Red Crystal; White Gold
Chapter One: It Could Not Be
The pale hands that clutched so desperately at her could not belong to him. The once slim, long fingered hands, now almost skeletal, couldn't be his. The arms that reached so weakly to grasp against her chest could not belong to him. The tangled strands of light hair that fell across this face, shadowing it, could not have once been the silken feathered locks about his face. The features obscured by the lank, lifeless strands, held an expression that could never be written across his. The eyes pinched shut in such a frightened grimace, drawn closed against the horrors of the world, couldn't open to reveal his mismatched pair. The limp body in her arms was thin to the point of starvation and worryingly light even then. No, this could not be the Goblin King. This could not be Jareth.
Sarah lifted her load carefully higher, pressing it protectively closer to herself. She was simply horrified by the state he was in. Even when he had been her enemy, she would never have wished such a thing upon him, nor upon anyone. Tears pricked around her eyes as she looked down at him. He had turned in her arms, pressing the top of his head against her body, like a child seeking comfort. She carried him down yet another long hallway, so much like all the others that filled this cold complex. Locked doors along tunnels with linoleum tiled floors and florescent bulb lined ceilings. Her steps echoed hollowly off the blank surfaces. It was like being in a labyrinth, she mused coldly. A labyrinth like the one she had run in the Underground, but far more terrible. In the Underground she had been frightened for Toby, alarmed by some of the denizens, but there was so much life and magic there. She had made friends in that labyrinth and despite the apparent perils she had faced, Sarah had developed a sneaking suspicion that she had never been in any real danger. Here though, it was stark and cold, the sun did not reach within these walls and there was no magic. She had no friends here and she knew that anyone she would meet would be a threat.
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No matter what the Goblin King had put her through, she had a kind of grudging respect for him. She had wanted nothing more than to defeat him when he had taken Toby from her, resenting him as he dangled the baby's fate before her like a carrot in front of a donkey. Now that she was older though, she'd come to realize how much more she valued her half-brother thanks to the experience. She had taken a summer course on Celtic mythology during high school a few years after her adventure in the labyrinth. In her class she had learned about many mythical races, several of which she saw parallels to in the Labyrinth. Although many of the creatures of the Underground seemed to be the creatures of legend she read about and could identify readily enough as a child, there were a few that she didn't recognize. The Goblin King himself had been one such creature. At the time she had never heard a creature like him, so similar to a human yet so different. Despite his title, he clearly wasn't a goblin. She might have thought of him as a fairy, but she'd met those right off and been set straight. He might have been an elf, but that didn't quite seem to fit either. For years she wondered what sort of creature the Goblin King actually was, until she took that class. One of the first things the class had discussed was the variation of mythical creatures between cultures, and specifically the creatures peculiar to the Celts.
One of the most important races amongst the sidhe, or Celtic faeries, was the fae. They closely resembled fairies or demi-fae as they were sometimes called, but were much larger and generally lacked the pixie wings. Although the details varied somewhat from legend to legend, the fae were known to hold powerful magic and were generally the ruling class among the sidhe. They were known to be fickle and tricky creatures that loved and made sport of mischief, playing games and tricks of all sorts, both benign and cruel. In many legends the fae had the ability to shape shift, particularly into animal forms, often each having one special or preferred form sometimes referred to as a heart beast. When Sarah learned about fae shape shifting, her thoughts turned to a certain goblin king of the Underground and his transformation from a pale barn owl to a man when she had called him. If he was in fact fae as she suspected, was that his heart beast? Wasn't that what he had become again when she defeated him on the thirteenth chime, a white owl whirling out of her house and into flying off into the night? The more she learned about the fae, the more the description seemed to fit. With her new understanding of what the Goblin King actually might be, her view of him changed fundamentally. She had thought him an inhuman monster for stealing away children, but this seemed to be a fairly common and acceptable practice amongst the fae. One of the more important life lessons that Sarah had learned as she matured was not to be so quick to judge others, especially other cultures. Someone couldn't help where they'd been born or how they'd been raised. How could she judge a fae, when he wasn't even from the same race, when she knew little or nothing about his people? It wasn't that she necessarily forgave him, more that she was reserving judgment until she understood. The Labyrinth had taught her not to take things for granted; it had just taken her a bit longer to apply the Labyrinth's teachings to its king. Perhaps he wasn't her enemy after all.
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She wanted to break down and cry; she wanted to scream at the gods and demand to know how they could let this happen. Atrocities happen all over the world, every hour of every day, unknown to most of the world but happening none the less. Media coverage eventually leaks many of them to the developed world, shocking and disgusting millions. Sarah knew of many such horrors, such thing that people wondered how their supposedly benevolent gods could allow them, so many prayers unanswered. Somehow though, this left all the others behind. For her this was so much worse, worse probably then if he were simply dead somewhere. Holding him in her arms and seeing how he had fallen made it that much worse. No god could allow such a thing; she would not allow such a thing, it was beyond imagination. The broken creature she was rescuing could not be the Goblin King… And yet, it was.
A/N: There are the first chapter guys! I've been getting requests to put up the fan fic that's linked to one of my pictures on deviant ART. I couldn't come up with a really killer name at the time I posted it, so it was named "When the world falls down" clichéd I know... Anyway, I'm changing the name to be the same as this fic, (I just spent an hour or so trying to find something that would fit and this was about as good as I could come up with.) If you've seen the picture, you'll have some idea what the title is referring to. The picture wasn't necessarily the conception for this fic so much as a representation of my whole idea of what must have happened after the end of the movie, it was meant to be symbolic in a very in your face way. For anyone who hasn't seen the picture, it features a cracked crystal sitting in a pool of blood that is dripping down one of the stairs of the Escher room. Inside the crystal is an image of the Labyrinth and the Goblin City, crumbling and covered by dark clouds and rain.
*This is going to be major Jareth torture! To be perfectly honest I like to see normally untouchable characters taken down a peg, and by taken down a peg I mean laying bleeding on the floor(erm, yeah… I think you can expect a lot of that in this fic). I've discovered something of a sadistic streak in myself…
I'm not sure how far this is going to go, but I feel like guilt tripping Sarah, so expect a lot of that too. (Torture is no fun without someone to be horrified by it! :) ) I've also been reading up on Celtic mythology and I'm looking forward to playing with the weaknesses of fairytale creatures in the modern world. One of the things that has always made me wonder is if the fae are supposed to be so hyper sensitive to iron that proximity y weakens them and direct contact it burns their skin in a lot of fics, how can they eat with silverware ('cuz it's all stainless steel folks, and that's iron!) ? How can they ride in cars, how can they sleep in inner spring mattresses, how can they do anything?! I'm not entirely sure where I want to go with this fic, 'cuz I have several in the works, but I'm so going there!
Please drop me a review to let me know what you think. I'd love any suggestions you'd care to give. Nitpicky corrections are as always welcome. There are a few things I've left as fragments on purpose, but if anyone would like to suggest a correction for grammar, spelling, anything at all, I'll be happy to fix or take it into consideration! ^^
-Pinfeathers