Path of Strange Stars
Chapter 8: Choosing the Path
Disclaimer: The Labyrinth remains the intellectual property of the Jim Henson Company. We are making no money off of this fan fiction; we're just two rabid fangirls who want to see Jareth and Sarah wind up together and torture them while we're at it. :D We've done extensive research into other continuations of the story and have pieced together our own interpretation of what might've happened to these characters. In short, we're trying to do something original-ish. Other fantasy/science fiction influences may, admittedly, bleed into this story.
Authors' Notes: Well, we updated much sooner than either of us expected. Yay! : ) We'd like to thank Effusion14 for the warm welcome back and also the latest anonymous reviewers, Rhian and Guest 2022, for your lovely comments! Normally, we like to reach out to those with an account on FFnet through private message and reply, but we also will respond to anyone without an FFnet account in our Authors' Notes in the future going forward.
Rhian: You're a dear! We're so glad you liked our version of the chemistry between Jareth and Sarah, and there will definitely be more interaction between them as things unfold. And thank you for the writing compliments! It meant a lot to us and helped us power through this chapter!
Guest 2022: Thank you for sharing your thoughts! We're happy that you've enjoyed the story so far and look forward to hearing more of your thoughts in the future. — Mystical_Grace and Meghanna Starsong
More thorough editing later. :)
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Sarah suffered through the worst bath of her life. Not only did the female goblins forcefully chuck her into a wood tub of hot water, they further embarrassed her by persisting to wash her. Despite her vehement protests and indignant squeals, they scrubbed her skin raw with a rough brush and poured buckets of cold, sudsy water over her head. Their clawed hands dug into her scalp while cleansing her hair, sometimes snagging tangled strands and yanking on them.
By the time the ordeal was through, she was undeniably clean but also sore and battle worn. As she burrowed into the thick robe they provided her, she vowed to never again doubt the strength—or the tenacity—of goblins.
The clothes they brought her earlier were laid out on Jareth's (still) intimidating bed. Somehow, she convinced the goblinesses to let her dress herself, and they grudgingly curtsied and exited back into the sliding panels of the walls.
Finally alone and shivering, Sarah retrieved her original underwear and tank top, quickly jammed her legs into new indigo-colored jeans, and shimmied into a blue bell-sleeved tunic. A lace-up vest with a silvery sheen caught her eye. She traced her fingers over the material, noting the filigree embroidery along its neckline and hem. She discovered two zippered pockets as she donned the vest, leaving her to wonder just how much Jareth knew about Earth fashion while lacing up the sable boots.
She wandered to a full-length oval mirror, which had conveniently appeared on a wall where there'd been none, and checked her appearance. The material of the tunic flared with every movement around her hips, and she couldn't resist doing a little twirl like she had when she was younger. They were fine garments, possibly the best she'd ever worn: comfortable, lightweight, and even a bit pretty to satisfy her vanity. The outfit was certainly to her taste, though she'd never tell Jareth that.
"Them clothes look good on ya, marm," complimented a raspy voice.
Sarah whirled away from the mirror to face the speaker; her hands automatically held in front of her to ward off any additional goblin "ministrations."
"Startle ya, eh?" Cackling drew her eyes to the fireplace where yet another opening in the wall had materialized. Bent and wizened, an elderly gobliness with a wild spray of white hair emerged from it, her steps aided by the tap-tap of a gnarled cane. A set of spiraling gazelle horns swept back from a heavily wrinkled, deep-set brow. She stopped in front of Sarah, her dusky skin blending in with the gloom of the bedchamber and head just reaching Sarah's waist.
"Just a little." Sarah winced and eased away from the small creature. "And I really don't need any help—"
"'Course ya do. What a state yer hair is in!" The gobliness clucked her tongue and leaned both hands on top of her cane. "King Jareth'll be after our hides if we don't fix ya up."
"Your…hides?"
"Yes, marm. Hide's very tender as it grows back, and takes much tumblin' and beatin' to toughen up again."
"That's horrible!" Sarah's eyes widened in mixed disgust and horror. She'd found yet another reason to bolster herself against Jareth.
"His Royalness is known t'have a temper, but he ain't needlessly cruel, not like his great-great-great grandsire was. Now there was a Goblin King who enjoyed punishments. Whips, chains, the like." The gobliness shuddered.
"You don't think Jareth tearing off your hides is cruel?" Sarah asked, almost gawking in disbelief.
"No, marm; he don't do so without reasonin'." The dame shrugged her rounded shoulders.
