Disclaimer: Not mine, I promise.
Summary: Everyone is someone else's pawn, and the Goblin King is caught up in someone else's game. Meanwhile Sarah's too busy being institutionalized to be of any help.
Rating: PG-13
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pawns
He crooked a finger and smiled. Havoc was delightfully fun to wreak. And now his favourite pawn was up on the playing field. Jareth, lord and master of the Labyrinth. A most worthy opponent. He hummed in satisfaction at his choice of players.
He smiled and watched the preliminary game events unfold. A ball twisted mid-air and bounced with force off the dark head of a mortal girl, whose precious memories of a maze and king had been locked away by powerful magic.
He blew a whisper over her unconscious body as students and teachers clustered around. Remember... It echoed in her mind, a breath of hot air across her memories, stirring things deliberately laid to rest. And so she remembered.
And now - he smiled recklessly - he would sit back and wait.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
She twirled a lock of hair around her finger and looked through a purely fictional window.
The scenes seen through that window varied but for one thing. They were all of them, fake. Fake as the dusty plant that sat high on the dresser with the rounded edges. Images of her own mind, wrought for her own amusement.
The books had been taken away when she'd begun reading them to her friends. She had to make her own distractions now.
She scowled at the fake plant and pulled her hair too hard. A ripping noise like a patch of velcro strip and it was loose in her hand, dark strands still curling thickly, looking full of life. Hair was fake too. Lies.
Hair was dead. It looked living, but it was dead. She dropped the shank of hair and inspected her fingernails, raw and bitten down. Her fingernails were dead too.
She was composed of dead things. She wasn't living at all. She was fake.
"I'm fake, I'm fake." She chanted slowly. And she began to believe it.
"No's you ain't." His voice was hoarse and rough, but the panic that had entered her green eyes flew away as she turned to the dwarf. A smile bloomed on cracked and dry lips. Her shoulders sagged in relief at the familiar, welcome sight.
"Hoggle?" But her voice wavered, and his image shimmered.
"The one and the same." He preened a bit and patted his lap. Sarah smiled, and the dwarf remained solid as she laid her head in his lap. Comfort was found in the only father figure she'd had for years.
Four years ago, a stray ball in PE class had hit her on the head, causing her to remember things she'd thought long gone. And when the odd behaviour easily explained by the concussion had faded, her memories of words to friends from long ago, and worlds locked behind her mirrors, hadn't.
And still they came to her, while she was trapped in room without mirrors or magic words. No longer did they need the reflective surfaces to call them; she was so solidly entrenched in her belief that it was possible for them to come and go as they pleased.
The only thing that kept her grounded in the fact that they were real, and Sarah knew this kept her grounded in reality, was that he never came, even though she desperately wanted him to.
He had been the most real out of all them, the easiest to swallow, the one who lingered the longest in her memory. But now that they sat on her bed, and played in her room, and held her when she cried, and existed and were real, his continued absence confirmed it.
The fact that he didn't come, when it was him she most wanted, confirmed that these creatures were not ruled or bound by the powers of her mind. They were her lifeline back and though she hadn't grasped that concept yet, they had.
But while madness concerning the reality of her friends was not a threat, the madness induced by drugs and hypnosis, and too long in confinement was very real. And until she could exist betwixt and between, straddle the worlds - both hers and his, invisible he would remain.
So he stood in the corner of her room, silent, invisible, watching as Hoggle stroked Sarah's head gently and put the womanchild to sleep. His eyes met the dwarf's solemnly.
Immortality had its boundaries, and time in this case was precious. They would wait. They had to wait.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AN: So, this, for a while at least, will remain a oneshot. I see so much potential here, but I'm also satisfied with the length of this piece. It raise more plot points and spring boards for continuation than conclusions, but for now I can't help that. ATTB is still my baby.
For me to continue this story would require two things: Firstly, a beta. Anything I write that will be longer than a oneshot, I like to have a beta for. Secondly, it would require many, many pleadings. I do have another fic on the go right now, and currently ATTB is still my main project and am not sure if I'm willing to write this one over that one yet.