Ch. 21 – Homecoming
"Sarah?"
The sound of her name, spoken in soft tones, bounced off of her gently, and seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
"Hmmm?" she murmured in reply after a few seconds.
"Open your eyes," Jareth said in an amused voice. "We're here."
"Oh," she said, opening her eyes. She hadn't realized that she'd been holding them shut. She looked around. They were standing in Jareth's throne room. "It's so strange," she began, stepping back and slowly turning to take in her surroundings. She'd only been here once, briefly, and hadn't had the time to study the large stone room with its sunken pit in the center and strange curved throne. From what she did remember, it was the same, but seeing it again was like seeing a dream up close. It felt unreal.
"What do you mean strange?" Jareth asked in mock arrogance. One glance told Sarah that he was only playing.
"Just – being here again. I mean, trying to remember details of this place, trying so hard to see everything in my mind for so long. And then," she held up her hand, indicating their surroundings, "here it all is."
"Yes," he said at length, gazing at her intensely. "I can understand the feeling."
Sarah felt her face grow slightly warm, but before she could think of anything to say, there was a loud clatter from the far side of the room.
"My Lady!" cried Sir Didymus, bouncing into the room. He had the same eager expression on his face, the same knightly attire. Sarah noticed a brand new bright, yellow plume had replaced the tattered old feather that once stuck out of his hat.
"Sir Didymus!" Sarah cried, running over to grab him up into a fierce hug. "It's so good to see you!"
"And you, Fair Maiden. 'Tis far too long a time since these lands be graced by your presence."
A few of the goblins running around the castle clambered in, wanting to see what the commotion was all about. Sir Didymus immediately began barking out orders for them not to pester Sarah.
"My apologies Sire – I gave them strict orders to keep to the City, all but the ones with a task to finish in the castle, of course. But you know these goblins – one has to say everything six times, and even then they manage to get it wrong." Sir Didymus sighed piteously.
"That's quite alright," Jareth said, hiding a grin. "You there!" he called out to a lanky goblin, dressed in chain mail, who'd just tripped at his feet. He bent down and picked the goblin up by the brush of his helmet. "Take the Lady's things and deposit them into her rooms."
The goblin's head sounded like a rattle as he nodded. "Uh-huh, Sire," he mumbled dumbly, and with a salute, he gathered Sarah's few bags and trudged out of the large room. Sir Didymus followed closely at the goblin's heels, hopping around, warning him, in no uncertain terms, of what would happen should he damage any of the things in his care.
"Rooms?" Sarah asked inquiringly. "You mean there's more than one?"
"Of course. You can see them later and let me know if they are to your liking."
"Oh, okay," she said haltingly. "But I don't need much and I'm sure they're just fine. I just,"
"Sarah, you're not going to be treated like one of the help here. You're my guest." Jareth's gaze turned impish. "Unless, of course, you'd prefer to stay in the Goblin City. I hear they've got quite lovely accommodations this time of year. Or there's always the house you barricaded yourself in during your battle with my goblins. I'm sure they'd be happy to let you stay with them."
Sarah smiled wryly, wondering what the Goblin King would do were she to throw one of his subjects at him. "Very funny. But speaking of the rest of the Kingdom, can I see some of it? It feels like it's been so long."
"Good idea," Jareth said. "You'll be able to see everything later on, but for now, I'll show you some of the grounds surrounding the castle."
---
Sarah blinked as she followed Jareth out of the castle doors and stepped into the sun. For a few seconds she looked around in bewilderment, trying to see what was wrong with the picture. Then she got it. It was mid-day here, with goblins gadding about, carrying on their goblin business, which mainly consisted of poking each other with sticks or chasing chickens across the courtyard. The home she'd just left had been growing dark, the day nearly over. But, of course, for time ran differently here. That would take some getting used to.
She looked up to find Jareth watching her, an amused smile on his face. It must have been apparent what she was thinking. She shrugged good-naturedly at him and kept moving forward. Up ahead she heard a familiar sound.
"Who bite who first?"
"You bite ME first! Therefore I sock it to you!" With that the goblin brought his nipper stick swinging around to hit the goblin next to him. There was a ringing sound as the tiny, pink monster made contact with the side of the goblin's helmet. The nipper held on to the side with his large teeth, and when the first goblin began yanking on his stick in order to free it, the second goblin was flung around like a sack of potatoes.
"Ooh! I get you good for that one, you fuzz-ball!"
