Happily ever after.

That was how Sarah thought her life was supposed to go, all those years ago when she still felt young. She thought that perhaps she'd earned her happy ending, thought that maybe everything would go smoothly from then on in. After all, she'd defeated the villain. Again. She'd restored order where there had been none. Again. She'd rescued those who needed rescuing. Again.

But then she'd stopped aging, and the full reality of her trade crashed in over her. Well, she could deal with that. And she did. It was the price she had to pay for playing the hero once more, but it was over and she could live her life as normally as possible.

Sarah should have known that things in her life never went that smoothly; that something else was just waiting for her to let her guard down.

And here it was, delivered to her in the form of Belinda. And there was Sarah, playing a part in somebody else's story. Sarah thought that over the years, she'd gotten better at taking responsibility for her own actions. The run through the labyrinth had certainly helped in that regard. So Sarah felt a small amount of pride in owning her own mistakes; what she did not like was taking responsibility for the mistakes of others. And, as it turned out, that is exactly what she had been doing.

She should be thunderously angry with Belinda. Sarah knew this, and she could even muster a strong sense of irritation towards the weaver. However, knowing she should feel something and actually doing it were two different things. As she watched Didymus help Belinda under the trees and into a hammock, all Sarah could think about was her future.

If it was true that Belinda sent some part of herself out with Taliesin, then Sarah wondered if she could expect a similar future for herself. She had, in effect, traded away a large chunk of her humanity, after all. Sarah frowned, following after the fox knight and the weaver. Belinda was clearly exhausted, both physically and mentally. Bags hung under her eyes and her dark skin was ashen; it almost appeared that the color in her hair had leeched it away from the rest of her. The weaver-witch was right; she really was unravelling, and Sarah doubted anything would be left of her at the end of it all.

Sarah set her mouth in grim determination. No matter what Belinda had done in the past, Sarah needed to know that the weaver could get better. After all, Belinda was the only other thing Sarah could think of that gave something of themselves to another besides herself. And she wasn't going mad.

… Was she?

No, Belinda had to get better. And Sarah had to be the one to help her.

"Your witch certainly has some things to explain," Jareth said, conspicuously not looking in her direction. Sarah sighed and rubbed her temples.

"I know," she admitted, scratching behind Ambrosias's ears. Belinda's scattered thoughts and accidental confession gave her a lot to think about-gave them both a lot to think about. She looked down at her shoes and noticed they were caked in mud.

"She didn't tell me any of that before I agreed to help, and now that I have…" Sarah let her sentence trail off. Now that she had, she couldn't just abandon Belinda, even if she was decidedly less eager to help overall.

Jareth seemed to understand her thoughts and nodded his head slightly, as if he'd expected her decision. He probably did, she reminded herself; sometimes they were more alike than she cared to admit, and he did have his own strange sense of honor. She frowned and tried to kick some of the mud off her shoes. If anybody asked back home, it would be difficult to explain it.

"There's some sort of… prophecy, or something, and I think it's got something to do with us. I'm not happy about it either," she snapped when she caught his single raised eyebrow. "But it is what it is, and it's not like I haven't lived through one of these before."

To Sarah's immense surprise, Jareth deigned to sit down next to her in the grass, his back up against a tree trunk. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she waited for the searing anger that did not come this time. Maybe she was getting better; she wanted to think she was getting better, at any rate.

"I dislike this revelation that I, too, am at the whims of a fate guided by somebody else."

Sarah snorted and rested her chin on her knees.

"Nothing quite like being knocked down a peg with the rest of us lesser mortals, huh?"

Jareth turned to face her, piercing her with an incredulous stare. Sarah frantically went over what she said in her head, trying to pinpoint what, exactly, could have raised his ire.

"You still count yourself among the mortals? After all this time?"

Oh, Sarah thought, frowning. He was right. She was used to the idea of no longer having her mortality. Although she wasn't wearing her aged glamour at the moment, it was something that she thought of every day. No part of her life back home was unaffected by it. Still…

"It's hard for me to break that type of thinking, I guess."

