Jareth the Goblin King sat alone in his throne room. The stone room would normally have been stuffed to the gunnels with furry little goblin creatures, but not now. Jareth had been holing himself up alone more and more lately. He snapped at any that tried to disturb him and sealed the doors behind him so none could enter. But one person still had the power to open the doors. She had a warning for him, as both his sister and as his prophet.
"So here you sit," She sang from the door way, their favorite way of communicating when they were children. "On the eve of these six years. Six years since you have seen—"
"Stop." He won't look at her, but she hears the tremble in his voice.
"Since you've seen her." She finishes and closes the doors.
A step and she stood behind his throne. "And yet here you sit." He wouldn't look at her. "Go to her."
He stood quickly and strode across the chamber to the window, heels clicking on the stone. "She left."
"She needs you." His sister presses, voice echoing throughout the hall.
"She rejected me. I was diluting myself when I thought she loved me."
"She was a child! Young, innocent, naïve!"
"Exactly!" He was furious now. Why, now, of all times did she have to torment him now? "I was wrong, disturbed! Seven hundred years her senior and I love—" his voice falters and she can hear his heart breaking with a sound like cracking ice. "A fifteen year old girl." He slumps into his throne.
"Six years have passed. She's not a child anymore." She knelt by his side and he hid his face in his hand. "Her power grows." She whispers.
"Power?" He asks, astonished.
"Power. You know the laws of your own domain."
"The Labyrinth!" He exclaims, his hand over his mouth. "Strong?" He asks almost fearfully.
"And growing more so every day. Toby grows too." She informs him.
"You mean he—?"
"Knows everything? Yes. She told him. Some of the goblins have been looking after him as well. Don't they tell you these things anymore?"
He is furious for a moment, but surprise overcomes it quickly. She…she hadn't forgotten him after all this time then?
"But you are not the meanest of the Goblins." She states and before he can do more than glare, she goes on.
"And Goblins are not the worst." Now what could she mean by that?
"And Goblins are not the only things that seek her." Was she meaning to say—?
"No!" He shouts. "No! They can't!"
She nods sagely. "But they can."
"You are their prophet and counselor! Can't you tell them it would be bad?" He pleads.
She laughs, hard and bitter. "I am a fair-weather prophet to them only. They listen to me when I tell them what they want to hear. So they hunt her."
She sees his fist clench, the worn leather of his gloves stretching.
"She needs you." She sings again.
"She's safe. They-they can't get her there."
"They hunt her from the shadows, waiting their moment. A moment fast approaching."
"She is more powerful than them. She is a Dreamer, one with the power of the Labyrinth at her disposal."
"A Dreamer she may be, but what good is a Dreamer who has forgotten how to dream?" Now, finally, his mismatched gaze of blue and brown finds her.
"Forgotten how to dream? Impossible! Not her, never her!"
She nods once. "Almost nothing but nightmares since she went back. And they're getting worse."
He scowls bitterly and looks away. "She probably blames me."
"No." it was a simple word. His back was to her as she drew something from the folds of her cloak. The red jewel pulsed in her hands for a moment before—
Jareth! No, Jareth! The cry and the scream that followed cut through the air like daggers. Jareth spun in horror and stared at the glowing ruby held tight in his sister's hands. In the liquid fire center, Sarah Williams's pained and tear streaked sleeping face writhed in agony. Jareth! No, please no! Please! Jareth! Help Jareth! Please, take me instead! Don't take him! Jareth! No! And with a shriek, the Sarah in the jewel sat bolt upright in her bed. The forest green fires that had once burned bright in her eyes were gone and her eyes swam with tears. She buried her face in her pillow and sobbed. With a flicker, the image was gone.
His sister slumped onto the stone dais and Jareth hastened to steady her. But as weak as her body was, his sister's gaze was fierce as ever. "I told you. She. Needs. You."
"She'll never believe me!" he exclaims as a last ditched attempt.
"Then I'll go with you, you big baby!" She spat exasperatedly and grabbed his arm. They were gone in a shower of red and silver glitter.
