Return to the Center of the Labyrinth
By Quaxo'
A/N: Yeek! I guess I had less free time then I thought. I didn't mean for this part to take so long. Really. The next part will come up much sooner. Promise ::does little 'cross heart and hope to die' motion::. Anyhoo, this part's kinda romancey, for all of you who like that kinda stuff. Have fun!
Sarah spat blood and dirt as she came out of unconsciousness. The barren walls of the room around her looked familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
Propping herself up on her shoulders, she looked around. That girl, Nikolee, was sitting upside-down in what looked like a throne, tossing a tiny crystal from hand to hand. That's when Sarah remembered where she was. She was in the Palace beyond the Goblin City!
"Jereth," she breathed lightly. Part of her wanted to rip the man limb from limb for what he put her through. The other part of her wanted to grab hold of the Goblin king and never let him go. But mostly, she wanted to tear him apart.
Nikolee looked at the brown haired girl and smiled.
"You're awake."
"No foolin'." The blonde frowned.
"I wouldn't take that tone with me. I would have killed you already if it weren't for him."
"Him? You mean Jereth?" Sarah inquired. Nikolee turned herself right side up, and grabbed Sarah's arm, dragging her up the flight of stairs to the side of the throne room.
"I mean who I mean. Now hurry up. He's waiting." Sarah, remembering her last encounter with Goblin royalty, shouted the same phrase that had saved her from Jereth.
"You have no power over me!" the young goblin heiress stopped, and let go a blood-curdling scream. A small smile graced Sarah's lips, thinking she had won.
"Damn it! Broke a nail." The brown haired woman nearly tripped, not quite understanding why Nikolee was still there.
"What? You were expecting me to disappear in a cloud of feathers? Think again dear. I am not my father, in more ways than one. For starters, I'm not trying to hold any power over you; you want to come."
Sarah struggled to release herself from Nikolee's grasp. For a girl who looked to be younger than Toby, she was surprisingly strong.
"Tell me where we are going!" Nikolee stopped, patted Sarah on the head, and continued forward.
"In due time, you shall know." Sarah sighed, and allowed herself to be led the rest of the way up the winding stairwell.
~*~*~*~
For what seemed like an hour they climbed those stairs. Twisting and turning until Sarah began to wonder if they were really going anywhere. And then, to make matters worse, they reached a dead end.
"We're almost there," Nikolee smiled. Sarah's forehead creased.
"What do you mean? It's just a wall." The little blonde stared at Sarah with genuine worry.
"Did your experience in the Labyrinth teach you nothing?" Then Sarah remembered. The worm and his wall. This wall must be like that.
"Things are not always what they seem to be," Nikolee added, and stepped through the wall dragging the older girl with her. What Sarah saw next took her breath away.
There Jereth stood, in all his glory, staring out a small window. He was still dressed in white, from the last time Sarah had seen him. Like an angel, she had thought. But she knew better now. Jereth was evil, and evil could never have angel wings.
Nikolee dropped Sarah's arm, figuring the older girl would not attempt to escape.
"I brought her here, father. Just like I said I would." It surprised Sarah how much Nikolee sounded like a child starved for approval.
Jereth turned to face the two, his cold eyes staring past his daughter and straight on to Sarah.
Your eyes can be so cruel…
"He looks the same. After all these years, he looks the same," she thought out loud.
"Time passes differently in the Labyrinth, Sarah," Nikolee explained. "What may have been a good thirteen, fourteen years in your world may have only been days here."
"He looks so hard."
Just as I can be so cruel…
"You broke his heart," Nikolee said as she took Sarah's hand again, and led her towards the Goblin King. A slight smile graced his weathered face.
"I knew you would come back."
"Not like I had much of a choice, you know?" Jereth just gave his ghost of a smile again.
"I knew you would."
But I do believe in you…
Nikolee placed Sarah's hand in Jereth's desperately searching for some sort of approval. The Goblin King gently shooed his daughter away, and pulled Sarah to the middle of the blank room. He pulled her body close to his, and they began to dance. They same dance that Sarah had run away from so many years ago.
It was a heaven in your arms,
Heaven in your arms
It was a heaven that I thought I'd lost
Oh so many years ago
Because the things I said to you
Were so harsh and cruel to you
But now you're back again
Paradise lost within your eyes
Lost within your eyes
The precious little window
Into your very soul
I once was lost within then
And now that I've been forgiven
I'm lost in them again
Sarah tried not to get lost in those eyes. Those eyes had caught her once before, and she had almost lost Toby because of it.
~ Get a hold of yourself, Sarah! He has no power over you, so he can't make you do anything you don't want to. Although maybe, maybe one dance wouldn't hurt. ~ Sarah rested her head on Jereth's shoulder, and the two of them danced into the night, completely unaware that a pair of piercing blue eyes was watching them, and scowling all the while.
"This wasn't how it was supposed to go at all."
Well, that was fun, wasn't it? More coming soon. I swear.
-Quaxo'