A/N: More about Seth's run! Hopefully he'll start to learn his lesson.
*Also for those of you who read the earlier chapter already, I apologize for taking it down again. I've gone through it to fix it. Character development issues and scenes that weren't initially in the plan. I was getting too invested in Seth instead of keeping the focus on Sarah and Jareth. So I fixed that. I hope you like this one better! *fingers crossed*
-LabyrinthLover30: I'm glad you got to see both so we could talk about them, and I'm grateful for your thoughts on them. Thank you! The second version just felt better, you know? I'm glad you liked the healing part, I thought it was a really nice way to bring them closer together.
-Honoria Granger: I'm actually going to explain it in a few chapters, so hold tight!
Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth or any of its characters. I do, however, enjoy writing about them. ;)
Blind
Chapter Eleven: Lessons to Learn
Seth paced the outer edges of the lightless hole he found himself in. Muttered curses issued from him as he brushed his hands along the walls in search of an exit, feeling discouraged. How could he make it to the Goblin Castle in time if he was stuck in here? So far he'd made little progress in the maze, and this pit only continued to discourage him. How was he supposed to get out? Could he call to someone? Would they even hear him? He had no idea how deep the hole was-or even where it was. Seth bit his lip and continued his search. He was about to give up-to sit right down where he stood and throw in the towel. How could he defeat such a place? It was a death trap!
A quiet scratching somewhere in the hole made Seth pause halfway to the ground, and listen intently. A speck of light shone on the wall on the other side of the hole, and dirt sprinkled down from the ceiling onto his head. Seth spun around and looked up at the light. "Hello?" He called, and the scratching continued. The speck in the ceiling grew and Seth watched it. A minute later the hole was made large enough to silhoutte La's tiny head and part of her long ears.
"Are you ok?" She called, and Seth had never before in his life been so happy to see someone.
"La! Get me out of here!" He demanded, and La stiffened, peering down at him frowningly. Seth's brow furrowed and he was growing impatient when La remained silent. "What are you waiting for?"
La's ears twitched in discomfort. "You're supposed to say something before I can help you." The way she said it was odd, like she was repeating directions instead of replying to a question.
His face changed from cross to perplexed. "What are you talking about? Why won't you just help me?" He exclaimed.
La's ears flopped down in an expression of unhappiness and she shifted on her hind feet, her paws holding one ear close to her. "You'll yell at me again." She sounded frightened, but Seth didn't seem to notice.
"Seriously?" Seth cried in annoyance, his anger growing swift. "Just-!"
In a flash, La's expression turned frightened and she spun about and vanished from the opening. Seth stared at the opening. Fear fell over him like a dark, ominous shadow. Did she really just leave him there? Just after having found him? He snapped out of it and scrambled forward to the wall. "Wait! La, come back!" Seth shouted in panic, peering frantically at the empty hole above him. For a moment he attempted to scale the wall, but his efforts were thwarted by the sheer surface of rock, and he couldn't get a foot or handhold. The wall was at just an angle, that it made it impossible to climb.
Then a thought like a match flame flared to life in the boy's mind. This situation reminded him strongly of the statue woman, Sandra. But this was all back at the gates of the Labyrinth. His using manners was how he was able to get into the maze. Sandra would have reprimanded him like she had before. But La was too kind and wouldn't stick up for herself. Guilt picked terribly at his heart, and he swallowed as he peered up out of the hole. He called to La.
"I'm sorry for yelling at you. Please come back, La! I can't get out of here by myself." He stared at the illuminated hole, really feeling the truth of his own words. She was his only chance. Nothing stirred above, and Seth's stomach began to sink. With each passing second that that space remained empty, the more afraid he became. "I'm sorry for being mean. Please help me!"
Little by little La's tiny silhouette reappeared as she shuffled to the opening, her ears against her head. She sniffed and rubbed at her eyes, her shoulders shaking with each sniff. Seth's eyebrows rode high on his forehead. Was she crying? She sniffed again and his stomach sank so low that a rock may as well have been dropped into it. Seth had made her cry from yelling at her. He'd never made a girl cry. He could be mean, sure, but never that mean.
"Do you mean it?" La's voice wavered while she rubbed her eyes. Seth's sinking stomach, and the massive feeling of shame both currently occupying his body, seemed to be on opposite ends of the spectrum. His stomach had fallen, while his shame was on the rise.
