Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie.
Koren finally fell asleep. I left quietly. Perhaps she would shake off the telepathic hallucinations as she slept. I hoped so, at least. I began to walk down to the throne room.
The stairwell beneath my feet began to shake. I slipped and rolled down a flight of stairs, as pieces of the ceiling began to fall down on me. I gasped, throwing up my arms and my magic, trying to protect myself. I started to teleport-and a rock fell on me. I didn't have time for the concentration it required.
A piece of the wall fell out in front of me, and I started slipping. My fingers dug into the stone of the stair, trying desperately not to fall out. I pulled myself into a space between the wall and the stairs and looked out.
A great earthquake was shaking all of the Labyrinth.
A rock fell on me and I screamed as I felt my ribs crack. I looked down. I was covered with blood.
The shaking finally stopped. Koren came walking down the stairs. "Elien!" she screamed. She knelt and began prying rocks off of me.
I tried to help her. It didn't work very well. I could barely move. "Just hold still, Elien," Koren said, carefully lifting boulders away. I obeyed. She was carefully placing every boulder on the stairs, out of the way, but not letting them fall out of the tower.
When the boulders were finally all gone, Koren held her hands up and prepared to work magic. She drew a square in the air, and it firmed into a stretcher. She carefully set it onto the stairway, positioning it so it was flat, then lifted me onto it. It hurt. A lot. I knew that there was something seriously wrong with me.
She lifted the stretcher carefully. I was glad-I didn't think I could handle the strain of teleportation at that point. Koren carried me to her room, which seemed to be all right. She set me on the bed, carefully. "Elien," she whispered helplessly. She set her hand on my back and tried to push magic through it. It didn't work. While we both had healing power, neither of us had the training to use it. I closed my eyes, tired. I could feel myself still bleeding. It hurt to breathe. It would be easierso much, much easier