DISCLAIMER:
Before I say anything else I will say this; this is simply an elaborated version of the ballroom scene heavy with 'artistic' license - it is also influenced by the novelisation by A.C.H. Smith. There are so many versions of this scene on here so I'm not sure why I wanted to write another, but hey, my typing fingers get away with me sometimes.
The summary is also not mine (I feel too tired to think of anything original today, as the existence of this piece probably proves), it's from W.B. Yeats and it is included in the novelisation as well.
As you can probably guess, I am neither the owner of Labyrinth or W.B. Yeats, if I was I would in the first instance be too busy to write this and in the second very, very dead.
Anyway, do enjoy this and please read and review.
One, two, three, One, two, three
They were spinning in a dance, going around and around the most beautiful room Sarah had ever seen -- not that Sarah could see it very well; she was never given chance to look from the same angle twice.
There was something worrying her; a congregation of festering, nagging doubts waiting to flower in her head threatened to make her scream if she didn't bring herself to forget. She had to forget, couldn't afford to be distracted from the beautiful world she was being shown.
She drew breath and gasped at the lovely, light perfume in the air. It smelt like flowers, all the flowers Sarah could summon the scent of, and more besides; the smell was overwhelming and she liked it that way.
When she listened hard she could hear a song: a pretty twinkling tune that sounded far-away and muted along with all the laughter and the noise of the other couples who danced around them. If she listened for a minute, she could pick out words and they impressed her, touched her soul with all their talk of love and valentines. To have a song – and it was such a pretty tune – sung to her made her feel special and more loved that she had ever felt in the past. No other time could even come close.
It was what her whole life had been building up to; everything was going to change and she was going to get all she'd ever wanted. She concentrated for a second, listed all the things she's longed for: tiaras made from platinum instead of plastic, jewels that were cold, not warm when touched and a thousand other things besides. She was going to get them all; the thought was exhilarating and to consider her future made her body tremble in anticipation.
He took her by surprise and suddenly upped the pace of the dance until the mometum dizzied her and sent her thoughts awry -
One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two three –
The room was a swirl of glittering shapes and silver, when Sarah lifted her head to stare at the ceiling it seemed like a star had been wrenched out of the sky to light the roof. It was blinding, too bright to look at for longer than a second without leaving a lingering halo of light in her eyes.
She turned her head to the side, one figure in particular stood out. It was a woman; she had copper coloured hair and an exquisite face fitted with two staring, sneering eyes. Sarah looked away instantly, her face reddening in embarrassment.
She looked at her feet in an attempt to distract her thoughts from all the other dancers; they managed to spoil it somehow, just by being there. She had to crush the childish compulsion to wriggle her toes and test the feel of her silken slippers because she knew she couldn't afford to disturb the dance. She pouted slightly and grumbled in dissent beneath her breath. No one seemed to hear and the dance went on.
One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three –
It went on and on, and Sarah suddenly realized how very tired she was. Her feet felt ready to fall off. She only decided she only wanted one thing, one simple, little thing – that is until later - and that was to sleep. But she didn't dare drag her feet or put out a yawn, she didn't even dare whisper a request to stop. No, he was far too frightening.
The fact she was afraid of such a kind man was only a vague worry; Sarah pushed it aside and left it to rot with all the others. She refused to consider why she should feel afraid of the man who lavished her with so much love.
One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two three –
Her eyes seemed to be on him forever, on his fixed and unchanging face. He didn't seem the slightest bit aware of how the minutes were filtering away with every footfall. It had to be getting late, she considered, it had to be at least midnight, and there weren't even shadows beneath his eyes.
She reconsidered the matter after a while, asked herself why time had to matter at all?
She had all the time in the world; that was how it felt and she instantly felt happier. She had nothing to worry about except keeping her steps in time with the dance; that was it. It was as if she were in a timeless place, an ageless paradise composed of floating, ethereal beauty. But then, how time crawled; she felt seconds away from falling into a sleep that never came.
One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two three, four –
Sarah looked down at her feet, she could have sworn she had done it just right, and he showed no beginnings of a scolding frown or tightening his grip around her wrist. It hadn't been a fault in their movement that had disturbed her, it had been something else; something she hadn't been supposed to hear.
