Author: AKA Jay
E-Mail: aka_jay66@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine. They belong to Jim Henson Productions. For the most part, this is a good thing.
Feedback: Would be appreciated. :)
Summary: Wouldn't that involve some forethought on my part?
Notes: I've replied to all the comments on the last part. My replies
may make no sense, they may be seriously deficient in both grammar and spelling,
the punctuation may resemble the speech patterns of a lunatic, but they're there.
And I had a lot of fun doing them. *g*
Part Nine
Jareth leant against the wall and thought. Around him, hundreds of shoppers
swarmed by. Jareth wasn't exactly seen by the majority of people. It
was the same thing that happens when you pass a roadside clown waving a large
sign and looking miserable. People's eyes just tended to slide off, although
in Jareth's case there was less latent guilt.
This was probably some sort of survival instinct, considering that the last
person who had bothered Jareth while he was thinking would now be a guaranteed
loser in the little known party game: "Who's got intestines?"
Jareth wasn't happy. Sarah's refusal to follow the natural rules of heroine-villain
interaction had just made the entire situation a lot more complicated. He didn't
know why he was surprised; from the very beginning, Sarah had gone out of her
way to make things difficult. (It's worth noting that in the Lexicon of Jareth,
the concept of 'difficult' is referenced in the 'things that happen to other
people' section, only a few short paragraphs below 'not getting what I want'.)
The more Jareth thought about the situation as it now existed, the worse it
looked. Before Sarah had decided to make her little gesture of defiance he had
been looking forward to playing a lengthy game of cat and mouse with the prospect
made all the sweeter by the enthralling certainty of his eventual victory. Now,
time was of the essence.
The Immutable Forces of Fate aren't like people. If you irritate them, you
don't get threatening phone calls. Large men named Vito don't start showing
up on your doorstep at odd hours of the night. There is absolutely no chance
that they will spread nasty rumors about you or decapitate your pet.
You wish.
The worst thing that you can do to most people is to give them a Destiny. The
capital is there for a reason. Everyone has a small-d destiny. Even if they
don't have a specific one when they're born, by the time they die they've invested
a good few decades in creating one for themselves. Their destiny may not have
been glamorous, it may not have changed the world, it may in fact have consisted
entirely of moving small pieces of paper from one end of an office to another
and back again, but it was there.
Destiny with a capital-D is a completely different animal: a large, hungry
animal that runs through the streets of history with a bounce in its step and
a toothy grin on its face, dragging its owner behind it at the end of a very
short leash. If you only took a casual look at someone out fulfilling his or
her Destiny, you might think that the person was in control. But if you looked
closer, you would notice a few things. Things like the blood on their knees
and on their faces where their Destiny had dragged them face-first through gravel.
Things like the look on their faces: half-proud, half-terrified.
Things like the leash tied tight around their hands.
You know that someone has a Destiny when they wake up in the middle of the
night with staring eyes and the perfect certainty that most of Europe really
needs their political guidance, even if Europe doesn't know it yet. You know
it when coincidences start to pile up like a house of cards and the person takes
it all in stride. Most of all, you know someone has a Destiny when they suddenly
start to exude the type of unstoppable personal charisma that makes other people
want to die for them or, far more dangerously, live for them.
Of course, if you've been spending enough time with someone with a Destiny to
notice all that, by then you'll be spending every Saturday night hosting fan
club meetings in your basement.
Sarah had had a destiny since the first day that she found the book. It was
somewhat mutable until she had absorbed enough magic to make her a creature
of the Underground. After that, it was set. But it didn't necessarily have to
be dramatic. At least, no more dramatic than Jareth was planning to make it.
Now... things had changed.
It takes about a week to give someone a Destiny, sometimes longer if they've
run out of the right kind of forms.
Jareth had that long to get Sarah back to his kingdom to fulfill her destiny
before it was too late. Destiny with a capital-D outranks destiny with a small-d
any day of the week. He had one week, and if he failed he could look forward
to potential eons of upheaval and change. And considering that she'd eventually
have to come back to the Labyrinth, the entire chaotic mess would show up at
his doorstep one day. Out of his control.
The idea wasn't to be borne.
