Hello all, and thank you again for reading! Please enjoy a softer chapter =)
Late that evening, Berta delivered a small, white card to Sarah. Sarah opened the card and found it almost blank. A single line of text in almost childlike handwriting read:
I will pick you up after breakfast. Everything you need is in the wardrobe.
Instead of a signature, a minuscule owl was daintily sketched.
"Does he really sign that way?" Sarah thought with a smirk.
"Should I check the wardrobe now?" she asked Berta, still standing in the doorway.
"I dunno miss, but I'll see you tomorrow with breakfast," Berta replied with a clumsy curtsy.
Sarah bid her goodnight and approached the wardrobe. If she checked for her things too early, would they disappear and not reappear tomorrow? Sarah never liked swimming in her clothes, but she sure wasn't going to go skinny dipping with the king…
She opened the door slightly.
"Maybe it's like the fridge light, if I open it just a teensy bit I can see inside, but i won't trigger the light. Or the magic, rather…" she thought.
Through the barely-cracked doorway, the wardrobe looked pretty empty. She opened the door all the way.
Rather than voluptuous gowns, light linen dresses and tunics fluttered in the draft that wafted through the room. Sarah had never stopped to wonder what Fae wore to swim; now, she wished she had.
Sheer dresses made of what looked like organza and chiffon hung in neat little rows. Sarah had only ever seen things like this in the adult night-dress department of clothing stores. Sarah gripped the sleeve of a pastel blue dress between her right thumb and index finger.
"I don't want to swim with sleeves…" she thought to herself. The material felt surprisingly sturdy. Some of them were less see-through than others. A dark yellow selection was a bit more modest and contained a silky slip, but the outer dress was sheer with poofy sleeves.
"Would it be immodest to wear only the slip?" she asked out loud, holding it up against the light. She browsed through the fine garments, chewing on the inside of her lip. Sarah had never considered that swimming meant being in a swimsuit, and she wasn't sure she was ready for breaking out her bikini. Who goes swimming on a first date?
The word "date" sent butterflies bouncing around her stomach.
The knot in Sarah's gut was slowly easing as she found something more like a modern, 80's swimsuit. What was the equivalent of a thick scarf hung on a hanger with a skirt. Sarah had only seen this style in a magazine, but she would figure out how to tie it into a top.
She grumbled to herself; the skirt reached the top of her knees. But, she wouldn't push her luck. It was less see-through than the others, but it was still see-through than the rest; she layered it over another skirt for modesty.
In the bottom of the wardrobe was a large, cloth bag. She figured it was goggles and such. How did Jareth know what a beach-bag looked like?
~.*.~ ~.*.~ ~.*.~ ~.*.~ ~.*.~ ~.*.~
Sarah couldn't be sure how many hours it was after Berta had served her breakfast, but the light in the sky was still young when a knock came at her door.
On the other side stood Jareth. Instead of his regular pompous attire, a cotton shirt and matching loose, cotton pants adorned the king. His feet were bare and his hair was combed back into a bun. Regardless of this, it still stuck out in spots like a brambly thicket.
Sarah tugged uncomfortably at her silken cover-up robe.
"Good morning," she said first.
"Good morning," he replied. Sarah hated it when he stared.
"How will we get to the lake?" she asked, wishing he'd say something.
"I'll magic us there."
"Can't we walk?"
"We can," said Jareth sarcastically, "but I can't have you learning all the Labyrinth's secrets, now can I?"
He crossed the threshold into her room, hooked his left arm around her, and proofed them away.
Sarah braced herself this time; would she ever get used to this feeling?
It seems she would. As the ground solidified under her feet, her knees didn't wobble, and that pulling sensation in her stomach didn't trigger her gag reflexes.
Before her eyes lay a sparkling, aquamarine lake. She furrowed her brow trying to make sense of their location; this didn't look like the labyrinth. They were in a valley.
She shielded her eyes from the sun, but still squinted trying to make sense of what she saw on the other side of the lake. The lakeshore was crowded with twisted, gnarly trees that climbed up an embankment that led to a wall.
The wall! That was the wall of the labyrinth. She scanned the perimeter of the water, noticing immediately that the sinister trees grew kinder as they neared the meadow in which they found themselves.
"You would've found this place, had you gone through the left door," Jareth said. Sarah supposed he meant the doors guarded by the goblins she named Alph, Ralph, Jim, and Tim.
"If you survived that stretch of Maze, of course," he added nonchalantly.
Sarah huffed a little scoff out her nose; of course she would've survived.
