Author's Note: I'm kind of reluctant to admit this, as it feels like I'm committing myself, but I've recently been toying with the idea of starting another Beltane Night length fic. This is merely a short something I wrote in an attempt to kick-start my Labyrinth muse into life (it's been on a long vacation), and to play around with a few facets of our favourite Goblin King.

Summary: "Love has its own time, its own season, and its own reasons from coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you" ~ Kent Nerburn.

THE SEASONS

Spring

In the softly stealing dawn, the emerging world has a fresh look of tremulous innocence, as though every day is a new page of hopeful promise and golden mornings.

(I'll paint you mornings of gold, I'll spin you Valentine evenings)

Sarah awakens on a bright, blustery morning in March and leans out her window to find him waiting there. His normally inscrutable face is animated and mobile, those dancing eyes brilliant and vivid with merriment, blue as a clear sky.

"Rise and shine, precious thing."

And she does.

She rises early and dances down the road in the dew-drenched mornings. The air is clear and cool, bracing against her face as the wind rushes through her hair. She talks to the budding flowers in the garden and spins breathlessly through avenues of slim young trees. She lays in bowers cradled by branches, rocked by the rustling leaves. Giddying elation flashes through her limpid green eyes. How breathtaking, how wonderful it is to be young and free and alive.

Around her, everything is in a state of joyful awakening. The larks soar and spin above the far-flung lacework of branches that are busting with blossom. A west wind blows and shakes the barley. She inhales the scent of flowers and dreams the scudding white clouds into wild, impossible shapes, billowing and magnificent. Gushing waters rush over her bare feet, white-foamed and swirling, cold enough to make her gasp. She looks down at the clear, flashing surface. His reflection glimmers in the cool streams. His smile is like a shaft of sunlight, and fills her soul.

(Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild!)

The shimmering image fades, but he is never far away. Sarah sees him blown about by March winds. He lifts his face to the April rains, closing his eyes as the water runs in clear rivulets over his skin, the droplets cascading in a glittering shower as he shakes his unruly hair.

It is in the park she finds him most often, dancing with the children, even though they can't see him. He plays fleeting tunes on a pipe whittled from alder wood. Merlin runs after him, barking delightedly, but the dog is no match for such light, dancing speed.

Sarah cannot help but laugh at his wild antics. He is never still for a moment, but moves from one caprice to another, as though afraid of missing anything. He pins freshly plucked cherry blossoms in her dark hair and blows her kisses that taste of rain.

She tries to run after him, but he is always too fast for her. She can hear his laughter in the blustering winds.

But as April nears its end, a change is felt in the air. Beltane approaches. Pale gold sunlight and ephemeral moonlight slanting through the mists, the veils of the world thinning at this time of convergence. Soft at the edges, yet visible with a brilliant clarity. As the sun sets, Sarah walks and walks and walks, until she comes to a place where the hawthorn meets the ash and oak. The moon shines high above. The Goblin King is already there, waiting for her. He is taller than she has ever seen him, a strange aura of energy surrounding his slender form. A pale light glows beneath his translucent skin and his eyes are fallen stars. Beautiful and not beautiful. A ceremonial crown adorns his brow. He inclines his head solemnly.

"May I have this dance?"

For there is music, liquid music sweet and clear, like the faint chiming of bells carried on the breath of the wind. Hesitantly, she nods. Jareth gives her a flourishing bow, and extends a pale, long hand. Sarah takes it, feeling a shock of sensation rush through her skin at the contact, sending her nerves ablaze. He is so very inhuman. Wild magic runs through her veins.

The ancient power weaves about them, shivering through the mists. He dances with her atop green hills, an olden dance, as ageless as the Faery song that echoes through the earth and trembles beneath the starlit sky.

Summer

Golden lights pulse behind her closed lids. The drone of insects fades into the distant background, the softly rustling meadow grasses intertwining with her dark hair that spreads in a fan around her, its edges tinged with glints of copper beneath the summer sun. She basks in the warmth, the heat delicious against her skin. Luxuriating in this lethargy. She drowses, somnolent.

"Such a pretty picture."

Sarah opens her eyes.

The sky is blue and endless, almost too bright to bear. A hazy afternoon, the translucent atmosphere rippling in glassy waves around her. Not even the faint breeze can lessen the intense heat, so thick she can almost taste it at the back of her throat: earth and honey, strawberries and sunlit moss. Drowsily, she turns her head to the side. Drops of perspiration slide leisurely across her forehead, sticking her dark eyelashes together.