"Yes, I meant it. I'm really sorry."
La's ears lifted a margin higher, and at last she replied. "...Ok." She wiped the tears from her tiny face and sniffed, saying. "I forgive you."
Seth's shoulders sagged in relief. "Thank you." He replied sincerely. He took a deep breath. "Please, will you help me out of here? I can't get out."
La nodded after a moment. "Yes, I'll help you."
Seth's stomach rose back up considerably and he breathed easier. "Thank you." He responded gratefully.
La glanced behind her and then scooched back to lay down on her belly, poking her little head down into the trap to look around. Her ears made loops as they fell halfway into the oubliette, and her nose twitched as she took in the situation and sniffed the air. Her whiskers wavered as though in a faint breeze and she observed this. "There's a little bit of air coming from in there, flowing up this way. I think I can find it, but-" She stopped, her voice abruptly going higher.
"But what?" Seth questioned, wondering about her tone. La shifted outside the hole warily.
"...I'll have to come down there to find it."
Seth's eyebrows lifted. Was that all? She was afraid of the fact she'd have to jump into a hole? A sarcastic, degrading comment began to work its way onto his tongue, when he stopped it just in time. She was already afraid; to insult her would only upset her further, and she'd probably leave him for good. He swallowed, and with the action went the unkind words. Considering the hole, Seth found he couldn't blame her for being afraid. He'd only been in the hole a short time and already the idea of being trapped in such a space any longer was terrifying to him. His lips formed a grimacing line and he looked up with all seriousness at La.
"I'll catch you."
La's eyes became enormous. "You'll-what?"
Seth repeated himself. "I said I'll catch you. I play basketball for my school, and you're about the same size as the ball we use. I will catch you if you drop down into the hole." He assured her confidently, but La didn't look very convinced.
"Are you sure?" She was still understandably anxious, and Seth's eyebrows lowered in certainty.
"I'm sure."
The little creature hesitated, then turned lengthwise beside the hole. "Ok... I'll come down. Are you ready?" Seth moved to just beneath La and got into position.
"I'm ready."
La gulped and turned around. Her tiny feet came first into the hole, her tail swinging from side to side. "Try to keep your tail still, it'll make it easier to catch you." He added, and at once her tail stopped. Next came one of her knees, until with a squeak she slid backwards and dangled from the opening by her front paws. La mewled like a kitten, nearly petrified, and Seth called to her. "Let go and I'll catch you!"
La mewled again and her paws released the opening. She curled up with a fearful squeak, and Seth caught her without trouble. His arms held her securely against his chest, the momentum of her fall making him take a half a step back into the wall. La was trembling, still curled up. Seth immediately went down to his knees and lowered her to the ground. "Are you ok? You did it, see?" The small talking animal peeked out from behind her paws to gaze up at him.
"I did?" She wavered, and Seth nodded, the tiniest bit amused she had yet to notice the ground.
"Yeah. Look." He inclined his head and flicked his eyes to the dirt beneath them.
She did, and the plain brown dirt looked peacefully back up at her. The rabchilla put her paws to the ground with a relieved gasp, then grinned at him. "I did it!" Seth laughed lightly at her childlike enthusiasm. She reminded him of his baby sister, Ella. Seth's expression faltered and fell with a sharp dive, and he pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth and forced down the painful ache in his throat and chest.
Ella had died of cancer when she was only two years old, almost three. It'd been the worst time in his life-the waiting for tests and for doctors and for the different procedures that had to be done. He remembered one time when they were between procedures, he and Ella sat together in her bed working on puzzles or reading books. Ella's proud face when she gazed up at him after they'd worked on a puzzle together had stuck with him. He didn't remember the puzzle itself-it didn't matter to him. What mattered was how her little face glowed with happiness at her accomplishment as she cried. "I did it!" Ella and La both had that glowing expression, and it hit him hard to see the similarities between them.
Seth took a deep breath to avoid the emotions building within him, and he blinked his watering eyes rapidly. He returned his attention to La just in time as she was beginning to look up at him in gratitude.
"Thank you for catching me. I was really scared." She admitted.
