A/N: HI EVERYBODY! This is sort of a sequel to Bathtime, though it obviously does not follow immediately afterwards, and you don't have to read that one at all in order to read this one. Also, I wanted to thank Leia1 for the awesome illustration she made for Bathtime. I feel honoured that somebody saw fit to draw a picture of something that I've written.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Labyrinth or its characters.
It is the hope of parents everywhere that if an order or a piece of advice is repeated every day, every month, of every year to their offspring, that that nugget of wisdom will someday be internalized. Sarah's parents were no different. While Karen was more typically the one to spew continuous obvious instruction ("When you do the laundry always use *this* much detergent. See, LOOK. *This* much." "God, Karen. I KNOW how to do laundry!") Sarah's father had his own sage points that he liked to share. Over the course of twenty-four years of exasperatingly repetitive counsel from her father, at least one habit had finally stuck through: Make sure to pack a lunch for tomorrow.
So, after years of conditioning, Sarah diligently constructed her next day's meal: slathering mustard on a slice of wheat bread, slicing her tomato, getting out the cheese, the leftover chicken, spreading mayonnaise generously on the other slice of bread. Once the sandwich was complete, she turned from her sink towards her pantry, nearly tripping over the dwarf that stood right behind her.
"Aghh! JESUS, Hoggle! A person could get a heart attack from being snuck up on like that!" Sarah placed her hand to her heart, which thumped with the spike of adrenaline.
Hoggle twisted his hands abashedly. "I'm sorry, Sarah! I didn't mean to scare you, honest. I've come on urgent business. You gotta come back with me right away."
"What's going on? And how long will it take? Hoggle, I have class to teach tomorrow."
"Something's gone wrong with Jareth. He's…in a bad state. You'd better come check it out. He had shut himself up in his laboratory in the West Tower working on a new spell or somethin', and we just found him today."
"Wait—he isn't being moody about me punching him in the nose last time, is he? Because he totally had that coming." Sarah crossed her arms defensively. Who chased people in towels around anyways? Perverts.
"No, uh—nothin' like that. This has nothing to do with you, I don' think. Just come with me."
"Okay, fine. Let me put away my sandwich first."
"You incompetent fools! How is it that not one of you has the capacity to write? Shallower than glasses of water, the lot of you!" raged Jareth's voice, somewhat muffled behind the heavy door at the top of the tower.
The yelling from behind the door cut off and was replaced with a series of sharp barks and growls. Sarah and Hoggle jumped slightly at a loud crash of metal, and Sarah paused with her hand on the doorknob. "You idiot!" came Jareth's cry. "Unhand my person!"
Sarah burst into the room abruptly at those words. She found herself in a sort of laboratory at the top of the tower, its workbenches filled with strange contraptions, jars filled with what appeared to be different colours of smoke lining the walls. Jareth was nowhere in sight, but the source of the barking was made obvious in the form of a huge, shaggy, grey dog, growling and shaking a goblin by the scruff of its neck. The goblin gibbered madly, struggling in the jaws of the enormous dog. Another armoured goblin dizzily picked itself up from the wreckage of one of the benches, copper instruments twisted and bent around it. Two more goblins were cautiously backing away from the hound.
"Hey!" Sarah yelled at the dog. "Put him down!"
The dog dropped the goblin to the floor, baring its teeth in a growl as the goblin scuttled away, picking up its horned helmet from where it had fallen on the floor. It turned towards her, straightening up to its full height. Jeezus—the thing looks over three feet tall. From across the room its eyes met hers with an intensity that was foreign to Sarah in such an animal, not the soulful, brown eyes of her now deceased Merlin. She could have sworn that one of the eyes flashed blue.
"Ah, Sarah. How fortunate for you to have arrived," spoke the dog in cool British tones.
A/N: Now that I am done writing my personal statement (blegh) I am putting my writing efforts into more fun endeavors-namely science-y spoofs of pop songs and Labyrinth fanfic. I have also been playing a lot of Skyrim. I got the idea for this story when I was playing Skyrim, actually, when I was playing the talking dog quest. That quest was a lot of fun for me, so I decided to send Sarah on a quest with a talking dog of her own.
