*sigh* Well, I guess some apologies are in order. I'm sorry for taking so
long to update. I could give you excuses, but if you wanted to read
excuses, you could read a transcript of Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.
I'm just going to take a moment to thank all of my reviewers, and then it's
on with a much overdue show!
Thanks, apologies, and peaches to:
Zabella
Lady Sorrow
Shunu No Miko
Redaura
TopazQueen1188
Amii
Seagull
Kou Shun'u
Jaye
Niffers
Platinum-Djinn
Drama-Queen
Beautiful-Garbage
Gail
midnight lady
kmf
Moxy
Dreamstrifer
LadyDragon crystalqueen Darkangel-Hotaru Aroura morgana SaffronAngel emmy DocBevCrusher Flaming Fae
Love you all, and don't give up on me!
~
Sarah jerked out of the warm embrace of a sound doze. Funny. She couldn't seem to remember falling asleep. Rubbing her eyes, she yawned. Too bad she didn't stay asleep. Too bad she couldn't sleep forever--or at least until Jareth came back. Instead, she had to wake up in this nightmare.
Speaking of which, what had woke her anyway?
"Liam!" Aidian screamed. "Victoria! For Kit's sake, hurry! Kit, come on!"
His chilling cries sounded sudden and obtrusive in the peaceful quiet of the night. Feeling both frightened and annoyed, Sarah rubbed the goosebumps forming on her arms. Faintly, she could hear the other Fae talking, slowly waking up.
"What in the Underground is he yelling about?" she heard William mutter outside her door, in the corridor.
Alexandra made a quick, light reply that Sarah couldn't quite make out, and then knocked on her door. "Sarah, are you all right?"
"Yeah--" she began, but screaming from the other room began again. This time, it sounded as if Victoria was the source.
Normally strong, happy-go-lucky Fae screaming in the dead of night? This was not good.
Sarah was halfway to the door when Tessika, badly frightened by the disturbing sounds, began crying. Stiff with fear, she switched directions, entering the child's dark room. In one fluid movement, she scooped her daughter and the covers of the bed into her arms. In her room, the door opened, spilling in Will and Alex, and amplifying the screams. Alex looked deadly pale and drawn.
"What's going on?" Sarah asked. Her mouth felt as if it were shot full of novocaine.
In reply, both looked helplessly and wordlessly through her open door, to Kit and Aidian's room.
"Is something wrong?" Frowning, she shifted Tessie in her arms, and Alexandra stepped closer, holding out her arms. Without a hesitation, she relinquished her burden.
In the other room, Liam began chanting in a strange language. Aidian joined in.
Victoria stumbled into Sarah's room, tears streaming down her face. Her eyes were like glassy lochs.
"The bond between them is strong--too strong," she said softly, holding back sobs. "I've always warned them of that . . . "
"You're of no help in this state, Victoria. Stay here," William told the four females, and walked out. The line of his back looked much too rigid-- he was terrified.
Alexandra, still holding Tessika, led Victoria to the bed, and she sat down willingly enough.
Meanwhile, Sarah's mouth was still gaping from William's exiting remark. Stay here? While Kit was screaming in another room? Kit had gone out of her way to comfort and soothe Sarah only a week before, and helped her become accustomed to the Labyrinth. And now she was expected to *stay here*? "My family will be there for you, Sarah. To protect you," Jareth murmured inside. Yes, and she will be there, as well. The tables had turned, and she wasn't about just stand around when she could offer help. Sarah lifted her chin in a gesture that Jareth would've easily recognized.
The two women watched as Sarah purposefully left, Alex rocking Tessie back and forth.
"She should not be in that room," Victoria whispered. "It is not a scene that I wish to witness again." Abruptly, she burst into fresh tears. "My daughter--"
"Shh," Alexandra told her, wrapping an arm around the older Fae and rocking her back and forth, much in the same manner as she was with Tessika. "Katerina will be fine. They will take care of her."
"And what of Jareth? Did you not hear her screaming for him?"
"Do not dwell on such things right now. Just shh."