Seth nodded kindly, still thinking of Ella. "It's ok." Clearing his throat, he went on. "Thanks for forgiving and helping me." La smiled at him and he asked. "So how do we get out of here?"
La peered at their newly shared predicament, thoughtful. She rubbed at her face once, unknowingly puffing dirt on her cheeks and forehead. He hid a smile and a laugh by pressing his lips together, he didn't want to embarrass her by pointing out what she'd done, but it was too cute not to at least smile. She breathed in the dusty air of the oubliette. "I could feel the air escaping past my whiskers when I was up there-I think there must be a hidden door. I'll have a look around."
"Ok." Seth replied, and stood at the center of the oubliette as she moved to the edges of the available space. Outside of the light, her white fur turned grey in the shadows. She sniffed at the ground and wall, and stopped halfway round the room. Standing on her hind legs, La put her forepaws on the wall and scratched at it. The dirt where she scratched fell away to reveal what was definitely the wood grains of a door.
"Here it is!" She smiled a wide rabbit smile up at Seth and scratched to either side to find the edges of the door. La's furry forehead lowered as she uncovered more of it. It was entirely flat, and didn't look to have a handle. "I don't think it has a knob! Could it have fallen off?" She asked, peering around at the floor.
The teenager shook his head in the negative. "I've been all over in here, and haven't found anything like a doorknob. The door might not have a handle." He paused, thoughtful, and dug the dirt away from the door around the upper sides of it and then where there should've been a handle. "Maybe it has something like those sliding doors? Like an indented handle. My Dad has one at his house."
La glanced up at him in confusion. "Your Dad's house? Not your house?"
Seth grimaced, his eyes turning a little bitter as he picked away at the dirt. "My parents split up. They both have their own place-I get passed around so much, neither one feels like home."
"Why did they split up?" La's little voice made Seth pause, and she must have realized her question wasn't appropriate, because she apologized at once. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business."
Seth smiled with the bitterness turning up one corner of his lips. "It's fine. They split up because they don't love each other anymore. My mom worked all the time, and she barely spoke to my dad or me when she'd come home. We didn't even have meals together." Seth dug at the door harder, and it rattled with the pressure he applied. La pulled her paws away from the door, unable to do more to it because of this. Seth went on angrily. "My dad tried everything he could think of to make it work out, but after a while she just stopped coming home, making up excuses about delayed flights or being sent back out to another important overseas meeting." Seth stopped digging at the door and looked down at La, his anger changing into sadness. "Turned out my mom was cheating on my dad with another guy. She left us on my birthday, and my parents decided to get a divorce the next day. I've always felt like it was my fault-but my dad says it's my mom's." He turned back to the dirt-encrusted door. "I can't disagree with him on that. She's a real jerk-" Seth stopped when his hand slipped forward and found a groove in the door.
"What is it?" La asked. Seth scraped the dirt off of the groove, and a dulled bronze indented handle was revealed.
"It's the handle!" He grinned at her. "Let's get out of here." The boy put his fingers in the handle and pulled to one side. Dirt slid down the door from above it as it shook and opened. Seth squeezed into the opening to push the door fully open, and moved so La could get through. A long tunnel was before them, and in the distance Seth could see what looked like thin streams of light shining down at the end. "Look!" He cried, and wished he hadn't.
The tunnel rumbled above them and La shrieked as rocks began to fall. "Run!" The two scrambled up the tunnel, La just behind Seth. There was a small ladder at the end of the tunnel and some kind of trap door above them. The door was just low enough that he could unlatch it and shove it upward. It swung easily, stopping almost straight up and swaying peacefully despite the force he'd used.
Not noticing the oddness of such a reaction, Seth climbed the ladder, only to fall forward. The ground was instead before him and not below, and when he fell forward he threw out his arm with a cry of surprise to catch himself. He turned over just in time to reach out and catch La as she fell. The tunnel behind them groaned and the door creaked. Seth looked up and stared in astonishment. The door was shaped just like any regular door, and standing by itself against a towering wall of a corridor covered in ivy that was so tall it made the space look as though it was nearly twilight.