The Goblin King is languid and sated, reclining like an emperor at the height of his rule, as the Greek gods must have basked upon Olympus. Power shimmers about him like a mirage. The sunlight shines on his hair, turning it to liquid gold as it sways in errant strands around his lean face. Half-closed, his lazy eyes glitter as he regards her. Sarah reflects muggily that he is as she remembers him best: arrogant, mocking, ironic, so utterly secure in his own sense of authority. His light voice a drawling command. Nectar and ambrosia drizzling lazily from his long fingers in beads of warm gold, falling in honey-coloured gobs onto the fragrant grass.

The days blur together in delicious harmony. She drinks crystal clear water from ice-cold streams. Jareth plucks fruit from trees, rich and bursting with flavour beneath their thin, swollen skins. Peaches and pomegranates (Persephone's doom), so sweet, so tempting -

(We must not look at Goblin men, we must not eat their fruit)

He gathers fragrant flowers from the rich earth that he weaves into garlands. He crowns her May Queen, and Queen of June, July and August, all summer long, my sweet, lovely Sarah.

His voice is rich as warm wine as he caresses her ears with endearments, and eventually, her skin with long, skilful fingers. He has all the time in the world to spare as he lavishes her with gifts from nature's bounty.

"But what about the Labyrinth?" she asks one day, lying back in the long grass as he idly tickles her skin with an ear of corn.

Jareth sighs, leaning over her. His hair is the colour of ripened wheat as it lightly brushes her shoulders. "Sarah, must you question everything? Why not just appreciate the present while it lasts?"

And she does. The blissful summer seems to last forever. The heat lulls her, makes her eyelids heavy, her mind thick and blurred. Sarah sleeps, and wakes, and sleeps again. But whenever she opens her eyes, he is always there.

"I would have you with me always," he says one day. "If only…" And something flares in his strange eyes that is gone a moment later. He laughs at her when she asks him about it.

Midsummer passes like a dream. Hazy days and throbbing nights. Always hungering, insatiable, Jareth sinks his teeth into ripe fruits, the juices staining his thin lips. Sarah tastes the sweet-sharp flavour on his mouth as she succumbs to the influence of his drugging, languid kisses.

And in those heavy, pulsing summer nights, drunk on sensation, she allows him to take her in the long grass. Then it's lightning and electric storms, the scent of sultry rains that lash down in humid sheets, streaming off their sweating skin as they move in wild, desperate tandem. The blurring world roars in her ears and she loses herself in the ecstasy of sensation. There is a clash, a blinding, shuddering convulsion, then all is still.

Then, in the calm, after it's over, Jareth winds a long arm around her waist and stares up at the night sky strewn with far-eyed constellations.

He tells her he loves her and she almost believes him.

Autumn

The trees have faded to russet and pale gold, dim and muted grey boughs shivering in the winds. Mornings break clear and cold, weak sunlight filtering through her room. She hears a rattling, scratching sound against her window and rises eagerly, but finds it is only the sound of falling leaves that skitter across her floor when she unfastens the window.

As the days turn to weeks, Sarah discovers that she has to try harder and harder to find Jareth, though the memory of his presence lingers everywhere, like an afterimage of the brass-coloured sun against her closed eyes. She hears echoes of what might once have been laughter, but it sounds more like a lamentation.

He doesn't come to her and she has no idea why.

The leaves turn and the sun lowers in the sky. The cold creeps into her bones. She bites into October apples and finds them all rotten at the core. Dew clogged spider's webs cling to her windows and she plucks them off, the gossamer threads sticking to her chilled fingers. The cry of owls, hollow and mournful, fills the empty hours. And as the nights begin to draw in, she sits a silent vigil. Sarah lights candles and sits as near them as possible, wanting to recapture that memory of long-lost heat. She succeeds only in burning her fingers. She watches sombrely as the flames consume the matches and leaves them burning until scorch marks appear on the table.

October comes and goes. As All Hallows approaches, there are rumours, whispers. Children missing that shouldn't be. Sarah walks home at night and pretends she doesn't hear. Cunningly carved jack-o-lanterns grin widely at her across the streets. The park stands empty now, the only sound the swing creaking on its rusty chain. And still the ghost stories persist. She tries to ignore them but the words follow her everywhere, steal into her heart and root themselves deep within, chilling her soul.

She puts a lock on Toby's door and fastens the catch on his window. That night the wind moans through the trees, banging against the shutters with enough force to splinter the wood. Toby cries out in delighted horror. Sarah finds she can't stop shivering.