~
The first thing Sarah saw when she stepped into the oppressive, tense atmosphere of the master bedroom was a white silk handkerchief, lying forgotten upon the wood floor. The snowy pureness of it was marred by bright, unforgiving splashes of crimson blood.
Aidian was holding the spasming body of Kit down onto a large, violet bed as Liam held a hand over her forehead, speaking in a foreign tongue. His eyes were closed, and a comforting creamy light seemed to be transferring from his palm to his daughter's sweaty face. William was holding one of her hands, the fingers curling into claws; Antony clasped his other hand. Will's face was red with effort, eyes squeezed shut. As Sarah watched, he cried out and suddenly released Kit's hand. She abruptly stopped the convulsions.
"It's Jareth, indeed! He's been mortally injured."
Sarah gasped, and all four men turned simultaneously to look at her.
"What is *she* doing in here?" Aidian snarled, face strained with worry. "You are not able to help. Leave."
Startled, she opened her mouth to reply, then thought better of it. It would not do to aggravate a man when his wife looked as if she were dying. She turned around to leave.
"Wait! Is she not the Powerer still?" Liam asked.
William nodded, as if trying to find the strength to be encouraged. "Yes, she is, partly, until the transfer occurs."
"It would be risky to use her help, Father," Antony warned.
"Come here, child." An encouraging smile spread across Liam's weathered face as he held out both his hand and one of Kit's. "Take our hands. Give us strength."
"What are you doing?"
"We are combining our powers to find Jareth."
"He's in the West--he said so."
"That is true. However, he is not with his squadron, and the West is too large and thickly forested to search unaided. Don't be frightened."
"I'm not," she snapped, and stepped forward.
She firmly clasped Liam with one hand and Kit with the other. Aidian and Antony kept their holds as William picked up her remaining hand. The moment contact was made, a deep connection flared into life. A lovely pulsating green burst out from the group, flaring out into a shimmering, shifting shape, like a sea-strewn butterfly.
Never in her entire life had Sarah experienced anything like this. It was as if a searchlight had been switched on inside her head and was now thoroughly examining lands and minds of creatures unknown to her. Memories and thoughts that weren't hers flooded her mind, flowing from the men she was connected to.
A lovely Alex smiles coyly as she holds a bright bouquet of violets to her face. "Yes," she murmurs, almost to the blooms. "I will marry you, Will."
Nobbick, the traitor!
Pulling what looks like peach tree leaves from her buttermilk hair, a much- younger Kit pouts. "I wouldn't have broke that tree if you hadn't planted it there!"
In a smoky, crowded room, Antony plays his delicate flute. The music seems to pour directly from his soul.
"Fight as if you have nothing to lose," Jareth says. The wind kicks up, causing his cape to flutter behind him. The thickly forested hills provide the perfect background to complement the fierce, angry light in his eyes.
After they consummate their proposals, Victoria lays next to her new husband, knowing that their first child was just conceived. He will be a great king, much like his father. The warm glow of candlelight reflects in her hazy eyes, turning them the dark blue of a nighttime sky.
The hills, in the West. Caves.
"Ten rubins says I hit that owl."
" . . . I knew you had a daughter, and she is mine."
An arrow--white feathers--the ground rushing up to meet the fallen predator--
With a jerk, Sarah opened her eyes. The exotic gray-green of them was clear, clarified, with both knowledge and tears. The fluttering butterfly of light disappears. "He's in the hills . . . there was a traitor in the castle . . . and the arrow was a potshot, a bet, a dare . . . and he's hurt . . . Jareth . . . Kit knows where he is."
Liam nodded grimly. "Somewhere in the Western Hills."
"A cave," Antony said.
"But those hills are honeycombed with caves."
"Perhaps if we . . . "
The men's voices faded off, becoming unimportant to Sarah, a more powerful being in some respects and now aware of her power.
Oh, Jareth. You and your damn pride finally got you. Why, you bastard? Why did you have to search by yourself with me and Tessika back here waiting?
Perhaps, if one of them had caught on to her silence and seen the fierce, knowing glint in her eyes, they would've understood.