They reappeared in their bird forms on an oak sapling branch on the other side of Sarah's town. Jareth almost protested, but at the fierce look in his sister's steely blue eye, he shut up. She launched off the branch first, the gust from her powerful wings shaking the tree and almost pushing Jareth off. With a soft hoot, he spread his white wings and took off after her with little more sound than a snowflake. They would have been an odd sight, a barn owl and a falcon flying over a suburban town, if it had been daytime. But it was night and their flight was noted with no more astonishment than a car on the highway. As they flew over the sleeping town, they discussed the finer details of what was happening. They alighted on a branch just outside Sarah's bedroom window. The window was open. Sarah lay on the mussed bed sheets with her palms pressed flat into her eyes.
'Sarah…' Jareth murmured in his head. 'I want to help you but…' And before he could decide just what to do for her, his sister flew through the open window and he soared through after her.
Sarah yelped as two birds flew through her window and landed on the carpet in front of her bed. She reached for a pillow to throw before stopping dead in her tracks. She knew that owl and she knew those eyes.
She covered her eyes as a bright flash filled the room. Jareth had time to straighten his coat and push his hair out of his eyes before a pillow connected with the side of his head. Several more followed in quick succession and Jareth finally had the sense to duck as the last few threatened to decapitate him.
"Get out! Get out, get out get out!" Sarah yelled as she threw pillow after pillow. Finally, she had only one pillow left and decided it was better used as a shield than as a projectile. "I never want to see your face again as long as I live!"
"Sarah please! Let me explain!" Jareth pleaded. Sarah glared at him and shook the pillow threateningly. "Sarah, I—" he started before he heard a small voice behind him.
"Sarah?" Toby stood in the doorway in his blue pajamas. "I heard you yell. Are you okay?"
"Come here Toby!" Sarah called, not taking her eyes off Jareth, and the small boy shuffled forward, scooting carefully around the strangers in his sister's bedroom before noticing Jareth's face. The small boy smiled and ran faster than blinking up to Jareth and hugged him around the waist.
Toby pulled away and ran to his sister's side, grinning widely. "You're Jareth aren't you?" he asked brightly. Jareth nodded mutely, surprised that the small boy, who had only been a baby when they'd met, recognized him.
"You look just like Sarah described you." Ah, that explained it. "You remind me of the babe." Despite the current situation, Jareth felt himself smiling.
"What babe?"
"The babe with the power."
"The power of what?"
"Power of Voodoo."
"Who do?"
"You do!"
"Do what?"
"Remind me of the babe."
Toby and Jareth smiled at each other before the small boy turned to his sister. "Why is Jareth here, Sarah?" He asked politely.
She held him close. If Jareth was here for Toby, he'd have to get through her first. "I don't know Toby. He was about to tell me why so I didn't clock him with my pillow." Sarah chuckled and Toby laughed with her as she noticed the many pillows strewn about the floor. They were his sister's favorite weapons.
Sarah turned back to Jareth. "Well?"
Jareth took a deep breath, determined to get it all out. He had to save her, but what if she didn't want to be saved? And how would she react once she knew Toby had to go with them? "You are in danger Sarah." He stated simply.
Sarah chuckled humorlessly. "Yeah, from you." She scoffed.
Jareth sighed. He'd forgotten how infuriating she could be. "No Sarah. There is something much, much worse than me coming from you, something worse than all Goblins." She arched an eyebrow but didn't say anything. "They hunt you for your power. The power you gained from beating the Labyrinth. Sarah, you are the new Goblin Queen."
A beat. Another pause. Before—
"OH HELL NO!" Jareth barely had time to duck before a plastic figurine of, was that supposed to be him?, whizzes over his head and smashed against the wall. "No, no, no, no, no, no! One, I am not a Goblin. Two, Queens are supposed to be married to Kings, and I am not marrying you! Thirdly, how do I know this isn't all just a trap? A lure to get me back to the Labyrinth and drop me down another Oubliette, one that I can't get out of this time."
Before Sarah could decapitate her brother, Jareth's sister stepped forward. "Excuse me Sarah." Sarah, who was getting ready to smash a wooden figurine of King Arthur over Jareth's head, turned her attention to the woman who was speaking. She was about as tall as Jareth and had short, spiky crimson hair. Her eyes were mismatched like Jareth's, blue and green though instead of blue and brown. Where Jareth was more inclined toward tight pants, poet shirts and over the top cloaks and collars, this woman had a long black cloak fastened around her shoulders with a silver dragon pin that revealed nothing but the multitude of chokers, necklaces, and pendants that hung around her pale neck. "My name is Rose, Jareth is my brother and I am the Prophet of the Fae. What my brother says is true." Sarah looked sideways at Jareth. "I have seen it in the stones. According to Goblin edict, Fae edict, if a person can defeat the traps of a Fae domain, then that person becomes the new ruler of that domain and gains the power of the land. Jareth remained King, since he is the rightful King by birth, but because he had no Queen, that became your title."
