The October challenge at the Jareth Fangirl Harem was to write a story including a black cat, a magic broom, a demon, and the Dance of the Dead. The challenger left that last one undefined, so I went the traditional route. The song used at the beginning is a medieval German poem, covered by the Mediaeval Baebes on their album "Worldes Blysse." I do not own "Labyrinth" or any characters therein. Enjoy!
"So sayeth Life, the world is mine!" intoned the green-cloaked figure, raising his arms to the heavens. Around him, richly clad lords and ladies advanced on a group of animated skeletons. The dead retreated, trembling in their rags; the living laughed joyfully at their conquest.
"The flowers that bloom and the song of the birds! The daylight and sunshine!" Life's broad, reddish face beamed as he sang. "So spricht das Lebe, the world is mine!"
Suddenly, from out of the shadows, a woman swathed in filmy black strode to his side. Throwing back her hood to reveal a bloodless face with sunken eyes and cheeks, she countered, "So sayeth Death, the world is mine." With a flourish of her hand, the dead rallied again and skipped amongst Life's followers. They lead the revelers in a mocking dance, clutching at the women's bright silken skirts and snatching hats from the men. Death's dark lips curved into a smirk, and she continued her song.
"…so spricht das Tod, the world is mine."
"You can have me if ya want!"
And, once again, the student body of Kenneth University proves itself unable to appreciate decent theater.
Sarah Williams sighed quietly and tried to maintain her composure. Every year, the Drama Society staged some kind of show for Halloween; she had pushed for an adaptation of the Danse Macabre countless times and been turned down flat. No amount of pleas, diva tantrums, or examples of how perfect the source material was had melted the president/director's stony heart.
"Sar, they wouldn't understand it," Michelle said each time; "Half of them don't even know we have a medieval studies department!"
But this year, a miracle: Michelle had come down with pneumonia at the last minute, and Fred, the vice president, took over the fall season for her. Fred, who just happened to be hopelessly, ardently infatuated with Sarah. One careful application of puppy eyes (combined with a rather low-cut top), and she'd gotten her show.
Which is fantastic, except that Michelle was apparently right.
She gamely stepped into the spotlight for her second verse, determined that the show must go on, but any magic that had been there was gone. The audience, spurred with promises of free beer at the Alpha Kappa fraternity house, began to slip out of the theater. At first only one or two people left, then groups of three or so, then a veritable crush of young men and women streamed towards the back door. Before long, only a few hecklers, acting teachers, and Sarah's fellow medieval studies majors remained.
Two minutes ago, she'd been Death, a dark and mysterious queen of the night. Now Sarah's gloves itched, the velvet cloak had become unbearably hot under the stage lights, and she could almost feel her makeup running.
"So spricht das Leben, the world is mine!" Fred exclaimed one final time. The skeletons collapsed in a heap on the floor and Sarah gratefully descended through a trap door in a puff of black smoke.
The scanty audience clapped above and she knew she would be missed at curtain call, but her frustration outweighed responsibility. Tossing the cloak, gloves, and "bone" crown on a chair, she trudged up the steps to ground level and out the stage door.
For a few minutes she stomped along the path to her dorm angrily, muttering under her breath about the mental deficiencies, unattractiveness, probable ability to graduate, and parentage of modern college students. About halfway home, however, the fury that had carried the slighted actress from the theater began to burn itself out. She shivered in the chill October air and regretted leaving the heavy cloak behind; in an effort to distract herself, she watched the costumed children who scampered under the bare trees. Each Halloween, Kenneth hosted a trick-or-treating event. Parents concerned about their children's safety could leave them in a designated area of campus, heavily peopled and well-lit, to solicit candy from the students. Sarah had brought Toby up one year, but otherwise preferred to stay out of the festivities; while she liked children, a large crowd of sugar-rushing little ones was a daunting prospect.
Besides, there were usually costume parties to attend or plays to perform. She hadn't had a free Halloween night since-
BAM!
What appeared to be a landlocked comet bowled headfirst into Sarah, knocking her to the pavement. It went down with her and, in the ensuing struggle, somehow managed to become entangled in her skirt.
"Hold- oof!- still!" she exclaimed as a tiny fist connected with her jaw. The child- it had to be a child- was surprisingly strong, or perhaps someone had been giving out steroid-laced candy. I wouldn't put it past a few of the jocks, Sarah thought darkly as she attempted to calm the now-kicking red creature. It was then that she noticed the boots.
Two of them, black and shining more brightly than any leather boots had the right to. Attached to a pair of legs encased in dark gray- tight- pants that sparkled where the harvest moon's light hit them. Attached to…
"I do beg your pardon, Miss," a dry voice said from somewhere above, "but this demon's already deficient judgment has been further impeded by disgusting amounts of sugar. It was only a matter of time before he forgot to mind where he was running, and you happened to be in the way." The voice's owner offered her a long-fingered hand, gloved in black leather that matched the boots.
Sarah's brain stubbornly tried to avoid putting two and two together. Ignoring the hand, she continued sorting black satin from crimson polyester, getting a grubby foot to the elbow for her efforts.
"If the 'demon' is yours, could you get him to calm down?" she replied in a tight voice. Come on, be a parent, a brother, a cousin- hell, be a kidnapping mugger, just don't be-
The hand was retracted and she could almost hear the smirk as the voice said, "Sssarah? Fancy running in to you here."
I just can't catch a break. But it might still be some jerk from high school. Yes, that's it! Probably Josh Reynolds; he always was a cocky bastard.
An angular face came into view, framed by chaotic blond hair, as the boots' owner knelt down beside her. Sarah looked up and straight into a pair of mismatched eyes beneath sharply slanting eyebrows.
