Hi, everyone. This is my first Labyrinth fanfiction. I know this story starts out sad, but it will get happier (eventually). I promise, I am a sucker for happy endings. Also, I know the grammar can sometimes be slightly wrong. I know this, so you don't have to tell me because I beta all my work as I have not been able to find a beta reader yet. The grammar and punctuation isn't horrible or anything; It just slips every now and then, and like any human, I mess up. So please read and enjoy, and if you like it, leave a little present in the review box, BUT NO FLAMES! If you don't like it, you can tell me, but do it constructively please. Thanks and enjoy!
CHAPTER 1
The labyrinth had fallen.
A shadow of a kingdom, a whisper of a King, What else could there be? The girl had destroyed everything with a few simple words. Unknowingly, she had wielded a power that he was only capable of, that could only have been granted to her from his heart.
He had loved her and died for it.
A great man, a king of the highest and oldest line of his realm, had died from loving a woman, an ordinary and human woman who took his royal heart and flattened it in her dirty hand, a woman who was not worthy of his love.
And now, on the brink of her death, what peace could be afforded to a kingdom come and gone? What hope was there for it? Could anyone ever undo the damage she had caused?
The halls were dirty in the Goblin King's castle. Goblins ran back and forth, chickens clucked, ale flowed from heavy barrels, and yet the Goblin King ignored all of this, his attention fixed on the black- haired woman scribbling something down in an old leather book. He read the words, black and vibrant against the yellowed pages of the red cover-creased story. A single tear had fallen and smeared the last word.
He frowned, slightly bothered by the words. The Kingdom had fallen, but not for long. The human had broken his heart, ripped it to pieces, and Jareth had watched as the world around him fell down, as she caused what he had earlier offered to protect her from. One heartbreak was not enough to destroy him, though. He put his goblins before his pain, rebuilding first the houses, then the trees and plants, and finally the castle, but for the little human to say that the labyrinth had fallen, didn't she know better?
In over four thousand years of his people's reign, the labyrinth had never fallen, could never fall. His ancestors had made sure of that when they let it overflow with power that they wished to harness. He turned his attention back to the crystal, watching with mismatched eyes as the girl inside of it buried her face in her hands and cried. For a moment, he softened to her. She was after all, the one creature besides himself that he had truly loved, that he risked death for, and the only creature ever to cause such hurt in him.. She was the one he once sought to make his queen, and there she was, crying to herself in the dim light of her room.
Gingerly, Jareth reached a gloved thumb to the ball as if to rub the tears away, but drew back, the angry side of him screaming out at the action.
A human, a filthy human who had the gall to refuse a King, the angry thoughts berated him, why waste your time with her? She should be as good as dead in your eyes.
Six months.
It hardly seemed like enough time for her. There was so much to do, and six months just didn't seem like long enough to do it.
You're dying, Sarah, she thought abruptly, quit being so calm. You are going to die a slow, painful death. You cannot be calm.
Yet, she was. An eerie feeling of peace came over her as she looked down at the worn little red book in her hands, the knowledge of her impending death still not taking hold in her mind, even as she wrote of her death on the back page. Her thoughts flashed to Toby. What would happen to him? For three years, she had protected and mothered him, ever since the plane crash that had left the little boy a scared orphan, but Sarah had came for him. In the midst of grief and pain, she had came to hold him as he wept and sobbed, acting as a rock for him to lean on, and not once letting him know that she was leaning on him just as much.
She looked down at the crushed piece of yellow paper on her kitchen table, her bill from the hospital, and the enormity of what exactly was happening came crashing down on her.
I am dying. I am going to die a slow, painful death. I am going to die.
The chant in her head made her still, her face pale and drawn, as she looked out at the school bus stopped in front of her home.
Her bony body collapsed on the floor, the tears gushing down her face, sobs crawling out of her throat, deep from inside her diseased body.
"Sarah…" a little boy's voice called out to her, "Sarah, what's wrong?"
She looked up at Toby's angelic face and drew him to her, holding him as though she would never again get the chance.