"Oh, my God…"
The gobliness, perhaps hearing the shakiness in Sarah's voice, studied her for a moment. When she saw Sarah's ashen pallor, understanding shone in her dark beady eyes. "Yer thinkin' in human terms, marm." She cocked her head and gave a gap-toothed grin. "See, a goblin's skin be in layers. Th' outermost we call our hide, and it thickens over time with the fightin' and mischief we get into."
"So, it's like a…natural armor?"
The goblin rolled up a sleeve and held out a surprisingly strong arm for Sarah to touch. When she did, she found it to be tough as dried leather and slightly waxy, as if it were some sort of soft carapace. The dame even took a claw to her own arm, running the sharp edge carelessly over the surface without tearing the skin or even nicking it.
"As you can see, marm, we're a rough, hardy folk. Almost thick as dwarves, we are. Removin' that hard-won hide ain't as painful as yer assumin', but tis a humiliation and bother regrowin' it from scratch."
"I never would've guessed." Some of the color returned to Sarah's face, and the queasy feeling in her belly started to settle down.
"Though if it's all the same, marm, we'd rather not have that sorta trouble." The elderly goblin pointed a finger at the bed. "May I fix yer hair?"
Sarah hesitated but eventually gave in and sat on the edge of the mattress. To her astonishment, the dame scurried up the bed as spritely as any goblin half her age and positioned herself behind Sarah, her cane to the side. Mindful of her claws, her hands were gentle as they plaited Sarah's hair into a French braid, a style she'd always admired but never mastered herself.
As the gobliness worked, loosening knots in her damp hair and smoothing out the strands, she continued speaking in a husky voice. "Ya see, marm, not everyone accepted His Mightiness as ruler with him bein' half Elf. Caused unrest among us goblins when his da took a bride from the High Realm. Some dared t'rise up and fight His Magnificence for the throne, wantin' his uncle as king instead."
Sarah found herself lulled by the dame and could only manage a hum in reply, her neck and shoulder muscles oddly relaxed. This close the goblin smelt of damp earth, fragrant tea, and nutmeg.
"His Cleverness made examples of 'em by removin' their hides. Skinning enough rascals'll put an end to anythin'." The gobliness chuckled huskily to herself. "Once th' fools recovered, they all went runnin' to His Melodiousness grovelin' and beggin' for his mercy, and that t'was that. Elf blood or naught, he's been our king since."
"Uprisings and politics. I never guessed goblin society was so complex," Sarah admitted as the dame secured the tail of her braid with a wad of leftover twine she fished out of a pocket.
"Not many care to know, marm." The goblin slid down the side of the bed, using her claws in the covers to slow her descent. Touching down on the floor, she righted herself and took up her cane again.
"That doesn't change the fact that there's a darkness to Jareth." Sarah pulled the length of her braid over a shoulder and admired the dame's neat handiwork. The king's earlier words echoed through her mind again. You can be so cruel, just as I can be.
"There anyone in all the realms that don't have a form of malice to 'em? Keep in mind, marm, His Guileness is also a goblin, and somethin' of his nature reflects that." The gobliness patted Sarah's closest knee reassuringly. "'Sides, I'd druther a decent hidin' over the Bog of Eternal Stench any day. There's a putrid place—much worse'n a few weeks of skin growin' and far more permanent."
"Yes, I remember." The memory alone of that indescribable stench had Sarah's nostrils twitching and her throat wanting to gag.
A musical voice inquired from an unseen corner of the chamber, "Not giving away any of our secrets now, are you, Fara?"
Sarah watched the gobliness tense, and the multitude of creases around her eyes and mouth bunched up further with an expression of horrified shock. "No, Yer Mightifulness, never!" she assured him quickly, her tone leery and a decibel higher than usual. "Old Fara was just seein' to the lass."
A deep shadow elongated along the stone floor and rippled like a desert mirage. Jareth took shape from it, looking clean and suitably dramatic in his normal Shakespearean wardrobe and silk. "As I commanded, of course."
"It's about time you showed up." Sarah scowled at the Goblin King, hopped off the bed, and crossed her arms across her chest. She forced herself to focus on her impatience rather than the memory of Jareth's ardent kiss, though her eyes strayed more than once to his sensual mouth. Stop it, she chided herself in irritation.
His mercurial eyes, which had shifted to the green of budding spring leaves, slanted towards her, equally warm and sardonic. "Hello again, dear Sarah."
Her face twisted at the term of endearment. "Where've you been?"
"Well, you didn't want my assistance dressing, and you were adamant against my observing, so I thought I might go elsewhere."
