O Cousin My Cousin
By: Kryptonite
Disclaimer: I do not, do not own The Labyrinth. If I did, there would be a second movie coming out with David Bowie once more as the supreme Goblin King, LoL.
Summary: Sarah's cousin comes to stay with Sarah for their senior year – Jareth enters the picture and Sarah is wished away.
A/N: A few changes to the movie. Toby was three and not however old he was (how old was he exactly?), Sarah was fourteen instead of fifteen (or about to turn fifteen). Since Karen and Robert seem to be the accepted names for Sarah's parents those are the names I'm going to be using.
Well Kira Vohrees this chapter's for you. Hope you review again ;)
&
"Um… excuse me?" Zan called, averting her eyes from the little goblin next to the pond.
"Excuse me." He said moving to stop what he was doing. "You." He said when he turned around to face the girl, his movements going back to that of one who doesn't care.
"I'm Zan and I was wondering if you could tell me how to get into the Labyrinth?" Zan bit her lip hoping that this little creature could show her a door or something.
"Fifty-eight. You gets in there." He said, pointing at a door in the wall that hadn't been there before. Zan stepped forward as the large doors opened and started looking around. "Now, would you go left or right?" He asked, coming up behind Zan and startling her slightly.
"I don't know… which way would you go?"
"Neither." Zan looked down at the little man, half a smile on her face.
"Honest. Thanks." Just as he was about to leave Zan remembered her manners. "What's your name?"
"It's Hoggle."
"Thanks Hoggle." She turned to her right and started walking down the corridor. Hoggle maintained the surprised look on his face as the doors to the Labyrinth closed with a thud. Zan picked up the pace soon, running flat out as she tried to find an opening of some kind. Slowing down to catch her breath Zan came to a decision.
She looked at the walls carefully before finding hand and foot holes for her to climb. Starting up slowly she made sure that every toehold she found would support her weight before removing her foot from the other one and finding another spot.
"What are you doing!" A little voice shrieked next to her ear when she was only mere inches from the top of the wall.
"I'm trying to see my way through the Labyrinth. I'm sorry if I'm disturbing something." Zan turned to face the little creature, barely two inches high, in full skirts and aprons.
"Disturbing something? Of course you're disturbing something! You're climbing the wall of my house!"
"I'm sorry but would it be okay for me to sit on the roof for just a few minutes until I get an idea of where I am? Please?" Zan pleaded with the little woman and waited as her face turned from one of anger to annoyed acceptance.
"Make it quick." The woman snapped, going back in the entrance to her house. Smiling Zan gripped the top of the thick wall, pulling her self up the last foot, feet scrabbling against the wall to try and help. She paused at the top, flipping around awkwardly to find a decent sitting position.
She looked out over the Labyrinth, catching her breath from the climb. It was beautiful and it stretched as far as the eye could see to all horizons. Zan took a deep breath, her lungs expanding as her legs dangled over the edge.
"How do you like my labyrinth?" Jareth's voice at Zan's ear would have made anyone else fall head over heels backwards in shock.
"It's beautiful. And now that I've got my bearings." Zan left it at that as she turned around and lay down on her stomach inching off the shallow ledge and starting down the opposite side of the wall.
"I really don't think so." Zan was back on the other side of the wall with those words.
Zan shrugged knowing there was no point in arguing. "Okay. If you want to do it that way." She turned away to have him appear in front of her. "Hello." She stepped to go around him.
"It would not be in your best interest to ignore me."
"I'm not ignoring you." Jareth raised an eyebrow at the girl, staying obstinately in her way. "May I please pass?"
"Why should I let you pass?" Zan smirked a little, knowing that this was just one of his ways to stop her from reaching the center in time.
"Why are you so obsessed with my cousin? Was her story to Toby that night right? Are you in love with her?" Zan wasn't being patronizing, or wasn't trying to be, but the look of anger that took up residence on Jareth's face was freezing to see.
"Little girls shouldn't talk about what they don't know." With that Jareth was gone. However he'd left a little present behind.
"Shit." Zan started to run as his "present", the Cleaners, started moving towards her. She traced her hand along the wall hoping to find an opening and praying that she wouldn't miss one because she had her hand on the wrong wall.
Just as it looked like she'd get chopped into itty bitty pieces her hand slipped off the wall and Zan threw herself into the opening. She lay with her forehead against the cool, slick stones for a few minutes, trying to calm the pounding of her heart.
"'Ello." Zan's head popped up and she looked around, trying to locate the source of the voice. Finally she got it into her head to turn and look behind her.
What greeted her eyes was a little blue worm wearing a scarf. Her eyes scanned around a couple of times before she came back out of the opening.
"Hello?" She questioned, watching the Cleaners get farther and farther away.
"'Ello." Zan's eyebrow arched while her mind was trying to tell her this would not be the weirdest thing she'd see in the Labyrinth.
"Hi. Do you… could you help me?"
"Come inside and meet the missus, have a cup of tea. That'll calm you down after them nasty Cleaners." The worm started to go back inside.
"I don't think I'll fit." Zan pointed out. The worm looked between her and the crack in the wall that led to his house.
"Guess you won't, can't help you much then, love."
"Do you know the way through the Labyrinth? That would be a big help."
The worm shook his little head. "I'm just a worm."
"Okay." Zan went back through the opening, since it was the first she had found since she started the Labyrinth. Turning to go left she stopped when the worm called out.
"What did you say?"
"I said 'don't go that way. Never go that way.'"
Zan scrunched her eyes not sure whether or not to believe the worm. "Why not?"
"If you go left, you'll go straight to that castle."
"Oh. But that's where I want to go."
"Why would you want to go there?" Zan shrugged.
"I have to rescue my cousin." The worm just shook his head in disbelief.
"Nothing good comes from that castle."
"Something could though. Thanks for your help." Zan made a little nodding bow in the worms' direction before turning to go left.