Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth, any of it's characters or any affiliated materials.
I sat in the coffee shop and looked around. There was the women engrossed in their debate of this month's book, the business men rushing in and out, only focusing on getting to work on time. Even the elderly sock-knitting lady was here today. I took a sip of my cappuccino. We all have something in common you know.
We're all runners.
We've all run the Labyrinth at one time or another; some have yet to run it. Most people's Labyrinths weren't (or won't be) as literal as mine, but regardless, we're all runners. We come out different people than we went in. We come out stronger. Or kinder. Generally we come out all around better people.
Some people seem to change very little. They go in with balls of string, hoping to come out more or less unscathed, but the seed of change is there. Sometimes it never germinates, but it's there. My mother happened to be one of these people. She married my dad, had me, and then when I was about two, she up-ed and left. We where her Labyrinth, we showed her she wasn't ready for this. Most people would think her irresponsible for leaving so abruptly, but Dad seemed ok with it, flowers only bloom for so long.
Besides, if I hadn't wanted to be so much like my flighty mother, I wouldn't have gone through my own Labyrinth.
"You have to be kidding!"
"No, really!"
"You shut yo mouth!"
"I'm totally serious, Linda Kendrick's limo is headed this way!"
Speak of the devil.
A group of teenaged girls gathered by the window as a midnight black (with equally black windows) limo pulled up to the curb and out stepped a woman with almost exactly the same hair, I guess it's genetic. She had a floor length trench on, one of the over-exaggerated lapels pined down with a familiar almost-crescent-shaped pin. She the little bell on the door rang as she pushed the door open. Her fans crowded around her as she paid them little attention and effortlessly glided into the chair across from me.
"Hello Sarah," she said sweetly, looking over the top of her sunglasses that were as dark as the windows on the limo, still parked outside, in plain view. Her eyes were a much more brilliantine shade of the emerald that I shared too than the last time I saw her. It must be the magic starting to take effect.
I look over my own equally dark glasses at her, "Mother," I respond politely. There was sort of this half awkward pause between us, made worse by several of her fans glaring at us. I start to smirk, "For someone who can probably re-order time by now, it sure took you long enough to get here," I half accuse.
She smirks back, and gives a slight chuckle. "I understand now why your step-father is tired of living up to your expectations," she sighs. I take another long swig of coffee and place the large white cup down on its non-matching royal blue saucer. The shop keeper here designates a particular set of table-ware for each person if they keep coming back long enough, so there's a series of shelves behind the bar with literally hundreds of cup and saucer sets, some of them matching, some of them not, but all of them unique.
"White 'n blue for you ma dear," she had said to me when she decided to assign me my own set, "Solid 'ollers, each bold in their own right, yet complementary to each other and simple."
"I think 'da ol' gel has lost it," her husband whispered to me as he passed me with the broom, earning a rather frightening stare from said 'gel'.
I stared at the set now, white and blue, the colors of the Goblin Kingdom.
Ironic.
"It's best that we should get going," she made the move to stand, "your step-father isn't the most patient man." I smiled as I picked up my cup and placed it on the counter to be washed and put in its spot, next to Toby's. His was taller, and more suited to hot chocolate or tea, rather than a cup of coffee.
"Green, 'cuz he's still a youngin' and blue, 'cuz his blood runs as true as yours," the old keeper had not lost one ounce of her flamboyancy as she aged.
"Now she's really lost it!" the equally as old man whispered loud enough for her to hear. She waved off his comment and proceeded with her work.
The bell jingled yet again, and Linda stood in the doorway, her hand on the knob, "Well, ya coming'?" she asked. I grinned and passed her to the curb where the door to the over-luxurious car was already opened. I rested my arm above the opening, and leaned my head in.
I took off my sunglasses, "Well, well, well, if it isn't the Goblin King." I did my best to imitate that lopsided, toothy grin of his while his flaxen 'fluff mullet' turned to reveal first, his crooked nose, then his high cheekbones and eyes of ice, and finally a much more successful version of his smile that was more a smirk.
"And if it isn't my arch nemesis and her stunning mother who happens to be my wife," he retorted. I resisted the urge to laugh uncontrollably. I heard Linda say something behind me about people starting to stare. For someone who spent ten years as an actress and the past three as a public authority figure in a fantasy realm which is very much a real place, she's rather self conscious.
I slid into the black vehicle, sitting a few feet away from Jareth. My birth mother gracefully got into and sat next to him. "Are you sure Robert and Irene are ok with this?" she asks once the door shuts with a solid click.
I feel a smirk tug at the corners of my mouth. "Dad's sad that his little girl is off to college and Toby gave me this little conspirator's smile like he knows where I'm really going," I reply. Jareth gives a small laugh.
"Yes, but what about Irene, you know how much of a stickler she can be."
I smile to them and settle lower into my seat. I feel the car slow down, in all actuality the limo was only going far enough to be out of town and not raise suspicions. "She just told me to go off and get a degree in something that will give me a stable future," I sighed. I replaced my sunglasses to their original position on my face, "no archeology, no music major, and no performing arts," I follow them out of the limo and look across the large field. About fifteen yards into the distance the grass started to fade to orange sand and through a hazy shimmer, the castle beyond the Goblin City could be seen rising above the twisting Labyrinth. "She never said anything about running a country."
AN: In which Sarah re-meets her wayward parent, re-meets her now step-parent, and does a little trickery on her part.
So I started this off with the phrases "We all have something in common, we're all runners" and "Well, well, well, if it isn't the Goblin King" and the little chunks Linda entering somewhere and the three of them getting out of the car. This is sort of what resulted.
References:
We're all runners/ the concept of the Labyrinth: People have always connected the process of life with a Labyrinth. The red ball is from the Greek mythological tale in which the love interest gives the hero a red ball of string so he can find his way out.
Colors of the cups: Mainly a play on archetypal colors, Blue: royalty, White: innocence/purity, Green: youth, growth.
Sunglasses: The Chinese artists always painted eyes last, as they where said to hold the soul of the subject. The sunglasses concept was really to just a random spin off of this.
Toby's conspirator smile: There's several fan fictions out there where Toby remembers the Labyrinth. A little tribute to them
Forbidden majors: My mother has told me countless times about how some of those majors where they're hard to get jobs in.