One, two, three; one, two, three; four, one, two three, four, five –
It was distressing her. The odd, unnatural sensation had been intrusive, it had disturbed the beautiful, tranquil peace he had been able to give her. She moved her head away from him, looked to her left. Sarah saw faces; a mass of grotesque faces leered out at her, their goggling, fun-filled eyes bulging out from beneath half-demented masks. She jerked her face to her right only to find more of the same and something else besides. It was towards the back, half-hidden on the wall behind a drooping veil of lace –
One, two, three one, two, three, four; one, two three, four, five; one, two, three, four, five, six –
It was a clock and it told the time. The hands showed the twelfth hour and they were sixty minutes away from striking the thirteenth –
One, two, three; one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four, five; one, two, three, four, five, six –
- The thirteenth hour - Sarah puzzled over it. It made her head hurt to consider such a wrong number, but then, looking around the room she realized that everything was wrong. Everything apart from the steps of the waltz – for they were perfect – had stopped feeling right.
She looked up at him, her eyes felt molten with tears that she wasn't sure she wanted to cry. There was something familiar, something beautiful about him fused with something horrible, something she couldn't put a name to that made her long to shudder.
One, two, three; one, two, three, four; one, two three, four, five, six; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven –
It was fear. It had been creeping up on her, anonymous and unnoticed until she had realized its name. She looked around again, her movements sharp and urgent. The faces were closer, inches away and grasping hands were reaching out to touch her. She parted her lips to cry out, but no sound came.
Sarah used her eyes, implored him with them to save her, to protect her and keep all the monsters away. He smiled ever so slightly in the face of her distress - it was just a tug at the corner of his lips – and it made her feel flushed with relief. He was a lesser monster than them, he cared for her; in fact he almost seemed to love her. That was right. He loved her.
The world instantly seemed to have recovered its beauty. There was nothing to fear with him there – he loves me – to keep her safe.
Her breathing calmed and her movements settled; they became graceful again, every step neat and perfectly placed.
One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two three –
His smiled remained and it was a warm, loving smile that radiated love. It made her feel happy, safe in a tight, choking cocoon of attention. She didn't move her eyes away from him, didn't even glance to the side for fear of what she might see.
She barely noticed when he began to draw closer, but she felt the pain when his hold on her wrist became a squeeze away from becoming unbearable and his smile didn't falter; she winced.
One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two three –
He was going to kiss her. She knew it after a second; it was as if time had stood still, as if everything else in the room – the innumerable faces and the music – had frozen in order for him to complete the picture of them both. She should have been happy. He was going to make her perfect and complete; he was going to make her forget every single one of those malformed faces and ensure they couldn't as much as touch her. Her prince was going to make her a princess; after all, she was already fitted out with the puffed-up, gauzy gown. A kiss was all that remained for them to do.
She looked at him intently, gazed up at his smile and all of a sudden had to dart her head away. His smile was beginning to make her uncomfortable. His smirk was suddenly just as oppressive as the bulging mass of vibrant, chaotic beauty that had stopped in its step to watch them.
Every single dancer had frozen. But what was worse, what made her stomach lurch was how every single set of eyes in the room were trained on her and she couldn't bring herself to ignore them. She could see the girl with the russet hair smirking at her slyly from behind her half-mask and a man wearing a horned, devil-like mask grinned at her lewdly, far more interested in her than in his partner.
Then Sarah heard the strikes of a clock; every single strike reverberated around the room like the chime of a bell -
One, two, three –
Sarah turned her head back to her partner's face and gaped in horror at the sight of his eyes – one was blue and the other brown – it was so strange, so wrong. She drew her face away quickly as he moved his forward to kiss her urgently, he knew something was wrong too – even their dance had stopped and they both stood stock still.
Four, five, six –
She began to struggle, her face contorted in sickened disgust when he only held her tighter, digging his fingers cruelly into her waist in order to draw her close.
He was being cruel. The moment she had that word on her tongue, comprehended exactly what kind of cruelty she was being subjected to she remembered the name of something else, the title of a disgusting, repellent thing.
The monster trying to kiss her was the Goblin King and that was wrong, wrong, wrong -
Seven, eight, nine –
She braced her palms against his chest in panic, tried to stop them trembling and slipping on the satin of his jacket as she pushed with all her might and forced herself free.
He was still as she staggered back, still facing him. He didn't even reach out a hand to invite her back into their embrace as her steps faltered slightly in uncertainty. The only indicator that he could tell what had happened was his face; it was riddled with surprise as well as a trace of admiration that Sarah barely saw.
