Chapter III
He lost. He had lost.
It was still not sinking in.
There was nothing to loose, and still he lost.
Feeling himself turning into a purple rose had to be the strangest experience in his endless life. He wasn't quite sure at what point he fully understood that he was doomed to be a flower for the rest of eternity. When the realization came, there was an odd sort of calm. And then a suicidal desire to laugh. Clouds, raindrops and flowers…how incredibly sad it all was. And yet hilarious in its incomprehensiveness.
Jareth the Goblin King – a spiky plant with a sweet-smelling flower of a purplish hue…oh my.
And then it hit him for a second time. And he was dumbstruck with horror. This was forever. This was much, much worse than death.
And as images of Sarah's rose-garden flashed before his eyes, The Goblin King cried out in agony. He, too, was doomed to be here, in this uninhabited world of shimmering shadows and blooming roses…and that was it.
And nothing more.
Nothing to do but exist, nothing to do… would he loose all abilities? Speech? Thought? Everything fading, until nothing, absolutely nothing was left …except for a shell-like being that then truly became a shadow of a wraith contained with a flower.
And nothing more. Forever.
Pride and the resolve to be silent, dignity and all thoughts of power were completely forgotten. Jareth called her name, called with something of a fervor, a passion not for flesh, a hunger not for domination, but an eternal longing for life.
Life that he had not valued, life that he had wasted on wisps of smoke and crooked mirrors. Life that was now in the hands of the one who was intended for sacrifice and consumption.
In her hands.
He called and called, throwing all his vanity to the wind, to the nothingness he was slowly sinking into, until he though he could call no more, until he though he would just fade, becoming the wind that rustled the grass and the leaves, still calling, calling, calling her name. Only forever.
It was pity that first moved her. She realized that he was a prisoner of both her image and his own shadow nature. He was torn between the two, unable. Beautiful, alluring and intoxicating, and at the same time sharp, venomous.
And she had done it.
"…And if I built this fortress around your heart…
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire…"
It had might have been a song once. She probably heard it hears ago – somewhere on the radio. But now, the words came out of her, as though they were her very own.
They rang out, and she knew what she had to do to free him.
She had to let him go.
Let him go and leave everything in his hands. It was his battle, and not hers. He had to face himself and find out who he really is.
She had thought him to be a villain, then a romantic villain, then a tragic hero.
Now she realized that she really had no idea who or what Jareth was. And the part of him that she loved was not all of him. And he would never bee himself if she continued to see and want only that part of him.
He needed to come to terms with his fragmented self.
She let go of the rose and let the wind carry it away, saying her last goodbye.
Suddenly, as if the winds of time had just shifted their course and turned around, everything sped backwards, unraveling, unraveling, faster and faster, until, breathless, Jareth found himself on his balcony, gazing out at the star-studded sky above his own Labyrinth.
Night had finally come here; putting out the characteristic orange glow and putting everything to rest that had not been at rest for millions of ages.
Things had changed.