To the Victor Go the Spoils

Sorry it took so long to get this out. Didn't mean to keep you waiting. ^_^; To put it in a nutshell: finals, packing, traveling, no connection. But, as John Cusack said, "It's not an excuse; it's a reason." So I ask forgiveness. Gomen ne! So I present two parts this week. Both have Heaven from the Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989 OST as their theme. Have fun!

Ladymage Samiko ;)

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Part 24 ~ Walking the Path

Sarah continued blindly through the pitch blackness, reaching into the Labyrinth to feel the direction she needed to follow. Her hand trailed along the comfortingly ordinary brick wall. She asked herself what she would do when she reached the castle and received no satisfactory answer. She felt she ought to still be angry with him--and she was--but she no longer felt like beating him to a pulp or hanging him by his toes over the Bog. From talking to Philip, she felt she ought to simply accept Jareth as he was and just let everything go. But that didn't feel right either. As a queen, she could sentence him to a month of hard labor or whatever the local equivalent was. However, Sarah wasn't Jareth or Philip or a queen, really. So what should she, as Sarah, do?

After her thoughts had chased themselves in a circle for the thirteenth time, she decided she would just wing it.

The passageway led out into the cellars of the castle and Sarah found herself in a grey granite room surrounded by giant wine barrels and racks of bottles. Curious, she read some of the labels. "Cognac 1282" "Strawberry Champagne 1970" "Bordeaux 1953" "Cotes du Rhone 1981" "Raspberry Cordial 1983"

Raspberry Cordial? Sarah's eyebrows raised as she found at least three large barrels of the stuff, each already tapped. She debated trying some and decided against it. Knowing Jareth, the chances were twenty to one that one sip would send her reeling--either drunk or hallucinatory. Fingers brushing the wood, Sarah continued along the path the Labyrinth showed her.

It led her to a medium sized room set in the back of the castle. Sarah gasped as she entered it. Jet lined the walls in what appeared to be solid sheets of delicate openwork that outlined swirls and curves. The cells created by the piercing were inlaid with pillows of semi-precious stones, lapis lazuli and moonstone covering the ceiling, malachite forming the walls, hematite in a quartz matrix (which lay flush with the jet) in the floor. The entire room gave a rich, dark, seductive glow.

"It's gorgeous," Sarah breathed, delicately stepping in. She felt a light tap on her ankle and started. A pair of hands carved of the same black jet waved at her from the wall near the floor, then pointed at her shoes.

"Oh," she said. "You want to take my shoes off?" One gave her a thumbs up in reply. She gingerly offered them her right foot. "I guess you guys don't talk like the helping hands in the oubliette, huh?" Having gently removed her sock and sneaker and placed it on the floor nearby, the left hand moved horizontally, shaking itself in a no,' then giving a come on' gesture. Sarah gave them her left foot. Curling her toes when they were done, she smiled. "That feels a lot better. Thanks!" The pair formed a smile between themselves, then gestured to the other side of the door. Sarah found there a pair of delicate silk slippers with pointed toes, lined in turtle fur' and slipped them on. After a long day, her feet felt like they were in heaven, and from the cozy grandeur of the rest of the room, Sarah was inclined to agree with them.

A further inspection of the room revealed a second door opposite the first, which led out into an enclosed courtyard. Both were covered in the same cloisonne-style work, set with flat pieces of petrified mahogany. The windows on either side of the outer door were shuttered with the same delicate sheets of jet, without the inlay so as to let in light and air, and so thin Sarah felt she could break them with a mere touch. Suddenly exhausted, she collapsed onto the mahogany bed in the center of the room. Tossing her jeans over the headboard and the slippers next to the bed, she snuggled under the soft sheets and fell asleep wrapped in warmth.

Sarah awoke warm and comfortable the next morning, snuggling under the wine colored sheets. When the light from the windows refused to let her stay there any longer, the girl wriggled quickly into her clothes and, though she hated to leave the gorgeous little room, she made her way into the heart of the castle with a firm resolution: find Jareth. Beyond that, she didn't even try to think.

Reaching for the Labyrinth as she had the night before, she asked it where she could find Jareth. It was puzzled for a little while; it didn't understand what the name Jareth' meant. It was only when Sarah, exasperated, created an image of the Goblin Lord in her mind that the Labyrinth comprehended that she wanted to speak with that part of itself that happened to be Fae. The Labyrinth simply didn't recognize Jareth as a separate entity. When it finally understood, the Labyrinth called her attention to what could almost be described as a magical vein and told her to follow it, which she did gladly.

The vein led up through the empty halls and chambers of the castle. Sarah wondered where the goblins were. They had swarmed the place when she had come for Toby. Was that what the castle was normally like or was this? If it was like this most of the time, an eternity of echoing hallways and cavernous chambers, Sarah could think of feeling a little sorry for Jareth. Had he spent eternity almost entirely alone? Finally, Sarah reached a staircase that spiraled up and up and ended with a small door. Somehow, she forgot to knock--perhaps because no other room in the castle had required it--and quietly opened the door and went in.

Sarah instantly felt welcomed by the darkness of the room, which surrounded her like a pool of thick black ink. A sharp contrast was the pale light that flowed in from the missing side of the tower room. She gasped as she looked out across the acres upon acres of the Labyrinth. Vaguely, she felt a little rush of pride and smugness coming from the Labyrinth equalled by her own pride that this was now her domain. Hers to oversee and command. Hers to protect and shelter. Hers to love.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" came a voice behind her. Sarah whirled around, nearly losing her balance over the edge.

"Careful!" Jareth cautioned. "If you go over, I can't help you."

"You can't--" Sarah looked closely at the form standing behind her, then at the bed. She could still see Jareth's blond mop peeking out of the covers while the man behind her looked vaguely transparent. The girl blanched. "Are you--? is he--?"

"No, no. Jareth is most definitely alive, Sarah," the spirit reassured her quickly.

"Then what--? how--?"

"I am that part of Jareth that he never allows to be seen in his waking hours. I wander during his sleeping hours so that we may achieve some modicum of peace in our existance."

"But what are you?" Sarah persisted.

"I am his humanity, Sarah."