Chapter 12: Mireia in the Oubliette

By Emer

Disclaimer: Jeez, I get tired of doing these things. Jareth is NOT mine, as much as I wish he was. Of course, I love him, fear him, and do what he says most of the time, so perhaps he is my slave. Hah. The idea of the Labyrinth itself is, of course, not mine, either.

Jareth eyed Sabina cautiously. He had no intention of sleeping here, no matter what he had implied to Mireia. However, he didn't have any idea how long Mireia could last, and he needed her awake and aware once they arrived at the castle. So he'd told her to sleep and she slept still, curled up beside him in the sunlight, face pressed to his arm. He could feel her breath seeping through the fabric of his shirt. But he didn't dare take his eyes off of Sabina.

"Shall I dance for you Jareth?" asked Sabina, a hungry glint in her eye that Jareth knew had nothing to do with dancing or him and everything to do with dinner.

"I don't think so," he said evenly with just a touch of mockery. "Come, Sabina. You must think I'm a fool."

"Oh, no. Not a fool, Jareth. The fools don't taste very good and they aren't worth a dance. They come to me easily. I barely have to do anything to seduce them. You, Goblin King, are a challenge. And I'm sure you'd taste very...good." She licked her ruby lips and Jareth tried not to show his wariness. He most certainly couldn't afford to let her know she alarmed him at all. As the Goblin King, this was his labyrinth. But that didn't mean he couldn't get caught in his own traps. He simply had a better chance of not getting caught because he'd designed them in the first place.

All he really had to do was stay awake until Mireia woke up--or until he woke her up, although he was determined to give her a few hours of sleep, at least.

"If you won't let me dance for you, then I shall sing," announced Sabina.

"You'll do no such thing," said Jareth with a frown. "I'm not some wandering challenger to be tested by your seductions, Sabina. Stop trying to trap me, or I will stop you."

"Jareth--" she started.

"Do you think I'm joking?" he asked, with a lazy menace.

"No, I--"

"Good. Then sit quietly and allow the girl to sleep. Then we will be on our way and you can find your dinner."

"No you won't." Sabina's quiet declaration caught Jareth off-guard. No one had openly defied him for so long that it took a few moments for him to feel anything.

"Oh, I won't?" he laughed a merciless laugh. "Perhaps it's time to remind you precisely who your king is."

"You won't be King for very much longer, anyway," returned Sabina. She stretched her arms forward in a curiously sinuous motion and Jareth watched as they grew longer and darker. Her whole body began to contort. He considered his options. If it had just been him facing a rebellious subject, he would not have hesitated to strike her down. But as it was, Mireia slept just behind him. Disciplining Sabina would possibly be violent, and would take up far too much time. It was a foreign thought process for Jareth, never before having been so out of control in his own realm--except maybe once and he was careful not to think of that.

Jareth formed a crystal and sent it at Sabina with a practiced flip of the wrist. It grew until it encased her and then hardened. She scrabbled her spidery legs effectually at the walls of her clear prison. Turning, Jareth swung Mireia up into his arms and set off walking purposefully. As he descended the steps of Sabina's Pavilion, he noticed that there was an invisible wall beginning to form around it--almost like the crystal that he had trapped Sabina in. But this wall wasn't yet hardened. Someone, it seemed, was trying to trap him. He shoved and it gave before him, letting he and Mireia through.

Just as he set foot back on the road, he heard something behind him. Glancing back, he saw Sabina, a gigantic spider now, come crawling out of her pavilion, somehow free of his crystal prison. How had she freed herself? She didn't have any magic except that with which she charmed her victims. He couldn't very well deal with her while carrying Mireia. And he was fairly sure that Sabina was meant as a distraction from the real trouble--whatever was trying to interfere with his magic and his rule. So--time to leave. How? He looked swiftly around. No real cover, no convenient doors or false dead-ends. There was nothing for it. They'd have to go down. He stomped one booted foot on the ground beneath them.

"Open up," he commanded. A small hole formed. "Wake up, Mireia," he said sternly. There was no reaction from the sleeping girl. Perhaps she'd gone partially under Sabina's spell. He'd just have to hope she awoke on the way down. Jareth stepped into the hole. A few seconds later, it closed over head.

* * *

Mireia dreamed of solid warmth and a very nice velvety pillow. She heard music in the background of her dreams. It had started as trickling water, but had slowly become more complex. Soft little melodies drifted by her, harmonizing, keeping an erratic beat.

Then the beat stopped being erratic and became a steady heart beat. She wondered in a vague, dream-like way, if the heart beat was hers.

