Title: Twice Upon A Time
Author: Loki
Rating: R, mostly for language.
Archive: if you want it, ask. I'm not in the habit of saying no. ^_^
Disclaimer: all standard ones apply.
~*~*~*~
Chapter One: Never So Kind
Sarah stopped short at the sight before her. Jareth, King of the Goblins, was hunched over, pulling and straining with something she couldn't see. A dozen harsh words fell out of his mouth. There was a split second where her wits failed her and she thoroughly believed she could somehow blend into the scenery, and thus go unnoticed. But that idea quickly unraveled and she decided her best avenue of action would be to return the way she had came.
But of course, her first step back was the one to alert him. His mismatched eyes snapped up, widening on her just slightly, then they fell to the growing ball of silver thread in her hands. Sarah was finally able to see what he had been consumed with. On the end of his little finger was a tiny silver bow, one that he was evidently trying his damnedest to remove.
To say that understanding came like a bolt of lightning would not be too far from the truth---for both of them gazed at each other in amazement, clearly struck.
"Oh no," he said. "No no no."
Sarah was making her own protests, shaking her head wildly from side to side. Sparkling sun fell through various breaks in the trees, streaked glowing light down her dark chestnut locks even as they swung about her face.
This was not happening. The Labyrinth may have been real, but this just could not be. Please . . .
Jareth's thread-free hand rose to his forehead and he rubbed it back and forth, back and forth. She could very nearly feel the scope of his blossoming headache. But his hand dropped and he looked back up to her, studying her as if the details of her thoughts were written on her face. After such a blow it was entirely possible!
"Well, come here," he said finally, and to the tune of her once again rising surprise. He waved his hand at her beckoningly. The action was entirely impatient and precise, a sharp cut through the air. She felt the urge to go to him, but stayed put. After all, she knew better.
"You are the most difficult creature," he growled softly, crossing the distance he had just requested she cross. He took the silver thread from her hand, much to her puzzlement, then wound it the rest of the way. Almost immediately the thread was gone, and instead he cupped in his hands a pendant. A silver sun with a long, fine chain.
"If this is the way it is to be . . .then let it be," he said. He raised the chain as if to slip it over her head, expression betraying nothing.
Sarah, certainly wary of any 'gifts' he may happen to offer, ducked and successfully avoided the necklace all together. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?"
His eyes hardened and his mouth tightened noticeably. "This will not harm you, Sarah . . ." She did not see him move, had only blinked and found the thin silver chain already about her neck. "It will, however, make you my Queen."
It what? She stared at him, it taking a moment for the words to sink in. But when they did it was almost instantaneous. She ripped the medallion from her throat, flung it to his feet, and was running back along the stone curving path before he had time to react. The beauty of the garden had not changed, but it was useless now. She wanted only to return home, no more of his cruel tricks, his little games. If he followed, she did not know. Did not want to know. Her feet pounded over that winding path for what seemed like hours. She had no idea where she was going. She had hoped that going back would lead her home, but whatever had brought her to the Underground was a heartless master indeed. For all she knew---he had brought her back! It seemed more suited to his black humour.
No doubt, as time progressed and she finally gave way to walking, she was utterly convinced of it. Soon the light began to dim and eventide pressed on the farthest horizon. She cast her eyes above, through breaks in the flowering branches and caught small slivers of the sky. Darkness was moving in so quickly. The moon was already a ghostly presence in the heavens, odd that it looked so much like her own. How long had she been fleeing? It seemed like hours. She felt faint, passed beneath one of the many arbors and nearly fell in her exhaustion. Please, she wished silently as she leaned her head against vine-covered lattice, please let me wake up in my own bed in my own home . . .
When she first awoke her arm was flung over her eyes, a last futile attempt to exile the growing light that was pulsing against her eyelids. Spider webs of amber played against her vision, momentarily stifling her attention. She was lying on her back with soft covers pulled up around her waist, a comforting warmth cradling her.
"Another dream," she whispered, then followed it with a quietly mocking laugh that echoed from the corners around her. She smiled, pulled the cover tighter around her and sank into the plush velvet pillows.
Velvet pillows?
Her eyes snapped open and she twisted out of the bed, or tried to, but the sheets had managed to tangle about her legs and sent her crashing to the floor. She lay there, breath harsh and uneven, staring at a ceiling that seemed too foreign to be friendly. The stone-coldness of the floor warred with the thick heat of the sheet, but went unnoticed at the foot of bigger beasts to slay. The events of the hours before bounced from side to side in her mind, none ringing out clearer than the last wish that had come so fervently to her.
Of course, the fates were never so kind . . .
"Good morning."
Evidently.
Sarah's o so attractive view of the ceiling was obscured by a slightly bemused face, one framed by glittering wisps of silvery-gold tresses. She very quietly covered her eyes and wished it away. But she heard him move, could almost feel the indistinct scrape of his boots against the stone.
She remained like that, still, with the palms of her hands pressed into her eyes. "Where am I?"
Oh, he was there and as real as she was. There was an almost audio quality to his observation of her---a noise that was hardly a noise and more of a tingling along her nerves. Like the magic in the garden. "Where am I?" she repeated, her voice rising louder but still amazingly calm.
"Tangled in my sheets." Amusement. Of course, her horrible predicament would amuse him. Why would she ever think otherwise? She very definitely removed his sheets and stood up. Her plain white blouse was wrinkled beyond compare, it shouldn't have been a problem when faced with this world of fantasy---but beyond her desire for home was now a desire for clean clothes and a bath. Not in that order though. She flung the sheets to the mammoth bed and then turned her dark eyes to him.
He sat at a small marble table before a widely arched window. It was white marble with fine veins of colour, cold yet elegant. Light poured from the window onto silver trays decorated by various fruits. He picked up a peach and cradled his chin in his palm, smiled. "Hungry?"
