Disclaimer: I own nothing Labyrinth. I do own the large amount of original characters that pop up in this chapter, not that I really want them. Today's chapter title is from "Fat Lip" by Sum41.
Never and Forever
Chapter Five
We Like Having Fun at Other People's Expenses
Tears that Sarah could not stop trailed down her cheeks as she followed the path the goblin – no, make that the Goblin King – had shown her the last time she had fled the castle. She wiped her tears away with her hand, and they mingled with the blood that had dried cracked and rusty brown across her palms. What the hell was she supposed to do?
Stepping out into the sunlight, Sarah stood helplessly in front of the castle. She could not have stayed, had nowhere to go – her friends couldn't help her, or wouldn't, more like it. And so she stood, barefoot and damp, hair disheveled, eyes red from crying, her arms and legs barely covered in a slip and splattered with blood. Oh Gods, what was she supposed to do?
Well crying would do her no good, that was certain. She would just have to find another way home, that was all. Just because the Goblin King wouldn't send her home, didn't mean she was stuck. Buck it up, old girl, Sarah chided herself. This is just another part of the adventure, another part of the game.
She had been walking without realizing it, and her feet seemed to be taking a predetermined path, as though they had given up on her mind doing anything sensible and decided they would have to fend for themselves. She couldn't feel the rocks digging into her feet, though she knew they were. She was only hazily aware that people, or goblins, or whatever the damned things were, they were staring, and snickering, and pointing and gossiping. She was filled with a dazing numbness. He would not let her go home. She had not anticipated that.
"Mummy, mummy, come see!" Sarah registered the voice as familiar, though got no further than that. "Mummy, look, Sarah's here to play!"
"Arianna, what in the Underground are you – oh goodness." Arianna's mother ran out to help Sarah, for her feet had found their way to Ari's home.
~
"I'd heard something as such had happened." Ari's mother, Lomaria, said several hours later. She and Sarah sat at Lomaria's kitchen table, sipping something Sarah attempted to equate with tea, though she knew the purplish liquid was nothing of the sort. She had just spilled out her entire story, from practicing lines in a park and noticing a beautiful owl, to her leap from the Escher ledge, to Jareth's arch decision to keep her captive. Lomaria had been an excellent audience, not quite motherly but similar to a well-liked aunt. She did seem a bit too old to be Ari's mother.
"No doubt he expected me to stay in the castle like a good little girl and wait for him to need a foot rub or something." Sarah spat. Her mind was still racing, thinking of everything she'd seen and done thus far in the Labyrinth, and where she could find a way out.
"Look Sarah." Lomaria said suddenly, laying her hands flat on the table. "I know this all is very different for you, but you have to understand something about King Jareth – he's quite impossible to understand." Sarah stared at her blankly for a moment.
"That doesn't make any sense."
"I know." Lomaria sighed. Sarah could tell she was preparing to dispel some wonderful bits of wisdom, or some other nonsense, but felt she owed it to Lomaria to listen patiently anyway. Lomaria had been quite the hostess, giving Sarah a change of clothes and a chance to clean up, and the first meal Sarah had eaten since she had been dragged Underground. Strangely, she hadn't been quite as ravishing as she should have been, not eating for a few days. Sarah was about to consider this further when Lomaria spoke up again.
"King Jareth's a bit of an enigma, 'tis true, but he wasn't always. Or perhaps he was." Lomaria paused to think about this. "Death brings out the strangest things in people, Sarah."
Death. Sarah remembered the "history lesson" she had gotten from the dwarves at the castle ruins.
"You mean his father?" His father. He. Not Jareth. The Goblin King. That vile fae. That horrible kidnapper. Never Jareth. She knew his name, but would not call him by it. Why give him that humanity?
"Yes, King Wintim. You probably think of the Labyrinth strictly as a place where children are wished away to, somewhere for you to have your little adventure, but we all have lives independent of King Jareth's... other occupations." Sarah felt sufficiently chastised. It honestly hadn't occurred to her that everything in the Labyrinth would go on living even if she left – when she left.
"King Wintim was," Lomaria paused, searching for the right word. "Wonderful. There were no riots. No hunger. We – it was too good to last." Lomaria sounded sad and distant, almost wistful. "I'm only saying this so you can, you know, put things into perspective. The thing is –"
"Mom?"
"Mom!"
"Hey Mom?"
"Who's the chick?"
"What's for dinner?"
"Mom?"