Sarah knew exactly where Jareth was, and meant to go for him herself.
"If one of you will give me a crystal, I will conjure a map," Sarah murmured. "Perhaps one of the other women can help."
With hardly a pause in his bickering, William formed what Sarah desired and tossed it to her. None of them questioned her, nor thought to conjure a map themselves. Being men in a place that, due to fickle magic, was a bit behind the times, they unconsciously believed Sarah to be safe, and incapable of making decisions on her own. Being Fae, as compared to her being mortal, did not help either. None of them assumed that, when she left the room, she was going anywhere but back to her own bedroom, back to the females--back to her own kind.
However, the females only saw Sarah for a few moments. She stepped into the room and said that Liam wanted a healing crystal for Kit especially from Victoria. The older Fae obliged, and Sarah left.
She was not seen again.
~
The ground. Like the fist of a giant, it smacked into his face. Darkness. Faces in the darkness. Voices.
*I won't do nothin' to harm her.*
*A girl could get lost in this castle. It's like a labyrinth . . . *
*This man's funny, Mommy.*
Light in the darkness. Fire. His stomach was burning with the flames of a thousand candles. He tried to lift a hand, to put out the fire, but could do no more then fall back against the earth, trembling. Something was spreading through his system. Now his chest was on fire as well. How could this have happened? His body was in peril, his life force in close proximity with death, and yet he could not believe it. What could have taken down the great Goblin King?
He had felt this way only once before.
As a little boy, Jareth had been adventurous and curious to a fault. One of his favorite places to examine was the dungeons, under the castle. Unknowing of the dangers of iron to a Fae system, he had clamped a shackle over one of his slim wrists.
Had the governess been only two more minutes in trying to find her scamp of a charge, he would have lost both his arm and the ability to magick.
In iron arrow in the delicate flesh of his diaphragm. A pity the governess wasn't looking for him now.
*JARETH!* a chilling voice suddenly screamed. Kit. Her voice was so clear that Jareth couldn't decipher if it was in the woods with him or in his poisoned mind.
No matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Not even his love for his family. What good would that do if he were dead? And if there was any doubt in his mind before, he was certain now. No one could help him, and he was too weak to help himself. If he could see Sarah only once more . . .
Painfully, he turned his head. It suddenly seemed very imperative that he see the sky once more. But he couldn't twist his head that far. The cave, seemingly huge and looming, representing every thing that had ever frightened and hurt Jareth, filled his vision. A flicker of shadow in the black. He blinked, trying to focus, but his vision became blurrier by each passing moment. Spots danced. About thirty creatures of nearly as many species marched out of the cave, weapons at ready and glinting in the sunlight.
But that did not matter. The black spots expanded like storm clouds in a night sky, and then there was only darkness again.
*Sarah pressed against him. Please, I want you to remember who you're coming home to.*
~
The very woman whom Jareth was dreaming of stood in what she assumed was Liam and Victoria's room, now deserted. In one hand, she held William's crystal--almost oval-shaped and glowing in the palest blue. In the other, she held a glittering confection that Victoria had brought into being. Okay, so she had the means to do what needed to be done.
The only problem was, she didn't have the slightest idea how. Say "Abracadabra"? Start with "I wish"? Click her heels three times?
What had Jareth always done? Almost immediately, the answer came to Sarah's mind. He commanded.
A command sounded like the best bet.
For a moment she paused. What she was planning to do was pure danger, and she knew it. Hell, it made Kamikaze soldiers like little school girls making daisy chains. An irritating little voice of protocol spoke up in her mind. *Wouldn't everyone be much happier if you brought the family with you? If you told them what you saw? Doesn't that have a better chance of a happy ending?*
Yes, in a way it did. But in those precious, enlightening moments, she had seen not only Jareth, but also the future. Too much attention would be drawn to the transportation of ten powerful beings to the Western Hills. If they all went, they would all die, and the lands would fall under the destructive hand of the Dark Lord.
So Sarah would go herself. So what if she wasn't magical? So what if she had no idea what she was doing?