"That's not what I meant!" Her cheeks flamed. "I've been waiting for you to take me to the Labyrinth!"
The old gobliness—Fara—witnessed their exchange with obvious discomfort, shifting from one hairy bare foot to another. Her fingers clenched around the smoothed top of her spiraling cane. "Think ol' Fara'll be goin' now." She managed a clumsy half-curtsy and backpedaled towards the nearest wall. She blindly prodded the tip of her wood cane behind her into it, trying to open a hole for an escape. "If, ah, Yer Magicalness don't require nothin' more."
Without even glancing at the dame, Jareth waved a careless hand and shooed her away. "You're dismissed."
Fara exhaled audibly. Just in time, the wall behind her yawned wide into another dismally gray passage and she dove through into safety. The stones wriggled around, scraping and clunking against each other, and restacked themselves back into a solid wall, leaving Sarah and Jareth by themselves in the room. For a moment, only the crackling of logs in the fireplace interrupted the stifling silence between them.
"Was it really necessary to frighten that poor old lady?" Sarah asked at last
"Perhaps you can clarify that for me as well. You were terrifying, after all." He tugged his tan gloves higher up onto his hands and nonchalantly brushed out a wrinkle in his cloak.
"Not me! You!"
"Then yes, absolutely necessary."
She rounded on him and jabbed an index finger into his collar bone. "You act like you're some sort of a god and everybody else is dirt on your boots."
Jareth made a show of inspecting the ruffled sleeves of his shirt for soiled spots, a bored look on his face. "I am a king, Sarah."
Recognizing the futility of the situation, she shut her eyes, inhaled and exhaled twice to calm herself, and then focused on the more pressing matters at hand. "Will you take me to the Labyrinth now?"
"Ready to rid yourself of my company so soon, hmm?"
"I'm past ready, Goblin King."
He quirked an eyebrow at her. "And here I thought we were past formalities."
"We will always have formalities," Sarah stated grimly and crossed her arms. "Are we going or not?"
Jareth chuckled and doubled over into a graceful bow, flourishing a wrist and crossing that over his chest as he did so, a cheeky smile curving his lips. "As the lady commands, so shall I obey."
The walls of the palace melted away like paint dissolving in water. Colors ran together, fogging and obscuring Sarah's view. A wave of vertigo hit her as she became unexpectedly weightless, as if she were floating underwater with no idea of which way was up or down. Her ears popped painfully, and all the fine hairs on her body shot up. Her senses felt dulled by a kind of cold haze. Disoriented, she automatically reached out to grasp whatever was closest, the bed or Jareth's arm, but she was alone in the blurred plane of mists.
In what could've been either a moment or a lifetime, she found herself kneeling on all fours atop moss-covered stones. She drew strength from their solidity, her fingers digging into the ridges across their surface and squishing the cool moss. Once the world ceased leaping around her, she stood up and rotated a full circle, taking in wide trunks and heavy, rich foliage. They were in a forested area, totally surrounded by the tallest trees Sarah had ever seen on all sides. "Where are we?"
"Where do you think?" Jareth's voice came from somewhere to her right, sounding both unaffected by their magical journey and uninterested in where they'd wound up.
"We must be at the beginning of the Labyrinth." She wiped slimy moss off of her palms and onto the legs of her jeans.
"Are we now?"
Ignoring him, she gazed into the immensity of the forest, feeling adrift in a sea of brown, gold, and emerald. Some of the trees she recognized: looming oaks blanketed on one side by the same sickly green moss on the stones and spicy-scented pines like fuzzy umbrellas. These trees rose ever upward, their boughs interweaving and blocking out most of the sky. The only light came from weak rays of sun that broke through the canopy, dappling the ground below.
The rock underfoot was composed of irregular flagstones of granite and quartz that someone had laid out in the shape of a circle, reminding her of a Celtic henge. Along the periphery of that circle, the flagstones broke off and continued on in a crude, winding sort of path. It meandered around and through the exposed roots of trees until she lost sight of it behind the hulking mass of an ancient hawthorn, its branches splayed like the arthritic fingers of a crone's hand.
"This can't be right." Sarah whirled to face Jareth, confusion roiling through her. "This is not the entrance I remember."
"I've already told you; the Labyrinth is ever changing. It is never the same, partly due to its own nature, partly to challenge those who enter it. Why would you expect the entrance to be anything less?"
"Fine. I get it already." She pointed at the rough-hewn path snaking off into the forest. "So, this is the way in?"
"It is merely the path to the entrance."
