Disclaimer: I don't own Labyrinth, nor the lyrics. Yes, I have looked carefully through the rules of and I can't find a rule that declares lyrics to be against the rules. If someone finds this mysterious rule, please let me know so that I can remove the ones presently on this fic.
One
You took my heart,
deceived me right from the start.
You showed me dreams,
I wished they'd turn into real.
You broke your promise and made me realise.
It was all just a lie.
- Angels, Within Temptation.
You have no power over me.
-
In the days after the Labyrinth (after, after, happily ever after and riding into the sunset is difficult when there is no sun to see), her fingers are white against her eyes, sliding cool and black into sightlessness.
She sees...
Screams (hers), and in the sprawling reveries at night the constellations draw together to shape his eyes, his mouth, saying the game is not over, the game has only begun. The stars pull towards each other, making a hand, the drift of a snatch of melody.
(what has he stolen)
His fingers sliding open to fan out cards shaped out of the glitter of night against the cities in the world, and she grasps at them futilely as they spiral over her head in images: broken tower and a child astride a horse with the sun above, woman and man reaching for each other in an arch, standing to each side like pillars.
Their faces distort, and suddenly she is surrounded by a plethora of the same cards, spinning over and over together in a storm; a skull-man astride a horse, bones white as the gleam of his scythe.
(wasn't he a dream)
Equivalent exchange; her call and her brother taken away, her fear and his horror, her need and time spun backwards, shaped to what she wants.
You have something I want. He tells her with his light-studded mouth, and his eyes are dark, full of starless night. It is mine.
A glass thing is in her hands, its shape awkward and pointed at one end. Its rhythm sounds against her skin as her fingers tighten about it and breathless she flings it to the floor, where it slows, flies to her again and jumps against her throat. He smiles.
Ah, but you still have it. The exchange must be made equal. He raises a brow, and his voice is palpable as a caress. You do not want the price to be greater than what it is already.
Its beat is sinuous and cool, the brush as familiar as his disdainful smile.
"No." She gasps and feels her lips move, her fingers clench against the blankets as she starts awake to see silvery light slanting through the windowpanes.
She rises from her bed, touches her fingers to the glass. The moon is wispy illusion, his face etched across its surface like a reflection. And in the silence of the room the tiny sounds of night drift up to her, the shrillness of a bird's sound drifting into his voice (his laughter), drowning in it.
Glancing up, she counts the stars, sees the familiar constellations with a sigh and a pulse of fear.
(She looks and looks and everywhere she sees glinting eyes and lines spread like an owl's wings.)
.end
Author's Note: Written for 31 Days' Man or Astroman theme.
Crit welcomed? Of course.