It makes sense, but Sarah still has her doubts. "I beat the Labyrinth six years ago, why am I only hearing about this now?"
"Because it was of no consequence until very recently. Jareth didn't even realize it until I told him a few moments ago. And it could have continued on as nothing more than a formality because my brother would never have married and you would die before the title was needed again, but something has happened. Someone is now hunting you."
"Who?" Sarah asked.
The woman, Rose, exchanged a look with her brother. Jareth nodded once. Looking back at Sarah, Rose observed the young woman before her. She wore an oversized grey T-shirt and pajama pants and though her dark brown hair was mussed and tangled, Rose could definitely see the beauty that had so enthralled her brother in those green eyes.
"They call themselves Dexies." She spoke the word carefully, like it would burn her tongue.
"Dexies?"
"A hybrid race of Pixies and Demons, they branched off from the Pixie and Demon races about 20,000 years ago and only rejoined the Council recently, say 5,000 years ago. But they are different. I think the centuries without rule have done something to them. They've always had a monarchy, but they were more interested in becoming wealthy than actually ruling their people. And, honestly, Pixies and Demons should never have mixed. The bloodlust of Pixies and the general disdain for life of Demons are a bad combination. Dexies are vain, haughty, dislike anyone other than themselves, and are generally horrible people."
"But why are they hunting me?" Sarah asked.
Rose looked at her brother again. The lines around his mouth seemed to deepen and Jareth looked paler than normal, which was saying something. "Because Jareth once turned down their Queen."
Then Sarah did something that no one, not even she, expected. She laughed. "What?"
Rose hurried to explain. "We all played together as children, though not very well. Jareth and I were the kind to run around outside, climb trees, race each other through the Labyrinth. Maeryn, that is her name, was more the kind to throw a tea party or prance about pretending to be Queen. We lead a marauding band throughout the town and Labyrinth while Maeryn held court inside. But as we got older, she started to latch onto Jareth. She dragged him inside whenever she could to play King for her court and by the time we were all around 100, she had diluted herself into thinking that she and Jareth should be wed."
"What she missed was that I despised her." Jareth piped up.
"Let me guess," Sarah surmised, "She wore nothing but pink, gaudy make up, was dainty and prim while being almost the complete embodiment of evil, had a wicked temper like that of the Queen of Hearts, and was that kind of ugly pretty that makes her look deformed because she's just so perfect. Am I right?"
Jareth nodded. "Perfectly. What's worse is that she had diluted herself to thinking I was courting her. One day, she dragged me out to walk with her through the garden of dead flowers she was cultivating and started discussing wedding plans. I was taken completely by surprise and ran back to the castle as fast as I could, leaving her standing there. She did not take it well but, honestly, I never thought it had affected her as badly as it seems to have. I haven't even heard from her since, and now this."
"She sounds horrible. I wouldn't sick her on my worst enemy, and that is saying something." Sarah said with a glance at Jareth. "But what does she want from me?"
Rose bit her red-painted lips, unsure of how exactly to say this. She decided to just say it and get it over with. Jareth could kill her later if he wanted. And Toby would have found out anyway with the world he had inherited. "Maeryn is the epitome of vain. You caught Jareth's attention and his heart, something she always craved. She wants to see what it is you have that she does not. And then, being the sadistic and horrible person she is, she hopes to attain those traits and features, and get you out of the way, by drinking your blood."
There was a pause.
"Toby, go back to bed." Sarah said flatly. But the small boy refused to budge from where he had nestled himself on his older sister's lap.
"Oh, I already know all about Pixies and blood. A book at the library told me all about the Blood Tributes and—"
"Okay kiddo, I think we're gonna need to have a talk about this. But right now, we need to move you and your sister out of here." Rose interrupted. The magic had certainly chosen an intelligent kid to succeed her brother. "Maeryn has already sent lesser Dexies to watch you and if we don't move you out tonight, things could get very nasty indeed."
"Wait!" Sarah exclaimed. "I still don't understand what's going on! I get why she's hunting me, but what do you mean move us? I'm here watching the house and Toby for my parents while they're out of town! I can't just leave. If I don't go into town every day, Mr. Allen at the store will call my parents and they'll be on the first flight in from Hawaii. And where exactly is it I'm supposed to go?"
