A/N – The long awaited event – Jareth and Sarah meet.

Disclaimer – I don't the Labyrinth. Nor do I own Tolkien's Silmarillion, or the sons of Feanor, as much as I would like to get my hands on Maedhros.

10th Dec - changed Sarah 'Evans' to Sarah Williams. Am getting my fandoms mixed up.


When I was a child, I spake as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
but when I became a man, I put away childish things…

First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians
Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, verse 11


Chapter 12 – Long-awaited Reunions


It was not that Jareth did not trust his father.

He did.

There were some things and some issues on which Aethan could be trusted absolutely and without question – he would never tell a direct lie, and if and when he gave his word, he kept it.

But -

The Fae never lie – but truth is an illusion…

Never make promises that you can't keep, or oaths that you won't.

There was a human tale, from the Aboveground, of seven brothers who swore a terrible vow to regain their father's greatest works and to kill anything and anyone who stood in their way. Again and again and again, their vow led to tragedy and bloodshed, but they had sworn by the Everlasting Darkness, and would not – could not – relinquish it, even when given the chance to do so honourably.

By then, of course, it had been too late – too much blood had been shed, too much hatred sown, and they would not accept that it had all been in vain. At the very last, when only two were left, they finally fulfilled their vow, and died or went mad because of it.

Aethan had described it as a salutary lesson in the dangers of magical jewels and hasty, hot-blooded promises.

The problem with his father was that it was nearly impossible to get him to a point where he could be trusted. A man of shadows, of greys, of half-truths and evasions, actually pinning him down to a promise, a commitment, a statement was like trying to pin down and make tangible the wind itself. But when he deigned to send a message like the one that had arrived earlier – not, of course, addressed to him in any way – Jareth could almost believe in his sincerity.

There are matters of which we must speak. Let there be a truce between us, at least for the duration of our counsel; I will abide by any terms you see fit to impose on our meeting.

And that was it. No impassioned pleas for unity or family affection, no trading on their relationship which had once been so very close…

And no mention of 'the good of the Underground'. But Aethan had never had a use for false hypocrisy.


At midnight, come by the hidden ways to the borderlands. Bring only the woman and your aide – you will be met.

Sarah was not quite sure how she felt that night, reading that note, standing in this barren, lonely place that Aethan called the Borderlands – empty plains at the foot of a mountain range, beyond which stood the Goblin Kingdom. It was solid evidence as it was that there was indeed a Goblin King, and a Goblin Kingdom – there were trade routes and smuggler's trails through the mountains, and the Goblin King had old-fashioned, bold copperplate handwriting, both facts strangely mundane in this fantasy world.

Huw, however, must have read something different into it, because he grimaced. "Bran," he said, his bravado covering not a little fear.

Aethan spared him a glance, grinned, his teeth glinting in the moonlight. "Don't worry, Huw. He won't bite – unless Jareth orders it."

"A comforting thought."

Sarah frowned. "I don't understand. Who is Bran? A guard dog?" She didn't know the Goblin King kept pets – there hadn't been any evidence of it before…

There was a quiet chuckle from somewhere behind them, a low, amused laugh, and Huw paled before he could control himself. Sarah swallowed, and then turned around to see who had snuck up on them in this place –

Aethan, of course, had not even turned a hair.

The stranger stepped forward out of the night, leading four horses: a pale man - a sidhe, as Aethan and Jareth and Huw were sidhe – in shades of shifting grey and black, so that he seemed to fade in and out of the shadows. He bowed courteously, first to Aethan, and then to Huw and Sarah. "I am Bran, Sarah Williams. The Goblin King welcomes you all to his Kingdom and guarantees you safe conduct to the Goblin City." He turned to Huw, grinning suddenly. "I promise I won't bite…"

Sarah could see why Huw had paled.

"If you will follow me," the stranger – Bran – said, "I will lead you to the City. The King is waiting."

Aethan nodded, turned to Sarah to explain as they mounted and moved out, as he had occasionally done when he sensed she was puzzled. "There are some places in the Underworld, Sarah, where instant transportation is not possible, either because of magical wards or natural iron deposits. The mountain ranges surrounding the Goblin Kingdom are full of iron – even the strongest fae must traverse them on foot or horseback. It makes for excellent security…"

Bran turned in the saddle. "There are those among the Lords who think that Jareth arranged the iron deposits himself. But these mountains have been here for a long, long time – longer than the Goblin Kingdom, longer than the Goblins, longer than the fae themselves…"

"So the Underground was here before the fae?" Sarah asked, fascinated. She had never before thought of the Underground as a place with history, legends, and myths of its own.

