What's real?
"Toby!" She cried with a despair lacing her voice as she saw her two year old little brother sitting on the ledge just below her. Realizing what she had to do she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and jumped what would later be remembered for years as "the leap of faith".
As she fell, it wasn't the quick, terrifying decent that she had expected, but rather slow and finalizing. Opening her eyes in confusion, she found herself in a small area, with pieces of the room floating every where around her. Look around her in confusion, she caught sight of Jareth standing in one of the many surrounding archways. The child was no where to be found.
"Give me the child." She said the so familiar words, but for once they weren't just lines. The had meaning, and feeling such as she never could have normally put in.
"Sarah - beware. I have been generous up until now, but I can be cruel." He replied, stepping out of the shadows he had been lurking in.
"Generous," she challenged in an unbelieving voice as she advanced towards him. "What have you done that is generous?"
"Everything!" he spat back, starting to walk around her to emphasize what he was saying. "Everything you wanted, I have done. You ask that the child be taken, I took him. You cowered before me, I was frightening." The clock that had insistently followed her through-out the Labyrinth, always there to remind her of how badly she had done, appeared in the air behind him, hands racing around. "I have re-ordered time, and I have done it all for-you-. I am tired of living up to your expectations. Isn't -that- generous?" He stopped standing in front of her, staring into her fig green eyes.
Taking another step forward, she refused to let him brake eye contact as she continued to recite the well known lines. "Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way her to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child which you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours," There wasn't as much effort put into them as the last time she had said it, but the power was there never the less. Some might have even said there was more.
Startled, he held up his hand, as though to ward off the coming doom. "Stop!" he interrupted, a pleading tone lacing his voice. "Wait! Sarah, look- look at what I can offer you. Your dreams." He held up his hand, summoning a crystal to it. Holding it out in front of him, he smiled a hopeful smile.
"For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great." She resumed, taking a another step forward, ignoring the crystal in his hand.
"I ask for so little. Just believe in me, and you can have everything you want... everything you've ever dreamed of..." He said as he took a step back, fear now prevalent in his voice.
"For my kingdom as great," she repeated quietly under her breath, trying in vain to remember the one line that had always eluded her. Now more than ever those words were needed.
Seizing on his one last chance, he said once last plea. "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I... I will be you slave."
Looking up as though having been awoken from a dream, she stated in a simple voice, "You have no power over me."
-You have no power over me... power over me... power over me...- the words were picked up and echoed around, it's killing power reaching to every end of the kingdom she had created, destroying it more with each echo.
With a look of sorrow on his face, he tossed the crystal into the air, and then transformed into an owl so he could flee the fate his kingdom was facing. Before he went he quietly whispered her name one last time.
Holding out her hand, she tried to grasp falling crystal in her hand, but it had become a bubble which hovered on her fingertips for a second before it disappeared. Somewhere a clock began to chime that her time was finally up. She had won. But if that were the case, why was she standing in her front hall, crying?
Standing above her bed, he saw the tears, and they tore at his heart. He knew what had caused them, but he also knew that there was nothing he could do. She had both created and destroyed his world, and without it he was nothing more than a shadow seen from the corner of her eye.
He kept hope though, because he was. She must still have remembered him in some small recess of her mind.
"Did you win, my dear Sarah? Some would say 'yes', but I do not think you agree. I see the tears you cry each night unknowingly, and I know why they exist. I think that only in your dreams do you truly understand what you have lost, for when you wake you know only of the sadness that plagues you.
"I am here Sarah, and my offer still remains. Just believe me and I will be your slave. Think of me at a time other than your dreams, and I will do your every bidding. It is a small thing I ask for, and yet so very hard.
"You were always so believing before our little adventure. You must have been to have taken such a dream as that mentioned in your little book and make it a real place. Even I was just a half thought of thing.
"Do you know off all the symbolism you placed into your little maze? It amazes me even now that you were only 15 when you did so. You exhibited wisdom beyond your years. Even now I forget that you have only aged a few years. You almost seem as old as I am at times, and yet you always have an innocence about you that even I do not understand." Reaching out his hand, he brushed back a few stray hairs that had fallen across her face, then leaned in and tenderly kissed her forehead.
"Just remember my dear, sweet Sarah that no matter what happens I am here for you."
Okay, I know that this isn't my normal style, and I know you all are probably waiting for a new chapter in Careless Whispers. It was just something that I seized on a couple of days ago. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it...