"We need to take you back to the castle. It's the safest place there is, and Jareth can teach you about your new domain and I can teach you about the Fae, your new subjects. And both you and Toby need to exercise and learn to channel your powers." Rose explained and glanced out the window. Out by the edge of the forest, she could see furious movement. Seemed the little spies were sending a message to their mistress. Well, she could delay them, at least for a little while. She searched the woods for a moment and a second later; a large tree limb fell on top of the two sentries.
"There is something else as well. She wants to kidnap you in hopes that it will draw Jareth out. She wants to use you as bait to get to Jareth. But to get you, she is also prepared to kidnap Toby. It's like dominos. She kidnaps him to get to you so she can use you to draw out Jareth. Maeryn is very impatient but she does have the ability to lie in wait for her pray, like a trapdoor spider. As for the problem with your family…" Rose's hands emerged from under the cloak, which fell back around her shoulders to reveal an emerald dress and with sleeves that ended in peaks on her hands that were tipped with sharp knives. She turned around and waved her hands, palms out, in wide circles.
In a moment, two figures appeared before her. These figures looked exactly like Sarah and Toby. Rose let her arms drop and turned to the real Toby and Sarah. "These are Karesh and Naden; two Mimic Gremlins I met in Port Trite." She turned back to the Not-Sarah and Not-Toby. "I need you to mimic these two lives for the next—" She glanced at Sarah, a questioning frown on her face. "How long will your parents be gone?"
"Two more weeks." Sarah answered promptly.
"Hm, that's perfect." Rose looked once more at the Gremlins. "For the next two weeks. Can you do that?" The Not-Sarah and Not-Toby nodded once and stared hard at the two people they would be pretending to be, as if memorizing them.
"Mimic Gremlins can only retain the shape of one person for two weeks max. After that, they revert to their original form for one month. But it does buy us some time. We can figure something more permanent out over the two weeks. Now, I'll take Toby with me back to the castle. The poor kid looks dead on his feet." It was true. Toby was leaning his head on his sister's shoulder and his eyes were barely open. Rose moved closer and lifted him as easily as if he were a year old again.
Sarah was reluctant to let him go, even though she, oddly, trusted Rose. "Why can't I take him? I'm his sister."
Rose nodded. "Yes you are. But you and Jareth still have much to talk about and you are more used to not getting to sleep until late." Sarah had the oddest feeling that Rose new about her nightmares, though she hadn't said anything. "Besides, in the meantime you can have your first lesson about the Labyrinth." Rose stepped back towards the middle of the room. "Now, I'll see you both in 20 minutes." With that, she vanished, leaving red glitter behind.
"I have something to show you Sarah…" Jareth said in a quiet murmur and held out his arm. Sarah hesitated, but only for a moment. Really, what else could she do? She touched his gloved hand, it felt warm, and in a moment, they were gone in a shower of glitter.
They reappeared in a moment on the hill where Sarah's adventure six years ago that night had started. "I swear, if you tell me I have to get through this maze all over again…" She spat threateningly through her teeth. If he told her she had to do it all over again, she'd sock him in that pretty face of his.
He chuckled humorlessly at her ready stance. "I promise, you don't have to go through the maze again. I do have a question for you though. Do you remember your way through the maze? How you got through last time, I mean."
Sarah thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yes. I had to argue with Hoggle first before he would show me the entrance. But I entered the gate and turned right. Then I half walked half ran about…half a mile before I got frustrated and the worm showed me the fake opening. It didn't look like an opening but once I'd walked through what looks like the wall I found I could go either right or left. The worm told me to go right down the new path. Then I came to the pillar with all the hands and went down the path that looked like it went directly to your castle. First right, first right again, then second right and down the stairs, first right once more, left, right through the archway up both sets of stairs and it was dead end.
"I went back on the landing to see that someone had changed my marks and looked away. That's when the two doors appeared where the dead end was and the dead end appeared behind me. I went through the blue door and fell into the helping hands. I had them send me down and wound in the oubliette. Hoggle found me and showed me the door under the sack. He pushed it against the wall and the doorknob on one side it led to a broom closet and the other side led to another tunnel. We followed the tunnel straight past all the false alarms until the false alarm on the corner that said "BEWARE!" then turned down that corridor." She turned to glare at him again, but it was a touch playful this time, "That is of course, when you showed up and sicked the Cleaners on us."
