Jareth was on the other side of the throne room, well away from Maiae's flying fist, before it even came close to hitting the air where his face once was. Maiae spun with the momentum and wobbled before her feet steadied. For a second she was confused, the man having just been standing there and now he was gone. But with a swivel she found him again and her tunnel vision narrowed back in. There was nothing else that existed in this world nor any other except that self-satisfied smirk that she wanted to knock right off his face.
With a growl she stomped her way to the other side of the throne room, not noticing the two people tentatively reaching for her but knowing better than to get in the way of her wrath. With a blink the Goblin King was gone and calling to her from where she first threw her fist.
"I can do this all day, you know."
Maiae reared up like a horse about to buck. Her eyes went wide before narrowing into slits as she slowly turned to face her nemesis. This . . . this . . . MAN who just raked her over the coals while he sat around and watched. She SUFFERED, mentally, physically, spiritually. She was pretty sure she died on that last test but one never knew with the Labyrinth. This could all be just a dream and any second she would wake up in her shithole apartment after having huffed too much black mold from the bathroom. Until then her mission was to end the Goblin King.
"Oh I have no doubt you could. Comfortable on your throne. Warm. DRY." With every step her voice got louder. "I'm almost positive I had a mental breakdown out there and I think, I THINK, I may just be resurrected from the dead. Just pull a string and poof! Puppet Maiae enters another scene. I'm sure it was a ball. FOR YOU!"
She witnessed Jareth roll his mismatched eyes and made to rear up at him again until two reluctant people sidled up to her and attempted to talk her off the ledge.
"Darling, wait," Stala said as she put her hand on her daughter's arm, giving no mind to the plastered gunk on the sleeve. Maiae was wrenched from her building tirade and turned to the woman who was speaking so gently to her she almost didn't comprehend it. "You've been through so much and not just in the Labyrinth. Please, let us help."
Who was this woman talking to her as if she cared? What a foreign feeling, the love emanating from her. For a second Maiae and Madeline separated, one exploding with love and yearning and the other confused and suspicious. It saddened the separated Maiae that Madeline had missed so much of this. Then the second was over and the reborn Maiae had a sudden rush of emotion so overpowering it made her head throb. She had to force herself to keep from reeling away from these doting people and could only blink back at them.
"Maiae, please. Say something," Dorian said as he apprehensively looked at his daughter, his hands worrying together.
Tears gleamed in their eyes and they both looked about ready to collapse. Maiae knew who they were but Madeline's confusion and doubt was warring with Maiae's stored memories. The look that twisted her face must have been frightening. At the very least off-putting.
"Are you my parents?"
They didn't even need to nod. With the tears streaking down their cheeks and the grateful but hesitant smiles those said it all. Her parents. The people who took her memory, split her in two and kicked her into another world. The people responsible for the group homes, the foster homes, the shitty life growing up.
Maiae dug into her pocket and pulled out the note they'd written her, the one Jareth gave to her when she started on all this madness. It was little more than a degrading square of paper now. Its folds were sealed together, the writing no longer accessible thanks to ocean water and dirt. She just held it there, in her fingers, a slight quiver in the paper. She tried to form words but nothing got past her twitching lips. Everything she wanted to say, good and bad, was smashing into itself in her head.
Stala's face crumbled and she dropped to her knees with a loud crack. Maiae flinched but her mother showed no signs of even feeling the hit. Instead she fell forward against Maiae's legs. She had to flail her arms to keep her balance and Stala only held tighter. She nuzzled her face into the crusted denim, no care for what was caked there, and sobbed into the mess. Maiae had no idea what to do. She didn't know where to put her hands, where to look. So she looked at her father. Dorian. The sadness dug lines into his face, creating channels for his tears to wend through. Instead of looking at her he kept his head bowed and placed a tender hand on his wife's shoulder.
"I'm so sorry," Stala whispered to Maiae's legs, a choked sob hitching the Rs. "My darling, please forgive me. Forgive me."
Maiae couldn't help the tears welling in her own eyes, didn't stop them as they trailed down her cheeks. But she kept her eyes staring straight ahead, trying so hard to not look at the top of her shining mother's head. Instead she focused on nothing.
"People are cruel. They were cruel to me. The best I got was indifference." Her face screwed up as a montage of foster lives flickered through her mind. "Even the love I had, what you gave me, you took when you locked away Maiae and left me with the shell of Madeline. I had nothing."
