AN: This is the Sarah/Jareth love story you all never thought I'd write. I never thought so, either.
Petite, charming, innocuous-seeming. Those were all words to describe the young woman who stood before the Goblin King. Wicked, shrewd, and menacing were also good adjectives. The smile that she was giving him was full of teeth as pointed as his own, as well as the kind of capricious mischief Faery were so very capable of. He was unused to being on the receiving end of such a smile.
"Goblin King," she said in a pleasant alto, "We can do this one of two ways. The first: You give me what I ask, and I leave, taking nothing else with me. The second: I wrap your soul seven times around my finger. I never leave, and we belong to one another... Forever. I doubt that is a charming proposition for you." She finished with a wry, slightly mocking sort of smile. Jareth felt his own mouth twist bitterly.
"They were right to cast you out, Changeling." He drawled in a deceptively casual way. He smiled like a cat, inwardly, when he saw the slight flinch that was her initial response. The banishment was obviously a source of pain. It was almost humorous; two exiled, incomplete Faery sparring for control.
"You are attempting to distract me." She stated freezingly. It's working, too, Jareth thought triumphantly.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. You're so young to be so cynical." He purred. She didn't respond to the seductive undertones, and her own magic counteracted the charm. Instead of melting, she gave him a predatory smile of her own.
"As old as the hills, Goblin King. As old as the hills." She laughed suddenly, bitterly. "And never have I seen such stupidity as we two, who have so much in common, divided by pettiness! We should work together. Surely our ends will be accomplished all the sooner that way, eh?" She appeared to relax. Jareth lounged less stiffly on his throne, pretending to relax as well. But the wary tension still made the air thrum inaudibly.
"Perhaps you have a point, Changeling. There are certain tasks which I currently find myself unable to accomplish. The unique situation of one such as yourself makes you ideal for such undertakings." He eyed the human-seeming female. To all appearances she was a girl of roughly sixteen years, short and small boned, with pale skin liberally if lightly freckled. It was a well-made glamour, and had probably taken the skill of several Kings and Queens of Faery. It amused him, somewhat, to think of the feuding monarchs coming together in the effort to remove this individual from their society.
The smile vanished. He had removed himself, ages ago. He still remembered the night he had witnessed the Tithe, the seven year contract with the infernal that many Faery had bought into, in exchange for certain benefits. The exchange of a soul for favor from the Prince of Darkness. The ceremony had turned his stomach, and he had left. The goblins, poor, stupid things, had followed him Underground. It was a strange place, apart from both the world of mortals and that of Faery. It was as if the realm had come into existence from his desire to escape from Tir n'Og.
He gently moved the reverie to the back of his mind. The girl was watching him with slight impatience in her green eyes. "I will do as you ask," he said slowly, "If you will agree to what I ask of you. " She waited. "There is a girl. A truly extraordinary human, whom I met recently. She showed... Remarkable strength. She defeated the Labyrinth." She defeated me. "I fear that her unusual characteristics, combined with her bonds with my real, will make her an unusually desirable Samhain guest." The other Faery nodded in understanding of his sentiment. He was somewhat taken aback. He had expected laughter, jeers for his affection. Hope rose inside him.
"I would ask that you keep her from harm, to the best of your ability. I would see to it myself, except... She has suspended my influence over her." He finished in a voice just above a whisper. He glanced up, expecting scorn. Instead, her eyes glittered with sympathy and compassion. "Do you accept this exchange?" He asked briskly, imperiously. Her mouth tightened.
"I do accept this exchange. You will be content then to wait?" She asked, beginning in tones of formality and then rising in a curious inquiry. Jareth cocked his head, wondering how it was that she could go from threatening cruelties to offering earnest concern so quickly.
"I shall wait. Then, let it be known that this agreement is binding, and that neither shall break it unless it is rescinded by both, elsewise dying." His voice was not raised, nor did he add any grandiose note to it. But He who is Everything heard the agreement, and acknowledged it in His own quiet way. This done, the Faery beings looked at one another. New respect was in both gazes. Finally, with a half-mocking flourish of a bow, the girl left the way she had come. Quietly.
o0o
Sarah threw herself on her bed with a glad smile. The last of her friends had disappeared, back to the Labyrinth in their own unusual ways, she supposed. Then a thought began to nibble at the edges of her contentment. Not even a whole thought, more a notion. She punched her pillow in a mild show of frustration. Sarah had expected to fall asleep instantly: She'd spent thirteen- ten, really- hours walking or running, or even falling, and then she'd topped that off with three more hours of partying with the creatures of the Labyrinth.
