Story: Electricity
Summary: Trapped in the Underworld by the whims of a psychotic DeviantArt printmaker and subject to the lusty molestation attempts of Jareth, Sarah finds herself, once again, having to kick butt and win her freedom. Oh, and fend off marriage proposals.
Notes: Love and laughter to all the wonderful reviewers of Hollywood Glamour - this was all written on a post-review high.
Disclaimer: Does pwning David Bowie's dance skills count?
CHAPTER ONE - In which we meet Morgoth the Great and Terrible
Sarah Williams was an idiot of the first order.
She knew, having been warned (by herself and numerous magical self-help books) that emotionally reacting to things was absolutely not permitted. At all.
Bad Sarah.
It's just, she reasoned with herself, he looked so strong and forlorn and ready for death that I really just couldn't help myself. I know he's a figure on my computer screen, but there's something in his eyes that's making my heart clench.
That was, really, the first mistake.
The second was reaching out and dragging the tip of her index finger across the screen.
In the millisecond before the screen whitened under the pressured, she wondered what his jaw would feel like if she could breach the gap and touch him.
That's when the problems started.
Across three thousand years and twenty magical barriers of varying intensity and the powerful aura of one very pissed off demon, he felt her touch.
"Fuck," he said.
"Fuck," Sarah said. She stared for a moment at her finger, which was half-submerged in her computer screen. "Fuck," she said again, wondering where exactly the tip of her index finger had gone. She couldn't feel it anymore, just the tickle of the electricity.
Then there was a whooshing noise, like the one her occasionally-clogged sink made when she flooded it with Drano, and Sarah was blinded by a flash of light. Great, she thought, now I'm sans index finger and functioning retinas, and then the light cleared.
Morgoth the Great and Terrible was having a Bad Day.
That morning his minions had (despite his very specific orders to the contrary) delivered him fourteen nubile maidens, when he had already told them that on Tuesdays he wanted fourteen strapping young men for breakfast.
Good help was so hard to come by these days.
And thus, after killing an extra hour or so maiming and torturing his useless minions, Morgoth moved onto his goal for the day: getting the soul of the Goblin King.
I suppose a little history is required here: Morgoth the Great and Terrible and Jareth the Goblin King spent a century together, back a millennia or so, at Court back when Tuala the Fierce held the throne. While for the first fifty years they got on swimmingly, about midway through the century (which is the requisite time period for any visiting monarch), something fishy happened with Morgoth's snack goats. He found some evidence (mostly via horrendously torturing the only living witness) that indicated a goblin was to blame. He demanded that Jareth hand over the offending goblin. Jareth refused.
And lo! Thus came about the Feud of the Ages Betwixt Jareth the Goblin King and Morgoth the Great and Terrible (who at that point was still just Morgoth the Terrible, having not yet earned the title of Great).
Everyone at Court who really mattered would have been happy to see a Feud of the Ages end with some dueling, because a) dueling only took about twenty minutes, while extended Feuds of the Ages could taken millennia or more, and b) they were horrendously bored, Tuala the Fierce being not that interested in courtly things as much as battle and blood and fear.
But Jareth knew that, in a proper duel, Morgoth would squish him like Jareth squished the goblins' pet cockroaches, and Jareth didn't much like the idea of being squished. So he declared with much fanfare and dramatics and glitter that he was enforcing a Feud of the Ages, and he left Court.
It took Morgoth a millennia (and the acquisition of Great after his name) to gather enough of his demon hoard to properly lay siege to the Labyrinth of the Goblin City. It turned out that Jareth hadn't exactly been sitting around twiddling his thumbs for that millennia, though, because he had bulked up the Labyrinth's security enough that in the end, Morgoth was the only one to stagger out of the hedges alive.
Morgoth the Great and Terrible, however, was enough to lay waste to most of the Goblin City.
So, as you can understand and no doubt sympathize, Morgoth wasn't happy when he blasted and cursed his way to the throne room. And it probably didn't help that when he bellowed YOU OWE ME YOUR SOUL, Jareth just snickered.
