Not much to say before this chapter. Maybe just enjoy. :3


Face to face with a fairy. That's the last place Toby EVER imagined he would be.

She smiled, and twinkled a little. Toby grabbed her wing and flung her into the brush on the side of the labyrinth.

"HAH! I always wanted to do that." Toby grinned and continued to look for a way into the stone monster. The walls seemed tall... but perhaps…

Toby of course landed promptly on his bum after the first and final attempt to scale the Labyrinth's side. "Sarah got in… but how was it she did it again?"

The little blue-eyed boy laughed as his sister propped him in her lap. "Alright, I'll tell you it really quick. Short version."

"Why not long?" The eyes watered at the very thought of missing a single bit of Sarah's magical tale.

"I… fine. I'll tell you the whole thing, Toby…" Sarah paused and smirked. " if you go to bed RIGHT after without a complaint."

"I will Sarah! I promise!"

"Alight. It all began when the princess wished her little brother away accidentally to the goblins. The King tried to persuade her out of the ultimate decision, but she did not waver. She would walk his Labyrinth, and would do it within 13 hours to save her little brother of being turned into a goblin much like the King himself. At the entrance… she met a strange knight by a watering hole. He was doing something you must never do Toby. He was using the restroom in public! Can you imagine at how the Princess would react?…"

"That's it! I'll look for a pond or something like that!" Toby turned about and came face to face with a strange being. She was long, and unnaturally skinny, her hair was thin but wafted about her face, cut short to her chin.

"What is a mortal doing by our Labyrinth?" Her eyes were stitched shut with black thread.

"Erm… I'm going in to save my sister. I accidently wished her away." Toby took a step back and bumped into another thin being, similar to the first, but her mouth was sewn shut with the same black thread. The woman leaned foreword and tipped her head in an unnerving manner to inspect the boy.

"He…is a boy then? A young boy too. A handsome boy. Come stay with us for a bit, will you, young prince?" A third voice came from his right side, where another woman, this time with sewn down ears, attaching to the sides of her face.

"Would you… maybe show me the way in?" Toby felt the chill run down his spine as the one with her mouth sewn shut ran a hand down his arm.

"Why would you want to do that, Toby dear? We love the little mortals, stay with us out here!" The three let out garbled laughs and then stepped together, forming into one girl. Her face was free of the stitches, but scars were clearly left from a punishment she must have endured.

"Who are you?" Toby reached into his pocket for the bubble to use as a defense if needed, at least to startle her. She winked at him and spun around

"We are the spirit of the fairies killed in the Labyrinth. The only way for another creature to really kill a fairy is to sew her eyes, mouth, or ears shut. We all do one for the other, and watch the foolish ones who hurt our kind." Toby's mind reeled back to the fairy he had thrown just moments before.

"I… I'm sorry for doing that to the fairy. I promise not to mess with a single one again. They are quite pretty, and I was unsure if she would hurt me, you know and…" The entity pressed one long finger against Toby's mouth.

"You need not to apologize young mortal. We can see you, hear you, and thankfully give you your answers. You did no harm when you knocked this fairy to the ground. She was actually quite the most difficult problem, and we've been looking for her for sometime." One long hand drew the squirming sprite from her skirts. "We don't like troublemakers among us." A painfully loud squeal escaped from the fairy as her wings were torn off her back. The god clenched the squirming form in her hands until it stopped moving, then flung it against the stone wall.

"There is your key into the Labyrinth, my little Toby. Call on us if you need any help while on the way. We cannot take you through the Labyrinth, but if you are in a tight place, we can get you out." The creature dropped the fairy's wings into Toby's hands, and where the wings hit his palms, they sunk in, leaving a strange tattoo on each hand. She turned about, and left, fading away into the walls where the blood of the fairy had splattered.

The shocked boy stared at his hands for a bit before looking to the wall where the little sprite had met her end. In her place stood a grand doorway. His hands pushed it lightly, and it creaked open, revealing a long passage way to the left and right. It seemed endless, but Toby was prepared.

"Now… I must look for a caterpillar who says Hello the wrong way…"

"Toby'll come, and he'll save me, Jareth!" Sarah kicked at the tall pale man standing in front of her.