There were a good four or five of them in the fray, all fighting and tripping over one another. Sarah immediately recognized them as the one's she had found tormenting poor Ludo. They still sported those funny spiked helmets, which fell low over their eyes. For some reason they'd always reminded Sarah of upside down colanders. Seeing their King standing in their midst, they immediately stood upright, saluting him. Or at least they tried to, most of them running into each other in the attempt and falling over a few more times before getting it right.
Jareth rolled his eyes and said, "As you were. This way Sarah," he added, walking past them.
Sarah, too, passed them, ignoring the sudden whispers and wide-eyed stares she got from them. She quickened her pace to catch up with Jareth.
"They still fight about that day, can you believe it?" he said when she'd caught up.
"Really?"
"It's all a big mystery now to the whole lot of them. I hear them telling stories of it. The Great Mystery of Who Turned Out the Lights. Truth is, none of them can see very well with those huge helmets on their heads."
They made their way through the narrow streets, heading east. Now that she was not on a time limit, Sarah was determined to take in as much as possible. She frequently stopped here and there to watch the city's funny little inhabitants as they went about their daily lives. They weren't really all that frightening when the whole lot of them weren't chasing after you, trying to shoot you or run you through with their spears. Not that she'd really been frightened, she told herself quickly.
Eventually they came to the edge of the city. Sarah hadn't even realized they were nearing it, too busy looking from side to side, until all of the sudden they passed the last two houses and one lone well and that was it. She stopped, startled. Ahead of them tall, green grass stretched ahead as far as the eye could see. It was about waist deep, deeper in some places, while in others only about knee deep. It was a soothing shade of soft emerald that complemented the blue of the sky, and constantly waved in the slight breeze.
Jareth stood to her side and breathed in deeply. "This is the Esplanade. Or the mead, as it is usually referred to."
"It's lovely," Sarah murmured in reply. "But I thought that your castle, being the center of the Labyrinth was surrounded by maze."
"It is, but there are areas where the Labyrinth is not so overt in its treachery."
There was something mesmerizing about the way the grass rippled, almost like water, constant and undulating. It beckoned to her, to come lay in its warm depths, to soak up the sunshine and dream to her heart's content. She hadn't realized she'd been slowly moving forward, until she felt a firm grip on her arm, halting her.
"Sarah, you must be careful. Even though it looks peaceful, it's still a part of the Labyrinth, still not to be taken for granted. There is still a maze to traverse here, but it's much harder to see, which perhaps makes it more dangerous."
"How is there a maze here?" she asked, squinting doubtfully at the green waves.
"I'll show you, but follow closely and don't go anywhere I don't go."
With that he clutched her hand, pulling her in close behind him. They waded out into the grass. Sarah held her free hand out to barely brush the tips of grass as they passed by her. Jareth noticed her contented smile.
"You think this is nice, you should see the view from one of the tower balconies. The whole mead waves and ripples, and when the winds blow heavily it begins to make a sound like that of a cracking whip. It's quite breathtaking to see and hear."
After a few minutes they came to a stream. It was quite a bit lower than they were, in a ditch, but seemed to be shallow enough to wade through. Where it lacked in depth, it made up for in width, though it seemed that if one were to take enough of a running start, it would be possible to leap over. When they reached it, Jareth veered to the right and for a few minutes they walked alongside it. Pretty soon they came to another stream, one that mirrored the other exactly in its proportions, although it ran exactly perpendicular to the other stream. The two crossed, like roads, and at the point where they intersected there was a tiny whirlpool. Jareth stopped and studied the streams closely.
"Should we go back and find the way around them? Or we could just jump over. It doesn't look too far," Sarah suggested helpfully.
"That's the problem here. Sometimes it isn't too far, but sometimes it is. The water creates a sort of optical illusion that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to judge distance accurately." He looked at her. "These streams make up the river maze. The thing is, a stream this small shouldn't be so near the castle. Usually if one finds themselves at the other end of this particular maze, the streams start out small and easy looking and get bigger the farther in they get, which isn't ever very far. So this place too, it seems, is reordering itself." He sighed, walking up and down a small length of the embankment, still watching the two streams closely.
"But no matter which size streams are where, even if you can't get over by jumping in some places, can't you still just wade through? The water doesn't look very deep."
"Again, in some places it's not. In others you'll quickly go in over your head, even if you can see the bottom and it doesn't look deeper than a hand's breadth. And that is impossible to differentiate."
"Oh…okay." Something dawned on her. "Just how dangerous is this place?"
"There's no need to fear for your life. I didn't mean that it was dangerous in that way," he quickly assured her, "it's only dangerous in that it's very easy to become disoriented and lost here. Would you like to see what would happen should you mistakenly fall into one of the deeper streams?"
At Sarah's hesitant nod he summoned forth a goblin with a crystal.