"If we had known . . ." her father started but choked on his words. It took him a second to compose himself. "We thought it was better than here with the Dissenters. They couldn't get you there and your survival . . . so much depends on it to unite the kingdoms and stop this madness."
"The greater good," Maiae said, her voice a monotone, her eyes glazed. That's what royalty did, right? It was never about them but what would come of the greater good. "Why couldn't I keep my memories? Or myself? Why did you do . . . that to me?" She waved her hand in the air, indicating that unknown bit of magic that tore her in two.
Stala gathered herself up and stood to look her daughter in the eyes. Hers were red and raw, her cheeks blotchy and swollen with guilty tears. But still she glowed, a radiance that matched Maiae's own. It was there regardless of mood or temperament. It was like a heartbeat, thudding constantly whether the person was happy or sad.
"If you had known everything that we took from you what would you have done?" Stala's voice was watery, shaky. Her words were barely a whisper.
What would Maiae have done? Or Madeline? Would she have hoped to be rescued one day, taken back to her real home? Would it have given her the resolve to stand up a little straighter as she grew? To hold her head up a little higher? Or would she have folded in on herself? Gotten crushed under the overwhelming feeling of abandonment? Gotten lost in her own mind where her real world existed? More than a decade of building resentment or building hope? There was no way to answer that with any degree of certainty. There was only speculation and that would be based on nothing. So she remained quiet and watched Stala's eyes flit back and forth, searching her daughter for an answer.
"Considering where we were leaving you," Stala looked down at her feet, "we felt it would have been insult to injury to leave you with your real life intact. No matter what it would have just made it harder for you."
"Maiae." Maiae slowly turned from her mother to face her father, who'd remained largely quiet compared to his wife. Like her he glowed, radiated that fairy light like something ethereal. "You don't need to process this all now. There's work to be done but . . . this time is yours."
Tentatively he reached for her hand slowly, as if she were an animal given to spooking easily. But she only watched him move, watched him reah for her hands, felt him wrap his fingers around hers. His grip was warm and dry, reassuring. The man radiated comfort and all of a sudden Maiae was exhausted. Utterly and completely annihilated. Her knees buckled and she fell into her father's waiting arms, as if they'd been there all along.
His hands on her, his loving touch so willingly given and without even a question. Through her exhausted haze there was still energy enough for her eyes to water, for the coming tears to knot her throat and blur her vision even more than what it already was. More than escape, more than the Labyrinth and the Goblin King, more than friends, Maiae, Madeline, wanted to be touched, held. Loved. The life she knew was so empty of that one pure emotion that to feel it now, after everything she'd been through, was going to shake her to pieces.
That night in the museum, when Jareth came to her, held her, showed her more affection in those handful of minutes than she'd received in her remembered life, it was a too-short taste of her dreams. Now they were coming true. Maiae was falling into them.
As if she were weightless, Dorian, her father, whisked her off her feet, cradled her to his chest and took her away. His silk shirt caressed her cheek as she let her head fall to his shoulder. Her body bumped along as he carried her, to where she had no idea. The castle was barely a presence in her life at the moment. Half into a deepening sleep Maiae could barely feel her skin let alone anything else. She was vaguely aware of being gently placed onto something soft, a blanket being tucked into her hands, soft murmurings. She was aware of her eyelids pressed together, of hearing noise but nothing more discernible, before her awareness was left behind and a heavy, dreamless sleep took over.
xXx
Something was off. Madeline would sense it before she even opened her eyes. Her sleep had been restless and her dreams were just really freaking weird. She could only remember bits and pieces as it was. The further she floated out of sleep the fuzzier even those memories became. She dug the heel of her hand into her eye and stretched, groaning at the release stretching her muscles gave her. Something about unicorns nagged at her but Madeline shrugged it away.
That's when it hit her: the bed. The blankets. Even the pillows. Like water over her skin the fabric was delicate, gentle. Expensive. This was not her home.
Her eyes snapped open and she bolted upright. Her breath hitched as she took in the room, clad in dark stone but still cozy. A fire sizzled in the fireplace, the bed she was on was fluffed to maximum capacity with down and fur. She peered over the edge of the bed and a fur rug lay ready and waiting for her feet.