Jareth walked towards the water, carrying a picnic basket in right hand, which Sarah noticed he hadn't had before proofing them away.
Before following, Sarah took of her sandals and curled her toes into the soft, almost comically green grass. It felt good. The labyrinth and the castle were beautiful, but they were also…rocky. Stony, rather. And a bit dusty sometimes. It was nice to be in nature.
Her momentary repose was interrupted as something scuttled across her right foot. She squeaked and did an involuntary dance to get away from whatever creepy-crawly was invading her space. She stared for a moment before her eyes found a speck of red in the sea of green. It wasn't the bug she was looking for; sparkling between the blades of grass was a ruby the size if her thumbnail. Sarah looked around for the bug before reaching down to grab the jewel, but before she could, the "ruby" scuttled away.
Sarah gasped. She had lost sight of it now, but she tried to follow it. Then, she saw a dash of blue. A dash of purple. There was the red again!
Sarah stopped moving. She located a tiny clearing in the grass and focused on it, holding her breath.
What appeared to be a ruby, two sapphires, a purple amethyst, and a few emeralds and yellow garnets slowly crawled into the space. The sun glinted between the little creatures, creating a trembling rainbow right there on the earth. Sarah crouched and steadily lowered her hand to the ground, moving as slow as she could so she wouldn't scare the little gems. She held her hand flat on the dirt, hoping one would hop on. They didn't seem to notice her hand, so she nudged it closer.
This sent them all scuttling away back into the grass. She gave a disappointed groan, stood, and took a step in their direction.
Colors burst from the grass as hundreds of tiny gemstones took to the air. They floated all around her, encompassing her in a glittering, multi-colored whirlwind. The beauty of it all, the whimsy of the moment…Sarah felt like time was in slow motion as those precious seconds felt like her own personal eternity.
Jareth had just looked up from the beach. His mouth opened in wonder. His queen was engulfed in a shining, living rainbow that was disappearing up into the sky. He wanted to savor this moment forever; the splendor was almost too much for him to bear. She was like a stained-glass work of art come to life.
All the specks of amber and chartreuse and amarillo were soon hidden once more in the grass. Sarah felt the moment of magic leave her and she returned to reality.
She followed Jareth towards the water. The grass slowly gave way to white sand that felt warm and soft beneath her feet. It was a wonder that the bright day hadn't heated the sand to a scalding temperature.
"You found the jewelsteins," he said plainly.
"The what?"
"Your colorful little friends that seem to have disappeared once more. They're quite bothersome little bugs."
"Well, I think they were beautiful," she said, turning her chin up. "Why won't he break that stony visage and show some real emotion?" Sarah thought to herself. "He can't possibly think they were ugly or bothersome or anything other than beautiful."
Jareth just turned and drew a blanket from his basket. He laid it on the ground and sat down. Sarah plopped down beside him, still not over the fact he was so snide about the jewelsteins, but she didn't want to press the matter; her attention was quickly caught by the picnic appearing before her eyes. Jareth set out a carafe of purple juice (hopefully not wine, she thought), sandwiches, dried sticks of meat, a bowl of fruit, and a little sponge cake and clotted cream.
There wasn't any wind or even a breeze, but Sarah wanted to make herself useful and went to find some rocks to hold down the blanket. To her embarrassment, there were no rocks to find, but she did score three piece of driftwood—two of which wouldn't be heavy enough to hold down the blanket anyhow.
"Please," Jareth offered, handing her a glass of their purple refreshment.
Sarah thanked him and tentatively took a sip; yep, just juice.
"This is delicious, what is it?'
"We just call it the 'purple fruit.' I believe you've had it for breakfast already. Sarah smiled and nodded. It was not saccharine, but it was sweet enough to be refreshing.
Sarah looked around their little valley for other signs of life.
"Can other creatures find this place?"
"They could, it's not impossible. But rarely do any creatures larger than insects make it in here." Jareth picked up another stick of jerky after already finishing the first. Sarah plucked up a sandwich.
"And all I had to do was go through the left door. Hmm. I guess I was pretty close," she shrugged, supposing she should normalize talking about their past.
"Not particularly. There's a quite treacherous stretch of maze before you come to this place. But as far as distance goes, yes you were close." Jareth grabbed a sandwich now; Sarah hoped he was cooling down from being defeated since these last comments were without emotion or sarcasm.
"Do you have any other favorite spots?" Sarah inquired, pouring the both of them another glass of juice.