Sarah leaned her head against the tree trunk, stretching out the small of her back. She closed her eyes and thought back to what Belinda said, ignoring the part that hurt-the part that said everything, all of it, was Belinda's fault. At the same time, it was all for Taliesin, all for her love. Sarah frowned deeper, wishing she had something like that-perhaps not quite as intense, but still… She had her goblins, and her strange magic, and Jareth, even if sometimes she wanted to claw his eyes out for reasons she didn't understand. Those were the things she had, and all of them, it seemed, were given to her by Belinda and Taliesin.

"There are myths," Sarah started, "that I guess are about Belinda, even if none of them fit quite right. Turns out women spinning the fate of humanity was a pretty common theme in human mythology." A small smile played across her face, but it wasn't happy. "The Greeks had something. The vikings too, I think. And… Shinto? I don't know if that sounds quite right…"

Sarah cracked an eye open to see Jareth staring into the middle distance, perhaps ignoring her words. It didn't matter; she was mostly just babbling anyway to fill the silence. She reached out to where Belinda lay curled on the hammock and pried the notebook from the witch's grip, firm even in her slumber.

The words still weren't anything she could read well; when they weren't in another language, they were twisting around on the page, refusing to stay in orderly lines when she tried to focus on them. It was probably a safeguard to keep others out, which irritated Sarah. Her own story was within the pages; shouldn't she be able to read it?

The snatches she caught were about a lion and a stag, which, to a degree, made sense. The lion died in the fight between the two, and Sarah couldn't fathom how a lion would lose against a deer. A headache started to burn between her eyes, and sighed heavily, folding the tattered pages together. Jareth plucked them from her grasp, earning himself another burst of anger from Sarah; he ignored her indignant grunt.

"Interesting," he said, drawing out the word; he didn't sound interested. He sounded angry.

"Can you read it?" Sarah asked sitting up. "I can't. Not much of it anyway. Some of it's in another language, and what I can read has decided to… shift," she finished, not sure how to explain how to words moved.

"It is much the same for me," he answered, still flipping through the pages. "I can only understand bits and pieces. There's a lion and a stag-"

"I know," Sarah interrupted. "Belinda says I'm the stag."

"And they fight to the death," Jareth said, shooting her a sharp look. "The stag wins, but not without the lion attempting to… shift the odds in its favor by involving another party." Jareth put the pages down and stared at her contemplatively. Sarah snorted; of course the fates would make sure her opponent wouldn't play fair.

"That settles it, then," he announced. "I will train you to fight, so that you have a chance of winning."

Fear fluttered in Sarah's chest. She didn't want to fight. More specifically, she didn't want to fight Jareth, not when there was a chance she would try and actually hurt him.

"No."

"Yes, Sarah." His tone allowed no further protest. "You need to learn. I am the best qualified. I do not think you witch has ever held anything more deadly than perhaps a needle."

"But I win," Sarah tried to argue. "It's preordained, isn't it? It says I'll win. Right there." She nodded to the booklet.

"Then all the more reason to make it a sound victory. The fates are not on our side," he tried to reason with her. "They might attempt to change things. You cannot take this risk, not even if you've so cleverly bartered away your mortality. Think of your family," he finally said. "If not me, or those in the forest."

Sarah frowned, hating that what he said sounded reasonable. It was the same as studying for an exam when she'd already memorized the materials-there was no harm in being extra prepared.

"Fine," she bit out, eyeing him as he stood. Surely he didn't mean for them to start now. But any hopes she had about delaying were dashed as he held out his hand to help her stand.

"There are still some remnants of the old armoury. You may make your selection there, and we will begin."

Sarah stood without his aid and looked at him skeptically.

"Straight to the weaponry?" she asked, a single eyebrow raised. He didn't deign to reply to her skepticism, and Sarah had to hurry to keep up with his quick strides; it didn't take too long before she stood in the doorway of what was effectively a shack, staring at swords and bows and things she couldn't quite name but was sure was capable of harming someone.

"I get that it wouldn't fit the aesthetics you have going on, but wouldn't a gun be more effective?" Sarah didn't like weapons, but if she absolutely had to wield one, she would feel more comfortable with a modern one. Jareth ignored her words while Sarah reached out and picked up a tiny blade.

