Bulbs flashed rapid-fire as the two women stepped onto the platform. The convention room was big enough to accommodate the close to two hundred news reporters that had gathered from all over the country to cover the auspicious event.

The two podiums were stretched far apart, but the tension between the speakers remained thick. The women looked very similar, but perhaps not as similar as they had seemed only days before. Their slanted eyes bridged the distance, taut with emotion.

Sarah shook her head at Leah, mouthing the words, You should know better, slowly and deliberately.

Leah glowered at her.

Sarah gazed at her shadow's face, surprised at how much Leah had changed externally. She was a completely different woman. Could she play the same games against her? Or were there things about Leah that Sarah no longer knew?

A burly beast man took the stage on a podium off to the side and addressed the quickly silent audience. "Thanks for coming here today." He motioned toward the women. "We have with us Leah of Jim Henson Studios and Queen Sarah."

Sarah smiled at the audience seductively. Lights flared throughout the crowd. "Let me hand it over to Queen Sarah, who will tell you why we are here today."

Sarah placed her hands on each side of the podium and moved her eyes over the audience, stopping a moment at each video camera. "Thank you, honorable chairman." She stood erect, speaking with a firm, commanding voice. "We are here today, to address a situation that greatly troubles me." She didn't even need the notes that sat under her microphone—she turned them over and continued. She concentrated on maintaining an expression of gravity. "A week ago, we did what many said could not be done—we made a world where dreams and reality could co-exist, where everyone would be free to be whatever and whomever they like. No longer would I dream to take credit for this miraculous occurrence—it is only with the cooperation of all of our fine citizens all over the world that this is possible." Her elegant smile filled every teleprompter in the room, and her face glowed over every nearby room that had a television. Under her face a label said, "White House, Queen Sarah of New City."

Leah gritted her teeth and did all she could to remain graceful while listening to her counterpart's BS.

With a sweeping hand gesture, Sarah encompassed the room, and the entire world, in her pleas. "But I discovered today that there are those who do not agree with the amazing things that you and I have done. They do not appreciate change. And—I have to admit—they were never given the choice." Her eyes looked heavy, sympathetic. "So we are here to listen to their side of the story, to give them a chance to speak their minds, to convince us to go back to the old ways that some of us feel were chaining us."

The crowd was noisy with disgruntlement. Every camera moved to Leah like a piranha turning on its prey.

"I just want to thank everyone for joining us today, and to thank Queen Sarah for giving us a forum for our complaints." Leah nodded to the woman graciously, even though she wanted nothing more than to jump the gap between the two of them and strangle the mock queen. She knew the game Sarah was playing, even if everyone else was too dazed by her dark charms to be the wiser.

Before her bitter thoughts could get the best of her, she caught sight of Justin, Kermit and Damion in the back, all smiling brightly at her and giving her the thumbs up.

She smiled and continued. "I don't deny that what Her Majesty has done here is quite the miracle. But, let us stop for a moment and consider... is this the way things were meant to be? Is this new world in balance? What happens to those who never changed? Do you have friends or relatives who have suddenly fallen asleep, never again to be awoken? I believe these are signs that this change was never supposed to come about, that the world needs to return to its former state." Her eyes were passionate.

"It is true that some... sacrifices have been made," Sarah said into the small microphone with a heavy nod. "But all spiritual revolutions come with some sacrifice. These episodes have almost ceased to occur, and the world is coming into a fine balance."

Leah's eyes set afire. "Explain to these people where Paris went?" She shot a bitter grimace across the room. The crowd began to chatter.

Sarah shook her head and smiled coolly. "Paris? Where is that?"

"I think you know where it was," Leah nearly shouted. "It was a major city in France."

"A city by that name has never existed in my recollection, I apologize, and neither have I heard of this France you speak of," Sarah answered coyly. "Perhaps neither are big enough for me to have ever heard of them."

Leah was fuming. She looked out at the crowd, and did not see an ounce of recollection on anyone's face. She was not rousing anyone in this room, at least.

She looked into the cameras, her face firm. "There are many out there like myself, who know that something is amiss. Those who miss sleep, and dreams, and having some sense of order from day to day. We all need to have our fantasies, but they must be regulated to their proper places in our lives."

Sarah took an opportunity to interject. "This is exactly why we made these changes. To prevent anyone from forcing us to regulate anything in our lives." She turned to the cameras. "Who should tell you where your fantasies are appropriate? Her?" She pointed to Leah casually, and the crowd buzzed in agreement.