"I do. And many you'll see eventually. I rather like caves and crevices. Dark places where magic hides. But the light is always welcome," he remarked, propping his arms behind him and leaning back to bask.
Sarah smiled; she liked him like this. His magic and mystery drew her to him, but she was content to see just a man taking in nature and resting himself.
If you could call wooded areas of the Labyrinth nature.
Their chitchat carried them through the meal. Without announcing himself, Jareth rose and removed his shirt
Sarah tried not to stare, but he was beautiful. His torso was rippling with lean muscle. He was thin and certainly not bulky, but he was strong.
Sarah thought she felt her soul leave her body when he reached to remove his trousers. Breath returned to her lungs as she saw he was wearing something underneath; she sighed in relief.
She had sighed too soon; the material wasn't chiffon, but it was a delicate linen of some sort that wasn't exactly hiding anything.
Sarah quickly followed suit and peeled off her outer layers too.
Sarah had tried to be modest, but Jareth did not try to hide his staring.
"Heavens above, she is beautiful." His mind wandered to the image of her wet and dripping in water; he quelled his excitement.
"Shall we?" he asked, not waiting for an answer and heading towards the water. Sarah hoped it wasn't cold and wrapped her arms around herself. Jareth practically ran in and plunged beneath the surface. At the edge of the water, Sarah hesitated.
"Is it cold?" she called.
"You'll have to find out for yourself!" he cried jovially, back-stroking towards the other side of the lake.
Sarah exhaled hard, took a deep breath, and…
The water was warm? Lukewarm
Sarah couldn't help but laugh and waded in. She swam out to meet him.
"It's nice, isn't it?" he asked.
"Yes!" she cried, closing her eyes and ducking under the water. She hovered there under the surface. Little spheres of air bubbled slowly out of her nose.
Then, something brushed against her foot.
Her eyes shot open and she swam to the surface. Panic swarmed her senses; if the Labyrinth had fearsome creatures on land, and it could have fearsome creatures under water as well.
"Jareth," she began, trying to hide the shaking in her voice, "are there creatures in the lake?"
He smiled. It was warm and genuine, which she thought was odd since a goblin-shark could be lurking, ready to chomp off her feet at any moment.
"C'mon, I want to show you something." He swam towards the left bank of the lake.
Sarah was frustrated with this response, but followed anyway.
Sarah didn't mind the exercise, and she wasn't a bad swimmer, but she certainly wasn't a distance swimmer. As if reading her mind, Jareth called, "If you get tired, just tell me."
"You could tell me where we're going first," she muttered under her breath.
The left side of the lake disappeared around a bend hidden by trees; Sarah hadn't noticed before. The light was slightly dimmed here by the trees that grew right up to the edge of the lake. The offshoot of the lake narrowed a great deal before opening up into a lagoon.
Jareth swam to the edge of the lagoon. It was muddy and mossy, and Sarah hoped she wouldn't slip.
Jareth was suddenly aware that his fantasy from before had become reality. Against the background of greenery, her hair looked even blacker and her green eyes seemed brighter than all the foliage nature laid out before him. His eyes followed the water droplets as they trickled down the flat of her stomach. He focused as intensely as his eyes would allow without squinting, but he still couldn't see through her skirt. The dripping from between her legs was enough to drive him mad…
Sarah cleared her throat, breaking his trance.
"What was it you wanted to show me?"
Jareth pondered whether he should forget their plans and watch her drip-dry.
"Hold still, this won't hurt." He walked up to her and gently closed her eyes with his thumb and middle finger.
"What—" she started. Jareth withdrew his hand before she could protest.
Sarah opened her eyes and looked around. "What did you do? I don't feel any different."
"I've given you the sight. Well, not The Sight, you have that already. You can see underwater."
Sarah blinked in astonishment.
"No no, you don't need to blink anymore. There's a sort of shield in your eyes. Like contact lenses."
Sarah tried not to blink, but her brain wouldn't let her.
"I said you don't have to—"
"I can't just turn it off," she cut him off in exasperation. She tried not to blink again, but it was like breathing; she couldn't just stop.
"And another thing…" Jareth continued. He stepped toward her and took her by the chin. Sarah jerked her head away from him.
"Hey!" she almost yelled. Was he going to kiss her again?
"I'm not going to hurt you, there's another part of the spell."
Sarah eyed him warily. She took a deep breath and stepped towards him again; if he was swallowing his pride and behaving, she would swallow her fear and trust him. He cupped her chin again and gingerly opened her mouth. He opened his hand and placed it in front of her face, his palm millimeters from her mouth and fingers on her nose. Sarah felt a gentle gust of air, but again didn't feel any different when he withdrew his hand.