Ten, eleven, twelve –
She turned around when she remembered she didn't have time to waste and clumsily forced her way out of the crowd. Sarah felt every single finger than touched her on her way. The men's hands groped crudely at her body and the women's fingers flickered teasingly across the bare skin on her back; every single one of them laughed. Their laughter was a wicked, ugly clamour that rose above the song as it soared in all its beauty. Sarah refused to listen and only ever looked ahead.
She reached the edge of the room; it was curved, like the edge of a giant bubble seen from the wrong side. She could just about see through and picked out the vague outline of a wild land, a mind-boggling maze and the tall, turreted castle in its middle. Everything was hard to see, pearlescent and unreachable. She soon realized the surface wouldn't give way, she pummelled at it with her fists repeatedly but it didn't as much as wobble.
Her heart soared when all her senses, her memories flooded back to her; the rediscovery of self intensified her determination to get out as she kicked the wall violently only managing to harm herself. She had remembered, could picture her poor, blameless baby brother lonely and afraid somewhere inside that horrible castle and knew she had to save him. She didn't belong in the company of a song or a dance. She didn't deserve them and was a vain, wicked girl to have ever thought she had.
She gave up on her own blows after a frenzied minute of warring with the wall and looked around urgently for something, anything to use instead. She caught a glimpse of his face, his eyes and those of the crowd; they were all exactly the way she had left them; focused intently on her. Only his face didn't bear a smile.
She turned her head away too frightened to think and saw a chair. It was a small, child's chair that had been painted white and it was unnaturally easy to lift. She grabbed it quickly and threw it at the wall with all the strength she had –
It broke; the entire room was dashed to pieces and the fragments fell - down and down again - like splinters of glass, every component visible until it dissolved into darkness.
Sarah fell along with them all, floated down and down again like a feather as every single scrap of silk and lace was sifted away. The shadows gathered inside Sarah's eyes until there was nothing remaining in her world but the dark.
The Goblin King had been watching from a wide window as she had fallen. His chin was balanced atop the riding crop he held in the coils of his hands as he focused his attentions on where the girl had landed, which happened to be at the foot of a junk-pile. He felt wistful for times past, and hummed a vague, twinkling tune beneath his breath whilst observing her progress. All evidence of sleep was falling away into a frown as she began to stir.
"Silly girl," he spoke to himself, shaking his head sadly. Sarah was a terribly bad girl indeed – not to mention a fool – to have rejected what he had taken the trouble to show her in all its fathomless glory. He couldn't help but be ever so slightly annoyed by the whole affair, but he soon shrugged his annoyance off.At least the entire debacle had taught him one thing; he was dealing with no ordinary girl.
Half of him admired her: the determined, virtuous girl-child for her disturbing strength of will and refusal to succumb to his temptations. But the other half of him longed for the vain, spoiled woman he had spun around in his arms to return.
He watched her as she woke up fully, smiling affectionately as she tossed a half-rotten peach away from her in disgust. She sprung to her feet, only to collide with a scabby old hag of a junkwoman who scolded her bitterly. His smile widened as he watched the witch offer the girl her toy. Sarah instantly seemed relieved; delighted even as she gathered the bear to her breast. She was then led out of his sight; not even his all-seeing eyes could follow her there.
He rose, placed his feet onto the floor and put the crystal down to the side, safe in the knowledge that she stood no chance of breaking free from that particular place. No, she would find her home there if the hag served her purpose and did as she had been told. Sarah would unearth her beautifully done-up bedroom, find every single one of her storybooks, her dolls and her bears and would think herself safe in their company. He couldn't help but pity her; his poor, unsuspecting Sarah.
He threw back his head and laughed; the Goblins who had been observing him diligently from the door plugged their ears to block out the clamour, shrugging their shoulders at each other in mute incomprehension. Their King's laughter always inspired the same reaction; every single laugh meant something different dependent on the context and the level of sound.
This time, his was a half-crazed scream of triumph –
(Isn't that an itty-bit premature?)
(Not for him it ain't.)
he cackled until his eyes were wetted with tears -
(Is he upset?)
(Don't be stupid! I've never seen him this happy!)
at the thought of all the dances Sarah had left to learn.
Fin
Many thanks go to Nienna Telrunya for betaing this one for me, and I apolgize for changing so much of it after you took a look - I can never leave things be!
I hope this was a worthwhile read and any form of feedback would be gratefully appreciated.
Oh yes, as for Thursday's Child, I'm aiming to get a new chapter out by Christmas, no promises but I'll see what I can do ;).