The dream changed again, and the noise became the flapping of wings. She looked up to see the dream sky fill with a huge flock of white owls--thinking only to talk to one of them, she leapt up to follow them. Before she'd gone three steps, she felt herself falling. It was one of the holes in the road--in her haste to catch the White Owls, she'd fallen into a trap. Feeling annoyed that she'd failed to catch up to them, she waited to stop falling. Some corner of her mind suggested that she should be afraid, falling forever down this hole. But her dream self didn't think very much of that idea.

So she fell deeper and soon the light above her disappeared and everything was brown darkness. She only started to get uneasy when colder air swept up from underneath her. What was she falling into? Mireia craned her neck to look underneath her, but couldn't make out anything. What if she never stopped falling? Somehow, this idea frightened her much more than the thought of hitting something. What would happen to Michael if she fell forever in this hole? And where was Jareth? She'd just been with him. With these thoughts, the edges of her dream started to recede a little. Consciousness trickled back in pushing back her dreams further, as she swam into waking.

For several disoriented moments, she could not remember anything. Then even when she had woken up fully, her most pressing questions only intensified. Why was she laying on a cold slab of rock? Where had the sunlit pavilion, the comfortable pillows, and--most importantly--Jareth gone?

The last question was answered when she heard a muttered curse from a few feet away from her. Lifting her head off of the stone, she turned to look at the source of the swearing. She could see nothing. Another curse issued from that direction, just a few feet away.

"Jareth?" she asked, tentatively, lifting herself to a sitting position.

"What?" he asked, crossly.

"Where are we and how did we get here?"

"Trust me: you don't want to know."

"Actually, I do," said Mireia firmly. She crawled towards him, and ended up running into him. This wasn't particularly surprising, considering how dark it was. Jareth, however, hadn't known she was coming. The second she touched him, she suddenly found herself pinned to the rock, two gloved hands on her shoulders, "You're obviously okay," said Mireia rather breathlessly.

"Mostly," he paused for a beat and then let her up. A moment later, a light flared and Mireia could see Jareth by the glow of the crystal in his hand. He looked her over critically.

"I'm okay, too," she supplied.

"Then it's time to go." He hooked a gloved hand firmly under her elbow and pulled them both to their feet.

"So where are we?" she asked as he led her along.

"In one of my many Oubliettes."

"Oh," she paused, considering this turn of events. "You know the way back to the surface, right?"

"Yes. But as it happens, we are not trying to get to the surface."

"We aren't? I'm not meaning to be dense, here, but why wouldn't we want to get out?"

"We won't stay in the Oubliette. But we will stay under ground. It will be slightly safer for us here right now."

"I'm all in favor of safety."

"Smart of you." He led them to a wall, paused to look at it for a second, and then simply kicked it down. The fake rock fell in with a crash, revealing a tunnel not unlike the one where Sarah and Hoggle had run from the cleaners.

"Don't look so alarmed," Jareth told her. "The cleaners aren't due for a week, if they even remember, which they won't."

"Oh. Good," said Mireia, allowing herself a small sigh of relief. They walked in silence for several moments. But Mireia, as always, had more questions, and they were dying to get out.

"Am I going to become a Goblin?" she asked. Immediately her heart leapt into her throat. She really didn't want to know the answer to this question, but she hadn't been able to keep herself from asking it.

"Afraid you're going to shrink and sprout warts any second?" he asked.

"Yes!"

"Relax. You won't become a goblin," he replied, with a short laugh.

"Why not?" she asked, trying to bite her traitorous tongue.

"Because," he said patiently, "The thirteen hours are up and your brother has completed my Labyrinth."

"I knew he got to your castle from what Gyre said, but what about that dramatic 'take back the--er--child that you have stolen' stuff?"

"That will come later," he said in the clipped tones that usually meant she should stop asked questions. But now that she knew she was not in danger of permanently becoming a goblin, there was no stemming the tide.

"But how did he do it? And does this mean we get to go home?"

"I don't know, and not yet."

"When you fix your magic, can we go home?"

"As you can see, my magic isn't broken," he gestured to the lighted crystal. "Something merely interrupted it. And it's up to Michael whether or not you go home. He thinks he's gotten out of it, but he'll have to take you back properly."

"Oh. That's ok then. If he got through the Labyrinth I'm sure he can handle the last lines. But--the Last thing I remember was falling asleep in Sabina's Pavilion. What happened?"

"We walked into a trap," she could hear the grimace in his voice.

"We knew that, though. I mean, Sabina is supposed to be a trap, right?"

"It was a trap within a trap and I had to get us out of it quickly."

"So Sabina lured us into a trap that wasn't hers? It doesn't seem very like her."