"Can I…breathe underwater?" she asked in astonishment.
"No, that would be quite the procedure. But you can hold your breath for a very long time."
"How long?"
"Hard to say." He tossed his head and flipped his wet mane out of his eyes. "Almost an hour. Maybe a bit more than an hour. You'll know when it's time to surface."
Sarah couldn't help but notice he was especially handsome with his hair unwillingly tamed and out of the way. His different colored eyes never ceased to mesmerize her.
"Practice not breathing," he said.
Sarah took a deep breath and waited. Sarah waited for feelings of tightness to arise in her chest, but her air wasn't becoming depleted. Her throat wasn't tensing up; she felt relaxed.
Her mind, however, did not feel relaxed. "You need to breathe!" her mind cried out to her. Sarah gasped.
"I'm sorry, I…panicked, is all."
The Goblin King felt his usual reactionary anger rise up.
"She can try again. Calm yourself," he ordered himself. He knew this was the equivalent to a second first impression, and he didn't want to waste it.
"Have another go at it," he said evenly.
Sarah braced herself and took another breath. She tried to focus on her body and the ease she felt.
"I can do this. I am not suffocating. I can do this." She walked around in a circle, swinging her arms a little to loosen up.
Three minutes…four minutes….
"Alright then, time to go," he said in his normal bored tone.
He grabbed her by the hand and tugged her back to the water. Sarah didn't even have time to blush before they were paddling back to the center of the lagoon.
"And now we dive," he said with a devilish grin. He plunged under the water. Sarah didn't hesitate and dove after him.
Sarah and Jareth dove several meters before anything besides deep, blue water was visible; below them, what Sarah could only describe as multi-colored treetops came into focus. What looked like trees and massive, flat strands of kelp were swaying below them. Magenta and deep purple seemed to be the common color. They swam deeper and deeper into the sparse forest. Sarah was glad it wasn't as thick as the New York forests she was familiar with, and there was still plenty of space to see if anything was swimming towards them…
They had to be more than 50 meters by now, or even nearing 100. Sarah was picturing a vertical football field to measure.
Jareth had stopped swimming and hovered there in the water. He pointed below them.
Sarah didn't see anything; it was just more plants waving back at them.
A green blur dashed across her vision not 20 meters below. Sarah squinted.
She restrained herself, luckily, from gasping.
Down below them were seahorses of every shade of green—except, these were the size of real horses. They dashed left and right, and some simply bobbed along with their tails curled around the trees. They were magnificent.
Jareth motioned for them to descend. He swam to the nearest one, its tail wrapped tightly around a magenta kelp strand. He held his hand out to it, which it eagerly acknowledged and stuck its muzzle into. Could seahorses smell underwater like horses on land?
Sarah cautiously approached. Jareth grasped her hand and drew it towards the seahorse, setting it atop the beast's brow.
Its eyes weren't bulbous like tiny seahorses' eyes, but as deep and dark as land-horses'. Its skin was softer than she expected and a bit slimy to the touch. Not much surprised Sarah at this point, but this came pretty close.
They each swam in and out of the herd. Sarah swam off to admire the playful interactions between the young seahorses. Were they playing hide and seek? Sarah thought they were cute, despite being a bit…she didn't have a word that describes a bit scaly, a bit slimy, a bit rough, and a bit spongy all at the same time, but she thought they were very sweet.
Sarah felt the tiniest tightness in her chest. She found Jareth scratching the chin of a light green seahorse and pointed her finger towards the surface. Jareth mounted the seahorse next to him and beckoned her to join, as if it were a normal day at a normal stable.
She chuckled inwardly; at the castle, they had winged steeds in the air, and here, swimming steeds in the water. She wondered what the Fae rode across land.
She tried not to be icked out as she sat on the slightly-covered-in-algae back of the seahorse she decided was called Nefertiti—and then they were off!
She wasn't prepared for how fast they would swim and threw her arms around Jareth's torso, holding on for dear life. Before she knew it, they broke through the surface, allowing her to take a big, satisfying breath of air. She never thought she'd miss breathing. It hadn't been painful or even stressful, but fresh air beat the stale, hour-old air in her lungs any day.
Jareth gave the seahorse a quick pat on the neck before it plunged back down to the depths.
"So how did you like it?" he smiled.
"They were wonderful!"
"I'm glad you think so," he said leaning back to float.
"What do you call them?"