One would think that, as High Lord of the Daemon Hoard, Morgoth would garner a little more respect. He was therefore righteously indignant. GIVE ME YOUR SOUL, he bellowed again, and Jareth just looked at him and raised one of his ridiculously avian eyebrows.
"Pardon?" he asked.
Morgoth bellowed, spewed flames, and turned lots of pretty shades of purple and red. It was a very impressive display, and the goblins cowering behind Jareth's throne were duly stunned and terrified. Jareth, however, was making a great show of examining his fingernails.
"Are you done?" he said coolly. "You're getting flames all over my throne room. I'm going to smell burnt chicken for the next three hundred years, you know." He wrinkled his nose. "Though, I suppose, that's better than wet goblin."
Morgoth the Great and Terrible gnashed his (long and pointy) teeth. He gave a (very manly and demon-y) screech of rage.
"Words are nice," said Jareth condescendingly. "Use them occasionally, Morgoth."
YOUR SOUL, demanded Morgoth, having run out of witty things to say.
Jareth suddenly stiffened, and Morgoth (smelling victory), smiled a toothy smile. "Fuck," said Jareth, and then the room exploded in white light.
When the light cleared, there was a slight brunette girl standing between Morgoth and Jareth. She was frowning and her right index finger was twitching furiously. Morgoth the Great and Terrible, knowing that only a Very Important and Powerful Witch (and the Power of Broadband . . . not that he knew that) could blind the High Lord of the Daemon Horde, promptly fled with much swirling of cloak and promises of future vengeance.
"Um, wow," said Sarah. "Who was that?"
"Morgoth the Great and Terrible," said Jareth drily. "I've been trying to get rid of him for a thousand years, and of course you scare him off in ten seconds."
"Scare him off?" repeated Sarah, turning around to look at him. "How could I scare him off? What was he, a demon?"
"No doubt it was the twitching," said Jareth obliquely. "Fetching outfit you have on there, by the way." He raked his eyes down the line of her tank top.
"Stop leering," snapped Sarah, refusing to cross her arms. "And I wasn't twitching!"
"Your finger was," said Jareth, leaning back and sprawling in his throne now that the threat to his safety had been (momentarily) removed. "That's a sign of witchcraft, you know. Writing runes in the air."
"I'm not a witch," said Sarah, indignant but still slightly flattered that anyone would think a skinny college student in flannel pajama pants four sizes too big was a magical anything (other than cursed). "And it's your stupid portrait's fault."
"Is there a story behind that oblique statement?" asked Jareth, a bit hypocritically.
"One you already know," accused Sarah, narrowing her eyes. "Send me home."
"Nonsense," declared Jareth, waving a lazy hand. The leather-clad fingers curled for a moment, and then a crystal was spinning in the palm of his hand. "I didn't bring you here, so how can I send you back?"
"Well, who did then?" asked Sarah. "I have a lab in Drugs and Behavior tomorrow that I have to review for, so point me in the right direction and I'll go bother them until they send me home."
Jareth's hand stopped twirling the crystal and his finger pointed directly at Sarah.
Sarah turned around, but there was no one behind her. "What?" she said. "Me?"
"No," said Jareth. "The invisible wizard standing in front of you. Yes, Sarah. You. You brought yourself here, so only you can send you home."
Sarah was confused, so she did the first thing that came to mind. Denial.
"I did not!"
"Yes, you did."
"Oh, like I can trust you. You kidnapped me when I was fifteen and sexually harassed me for thirteen hours!"
"You wound me," said Jareth, pressing his free hand to his heart (or, the hole in his chest where his heart would be, seeing as how it was a physical impossibility for him to have one. A heart, that is. Or so was the opinion of Sarah Williams).
"Get stuffed," growled Sarah. "Preferably after you send me home."
"Come now, precious girl," said Jareth, smiling a very wicked smile. "You know the rules of magic, don't you? I can't go about undoing someone else's spells. It either wouldn't work or it would misfire wonderfully."
"On you?" said Sarah. "I think I could live with that consequence. Try it."
"Oh no, I rather like me the way I am right now." He grinned. "I am, however, willing to watch you try to undo your little dilemma."
