Chapter Text
The full weight of what he had just done only hit Sportacus later, hours after he returned to the surface.
Playing with the children and rescuing Lazytown’s citizens from whatever dangers they got themselves into had distracted him, but there was nothing they could do once he was lying in his bed, desperately grasping for a sleep that wouldn’t come to him. Here, up in his airship, far above the citizens and their dreams, Sportacus was all alone with his thoughts.
The urge to run back home to his parents and beg for help had never been this strong before, but this wasn't something they could help him with.
Vaguely, Sportacus remembered the stories and warnings of his grandfather; never follow the sound of a violin playing seemingly out of nowhere; avoid wandering through the night; before you mount a horse, say the names; do not beckon at the stars or speak irreverently of them; leave deep crevices alone, just like certain plots of land, on which one should never set foot; do not knit outdoors in the middle of winter.
One stood out in particular, Afi’s voice echoing through Sportacus’ mind as he lay there, staring up at the ceiling, ringing in his ears.
Whatever you do, do not enter into a deal with the fae. You’ll leave with less than what you have arrived with, if anything at all.
There was no doubt in Sportacus’ head that he’d done just that – that the creature underneath the city, right below the children’s feet as they played oblivious to the dangers lurking under the cement and dirt, was a faery. He’d never met one, but everything he knew – which, admittedly, was not much, as the fair folk was even more secretive than elves – pointed towards it. That didn’t make Sportacus’ situation any better, not one bit.
A deal in itself, Sportacus knew from the tales, wasn’t that bad, given one carefully drafted out the boundaries before agreeing to whatever the faery offered. Open-ended favours, contracts without clearly defined conditions and clauses, those were what you had to look out for.
Sportacus covered his eyes with an arm and groaned.
His deal had not only been as loose as they could get; he’d practically given the faery a free pass to do as it pleased.
‘I’d give you everything.’
No limits, no negotiations, nothing.
He might as well have done nothing to repair the crystal and wait until he died; he had signed his own death sentence.
Sportacus lowered his arm again, blinking against the soft moonlight that fell in through the windows. A look at the clock told him it was half past ten; he had been lying awake for more than two hours by now. He kicked off his blanket and got to his feet, deciding that lying there, doing nothing, wouldn’t help him fall asleep.
The crystal was strangely, eerily, quiet against his chest. There was more than enough material for it to mock him, starting with allowing it to get damaged in the first place and ending with Sportacus making a deal with a faery, but… silence. It didn’t buzz, it didn’t blink; if it hadn’t been for the resonance between Sportacus’ energies and its own, he would have worried it was gone.
Could their crystals die?
They weren’t, strictly speaking, living beings, but still seemed to be alive, to some extent, sentient enough to have a serious attitude problem, in Sportacus’ case.
Sportacus brushed a finger over the casing, relieved when the crystal vibrated faintly against it. The day must have taken a lot out of it as well; its silence might just have been exhaustion or the after-shocks of nearly dying, he couldn’t be sure.
‘Or the faery did something to it.’
The moment the thought crossed Sportacus’ mind, he pushed it aside, buried it deep in the depths of his consciousness and vowed to not let it surface again. If he went down that road, there would be no turning back. He had to cling to the hope of everything being alright, or else…
Guided by a mixture of desperation, tiredness and worry that settled low in his stomach and made it cramp, the elf warmed up some milk after doing a quick routine, in hopes of it pushing him over the edge of wakefulness to slumber.
A hundred sit-ups and a cup of milk later, Sportacus was sitting on his bed, painfully awake.
His head fell back on the pillow as he lay down again. With how much he tried not to think about the possibility of the faery messing with him, he sure did a lot of thinking about that. Sportacus blamed it on the strange feeling, like oil on water, that surrounded his crystal, remnants of the faery’s magic. Surround wasn’t the right word; it was as much part of the crystal’s energies as Sportacus’ own life force was. If his own felt blue, then the faery’s influence was purple, leaving a bad taste in Sportacus’ mouth.
For the umpteenth time, he wondered just what he had done.
With that thought in mind, Sportacus slowly fell asleep, a dark, deep laughter echoing in his mind.
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The next morning, the hero went down to the children as usual. None of them seemed to notice how tired he was; the yawns he, rather unsuccessfully, tried to suppress or hide behind his hands, the way he was playing less enthusiastically as he normally did. He was glad for their childish obliviousness.
Smiling tiredly, Sportacus watched, perched on top of the wall, as they kicked a ball back and forth. They were so happy; their cheerfulness was contagious, took away some of the edges. But even their laughter couldn’t banish the deep-settled fear and feeling of uncomfortableness in his bones.
He caught himself looking around. From where he was sitting, he could see most of the town, from Ms. Busybody’s garden to the town hall, the individual houses and the tree house. Part of him expected to see a flash of purple, pointed teeth or grey eyes, searched for shadowy tendrils emerging from the manhole covers spread out across the streets, as if, now that he had made a deal with it, the faery would leave its lair and wreak havoc above.
Had the illusion magic hiding the entrance to its home been a cage, meant to keep it locked away safe and sound? Had Sportacus broken it by entering, and had thus set it free?
The thought made him shiver.
Entranced as they were by their game, none of the children noticed Sportacus jump off the wall and walk towards where the entrance was. He had to make sure the magic was still there, had to feel it, just so he could prepare for what might happen. What he selfishly might have brought upon the town.
Thankfully, no one was in any danger, so he could go through with his plan. He tried to swallow down the worry that even if someone was, his crystal wouldn’t tell him anymore, but it accompanied him to the entrance of the lair.
Even from afar, he could feel the illusion magic, its energies making the hairs on the back of Sportacus’ neck stand up. There was electricity in the air, like in the aftermath of a thunderstorm. The elf released a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding; it was still there, felt exactly like it had the day before. Inspecting it closer, Sportacus reached out, brushed his fingers through the wall that wasn’t really there. The magic wasn’t elven in origin, but resonated with the crystal in a way that made Sportacus assume it was the faery’s own magic upholding the illusion.
Not a cage, then. Why would it want to remain hidden?
“Sportacus!”
The hero turned his head. In the distance, right where he had left them, he saw Stephanie wave at him. He smiled, even though she couldn’t see it, and did a flip over the wall.
Before returning to the children, however, Sportacus looked around, behind him, scanned his surroundings, just to make sure the faery hadn’t appeared out of thin air to kill him.
"Please. If I wanted you dead you'd already be."