Bran shrugged. "The first fae came from the Aboveground long, long ago, fleeing from an unknown enemy or exploring unknown territory – so long ago that it has faded beyond memory and even legend. And we are a long-lived race, Sarah – so it has been a very, very long time. And there has always been iron in these hills, and they have always been shunned – until Jareth in all his splendid arrogance decided to make them work for him."

There was amusement and exasperation and warmth in his voice when he spoke of his King, and Sarah made an important discovery – Hoggle had feared Jareth, had painted a picture of a cruel, capricious tyrant, but this man regarded him in quite a different light…

Bran loved him.

Aethan caught her eye, raised a brow. Do you see? He seemed to ask. Do you understand? This is what you did not see, when you first encountered him as a child. Things will be very different, now.


It was almost dawn when they left the interference of the iron far enough behind that Jareth could see them in the scrying water. Bran led them, steady and calm as always, while his father's young aide – Huw, was it not? An ambitious cub, but with potential to match – glared daggers at his back – again, nothing new – and his father showed every sign of greatly enjoying the scenery and the ride.

He had always loved riding with his father, astride the tall white sidhe horses, thundering across the endless plains under the light of the moon – it had been the one form of release Aethan allowed himself, the one wild, reckless remembrance of his youth and his past…

For an instant, the water in the bowl shimmered, reformed, showed a different image from a different time, dredged from the depths of his memory…

A white haired man, tall and slender, laughed and kissed the hand of a dark haired woman, who held out a hand to her husband, to her two elder sons, and to her last, youngest child – the young boy's eyes glowed with happiness, with joy, and with innocence…

Jareth's hand struck the bowl, oversetting it, spilling the water in an arc of silver drops as they splattered against the wall, destroying the vision – the memory – beyond hope of recall. The innocent boy vanished, leaving a king in his place, with old, cynical eyes and a blank face trained to emptiness.

And the dark haired woman, so dimly remembered, was banished back to the depths of his subconscious, where she belonged.


They slipped into the city with the morning crowds, blending in with the farmers and wagons entering the gates, bringing their wares to the Goblin City for sale and consumption. Three sidhe and one human woman riding sidhe horses were hardly inconspicuous, true, but Bran had his ways; they passed without comment through the market and up the winding streets heading towards the castle overlooking the City.

He watched her, from the corner of his eye, this woman who had so captivated his lord, and three of the most antisocial creatures of the Labyrinth. Those three unfortunates who had risked far more than the Bog for her had been, in some ways, easier to understand – loners all, she had offered the hand of friendship to them, bound them together in a common cause, given them a focal point for their thwarted emotions. But Jareth…

Even Jareth had fallen under her spell.

It could not have been her beauty – there were dark haired beauties aplenty, in the courts of the fae, some of them far more classically beautiful than this mortal. It could not have been her spirit, because she had been a whiny, sullen and resentful fool when she had first run the Labyrinth, although he would admit that she was quite different now. Perhaps it had been her innocence, under the sullen front – the innocence that had only been seen in her dreams, in the ballroom –

Oh yes, he had been there. He had seen that too-telling dance where both of them, unmasked, had revealed far more than they should have.

Too many of those who wished their children away were hard, or cold, or desperate enough to be ruthless – there was no beauty to their bony, helpless features, no light in the ugliness of their intentions. Because words alone were insufficient to summon the goblins, there had to be true malicious intent as well behind the words and the thought to work the summoning – Sarah, teetering on the edge of childhood, had been adult enough to muster the strength of will, and child enough to muster the thoughtless malice.

Perhaps it had been her sincere regret and horror – but there had been such mistakes made before, and none of them had ensnared the Goblin King.

Bran would never dare to say it aloud, nor even fully explore the concept in the privacy of his own thoughts, but there had been times when he wondered if she were not, in some way, the reflection of another, far older image of a dark haired, pale woman, who had loved her child…

Jareth had revealed too much to Sarah, and she had unraveled his spell, pierced his defenses and solved his Labyrinth, ultimately leading them all to this current state of affairs. Such were the consequences of not thinking with the rational, calculating intellect –

Oh, Brother Raven, and you have the perfect right to speak on such a subject, do you…?

