Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth. I do not own Jareth.
AN: Morrigan is from ShinyVampiricArmor's story Masquerade that I am coauthor of. There is a brief reference to Autumn as well.
It glowed. Lit from the inside. A beautiful shade of gold, lost quickly in deepest navy. Pure silence followed showing it to be the false cousin.
"Standing in the dark, staring at lightening. Should I be worried about you Morrigan?" The voice was darkness itself, wrapping easily around her. She didn't turn. For a split second, she was edged in the same brilliant gold as the clouds. In that second, she looked as elemental as the sky. In the next, she was a dark outline against a darker sky.
"It's just heat lightening." She couldn't even see the lightening itself. Merely the blooming of gold and silver light within the clouds. Not a true storm at all. But it was the possible precursor to a truly terrible storm. The kind where she stepped outside and was soaked in an instant. The kind of wild storms she loved. Purely elemental.
Another bloom of gold would have shown wild blonde hair and sparking blue eyes. It would have shown a tall, angular man cloaked in wild power. It would have shown the same light and silence that the sky displayed. However, Morrigan was far more entranced by the shifting sky that was only intermittently lit.
Even as Jareth watched her staring at the sky, he couldn't help but think she was as elemental as the wild sky. The biggest difference was the sky at the moment was full of false warning. His lady was often full of warning, but it was rarely if ever false. She half turned. Another flash of illumination turned her hair to lightening and her eyes to stars, before both were lost again to the night. He closed his eyes for a moment and allowed the magic that made him seem human to fall. When he opened them she was clearly visible, but not backlit by the heat lightening. Her eyes gleamed, not unlike a cat's as she looked at him.
He was wild. Raw magic and wild nature. And that was what made him who he was. He was not some tame being who hid from storms. He rode them out. He commanded them. And he was currently standing in her dorm room as though it was his kingdom. Smiling, Morrigan turned back to the window. The natural fireworks could not be seen every night. Jareth, she could see fairly regularly. These wild nights were hers. And by a stroke of luck, her roommate was staying in a friend's room because they had planned to play video games late that night.
He shook his head. Sometimes he could not understand the apparent fascination she had with storms. It was water and electricity. Nothing special. He opened his mouth only to be cut off.
"They are opposites but don't consume each other." Morrigan looked at Jareth again. "The lightening and the water shouldn't be able to coexist. They should consume each other." She turned back to the window. "But they don't."
He held out a faintly glowing crystal, edging everything in the room in silver. She glanced at him over her shoulder. There were a few differences tonight. His eyes caught the dim light and literally glowed dual toned blue. His ears, usually normal, were slightly pointed. He seemed fractionally taller. His hair had lengthened a few inches. And his gloves were missing.
That made her turn around. Jareth always wore his gloves. Always. Another flash of lightening illuminated him further. There was something...unleashed about his appearance tonight. Almost as though he were the heat lightening personified. Morrigan smiled slightly at that. Jareth was far more dangerous than heat lightening. Jareth was more akin to playing with a forest fire during a drought with sixty mile an hour winds that kept changing directions.
It is a very good thing I like playing with fire, he thought as he looked at the smile she was giving him. Though he doubted she knew it, she was dangerous. He would rather play with live wires in the ocean than make her truly angry. He continued to offer the slightly glowing orb. A chain of heat lightening lit up the night sky behind her shades of gold, navy, and violet. For half a second, her long red hair appeared chocolate, and her luminescent blue green eyes were a matte emerald. Then the past vanished from his eyes and he was staring at Morrigan again. And she was much closer than he remembered.
When his eyes flew wide, his mind clearly elsewhere, Morrigan moved to catch the crystal. She had a very good guess where his mind had gone. After all, many stories that consumed their characters started on dark and stormy nights. The crystal had no temperature. It was neither cold nor hot. In fact, if it weren't for the slightest of weights, she would think her hand was empty.
Strangely, in the next flash of lightening, he was gone. She looked down at the crystal. It was empty save for the edges seemed to have traces of captured starlight. Moving to her desk, Morrigan set it on the rim of her empty coffee cup. She got ready for bed wondering what had made him leave.
Heat lightening, Jareth decided, was too hot to handle. Especially around women with long hair. He realized that he must have dropped the crystal at some point. Shaking his head and allowing the slight illusion he always wore to reform, he was mildly disappointed. If he had not become lost in the past again he could have granted her unspoken, unthought wish. It was what he had created the crystal for. He gave a heavy sigh before climbing into bed, trying not to think of how much she would have appreciated the gift.
Morrigan glanced at the dimly glowing crystal as she laid in bed. She closed her eyes, deciding for once her curiosity could wait till morning. She just hoped that the crystal wouldn't decide to explode and ruin her coffee cup.
As she slipped off to sleep, the crystal that Jareth assumed had broken dissolved, releasing the furious storm that Morrigan secretly wished for.
AN2: For those of you unfamiliar with heat lightening, it truly is a silent form of lightening that occurs in extreme heat and can be the precursor to a terrible storm. Yes, this story was inspired by a fierce bout of said lightening. And, oddly, it did rain terribly the next morning.