"I didn't do this!" said Sarah. "I touched the stupid – the picture! Ah-HA!" She triumphantly punched her fist in the air. "I told you it wasn't me. It was the portrait-painter." She stopped doing her mad dance of happiness (which had involved lots of flailing of limbs) and shot a look at Jareth.
The King of the Goblins looked faintly amused. "Who?" he asked.
"The person on DeviantArt," said Sarah. "The one who painted the portrait of you. There must have been something in the painting itself, because when I touched my computer screen . . . poof, blinding light, here I am."
"Deviant Art?" repeated Jareth. "That does not sound like the sort of organization you should be trifling with, Sarah."
"Oh my god, you overprotective freak," said (growled) Sarah. "Get a life. But first, help me find Flight-O'er-Demon-Fancy."
"Who?" asked Jareth, trying valiantly not to snicker and failing.
"The artist. Obviously if they painted you they were taken by the Labyrinth. And how many of those can be wandering around, operating a Mac? I mean, really. English-speaking world, the past twenty years. How many people is that? Forty? Fifty?"
Jareth looked vaguely guilty. Because that was a look Sarah would not normally associate with such a terrifying and glittery personage, she was properly worried. "Jareth. How many English-speaking children have you kidnapped in the past twenty years?"
"Including Toby?" asked Jareth, obviously stalling for time.
"No."
"Er. Around . . . thirty-two hundred. Give or take a few score."
"What?" exclaimed Sarah, plopping down on the floor. Ignoring Jareth's interjected "You really, really don't know where those cobblestones have been," she continued, "I thought no one believed in goblins anymore!"
"That doesn't stop them from wishing," said Jareth, looking amused again. "Would you like a list of the names? I'm sure I have it on a scroll around here somewhere."
"Are you kidding?" demanded Sarah. "If I had another twenty years I probably couldn't find all those people." She groaned and slumped forward until her head hit the floor in front of her. She then wrinkled her nose and sat up quickly. "Ew, your floor smells gross."
"I warned you," replied Jareth. "Such a pity . . ."
"Oh, shut up," said Sarah.
Wings O'er Demon Fancy was the slightly portly brother of a more than slightly portly girl who had the misfortune to be born with a scream that would've deafened a blue whale; thus, the Sister of Wings O'er Demon Fancy (who, being a minor character, does not require the creative output of a name), was willfully wished away at the tender age of thirty-two.
Her brother, aged twenty-five, ran the Labyrinth, lost, and wasn't much dismayed by it. The magic glittery powder stuff of her kidnapper happened to have the dual effect of making the world forget his sister ever existed and rendering eternal inspiration on Wings O'er Demon Fancy.
And despite his proclivity for melodramatic misnomers, Wings O'er Demon Fancy was pretty handy with the Photoshop tablet. His portrait of the glittery King of Goblins (he, unlike Sarah, never met Hoggle and thus was never gifted with the name of his muse) was one of the highest-selling prints on DeviantArt, so it was to be expected that eventually Sarah Williams would stumble across it.
In the odd way of the universe, Wings O'er Demon Fancy, aged forty-five and three months, knew Sarah Williams quite well. He lived, in fact, across the hall from our plucky protagonist, and spent any time not sucking in the glow of his computer screen with his eye pressed to his peep hole, watching his neighbor struggle with her groceries.
She was totally hot, you see. And while struggling with said foodstuffs, usually the back of her cardigan rode up and her boyfriend jeans rode low and Wings O'er Demon Fancy could get a glimpse of the small of her back.
Creepy? Perhaps. But inspirational. Within four weeks of Sarah moving in (and three grocery expeditions, one stereo purchase, and five outings to Anteek, Vintage Clothes for Grunge Prices), he had a new portrait of the slim figure of the King of Goblin's harem girl.
He sold out of his initial prints in forty-eight hours.
I was just so flattered and inspired by all the great reviews that I got for Hollywood Glamour that I decided to, once again, venture into Labyrinth territory. This is a multi-chapter, but I'm not sure how long, exactly, it'll be. I do know, however, that possessive!Jareth will make quite an appearance . . . around the same time Sarah's boyfriend does, coincidentally . . . XD
Thoughts?