"Duh…yes yoor Ma-just-y?" he gurgled drunkenly.
"Drunk again, hmmm?" Jareth asked, eyeing the goblin, who bobbed his head up and down enthusiastically. "You need a good sobering dunk in the water."
With that he gave the goblin a swift kick in the rump, which sent him flying into the stream headfirst. The goblin briefly went under and then floating back up to the top, he spit out a mouthful of water, and began to float lazily, sunning himself.
"Mm-hmm. Just as I suspected," Jareth said, and reaching forward, he plucked the goblin out of one stream and threw him into the other.
The goblin's shout of dismay was cut off as he went under. Sarah ran over, stopping just behind Jareth's shoulder, to see what would become of the poor creature. The goblin's head popped out of the water but by now the current had mysteriously picked up and the poor creature could not find a footing with which to right himself. He splashed about and moaned the whole way over as he neared the center where the two streams intersected. He was quickly sucked into the whirlpool and went round and round. "Sayonara!" he called out as his revolutions became smaller and smaller and then he disappeared altogether, straight down the center, like water going down the drain.
"Did you kill him?" Sarah asked, her tone slightly accusing.
"Of course not. I told you that nothing here would kill you. The whirlpool merely took him to an oubliette."
"Oh," she said, relieved. "But is he stuck there now?"
"No, unfortunately all of my goblins know by now how to get out of those. You think if it was that easy to get rid of them, to get some peace and quiet around the castle, that I wouldn't have made extensive use of that by now? Don't worry, he'll find his way back home."
Sarah smiled. "I can see what you mean now, about this place. There are traps here, just like anywhere else."
"That's the Labyrinth for you."
"It's a shame though. Looking at this place, you kind of just want to run through it without a care in the world. It actually kind of reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, that's a movie I used to watch as a child. This little girl is lying in a field of grass and flowers, and they're almost going over her head, and she's singing of a place in her mind where the animals and flowers can talk and just about anything can happen. …Kind of like here." She smiled again as the irony struck her. She glanced over to find Jareth studying her.
"Perhaps this girl spoke of the Underground. Was this a true story?"
"Well, no. In the story it turns out that she's dreaming. But it's just make-believe, something some guy thought up and wrote down in a book. The version I saw was animated, besides. Interestingly, though, in her dream she did get there by crawling down a rabbit hole, and then falling deep underground… Wouldn't it be weird if the author thought up all of this because he'd actually been here as a child? And then when he grew up, he simply filled in the blank spaces in his memory with fun, non-sensical story telling?"
"Could be. Anything's possible," Jareth mused. "The thing is, like you said before, about wanting to run around in here, it is possible, to a certain extent. Or was. I'm not so sure now. Usually where two streams cross, one will be shallow and the other will be the trap, the deep one. If you can figure out which is which and keep track, it is possible to make your way through here safely. There are large areas near the middle of the mead with nothing but grass, wild flowers and sunshine, like in your story, and they're not impossible to find if you learn your way around here, as I have. …Except…"
Sarah's excitement, upon hearing this news, halted at hearing that last word. "Except what," she asked when it was apparent he wasn't going on.
"Well, it seems that everything here is rearranging itself. I'm afraid that I don't know my way around here any more than you at this point."
"Oh," she replied quietly.
"Well… we can learn it again."
"But if everything's changed, maybe it is still changing, even as we speak. I mean that's conceivable, right?"
"Yeah, you're probably correct. Maybe, for the time being, it would be better if we went and explored another area."
They backtracked in silence, for a few minutes.
"I have an idea," Sarah heard his voice say, behind her. She stopped and waited. "Let's go straight to the Enchanted Forest. You're friends are there right now. You would like to see them, wouldn't you?"
"Definitely," she agreed, grinning in anticipation of seeing her very beloved, much missed friends again.
Jareth summoned another crystal and held out his hand for Sarah to take. She reached for it and then paused.
"Jareth?" she said uncertainly.
"Yes?"
She held his gaze, meaningfully. "… I will help you fix this. I promise."
He smiled warmly as his fingers closed around hers.
They disappeared.
~*~*~
Author's note: Hey, everyone. So sorry for the delay. Hope everyone likes the new chappie. As always, I own the rights to nothing and I am not claiming to know the origin of Alice in Wonderland. More importantly I am not claiming that the author of that story actually went to the Underground. That was merely a bit of conjecture on my part. So nobody sue me. And again, thank you to everybody who reviewed. And thank you to all who were patient with me and my writer's block. (I do understand what it's like to wait for a story. Every single story I'm following right now has not updated in a month or more, too.)