Sweet Like A Peach.
By: AmaterazuHime.
The peach wasn't so effective when Goblin King wanted Sarah to forget everything… She remembered that she needed to rescue her little brother and of her own stupidity she left the king alone in the center of the ballroom. Such daringly that no sound and no sight for a Goblin King to endure, don't you agree? What would happen if the effect worked after she gave it all and lost in a way that he had never planned?
Disclaimer: I don't own Labyrinth or any of the characters. Damn! If I could own just one I'd be happy! Yes, I'm talking the guy everyone wants who said; Fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave. (Sighs and cries.) But, as you can see I don't own so just enjoy this little bit of the underground. I don't own the lyrics, they are sexy David Bowie's and again I don't own it. I wish at least, Jareth or David could be a little generous and give us… I don't know, a visit… or more, maybe?! Dreams come true, perhaps? Forget it. Here's the beginning of the story…
Title: Sweet Like A Peach.
Author: AmaterazuHime.
Chapter 1: After All.
A/N: This is my first fanfic, but I hope to make a little bit of history of my own with this story and I hope someday to can do something like they did. I hope that you'll like it. I had so much fun writing it. I must explain that English isn't my language and I've never had English's teacher. I leaned by myself, and still do. Therefore I shall value your help and constructive contributions. I'll do my best and make it better.
The title of this chapter is David Bowie's song of the album "The Man Who Sold The World." The song title doesn't have to do with the chapter; I just liked to put it there and I'll continue to do so for all the other chapters.
The barn owl was deep in thought by the young girl's window. He had been defeated and some of his subjects had chosen stay with the creature that had been helped luck and… by him. And though the traitors were few in comparison with the rest of those who are loyal to him, they still belong to him. But to be sincere, if Sarah didn't want them, they wouldn't be there having a party with her. For now his bigger pain and annoyance had receded… for this one time.
Beaten and hurt he headed up toward the moon in the night sky. "Foolish, girl!" The humiliation, the treason, the pain and the loneliness made one tear run out and down the bird's golden eyes. And so, Jareth swore never again to be so generous… nor unsuspecting.
Hours later, in Sarah's room, the party for her grand victory had dredged on to tiredness.
"Ludo sleep." commented the big beast.
"I am too, Ludo." Sarah admitted pensively as she sat on the edge of her bed. Now that her friends were there; where could they go? Of course they couldn't come back to Labyrinth; after they betrayed their king. But what was she thinking?! They had helped her! Jareth had been very unfair and he had deserved the defeat! Goblin King! She thought as she corrected herself. And on the other hand, he wasn't even her friend! Sarah frowned as she pondered what had been going on between him and Labyrinth. Later, she wrinkled her brows in surprise that she had so many thoughts about him when she should be thinking where to accommodate sleeping arrangements for all of the beings that had arrived in her room.
Hoggle didn't help but notice her grimace so… recent after her conquer.
"Sarah, is something wrong?" asked the dwarf, Didymus and the others turned their eyes to her.
"Oh, no, nothing!" she was pushed out of her thoughts. Yes, thoughts! Why would she feel guilt?! "I was just thinking… if you don't try to sleep in the flour or cause any trouble, you can stay here."
"And your parents?" Hoggle said. "I won't stay if that's a problem!"
"But Hoggle, Where will you go then?" The magic beings sensed now that they had no home for them to go back to.
"Good point, My Lady." Sir Didymus said with admiration.
"But…!" Hoggle moaned.
"Sawah, friend!" Ludo interrupted with a smile and sweet looking eyes.
"No more talk about it!" finished Sarah. "Tonight at least, you'll stay here! My parents will not go to my room till later and I shall have the door closed."
"Oh!" the dwarf accepted reluctantly. "Ok, if you say so! I suppose that one night will not be problem. After all, how much can occur in one night?"
"And Sir Hoggle," Didymus said showing teeth in his smile. "Should something happen, I shall be ready, armed from everything to the teeth, to fight against everything and everyone, in every tim-!