In that moment her dreams came flooding back. Every bit of pain and anger slammed into her brain, radiated into her body and shook her muscles to hurting all over again. She was no longer Madeline but Maiae, split in half and hidden in another world only to be stitched back together again. Her parents, tear-stained faces and red eyes, filled her memory.
It felt like such a weak thing, happening only to corseted women in romance novels, but Maiae actually swooned. It felt nowhere near as dainty as it had always sounded. The room tilted and spun. Heat flooded her head, her ears rang and black stars burst in front of her eyes. She plopped back onto the pillows and covered her eyes with her hand and focused on her breathing. At that moment her world was a boat on a choppy sea and she really didn't want to ruin all the white fluff around her. Not like there was anything in her stomach to come up but that didn't stop it from grumbling and Maiae groaned. That didn't help.
Skittering, like dog nails on hardwood, clattered into the room but Maiae couldn't bear to move her hand just yet. The world still had a wobble and her eyes just couldn't take it right then. So she listened as it scurried across the floor. By the clattering it placed something metal on a table next to her bed and skittered out of the room.
At first nothing changed. The wobble lessened, the world steadied and Maiae slowly removed her hand from her face. Before she could open her eyes the smell hit her like a slap to the face. The best slap she could ever get and one she would beg to have. All notions of a sick stomach fled out the window as she opened her eyes and took the sight of the breakfast at her side. Her mouth watered as she took in the smell of fried meat. Something that resembled thick-cut bacon and a small side of steak shared a plate with fried eggs, a buttered biscuit the size of both her fists, and a bowl of sliced strawberries swimming in cream. A teapot and an empty cup sat in the corner of the silver tray, accompanied by a bowl of sugar lumps and a small container of creamer.
There was no think, only do. Maiae tossed the blanket off her legs, swung them over the edge of the bed, and attacked the plate with gusto. She was vaguely aware of a cramp in her stomach and some small voice telling her to pace herself but she had no idea how hungry she was until she smelled that food. Sleep plus thirteen hard hours in the Labyrinth plus the last breakfast she ate before the last foster kicked her out and it'd easily been a day since she'd last seen food. She'll pay for the gorging later as long as she got to taste all of that now.
"I'd highly recommend leaving something left. Namely the plate."
With her teeth sunk into the biscuit and a fist around some fried meat Maiae scanned the room looking for the source of the voice that she was almost positive wasn't in her head. When her gaze reached the far corner of the room the biscuit turned to chalk in her mouth and the meat felt like a slug. Woven into the shadows stood Jareth, his attire casual, uncaring to the point of being purposeful, as he cast her a wry smile.
Her teeth bit all the way through the biscuit and she placed what was in her hand on the plate. What clogged her mouth she tried to choke down her Saharan throat with many tears pushing at the corners of her eyes. The meat was a dropped casualty, landing half in the teacup. Maiae didn't notice. She just grabbed a fork and stood.
Jareth's eyes glimmered, dared her even, to step toward him with cutlery in hand. And she did. Biscuit crumbs tracked down her throat and she really wanted some milk but she also wanted to stab Jareth in the thigh with her three-pronged instrument. She noticed that his face was unblemished, lacking any black and/or bluish coloring that her fist desperately wanted to cause the night before. She needed to fix that. Another use for the fork.
His smile turned patronizing and he cocked his head as if speaking to an impudent child. "Now what do you expect to do with that?"
At first she didn't notice but it only took a second for Maiae to realize that something was off about the fork. When she looked down it was obvious what. Instead of a fork she held a single white feather.
A frustrated screech tore out of her throat and she let go of the feather. She didn't see it twist and writhe and make its way to the window where it slid through a shutter slat and drifted into the morning.
"You have some nerve just popping up in here uninvited—"
"Well it is my castle, after all."
"Spying on me as I just woke up—"
"You've been up for a while . . ."
"Humiliating me and embarrassing me—"
"In front of all these people . . ."
"And after yesterday with that god forsaken Labyrinth—"
"Your parents' idea, actually . . ."
"I should destroy you."
"With a fork."
Maiae looked at her empty hands and screeched again. This was impossible. He was impossible. She wanted to strangle him and hug him and slap him and kiss him and she was having some very conflicting emotions at the moment and it was getting awfully hot in the room and was that a headache she could feel throbbing behind her eyes?