"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah… I came to talk to you about just that. Toby and I have made a deal… One I wonder if we will all regret." The King leaned against a wall, rubbing his forehead. The naïve mortal child was not playing his game the way he was supposed to.

After bribing that damn caterpillar with a cup of tea for the fastest way to the center of the Labyrinth, he had been able to dodge the traps Jareth had left for him along the path while taking that route. The strange rotting fairy had managed to recollect herself due to Toby's lack of thought, and she now protected him from the walls, holding the stones in place as Toby unknowingly walked by. What exactly she was Jareth never knew, but he had gotten one of her subjects to betray her and split her up. Toby had created his own way in.

"Jareth. Why is it so horrible to us all if Toby can beat your rodent maze? I cannot believe Toby has done something that will really cause a problem to himself, or me…"

"He… He used himself as a sacrifice for your return to your world. He could have given up any number of ridiculous things, but he doesn't seem to be attached to anything above but you. I have to accept this, but now he's quite on his way due to a sudden stroke of brilliance. You don't want Toby to stay here, I'm sure, I don't want Toby to make it because I want you… and Toby… it would be the worst thing to happen to all of us if he were to make it all the way here."

"Why would he…?… Toby…." Sarah groaned and pulled at her bonds. Toby was making a mistake in his actions, and she would have to be the one to save him. He was her brother, her only brother. "Why would Toby coming be the worst of it for you too, Jareth?…"

Jareth did not answer immediately. "We… must have the ceremony before I answer that question, Sarah."

Sarah made an angry noise at the mention of 'ceremony'

" Are you talking about a

WEDDING CEREMONY, you DEMON?"

Jareth's eyes lit up for the first time in the conversation. "I wish, Sarah dear. Maybe we'll save that for later."

"Now… which way to go?" Toby groaned and pushed at some of the stones on the walls around him. The Labyrinth had become dramatically orange again, similar in shade to the outside. Toby looked to his pocket and pulled out a small watch. He had walked for 7 hours already, and he was beginning to get worried. Only 19 more to go to reach Sarah. Toby turned around to retrace his steps and found a sudden dead end from the direction he had come.

"Looks like we have a visitor!" A voice called from behind Toby, and another laughed. Toby jumped and then spun around to view a strange spectacle. There was two fuzzy creatures, or was it four? Toby gasped and remembered Sarah mentioning these monsters, both behind large shields. One would always tell a lie, and the other would always tell the truth.

But which one was it?

"I then came across the funny men, and with all I could muster up, tricked them into telling which way was the way in."

"How did you do that, Sarah?"

"Why, I asked them a question that involved the both of them to give away which was lying."

That was all he could remember. No mention of which, right or left was the way.

"One of these doors leads to the center of the Labyrinth… the other…" Began the one on the right.

"DUN DUN DUN" The one on the left interjected.

"Leads to certain doom" Both Toby and the one on the right proclaimed, only Toby with an obviously sarcastic tone. The 4 all looked to one another and shrugged. The kid knew what was going on, they would need to tell him no more.

"My question…" Toby said to the one on the left "I am wondering… Would he," Toby nodded to the one on the right . " tell me 'Yes' that this door is the way to the castle?"

The fuzzy face blinked, then ducked down and said to his other, "Well? Oh. Alright." He looked up again. "Yes." He proclaimed happily.

"Then.. this is the door that leads to certain doom, and that one leads to they castle." The 4 all blinked. "Well, he'd be telling the truth then, and if you said he said 'No' then it would still be that way. It just would."

Both creatures shrugged and the right began to open up. "No, wait. I was also wondering if I could have a lift up to the top so I could get a good look!" Toby rushed to close it, and the door swung entirely open, and the thing pushed him in. Toby yelped as he rolled a few feet over a gaping hole and onto the ground on the other side. As he sat up, he felt a chill run down his spine as a gray hand reached over the side.

"Where are you taking me, asshole?" Sarah let out a squeak as she hit a small, but pointy rock on the ground with her bum. Jareth could not get Sarah to walk out of the room willingly, so he had decided to drag her out. He was already fed up with Sarah's endearing nicknames, and the annoyance known better as Toby had somehow avoided the oubliette, he needed to move Sarah to a better hidden place.