Six separate voices rang out in rapid succession as six goblin boys came crashing through Lomaria's front door. Sarah realized, for the first time, that these boys looked about the same as those she had come up against in the city, while Lomaria and Ari did not. The six boys in question were scruffy, and not even three feet tall, their beady eyes darting over her questioningly. Lomaria was much taller and willowy, with some sort of grace that Sarah would not have considered possible for something as demonic as a goblin. And Ari was something else entirely – she had certain attributes Sarah could only describe as human.
"Boys, come here." Lomaria rapped in a precise, motherly tone. The six of them fell in line in front of Sarah, as though this was an old routine. "Boys, Sarah. Sarah, this is Remembrance, Honor and Honesty, Patience, Gratitude, Sincerity and Forgiveness."
Sarah glanced at the brothers, then at Lomaria. Back to the goblin children, and she had to remind herself not to gawk. Remembrance? Sincerity? And whatever else the rest of them had been – surely she was kidding. Those weren't....those couldn't be...but apparently those really were the names of Lomaria's six sons.
Ari had been stirring in Sarah's lap when the goblin brothers came bursting in, and finally pulled herself into a sitting position.
"You guys tricked me!" She cried accusingly, after blinking sleepily a few times and eventually focusing on her entering brothers.
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
In all likeliness this lively banter would have continued for some time, were it not for the helpful intervention of what appeared to be the oldest goblin brother, Remembrance.
"Arianna, primadonna," he chanted, "you're not a normal girl." Okay, maybe not so helpful. "the others run to have their fun, Ari's the –"
"Rem!" Lomaria snapped, whirling on him. "How many times have I told you to cut that out?" Rem opened his mouth, most likely to tell his mother exactly how many times she had told him, but Lomaria cut him off before he got the chance. "Never mind. Run into town, Rem, and pick up the order I placed at the market. And take Sarah with you," she added as an afterthought, "and show her around town."
Sarah had an urge to say, awww, Mom, but resisted. Rem looked like he felt quite the same way, eyeing her with squinty eyes in a mixture of distaste and mild curiosity. Lomaria, however, either did not notice or did not care, and continued ordering her other children about.
"Ence and Ati, go and set the table, will you? Nine places, dears, Sarah's staying for dinner. Ceri, take your little brother and check the vegetable garden. He can't do it himself. And you two," Lomaria was now addressing Honor and Honesty, who as far as Sarah could tell, were twins. "Clean up the guestroom. Nicely." She added, shooting them a warning glare.
"Are you coming or what?" Rem demanded, holding open the front door. He walked through to the other side, and held the door open for Sarah until she got to threshold, and promptly let it slam in her face.
"I wish away one annoying brother and find six more. Someone around here has a really bad sense of humour." Sarah grumbled to herself, wrenching the door back open and marching through, shooting daggers at Rem who only smiled back innocently.
~
Several annoying stunts later, Sarah and Rem were having a seemingly peaceful conversation as he lead her to the marketplace Lomaria had mentioned. They were walking quite a ways, but Sarah assumed that Lomaria must live on the outskirts of the Goblin City, since she lived so close to the Labyrinth itself.
"Who wished you away?" Rem asked abruptly.
"No one wished me away." Sarah scoffed, finding that she had a hard time keeping up with something that had such short legs. "I'm not a baby."
"Well then, did you wish yourself away? 'Cause those are the only ways for a human like you to be here."
"Trust me, there's more than just those two." Rem stopped walking, and stared up at her.
"Oh, I get it. You're that girl." And he started walking again.
"What do you mean, that girl?"
"The two-in-one deal that tried to kill herself, messed up our town, and is making King Jareth act all whacko."
"First of all, I did not try to kill myself. Second of all, the City looks fine to me." And it did. Which struck Sarah as odd, but she was too busy defending herself to a little boy to dwell on it. "That damned Goblin King of yours always acts that way, and what do you mean, two-in-one deal?" She said very quickly and all in one breathe. Rem acted as though he did not hear her last question.
"How do you know what King Jareth usually acts like? You only know how he acts around you." Rem growled this last part, seeming more animal than, well, semi-civilized goblin.
"Why does that make a difference?" Sarah asked, ears pricking up at Rem's tone.
"You really are stupid, aren't you?" Rem shot back, jumping in a puddle and splashing mud all over the jeans and sweatshirt Lomaria had conjured for Sarah earlier that day. Rem was walking faster now, taking sharp turns down narrow alleyways that made Sarah wonder where they were really going.
"My lady!" The sudden cry jerked Sarah out of her reverie, and she looked up to find Rem, talking to a butcher in a shope a little way down the street, and Sir Didymus, staring up at her as she almost tripped over him.
"Didymus!" Sarah exclaimed, dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around the fox. "I'm so happy to see you."
