Here is the Day You Hoped Would Never Come
She was beautiful. She was the epitome of grace, splendor, and all things lovely. She had the fairest skin, nearly the white of snow, hair as dark as the raven's wing, and lips the crimson of blood. And beneath her sweet, loving exterior, there was a brilliant mind that had managed to defeat the greatest, cleverest, most manipulative being ever to live. Oh, yes. Sarah Williams was a goddess come to earth.
And so he watched her. He watched her until he knew every sign that she would give to show what she was thinking, every little twitch that would give her away completely. He learned her habits, knew every gesture she ever used, familiarized himself with what she looked for in a man. In the end of a week, he knew her voice. Another, he could recognize the scratching of her pencil as she hurriedly copied down notes across the room. By the end of the season, he knew her better than she perhaps knew herself. But she was fragile, cautious, and trusted only a few of her very close friends. He knew that, and he waited.
He had himself introduced to her by a classmate who would later remember nothing of the incident. They spent a few weeks as acquaintances, and then progressed to friendlier contacts, and finally cordial friends. The relationship went slowly, so unbearably to him that he was convinced that someone had decided to reorder time in order to vex him. He cast around for ways to occupy him in the meantime, and stumbled across sketching. He spent hours now doing nothing more than drawing her, focusing on getting every angle of her countenance down on paper. He would settle for no less than perfection. It was his art that led him to his downfall.
The last drawing of her, he promised himself, would be perfect. And it would be the last he would have to do in secret. Soon she would allow him to sketch her whenever he wanted, and however, too. She would take pleasure in it, he told himself. She would revel in it.
He had a few photos to go off of, but those and his time with her were his only guides, and it wouldn't do for him to watch her too closely. Carefully, lovingly, he taped them to the edges of his easel, and set to work. After many long hours of labor, he was finished, and his masterpiece complete. First, he transferred his favorite of the photos to the wall above his desk, and filed the rest away in the manila folder labeled "Sarah." Then he moved the final work, a life-sized penciled portrait, to rest upon the back edge of his desk, leaning back slightly against the dull beige wall.
He lowered himself into his taupe swivel chair, and just sat, arms resting on the armrests, gazing at her. So enraptured was he that he failed to notice that the lights had gone out. "Sarah," he breathed. "Sarah."
At the first caress of the name, he felt a light, warm draft. At the second curl of his tongue, it became stronger, angrier, and he realized that his window was closed, and the breeze was far too warm for the middle of winter…
"Sarah," a new, different voice whispered. "Sarah." A shadowed hand twisted in the darkness of the room, and from the palm, a clear, glass-like crystal grew until the thumb of another hand cut it off and formed a cradle with the adjacent forefinger, supporting the weight of the crystal. The fingers relaxed, and the crystal rolled casually along the tips of the fingers, dipping from one side to the other until the tips touched the surface of the desk. It rolled silently along the back of the hand, down across the desktop, and to a stop. The light gusts picked up again, and the new figure was gone, leaving no evidence he had been there but a crystal and the pale feather that had drifted down to rest before the portrait of a girl. She was beautiful.
Disclaimer: Sarah, Jareth, the Labyrinth, even the title--none of these belong to me. The title and inspiration for this story go to Pika-la-Cynique, the impossibly talented artist and fellow fanfic writer, to whom I bow and scrape in awe. If you haven't run off to read her stories and browse through her deviantART gallery, go. Go now. RUN. :) Again, all that belongs to me is the creepy, unnamed stalker. Well, one of them. But we all know who the other one is, don't we? He's the one that's not mine.
Author's Note: Okay. Explanation. The first time I saw the illustration "Here is the Day..." my initial impression was of another drawing within the sketch. Milliseconds later I figured out it was a mirror and felt like an idiot. Still, the idea of someone, probably not the Goblin King, watching Sarah from afar intrigued me. So I wrote this. It's a little bit creepier than I intended, but that's all right. I quite like it, however, it has sadly caused me to forget about all the other spinoff ideas I had regarding the same image. Ah, well. If you enjoyed it, please review! If not, do the same! Constructive criticism is always appreciated.