"So we ran down the right arm of the T until we got to the gate, or probably what's left of a gate now I suppose. We had to push on the flimsy looking wall next to it until it fell and climbed the ladder and Hoggle knocked off a rung and emerged from a bronze urn into the hedge part of the labyrinth. We went down the path across from Master Sage Chicken's chair and continued through the hedge maze till it started turning to stone again. That's when I found Ludo and Hoggle ran away. After I freed Ludo, the two doors with the talking knockers showed up.
"We went through the one with the ring in his mouth and you came out in a grove of trees…" She thought hard for a moment and then went on. "That's when I lost Ludo, I don't know why… That's when I happened upon those horrible Fireys that chased me all the way to the wall and Hoggle had to help me. Then I pecked him on the cheek and we almost fell into the Bog of Eternal Stench. That thing is disgusting by the way," She said and turned sharply to Jareth. "You didn't dip him in the Bog, did you?"
Jareth scowled at her knowledge of his threats, but he supposed the dwarf had told her everything. "No, I didn't. And he would have told you if I had. But go on. What happened next?" He prompted. He loved watching her talk. She was just so, expressive, and he could see the memories playing behind her eyes as she recalled that day like it was yesterday. She had turned her journey through the labyrinth from the step-by-step directions he had expected into a story without even realizing it. He supposed that was what made her such a good actress.
"Well, we made our way along the ledge and had already almost fallen off once when the stone gave way a second time. Luckily, the second time Ludo was there to catch us. We made our way along the Bog until we came to Sir Didymus's bridge. Hoggle got past him but we stayed and talked to Didymus. That's when he took Ludo as his brother in arms when Ludo almost knocked him out with a branch and broke the bridge as I was trying to get across. Luckily, Ludo has his rock friends, which kept me from falling in the Bog. That was definitely the nastiest part of the labyrinth, and the most annoying with Didymus whacking us with his staff.
"I think we made the most headway after that with Didymus urging us on. At least, until we all got hungry. That's when Hoggle gave me your little…gift." She didn't say the word with any venom or loathing, Jareth noted.
On Sarah's half, she couldn't quite look at him. She wanted to glare at Jareth with all the hate she could muster, but she found she had no hate to glare with. She wanted to tear him a new one with the well-rehearsed rant she had concocted just for him if she ever got a chance to see him again, but found the words fleeing from her grasp. She wanted the entire labyrinth and city to hear her screams of rage thrown like daggers at the Goblin King, but suddenly she found her tongue nailed to the roof of her mouth. But why? She'd planned this for years, and suddenly she couldn't chew him out?
There was a dangerous silence as each waited for the other to speak. But as no words cut the air and heart or slunk into ears unwilling to hear them, the moment of thunder passed.
"Anyway, when Ludo and Sir. Didymus got to the end of the trees, at the edge of that sea of junk you seem to have accumulated." Jareth pondered for a moment informing Sarah that the "junk" as she'd so called it was actually mostly abandoned dreams and possessions, but decided against it. He'd give her a history lesson later, when she wasn't in a fine mood to punch his lights out. "After I woke up from the dream and Didymus and Ludo helped me out of the fake bedroom, we waded our way through to the gates of Goblin City, just a hop, skip and a giant moving suit of armor away from your castle." She glanced at him now and looked away fast as she found his eyes on her. There was a small smile playing about his lips. Not a smirk, but a smile, something she'd never imagined seeing on his face before. It made her bite her lip, she didn't know why.
"Very good Sarah. I'm surprised you remember all that." He said quietly, as if he were speaking to himself, not her.
She tried to sound offhanded. "Well, when it's the only story that'll put your baby brother to sleep for six years the details kind of tend to settle into concrete." It didn't go well. She sounded nervous! No! Bad Sarah, bad! She scolded herself. "Well? Do I have to follow that path again?" She asked, more normally this time.
Jareth shook his head so his blond tresses fell into his eyes. "No, no. I just wanted to see if you remembered that's all. It helps with what I'm going to show you." He moved to stand just behind her. Sarah didn't like it. She could no longer see him and being so close made her feel like electric pulses were running over her skin. He held his arm out and pointed a gloved finger over her shoulder at the maze. "Now, I want you to envision every trap you encountered in the labyrinth and every trap you think could be lurking somewhere in it. I want you to see them, and hold them in your mind, can you do that?" He spoke in her ear and Sarah had to fight the urge not to shiver.