So what indeed. She swallowed.
*Please work.*
She closed her eyes, tensed her body, and concentrated with all her being, holding tight to the part of her deep down inside that had controlled the Underworld.
"By the command of the Powerer, take me to the Dark Lord's cave in the Western Hills."
LadyDragon crystalqueen Darkangel-Hotaru Aroura morgana SaffronAngel emmy DocBevCrusher Flaming Fae
Love you all, and don't give up on me!
~
Sarah jerked out of the warm embrace of a sound doze. Funny. She couldn't seem to remember falling asleep. Rubbing her eyes, she yawned. Too bad she didn't stay asleep. Too bad she couldn't sleep forever--or at least until Jareth came back. Instead, she had to wake up in this nightmare.
Speaking of which, what had woke her anyway?
"Liam!" Aidian screamed. "Victoria! For Kit's sake, hurry! Kit, come on!"
His chilling cries sounded sudden and obtrusive in the peaceful quiet of the night. Feeling both frightened and annoyed, Sarah rubbed the goosebumps forming on her arms. Faintly, she could hear the other Fae talking, slowly waking up.
"What in the Underground is he yelling about?" she heard William mutter outside her door, in the corridor.
Alexandra made a quick, light reply that Sarah couldn't quite make out, and then knocked on her door. "Sarah, are you all right?"
"Yeah--" she began, but screaming from the other room began again. This time, it sounded as if Victoria was the source.
Normally strong, happy-go-lucky Fae screaming in the dead of night? This was not good.
Sarah was halfway to the door when Tessika, badly frightened by the disturbing sounds, began crying. Stiff with fear, she switched directions, entering the child's dark room. In one fluid movement, she scooped her daughter and the covers of the bed into her arms. In her room, the door opened, spilling in Will and Alex, and amplifying the screams. Alex looked deadly pale and drawn.
"What's going on?" Sarah asked. Her mouth felt as if it were shot full of novocaine.
In reply, both looked helplessly and wordlessly through her open door, to Kit and Aidian's room.
"Is something wrong?" Frowning, she shifted Tessie in her arms, and Alexandra stepped closer, holding out her arms. Without a hesitation, she relinquished her burden.
In the other room, Liam began chanting in a strange language. Aidian joined in.
Victoria stumbled into Sarah's room, tears streaming down her face. Her eyes were like glassy lochs.
"The bond between them is strong--too strong," she said softly, holding back sobs. "I've always warned them of that . . . "
"You're of no help in this state, Victoria. Stay here," William told the four females, and walked out. The line of his back looked much too rigid-- he was terrified.
Alexandra, still holding Tessika, led Victoria to the bed, and she sat down willingly enough.
Meanwhile, Sarah's mouth was still gaping from William's exiting remark. Stay here? While Kit was screaming in another room? Kit had gone out of her way to comfort and soothe Sarah only a week before, and helped her become accustomed to the Labyrinth. And now she was expected to *stay here*? "My family will be there for you, Sarah. To protect you," Jareth murmured inside. Yes, and she will be there, as well. The tables had turned, and she wasn't about just stand around when she could offer help. Sarah lifted her chin in a gesture that Jareth would've easily recognized.
The two women watched as Sarah purposefully left, Alex rocking Tessie back and forth.
"She should not be in that room," Victoria whispered. "It is not a scene that I wish to witness again." Abruptly, she burst into fresh tears. "My daughter--"
"Shh," Alexandra told her, wrapping an arm around the older Fae and rocking her back and forth, much in the same manner as she was with Tessika. "Katerina will be fine. They will take care of her."
"And what of Jareth? Did you not hear her screaming for him?"
"Do not dwell on such things right now. Just shh."
~
The first thing Sarah saw when she stepped into the oppressive, tense atmosphere of the master bedroom was a white silk handkerchief, lying forgotten upon the wood floor. The snowy pureness of it was marred by bright, unforgiving splashes of crimson blood.