"No, it isn't very like her," he cast her an amused look, cheekbones standing out in the stark light from his crystal. "Though I can't see how you would know what Sabina is like."

"She's a siren. I've read all about them. They always use the same tricks--singing, dancing, beauty, nakedness--I'm glad I'm a girl. It's easy not to get tricked."

"There are male sirens," he told her, a wicked glint in his eyes.

"I'm sure I wouldn't be taken in so easily, though," she objected. "And stop avoiding the topic. What trap and how did we get out of it?"

"I don't know what the trap was," his voice had developed an bored drawl. "But I could tell it was there, another layer to Sabina's. I'm not overly fond of being trapped, so I opened a passage to this Oubliette."

"Which is also a trap."

"Yes, but it's my trap, and I'd rather be in a trap that I control than a trap controlled by someone else."

"Good point," Mireia conceded.

"Do you know--"said Jareth.

"What?"

"You remind me of the babe."

"Wha--Oh, no. I'm not falling for that."

"Falling for what?" he asked innocently.

"The you-remind-me-of-the-babe thing"

"What babe?"

"The babe with the pow--hey! Stop that!"

"Why?"

"Because--because...because I already know that one, and I'm not a dumb goblin!"

"I didn't say you were." He paused. "I was giving you a hint."

"About what?"

"That, Mireia, would be telling." He sounded smug.

"Can't you even give me a hint about what the hint is about?

"No." Before Mireia could get on with the cross examination, they came to a split in the tunnel. They both stopped walking. A very strange look came over Jareth's face in the dim light. Mireia would have been tempted to take a step away if he wasn't the only source of light. He glared dangerously at the walls.

"This is not supposed to be here," said Jareth in a low, rather frightening voice. "Perhaps we aren't as safe underneath the Labyrinth as I thought."

"What are you going to do about it?" He looked over at her, one eyebrow lifting thoughtfully.

"You're going to choose a passage. Pick one." He gestured with one gloved hand.

"I don't know which way we should go," Mireia protested.

"That doesn't matter. I can't be the one to choose. It has to be you."

"But it's not my stupid Labyrinth and--"

"Mireia," he said warningly.

"Oh, all right! That one!" she pointed randomly, before she had time to think, at the tunnel on the right.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" He started down the tunnel and she kept pace with him, stretching her legs into the wide stride she'd adopted for keeping up with Jareth.

"No. I still don't understand."

"You don't have to understand. In fact, it's probably better if you don't. Now stop asking questions and walk or I will leave you here in the Oubliette."

"That wasn't vague, or anything, oh Goblin King. And I know when to keep my mouth shut, though aren't you getting bossy all of a sudden?"

"Your mouth, my dear Mireia, will get you tossed into the bog yet."

Happily, Mireia was saved from further threats, because at that precise moment, the stony ground started to rumble. It started as a distant underground thunder and grew to a full-scale earthquake.

The Searcher: Ha! I'd like to see you try!! *Drops into an Aikido stance.* No, seriously, I'm glad you like the story. And see? I've put up a new chapter. No need for Bogs at all. *backs away slowly*. Perhaps between you and 'Larry I'll be threatened into getting this story finished.

larry: Glad you liked the mirrors. And ok, so you could come into my room and tell me what you thought, but you're talking about us. I mean, we're the freaks that talk to each other over AIM because all of our bedroom doors are closed and we're too lazy to go open them and shout to each other. Did you know that Last year I had an entire conversation with Galina on AIM while she was sitting right behind me? We are so weird.

SilverQuick: I had the following talk with Jareth on your behalf.

Emer: What's this I hear about you taunting poor SilverQuick about her hair?

Jareth: Yes. What about it?

Emer: Well, I mean, look who's talking. Sure, you look sexy and manl--look, you know you look good in it. But really, you've still got no room for insults.

Jareth: You didn't even see her hair. Besides, It's my style. I don't allow anyone to copy it and remain unscathed.

Emer: Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

Jareth: And I'm deeply concerned about this because...?

Emer: Look, just stop teasing her about it, okay? I mean, her hair has grown back and I'm sure she looks quite normal by now. Let it go, will you?

Jareth: I suppose. I do, after all, still have the pictures to show at cocktail parties.

Emer: What?!

Jareth: *grinning, pointy-toothed* I'm not giving those up. Don't even try it.

Emer: arghh!!

So there. I did my best. At least he won't mention it to you anymore. Just don't be surprised, if you ever meet a goblin, when they point at you and giggle. Thanks for the review! I think the plot is thickening a bit now that you mention it. Time to add a few more twists to get it the right consistency...