But she did as he said. In her mind's eye, she could see every hurdle she'd crossed on her way to the castle and she pictured the other secrets she'd imagined the labyrinth contained over the years. She gathered them all on a simple table in her mind.
"Do you have them?" Jareth asked.
She nodded.
"Good. Now, keep them in your mind and stand like this." he moved so he stood beside her and held his arm our perpendicular at a 90 degree angel to his body and stood on the balls of his feet. "Take a step forward with your right foot and sweep your arm out across the labyrinth. While you do that, imaging you are sweeping away every obstacle you have in your mind. Now you try." He stepped back so she could have a clear way.
Sarah stepped forward one step and stopped. She rose onto the balls of her feet and swept her arm through the air and saw every obstacle fall with a wave of her arm and a step forward. Amazingly, as Sarah's arm completed its arc, the labyrinth split down the center and parted like the sea before a particular prophet.
"Wonderfully done, Sarah. You learn fast. It took me almost a decade to learn that. Come, the distance to the castle is not so far now. We can walk."
So they stepped down the hill and towards the small pool where Sarah had first met Hoggle all those years ago. There were no fairies around, but the stars of this world twinkled far above, though it was no darker than if it was twilight, and she supposed they were all in bed.
"The creatures," She said suddenly as they stepped onto the newly made path, "the ones that call the Labyrinth home, don't they notice if the maze is cut in half? What if they get caught on the wrong side?"
Jareth opened his moth to reply when a small pony with a pale blue coat and waterweed for a mane and tail ran through one wall of the path and out the other. A Faun with tan fur followed shortly after. "No." Jareth continued after the Faun disappeared. "This path is actually just a quickly conjured illusion that actually passes over the entire Labyrinth. The creatures do not see it and they can pass through as easily as though it were smoke, as you have just seen. Only those with Royal Power can conjure it."
"And that includes me and Toby now, does it?" Sarah asked.
Jareth nodded and they lapsed back into silence.
They were passing through the hedge maze before Sarah spoke again. "Is she really your sister?" She asked nonchalantly, though she was dying to know.
"Hm?" Jareth asked, as though she had pulled him from his thoughts. "Oh, Rose. Yes, she is my sister. My half-sister." He clarified. He seemed distracted, lost in thought. Sarah wondered what he was thinking.
"She doesn't look like you. Except for the hair. And the eyes. You both have one blue eye. And your hair goes everywhere." Sarah continued, letting her hand drift over the thick foliage of the walls.
"We get both those traits from our father, or so our mothers have always told us." Jareth said, his eyes riveted to the path beneath his feet.
"You share a father then? Does that mean she isn't a goblin?"
Jareth nodded. "Yes. Our father was half-Kin, half-Human. My mother was a Goblin and Rose's was Elvin."
"You're human?" Sarah asked in astonishment.
"Only a quarter. But yes, technically."
Sarah was more surprised than she had been all night, and that was saying something. Though it did explain why he didn't look like the other Goblins. And why he was handsome by human standards. 'By any standards…' Sarah's brain thought before she could stop it. She mentally smacked herself. 'No! He is not hot, he is not handsome, and he is certainly not someone we would jump into bed with! I thought this hormone issued was supposed to quit when I got older. What am I, some horny teenager?' Out loud she said; "That's interesting. Does that make Rose an Elvin Queen?"
Jareth shook his head again. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "No. Rose was Queen Tabin's last child. She is also the only one in the last 10,000 years to have inherited the old Talent of Sight, or her ability to use her Rubies to see the future. So she is the Prophet. She moves from Realm to Realm depending on who has the starring role in her latest predictions. When she is not a member of another kingdoms court, she usually stays with me or her Elvin siblings. Oddly, she seems to get along with me better. Probably because we were born only a decade apart while her closest sibling is 400 years older than her."
"And where was she when we first met?" Sarah asked quietly.
She saw Jareth's shoulders hunch. "Honestly, I don't know. That is the only time in anyone's memory of her that no one has been able to get a hold of her. She disappeared about a month before I first met you."
Sarah didn't know what to make of that, so she said nothing.
Again they walked in silence.