"Just seahorses. We don't have the small ones you know in the Aboveground here.
"Is the one with hair the same kind of seahorse?" she asked.
Jareth's jerked forward to face her and tread water.
"What do you mean, 'the one with the hair?'" he asked with wide eyes.
"I saw one with hair—or a mane, rather. It might've had legs too; I couldn't really tell because it was so far down below. Is that…" she noticed Jareth's concern and possible fear; she gulped, "Bad?"
"That's a púca. We have to go." He started making his way towards the shore.
"Are you afraid of it?" Sarah asked, trying to keep up with his long breaststrokes.
"Worse. I respect it."
They didn't say anything until they were out of the lagoon and bobbing once again in the green-blue lake.
"What does a púca do?" Sarah asked earnestly.
"Mostly cause mischief and mayhem. Occasionally they bring luck or make plants grow. They can be quite protective."
"It sounds like a nice beast," Sarah said a bit dreamily, imagining herself and the púca riding in and out of the water.
"Or, they enchant you to ride on their back, and they take you on a wild ride that may or may not kill you."
Maybe not so nice.
Sarah figured they would only trick evil brigands or thieves and the like.
Sarah took advantage of her magic sight and breath; she spent her time perusing the lakebed looking for interesting shells or creatures. Aside from some hermit crabs and unusually bright-colored flowers, the lake—not counting the lagoon—wasn't much different than any other alpine lake.
Eventually they found themselves lounging next to each other on the shore in comfortable silence, drying off with the towels that were in the wardrobe beach bag (so that's what was in there, she thought).
Sarah gave a long sigh and leaned back to lie down. It was a cloudless sky up above. Despite this, she didn't feel like she was roasting, like she would if she were lying in the June sun of New York. The normally brown, dusty sky was speckled with patches of blue and dark, purplish clouds. The sky always seemed to change with location rather than weather, or even time of day. Was she looking at the earth's mantle? Was she inside its core? Sarah couldn't imagine flying so high that the sky would turn to magma…
She turned to ask Jareth, but her voice caught in her throat; he was looking at her with that narrow-eyed hunger again.
Jareth was thinking about climbing on top of her and exploring her mouth with his tongue.
But I mustn't, he thought. She has to want it. And I'll make her want it. Soon, she won't be able to resist me. Soon she'll beg for my touch.
Sarah broke into his thoughts by clearing her throat and asking, "Why is the sky sometimes brown and sometimes blue?"
"It depends where you are in the Labyrinth."
Jareth's gaze softened and he unballed the fists he was making, stilling his desire. "After all, it's not really 'the sky' that you Aboveground-ers know."
"But how can that be? How can I see blue but it's not really the sky?"
He gave a good-natured chuckle.
"Love, nine times out of ten, answer all your questions with 'magic,' and leave it at that."
He smiled tenderly. The Goblin King laid back down to appreciate the sky, but Sarah stayed propped up; it was her turn to look at him. She had never really had a chance—or taken a chance—to look at him today.
He was so much more beautiful when he relaxed. His eyes were closed and his mouth turned up in a slight smile that was an involuntary byproduct of pure contentment. Sarah wondered if he ever really got to be himself around anyone other than her. Despite the sharp edges of his jaw and cheekbones, all the hardness of lust and malice had melted away, and Sarah thought she could love him in that moment.
Just fear me, love me, do what I say…
She remembered his words. Did he really mean that? She looked back on their time together since she first dreamt of him. There had been tricks, there had been boundaries crossed, but there had been times of honestly and softness too. He shown more to her than anyone before. Wasn't that true? He was a trickster, but an honest one. Had he ever bared his soul to another woman as he had to her?
Jareth sat up now.
"Enjoying the view?" he asked slyly. Sarah blushed.
"We have to go, pet. Today is the exception, not the rule. The Goblins can't be left alone too too long, and the Fae get offended if I'm not at their every beck and call; the job of 'ruler' has a very misleading title."
Sarah smiled and rose.
"Thank you for a beautiful day; it was perfect."
Jareth took a step towards her and stood just close enough to enter her personal space. Her pulse quickened.
"It was. We should do it again some time."
Sarah was all too aware of the sound of her breath in the seconds that followed. Was she ready for a kiss? No. What was he going to do? She told herself to trust him, trust the process. Don't be defensive…
Jareth turned to collect their things.
Not on a first date, he thought.
Author's note: It's hard for me as a Labyrinth fan to keep it soft; boy do I want them to get together. All in good time, and hey we need room for character growth and organic relationship development 😉