AN: Found this on my hard drive written god knows how long ago. Finished it up and posted
it cause, hell, I could use some one parters from Sarah's perspective to even my collection
out. LOL And I'm thinking about doing something from Toby's perspective, just for a bit of
variety. Anyone think that sounds interesting?

Don't own em.


******************************* Regrets ********************************


Do you know how much I just want to be normal sometimes? Oh, I use to be normal, a brief
five years ago. I believed in magic, and fairy tales... I hated this world, and everything
in it- not true hate of course but with the exasperation of one who believes that there is
something better.

I would have grown up eventually, but now... Now I'm Hell's princess and I'm afraid I'll
hold that title forever.

I was foolish in my youth. I played with forces that I didn't understand. I ignored my gut
reaction and I paid dearly for it. All of my dreams came true.

My brother, gone, leaving me free... I was transported to a world where magic did exist,
where I made true and loyal friends, where I was tempted by the entranced Goblin King.

Damn you Jareth, you of all people should know that only by granting mortals their dreams
that you can truly make them suffer. I hated you for what you were putting me through then;
I hate you now for letting me go. Should I have stayed, your servant, yours- as much of a
possession as any material thing? I don't know.

I'm not strong enough to truly answer that, but, on the other side of the jaded coin...
I'm not strong enough to live in this mundane world, not after seeing yours. I float through
this lifeless place like a ghost. I do nothing, touch no one... Powerless and disturbing
to those who do manage to live.

God, do I love you? I did then, as all children love darkness, fearfully, shamefully,
righteously. If I hadn't loved you I don't think I would have been able to reject you. Love
and hate exist together, or not at all, and only in love could I find enough hatred, anger,
to free myself. Now? What's left of me? I'm a woman who realized her every whim, her
every fantasy. What's left t strive for? What's left to feed fragile mortal hope? And
without hope, there is no life.

I longed for truth and beauty and danger and adventure. I found it, triumphed, and was
returned to a place where nothing I cared for existed. Magic worked its roots into my heart
but without sun, without water, without the Labyrinth, how will it bloom?

How will I?

So here I sit and here I fade, delicate beauty worn and frayed by time and the burden of
a thousand things I should have done differently. Do you ever lie awake at night and wonder
what if? Do you remember me at all? Is there some small part of your heart set and sealed
with memories of me? I'd like to think so. But I'll never truly know.

Sometimes I think I'd give anything to be normal. To not have this piercing ache that weighs
my soul and drags my step. I'm too young to feel this old. To care so little. But
sometimes I'm more afraid that I'll forget. That my own memories will be dulled and
softened until the line of past and dream fades and blends and I'll convince myself that you
never existed. That I never learned what it was to truly feel alive.

So in the end I'm content to keep my pain. To be a willing outcast of a society I want no
part of. I'm content to feel the longing, the magic, wrapping itself around my spine and
squeezing my heart until I gasp with silent surprise. I'll warm myself with the thought
of your eyes, burning, searching, pinning mine beneath their weight.

Not happy, never happy... But regrets are better than nothing. Better than nothing at all.
After all, they're all that I have left. A faded beauty, a child grown, a woman teetering
between a desperate need for ignorance and truth I sway between madness and tenuous sanity.
It doesn't really matter in the end. Nothing really matters as long as I can curl into a
mental ball and loose myself in scant memories and a sea full of bitter regret.