Here she was though, wide awake, trying to catch a thought that was giving her a feeling of discomfit. She pressed her hands to her face and groaned, almost thinking, It's not fair! when a handsome face popped into her mind, drawling "I wonder what your basis for comparison is?" in an oddly bitter sort of way. She scowled. What could his basis for comparison be? He ruled a fantastic kingdom full of strange and wonderful things. She doubted if he lacked for anything! He'd certainly never been bored, and no one had ever tried to make him do anything he didn't want to. He was a wizard and a king!
The next morning, understandably, Sarah woke feeling like someone had dropped a ton of crystals on her. Feeling piteous, she limped to the bathroom. Eyes half lidded, she started to squeeze toothpaste onto her toothbrush. "Sarah?" She yelped, and the toothpaste wound up on the counter. Then she relaxed.
"Hoggle!" She exclaimed. The dwarf's brown face looked concerned.
"Sarah, why ain't you talked to no one? It's been two days since anybody sawr ya!" His voice was oddly distant, coming out of the mirror. Sarah sighed.
"It's only been five hours since I went to sleep. And I could have kept on sleeping for five more hours, except I have church." She felt slightly unreal, saying this. Church seemed like a thing of the past, something she'd watched some other person do. But she could hardly go to her father and sat, "Dad, having been to realms out of this world, and met creatures that even myths don't talk about, all that talk about brimstone and hellfire seems somewhat pedantic." A slight grin crossed her sleep-bleary face at this thought. She hadn't believed in all that before the Labyrinth, and she wasn't entirely sure she believed in it now. She supposed she'd find out.
"And, anyway, Hoggle, I can't be expected to talk to all of you all the time. It wouldn't be practical." She lectured her friend reasonably. The dwarf grunted, about to say something. Then a voice came through the door to the bathroom.
"Sarah? What are you doing in there?" That was Karen, of course. Her stepmother was never at her best early in the morning and staying out late last night had done nothing to improve her grouchiness. Sarah resisted the impulse to roll her eyes.
"I'm brushing my teeth! I'll be a minute!" She called through the door, trying her hardest to sound pleasant. She heard her stepmother grumble a bit about the wait, and finished her tooth cleaning in record time. Passing the slightly bedraggled looking Karen, Sarah smiled brightly. "Morning!" She sang out. Then she ignored the muttered reply and suspicious squint she got in return and sailed into her bedroom. Hoggle was standing near her tangled bed. He was scowling darkly and twisting the skullcap she had never seen him take off in his knobbly hands.
"There's trouble," he said shortly, "Ah can tell. 'Course, there's always some trouble on the make in the Labyrinth—" she smiled—"But this is different. Ah can feel it in my bones. Some of the goblins what still talks to me 'ave told me some pretty strange stuff. Yesterday there was some girl in the castle. She were talkin to the Rat, like. And she weren't no Runner, or even a Wisher. She whaddn't Wished Away, neither. Humans don't come to the Underground without a wish." Hoggle said stoutly, scowling ferociously, as if this breach in the ordinary way of things was a personal insult.
Sarah bit her lips. The only other time she had seen her friend so indignant was when she had snatched his jewels away from him. It was hard for her to talk seriously about things on ordinary Sunday mornings. It was downright impossible right then. She could still remember the elation of remembering the Right Words, and using the "fantasy nonsense" she held so dear to save herself and her baby brother. In her giddy frame of mind, it was difficult to attach the same gravity to this news as he seemed to.
"Hoggle, I'm sure it's nothing to do with any of us. Besides, what's so bad about a human girl talking to the Goblin King? He talked to me, and I'm a human girl." She honestly didn't mean to sound patronizing; it just came out that way. She felt a kind of lurch inside her as she said the title. She waved it aside as lingering fear from her adventure. She'd get over the trepidation she felt eventually. He has no power over me, anyway! Sarah thought, unconsciously straightening. Then her attention refocused on Hoggle, and she realized that she had offended him. But before she could say anything, he launched into a sort of controlled rant.
"Oh, well, of course. You must be right, you bein' human. After all, what do I know? I'm only an old dwarf with no sort of sense at all." He growled. Sarah reached out to him, but he jerked his arm away from her reassuring touch. "I'll be off then, since there's nothing a girl as wise an' knowledgeable as you could possibly want from her stupid dwarf friend." He stepped purposefully toward the vanity mirror, then suddenly turned around. "I may be ignorant, Sarah, but I ain't stupid." Hoggle told her fiercely. Tears sprang into her eyes, making them swim with washed green. The dwarf vanished.