"Shh!" Sarah exclaimed covering up his mouth with her hand. "Don't shout." The fox smile again knowing to keep silent now.
"I'm sorry. But will you be all right without me taking care of you?"
"Yes, yes." the girl answered quickly hopping that he not get excited again, the lucky thing was that Ludo caught him between his arms.
"Brother!" he squashed him and cut off his air.
"Fine." Sarah stood up and began to distribute her cushions to them all. "Make yourselves comfortable and at home." she indicated. When she finished she noticed the cuddly toys served a purpose. This was a big change, because she never had treated her toys that way. Something off passed through her mind, however she continued with her task. And in less than half hour everyone had laid down on the floor. Sarah and a pair of the fairies stayed on the bed.
"Why do they get to stay there with you?" moan Hoggle. "It's not fair!" The fairies and Sarah giggled.
"Because they are very small and they are girls." Hoggle blushed before the simple answer.
"Fairies!" he grumbled softly turning onto his back and adjusting his pillow. "Girls, they are all the same!" Sarah didn't help and smiled to his back then she stopped one of guest that decided to fight with the dwarf.
"Don't worry about it," Sarah said as she caught her by the wings. "Time to go to sleep." The little fairie watched her with resignation before she came back with the taller girl to lie down on the bed. Sarah smiled as she did as well and began to bid everyone good night. "Good night Hoggle, Ludo, sir Didymus, Ambrosious…and well good night everybody." she yawned and then noticed that sir Didymus was sitting on the chair in front of the dressing table. "Are you not tired?
"My Lady it is my duty and honor to take care of you. A knight must-"
"Shut up and sleep!" screamed a goblin, much less diplomatic than sir Didymus, and threw at him a little rag toy, seeing this others started to laugh. However before sir Didymus could yell about being offended, Sarah intervened by sitting up on the bed, still clothed in all except her shoes.
"Silence or I shall tell Ludo to hug all of you!"
"No! No!" everyone stayed very quiet at that order. Sarah smile to herself. They were like children! Well Jareth, their Goblin King certainly liked children. That she knew. Suddenly the smile dissolved as she remembered how he looked in front of her at the ball, as the soap bubble dissolved between her fingers. His face had been full of hurt… how was she going to get him out of her head? Had she been cruel to him? Someone of the pair had really deserved what their outcome was? She bit her lower lip and after sighing she closed her eyes.
Sir Didymus, however, remained alert and on guard then minutes later, began to nod off with sleepy eyes. For a moment, he saw the goblin that had lied upside down on the foot of the bed. The next nod he saw him still there, in the third nod he wasn't there anymore. Could he be dreaming? Suddenly the gnome at his side seemed to take on the same experience of that goblin. And many others seemed to be experiencing it as well. Sir Didymus startled on the chair and tried to get himself awake. Right in front of him the goblins kept disappearing, while Sarah seemed to be in a deep sleep. Alarmed and nervous, Sir Didymus approached to her. The fairies weren't at the side of the girl anymore.
"My lady, my lady!" he tried to get her to come back her consciousness without much success before he decided to ask Hoggle for help. "Sir Hoggle!"
"Don't bother!" he protested hitting the foot that shook him.
"But, sir Hoggle, my lady won't wake up and the fairies and others-"
"What a pest you are, don't you have anyone else to-?!" he sat up and stayed quiet and dumb when the last goblins disappeared and all who remained were just Sarah, Ludo and they two. "What in the world?!"
"Now can you see my hurry?" Sir Didymus pressured him and then Ludo woke up confused.
"Sawah?" he asked before he vanished. Hoggle and Sir Didymus looking into the eyes of the other knew they would follow him to wherever he had gone next.