They passed over the Bog of Eternal Stench and Sarah was relieved to find that the illusionary path not only kept them well clear of the foul smelling liquid, but it kept the odor at bay as well.
Then, Jareth seemed to remember something that amused him. A wicked grin appeared over his face, the first one Sarah had seen all night, and he turned to her. "You remember that worm you met at the beginning of the Labyrinth?" He asked with an amused gleam in his eyes.
Sarah nodded. "Yes."
"And you remember how he told you not to go left down the path?" Again she nodded. "Well, if you had, you would have arrived at my castle with an hour to spare and not even passed by the Bog of Eternal Stench."
She stopped in the middle of the path and Jareth turned to look at her, his grin still in place. Slowly, ever so slowly, she turned her head to stare at him. She blinked. Once. Twice. Then— "Are you SERIOUS?" She yelled.
He held up his hands defensively. "Hey, don't yell at me. That one was actually not my idea. But, so many of the creatures in this maze fear me that they can't see why anyone would want to go to my castle." That grin was still in place however and all Sarah wanted to do was smack it off. She clenched her fist. But she had nothing to throw, nothing to hit, besides Jareth, and no other way of taking out her aggression. And besides, she actually believed that he hadn't told the worm to lead her astray. So she started walking again.
"Argh! Come on, let's get to your stupid castle so I can get some shut eye." She muttered and Jareth trotted after her.
Sarah seemed to have used all her energy with that last outburst. Jareth could see how tired she was. Though she was plowing down the path as if into battle, Jareth could see her steps slowing and her feet dragged over the stones. Her shoulders slumped and once or twice she attempted to stifle a yawn. Eventually, she stopped trying and just let the yawns come. Finally, Sarah slowed so much that Jareth feared she would fall over if she stopped. Then, she did. Jareth caught her as she slumped and Sarah's head lolled. She was fast asleep. Jareth maneuvered her so he could pick her up princess style and her head rested against his shoulder. This close, Jareth could see the bags under Sarah's eyes and how pale she was. Rose had said she'd been having almost nothing but nightmares since her defeat of the Labyrinth and he wondered how many good nights rest she had gotten in that time.
Jareth walked much more quickly down the path and arrived at his castle in less than ten minutes. He met Rose coming down the stairs, on her way to look for them, and she led him up the stairs to the room she had prepared for Sarah. As he settled the covers around the sleeping girl, Jareth vowed that he would make sure she remained safe and that her nightmares stopped, even if he had to forfeit his life in the process.
Finally, he pecked her on the forehead and withdrew. But as he stepped away, Sarah smiled in her sleep and something warm fluttered in Jareth the Goblin King's heart.
The next morning, Sarah woke to deep red light streaming through the picture windows. She sat up in the large queen size bed and looked around her. The room she was in was large with stone walls and a high ceiling she could barely see in the early morning light. Large tapestries of blue and green hung from the walls and as she looked closer, she realized that the story they told in gold thread was her own. There, on the tapestry closest to her, was her first meeting with Jareth after she'd wished Toby away. The next was her standing in front of the Labyrinth talking to Hoggle. Then her and the worm, the lying doors, the Helping Hands, the oubliette. Sarah swung her legs out of bed and padded around the room, staring at the woven pictures. Even her dream was captured in flawless detail and Sarah froze. She wondered if the expression captured on Jareth's face was just the imagination of whoever had woven these beautiful cloths. But a picture forced itself into her head. Jareth, Jareth when she had left him to break the crystal, Jareth's hearbroken face when— No! No, she would not think about that day, that hour, that wonderful dream. Sarah turned and ran through the door.
Sarah skipped down the first staircase she found. It wound down past floors she didn't recognize, but they all seemed to lead to bedrooms. She was looking for Jareth's throne room or somewhere else familiar, so she could get her bearings. She also kept an eye out for a person; a Goblin or one of her friends or someone living so she could maybe ask directions, but the castle seemed deserted.
Eventually, the stairs ended and Sarah was surprised to see that she was in Jareth's throne room. She turned to stare at the stairs she had come down and felt her jaw drop as she recognized the carvings of the archway. But the last time she'd run up those stairs, Sarah had found herself inside M.C. Escher's Relativity. But it was a magic castle and Sarah supposed Jareth could change his own castle if he wanted to. She turned to observe the throne room and saw another arch and a staircase that seemed to lead down, unless of course you started at the bottom. She walked towards it; she couldn't remember seeing it the last time she was there.
