Wild is the Wind
Chapter 1 - No Control
"I will not follow her."
Everything was white. What was this substance floating in the air around him? Not snow. Ah yes, they were feathers. Why feathers? He no longer knew, no longer cared. His only wish was to be free of the burden placed on his heart. A heart he hadn't believed was capable of feeling such pain until very recently.
I am afraid that we no longer have a choice.
The voice of the Labyrinth rang in his ears. Would it not leave him be for just a moment? Would it not cease its constant pestering only so he could collect his thoughts, so he could deal with his newly-found emotions in private? No; it was always there, that voice in the back of his head, the voice that drove him-was driving him-to the brink of insanity.
He felt himself trembling, and looked around startled, thinking that the earth might have shifted. So soon? It was only when he looked down to see his clenched fists that he realized it was of his own accord.
"I refuse to go galavanting after a mortal girl after she so blatantly refused my offer!" He was yelling now, audibly. It didn't matter if he spoke aloud; nothing could be hidden from Her.
Your emotions cloud your reason. You forget yourself.
How dare she treat him as such. He was king, wasn't he? Goblin King, he reminded himself. The title did not imply King of the Labyrinth, although that was the role he had assumed for as long as anyone else could remember.
"Can you not give me a moment of peace?" he yelled at the stagnant air, tearing his feathered cape from his back and throwing it at the stone floor, breathing heavily.
You are acting like a child.
"And what would you have me do?" he bellowed. "Capture her against her will and force her hand in marriage?"
The Labyrinth was silent.
"I will not do such a thing." He managed to control his breathing, but his head was still spinning. How could she be so ungrateful? He had offered her everything. He had offered her himself. And yet she had thrown it back in his face as if it had meant nothing.
I do not require a queen.
It was his turn to be silent. He froze, waiting for what would come next.
I require Sarah Williams of the Above. I care not what you do with the mortal. You know as well as I the consequences if you are to fail. You know what is at stake.
He was silent for another moment before responding. "You are concerned only for your own well-being." Feeling that he had struck a nerve, he smirked as well as he could in his current state of emotional distress. "I can sense your fear."
She was quick to recover. You know full well that it is not solely my life force that is threatened.
He paused, focusing on the cape he had discarded moments earlier. "She will not cooperate."
It matters not. You will travel Above and transport the girl to the Underground after she has been found.
He brought his trembling hands to his face as he absorbed what the Labyrinth was asking him to do. "She is too young," he choked, nearly a whisper.
Are we in agreement, Goblin King?
He took fistfuls of his once smooth and tame platinum hair and sank slowly to the floor. There were no other options. His kingdom or his heart-were they not one in the same? How had it come to this...desperation? He could see no other way to restore the balance. He could not bring himself to say it aloud, but thinking it was enough. Very well. He could feel the almost sadistic satisfaction the Labyrinth felt in seeing him suffer so, and he despised her for it.
Very well indeed. I shall take up the responsibility of attempting to rebuild what you allowed that mortal to destroy. However, to do so I will need to borrow your remaining magic.
Jareth looked up, glaring at nothing. If only he could see it, feel it, have something palpable to wring with his bare hands...
You cannot disguise your anger from me.
"I do not attempt to," he bit out, nails digging into his clenched palms.
You know that without it, it is not possible. Time is short. You would do well to remember that we have shared interests. The voice had grown colder.
He stood slowly and raised his head, salvaging whatever was left of his pride. "May you burn for eternity in the innermost circle of Hell."
He was resolute against the deep laugh that followed. Then I shall be sure to make a reservation for two, my dear Goblin King.
And before he could form a response, he felt himself being pulled into a vortex that he had not the power or will to fight. He felt himself weakening, being drained, as if his soul was being torn in two. If he had not his recent defeat by the girl to judge by, the pain would have been unlike any he had ever experienced. And so the mighty Goblin King was expelled to the Above in order to find the missing piece to his Labyrinth.
A frustrated Goblin King slammed his fist against his oak wood dining room table. Fifteen years had passed since the day whose fate had not relented in its control over his life. Fifteen years and no contact with Sarah Williams; fifteen years and no sign of hope of ever returning to the Underground. He had been trapped here, and while the absence of the voice of the Labyrinth constantly eating at the back of his mind was a thing he was more than glad to be rid of, his utter lack of magical ability allowed him no means whatsoever to contact the person he had for so long been searching.
He had been forced to get a job, buy a home, and more or less do what every other mortal did in the Above: fight for survival. How they could live like this for so many generations he would never understand. But the fact was that now, he was considered one of them. Of course, he still retained certain ethereal qualities, among them his immortality and delicate features, but he had seen no other option but to conform to other more...surface qualities of the life he now led.
He ran his long fingers through his now short blond hair and sighed as he waited for his tea to steep. He was losing what was from the beginning a hopeless battle. He wasn't even sure what the mortal girl looked like anymore, let alone if she was still in the country or still-. Don't think about that, he told himself. It won't get you anywhere. But even on the off chance that he was able to contact her, he knew there was no chance of her accepting him or accepting the cold truth that she had no choice but to come back with him to the Underground. If there was even an Underground to go back to. He shot a glance from his tea to the alcohol cabinet, but decided against it.
Walking over to his couch-still strange that it was his-he sat down with his mug of hot tea and turned on the television for a weather update. He sighed. He never watched the weather. What had his existence become?
Staring blankly at the screen, he noticed that the person standing in front of the projection was discussing a series of tornadoes that were predicted to hit the Midwest and the greater Chicago area. As much as he longed to return to his home, he had to admit that the technology humans had developed over the centuries without magic astounded him. He continued thinking on this topic until something the weatherman said caught his attention, causing him to scald his mouth with hot tea and spill it down his front.
"And now we take it to Sarah Williams in the field."
No...it couldn't be. It was a common name. But he was proven wrong when the video transitioned to a young woman with a microphone standing by a van in the middle of what seemed to be a terrible storm. "Thanks Jim. As you can see, the progression of the storm..."
He didn't hear the rest. He was so preoccupied looking at the woman on the screen that he had even leaned in closer, eyes wide, as if it would help him see her more clearly. Certainly she had changed-significantly even-but there was no question that the female reporter was indeed the Sarah Williams who ran the Labyrinth fifteen years ago.
He sat there for a while longer, allowing hot tea to stain his shirt without a thought, before letting a mischievous smile spread across his face. A decade and a half was a long time to wait, but he couldn't have asked for this to work out in his favor any better than it had. Placing his mug on the table, he waited for the screen to transition back to the network station before standing with a renewed confidence that he hadn't felt the likes of in years.
"I do believe it's time to buy a ticket to Chicago."
Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth or any of its characters. Labyrinth belongs to The Jim Henson Company and all applicable associates.
A/N:
And I'm back! I have outlined this entire story and am very excited about it. As a disclaimer, I do not plan to write this entirely from Jareth's POV. The first couple of chapters will be exclusively Jareth and Sarah respectively, and from then on I plan on switching back and forth within chapters when I deem it appropriate. It'll be a challenge, but I feel that it will be more rewarding for readers in the end than a single viewpoint. I know that Sarah has not yet been properly introduced, but let me know what you think so far! Reviews keep me going!