Sarah woke up with the sunlight drifting across her room. She stretched and yawned; she was feeling like new and had the sensation that it would be a great day with no worries, no faults, no angers and no… memories? Why had she gone to bed with clothing? Why would she have stayed asleep? And… what the hell had she been doing? She looked around and saw pillows and puppets everywhere on the floor. She had not had a pajama party, she thought as she smiled. But, why would everything be so disorderly? She couldn't remember. Why had she thrown her precious toys all over like that? Her lips wrinkled at thinking.
"Never mind," she said. "I think-" A little noise by the door caught her attention.
"Are you awake?" questioned her father.
"Yes. I'm awake. Come on in!" The man was a little timid. His little girl wasn't her daddy's little girl yet, though in some ways she was and always will be. If she still left her toys on the floor!
"Karen and I are going to visit your grandmother. I guess we'll spend all day there." He sighed unenthusiastically. "Will you come?"
"No thanks, and besides she's not my grandmother." At least that's a relief. She thought as they shifted to her little brother.
"Ok." he smiled with pity. "You'll be home alone. Do you have any plans today?"
"No, not that I remember." she talked to herself. "And, what about Toby?
"Could… would you baby sit him? Today they won't really do anything geared toward him that's fun and to be honest I would prefer that he not be there. That woman seems like a witch when she screams or whatever.
"Do you believe those things?"
"No, I don't but, I don't want her to scare the boy."
"If there's no way around it-" she sighed. Toby was a precious boy provided he didn't do anything that she didn't like.
"Thank you Sarah, I'll tell Karen!"
"Are you sure that she'll take good care of him? Yesterday she was upset with me for just having to look after him for five hours."
"She won't have any problems, she'll do fine. And certainly I hope to be there for fewer than five hours." He said in a lower tone but it was not escaped by Karen's ears.
"Oh, come on now! See it just as a new experience."
"Well, I saw it like that once and it wasn't very pleasant. Why must we go?"
"Because she needs a particular number of people and we have to help her with that." she explained as she put down sleeping Toby into the crib. "She'll be very sorry when she sees that he did not come. She adores him."
"If she adores him so much she'll prefer a much pleasant visit and not a ghost hunter's session. Later she'll pretend that we're going another day of the week."
"So, what's the problem? She's his grandmother."
"There's no problem." He said and rolled his eyes. "I'll be waiting in the car." he announced as he went out of the room.
"At last!" Sarah exclaimed from the window as she watched the vehicle leave the house. The time was exactly eight o'clock. "A little bit of loneliness isn't a bad variety."
She went downstairs going in to the kitchen and made some breakfast; a glass of milk and some cookies. She returned to her room with the glass in one hand and the packet in the other. She sighed in the middle of the stairs. 'Saturday, today is Saturday.' Certainly her classmates from school would be out and about causing noise and making trouble. 'Better to be alone than with a bad companion.' Then she went in to the alcove to eat in front of the dressing table. She took a sip of milk and took a bite out of one of the cookies. Suddenly she examined her reflection in the mirror. Why did she stay dressed? Her favorite shirt was now creased. What did she do yesterday in the night? Why couldn't she remember? Everything that she had in mind was that Toby was crying and… she left him crying in the bedroom, right? Then, what happened later?
Not knowing why she had the impulse to open the drawer to the right. All she had there was her music box, her favorite lipstick, and her favorite book, the 'Labyrinth.' She had read it, right? But…how was it her favorite? Of course she had not only read it one time but hundreds of time. But…what was the book about? What were the characters that were in the story? She couldn't say it and that was rare, she shouldn't have had a bad memory in anything that she had reviewed thousands of times. She could name a phrase or two but not the complete book. She picked it up between her hands, caressing the red leather, as if that was able to help her to recover something. To recover what? After she finished the last of her cookies she read aloud random page.
"Give me the child. Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the goblin city. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me." That last sentence made her shiver. And… yet it had awakened her immense curiosity to know more… She would read it and then she would try memorizing it and she would rehearse it like a big movie' star, like her mother. She smiled at the idea.
