DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Labyrinth or anything having to do with it. I created some characters to make my stories about it more interesting, but other than that it all belongs to Jim Henson and some other ppl. Don't sue me :)
Thanks for your reviews! I was nervous about people reading my writing when there are so many great stories on the site, but it was probably kind of annoying for me to keep saying it. Anyways, let me know if ya'll have any ideas or feedback. I love reviews (well, not bad ones, but just cause I'm a wimp.) ~ mari
Kingdom Keepers
The walls of the throne room echoed with the voices of goblins debating, arguing and, Jareth thought, just plain being annoying. He fleetingly considered sending them all off to the Bog of Eternal Stench, but decided that that tact was getting a little old. Instead, he somewhat guiltily removed his mind from the fray and began to think of something else, someone else, instead.
Sarah.
Even as he did, he cursed himself for his weakness. Sarah. Why couldn't he stop thinking about the girl?
Not even really a girl anymore, he reminded himself.
Granted, the goblin king was not likely to soon forget the girl that had traveled through his labyrinth as if it were a game. However, Sarah had not been the first, nor the last, to brave that particular entrance to the labyrinth world.
In the times when people from Sarah's mortal world had more readily believed in the existence of the magic worlds, many had been brave enough to take on his challenge. Some of them, like Sarah, were looking for something that he had taken, because they were too foolish to keep it for themselves. Some were intent on seeking the goblin king, whether to hail him as their leader, or to slay him as a monster and tyrant. Other mortals had seen no more than the labyrinths entrance, choosing to give up what it was they sought there for a life filled with nothing more than their own desires and the service of the goblin king. Yes, there had been others like Sarah.
Yet no one else had torn his world apart like she had. Sarah survived his labyrinth, her ease owing partly to the fact that his feelings for her had caused him to whisk away some of the most terrifying obstacles just before she reached them, and then… she refused him. She left him, returning to her mortal world and leaving his life forever changed.
You have no power over me.
The words haunted him because no one else had dared say them. And because, from Sarah, those words held the power that was only possessed by the few people in her world who believed wholeheartedly in the magic of his. Yes, Sarah had defeated him, and taken back the child he had stolen, but there were other reasons his thoughts were so often of her.
She had bewitched him.
Journeying through his Labyrinth, Sarah had shown bravery and desperation, friendship and fear. She had an intriguingly mortal sense of entitlement, and a surprisingly magical sense of her own power. She was overly concerned with what was fair, but at the same time had risked herself for the friends she made along the way, such as that annoying little bridge-keeper and that bothersome dwarf. Haggle? Hogwart? Not important…
Just days before, he had no longer been able to resist seeing Sarah, convincing himself that she was still real. He convinced himself that he wasn't checking up on her, at least not for any other reason than to see that she was safely in her world and away from his. He had taken the form of the white owl, the one that best fit her world, and flown swiftly from one of the most secret entrances to the nondescript suburban house where he had so often watched the girl who loved the story of his labyrinth, years, months, days, before she had found it to be real.
Instead of Sarah, however, he found the child, now a young boy, whose baby blue eyes had darkened to the shade of Sarah's own. Retaining his owl form he had spoken to the boy, knowing that no one but Sarah would take his stories of "talking" to an owl seriously. The boy had chattered on inanely for what seemed like days before telling him of Sarah's whereabouts. However, halfway there a sense of deep foreboding had hit him, and he had turned back and returned to the labyrinth world. If Sarah was having some sort of new run-in with a creature of magic, he didn't want to be a part of it.
Of course, ever since then, he had been worried about her whenever the goblin council had given him more than two seconds to think. Who in all the magic worlds could have any business with Sarah that didn't have something to do with him?
The jabbering of a nearby Goblin dragged him away from his thought.
"Your Highness…Jareth…Jareth, Sir…"
"What?" he snapped. Turning to face one of his head advisors, Amblyn.
"Sir, there is a messenger here to see you, from King Brein's kingdom!"
"Send him in, Amblyn."
Jareth recognized the man who entered the room as one of Brien's most trusted message-keepers and stood up quickly; crossing the room to hear what he had to say. The man bowed as Jareth reached him and then rose when Jareth acknowledged him.
"I bring you news from Kingdom Brienlyn." The man offered, and Jareth motioned for him to continue. "Our king wishes me to inform you that there has been a breach to the mortal kingdom by someone from the outskirts, in one of the lands under your… jurisdiction." The man hesitated, belying the fact that the more civilized rulers feared there was no true law in the outer lands where darker magics ruled themselves. "Someone without permission, we believe…"
"I gave no one leave to use any of those entrances." Jareth answered the man's unspoken question. "No one has gone to the mortal world legitimately, other than myself."
Jareth turned and summoned Amblyn to him. "Send goblin armies to every entrance in this kingdom, even the outermost parts."
"But sir, even our armies fear…" Amblyn trailed off at the look on Jareth's face. "Well, then. Yes, sir."
Amblyn scurried off, ringing his hands nervously.
Jareth turned back to Brien's man. "Tell your King that all the entrances to our world from the mortal world should be sealed off, in his kingdom and mine. No one will come back from the mortal world without our knowing it…Brien has sent messengers to the other kingdoms?"
"Everyone will be notified, sir. We don't want to cause any disturbances there, not after all these years. There are so few now that even remember, or want to believe…" The man trailed off. "Thank you, Your Highness."
Jareth surveyed the room, seeing that his orders were being carried out, and turned to dismiss the messenger. Just then, he felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. Hard.
There was a sudden shout from across the room, and another advisor, Satu, came hurrying towards him. "Sir! Oh! Your Highness…the crystals show that someone has entered the borderlands from the mortal world…the armies have barely started out yet!"
The man continued to shout, as if Jared were a blithering idiot who couldn't tell the importance of his information. But Jareth already knew. Nothing could have made him feel like that so suddenly. Nothing but that same girl, now a young woman, who had turned his world around just a few short years before.
Sarah was back in the world of the Labyrinth.
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