"I mean, I'm sure it would be quicker to teach me how to shoot than it would for me to use… whatever this is." And she thought of holding the blade and sliding it in between somebody's ribs, the imagery turning her stomach. Sarah put the blade back where she found it, brushing her fingertips off on her jeans as if to dislodge the feeling. "... Unless you don't know how to work a gun either," she said, watching as her light taunt hit its mark. "You could have just said so."

She stepped forward, eyeing the various weapons lining the walls or resting on stands. She didn't like the idea of using a sword for the same reason the thought of the dagger made her feel sick. And she didn't want to use a bow, either, remembering the gym class she took in college that had an archery component; her aim wasn't good, and she didn't relish the idea of trying to hit a moving target. But that didn't leave much else that she recognized

She tried picking up a mace, but it was too heavy and felt wrong in her hands. Likewise for the flail and the double-edged sword with +VLFBERHT+ inscribed on the side. That one she looked at for a while, trying to figure out if it was adorned with some sort of name; in the end, she decided that while none of the weapons housed within the shack were hers, that one definitely belonged to a particular person. She slid it back into its place and stepped away from it, almost bumping into the lone spear resting by itself in the corner.

It was tall-certainly taller than her-and topped with a gleaming bronze spearhead. It was not made for throwing, that much was obvious, and while she had to hold it in her hands, it gave more range than a sword. Sarah picked it up and tested the weight in her hands; it was substantial, but not overwhelming.

More than any of that, though, was that it felt right. It fit into her palms as if it had been made just for her, and the wood almost seemed to buzz against her skin.

Welcome home, it seemed to say.

"This one," she announced, running her hands down the shaft and to the bronze point. It would gleam in the sunlight, and in her mind's eye she could see it and taste salt water on her lips, could hear the roaring of a river as it emptied into the sea. Reflexively she licked her lips, but she tasted only her own skin. The absence made her feel empty, and she couldn't figure out why. She was so absorbed in her own thoughts-or were they somehow memories?-that it took Jareth placing a gloved hand on her shoulder to snap her out of it.

"An interesting choice," he said, and while Sarah knew that the spear meant something to him, he kept his emotions carefully locked away and off his face.

"Whose is it?" Sarah asked, following him out of the shack, spear in hand. "It doesn't seem like something you'd have used yourself. It feels… older."

"It belonged to an old acquaintance," he said after a lengthy pause. "I have not seen her in several ages and have only the vaguest idea of what fate befell her when she left here." Do not ask any more, the tone of his voice said.

"She died," Sarah said, conviction behind her words. Blinking, she looked down at the spear; the idea felt right, but like most things in her life at the moment, she didn't know how she came by the knowledge. Being in the forest felt like dreaming, but not necessarily in a good way. "I think," she added to temper her certainty.

"Hm," Jareth said, turning away from her again, signaling an end to that particular conversation. Sarah frowned but followed him back to a flat field all the same, leaning her spear against her shoulder. By the height of the sun in the sky, Sarah guessed that maybe four hours had passed since she arrived with Belinda, and she wondered if the witch was awake yet. Perhaps not, she decided. Belinda looked all but decimated when Sarah last saw her, and it was clear she'd been running on fumes for a long time.

"Have you practiced your magic at all lately?" he asked, a non-sequitur that gave Sarah pause. She hadn't, at least no more than what she needed to do to keep up her appearance. Why would she need to practice it if she could just speak or will what she wanted into existence?

"Not really," she admitted, feeling like the dentist had just asked her if she flossed at least twice a day.

Jareth made another contemplative noise and looked her up and down, focusing on her face as if he was looking for something in particular.

"So you would not notice any changes," he stated rather than asked.

"No," Sarah lied, even though she wanted to say but I have, I have, and I don't like them. Perhaps her knowing things she shouldn't was a change in her magic, but it did not feel quite right to ascribe that change to herself in that way. There was something else lurking in the shadowy parts of herself, but every time Sarah tried to catch it, it shied away. Or at least, that was how it felt. Belinda might know, Sarah thought, if only she could spit out the words.

"Perhaps, then, you should meditate," he said, though Sarah thought it sounded more like an order. She furrowed her brows and opened her mouth, but before she could offer up a retort, he was gone.

She hated when he just disappeared like that.