But he, at least, had learned from his mistakes, grievous though they had been. It remained to be seen whether Jareth would learn the same lessons.


Sarah looked around her in wonder. Riding through the countryside of the Goblin Kingdom had been like revisiting her past, but from a completely different perspective. The Labyrinth, sprawling and monolithic, had been just as awesome as she remembered, but the City – could this really be the Goblin City she had once stormed with three friends and a dog? Then, the buildings had been mud-brick, and primitive, and the inhabitants had all been Goblins, short and squat and hopelessly clumsy. But now – now, the streets were cobbled, and well laid out and planned, the houses were stone or wood, and well built, and the people walking the streets were a mixture of the clumsy goblins she remembered, of a far sleeker, more muscular breed of the same goblins carrying well-worn weaponry, of fae of all kinds and tall, pale-skinned sidhe walking side by side with the goblins and with a number of people she recognized, with astonishment, as human.

Huw, still glancing uneasily every now and then at Bran's back, leaned towards her and said, "They say the Goblin Kingdom is one of the most open – multicultural and multiracial – places in the Underground. Anyone is welcome, so long as they swear ultimate allegiance to Jareth – anyone at all, no matter their blood, their breed, or their pasts." He slid a look sideways at Bran, who met it straightly, impassively; Sarah wondered why Huw persisted in needling the other man. Because she didn't want to be around when the quiet, self-contained man decided to take action –

Or, if he were ordered to take action –

But then the Castle loomed before them, forbidding and imposing – far more solid and realistic than she remembered – and they clattered, still mounted, under the portcullis and into the courtyard, where other black cloaked guards strode up, took hold of their bridles, and helped them dismount. Well-trained as they were, they made no reaction when they first saw Aethan, or even Sarah, but Bran's eyes were upon them, watching, measuring, judging, and it seemed as though their fear of their leader outweighed any natural urges to curiosity.

Two in particular came to meet them – brothers, it looked like, although one looked like proper sidhe – as far as she knew, when she numbered only four in her acquaintance – and the other like a more human, less exotic mirror. Bran nodded at the perfect one, touched the other briefly on his shoulder, and surrendered his guests into their hands with a quick, quiet word.

The human mirror walked forwards to bow to Aethan, first, his ordinary brown eyes downcast – not meeting the older Lord's gaze – and then to Sarah, at whom he darted a quick, uncertain glance. "My lord, my lady," he said, and then, with a nod to Huw, "Master Huw. My name is Owen. I will take you to the King."

"I thought this was supposed to be a private meeting," Aethan said, rather dryly. "And yet at this rate the whole Castle will know of it."

Was it her imagination, or did Owen flinch? But then the other one, the sidhe brother, spoke up in another, liquid language, challenging Aethan – Owen placed a gentle hand on his arm, shook his head, checking the automatic defence. "No one will speak of this," he said quietly. "The King has ordered it, Bran has made arrangements –"

Huw opened his mouth, would have made a comment – no doubt a derogatory one – but Aethan held up a hand.

"Jareth guarantees this?" he asked, intently.

For the first time, Owen lifted his eyes and met Aethan's gaze. He's half human, Sarah realized. That's why he wouldn't meet Aethan's eyes... And that's why his brother stood up for him. "Yes," Owen said proudly. "He guarantees it."

He was afraid to look a sidhe lord in the eye. And yet he defended his own lord fiercely –

Aethan nodded, acknowledging the pledge.

Following behind the two brothers, they passed into the Castle beyond the Goblin City.


Aethan had never before set foot in the Goblin Kingdom. Although Jareth had reigned here for near a thousand years, and had been recognized as a legitimate sovereign some centuries after the War, Aethan – as the Seelie King's First Counsellor – could not simply walk into a hostile ruler's kingdom without precautions, not even his son's. At any rate, he was too valuable to be risked – a status that worked to his advantage in some situations, if not in others. And so he had had to rely on diplomats and traveller's tales for a description of this realm his son had carved out of chaos and made his own.

It was a common stereotype that the Goblin Kingdom backwards and barbarous, a land of brawling goblins and fugitive outlaws huddling behind the shelter of the Labyrinth and the mountains. Well, there were certainly goblins, and fugitive outlaws aplenty – but clad in black livery, and given a new chance and a new pride, under their leader Bran, who was most certainly a man to be taken seriously. And the Labyrinth was everything that he had ever imagined it could be – an awe-inspiring outgrowth of wild magic shaped into an almost impassible barrier –

Not infallible, though, thanks to the woman at his side, whose eyes had been wide and fascinated as they approached their destination.

