Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from the movie Labyrinth. The Labyrinth characters and events in the movies belong to Jim Henson, may he rest in peace as his legacy lives on through all of us. I seek to make no profit from this venture and I promise to return everything back the way I found it.
Set Me Free
Story by Jessica Arbuckle (Jessi, Princess of Impatience)
June - undetermined, 2005
Chapter One, The Nightly Visitor…
Sarah sat on her bed, her mind completely concentrating on her chemistry book, when she heard the gentle flapping of wings.
The white barn owl was back again, watching her as she did her homework in her bed. It had done this for the past six nights, but never let her get close. She put the book and her notebook down and crept slowly to the window. If only it would stay this time. It looked like it had a bad wound that might finally be healing and she wanted to make sure it was ok.
"It's ok," she called to it softly as she slowly opened the window. "I just want to make sure you are ok."
It was odd, the way the owl kept appearing at her window. The first time she had been afraid. After all, that was his form, but after it had flown away as soon as she reached for it, she had convinced herself it was a normal owl, simply curious, but still scared of humans.
She reached the windowsill and stopped, letting it get used to her presence. The owl stared at her, but its wide eyes that usually looked unblinkingly at her were slightly hooded from her scrutiny. The bright gold of what she could see was a strangely smoky color, still gold but darkened somehow, and she wondered at it.
"Come on, I can see that you are hurt, just come closer so I can see if you are ok," she pleaded with it softly. Amazingly, the bird turned so she could see the wound, almost as if it understood. She breathed a sigh of relief to see the wound was indeed healing
"That's good, very good. Oh, you poor thing, I wonder how you ended up hurt," she said kindly and the owl uttered a soft sound as it tilted its head to one side.
"I do believe if you could answer me, you would. Of course, I know you can't. If you were Jareth, I know you wouldn't be hanging out as an owl… oh dear God!" she cried as the owl lurched precariously on the branch. Its eyes opened wide and she could see the smoky gold was now tinted a strange color, almost if the color was shifting from gold to something else. She reached for the bird, praying to catch it if it fell, but it opened its wings wide and glided off at an odd angle, almost crashing to the ground before gaining altitude and disappearing into the night.
"Oh dear, I hope it isn't sick. Maybe it wasn't well at all, even though the wound was healing," she muttered and stayed at the window for another hour, waiting to see if it would come back. Finally, when she could not hold her eyes open any longer, she went to bed.
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The next day, Sarah was worried about more than just the owl.. She had been in contact frequently with her friends from the Labyrinth, every few days for the last six months she had been back, but they hadn't answered her calls or come on their own in almost a month now.
She walked to the vanity and sat, calling softly to the mirror, as she did every night, "Hoggle, I need you."
This time, Hoggle appeared shortly after, looking panicked.
"Sarah, we've got trouble," Hoggle said nervously.
"What? Did something happen to Sir Didymus? Ludo? Where have you been!"
"No, Sarah… it's the Labyrinth. It's dying. I wasn't sure before this but I'm certain now. Everything has gotten much worse recently. And even without that, the goblins are running amok and destroying the place!"
"Why didn't you tell me about this before? How is this happening?" Sarah said, feeling an unnamed fear rise up in her. Something wasn't right and she could feel it.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before this, but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to worry you. Besides, this is all because that rat of a Goblin King has disappeared!" Hoggle said disgustedly.
"Ja.. The Goblin King wouldn't just leave Hoggle," Sarah said, stumbling to cover up the fact she had been about to say his name. "When was the last time anyone saw him?"
"The last time I saw him, he was that owl he turns into and he came flying out of that stairway you disappeared into. When we couldn't find you, we went looking in the castle and that's how we found the mirror we use when we talk to you, except that one stopped working after the last time we talked. Luckily, I found another today that the goblins hadn't managed to destroy and I brought it back here. I was just hanging it up and getting ready to try and call you when you called me."
'Ohgodohgodohgod,' her mind cried after Hoggle's first comment. She wouldn't look at the window to see if it was there. It was just a common barn owl after all, that is why it flew away every time she tried to reach for it. She tried desperately to convince herself that the only reason the owl came to the tree outside every night for the last week was that the yard must be a great place for a meal.
'Suck it up and look Sarah,' she admonished herself sternly. It probably would not be there anyways. It had definitely seemed ill when it had practically fallen off the branch last night and she had no way of knowing if it was even still alive.
"Sarah?" Hoggle questioned at the look on her face.
"Just a second," she whispered, and forced herself to look up at the window where she was sure the owl would not be. Yet there it was, as close to her window as it could be, its eyes wide and unblinking. Instead of the bright gold they had been, or the smoky gold, or even the weirdly tinted gold, they were clear and distinctly two different colors, one crystal blue and the other a smoky green. Two mismatched eyes, intently staring her down as it sat imperiously on the branch, closer than it had ever been before. The same set of eyes that haunted her dreams.
She gasped and wrenched her gaze from the owl's back to Hoggle. "Hoggle, I have to go, but I'll call you again as soon as I can," she said quickly, looking panicked.
"Sarah, what's the matter? What about the Labyrinth?" Hoggle asked, the look on her face filling him with dread.