"Hoggle!" Sarah cried out, miserably. "I need you! I do." She sniffed and wiped at her tears angrily with a pajama sleeve. Then she sat down at the vanity, staring morosely at the room in the mirror. No friendly face appeared behind her. She couldn't believe it, the surly old dwarf that she'd grown to love and trust was gone, and it was all her fault. "I do take things for granted." Sarah murmured sadly.
"Sarah, you really can't go around having these melodramatic flights of fantasy all the time. It's not normal! No wonder you have problems making friends, you probably scare everyone off with your silly playacting!" Karen said irritably, standing in the doorway. Sarah gaped at her, aghast. How long had her stepmother been there? "All this make believe... No wonder you're so irresponsible! You live in a fantasy world! No one can go through life playing at, at princesses and dragons! It isn't practical!" Sarah listened to her rant with growing resentment.
"Maybe I don't want to be practical! I may live in a fantasy, but it looks like fantasy trumps reality every time, to me! You and Dad both, you seem to think that I'll never get anywhere unless I'm like you! Well, I don't want to be a secretary, or a housewife. I want to be a theatre actress, so apparently my "melodramatic flights of fantasy" are pretty practical after all!" Sarah's voice was cold, and shook from the effort to keep from screaming at the woman. For a moment, Karen simply stood and glared. When she spoke, her voice was deadly soft.
"I've tried, for two long years, to be understanding of you, Sarah. All I ever wanted to do was to help you grow up happy and successful. But all I ever got in return was resentment, and I am not going to take that from you for very much longer. Now you can either learn to respect me, or we can make other arrangements." Her stepmother said this all in a very reasonable, sure tone of voice. Sarah's indignation grew with each word spoken. Finally, she could bear it no longer.
"Understanding? When have you ever tried to be understanding of me? All you ever do is discourage me, and tell me how weird I am, and what a normal girl should do. How can you even say that, you hypocrite? You've never respected me, or my dreams!" Sarah screamed, tears flowing down her face and burning angrily in her eyes. Karen's eyes grew wide and outraged. When the girl fell silent, she drew herself up in her satin bathrobe, eyes blazing. She stalked away without a word. Sarah threw herself down onto the bed and sobbed wretchedly. Life had seemed so wonderful, just a few hours ago.
It seemed like such a short time. Then, she lost one of her best friends in any world, and was probably in more trouble than she'd ever been in in her entire life. It occurred to her to wonder how this could possibly be of ordinary causes. Surely it wasn't possible to screw up this royally all on one's own? The thin, menacing face of the Goblin King swam into her mind. But, no, he couldn't be affecting her. Could he? She had a thoroughly wretched feeling that these tangly problems were all her own fault. First she'd insulted Hoggle, taking it for granted that he would be able to forgive his friend anything. Then, stupidly, she'd gone and shot off her mouth to Karen, assuming that her spoiled status as Daddy's Little Girl was unshakable. She fervently hoped it was.
She heard her father's heavy footsteps on the stairs. Her heart skipped a beat, he was walking with a slow, weighty sort of purpose that told her he was angry. She swallowed painfully. She had heard him walk like that only five or six times in her entire life. Sarah wiped her eyes hurriedly, knowing that a display of tears would only make her father more angry in this mood. Then he was standing in the door with a face like thunder. The flush that covered his face was almost a match for his plush maroon bathrobe.
"Sarah, I need to speak to you." He said gravely. She glanced up at him and then looked away, heart sinking. She waited for him to continue, but he seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
"Sure, Dad." Sarah muttered with a fake normality. She resisted the urge to use the childish "Daddy" as a ploy to remind him that she was the apple of his eye. Even if she had fallen out of favor. Karen shot her a gloating look over her husband's shoulder.
"Your mother just told me that you yelled at her, again. Is this true, Sarah?" The affection that usually coloured his voice when he said her name was gone, frozen out. Sarah looked up at him, opening her mouth to defend herself. But the look on his face told her that he didn't really care about the circumstances. Only about her transgression. Sarah felt like a woman on Death Row.
"Yeah." She said, accidentally sounding surly. Her father exploded.
"You are so disrespectful! How you wound up like this, I don't know. We always try to respect you Sarah, but apparently that hasn't encouraged you to return the courtesy. Karen is your stepmother, and like it or not, you do owe her respect, both as a parent and an adult! The same respect you owe me! And, your attitude has just been worse and worse. We can't handle it anymore, and I don't think we should have to!" Sarah numbly let his voice wash over her. She felt exhausted, and hoped her bad luck would be, too.