Chapter 4 A smile crossed the face of the Goblin King but quickly vanished when Sarah cried, "Damn you Jareth! How could you do this to me?"

"Do what my love?" he questioned.

"Bring me to the Underground on my wedding day! The moment I was about to say my vows, you bring me HERE! How am I supposed to explain how I vanished in the middle of my wedding? How am I going to explain this to Daran?" she demanded.

"I stopped time, my darling. You and I are the only ones not affected by my magic. Your precious mortal is ignorant to the fact that you are not standing before him," he explained.

"Why Jareth? Why did you bring me here?" she asked through the burning tears that were falling from her eyes. He tossed the crystal into the air, where it promptly vanished, and he crossed the space between them with a few graceful steps. "To change your mind," he told her simply as he took her in his arms.

"There's nothing to change. I love Daran and I want to be his wife," she said and freed herself from his grasp.

"Sarah, I can give you everything you've ever wanted, everything you've been denied, everything you'll ever dream. I have been generous and lived up to every expectation you have had of me. I ask you, please, to change your expectations and see what is before you,"

"I can't do that Jareth," she refused.

"What power does this mortal have over you?" he asked.

"He holds no power over me. That's what you can't understand. Daran doesn't have to force me or bribe me for me to love him. I love him of my own free will," she explained, "He has no powers and he needs no powers for me to love him."

"Is that so?"

"Yes," she told him with a hint of defiance. Jareth inwardly smiled at hearing the tone in her voice. Sarah's stubbornness was one of the things he loved most about her, but in this instance he knew her obstinance could try his patience and he moved the conversation forward.

"You're absolutely sure there is no room in your heart for me? Are you certain there is no chance for us to be together?" he questioned plaintively, coming straight to the heart of the issue. "I'm sure," she said a little too quickly. She had not examined her heart to find the answer to his inquiry because she thought there was no need. She loved Daran and she rapidly decided that there was no room left. For a brief moment, her thoughts wavered and Sarah wondered if her words were correct. But, she resolutely set her mind and stood by her choice.

Jareth could tell her thoughts were conflicted and he saw the uncertainty in her eyes. "Your eyes give you away Sarah," Sarah glanced over at the Goblin King when he echoed the very words Daran spoke to her. "You're not sure. You're not sure if there's room for me in your heart because you don't know your heart," he told her and he saw her throw up her defenses.

"You don't know anything about me!" she exclaimed, "How do you presume to know what I feel?"

"I've been watching you for a very long time my love. I know your feelings and I cherish them as dearly as my own,"

Sarah felt her blood rise. "You've been watching me?" She was angry at his admission, but she didn't know why because she had always known that he watched her and she had resigned to that fact. Jareth was becoming fatigued from holding time for so long, so he proposed a solution to hopefully accelerate her decision. He created a crystal out of thin air and closed the gap between them, but Sarah shied away from him.

"Sarah, why do you recoil? I won't hurt you," he said in a pained voice. When she did not reply, he began to explain what the crystal was for. "This crystal will show you anything you desire to know. It will show you what is in your heart if you ask it,"

"How do I know that it will be the truth? How do I know it won't be some concoction of yours?" she asked warily.

"Because, just like mirrors, crystals cannot lie,"

"What about the first time we were in the ballroom? None of that was real; it was just a hallucination. That's not truth," she countered.

"What you saw in the crystal was your truth Sarah. In your mind, my ballroom was exactly the way it should have been. That is all my Labyrinth is Sarah. The appearance of the Underground is directly reflected from what you dream it to be. My world is only as beautiful or ugly as you make it,"

Sarah was taken back by this statement. If the Underground was only what she made it to be, did that mean that Jareth only seemed so frightening because she thought that to be fitting of a ruler of a realm of goblins? Goblins were horrible creatures after all and their king could not be a kind and loving man when he ruled over such detestable monsters. Or could he? Timidly, Sarah reached out and took the crystal with a trembling hand, afraid of what it would show her. "How do I get it to work?" she asked in a quiet, nervous voice.

"Simply ask it to reveal what is in your heart. Ask it to show you how much room you have for me," he illustrated, "But you must be firm and clear with your question. Crystals tend to be a little child-like. If you do not tell it exactly what you want, there is no telling what it will show you."

"Please show me how much room Daran occupies in my heart and show me how much space would be available to Jareth if I were allow him in. Show me how much space Jareth would occupy in my heart," Sarah sent her thought to the cool crystal.

Sarah felt herself pulled into the crystal and she felt she was alone in a vast darkness with no barriers near her. She spied a small ray of golden light at one end of this void and made her way toward it. As she neared the light, she saw Daran's face inside it's warmth. She saw his smile, the sparkle of his twinkling blue eyes, heard his laughter, felt his kindness and his calming influence in the illumination. Suddenly, she was drawn into the darkness again and all traces of the saffron beams quickly faded away. Then, the darkness was overcome by a brilliant silver fire that spread throughout the onyx hollow and consumed all traces of ebony. In this incandescent silver, Jareth's face appeared and Sarah could not believe the comfort and safety she felt emanating from those glorious frosty rays. She felt nothing but raw emotions stirring within herself. She could not believe the intensity, passion, and fervor with which she experienced the emotions of affection and devotion. Abruptly, Sarah was pulled out of the unfathomable space and she could clearly see the two glittering hues side-by-side in the expanse. Sarah was startled to see that the tawny luminosity covered far less than half of the barrenness and that the silver frost blanketed the majority. Then, she was only staring into a pure, clear crystal.

A/N: I KNOW THIS WAS A LONG CHAPTER. SORRY ABOUT THAT. THERE'S PLENTY MORE TO COME LATER, SO I HOPE YOU'LL STICK AROUND. ~ IRETHANWARUNYA