"Not on your life. Now send me home." There was a growing ferocity in her eyes, an icy edge to her that was capable of so much. The least of all was standing up to him.
He sighed, placing the peach back amongst the others. "Sarah, it is not that simple. Especially now that we are betrothed---"
"Says who!"
To her annoyance he only shrugged, "You wear the crown, it is inevitable."
"I wouldn't wear your crown if you nailed it to my head!"
Of course, he laughed. Laughed at the hostility that was bubbling up inside her, laughed at the determined snap to her eyes. He pointed at her breast and said, "You wear it already."
Sarah's hands rose immediately and she found what she had been dreading. The touch of cool, smooth metal. She felt along the raised surface of the sun's rays, then clutched it in her palm. "You did this," she said flatly. "You put this on me while I was sleeping." She shuddered at the thought of him so close. Her so vulnerable.
"I did not place it there, but it is a good place to be. If I had to choose one individual in all of the world to be at my side---you would be it," he smiled at that, an odd smile, as if he had been caught with words he had no right to.
She removed the pendant and took deliberate steps forward, for some reason counting them as she went. Seven steps and she was before him, seven steps and she dropped the pendant in his lap. He didn't look to it as it almost glowed in the spilling light; he stared up at her, face carefully blank.
"Send me home."
"Sarah Sarah Sarah," he said her name as if a child's. Though his eyes remained on her he swept the chain up and smoothed it out. She did not fail to notice its unusually pristine and untangled state. How surprising. "This is your home now."
"Send," she snatched the medallion from his hands, "me," threw it in a wide, sweeping gesture of her arm, "Home!"
He didn't even look to see which wall it struck or corner it settled into, stared up at her with the same mask of pleasantness. To say it was infuriating would be an obvious understatement. But he stood and with his very presence forced her to step back.
"I did not bring you here, Sarah. I had no idea who would come when the Thread appeared---I admit that I wasn't nearly as surprised as I wanted to be," he paused a moment, but only long enough to present her with his most enigmatic smile yet. "You do not understand, but you will. I will send you home, Sarah, but you and I both know this is far from over."
She did not get to respond. His hand waved through the air and in the next instant she found herself glaring heatedly at her bedroom wall. She blinked. Then noticeably deflated. Her dance of joy would have to wait until the ice in her stomach melted some. Darkness filtered in through the window, though dimmer, she wondered distantly how many hours one night in the Underground was worth. No matter, she still had a couple hours left before school---and she did NOT want to spend them thinking about Jareth and her supposed 'betrothal' to him. Stripping off her clothes she simply left them where they fell, pulled her nightdress over her head and crawled into her own bed. Never so thankful to see it.
She closed her eyes, tried to sleep, but it proved more difficult than her decision. Jareth's words pulsed behind her eyes. Queen? Every little girl had visions of becoming a queen, of rising beyond the everyday and becoming something extraordinary. But a Goblin Queen? Rule at his side and over such a motley crew? She'd rather not. Not that she believed any of it to be true, she quickly reminded herself.
A small noise wove around her, the slight rustle of cloth sliding against cloth. It was unusual in the emptiness of her room, enough to gain her attention. Her eyes snapped open and then widened, but with annoyance and not surprise.
"Jareth!"
He smiled down at her, balanced on the edge of the bed. He was clearly looking for a fight this time. At that point, she was ready to give it to him.
"Back so quickly?"
She didn't bother looking around, she didn't need to. She pushed herself up, let her head fall into her waiting hands and sincerely prayed that she was dreaming.
"Jareth," she said his name very quietly, very patiently through her fingers. Her voice a vision of insane calm. "I thought I asked you to send me home."
"And I thought I told you that this is not my doing."
"Back off," she snapped, kicking free of the coverlet and tossing it aside. Of all the things she needed---she did not need him hovering over her. Oddly, he obeyed. Stood and leaned against one of the posts at the foot of the bed. With smoothly precise movements he crossed his arms over his breast and managed to look winsome.
"Sarah." Only he could say her name that way, seductive and condescending with a peppering of something indefinable. Something that made her feel small, but special at the same time. "I understand your confusion. I sympathize. But ignoring this will only make it stronger."
"You keep saying this is beyond our control, yet you don't seem too upset by that fact. Frankly, your majesty, I find that suspicious." She made sure to give him direct, unwavering eye contact. It was a challenge. "I want the truth."
"The truth," he smiled, retrieving a pocket watch from his waistcoat and flipping it open. "Are you sure you have time for that?"
"Meaning?"
"Time passes in your world. How long before someone misses you?"
There was that. Why was she having this conversation with him when there was nothing to talk about? Why indeed. "Let me see that," she clipped.
His eyes turned to her a moment, and it was such an odd curiosity, but he held the watch out to her by the chain. She rose up to her knees on the bed and grasped the silver watch as it swung free, stared into its face. Stared into her own dark eyes as they reflected back from a highly polished mirror. He then pulled the 'watch' from her loose grasp and re-pocketed it.
"How much time has passed?" She settled back, refusing to wonder why he carried around a mirror and not a watch. Vanity had its many representatives.
"Not much, but you have gone missing for a little over an hour--"
"An hour!"
He nodded. "You looked so content, I didn't have the heart to wake you." But of course, the expression in his mismatched eyes contradicted the words that came out of his mouth.
"Perhaps you would like to return tomorrow with your questions?" Glancing long enough to gauge her reaction, he shrugged. "I can answer them now . . .if you have no interest in the passage of time."
"No no. I've spent enough time here. Just send me home."
He shook his head quietly a moment then sighed. His hand raised.
"And Jareth---"
He paused.
"Make sure it's permanent this time."
"That, dear Sarah, is beyond my control."