"Have you thought about my request, Sarah?"

"Yeah. Just about every time you visit," she replied cautiously. "But I still don't understand what you would want with it."

The Goblin King sighed heavily. "I suppose you are not going to hand it over to me so easily, are you?"

"No, and maybe I don't ever want to. It was meant for me to have anyways, wasn't it?" That was her way to express that she honestly couldn't help but to find the nature of his so-called requset a little contradictive on his part.

Jareth figured it would be best to negotiate before the situation turned into a possible bloodbath. "I shall play you for it. With honest actions, no tricks, and no magick." He vowed his word to her with a hand lifted to his chest.

Sarah knowingly turned her head towards her old chessboard set upon the corner table that was referring to. It had been finally pulled back out of the stuffy hall closet since she was trying to teach how to play Toby recently during a rainy day.

But she now grew hesitant. She recognized the Goblin King was a professional at strategizing and manipulating minds. And his Labyrinth and through the means in which it functioned against another, was real proof of that. This round between them would be different. Plus, it would be nothing close to challenging—a mortal child—not that Toby was horrible at playing chess. In reality, Toby was quite a decent learner for his age, yet a mortal child he was nonetheless.

The Goblin King had years, or basically centuries of experience on Toby. And sadly, on her.

"Really? Chess?"

He shrugged lightly. "That'd be fair for both parties. I assume you are a qualified competitor."

Sarah thought it over a bit more. The chosen award this time, whether it was her keeping it or him retaining it, was still far less serious than having her brother's fate on the line. "Alright. On one condition."

"And, that is?"

"I take black. For some reason, it's sorta the lucky color for me."

He chuckled when hearing this. "Certainly, for I have conveniently always preferred white."

"Good."

So shortly after they had settled themselves down, sitting opposite of each other, Sarah watched him begin the match by sliding his third pawn to the left, forward two squares. Sarah in comparison decided to move her right knight first.


The overall process itself happened to be a smooth trial. Sarah maneuvered her own pieces better than she'd expected she could (with everything in consideration.) It was a very close call.

However—once the long forty minutes it actually took for them to complete it had gone by—she was the one to admit defeat by the end.

"Checkmate." he muttered, studying her patiently and waited for her reaction.

Sarah just stared at the rows of fallen pawns and bishops before her, silently contemplating on what to expect from him then. She hadn't screamed in anger, hadn't accused him of cheating, and hadn't even complained in the least.

It'll be fine. She inwardly accepted his little personal victory rather graciously and prepared herself for the cost. "Before...I give it to you...I need to why it's so important for you to take it away."

"Because, you do not need it anymore, Sarah."

"That's not true. That's only your opinion." Sarah argued reasonably enough. "I may always need to go back to it at some point. Sometimes the way forward, is sometimes the way back."

"That's only your opinion," he echoed now with a mild smirk pulling at his mouth. "And a mere theory. Sarah, the past shall be what it is, and it shall always fall behind you. After every conclusion, you must move on to create a fresh beginning. It's for your own good. Even if it's difficult, even if it's a part of who you have become...it's time for a new adventure to be written."

Another pause followed, and eventually, Sarah forced her body to stand and aim for her dresser upstairs. He calmly trailed her steps.

And that was the day when Sarah Williams returned the scarlet novel, entitled Labyrinth, to its original creator.