Once Sarah's destiny had been fulfilled, it would be set: a block of concrete
in the shifting sands of time. They couldn't touch her then.
Turning his head in the direction that Sarah had gone, Jareth was just in time
to catch a flash of It (currently in the guise of a pager with legs) as It ducked
into the movie theater. Taking a step backwards, Jareth disappeared into the
wall.
*****
It was a final proof of Sarah's complete lack of psychic ability that she was
feeling absurdly smug when she walked into the lobby. Avoiding the obvious trap
at the antique shop had made her feel much more hopeful about her chances of
winning her latest bout with Jareth. If that was the best he could throw at
her, she'd be fine. All she had to do was avoid old mansions, mysterious caves
and brushing her hair in front of a mirror. Oh, and talking animals. If anything
with fur spoke to her, she'd run like hell.
Sarah spotted Lisa waiting in the line at the snack counter. Blatantly cutting
in line, she tapped her friend on the shoulder.
Lisa turned and smiled at her. "Hey! Here, I bought you a ticket,"
she said, handing the ticket to Sarah. "I thought you weren't going to
show for a minute there."
"And miss..." Sarah thought for a moment. "What are we going
to see again?"
Lisa laughed. "Like you forgot! We've only been talking about going to
see it for the last two weeks!"
"No, seriously-" Sarah said.
"What would you like today?" The attendant broke in.
Once Sarah and Lisa had gotten their popcorn, sodas and plastic butter packets,
they made their way to the theater. Behind them, a garbage can that had been
innocently immobile morphed into a Bloodhound and trotted after Sarah.
In the theater, Sarah carefully selected a seat that was far enough from the
back for her to be sure that Jareth couldn't appear without causing a panic
in those people sitting behind her. Or if not a panic, at least a disturbance
along the lines of "Hey! You with the hair! Yeah, you, the one who just
appeared out of nowhere - sit down and shut up! Some of us are TRYING to watch
the movie!"
Once Lisa had stopped trying to convince Sarah to sit in the back row like
they always did, the two girls settled into their seats to wait for the movie
to start. Two rows behind them, a refrigerator attempted to look inconspicuous
behind a copy of the schedule while watching Sarah intently.
"So," Lisa said. "Wasn't it odd the way the power went out?"
"What do you mean?" Sarah said defensively. "I talked to Mr.
Morgan, and he said it was just mice in the wiring."
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Mr. Morgan has been reading over the chapter on
'Duct Tape and the Rodent Kingdom' for the last three weeks. If a meteor
hit the school he'd blame it on mice."
"Still, I don't see what was odd about it." Sarah said. She didn't
know why this was making her so nervous. Lisa wasn't going to turn to her and
laugh and say, "It's odd because it happened about the same time that that
Goblin King started stalking you. Is that a wild coincidence or what?"
Even so, Sarah was very relieved when the lights started to dim and the curtains
slid apart.
Until the title came up: A Midsummer's Night Dream, two solid hours of fairies,
big hair and glitter.
Later, it would take the usher half an hour longer than usual to clean the
theater. He had to use a ladder.
Use your imagination.
___________
There are times when I wonder why I didn't make this a normal fic then
I remember that I was right in the middle of writing a dark Willow/Angelus fic.
This story always cheered me up. Still does, really. I enjoy working on it.
:-)
I was also thinking about all the things I've seen that remind me of Labyrinth.
There's been a lot of them, mainly because I actively seek them out. *g* A review
I got for the last part of this made me seek out my copy of the Forbidden Games
trilogy now there's a Labyrinthian set of books! I wrote a crossover fic
between that and Labyrinth, you know. It was odd.
For those who haven't read the books, find them. They're by LJ Smith, and it's
as close to Labyrinth as you can get. Lovely hero- uh, villain. Julian, with
white-silver hair, a voice like water over rocks and an unhealthy obsession
with a sweet young girl. He makes her play a game, you know. A Forbidden Game.
Uh-huh. Oh, just read them.
Is it time to tell you guys that you're allowed to repeat yourselves in the
comments section again yet? I figure if I expect you to repeat yourselves, the
least I can do is do the same. *g* Seriously, thanks for the comments. I believe
I've made it obvious that they give me unwholesome amounts of pleasure and invoke
much chortling of the non-evil variety.