"And I you, my lady." Didymus returned, though somewhat uneasily.
"You have to help me. That rat of a King –"
"I hast heard of thy plight, fair maiden. I regret to say that I cannot help you." Sarah reeled back on her heels.
"Not you too."
"I cannot help it. I am a knight, lady, I have laid my life for my king."
"You helped me get through the City! You were fighting too, I saw you."
"Thou dost not understand." Didymus' eyes darted secretly from side to side. "Circumstances change, my lady."
"Circumstances!" Sarah cried, throwing her hands up. "The only thing that's changed is sides. You've all changed sides! What happened? Your King of Slime won't send me home!"
"You know," Said Rem, marching toward them and away from the shope he had just exited, clutching a package and a mischievous smile edging on his lips, "you really shouldn't say mean things about King Jareth."
"And why is that?" Sarah sighed. She wished desperately that this day would end, so she could go to sleep and wake to find it all a nightmare. Though that had already happened once so far and was less than successful. Waking up in a dump was not an experience Sarah was longing to repeat.
"Because," answered another voice, one that made Sarah's heart stop, though not from unfamiliarity, "he just might hear you."
Sarah stood slowly, and turned to face him. "Go the fuck away." She said through gritted teeth.
"What vulgar language." He chided softly, advancing from his perch on a shope's window ledge. "You cannot keep running away, Sarah." Jareth sidestepped Rem and Didymus, coming up to Sarah and leaning against the wall, blocking her path. Not that she would have gone anywhere. Sarah's main focus was on standing her ground, and not murdering the son-of-a-bitch in the middle of the market square.
"What are you talking about?" Sarah asked in spite of herself, repeating the phrase for the millionth time that day. He leaned in slightly closer, stormy eyes locked with hers.
"You are my guest."
"Guests can leave." Sarah shot back.
"You cannot impose on Lomaria and her family. She has enough mortals to deal with. You will come back to the castle." Jareth said, his breath flitting across her cheek, a warning tone combining with the mocking one to make Sarah shudder internally.
"Like hell I will."
"Sarah, you will do what I say or –"
"Or what?" Sarah spat, ignoring the horrified look on Didymus' face. "There's nothing more you can do to me."
"I would not say such things if I were you." Jareth hissed, leaning imperceptibly closer so that his nose almost brushed hers.
"You can't tell me what to say." Sarah said in a low voice, as her heart tried to jump out her throat. "I'm not a child."
"You are very much a child, Sarah." A glint of light in his eyes. "I thought you weren't, but I was wrong." He pulled back slightly, his words made Sarah's heart freeze but her mouth continued on it's own.
"I'm almost sixteen!" Oh, how she wished she could take back those impossibly childish words!
"And I'm almost six hundred." Jareth replied, his voice laced with disinterest. "Numbers do not matter for a whiny, short-sighted, slip of a girl." The insults kept coming, one after another, and Sarah could not understand why they burned so. Combined with a second near-death experience in three days and the loss of, of everything...
"Why do you care?" Sarah snapped, screaming it. That lit a fire in Jareth's eyes.
"You called to me! You put yourself in my hands!" A pause.
Oh no.
She couldn't have said it. She hadn't meant it, it couldn't have been that way...
Someone save me, someone take me away from this awful place.
Oh God. She had said it. What an idiot! Before she even wished Toby away, she had as good as wished herself away. She had asked, clutching her teddy bear like she really was a child, and asked for someone to take her away. And what misfortune that the King of the Damned Goblins had been listening. He had taken her away, as she had asked, and Toby too...
The two-in-one deal that tried to kill herself...
Rem had said it. And he'd been right. And Jareth wouldn't let her go home. And maybe he was right too.
"Are you enjoying your fairy tale?" His words cut through her, and Sarah closed her gaping mouth silently. She stared at him, and he stared back, though her gaze was intense and confused, his but a droll amusement. Those were not the only foolish words she had said that night that seemed so long ago.
But what no one knew was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl.
Sarah backed away, then turned and fled back to Lomaria's house, and never looked back.
~
Sarah sat on the porch, watching the sunset over the Labyrinth walls. When had everything gotten so confusing?
Rem peered at her from the window of the bedroom he shared with two of his other brothers. He let the curtains fall to a close, then turned to face his five younger brothers, who were all gathered before him and facing his expectantly. He had already described his beginning escapades, and they all laughed for a good stretch of time. But now he was serious.
"That human girl most hates King Jareth." He said, then lowered his voice quickly so his mother wouldn't overhear. "She's so much fun to play with, but this is even better. I have a plan."