With arms still crossed over his chest he pushed himself away from the wall and meandered closer to her. Maiae kept her angry face on, her jaw clenched, her frown firmly in place. But in reality she wanted to melt. This was her dream, come at such a gross price and there was no way she would just fall into his arms all willy nilly. He had to earn that privilege.
"I know this has been trying for you—"
"TRYING? That's the understatement of the century."
Pain still echoed across her body but like an echo it faded with each pulse of her heart, little by little. Now that her brain stopped running she didn't feel nearly as damaged as she did when she first fell into that bed. Or, more accurately, the last time she remembered, period.
Jareth raised a hand to halt her words. Maiae started to protest the very notion of silencing her with a hand but a look, an impatient side-eyed look kept her words from reaching her tongue. Instead she stood there and stewed.
"This transition is difficult, yes. But I must remind you of your duties. Rest. Regain your strength. But Maiae, I'd advise you to not dawdle. No one in this kingdom has the patience for that. The Dissenters won't wait for a well-rested recovery from you."
Maiae gaped like a land-thrown fish. He was chastising her. Of all the shit he put her through he was telling her to get over it and move on. She was too dumbfounded to even scoff.
He took a step closer and brushed her cheek with his finger. Musk and sweet lingered with his touch and Maiae desperately wanted to lean into the caress but she stood firm. She would not let her knees go weak now.
"I've finally given you your dreams."
Like a record screeching along a needle the sensual calm washing over her came to a crashing halt. He spoke about her dreams as if he had any idea. As if he had any right. As he watched from his throne while she got tossed around like a piece of trash in a world she didn't belong in. He knew nothing of her dreams.
She slapped his hand down and let the rage simmer into her eyes. The muscles in her jaw screamed as she clenched, her teeth grinding under the pressure. At first a smile danced across his mouth at her swat of defiance but as Jareth stared into the face of the woman who was to become his queen the cold glare of her eyes started to freeze him and his smile drifted slowly away. Without a hint of warning Maiae thrust her hands out and shoved him in the chest, taking him by surprise and nearly knocking him off his feet. There was no smile anywhere near his eyes now and the look he now gave her fought for frost.
"Dreams?" It was hard for Maiae to keep her voice in control. She could feel the shriek creeping up but she tried to keep it in check. "You know nothing of dreams."
Jareth pulled up to his full height, a near half a foot taller than Maiae, and stepped into her space but she didn't falter.
"I know everything of dreams!" His voice had risen but he stood firm. The girl of Madeline was coming out of this Maiae and it was starting to annoy him.
"You know everything of fantasy," she returned through gritted teeth. "They are not the same. They never were, not for me."
"Without me and my fantasies you would have suffered—"
Maiae laughed. At first it was one loud, solid ha! And then it rolled into belly laughs that could be defined as guffaws. This man was hilarious.
"You think what you put in my head at night saved me when I was awake?" She was still laughing but it was starting to fizzle out. "Your fairy tales of the Goblin King coming to rescue the girl, they saved me, did they?" The laughter was gone and now Maiae was all teeth. "I didn't SUFFER?"
"I didn't say—"
The slap came with its own comic book word burst of action. SLAP! Maiae didn't even feel it. Her palm didn't sting. Jareth's cheek rang with it, his neck jerked with the force of the hit. His hair in his eyes, stuck to his lips. He stayed bent that way, face away from her. He had to stay that way, at least for that second. And it had nothing to do with her feelings. No. No matter how much, in that moment, Jareth reminded himself that Maiae was still recovering, he couldn't help but want to throttle her. Shake her. Slap her back. Force her to see the bigger picture. But that would solve nothing and the last thing he wanted to do was strike his future queen. Regardless of his own power her parents would reduce him to a pile of ashes. Plus something, somewhere deep in his core, made it feel . . . wrong.
"You know nothing of what I've been through. Not a damn thing. Don't pretend your dream wishes were favors. Don't pretend to be a hero." Maiae sneered and stepped closer to him, his head still turned to the side but his cheek showing no sign of a handprint on the skin. "You helped me sleep at night. Thanks so much. Where were you the rest of the time?"
