Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape or form own Labyrinth or any of its characters. The assorted goblins mentioned, however, are my brain children.
Sarah twirled in her silvery powder blue dress, letting the filmy material puff and sway around her. Fairies came out of nowhere to laugh and play with her as she spun. Her hair flew out behind her as she frolicked around, arms outstretched mimicking the flight of the fairies as they giggled at her. A breeze caressed her as she came to a stop, toying with her hair and the edges of her dress. The fairies, still tinkling melodiously, flew off, resembling helter-skelter balls of light, as a gentle, misty rain began to fall.
Sarah ran for cover as the rain began to pick up. She ducked into a tunnel and…there he was.
"Jareth.." Sarah murmured, turning over in her sleep.
Jareth's eyes fluttered open immediately. He felt a prickly sensation dance across his skin, the faint feel of something forgotten remembered. Sitting up amongst the grey silk of the bed sheets, he seemed to glow like a fallen star with his wild mane of pale blonde hair and cream-colored skin. He could've sworn he heard a voice. A voice that haunted his dreams and waking moments alike had pierced his slumber with a soft call. His name. She'd spoken his name. Briefly his eyes closed in pain. It could just be his imagination, a cruel echo of his own desires. But this feeling… To speculate was useless. With a graceful flick of wrist and fingers he summoned a crystal.
He leaned above her, his elbow resting on the stone wall with his hand against his head. "Sarah, are you enjoying my labyrinth?"
"I love it." Sarah whispered back, wrapping her arms around the leather collar of his jacket. His free arm encircled her waist as she pressed her lips to his. She pulled him closer aggressively.
"Why, precious!" Jareth breathed delightedly. He watched with great interest as Sarah proceeded to kiss him passionately and all but knock him down. Just as Sarah's hands started to play with the belt on his jacket, the crystal went blank. "Oh, Sarah you tease." Jareth chuckled softly.
For the second time, Sarah woke with her arms around her pillow. "We really have to stop meeting like this." She addressed the object in her arms wryly. Disentangling herself from her bedclothes, which had somehow become tangled all around her as she'd romped with her pillow, she stretched and meandered downstairs to fix herself breakfast.
Jareth leaned back into his pillows contentedly. He could see her dreams. Ever since that night five years ago and her declaration to him- "You have no power over me"- he'd been unable to see or interfere with her dreams. He'd also been unable to appear to her, although he found that if he remained in his owl form a suitable distance away he could watch her without finding himself suddenly back in the Underground. He'd had to content himself the last five years with watching from afar, be it by crystal or from a tree, as she completed her transformation from a strikingly pretty girl into a beautiful woman. Now the only check on his powers was gone. He'd seen one of Sarah's dreams. And she'd dreamed of him. He tapped the crystal to view her dream from the beginning. 'Has she had other dreams about me?' He wondered curiously. With yet another elegant wrist flick he pulled a peach out of thin air. 'The Kingdom can survive without me for a while.' He mused, settling in and getting comfortable as he took a bite out of the peach.
Merlin rubbed up against Sarah's leg and she patted him distractedly. Absentmindedly she scratched behind his ears. "Now if I was a newspaper, where would I hide?" Merlin closed his eyes as she scratched him harder, looking about for the newspaper. "Ah-hah!" The printed news lay barely a foot from the curb on the sidewalk. "That paper boy must have an arm that makes all the other residents of the nursing home jealous." Sarah snorted, bending down to pick up the paper.
"Nah, I always figured he was just lazy." A voice from beside her disagreed.
Sarah nearly fell on top of Merlin in her surprise. Looking up she saw Brad Johnson from across the street. Brad had graduated high school a year ahead of her. He'd been the quarterback of the football team and the resident heart-throb of their small town. Many teenage girls had envied Sarah solely on the basis of her home's location.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." Brad apologized, offering her a hand to help her up. "It's Sarah, right?"
"Yes, I'm Sarah. Thanks." She was surprised he knew her name. The social elite of high school had been unaware of her existence as far as she had known, and, quite frankly, that was the way she liked it. The reasoning of conforming to fit in had never made sense to Sarah. You changed the way you dressed, did things you didn't necessarily like to do all in order to spend time with people that were the "in-crowd". If you had to change everything about yourself for them to be your friends, then they weren't really your friends.
"I ran into your mother last week in the supermarket. She was told me you were coming home from school." He explained, tossing his short curly hair back in a way that experience had told him was irresistible. The hair got hot underneath a helmet, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make for the ladies.
"Step-mother." Sarah corrected automatically. "You're already out on break then?"
"Yeah, I go to State. I'm on the first string." He said, flashing her a grin that was clearly meant to impress.
"That's nice." Sarah replied politely.
"So…I hear your parents are out of town. Maybe I could come over tonight and keep you company?"
'And the motive presents itself!' Sarah thought grimly. Generally speaking, she had discovered there were two reasons for a jock to talk to her: 1.) he was going to ask to cheat off her or 2.) he thought that the girl who spent the majority of her time with books would willingly do just about anything with him. Mentally she neatly filed Brad Johnson into the second category. "Thanks, but I have plans tonight." She said aloud, edging back up the sidewalk. "Nice talking to you."
Brad Johnson watched, stunned, as she disappeared back into the house. He'd never been turned down before.
Around seven o'clock, Sarah was lying on her bed reading when noises began to emanate from her closet to announce that her guests had arrived. "Grunch?" She called, laying down her book.
The closet door opened and out trooped Grunch who was followed by ten or so goblins. "Hi 'un Lady Sarah!" Grunch greeted.