Leah sighed. "I did not come here today expecting anyone to understand the true gravity of the situation. I am not going to stand by while cities wink out of existence, or friends and family slowly disappear into a permanent, nightmare-filled slumber. There are those who understand and believe in this cause. That is why I am forced to declare war on Queen Sarah, and all citizens who would blindly follow her."

Sarah had known it was coming, but she still clutched her breast as if in shock. "This is... well, it is an outrage against my people, those who would follow in the footsteps of their great nation, and listen to the wisdom of their queen." She shook her head sadly. "It is with a heavy heart that I accept your challenge of war. If this can only be decided on the battlefield, then so be it. I wish we could have come to an agreement." She looked at the cameras with heavy eyes. "Let this war be held in three days. I will disclose a suitable location by this evening."

Leah and Sarah left the podiums from opposite sides of the stage, and the crowd went into an uproar.

Leah met Justin at the back of the room, resisting a barrage of reports begging for further comment as she approached.

"Well, that's gonna be all over the news now," he smirked.

Leah sighed. "Yeah, guess so."

He pat her on the back playfully. "Buck up! Don't you realize what you've done? You've encroached on her PR!"

She snorted out a laugh. Trust him to find a silver lining.

Together the group pressed through the heavy crowd with its flashing bulbs, video cameras, and demanding reporters. It looked like the beginning of a very long two days.

It was a good thing they had been preparing for the battle all week. And it didn't matter what location Sarah divulged as the battlegrounds, because, when the queen's other half regained her strength, they were going to take the battle to the queen.

It felt good to have the upper hand for once.

On the other side of the room, Sarah filtered out with Pook and Claw, doing her best to smile for the cameras, even though she wanted nothing more than to smash every ancient Ming Dynasty vase she could find.

"I told you so," Pook mumbled into her ear.

A fiery pushed through the audience, unsuccessful in his attempt to get near the queen. He took off his head and lodged a piece of paper in his teeth, then threw the head over the sea of people, where it bounced from head to surprised head on the way to its destination.

The head landed in Sarah's hands, spitting the letter out into Pook's palms, then saying, "Message for the Queen from Leah."

While Sarah snatched the letter from Pook and opened it, the head bounded back to its body.

On the letter were scrawled the words: "I know you have Jareth. You better not hurt him. —Your Other Half."

Sarah crumpled the paper in her hands bitterly, fire in her eyes. "So she is creeping around somewhere." She looked over at Claw. "Claw—"

"Already on it." The bird beat his wings to get the onlookers to back off enough to give him room, then made his way into the sky toward the palace in Times Square.

Sarah shot a look at Leah while she rushed down the stairs with her entourage. Leah smiled slyly back at her from behind her long bangs.

##

Somewhere in a large metropolitan city, a riot had broken out. Fires burned, objects exploded in showers of glitter, anarchism of the most absurd order manifested in the appearance of origami birds taking life and pecking at people milling down the streets, or marbles rolling under feet to trip up whoever might walk over them.

There was the usual breaking into shops, people stuffing bags with groceries and electronics.

However, on the other side of town, picketers had formed an orderly march down the streets, demanding the return to order. The crowd varied from unchanged humans to creatures of formerly human persuasion. They walked on, even as fish rained from the sky, as trash flew against them in protest.

On Main and Broadway the two factions met. Those against and those for the world as it was. Lovers and haters of anarchy. It was a standoff. As they stared quietly across the line at each other, they wondered how this might end. There was great weight in this battle, it was the ultimate battle between order and chaos. No one moved, they just stared quietly, the city falling dead in anticipation.

Just as the reader's eye looked away, the fight went on with full vigor.

##

She reached her mind out into the fathomless darkness, not asleep, but not fully awake. With her eyes closed, she took the point of the dagger and pressed it to her finger, just hard enough to draw a drop of blood. With a week to practice, she had become expert at the ritual, and knew just how hard to press to draw the right amount of blood. She had even stopped getting nauseated after the cut.

She held the finger aloft, and though her eyes were shut, she could see it glowing in the light, a gold-tinted white, making vibrations in the darkness that formed the shape of the snake.

She pushed at the darkness with her finger and it sizzled until it finally acquiesced. She thrust her spirit forward through the tiny hole, squeezing through, spindling herself into a single thread despite the fighting pressure of the dark void.