Sarah rolled her shoulders and stretched her hands over her head. "Well, that seems straightforward enough." She took several determined steps down the uneven path, careful not to trip over a particularly obstinate flagstone which stuck up above the others surrounding it.
She hadn't gotten far when Jareth's hand seized her forearm in a firm grip, halting her. "You're certain you wish to see this through?"
"We've already been through this." She glowered at him over her shoulder. "I won't leave my friends in danger, and you won't let me go home any other way."
"This is a great risk for both of us. Even with the energy transference, I'm nowhere near my usual strength, and the Labyrinth holds much darkness and innumerable perils. I implore you, Sarah, to reconsider my proposal."
"No." She jerked her arm away. "You may be a king, but that doesn't mean you always get what you want. I will beat the Labyrinth, and you will send me home."
"As you wish then." He gazed mournfully down at the hand which had grasped her arm and then closed it slowly, letting it drop to his side. "Such a pity."
"Wishing got us both into this mess to begin with." Sarah held up the hand with the star tattoos on it, the fingers splayed. They sparkled and gleamed like prisms even in the gloom of the trees. "I'm through with wishes—including these." She resumed her brisk pace, passing beneath the hawthorn as she went.
With a sigh, Jareth followed after her, his long legs catching up to her easily. "Don't let your stubbornness put you in danger. When the need arises, use the stars."
"I refuse. I never wanted these things to begin with." She strode along the path, the heels of her boots rapping on the stones. "Besides, it's probably better for both of us this way. You keep your magic and won't vanish, and I won't have any more trauma." She shimmied between the hollow in a pair of entwined oak trunks and pushed on.
"I'll have you know that I am not a source of trauma," he retorted primly as he entered a rare ray of sunlight, the length of his spiky hair bleached in its illumination.
"My experiences with the oubliette and the Bog say otherwise. Look, I'm not using the stars, I'm not kissing you again, and I'm not staying with you." Sarah hopped over a gap between two flagstones which revealed coffee-colored ground below. "Deal with it."
"I simply want you safe, Sarah. The stars are a means to that end."
She aggressively swatted aside some toothy fern leaves that were in her way. "Then you shouldn't have kidnapped me, asshole."
Jareth bared his teeth in annoyance. "I won't debate the semantics of something that you wished for."
She stuck up her nose, unmoved by his frosty tone. "I was drunk. People say stupid shit all the time when they're drunk. It didn't mean that I wanted a creep from another realm—who was already stalking me without my knowledge—to actually steal me away."
He seemed to float down the path as he kept abreast with her, his cape whisking behind him in its own supernatural breeze. It reminded her of a cat flicking its tail in annoyance. "So, you still refuse to take responsibility for your own actions and persist in blaming all your misfortune on others."
"That's not what I'm doing."
"If I had a goblin for every time a mortal acted in such a manner, my subjects would have overrun your realm a thousand years ago."
"And if I had a buck for every time you've lied and deceived me, I'd be rich."
He surged ahead of her in three big steps and planted himself in front of her, forcing her to stop short of colliding with his chest. He stared down his hawkish nose—a nose that she hated for being well-shaped and weirdly appealing—at her. "It was your desire to escape from your world which practically pulled me to you."
Sarah readied a pithy retort and then hesitated. Though she'd never admit it to Jareth, part of her knew he spoke the truth. Deciding it was best to avoid the topic altogether, she sidestepped him and batted some ivy vines cascading over a tree branch out of her face. She breathed in moist earth and green growing things, soothing herself with their scents. "How'll you track my friends once I'm in the Labyrinth?"
She heard him mutter something about "cantankerous, shortsighted fools" before curling his fingers and producing another of his crystals. This one reflected the woods across its rounded argentum surface in a warped sort of reality. As she gazed into it, she began to feel woozy and lost in its depths. She swore and yanked herself away from the bauble, well aware of the hypnotic effects of Jareth's crystals.
"Not me, specifically," he said. "You will use this."
"Not another crystal." She rolled her eyes, masking her receding unsteadiness.
"How astute of you."
"Can't you come up with something more original by now?"
"I rather like crystals. They're shiny and always match my wardrobe."
She grunted. "I don't have the best of luck with those things."
Jareth spoke in an overly patient tone, "I already gave my word that no harm will befall you from me." He arched an eyebrow at her and thrust the crystal up into her face where it rolled restlessly around in his palm. "Do you want to find your companions or not?"
