Timekeeper
Somewhere on the edges of your imagination, there is a Labyrinth. It twists and turns like wicked thoughts, and no one, no man, woman, or child, has ever reached its center, for this Labyrinth is the product of dreams. Taking the form of your deepest, most desperate desire, it will tempt you, only to reveal itself in the end as the culmination of your worst nightmares. That is why no one ever succeeds.
This Labyrinth has a King, and its citizens are his subjects. Collectively, the majority of the Labyrinth's inhabitants are known as goblins, and so he is called the Goblin King. There are, however, a few denizens of the Labyrinth that do not answer to the King. This girl is one of them.
Her name is Sarah.
Sarah has not lived here for very long, though at times it seems like an eternity. Like the larger part of the goblins, she possesses no particular occupation, excepting of course, when there is a runner. Then, she is the timekeeper.
Nothing in the Labyrinth ever ages, or, if it does, it does so very slowly and as unnoticeably as possible, so as not to attract the Goblin King's attention. Time, for all intents and purposes, ceases to exist in the Labyrinth. For this reason, the timekeeper's job is a very important one.
There are three things required by the timekeeper at the start of each runner's challenge. First, there is the candle-clock. It is made of the purest white beeswax, and each of the thirteen hours is marked by a slim red line that runs around the candle. Thirteen hours is the length of time allotted to each runner, and every runner runs alone. Since time is only kept then, Sarah only ever needs one candle at a time. Because the runners always lose, the timekeeper also requires a single candle-snuffer. Lastly, the timekeeper must find a place to keep time in private, far away from any possible disturbances during the run. As a result, Sarah spends most of her time alone.
One might wonder why time needs to be kept when the runners always lose, and the reason is this: should some runner ever claim to have won, or to have been cheated out of time, the Goblin King will be able to call upon the timekeeper, who is always impartial, for proof. And she will give it to him. And the runner will have lost.
Sarah was once a runner.
She lost.
She does not know who the timekeeper was then. If she had to guess, she would say it was probably the old man with the funny talking hat—but she would be wrong. Sarah had no timekeeper when she ran.
I hear you protest: How can Sarah have run without a timekeeper? She must not have run.
You are wrong. Yes, Sarah ran. She ran, but by different rules than the rest of the runners. When Sarah ran, the Labyrinth was a different place. It had encountered a strange paradox, because Sarah's dreams were nightmares, and her nightmares were dreams. The Labyrinth didn't know what to do with her, and it fell apart. If anyone, any runner every won by default, it was Sarah.
That is why Sarah is timekeeper now.
Outside of her equipment as timekeeper and her sole once-white bedraggled nightgown, Sarah has only one possession that she truly values. It is a mask. This is odd, because Sarah used to despise masks of any sort, but it looks well on her. It is simple, ivory-white and plain, with no adornments. It covers her entire face when she wears it, held up in the back with ties of red silk that have long since turned to rust. Sarah likes to wear it with pinkish flowers woven into her dark hair.
When time runs out, she fixes it to her face, walks to just outside the Labyrinth's center, and begins to dance.
As the world falls down, the Goblin King, though she does not call him that, joins her.
Strangers up until that moment, they always find their path between the stars. They have forever, but without time, it's not long at all.
Disclaimer: I do not own it. Not even a little bit.
Author's Note: This... is not what I expected to write. This is very weird. Normally I have some semblance of control over my creations. Not this time. It's strange and convoluted and confusing, and a good deal darker than what I had in mind, but I quite like it, and I think it still communicates my point. I was originally inspired by a singularly beautiful piece of artwork by Brian Froud, who is (and if you don't already know this, shame on you) the original conceptual artist for the film. He published a book of artwork used to create and direct the look of the film, and among them was a painting of a girl, presumably Sarah, sitting with her back to a candle-clock and snuffer. The candle had been burnt most of the way down, and the flame is gone. Sarah holds a white mask in the hand she clutches her knee to her chest with, and gazes downward half-sadly, half-wistfully. She is obviously in the Labyrinth, barefoot, and might be waiting for something. I wondered what, had a romantic and nostalgic idea, but now that it has found its way to paper, I find that my idea has transfigured and transformed until it is almost unrecognizable. But I think that's okay, in this case. Please review!