Does She Know She's Special?
When Sarah conquered the Labyrinth, she did something no human had ever done before, and while the Goblin King is content to forget about the mortal that rejected him, the High King is not. Convinced Sarah is more than she seems, he offers her back the dreams she gave up in order to reclaim her brother if she will only stay with him while he studies her. Protected by him, she is shown the lighter side of the mystical world as he delves deep into her family tree.
But time is not the same in the Fae Court, and as Sarah searches in the King's realm of lost dreams, she slowly loses touch with her own world. Can she find her dreams before she loses herself in the magic? And can the Goblin King's pride accept that she is residing in splendor in the High King's court--a favor won because she defeated him?
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It was whispered in every ear through the Underground by the next morning. And worse, the news reached the other immortals; the Fae, the Drunnigs, the Keepers of Shadow and Light.
A human had beaten the Labyrinth.
It made the listeners laugh, or gasp, or merely shake their head at what they were sure was a joke. But no, the gossiper would say, it's true. The Goblin King was bested by a mere human youth. The girl overcame the selfish nature that is mankind's inheritance, rendering herself dreamless, to save another.
She made it all the way through the long maze the hard way, passing beyond the city to the castle. Drained, the gossiper said gleefully, drained and on her own, she reached the Escher room and rejected the offer of the Goblin King.
No, the listeners would whisper.
Yes! She refused a place in his court, even though humans are hungry to experience magic. She let him take the dreams that fed her soul hope.
But the other few winners, of other races, the listeners would break in, confused. Didn't they lose their dreams too?
The gossiper came well prepared to answer. Oh, yes, but dreams are so much more powerful to mortals--without them, they do not know what to do. They do not know who they are.
She destroyed herself, the listeners would shake their heads.
.
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She had expected to feel elated after she'd won--she'd pushed herself to her limits and proved she was capable of going on through impossible odds, distracting peach-dreams, hunger and fear. She could even be unselfish out of love for another. Well, that motivator was in fact partially made-up of a healthy dose of fear of what would happen if her father and step-mother came home and could not find Toby. How woudld she have explained that?
For a while she'd basked in the glow, dancing to music her parents couldn't hear with beings they couldn't see. But when her friends went back through the mirror and she was left on her own, she slowly became aware of an off sort of feeling. Something wasn't right.
Karen was the same, as was her carefully disengaged father. Toby was...well, a toddler like any other. He was uneffected by his adventure. She kissed him goodnight again when Karen wasn't looking, just to enjoy the fact that he was still there.
But Sarah. She went to bed that night and waited to unwind, calling up in her mind her favorite daydreams to ease the transition into sleep. But the images wavered and slipped away too easily; she could hardly hear the voices of her favorite characters anymore. It just sounded like her own thoughts. She figured it was merely exhaustion. She relaxed finally into the first phase of sleep, letting her thoughts scatter, welcoming the drowsiness and the release from reality it would bring. Every night refueled her to face the unyielding world in the morning.
She snuggled deeply into her comforter, warm in her shift and oversized fuzzy socks. She left the crescent moon nightlight going in the corner of the bedroom, in case she needed to get up to go the bathroom in the night. But she slept through the night without waking once, and when she opened her eyes in the morning she was just as worn out emotionally as the night before. It was as if she'd just closed her eyes minutes ago. And what was worse: her defenses, her protection, her happy fantasies hadn't come.
She sat up in bewildered fear, heart pounding in her chest, because this had never, in all her fifteen years, ever happened before.
Why hadn't she dreamed?
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A/N: Hey, all new readers, welcome. Readers who already know me: thank you for checking out my new fic. I will not focus as hard on this as TLAG, I promise, until that's done. But I became aware after posting the newest chapters of that--that it's nearing the end! How sad! Not having a Labby fic to work on would depress me greatly. So I started this one. Keep an eye on it. It'll get better. It's less dark and emotionally intense than TLAG, though, so the future chapters will reflect that.