But what had him gaping was the view beyond the door where they'd just come out. It was like he was looking at the tunnel exit from above. He saw the top of the ladder, and the dirt and rocks falling, dust filling up the tunnel. Some rocks even halted halfway up the ladder and curved dangerously like gravity had changed its mind. Those rocks were sent bouncing out towards them as though to follow their example in escaping. Seth yelled at the sight of the oncoming rocks and used his feet to shove the door closed with a bang.
He could hear the rubble building up against the door, hammering on it like an obnoxiously persistent neighbor. At last it fell silent, dirt and dust being the only signs of the tunnel as they squeezed through the gaps and cracks of the door. The door held steady, and Seth dropped his head to the dewed grass and breathing heavily. La sat up and slid off his chest, and Seth looked at her before he lifted himself into a sitting position.
"Are you ok?" Seth questioned, and La peered down at her dirtied fur. She shook her head and then the rest of her, and a tiny cloud of dust issued from her. She sneezed, then rubbed her face.
"Yes, thanks to you." She said gratefully, and Seth smiled a little.
"That's good."
"What about you?" She asked, looking him over.
He did the same, and saw that he was unhurt. "I'm ok."
La's ears lowered in relief, then shot up again. Her whole body froze as she listened to something, and looked down the ivy corridor. "Oh! I know where we are!" She chirped, and standing up on her tiptoes, she peered down the corridor and twitched her nose, smelling the fresh. "I can hear the waves and smell the water-the lake must be nearby!"
Seth followed her gaze in interest. "Yeah?"
La bobbed her head as an affirmation. "Are you ready?" The boy got to his feet and wiped off the grass his clothes had gained from the fall.
"Yeah, let's get out of here."
La led the way with enthusiastic hops, full of energy and excited to see the lake. Every now and then Seth'd have to call her back when she'd disappear around a corner. She'd always poke her head back around the corner, ears lifted up above an adorable rabbit-y grin and paws patting the ground in turns. "Come on, slow poke!" She at last called back to him, shifting from one foot to the other in excitement. "It's berry season! We can eat some raspberries, and blueberries…" She went on listing berries as Seth caught up with her, feeling a bit winded and exasperated by her excited chatter.
He had to stop once to take a moment to catch his breath. La's energy was incredible. They at last came out of the hedge maze-which was what the corridor of leaves turned out to be-and into a small clearing. Beyond the trees of an old forest before them, they could hear the faint sound of waves.
"This way!" La said pointing, then cried, "Race you to the berries!" and bounded off.
Seth started after her a half a second later, calling after her. "La slow down!" Seth caught up with her and she looked back at him with an enthusiastic smile.
"I found some raspberries!" Seth could see that she really had, and he couldn't help smiling a little at how cute she was. The plant before La was enormous and speckled with huge raspberries. She'd already managed a large red berry off of the bottom of an uncharacteristically tall raspberry bush and held it out to him. "Here, what do you think?"
Seth took it with a murmured thank you and ate the berry. It was delicious, and after saying as much, the two ate until they were fit to burst. Seth hadn't realized how hungry he'd become, and he was grateful all over again for the berries. The leafy tops of the plant reached just a little higher than his shoulder, and through them he glimpsed a beach with waves crashing up onto it. "Hey, there's the lake!" He pointed toward the other side of the raspberry bush and they searched for a way through the bushes. They found a stream leading to the lake and La pointed at it. "We can wash up here. The water will be cleaner here than in the lake."
Seth agreed to this, and the two knelt down at the streamside to wash their hands and faces. But just as they approached, a high pitched shriek sounded, and nearly gave the two travelers a heart attack. They looked up in time to see the retreating forms of a dozen tall female figures. Their bodies seemed to be made up of leaves, and they were just looking away from the travelers to run into the forest when the two looked up. They stared after the women in shock, until they noticed that the trees on the other bank of the stream had become nearly leafless. Had the women been hiding in the trees?
Seth's head snapped down to look at La in dumbstruck question, and she seemed to be as embarrassed as he was shocked. "Er-Those were the lake forest's dryads. They're the spirits of the trees, made up of leaves and wind when they leave a tree. They come to water to drink, and are very shy around strangers. I think we frightened them."
Seth gazed at the opposite bank in apology. "Oops…"
They went ahead and washed in the stream, and La was able to wash out the raspberry juice from her fur around her mouth and paws. She did this delicately, looking embarrassed. "I'm not usually so messy..." La assured Seth, and he laughed.