It shrieked painfully at the intrusion, but soon it was quiet again.

She unfolded her form and set a toe down softly on the swirling grayness that remained of the dreamscape. Where her bare foot fell, colors swirled and shifted, flowers bloomed. There were many people here, and their eyes looked lost, searching for something that would not be found. As she walked past, the gray in their eyes sparked for a brief moment, deep greens and golds of something they once possessed.

Her light brown hair lengthened and grew behind her, long flowing tendrils swimming along on the air parallel to her body, a river of light. Her pale eyelids were still closed, and she walked dreamily, as if sleepwalking. Her white robes swirled and grew as well, billowing out from her body.

Sarah had discovered the deep river of creation in her soul, and became it. She knew that the river was there for all, but that she had been gifted with the knowledge to tap it.

Her mind drifted away as she flowed into a state of non-being. Her lengthening locks writhed and twisted, the faces of smiling snakes morphing in and out. Her body glistened an icy white, cold and sharp, chilling just as it warmed. The cold spread from her in waves, transmitting blue hues to the figures that she passed in her endless walk. Hours might have passed in the moments between each footstep.

One by one they fell in line, holding onto a golden tendril of hair so as not to get lost. The ghost of Sarah walked further, growing in size slowly so that soon they were all dwarfed by her towering size. The tendrils arched and traveled through space, snakes of hair with a purpose. Their fangs bared as they shimmered through the air, over great distances, coiling around the hands and ankles of the lost souls who were further away.

"Awake, awake," they hissed in the ears of all they passed. "Don't forget the dreams. The dreams are yours."

A heavy rhythm began to pulsate and echo through the grey dreamscape. The clouds that had once settled to the ground were kicked up in the motion of an army of feet, the moving feet of slowly rousing dreamers. The mists roiled and curled around faces of women, children, men young and old. Flowers blossomed in the very air and fell around the dreamers in greater and greater numbers, flowers of every kind and color. They blossomed in Sarah's hair, they clung to her eyelids, growing and snaking out cold vines of life.

Her footsteps left a golden trail on the ground as she continued her pilgrimage of spirit. The grey brightened, and the darkness on the edges revolted, writhing and angry, spitting on the clouds of light that expanded.

In the distance, the lightness swirled and ebbed, filling in cracks, molding around the edge of darkness. It gave shape to another face, the face of a woman as grandiose as Sarah. It was Dark Sarah, sneaking up on the procession. She watched with purple eyes, awake and alert, a stark contrast to her sleepwalking counterpart. Silently her shadowy shape watched as she passed, absorbing the information but at the moment powerless to do anything about the unfolding events. She melted into the background, only purple eyes left on the edge of the darkness, keeping pace with the slow motion of her other half across the dreamscape.

One by one the numbers grew, the shapes reformed, the world reawakened even in the trappings of the mind. Some of the faces in the throng were familiar, but many were not.

A part of Sarah noticed that Jareth had stepped into the crowd and held on to a passing wisp of hair. It was a part of himself that had already fallen asleep, a part that did not recognize her.

An opening blossomed out of the darkness and Sarah led the way through, solid in icy shapes that glittered despite the void. She kneeled before a light, and the multitudes climbed up on her back, one by one, into the light.

Behind her, the darkness slipped its way through the path of the dream pilgrimage, slicing the landscape and scattering the throng. The pace quickened, many ran, the purple eyes on their heels. Not everyone made it out, but they struggled fearfully, clawing their way up her back and broad shoulders, painfully digging nails and feet of a frightened riot of souls.

Her awareness was returning with the pain of their hurried escape, and the spell began to break. She held on as long as she could while the remaining few who had not fallen behind escaped.

She could feel their spirits suck back into their bodies as her eyes shot open in the dark valley of Wisconsin where she had begun her ritual. The flames of a solitary fire licked up into the blue sky, making her face glow with primordial light. The large moons hung over her, brooding, maternal.

Her blue eyes blazed and burned as she reached inside for all the pieces of herself, the little bits of mortality that made her up in this realm. The bigness inside her quieted, condensed to her core.

The cold was chilling.

She weakly pulled a stick from where it sat beside her and nudged the embers into life. He didn't make it, she thought sadly.

In the scuffle, the little piece of her that had recognized Jareth had been powerless to help him up. His pleading eyes remained framed in her mind, his arm reaching out from the darkness for a savior.