Hours later she had turned into the fairytale's princess preparing to challenge the Goblin king to take back her brother. Perfect! She thought in front of the mirror as she finished putting on her lipstick and straightening the belt on her white dress she was ready. Action! She stood up but her great and triumphant entrance crumbled with Toby's crying.
"Heavens!" she snorted. "He must be dirty or hungry." she sighed with resignation and she went to see to him.
Toby was standing up and clinging to the bars of his crib, the infant's little face was deformed because of the mouth so open and the eyes so full of tears. "I heard you! I heard you!" Sarah protested opening the door to him. "Is there any need to have a tantrum?" she picked him up and brought him close to her face. "Yuck…!" she exclaimed moving away with displeasure. "I would scream to if I smelled like you." After she cleaned and changed him with the diaper she picked him up to look at his eyes. "You're so pretty when you're calm and clean." Toby laughed with a hand in his mouth doing little kicks in the air. "Time for you to eat!" she carried him upon her hips and descended with him in her arms.
"Toby, don't make things difficult!" she said when he refused to drink his baby bottle. "I ask myself because you don't make this hard on Karen." She insisted once again and managed to make sure he finished his milk. After a new change of diapers he was returned to his cradle. "Why do you have Lancelot?!" she exclaimed after putting him between the blankets and taking the cuddly toy in her arms. "That Karen…!" She stopped because… hadn't she been the one to stretch it? She studied to the cuddly toy with understanding. "I did it, didn't I?" she questioned as if in truth she waited for an answer of the inanimate Lancelot. "It's ok. I'll lend it you until…I remember if I lent it to you or
if it was Karen who took it from my room again." Toby was mumbling a little sleepy noise then after rubbing his nose, he stayed asleep. Sarah sighed and left Lancelot next to him. "I suppose that now you will let me continue with my things." she went to her own room.
Already alone, she extracted her book out of her clothes and went into the scène. The whole house became her stage. Outside, the time became unstable.
"Goblin King! Goblin King…!" The shout of the baby interrupted her. It was already like the fourth time in three hours. "You again!" she cried out already annoyed she moved up the stairs and she entered the alcove. "Toby, what do you want now?!" again the big mouth like a pigeon requesting that feeds it, only that this pigeon wished to be with his mother, in spite of the affection that he had to his older sister. The anguish of little boy seemed to be uncontrollable. "Enough is enough Toby! You're going to drive me crazy!" she took him in her arms to rock him but had no results. "Have you gone again?" she smelled him and she lowered the trousers on him to spy below the diaper. "Very conspicuous!" she returned his clothes to him and put him in the cradle. "You have a full belly, you're clean and dry! What do you want now?!" As the weeping got worse Sarah had to cover her ears. What a pain he was! "That's enough, Toby! If you don't shut up I'll call to the Goblin King so that he takes you far from here!" From the refuge of her ears Sarah almost listened to him, but, all she could see was a little one year's old toothless gum. "I'll do it!" she threatened him. "I will!" she uncovered her ears. "I'll request to him that he take you right now, and then you will see that I don't treat you as badly as you have such a loud voice!"
Frustrated Toby threw Lancelot. He just wanted his mother! Sarah, upset and surprised, watched at the cuddly toy fly in the air.
"Goblin King! Goblin King, wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me!" Toby jumped in his cradle. "Stop it! Stop it!" Sarah exclaimed and took him in her arms rocking him so that he fell asleep, but, Toby did not wish to sleep at all and continued with his affliction. "Toby," she requested to him "really, I've had enough!" The little one disobeyed the pleas. Sarah laid down him once again and with the blanket she covered both the baby and the cuddly toy that accompanied the little boy and went to the door. "I wish the goblins would come and take you away right now." she said exhausted without thinking about her words.
A ray fell in some place not very distant. That frightened her so much that she gave a jump. Behind her back, Toby remained silent.
N/A: Thank you to notwritten; maevesolis; kelsie678; wolfatheart for your review. And specially to saingirl. ; )