And here was the Castle, with all its tortuous mind games and quirks – all the things he would expect of his son's last defenses – but the half-breed Exile and his full-blooded brother led them on a more conventional track, into the entry hall with the inevitable squabbling goblins and up twisting stairs built for more practical defence, and through a magnificent pair of doors into a great hall that would not be amiss in the Palace of the Sidhe.

And there, not seated upon his throne as may have been expected, but standing over a table covered with maps and conversing earnestly with Bran, was the Goblin King. He looked up as they were announced, and came himself to meet them – that easy, insolent stride, that could not be disguised by the hair or the ostentatious glitter – graciously extending his hands to them in greeting. A gesture of filial respect, that – outranking Aethan, he could have insisted on the more correct greeting.

Briefly, Aethan pressed his hand, and then turned with great interest to witness the one meeting he had been curious to see ever since he had deduced Sarah's relationship to his son. Jareth's eyes swept past Aethan, acknowledged Huw with a nod, and then settled on Sarah.


She was here. So close, he could reach out and touch her – and so far away, there was an impassable gulf between them. He could see it in her eyes, in the way she would not meet his. Well, that was no surprise. The stubborn girl-child had turned into a stubborn woman, and no doubt her exposure to Aethan's particular viewpoints had not helped his position with her.

"Hello, Sarah," he said, nevertheless. Behind him, he could feel Bran's silent disapproval, and his father – though carefully impassive – was all but radiating curiosity and intent interest.

Sarah was simply nervous. But she lifted her chin, looked him straight in the eye, as she had done ten years ago when she had thrown his offer back in his face. "Jareth," she said defiantly. Her face set, her jaw stubborn, she continued on heedless of diplomacy, tact or anything but the strange bond they had once shared and she had denied. "I want to find my brother."

No 'will you help me find my brother', or 'I need your help'. Proud, proud Sarah. Cruel Sarah.

Well, he too could be proud and cruel: he could answer that challenge in any one of a dozen ways, and throw her off balance, deflect the course of the conversation, distract her from her true purpose – Aethan would not help her regain it, not while he was watching with such interest.

But…

"You know where he is," he said, not a challenge, only a statement of fact. "And you went to my father first. Why then did you come to me?"

For the first time she wavered. Swallowed. Almost looked away. Then, in an odd reversal, grew angry for some unknown reason. "You know why," she accused. "Aethan says that this," she waved a dismissive hand, "Lord Vane has Toby and plans to use him as a weapon against you and the Underground. I want Toby back, you don't want Vane holding a potential weapon against you, your father doesn't want Vane to use him in the prophecy –"

The prophecy? Oh, yes… Aethan would certainly have a vested interest in keeping that particular prophecy from coming to fruition.

"Are you proposing, then," he said seriously, "that we join forces?"

She sighed, and it seemed as if all her energy drained out of her. "Yes."

He flicked a glance at Aethan, who was watching him with cool, calculating eyes. A truce, his note had said. For the duration of their counsel, and perhaps until they had both recovered the boy, whom they all wanted out of Vane's hands for very different – and contradictory – reasons. Afterwards, of course…

He did not look at Bran.

Drawing in a deep breath, he met Sarah's honest, open blue eyes. There was no calculation there, no ulterior motives, only honesty and an elder sister's love and determination, as there had been so many years ago.

"Very well," he said abruptly. "I will think on it." He ignored her sputtered protests, swept on despite them. "Tomorrow, we will speak further…"


Bran led them off to show them their accommodation for the duration of their stay. As the doors closed behind them, he drew in a deep, cleansing breath, trying to rid himself of her heady, intoxicating scent and the ghost of her presence. Past and present overlapped each other, vying for precedence in his perceptions and thoughts, and he found it harder and harder to dismiss her effect on him as the leftover effect of a shattered enchantment that had rebounded on him twofold.

For some reason, he still could not dismiss the memory of the dark haired woman of his childhood, the mother he had never truly known, and whom Aethan – the most practical and rational of men – still adored, still mourned, thousands of years after her death.

Forever was a very long time.


A/N – I finally did it. A long chapter, culminating in Jareth and Sarah action. Doesn't such an extraordinary achievement deserve some feedback? Tell me what you think. Thanks to all my reviewers out there, your input and comments are greatly welcomed.