"Don't worry about that, Sarah. We're just taking you to a more, comfortable room, where you can roam about until when I need you." Jareth tossed her into a large, but quaint bedroom, with a wardrobe and a washroom in it. Sarah sighed and dropped onto the bed, worn out from fighting. She soon fell into a deep sleep, surrounded by a soft sweet scent.

A severally beaten hand slunk back down into the hole after Toby had produced the play script book, and had used it the way he knew it must have been destined to be used: to beat the shit outta things. After sighing and looking about, he saw a large amount of green down the path. Toby happily ran to it, slowing down once he was immersed in the mess of leaves. It looked like it had once been a bush outlined maze, but now it was overgrown, the limbs from mass leaning over the path.

"Did maybe… Sarah meet Ludo here?" Ludo was another one of the knights. Sir Hoggle, Sir Ludo, and Sir Didymus were her knightly companions. Now that Toby had made it into the Labyrinth, things began to piece together. Perhaps these people were not really knights, but for Toby's sake she had changed it about. Toby sat down, confused about what Sarah had made up and what was true, and tired. He too drifted off into a sleep much like his sister, only his senses were clouded by the strong smell of the brush.

When Toby woke up, he jumped up startled by a soft finger running through his hair. The next thing he did was go for the watch. "How?…" Toy gasped as he looked at it, he only had 14 hours left to get to the castle, and from what he could see of it through the branches, it looked too far away to reach in a week. The finger returned while he was looking away, running down his back, sliding over all wrinkles to make him squirm. "Who the HELL are you?"

Who the hell was found to be another thin figure, a boyish face, but taller than Toby. He grinned, showing his canines. His skin was dark as was his hair which was pulled back into a pony tail at the base of his neck. His clothes were torn, but looked like they were once elegant. Something about him reminded Toby of the strange fairy he had met before " I goot tired of ye sleeping on m'legs, so I woke ye up."

"I so did not sleep on your foot!"

"How would ye know, eh?"

"I fell asleep against those over grown bushes over there." Toby pointed to the greenery, shocked to find that the place where he was sleeping was pressed back, in the shape of a human body.

"Aye. You had no clue, boy. I'm not blamin' ya. Jest git used'ta things bein not as they are in the Labyrinth." The teen scratched his head and bent over, using long and callused fingers to pick up a small shining stone. "D'ye see this?" Toby nodded once, but kept his guard up. Who knew what this strange person could do to him. "This is a shield stone, Toby."

"How did you know my name?" Toby's hand made for his pocket once again, attaching itself to the smooth bubble, still un-popped from all it had been through.

"Word travels quickly through here, shut it for a moment, would ya?" The stone dropped down to the ground, landing soundly. "This stone kept me trapped in this forsaken place for many a year. Thanks to ye, I'm free. Ah'll do what I can to help ye through the Labyrinth to the Castle. How about that?"

Toby blinked, then smiled. Jareth had no doubt done this to this poor boy, and probably caused the grief of the fairy as well. Jareth was cruel, and Toby felt a spark of anger in him. "You swear you'll help me, and not trick me?"

"I swear it on m'mother's grave, boy. Ye understand? I'm Lear, and I already know your name, Toby. I also know who you are looking for, and I know how to get you to her. I'm glad ye decided to let me tag along."

Toby sighed and shook Lear's hand. Sir Lear, and Sir Creepy-fairy-chick were his companions. She might not have noticed, but Toby knew she had stuck around. Toby could see her clear as day, saving his ass in bad situations. Being the crafty little thing he was, he had tricked her of course, but without knowing tricked Jareth as well. Toby had many secrets.

"Alright. We should get moving. Can you get us out of this mess?" Toby nodded to the leaves around him, and Lear snorted.

"'Course I can, boy. C'mon." Lear started down the way and took a right turn. Perhaps it wouldn't be so lonely, thought Toby, with this strange kid to help him get about. Sir Lear. Toby inwardly laughed at what Sarah might say to that.

Prince Toby. He didn't mind that name either.