"Give it here." She begrudgingly accepted the crystal into her palm, and it morphed on contact with her skin into liquid metal. Its mass changed into silvery bands that wove together and twined around her left wrist. The crystal shrunk before her eyes, becoming a jewel the size of a robin's egg. She twisted her wrist back and forth, causing her new bracelet to wink in the light and the jewel to catch rainbows. "That's…rather pretty."
"What did you expect? It's from me, after all, and I am known for my impeccable taste."
"That's a matter of opinion." Sarah traced the jewel with a fingertip, noting how it emitted a barely perceptible low hum and was cold as a shard of ice. "How's this going to help me, exactly?"
Jareth clasped his gloved hands behind his back and gave her a jester's half-grin. "It's quite simple, really: You follow the thread."
"Hate to tell you, but you're copying the ancient Greeks." Sarah peered at the bracelet in confusion and angled it in different ways in hopes of activating whatever spell Jareth had placed upon it. "What thread are you talking about? I don't see anything."
His mouth extended fully into a sly grin, making him look much like a satisfied fox in a hens' coop. "Oh, you will."
"You're no help at all!"
"Surely you're intelligent enough to sort out how a bit of costume jewelry works."
"This isn't what we agreed on, Jareth!"
"I agreed to help you find your companions, but we never clarified the nature of my assistance. If you wish to find your—hmm, playmates—then you'll simply have to figure it out, won't you? I won't help you solve the Labyrinth."
"It's not fair!" Sarah cried as she stomped a foot. Her eyes widened in shame, and she clapped a hand over her mouth, flushing with embarrassment at her own sudden childish tirade.
"You say that so often, Sarah." Jareth extended an index finger and tilted her chin up with it, one of his eyes sky blue, the other yellow as ochre. "Have you learned nothing?"
She turned her head to the side away from him, staring off into the trees without really seeing anything. "Life isn't fair, but that's the way it is."
"So, you do remember. Good." His fierce grin softened into something that was almost sad, regretful.
Sarah gave a half-hearted shrug, toeing the corner of a flagstone. "People have a way of reminding you how unfair things are."
After that, they continued the trek together for some time in silence. Every once in a while, there came the warble of a bird or the ghostly whisper of the wind through leaves. The crude path of irregularly spaced stones ascended the hump of a small hill. Sarah climbed up the slope, pulling herself along with hands on branches and shoving aside thick bushes, her calves burning from exertion and lungs panting for air.
It wasn't until she crested the hill that the undergrowth around her gave way. She paused to catch her breath, puffing quietly and swallowing around the metallic taste in her mouth, when the Goblin King asked aloud, "Is anything truly fair in existence?"
Sarah wiped her sweaty brow on a sleeve, peeved at Jareth's immaculate appearance. Unlike her, he was still fresh and rudely unaffected by the physical exertion. "Are you going to follow me the entire way to the entrance?" she demanded testily.
"Yes, I should think so."
"Why don't you just go off somewhere and disappear like last time?"
"Because I choose not to. You haven't answered my question, Sarah."
"Well, guess what? I don't have to." She flipped her braid over a shoulder and charged down the hill with renewed determination.
Jareth chuckled in good humor. "I suppose that's fair enough."
The path led on for a while, though it was difficult for Sarah to judge time beneath the treetops. There was no visible sun in the snatches of sky she glimpsed. The day warmed beneath the foliage, and her shirt stuck uncomfortably to her damp skin, a sweat stain showing through the vest on her back.
She followed the stones until they dipped into a dried up, narrow riverbed. Another giant oak, this one with swathes of knotty golden bark, split around the path before rejoining and consuming it altogether. Its network of roots speared the ground in a circle, reminiscent of countless petrified tentacles. Its immense verdant boughs spread proudly overhead, as if this oak was the mighty king of all the forest.
Here, the path of stones ended.
Frowning, Sarah did a loop around the oak, whose large trunk was three of her arm lengths, searching for any sign of the path. There were no more mossy stones, not even a depression in the soil. Once she came back to the front of the tree, she sensed a static shift in the air, a tingling across her skin.
Pivoting to face the trunk directly, she beheld a thick, forbidding door of dark wood embedded in the center of the tree. The door appeared to have sprouted naturally in the oak, no less a part of it than any twig or root. She edged closer, her fingers tracing the lines of rough bark and whorled patterns of wood grain on the door. There was no handle to grasp, no hinges to hold it in place. Only a shiny brass knocker shaped like a bulbous goblin's head decorated the door in the tree.
Recognizing what it was immediately, she whirled victoriously to Jareth, only to find that he'd vanished away into the forest, no more substantial than dust.
True to his word, he'd stayed with her until she'd reached the Labyrinth's entrance.
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To Be Continued