrator duo, and you kinda made my heart go crazy when you were the first one to jump down here to see if I was okay, and you're also really attractive. And now that I've said it, we can just…move on. I'm sorry if that was awkward."

The first reaction Bastian had was "Why did you think I wouldn't be attracted to you?"

"Because I'm a skinny little neurotic four-eyed nerd," Richard said with a slight smile; he preferred to adopt a sense of humor about the things he didn't particularly like about himself.

"I'm a nerd too, remember?" Bastian teased. "Sure, you have a lot of fears, but I don't think that makes you neurotic. And I think you look pretty good. The glasses are cute."

"Okay, are you just saying all of this to make me feel better?" Richard asked in suspicion.

The truth was that Bastian's impossible dream suddenly didn't seem impossible at all. "I'm not. The truth is, you're the one who's always been there for me. Sarah and Helena are great friends, but I think you're the one who GETS me the most. And I feel like I get you, too. I hope I do. I guess I don't have any reason to not say it anymore…I've always liked you that way, too."

They passed one particularly enormous crystal that emitted bright white light, and it was just enough for both of them to see that each other had gone beet red over the course of this conversation. Then they passed it, back in darkness.

"I didn't think you would like me, though," Bastian went on. "I assumed you were straight, too. And I'm really surprised that you think I look so much better than you, because you've always been the really handsome one. If you wanted to see me look handsome, you should have seen the body I made myself in Fantastica. Everyone in school used to pick on me all the time for my weight, so I got rid of it when I could make myself look like whatever I want. I actually did my best to make myself look like a tall, thin, mysterious prince from the East."

"Who's even into that these days?" Richard asked. "I think you're great the way you are. But I think I'd like you no matter what you looked like. I mean, it sounded like you lost of who you were when you were in Fantastica, but I know the real you was in there somewhere the whole time."

"I'd like you no matter what you looked like," Bastian affirmed. "Just so long as we could always talk about our favorite books and stories, and about our lives, like this."

"So I like you and you like me," Richard reiterated. "Should we…?"
"I think maybe we should," Bastian said softly.

Their hands found each other in the dark, interweaving again, clutching tightly.

Before the conversation could go any further, the sound of Applejack's frantic hoofsteps resounded through the stony hallway. She skidded to a halt before the pair, not even taking notice of their clasped hands. "Okay," she panted, "so when Sarah went through this place, Jareth made it all turned around because he was specifically tryin' to impress HER, right?"
"Yes?" Bastian answered, not sure why Applejack was asking.

"Oh no," Applejack muttered. "This ain't good. Please tell me Sarah has a major sweet tooth."

"Not that we know of," Richard pointed out. "I mean, she likes candy well enough, but it's not her favorite."

"What did you find up ahead?" Bastian asked, curious to the extreme as to what had made Applejack so flustered.

"You're gonna have to see it for yourself," Applejack told them before turning back.

They briskly walked down to the end of the tunnel. "Now before we get there," Applejack explained, "what you're gonna have to know is that Pinkie Pie works at a bakery, an' she loves sweets. She's always bakin' somethin', especially…"

She was cut off when they came to the light at the end of the tunnel. It opened up onto a great grassy plain spread out beneath a baby blue sky. This field was studded with several objects, each as big as a house, each a different bright neon color.

They were enormous frosted cupcakes.

...

Chapter 111:

· "Pester Knights" is my own name for the beings that we see torture Ludo. I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be goblins; after all, they fit right in with the Goblin City aesthetic.

· Pester was yet ANOTHER throw-it-in pet. I realized I could, so I did. This might mean a precedent is being set. Fluttershy might end up gathering a ton more pets over the course of this fic. I have no idea what she's doing anymore.

· MirrorMask is the movie I've seen least recently of the ones I'm using, and I'm honestly a little worried that I haven't nailed Helena's voice as well as I could have. Oh well. I've probably done worse.

· I believe I mentioned this before, but I didn't ship Helena/Valentine until the moment she bumped into the Earth version of him. Which was literally the last scene in the movie. One of those EVER SINCE WE MET situations. (Y'know, like the lyric from Nearly Witches by P!ATD? Okay, I have a weird joke about that song playing whenever an OTP locks eyes for the first time. I only say this because that's probably going to come up again in more A/N sessions.)

· I think it should go without saying that the god of mischief and the Goblin King have met. What exactly their dealings were before this, I have no idea.

· I CAN FINALLY STOP BEING SUBTLE ABOUT MY BASTIAN/RICHARD. I fell into that ship by complete accident when coming up with the outline for this storylet, and now I'm addicted to it. Bookworms stick together, y'know? The one problem: I realized one of their portmanteau couple names is "Bastard." And now I can't think of it as anything else. Suggestion box is open for more politically correct ship names.

· Mermaid is my OC. Her name is tentatively Shellique, and I think I ship her with Ludo, but I don't know if we'll ever see her again after this storylet.

· It's not explicitly stated in the book of TNS that Bastian's heart's desire was to reconnect with his father, but the way it was all laid out, that is the interpretation that makes the most sense to me.

· Reminder that you can't prove the Pagemaster dragon was NOT Smaug.

· Richard's feelings on "Emma" may or may not be based on my recent viewing of the Paltrow film and my feelings about the endgame ship.

· And yes, Jareth is now changing the Labyrinth to look more Pinkie Pie-esque.