It is on Samhain, the feast of All Soul's when at last she gets close enough to really see him. Unable to stand the ominous, pervasive silence, the long shadows, she leaves the house at dusk. A hunter's moon sits low in the sky as she pushes her way through the stark trees that clutch at her with withered hands, snag on her clothing, scraping against her skin -

"Stop this," she says aloud, and finally, he appears.

He is gaunt and pallid, dressed in the sombre hues of autumn. There is a melancholy expression in his eyes that wasn't there before. He opens his long-fingered hands wide, and she steps back in sudden trepidation (Erlking has done me harm!)

"Sweet, precious Sarah." There is nothing tender in his voice that scratches in the chill air, brittle as bark. "Do you think it wise to be wandering through the woods alone at night?"

"I had to get your attention somehow."

A haunting sigh. "I do have other demands on my time."

She can smell the decomposing dampness of leaf mould beneath her feet, the cloying aroma of decay, sickly sweet. It makes her want to gag. "I've heard about your other demands."

The Goblin King shakes his burnished hair and dead leaves fall out, scattering across the ground. "Indeed." His white teeth are very pointed. It's more of a rictus than a smile. "And by the way, how is dear Toby?"

She clenches her fists, white as bone in the shadowy wood. It is a struggle to speak. "Why are you doing this?"

Beneath the derisive sneer, his look is almost pitying. "Sarah," he says simply, "It's what I do."

Winter

A hush has fallen over the world, the cold, sanctifying touch of winter laying its pale fingers on the dying landscape.

The snow falls and turns the ground to glittering white crystal. Sarah stubbornly remains shut away in the house where it is warm and safe (suffocating). She refuses to look outside, dreading what she might (might not) see. But still the cold calls to her. As the frosts creep closer to the house, she throws open her windows wide, welcoming the bitter cold and ice-howled evenings. She picks withered leaves from the grey branches that hang over the terrace and flings them into the empty grate, and spends hours listening to the wind and silences between.

(A sad tale's best for winter; I have one of sprites and goblins)

But downstairs, where they force her to go, it is warm. Holly berries and mulled wine and flickering fire so burning and bright, it hurts her eyes. The flashing baubles make her think of the souls of lost children. She wanders from room to room and finds the house too small, too hot, too stifling. Outside, the trees press against the glass and sigh in mourning for the fading year.

It is a December morning, colder than it has been yet, the frost lingering on the still air when she finally makes her escape.

She ventures out of doors as far as she dares, treading cautiously on the ground that lies dormant beneath ice. The cold inhalation of air pierces her chest even through the heavy layers of clothing, her vision narrowed to a white line framed by snow-encrusted furs that drip down her cheeks like tears. The winter garden is a crystalline fairyland, a solitary snow globe. She drifts like a ghost through the silent fir trees, past the abandoned summerhouse, its lattices glazed with a fine tracery of frost. The trees thin and finally clear, and Sarah sits on a gilt bench, and waits.

She waits until evening begins to cast shadows over her white skin, until finally, on the Winter Solstice, he appears to her in the moonlight. He wears silver and grey and white; his blue eyes are like frozen stars. His hair is platinum and ice, shining beneath the silvered rays. He stares at her, a bleak expression on his angular, unhandsome face. The sight of him makes her breath catch. He looks so old.

The air pricks her skin like needles of ice. "I tried not to come."

Jareth smiles coldly. "You're a foolish child," he says.

Her eyes sting with cold, blurring his glassy image before her gaze. He can be cruel.

The snow-flurried winds whisper in reply. But you knew that already, didn't you?

"So it's really over, then?" she says into the silence.

"Everything must have its end."

"And I suppose you think I'm just some stupid little girl?" Her voice is bitter.

The Goblin King looks at her silently, his haughty features a study in pale ivory. He doesn't even comprehend her feelings. He's starlight and crystal, and so untouchable. It makes her ache.

Sarah looks beyond him, to the ice tipped ferns and snow-drenched trees, and further still, back to the house, its thrusting terraces and glass windows black beneath the moon. Far above, in the clear night sky, the stars burn cold. Remote and so terribly beautiful. Like him. So loved and so hated. On an impulse, she stands up on her toes and presses a chaste kiss to his frozen cheek. His skin is ice and burns her. His pale lashes sweep downward at the fleeting touch.

"Goodbye," she whispers.

And Sarah turns and walks away without looking back.

She goes home, and waits for the spring.

END