Disclaimer: All mine. Jim Henson stole these ideas from me. And by the way, the site name—fanfiction, was it?—doesn't imply anything related to using other peoples' ideas or characters, no siree. I'm not a fan; I'm a victim of illegal copyright.
A/n: Yeah, um, this is my first time doing something like this (well, the first time I've let anyone read it anyway), so I'm really hoping I've done it right. I'm guessing my grammar's a tad bit off and I know I put my paragraphs in the wrong spots, and if you feel the need to mention it, then go ahead and tell me—it's not like I want to get it wrong, after all. I feel like a hypocrite for asking this, considering I don't review anything, but, hey, I will personally respond to any and every e-mail I get as soon as possible. If it gets boring, then feel free to stop reading (even though this chapter is extremely short), but at least tell me what you didn't like about it so I can learn from my mistakes.
Chapter I: Fantasies
Jareth screamed, the sound of it echoing across the labyrinth. The goblins surrounding him cowered in fear.
"Gone!" he shouted, kicking whichever of the moronic creatures was closest to his boot. He watched with furious satisfaction the progress it made as it flew through the air.
Once upon a time, he had offered a girl her dreams, only to have it thrown back in his face. Rejected…
Jareth heaved an exasperated sigh and flopped down onto his throne, one hand reaching into his pocket. He played absentmindedly with the crystal, watching as it revealed a fifteen-year-old girl, lying peacefully in bed, brown hair splayed out over the pillow.
Jareth tried to stare angrily at it, but he could feel his features soften. He absolutely hated the affect she had on him. Just looking at her made him so…mushy.
He rose to his feet again, and the goblins scrambled away to hide in the shadows, perturbed by his sudden mood swings. Had they, too noticed the way he acted when he thought of her?
Somehow, he didn't think that was in their range of intelligence. He really needed to think about finding smarter minions.
Right now, however, Jareth had bigger things to do. He would get her back, he decided.
But he couldn't force her. The last time, he had taken something so precious to her that she'd tried to defy him to get it back.
Now she was wiser. She wouldn't make the same mistake again, he was sure of it. So what could he do? There had to be something, anything she wanted.
Or someone that she really cared about.
Jareth's inhumanly beautiful face twisted into a grin. "Sarah," the Goblin King murmured, "you're mine."
***
Sarah jolted upright in bed, one hand flying over her mouth to suppress a scream. She whipped her head around, brown eyes scanning the dark room
Empty. Sarah's shoulders slumped and she relaxed a little bit. She'd been having these ever since, a couple of weeks ago, she'd followed Jareth, the Goblin King, into his kingdom in an attempt to save her baby brother from becoming a goblin himself.
After that, Sarah felt she should hate him, but, really, she couldn't. Experiencing the labyrinth was unlike anything that had happened to her before, and she was a better person for it. She had—to a certain extent—grown up. And she'd made new friends. Her only friends.
In a way, Sarah was even grateful to Jareth. He'd proved to her that you had to learn to fix things yourself—that life was okay, even when it wasn't the way you had planned—but at the same time, you had to learn to depend on others. You had to set the boundary line between imagination and reality.
And it was extremely tempting, too, to just leave everything you've been stuck with for everything you've ever wanted, to just take him up on his offer.
Fear me…love me…do as I say, and I will be your slave…
She'd wanted that. She'd wanted that a lot. But it was time to stop running away from real life. She had to stay for the ones she loved.
Sighing, Sarah got out of bead and tiptoed quietly across the hallway to her brother's room, careful not to wake her dad or her stepmom, Karen.
The baby's soft breathing could be heard from the doorway.
Toby wouldn't remember any of it, thank goodness; he was too young. Even still, there would be comforting to know she hadn't just dreamt the whole thing up in the first place.
There were ways to tell, of course, but that would be foolish. Insane.
"I wish…" No.
She turned to go.
The window flew open behind her, and a huge snowy owl soared in, landing on the edge of Toby's crib. It stared at the baby with wise, almost human eyes.
"Get away from him," Sarah commanded shakily, and the owl's attention snapped to her.
After that, everything happened so fast that Sarah could hardly distinguish one from the other. The owl lunged at her in a flurry of feathers, catching her shoulders. But it wasn't an owl anymore. Toby woke up and started crying and as Sarah struggled to get away, an all-too-familiar voice spoke in her ear.
"Long time, no see, love."
So it hadn't been a dream after all.
A/n: Me again! If you don't review then I won't publish the next part, it's as simple as that.
Next Chapter: Chapter 2. Duh.