"Me either. They were good berries though, huh?"
La nodded, saying with enthusiasm. "Really good!" She nodded so enthusiastically, that she nearly fell over. They both laughed and once they were finished washing up and getting a drink, they walked along the stream until they reached the shore tof the lake. Seth and La both stared in awe at the massive body of water. It went on for miles, touching a majority of the horizon and looking more like a sea than a lake, and the waves sweeping up onto the lakeshore only improved that thought. The forest stretched on, on most sides, and vanished with the lake at the horizon line. "It's huge!" Seth breathed, and La nodded in silent agreement. Here and there in the lake, black rocks of different sizes and shapes loomed or peaked out of the water, looking like the heads of enormous lake monsters.
Something on one of the closest rocks caught Seth's attention and his forehead wrinkled as he squinted at it. "What is-?" He began, when his eyes grew wide and he suddenly grinned. Lifting two fingers to his mouth he issued a catcall if a whistle. "Whoot-whoo!" La jumped and stared at him, bewildered.
"What are you doing?" She followed his gaze and covered her mouth with her paws in mortification. "Oh my gosh!" She yelped. For upon one of the rocks, a woman lay sunbathing. From the hips down another rock blocked her from sight, but she was naked from the waist up, her long green hair covering her chest. Her eyes were closed peacefully, but at Seth's whistle they snapped open. The woman's face went terribly green in a blush of shocked horror, and she sat up to look around. Upon seeing Seth, her eyes grew enormous before she glared in fury and ducked down into the water. He thought at first that she was just hiding herself behind the rock near her. But his eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped, when the end of what was clearly a large green fish tail and fin followed her. It pushed her deeper into the water, and she disappeared entirely.
"That's Princess Lyra!" La cried in horror. "She's the daughter of the mermaid queen, Arisa! Oh, we are in so much trouble!"
Seth looked down at La, confused and dismissive of her words. "Ok, so she's a princess. Whoop-de-do!" He scoffed, waving his hands and rolling his eyes, and La's tail bristled in indignation as well as worry. A disrespectful action or word towards a member of any royal family was dangerous-and unbeknownst to them, Seth would be experiencing that danger very, very soon.
A splash at the lakeshore made them both look up. That same woman, cheeks still flushed dark green in anger, was getting to her feet from the waves and walking towards them with swift, fluid-like steps. The water before her parted respectfully, and as can be expected, she was dripping from head to toe. But even as she walked, she began to rapidly dry, and her wet hair went from drenched, to damp, to dry within seconds. Her hair looked like green waves frozen in time. As was first thought, she wore nothing at all as a top, her long green hair all that kept her modest. But her lower half was covered by a long skirt that began at her hips and ended up dragging several inches behind her, it was so long. It resembled the fin in both color and scale pattern, a fin which she had had only moments ago.
Coming to stand before the teenager, the mermaid's hand swung back and then forward and soundly slapped Seth across the face. Seth stumbled back a few steps in shock, his hand flying up to protect his injured cheek. La squeaked in terror, cowering before the fearsome princess, who hissed once like a snake before speaking venomously. "How dare you!" Her voice was melodic-almost like she was singing. It would have been beautiful, if it wasn't for the second voice, like a delayed echo in a cave, which made her seem all the more ethereal; and at the moment, especially frightening. "Who do you think you are? Behaving in such a way toward a woman-and a stranger, no less! You should be ashamed of yourself!" La was already trembling, yet the mermaid princess rounded on her, too. "And you! You are of this world-you should know better than to let some human speak to us this way!"
Seth bristled, and surprising the two women, his hands turned to fists and he stepped in front of La protectively. "Leave La alone! It's my fault, not hers!" He seemed to have surprised himself, too, for his cheeks flushed, but he firmly stood his ground. Lyra's wide pale green eyes changed from shocked to disdainful. La, however, gazed up at him in awed relief, feeling safer.
Lyra continued speaking. "Then learn some manners! What you did was inappropriate. If you'd had any sort of respect for your fairer species, you'd know the correct and honorable thing to do would have been to turn away and leave-or at least avert your gaze while trying to speak to me!"
Seth glared back, incredulous. "If you didn't want someone to see you, maybe you shouldn't have been lying out in the open half naked! It's your own fault for being seen!"