"Trust me. I'll call for you again tonight as soon as I can and we will fix everything. I think I may have something for you when I do," she said and watched as the connection was broken and the mirror again reflected only her image.
She slowly turned back to the window, finding the owl still staring at her. She slowly walked to the window and opened it, leaning on the sill to peer suspiciously at the white bird just outside. 'It is not Jareth, it is not Jareth,' she chanted silently.
"So you're back," she said, giving it a once over. "I hope your wound is still healing after that stunt you tried last night."
The bird quickly moved so she could see the wound. Examining it, she could tell it had split open again and was once again trying to knit back together.
"Oh dear," she cried, reaching for the bird. It allowed her to touch its body and her fingers gently probed the wound. The bird shuddered and she could tell it was in pain.
"I'm sorry. I wish I knew how to help you, but I don't have much experience mending wounded owls." The owl blinked at her and its mismatched eyes shone with something unreadable. Mismatched eyes. In her panic over the wound, that bit of information had taken a back seat in her mind but now it was right there.
"This is insane," Sarah cried to the owl as it stared at her unblinking. "This is not happening. This is truly not happening. There is no way the ruler of the Goblin King is a wounded owl in my tree. You are just a normal owl!" The owl snapped at her, its eyes glittering with ill-concealed contempt and she sighed.
"Fine, you win, you certainly have his temper," she groused. "Although, if you're Jareth, I don't know why you're hanging outside my window instead of fixing your kingdom." That was when she noticed the sparkle in the owl's talon. She offered her hand to the owl again and this time it settled onto her forearm, balancing on one foot as it clutched a bundle of fabric, with something shiny winking faintly in the light, in the other. Sarah back up slightly from the window and reached for the bundle, her curiosity getting the better of her. The bird released part of the fabric and a crystal fell into her hand.
"Oh no, nuh uh! I'm not falling for this," she said sternly to the bird on her hand. It snapped at her, then sharply turned to the crystal and pecked it. It shattered into millions of flecks of glitter and Sarah felt a warmth spread up her arm and across her body. Looking down, she found a piece of parchment in her hand.
"To the one who holds this note," she read aloud. "You have defeated the Labyrinth and with it, the King. You are now the rightful ruler of the Labyrinth, the Goblin City and the castle beyond, and all the lands that are a part of the kingdom. The owl that bore this crystal is the once proud Goblin King. As punishment for his wrongdoing, if he ever lost he would be cursed to his occasional owl form permanently, as well as cursed to give up his magic and kingdom to the one who defeated him. Only you, now the bearer of his magic, are able to set him free. If you choose to do so, you must discover the secret on your own."
"You have got to be kidding me," she said, dropping the note. She regarded the white bird perched on her forearm, its eyes wide and, she would have sworn, deeply mocking. "Jareth? It's really you?"
The owl hooted, preening. "Well," she said with a laugh, "you certainly peeved someone off, didn't you? Or did something very, very bad. They probably just did it because of the way you cheat," she grumped at him. The owl tightened his grip on her arm slightly painfully.
"Hey, hey! I was just kidding," she said, tapping at his talon forcefully. "Knock that off!" The owl relented, mismatched eyes glittering almost wickedly.
"So how did you get yourself into this anyways? Never mind, I know you can't answer that," she said as she walked to the bed to sit down. "This ought to prove for stimulating conversation. At least I can get away with saying anything I like without your singularly unhelpful and sarcastic comments." At this the owl hooted loudly, flapping a wing to bop her soundly on the head.
"Ouch! This is all your fault, you know," she said to the bird as she transferred it from her arm to the bed and rubbed her head with her free hand. The owl snapped, pinching the skin of her hand lightly. Not enough to pierce her skin with its sharp beak, but enough to hurt slightly and get her attention.
"Oh, shut up," she said to the owl, fully aware it had not spoken. "I know this is my fault. I should have never wished Toby away. You should have told me, though. I would have found another way to save Toby so you didn't get stuck as an owl and keep us out of this mess." The owl regarded her with a look that Sarah clearly took to mean 'yeah, right' – or perhaps something else not nearly as nicely phrased. It was truly hard to read an owl after all, even one with the expressive mismatched eyes of Jareth.
She sighed and flung herself back on the bed. This was truly a mess of catastrophic proportions! "What do I know about running a kingdom anyways?" she muttered under her breath. A heavy weight settled on her abdomen and she lifted her head to see the owl perched on her stomach, looking down at her.
"What?" she asked. "It's true. I may have beat the Labyrinth, but that doesn't mean I can bully goblins and snatch little children. Oooof," she moaned as the owl bounced hard on her stomach.
She glared at it – 'him' she corrected herself mentally. "You really are such a brat, you know that?" The owl just stared at her silently. "Well, I'm not about to let my friends' whole world fall apart. I guess it's time to leave and figure out what the heck we are going to do."
She held out her had again for the bird and he climbed onto her forearm so she could sit up. She walked to the mirror and called Hoggle.
When his face appeared, she held out the arm with the owl on it. "Hoggle, I found your King."
a/n: Please R/R, I would just adore it!