Owl
Clocks belled twelve. Main street showed otherwise
Than its suburb of woods : nimbus---
Lit, but unpeopled, held its windows
Of wedding pastries,
Diamond rings, potted roses, fox-skins
Ruddy on the wax mannequins
In a glassed tableau of affluence.
From deep-sunk basements
What moved the pale, raptorial owl
Then, to squall above the level
Of streetlights and wires, its wall to wall
Wingspread in control
Of the ferrying currents, belly
Dense-feathered, fearfully soft to
Look upon? Rats' teeth gut the city
Shaken by owl cry.
Midnight.
Sarah stared, unblinking, at the blaring red numbers of the digital clock, transfixed. Light through the naked windows emanated from the streetlamps below. Rain serenely pattered against the roof and window panes –she knew she was still not safe.
Anxiously she shoved the blankets away from her body, and took hold of the container of salt at her bedside. She glanced around the room, eyes bloodshot, trying to find a break in her protective circle. Salt was scattered on the sill of the apartment's lone window, and by the crack of the door. Still fearful, the young woman scampered to the kitchen, and pulled up on the faucet tap so quickly the water pipes made a dull thudding noise below, as the faucet itself gushed into the sink with ferocity.
Salt, running water… Sarah frantically reached for the tap of the bathroom sink, and suddenly pulled off her nightshirt, flipping it inside out. She hurried back to the bed, sprinkling more salt to solidify her smaller protective circle. She clung to the blankets, still gripped by fear. Inside out…
Wind suddenly howled. She got up again, and with horror saw the sink faucet of the kitchen slowing to a drip, mimicking the sprinkling of rain above her. Muffled scuffling surrounded her, accompanied by a hissing sound akin to laughter. She glanced at the ceiling and floorboards, trying to find the source, and futilely praying that the creatures were rats.
The room filled with light, and then dark in an instant, followed by an ominous roar of thunder. The wind screamed then, in protest. Sarah, barefoot and stranded in her kitchen, was stricken with terror as the window forced itself open. In the midst of the tempest, a white owl held to the sill with frightening calm – its eyes of different colors. It watched her with a distinctly predatory glare.
In another flash he was there: arrogant and imposing, his eyes gleaming, unchanged.
"Salt, Sarah? Salt?" his sardonic voice etched itself from her memory.
Salt, running water, inside out….. She forced herself to meet his eyes. Iron. She tried to grasp her pendant.
And he was there, against her – his breath was hot against her neck. "Don't even try, precious thing." His hand encircled her wrist firmly. Sarah was shaking, and closed her eyes, unable to bear all of her senses reacting to him. She took a deep breath, unwittingly inhaling the sweet scent of the woodlands and forbidden promises.
"…you're the Goblin King." Her voice was hushed, breath forced from her body. He breathed near her mouth again. She struggled against him, and felt his hold on her strengthen, his body rigidly pressed against hers. His teeth grazed her neck, and her throat constricted.
"How observant of you…I'm glad to see you recognize me after all this time."
"You're not easily forgotten." She spoke, accusing him, as she regained slight composure.
"Oh? I haven't been lost in all of your memories?" He released her, but not before decidedly removing her pendant, snapping the cord from her neck with brutality. She repressed a cry of protest. "It would only be too easy to become lost in your precious mortal world – what with all these things…" his gloved hand gestured with revulsion at the expanse of the dark room.
Sarah had kept the room fairly well-ordered despite its cluster of junk. The room she inhabited was filled with remnants of decades long since departed. The disarray of old clothing, dress models, moth-eaten fur coats, and crippled machines was lined up in as tidy a fashion possible in the modest room.
"None of it is mine…" Sarah stared at him with a hardened stare.
"Is that so?" Jareth turned back, his body facing hers once more.
"I'm renting the room," She continued, voice dispassionate. "This all belongs to the owner of the house."
Jareth appeared completely uninterested by that knowledge, simply ignoring it. "Aren't you tempted by so many pretty things?"
Sarah watched a crystal appear in his fingers, its faint glow reflecting and emphasizing the glass on the decrepit china cabinet, the broken mirror. Jewelry glinted, winking at her.
"You've already offered me things." Sarah's voice had become too bold. Jareth shoved her against the wall with surprising force
"And you rejected my gifts." His voice was uncomfortably soft. Sarah noticed the sounds beneath the floor and above the ceiling had ceased. The room held its breath.
"A gift is freely given…you ask for too much, Goblin King."
He was silent for a moment – only the rain continued, tentatively, outside the windowpane. Sarah could feel the wall behind the pressure of his body. She tried to move, but was held firmly immobile.
Your eyes can be so cruel…just as I can be so cruel.
He laughed, a deep sound shrouded in ominous suggestion. He pulled them both away from the wall, her body still pressed against his. She clenched her hands against him, body stiff with fear. Jareth held the crystal with his free hand before her eyes drawing her in like a moth to flame.
"Ah…precious thing," he crooned, gripping her with force, "No one can deny their dreams forever."
Sarah closed her eyes, as a gust of storm engulfed the room. The gale seemed to sweep the two into the air, hurling her virulently into oblivion. For so many years she had waited for her fears to be realized – the ghost has finally come to take her.
My second Labyrinth fanfiction! Yay!
Well, I was doing some poetry work for an English class recently, and came across a poem that really made me think of Labyrinth. From there, I found that our poetic inspiration (Syliva Plath) had written in fact MANY poems that could allude to things in Labyrinth. My friend and I have been working together -- as soon as she gets a fanfic account I'll link to hers.
This is completley different from my other story -- for those who have read my other story. Here, Jareth is a lot less nice, as you might have noticed, and it will not be quite as lovely as my other one...which I will update, I promise!
Anyhow, hope you enjoyed it!