It was not, she realized with a sinking feeling, Josh Reynolds.
"Not really, Goblin King," she said, voice admirably steady. "You're the one who's out of place here. And on that note, I'd really appreciate it if you could extricate your demon from my skirt and be on your way."
Unfortunately, he did not look in any mood to leave. He looked more in the mood to stay for an hour- or thirteen. But to his credit, Jareth did prod the still-stuck demon with the toe of one boot an bark at him to stop flailing on pain of the Bog. The goblin/devil went limp immediately, as if by magic, and Sarah (grudgingly grateful) removed the last swathes of night-colored cloth.
The little devil stood woozily, showing her that he was indeed a goblin. He straightened his tiny horns and stared up at her with wide, slightly candy-crazed eyes. "Thanks, you spoiled, overdramatic, beautiful, clever, infuriating, hateful, precious girl!" he squeaked as if rattling off a quotation.
Sarah felt her cheeks begin to burn; Jareth, she noted, was gazing at a nearby tree as if he'd like nothing better than to hang himself from it. The goblin seemed to have no idea what he'd just said and turned to Jareth, a look of concern on his pointed face. "Did I say it right, King?" he asked.
The suicidal king covered his face with one hand. "No, Smudge, you said it very wrong."
"King says that all the time," Smudge said to Sarah in a conspiratorial tone. "Dunno what it means, but he mostly says it while looking in crystals at y-"
Smudge's explanation was cut off mid-word and he dropped his pitchfork to pat his throat, worriedly. His lips continued to move, but no sound came out. Sarah's gaze shifted to Jareth; to her surprise, he appeared…anxious. There was no other word for it, but it was an emotion so alien to the confident, arrogant Goblin King that she couldn't stop staring. A moment later, he noticed her eyes on him and quickly composed his expression. The whole thing was over so quickly she wasn't sure she'd really seen it.
"Thank you, Your Majesty," she said brusquely, getting to her feet. As her right knee unbent, a stinging pain shot through her leg. She drew a breath sharply through her teeth and touched the knee gingerly. Her fingers seemed to intensify the pain, and shone wet and red in the moonlight when she examined them. "Shit," she swore, then turned back to Jareth.
"I'll take my leave. Goodnight." With that, she began hobbling down the lamp-lined path, wincing with every step.
My peers are idiots, the Goblin King is still stalking me, and my knee is bleeding. This night can't possibly get any worse.
As if fate was determined to prove her wrong, Sarah's knee chose that moment to give way and she crumpled to the concrete. Or rather, she would have crumpled to the concrete had not something warm and soft caught her around the waist.
A familiar, sardonic chuckle came from the vicinity of her ear. "I don't think you'll be going anywhere any time soon, my dear." She groaned inwardly. Now he'd have one more thing to hold over her head, an example of her weakness and possibly a bargaining chip.
"Think again, Goblin King," she shot back, trying to keep her voice from wavering. "I won't be needing any assistance from you tonight, thanks."
"You'll break your neck if you try to walk halfway across this campus unaided," he replied, and slung her right arm around his neck. Fine strands of hair tickled the crook of her elbow, a sensation which she tried valiantly to ignore. Removing his glittering, midnight blue cloak, he draped it over her shoulders, fastened the owl-shaped clasp, and began to walk. To avoid being dragged against the ground, Sarah was forced to walk with him.
But I'm going against my will. Nothing about this experience is at all pleasant; he's forcing me to accept "help" which I don't want and which is probably nothing but some contrived excuse to… She firmly kept her thoughts along these lines as they crossed the quadrangle, squashing any contemplation of his body inches from hers or the play of his neck muscles against her arm. Or the fabric of his cloak, softer than any made by humans, still warm and holding his spicy, rich scent laced with the tang of magic. Or-
When exactly had she become so pathetic? It must be the blood loss, she quickly decided, and shoved her thoughts to safer ground.
After what felt like an eternity, the lights of her residence hall swam into view. Jareth, maddeningly, insisted on helping her up the steps, but she breathed a sigh of relief at the door. Disengaging her arm from his neck, she gave a little nod. "Again, my thanks," she said hurriedly, dashed (as much as she could dash) inside, and began to shut the door- only to have a black-clad hand shoot into the gap.
"How exactly do you intend to make it up the stairs?" he asked with just a hint of a smirk.
Two can play at this game. She looked him in the eye. "I'll just take the-"
"Oh hey, Sar," a tall, redheaded girl in a lacrosse sweatshirt said, emerging from the maintenance closet. "I wasn't expecting you back so soon! The elevator just broke down; can you believe that?"
Sarah's head whipped back toward Jareth, a loose tendril of hair hitting her nose. "Did it," she ground out, glaring daggers at her knight in glittery black armor. To his credit, the Goblin King had composed his face into a perfect mask of innocence; not a hint of the gloating she knew lay underneath was visible.
"Yeah," the other girl continued, oblivious to the tension in the room, "so you'll have to take the stairs- oh gods, Sarah, what happened to your knee?"
Sarah glanced down and felt the room suddenly spin around her at the sight of far more blood than she'd expected. A rather detached part of her mind mourned the large rip in her satin gown and the money she would owe the costume department; the rest engaged itself in trying to keep her supper down. "I-it's nothing, Jen," she replied with forced nonchalance. "These little cuts bleed so much, you know?"
Jen eyed the wound dubiously, but shut the closet door and meandered down the hall to the kitchen, tossing a "Call if you need anything!" over her shoulder.
Yes. Yes, he did. Hey, you know our beloved GK- anything to get ahead.
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