Aidian was holding the spasming body of Kit down onto a large, violet bed as Liam held a hand over her forehead, speaking in a foreign tongue. His eyes were closed, and a comforting creamy light seemed to be transferring from his palm to his daughter's sweaty face. William was holding one of her hands, the fingers curling into claws; Antony clasped his other hand. Will's face was red with effort, eyes squeezed shut. As Sarah watched, he cried out and suddenly released Kit's hand. She abruptly stopped the convulsions.
"It's Jareth, indeed! He's been mortally injured."
Sarah gasped, and all four men turned simultaneously to look at her.
"What is *she* doing in here?" Aidian snarled, face strained with worry. "You are not able to help. Leave."
Startled, she opened her mouth to reply, then thought better of it. It would not do to aggravate a man when his wife looked as if she were dying. She turned around to leave.
"Wait! Is she not the Powerer still?" Liam asked.
William nodded, as if trying to find the strength to be encouraged. "Yes, she is, partly, until the transfer occurs."
"It would be risky to use her help, Father," Antony warned.
"Come here, child." An encouraging smile spread across Liam's weathered face as he held out both his hand and one of Kit's. "Take our hands. Give us strength."
"What are you doing?"
"We are combining our powers to find Jareth."
"He's in the West--he said so."
"That is true. However, he is not with his squadron, and the West is too large and thickly forested to search unaided. Don't be frightened."
"I'm not," she snapped, and stepped forward.
She firmly clasped Liam with one hand and Kit with the other. Aidian and Antony kept their holds as William picked up her remaining hand. The moment contact was made, a deep connection flared into life. A lovely pulsating green burst out from the group, flaring out into a shimmering, shifting shape, like a sea-strewn butterfly.
Never in her entire life had Sarah experienced anything like this. It was as if a searchlight had been switched on inside her head and was now thoroughly examining lands and minds of creatures unknown to her. Memories and thoughts that weren't hers flooded her mind, flowing from the men she was connected to.
A lovely Alex smiles coyly as she holds a bright bouquet of violets to her face. "Yes," she murmurs, almost to the blooms. "I will marry you, Will."
Nobbick, the traitor!
Pulling what looks like peach tree leaves from her buttermilk hair, a much- younger Kit pouts. "I wouldn't have broke that tree if you hadn't planted it there!"
In a smoky, crowded room, Antony plays his delicate flute. The music seems to pour directly from his soul.
"Fight as if you have nothing to lose," Jareth says. The wind kicks up, causing his cape to flutter behind him. The thickly forested hills provide the perfect background to complement the fierce, angry light in his eyes.
After they consummate their proposals, Victoria lays next to her new husband, knowing that their first child was just conceived. He will be a great king, much like his father. The warm glow of candlelight reflects in her hazy eyes, turning them the dark blue of a nighttime sky.
The hills, in the West. Caves.
"Ten rubins says I hit that owl."
" . . . I knew you had a daughter, and she is mine."
An arrow--white feathers--the ground rushing up to meet the fallen predator--
With a jerk, Sarah opened her eyes. The exotic gray-green of them was clear, clarified, with both knowledge and tears. The fluttering butterfly of light disappears. "He's in the hills . . . there was a traitor in the castle . . . and the arrow was a potshot, a bet, a dare . . . and he's hurt . . . Jareth . . . Kit knows where he is."
Liam nodded grimly. "Somewhere in the Western Hills."
"A cave," Antony said.
"But those hills are honeycombed with caves."
"Perhaps if we . . . "
The men's voices faded off, becoming unimportant to Sarah, a more powerful being in some respects and now aware of her power.
Oh, Jareth. You and your damn pride finally got you. Why, you bastard? Why did you have to search by yourself with me and Tessika back here waiting?
Perhaps, if one of them had caught on to her silence and seen the fierce, knowing glint in her eyes, they would've understood.
Sarah knew exactly where Jareth was, and meant to go for him herself.
"If one of you will give me a crystal, I will conjure a map," Sarah murmured. "Perhaps one of the other women can help."