The spiral staircase let out on what looked like a kitchen and Sarah smiled to see Rose there, cooking what looked like breakfast. Rose's cloak hung from the back of a chair by the fireplace and she had changed out of her emerald dress and into a pair of loose-fitting brown trousers of what looked like wool and a white shirt that looked like it was maybe her brother's. Rose's high heeled boots clicked as she jigged and hummed along to a song in her head. She had a blue and pink plaid calico apron tied around her waist.
Sarah was surprised to see that the kitchen had modern appliances, though they seemed a little outdated. The stove that Rose was frying bacon on was an old ceramic gas model from the twenties with a matching fridge, out of which Rose pulled eggs in a little wire basket and cheese. She smiled and turned to Sarah standing in the stairs. "Morning, love. You're up early, it's only one." She glanced over at the cuckoo clock hanging above the fireplace mantel. The hands carved in the shape of dragons marked out one o'clock.
Sarah stepped closer and leaned on the scrubbed table and plucked a blue apple from the basket in the center. "Time here is so odd… Back home the sun comes up at about six and goes down at seven… Here it comes up at one and down at 13. I don't get it." She muttered and bit into the fruit in her hands.
"No one really gets it, but it does make time easier to mark. And the extra hour is quite a convenience. My theory," Rose said as she cracked eggs over a pan of butter and began to fry them. "Fried or scrambled?" She asked Sarah.
"Scrambled eggs please Rose."
"Jareth the Finicky only eats 'em fried, has since we were kids. Anyway, my theory is that someone made the classic wish for an extra hour in the day and one of the early Goblin monarchs granted it." She said as a half dozen eggs went into the pan. She slid the lid onto the pan and picked up something from beneath the counter.
Rose walked over to a large, black, iron water pump the far corner of the room with a scorched kettle. "Tea?" She asked as the water gushed into the kettle.
"Yes please."
Rose used her apron to pull a large hook that hung over the fire and swing it out into the room. She hung the kettle on it and placed the strip of iron back over the fire.
Just as steam began to whistle from the spout and the clock struck two, Jareth tramped down the stairs and slid into a chair at the head of the table. Sarah and Rose were talking amicably and ignored him.
"Is Toby still asleep?" Sarah asked as Rose got the tea and started piling food on plates.
Jareth shook his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose like he had a headache. "Um, yes. He'll probably be out until about nine. He has Dream Fever."
Rose sighed. "Oh dear… I was afraid that would happen. He's still so young…" She placed their plates in front of them, piled high with food.
"Wait, Toby's sick? Why? Jareth if you did anything…" Sarah stood quickly, like she would run up to her brother in a heartbeat.
"Why must you always blame me for everything?" Jareth exclaimed, also rising to his feet. "For your information, it happens often to children that are brought into Fae realms. Why do you think all the Old Stories in your world never have the children conscious when they are Taken or Wander into a Fae Realm? Because children have a better grasp of Imagination than adults and teens, and use it more extensively, it overwhelms them that everything they've ever imagined is real. It's like you fainting when you see a rock star or something. It will only last for up to a day. Before either of us know it, he'll be running around the Labyrinth like the boy he is. And no one will be able to catch him." Jareth sat back down and pulled his food towards him. "Now eat. We have a long day ahead of us."
Sarah sat and began to eat, though her eyes kept straying to look up the stairs, hoping any minute that her brother will come bounding down. Until she noticed Rose staring at her and Jareth conspiratorially over her teacup.
"What?" Sarah asked.
"It's good to see someone banter with my brother." She smiled and took a sip of tea. "Not many people dare to."
"You should have seen her six years ago." Jareth muttered around bites.
Sarah giggled at the memory.
"By the way, dear sister," Jareth said as he mopped up the remains of yolk with bread. "I've been meaning to ask. Why do you always commandeer my kitchen when you're here? My chefs are perfectly fine and they do get grumpy when you kick them out."
Rose rolled her eyes. "Because Goblin cooking is disgusting and they refuse to take any pointers. Oh sure, you do fine but I cant stomach the slop and I'd warrant that neither can Sarah and Toby, at least not immediately." She glanced at her brother. "Though, from the amount of normal food in the pantry I'd say you don't do all that well on Goblin cooking either."
Jareth the Goblin King sulked.
I have no idea where this came from. More to come maybe. R&R if ya liked it!