"Hi Lady Sarah!" the goblins behind him chorused, waving at her.
"Hi guys! You can call me just Sarah."
"Alright, Lady Just Sarah." A female goblin with pink hair done in pigtails all over her head said.
"Ok, Lady Just 'un Sarah!"
"Whatevah you want Lady Just Sarah."
Sarah massaged her forehead. "Just call me 'Sarah.'"
The goblins shrugged. "Ok, Lady Sarah!"
"Why do you call me 'Lady'?"
"You 'un beat Labyrinth." Grunch stated, as if it were totally obvious. "That makes you Lady."
"Oh. Well then, I guess, just call me 'Lady'."
"Ok, Lady!"
Sarah grinned in spite of herself. "What say we make some popcorn and then you guys can pick out a musical?"
"Corn that explodes?" A blue goblin with curly white hair asked, awed. On a previous foray to the Aboveground he'd discovered what the man selling them had called "Pop Rockets". After noting the directions on the box, which were accompanied by illustrations, the illiterate goblin had lit the end of the stolen firecracker. His hair and eyebrows had been badly singed but it'd been worth it.
"In a manner of speaking. You eat it after it…ummm… explodes."
The goblins eagerly followed Sarah out of the room, anxious to eat food that had exploded. At the top of the stairs, Grunch tugged on her jeans and hopefully stepped on her shoe. "Let's shake things up a little, shall we?" Sarah gently lifted the pink haired goblin onto her other shoe. "Hold on tight." She cautioned as she descended the stairs.
The goblins on her feet giggled happily as she took over-size steps.
"That was like being kicked by the king!" The pink haired goblin enthused as Sarah set them down carefully on the floor of the kitchen.
"No way!"
"Nuthins as good as gettin kicked by da King!"
The goblins looked at each other. "I wanna try!" They said in almost one voice.
"Every time we go up or down the stairs, I'll take two of you." Sarah promised, bending down to pull the popcorn popper out of the cabinet, doing her level best to ignore the odd feeling that surged through her at the mention of the Goblin King. "So… you guys like it when the King kicks you?"
'It's just idle curiosity.' She told herself. 'It's not like I'm daydreaming about making out with him or anything.' Promptly an image of herself in the Goblin King's arms popped into her head. She shoved it to the back of her brain and focused on pouring the kernels into the popper without spilling them.
"It's great!"
"Like flyun'!" Grunch nodded in agreement.
"I was first to be kicked today!" A goblin with a single lopsided horn said proudly, puffing out his chest.
"Well, I was almost first.. and I went further than you." The pink haired goblin huffed, pouting.
The discussion fell silent as the kernels began to jump in the popper. Hurriedly, Sarah placed a large mixing bowl near the mouth of the machine.
"OoooooOOooo!" The goblins said, jumping a bit as the first kernel "exploded".
Sarah grabbed the butter out of the refrigerator. The goblins watched the popcorn pop, awestruck, while simultaneously debating what exploded food would taste like versus normal food. Chuckling at the debate, Sarah performed a headcount. Sarah pulled thirteen bowls of approximately similar sizes down from a cabinet, standing on her toes to reach. The popper hummed emptily as the last of the popcorn fell into the bowl.
"It's done exploding, Lady!"
"Okay, I want you guys to line up and I'll pass out your popcorn. After you get it, I want you guys to go take a seat in there and wait for me. Got it?" The Lady of the Labyrinth instructed, putting butter in the mixing bowl and a dash of salt.
"Got it, Lady!"
She scooped the bowls into the mixing bowls and handed them off to the goblins as they filed past her. In amusement she listened to the creatures' reaction in the next room as she filled up her own bowl.
"Soft!"
"Good!"
"It 'un like cloud!" Grunch closed his eyes in delight. The blue goblin licked his lips. "Exploded food is better than normal food." This realization seemed to give him great pleasure.
Contentedly munching, the goblins all nodded their heads in agreement.
"Okay guys." Sarah placed her bowl on the edge of the table in front of the TV. "I picked out a few movies. I'll read the titles aloud and then we'll take a vote on which one we'll watch."
"What's 'un vote?" Grunch asked, cocking his head to the side. The other goblins eyed her in mild confusion.
'Monarchy, duh.' Sarah thought. "A vote is a fair way for a group of people to make a decision about something they'll all be effected by."
"Ohhhhhh."
"Now, the movies are : "Oklahoma!", "Showboat", and "The Music Man"." Sarah announced, holding up the respective DVDs as she read the name aloud. "Raise your hand if you want to watch "Oklahoma!"."
Three goblins raised their hands, including the one with the lopsided horn. "I fell out of an oak tree yesterday." He said conversationally to his neighbor on the couch.
"That's three for "Oklahoma!". Raise your hand if you want to watch "Showboat"." Sarah attempted to keep her voice even.
"Ooo, I'd like to see a boat!" The blue goblin exclaimed, raising his hand. Four other goblins raised their hands as well.
"That's five for "Showboat". Raise your hand if you want to watch "The Music Man"."
"Music'un!" Grunch shrieked gleefully, raising both his hands and waving them emphatically. Five hands, two of which belonged to Grunch, raised for "The Music Man".
"Well, looks like we'll be watching "Showboat"."
Grunch's pout nearly made his fang touch his nose.
"The singing is beautiful in this, Grunch. You'll love it." Sarah said as she turned down the light and put the DVD into the player. At the mention of singing, Grunch perked right up. A smile turned up the edges of Sarah's mouth as she picked the remote up off the top of the TV and nestled into the recliner next to the couch where the goblins were crowded.