With hardly a pause in his bickering, William formed what Sarah desired and tossed it to her. None of them questioned her, nor thought to conjure a map themselves. Being men in a place that, due to fickle magic, was a bit behind the times, they unconsciously believed Sarah to be safe, and incapable of making decisions on her own. Being Fae, as compared to her being mortal, did not help either. None of them assumed that, when she left the room, she was going anywhere but back to her own bedroom, back to the females--back to her own kind.
However, the females only saw Sarah for a few moments. She stepped into the room and said that Liam wanted a healing crystal for Kit especially from Victoria. The older Fae obliged, and Sarah left.
She was not seen again.
~
The ground. Like the fist of a giant, it smacked into his face. Darkness. Faces in the darkness. Voices.
*I won't do nothin' to harm her.*
*A girl could get lost in this castle. It's like a labyrinth . . . *
*This man's funny, Mommy.*
Light in the darkness. Fire. His stomach was burning with the flames of a thousand candles. He tried to lift a hand, to put out the fire, but could do no more then fall back against the earth, trembling. Something was spreading through his system. Now his chest was on fire as well. How could this have happened? His body was in peril, his life force in close proximity with death, and yet he could not believe it. What could have taken down the great Goblin King?
He had felt this way only once before.
As a little boy, Jareth had been adventurous and curious to a fault. One of his favorite places to examine was the dungeons, under the castle. Unknowing of the dangers of iron to a Fae system, he had clamped a shackle over one of his slim wrists.
Had the governess been only two more minutes in trying to find her scamp of a charge, he would have lost both his arm and the ability to magick.
In iron arrow in the delicate flesh of his diaphragm. A pity the governess wasn't looking for him now.
*JARETH!* a chilling voice suddenly screamed. Kit. Her voice was so clear that Jareth couldn't decipher if it was in the woods with him or in his poisoned mind.
No matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Not even his love for his family. What good would that do if he were dead? And if there was any doubt in his mind before, he was certain now. No one could help him, and he was too weak to help himself. If he could see Sarah only once more . . .
Painfully, he turned his head. It suddenly seemed very imperative that he see the sky once more. But he couldn't twist his head that far. The cave, seemingly huge and looming, representing every thing that had ever frightened and hurt Jareth, filled his vision. A flicker of shadow in the black. He blinked, trying to focus, but his vision became blurrier by each passing moment. Spots danced. About thirty creatures of nearly as many species marched out of the cave, weapons at ready and glinting in the sunlight.
But that did not matter. The black spots expanded like storm clouds in a night sky, and then there was only darkness again.
*Sarah pressed against him. Please, I want you to remember who you're coming home to.*
~
The very woman whom Jareth was dreaming of stood in what she assumed was Liam and Victoria's room, now deserted. In one hand, she held William's crystal--almost oval-shaped and glowing in the palest blue. In the other, she held a glittering confection that Victoria had brought into being. Okay, so she had the means to do what needed to be done.
The only problem was, she didn't have the slightest idea how. Say "Abracadabra"? Start with "I wish"? Click her heels three times?
What had Jareth always done? Almost immediately, the answer came to Sarah's mind. He commanded.
A command sounded like the best bet.
For a moment she paused. What she was planning to do was pure danger, and she knew it. Hell, it made Kamikaze soldiers like little school girls making daisy chains. An irritating little voice of protocol spoke up in her mind. *Wouldn't everyone be much happier if you brought the family with you? If you told them what you saw? Doesn't that have a better chance of a happy ending?*
Yes, in a way it did. But in those precious, enlightening moments, she had seen not only Jareth, but also the future. Too much attention would be drawn to the transportation of ten powerful beings to the Western Hills. If they all went, they would all die, and the lands would fall under the destructive hand of the Dark Lord.
So Sarah would go herself. So what if she wasn't magical? So what if she had no idea what she was doing?
So what indeed. She swallowed.
*Please work.*
She closed her eyes, tensed her body, and concentrated with all her being, holding tight to the part of her deep down inside that had controlled the Underworld.
"By the command of the Powerer, take me to the Dark Lord's cave in the Western Hills."