A/N: I don't know about you guys, but after all that sadness I was itching to see a little good ole' evil Jareth. So here he is
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, yada yada.
Richard sat staring into the darkness, just as he had been doing for hours. He tried once again to understand what was happening. The last thing he remembered, he had taken the gun away from Sarah, and had it pointed towards her. He didn't know how things had gotten so out of control, he never meant for any of that to happen. He had never meant for a lot of things to happen. He had been furious with Sarah, how dare she try to turn her sister against him? And if that wasn't bad enough, Karen had overheard everything. The way she was looking at him had filled him with rage. He had wanted to kill Sarah! But had he?
He remembered Sarah shouting, and a strange wind filling the room. He had been terrified, and in his terror, he heard a gunshot. Had he fired the gun? He didn't know, for the next thing he remembered he had been here, in this cold dark nowhere. He had no idea how he had gotten here, or how long he had been here. Hours, certainly, maybe days; he had lost track of time. At first he had felt around in the darkness for some kind of clue as to where he was. Stone walls, damp and covered with lichen, met his fingers at every turn. The room was round, the floor was dirt, this much he had discovered. He had found no ceiling, and judging by the echoes his foot steps made in the darkness, the room was very high. He had found no way out at all, and had stopped searching when his hand had brushed something small and furry and warm. He wasn't alone in here, at least, but the thought did not comfort him.
And so now he sat, listening to the sound of his own breathing and the occasional scurrying in the darkness. He felt the nagging hunger in his belly and wondered, not for the first time, if he would starve here. The walls were damp; he thought it would be enough to keep him hydrated for a while, but food would be a problem if he was here for very long. There was his furry companion, if worse came to worse, but it would have to get a lot worse. He tried once again to see…something. But there was nothing, not so much as a speck of light in this place. He knew eventually the darkness would drive him mad.
Somewhere in that very darkness he heard a new sound. A faint whoosh followed by the unmistakable sound of breathing. Perhaps some other poor soul had found himself inexplicably lost in this hole. But he didn't think so. He felt a presence in the room, but it wasn't confused or frightened as he had been. No, it was angry. Through the silence and the darkness he could feel the rage like heat from a fire. He had no idea who this visitor could be, but he was frightened, and he found himself cowering against the wall like a child.
He heard foot steps as the being came towards him, seeming to know exactly where he was although he couldn't possibly see him. They stopped mere inches from where he stood, and he could feel hot breath on his neck, smell the aroma of rich spices and something wild, something unidentifiable. Whatever was here with him was most certainly NOT human. Richard tried vainly to melt further into the cold stone wall as his body was filled with dread.
"How do you like the accommodations, Richard?" The voice would have been pleasant if it weren't so cold, so dead. "I hope you find them to your liking, for you will be here r a very long time."
"Who…who are you?" Richard asked, his voice trembling despite his attempts to control it.
"Why, Richard, don't you know?" the dark figure asked, his feigned politeness sending chills up Richard's spine. "I am your Judge, Jury, and Jailer. I am the one whose very soul you will curse as you lie here in the darkness with nothing but rats and hunger to keep you company. I am the Dark Avenger of the woman I loved and you murdered. I am Jareth; do not forget my name for I would hear you call it out in agony a thousand times before I grant you the mercy of death."
Richard tried to grasp all of this, but one sentence was stuck in his mind. "Murdered? Who have I murdered? What could I have possibly done to deserve to be sent to this place?" he asked. Instantly he knew he should have kept his mouth shut, for strong fingers reached out through the darkness and wrapped around his throat. Inconceivably he was being lifted off the ground by his neck as though he weighed no more than rag doll.
"DO NOT MOCK ME!" the creature who called himself Jareth roared. "Do not think to cover your sins from me, for I have seen them all! You have taken advantage of your own children, using them to fulfill your dark desires. You have harmed the very ones to whom you had a duty to protect. You injured their bodies, their minds and their spirits, and you betrayed their trust. For these crimes alone you deserve to starve to death in a dark hole!" Jareth released his grip and Richard fell gasping to the floor. "But above all these things, you have taken the life of the woman I loved, and for that there is no punishment great enough to satisfy me."
"Who?" Richard shouted, "Who's life have I taken? I don't know what you're talking about!" Richard felt the distance between himself and the stranger shrink to nothing.
"Richard, Richard," Jareth chided, so close to Richard's ear that they were almost touching, "You play dumb so well, I wonder if you really are as stupid as you seem. You had a gun in your hand, did you not? It was pointed at your eldest daughter, was it not? You heard the gun fire, DID YOU NOT?" This last was a deafening roar that echoed back and forth against the stone walls of Richard's prison. He cringed against the wall, dreading to hear another word from his tormentor. Jareth continued, his voice no more than a whisper now, "So who do you think you killed, Richard? Who could I be referring to?"
"Sarah?" Richard asked. He felt tears streaming down his cheeks now. "I killed Sarah?"
"Yes, your oldest daughter slain by your own hands, her only crime being love for her sister."
It couldn't be. An unimaginable sadness swept over Richard. My Sarah! I killed my little girl? Memories began to flood his mind of the sweet little girl whom he had loved. Perhaps he had treated her badly, but he had always loved her, and he had never meant for this to happen. He broke down into heavy sobs.
"Save your tears for yourself," Jareth warned, "for you have no right to cry for her."
"I have every right, you bastard, she was my daughter!" Richard shouted.
"A fact that meant very little to you until now." When Jareth spoke next his voice was full of emotion, and Richard was astonished to realize that he was crying. "She was your daughter, but she was the light of my life. You took that light away from me, Richard, and now there is only darkness in my world. It seems only appropriate that I return the favor."
Richard paled as the meaning of the words sank in. "You can't leave me here!" he cried, "I'll starve to death!."
"Oh no, not death Richard, not yet." The coldness had returned to his voice, and it left Richard with and icy chill that sank deep into his bones. I will see to it that you live a long, long life, with plenty of time and solitude to think about the mistakes you've made." As if it were an afterthought, he added, "You don't know what this place is, do you Richard. Then I shall tell you. It's called an oubliette, which means 'little place of forgetting.' And forgotten is exactly what you shall be." There was no time to respond, for with that the stranger was gone, and Richard was once again alone in the darkness. He slid down against the wall, his head in his hands, and wept softly in the endless silence.