It was just the opening he needed. With the speed of a bolt of lightning Jareth turned and clamped onto Maiae's arm. Before she could even register the shock Jareth was dragging her toward the overlarge window carved into the stone. With a wave of his hand the shutters flew open and morning sun flooded the room. Maiae flinched against the brightness, momentarily forgetting Jareth's rough handling and their fight.
The world was a blinding white light for a sheer second before her eyes adjusted and the Labyrinth opened up before her. Hedge mazes and stone mazes, the forest and the ocean. Far out in the distance Maiae saw the hill she started on, little more than a speck from where she stood. To either side of the puzzling expanse was uncharted territory for her. Another forest lay off to the left, filling the horizon. To her right the goblin village and dark forest she stumbled through gradually faded into scrub and dirt. Far out on that horizon red buttes loomed against the sky but the land was a waste, hazed in dirt that never seemed to settle from out of the air. Maiae wondered if there were unicorns out there.
When her senses finally came back she yanked her arm and it slid out of the Goblin King's grip. The slip of his fingers burned against her flesh but he dropped his hand, no intention of keeping hold of her. Then he pointed out the window, his eyes alight with anger but rimmed in exhaustion. Maiae allowed herself to really look at him and for once the glamour wasn't there. Bags fell heavy under his eyes and spider webs of lines crinkled out from the corners. Even the corners of his mouth turned down just slightly, making him look almost sad.
"That is where I was the rest of the time I wasn't giving you sweet dreams in your horrible life. Defending the Fey and Goblin kingdoms from Dissenters, making sure it was at least safe for you to come back so we could eradicate them once and for all." Jareth sagged and sighed heavily. He waved and looked like he wanted to rest himself against the window. Instead he just placed his fingers on the ledge. "It's been more difficult these last few years. We've lost nearly as many as we can keep on the line and it's still not enough. They die in droves and it's all I can do to keep them all from deserting."
Maiae was at a loss for words. She reached a hand out, close to his shoulder, but jerked her arm back, unsure of the reception she'd get. What could she say to him? He didn't seem to be fishing for comfort, or would even try that. He just looked . . . tired. Her life sucked. Most of it. But this sucked more, this war. As much as she wanted to rant and rave about what she'd been through she just couldn't compare it to the likes of this. All the death, the desertion, the Dissenters corrupting the kingdoms bit by bit. A world was being destroyed and it was all Jareth and her parents could do to keep the end from closing in until their daughter could come back, unite the kingdoms and end the strife once and for all.
No pressure.
Maiae nearly reeled. Unlike the Goblin King she allowed herself to fall into the wall and for it to prop her up. This world would have defeated her without her ever having a chance. Holding the line took all of Stala and Dorian's focus. Knowing their daughter was out of enemy reach allowed them to keep their attention on winning. Had she been here, in her home, their defense would have been weakened, their focus split and the tide could have turned for the worse years ago. It didn't take the sting away. That hurt would be burrowed into her skin for a while to come. She just couldn't put aside how the fosters treated her in that other world. Not yet. But she couldn't argue with what was happening and why they did what they did. Swallow the pill and get it done.
"Do you see now what is at stake?"
Jareth kept his gaze out the window, his eyes focusing on nothing, and Maiae followed his look. The Goblin King's kingdom laid bare. She'd trekked through a small portion of it, rife with life, struggling to survive. Maybe she'd see her own kingdom one day, her real home. She hoped she got the chance.
She turned back to look at Jareth's profile and said, "Yes, I do."
He looked at her then, life sparking back in his exhausted eyes. He stood up straighter and let himself lift off his fingertips.
"I—I still have a lot going on," Maiae touched her temple, "in here and it doesn't mean I'll just forget my other life." She looked out to the Labyrinth again and soaked it in. She wanted to walk through it again, absorb its power and use to vanquish the Dissenters hell-bent on destroying it. "But this world must be saved." She looked to Jareth, held his ice blue stare. "I won't let it die."
Lips cracked around crooked teeth and a smile etched itself into his cheeks. It cradled his eyes and made his own inner light shine brighter. He crossed his arms over his chest and rooted his feet into the ground. Her words brought back the proud, haughty Jareth she knew and it made her stand up a little straighter too. Defeated, rundown Jareth hurt to look at. It was like the fall of a star, tragically beautiful to behold but nothing you could do to save it. Maiae didn't like feeling so helpless in the face of his waning strength.
"Excellent. Let's get a move on, shall we?"