{un-revised, comments/critiques please}
"I'm busy," Sarah whined angrily as her step-mother bustled around behind her, nervously twisting her elaborate diamond wedding ring around one pale finger in over-dramatized distress.
"But Sarah, your father and I go out so rarely…"
"Not this again! It's not fair!" Cried the girl, as she pounded up the steps toward the floor above, fleeing once again for the safety of her bedroom. Teary eyed and out of breath, she careened toward the bed, falling onto it and burying her face in one of her many pillows, halfway between screaming and sobbing.
It had been almost a year since her journey to the Labyrinth, and, obviously, nothing in her world had changed. Her step mother still treated her like a slave, and she was still as socially outcast as ever, only having managed to snag an invitation to the upper-crust Halloween gala by picking up an unaddressed invitation dropped carelessly in the hall three days before. The only thing that had shifted in her reality was her relationship with her half brother, Toby. He wasn't the wailing, spoiled child he had been…and Sarah couldn't have been more grateful.
Sarah could then hear the murmur of mingled voices, one being her stepmother's whiny soprano, and the other her father's deep baritone, speaking in hushed and hurried tones. The exchanged was followed by the bustling and getting on of coats and scarves, and the gentle click of the front door being eased closed quietly.
"An all time low," Sarah muttered as she removed her face from the pillows and slowly sat up straight on her bed, peering out the snow encrusted window onto the sidewalk below, to watch her enslavers saunter idly down the icy sidewalk, "They don't even tell me when they'll be back anymore."
The time of year was mid-December, and the strains of Christmas Music floating on the air should have lightened Sarah's heart, but, instead, it only made her bitter. The only friends she could call her own were those that she summoned from the Labyrinth, a practice she had been avoiding lately, for her parents had begun to think her crazy, after hearing her converse in her room, avidly with what was, to them, empty air.
With a shuddering sigh, Sarah lifted herself to her feet, shuffling to the antiqued mirror and dressing table, before pulling open a drawer, and extracting a small, red book. In scrawling, elaborate script of foiled gold, the word 'Labyrinth' was etched on the volume's front cover. With the book in hand, Sarah quietly snuck to the threshold of her brother's nursery, and then, after assuring herself of his safety, slowly began to cross the hall back into her own room. The fading daylight had spread shadows across her peach colored carpet, and the corners of her room were soaked in inky blackness, in which anything could be hiding. Slowly, she inched into her bedroom, pulling her hand away from the light switch in disgust, and standing, instead, in the middle of her pitch black chamber.
"I've really got to grow up," she mumbled quietly to herself, scuttling toward her bed and hopping upon it thankfully, pulling her legs quickly away from the floor, as if worried something may have reached out from under the bed to grab hold of her ankles. Still fully clothed, she slowly lowered herself back onto her bed, clutching the book, unopened, in her arms, her chestnut locks fanning out behind her in stark contrast with the white comforter upon her bed. In her mind, the Labyrinth loomed, filling her with a sense of excitement and dread, of homecoming and uncomfortable uneasiness.
Just as the girl had begun to doze, the rhythmic tapping of frozen rain on her window lulling her into an oblivious slumber, a nearly inaudible rustling noise caused the girl's heavy lids to snap open wide. All thoughts of sleep flew away as scenarios ran through Sarah's mind, and as her body reacted to her sudden anxiousness. A burglar? A murderer? A…
"Good evening, Sarah."
A Goblin King? With a shriek of surprise, Sarah sat bolt upright, finding herself staring straight at Jareth, who was looming menacingly over the foot of her bed, a few bits of snow caught in his feathered sallow locks.
At first she wasn't sure if she was asleep or awake, and attempted to prove that the form in front of her was only a figment of her dreaming subconscious, by ruthlessly pinching the skin of her forearm, only to find, disappointedly, that it hurt, and she was, indeed, alert.
"What in the world do you think you're doing here?" Sarah asks slowly, her insides rumbling uncomfortably in an unidentifiable reaction to the Goblin King's presence, though, outwardly, she managed to keep her cool, setting her pretty face in a stubborn mask of indifference.
"Not very hospitable, now, are we, Sarah?" evaded Jareth with a nearly undetectable smirk, moving to take a graceful seat upon the edge of the girl's bed.
"You're a hypocrite. If you want hospitality, don't invite yourself in," she countered quickly, unwilling to be outdone by the curt King. Sarah set her mouth in a firm line, hugging her treasured volume to her chest and eyeing the unchanged rival with a furrowed brow.
"Touché, my dear, touché." Jareth's voice was smooth and even, hushed but full of a respect-demanding confidence. "Would you help me, Sarah?" he asked next, turning to stare into the girl's eyes, leveling her gaze with his cold, hard azure stare.
Unable to react properly, due to fatigue and surprise, Sarah simply lifts her shoulders in a meager shrug and quirks a dark brown brow, hoping to convey her confusion without words. She was slowly tiring of Jareth's games, and had begun to worry about Toby, alone in his room. What right did Jareth think he had, waltzing into her home? Her room?
"Would you help us, Sarah? Your friends; Hogwart…" Jareth continued easily his tone cooing and convincing, though, in all actuality, 'help' was hardly the word, though he doubted 'Will you be sacrificed to the nothing?' would go over well with his stubborn heroine.
"Hoggle," she corrects tiredly, punctuating the word with a sigh, and letting her lids drop over her eyes, before shaking her head from side to side in exaggerated frustration. "What are you getting at, Jareth?"
Wordlessly, Jareth lifted himself smoothly to his feet, stepping forth toward Sarah's window, and motioning for her to follow, the little moonlight filtering in glinting off of his tight, burnished breeches as he strode toward the transom. Begrudgingly, Sarah followed, lugging herself to her feet gracelessly, and cluttering after the Goblin King upon tired feet.
Fluidly, the view from the window shifted, and the snow covered sidewalk could no longer be seen. In it's place stood the labyrinth, in it's beige and twisted glory, the Goblin Castle rising out of the middle, forming a jagged, daunting skyline against the equally brown sky. It took Sarah a moment to notice the blackness nibbling at the edge of the land, though, when it finally caught her eye, Sarah couldn't help but let her curiosity get the better of her. Jareth stood next to her silently, studying her reactions as she studied his kingdom. 'T'is a pity that I may have to get rid of her,' He thought quietly to himself as he let his gaze slide over her features, pleased to see her brow wrinkle at the sight of the shadow, 'She's still rather attractive.'
"What's that?" She finally inquires, pointing toward the inching, inky sable at the edges of the beige, dusty landscape, squinting and leaning closer to the frigid glass. Her breath forms small, clouded circles upon the pane, as she struggles for a better look of the 'it' that seemed, even from so far, menacing.
"There's only one way to find out, isn't there, Sarah?" Jareth replies simply, his invisible smirk growing almost-visibly, as he lightly takes hold of her arm with nimble, gentle fingers. Before Sarah has time to object, the familiar room around her slowly melts away to reveal the labyrinth looming around them, as if a coat of paint had washed away to reveal another, completely different mural beneath.
The two stood in the middle of labyrinth, a place Sarah hadn't even stumbled upon during her first adventure, amidst a patch of strange flowers that slowly changed colors as they lingered there. "Giving me a head start?" She asked nonchalantly, trying not to admit, even to herself, her excitement at the chance for another adventure, even if she would have to endure the annoying, spoiled King.
"Not exactly," Jareth easily replies, not bothering to elaborate, though, if he had, he would have told Sarah that the entrance to the labyrinth had already succumbed to the blackness, and the doors were completely engulfed in the sable-green tar.