Lyra's pale greenish skin turned greener in a mermaid's form of a blush, and she frowned in discomfort. He was right, of course. She couldn't deny that she shouldn't have been sunbathing there. "I suppose you are right." She began grudgingly, and then went on to explain. "I only did it because it was away from my own people. It gets tiresome being escorted everywhere by guards."
"Sounds kind of nice to me." La muttered. It was apparent she liked Seth's protective words and actions from a moment ago. The other two looked at her, making her eyes grow big and the fur on her cheeks bushy in a blush. "Being safe, I mean." La added in a hurried, timid voice.
Lyra replied bitterly, bringing Seth's attention back to her. "It is not as nice as you think. I cannot make friends without my mother's approval. Every choice is made for me, every moment, of every day. I have little to no say in the plans going on around me," She afterward gestured at the forest, her expression showing longing. "I have read everything I could about this place from my mother's stone library," At their bewildered looks, she elaborated. "My mother has a chronicler who is allowed to leave the lake. He writes down everything he learns on tablets of small, thin slabs of stone. He has been everywhere-even beyond the walls of the Labyrinth."
La's tiny voice gasped in amazement. "He's even left the Labyrinth?"
Lyra nodded, her eyes saddening, "But it is useless for I can never leave the lake." she gestured at the ground beneath her feet. "This is the furthest I have been from my home." Her arm fell back to her side. "You are lucky to be able to go where you please. Others do not enjoy such a luxury."
Seth shifted on his feet awkwardly. He felt bad for her, but there wasn't really anything he could do for her. "I'm sorry for you, but we kind of need to keep going." Lyra's eyes turned questioning.
"Where are you going?" She queried, and Seth gestured vague around them.
"We're looking for the Goblin King's castle. Do you know how to get there from here?"
The princess frowned. "Not from on land. But… I think there is a way through the lake. Near the bottom there is a tunnel. At least that is what I have read from the Chronicler's writings. It is supposed to lead beyond the lake to a place near the castle."
Seth was excited until he remembered where she'd said the tunnel was. "So-it's at the bottom of the lake?" He emphasized his words for clarification, and she inclined her head in a 'yes'. His face went a little pale, and Lyra spoke again.
"I do not remember where exactly. I would have to look at the Chronicler's notes to be certain where it is specifically. I think he may have drawn a map." Her face lit up suddenly. "If I show you the way there, will you take me with you on your journey?"
Seth was going to say no, because he didn't think she'd be much help beyond, and she must've caught his train of thought for she added, "I know where many things are in the Labyrinth, and I can look up more when we get to the library! Please will you take me with you?"
It made sense, Seth reasoned. Lyra could help them get to the castle, and she didn't seem like she'd slow them down very much. Seth was contemplating this, when he took one look at Lyra's big hopeful eyes, and it sealed the deal in his mind. "Yeah, ok, you can come with us." Lyra's joyful face was filled with such beautiful radiance that it was stunning, and Seth went a little pink in the face when he saw it.
"Oh, thank you!" She cried, her ethereal double voice twice as jubilant and just as melodious.
Seth's face flushed fully scarlet this time and he cleared his throat, casting his gaze down at the ground a moment to collect himself. La looked between Seth and Lyra in disbelief, and the slightest tinge of jealousy sparked to life in her eyes. She huffed quietly, though Seth failed to notice it. He was too busy recovering.
La huffed again and spoke up. "But we can't swim underwater! How do we get there?" In truth, La was frightened by the prospect of being under that much water for any time longer than a dip. Lyra reached down to her skirt and ripped off four thin stripes of what looked like iridescent seaweed.
"You can use this." She showed them two in each of her hands. "Tie one around your waist, and the other around your neck. They're made of magicked seaweed, and will allow you to have a tail and gills." Here she tapped the side of her neck with two fingers to emphasize where the gills would be. Seth and La exchanged an apprehensive look, and at last Seth nodded.
"Ok. Let's do it."
A/N: I am a LOT happier with how this chapter turned out. I realized it was Seth's character development that had issues and also the scene with that one dryad didn't fit. It was neat but not relevant, you know? Anyway, thoughts and questions? Let me know!
Disclaimer: Reaaally don't own Labyrinth or any of the awesomeness within it.