Promises and Dreams
DISCLAIMER - I don't own Sarah or Jareth or the Labyrinth (unfortunately) they belong to Jim Henson & Co, and I'm definitely not making a profit from this. (Bummer) All other NPC's are a figment of my own imagination.
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THERE ARE SCENES OF VIOLENCE AND SELF HARM IN THIS CHAPTER. IT'S ALSO SLIGHTLY SHORTER THAN THE OTHERS AS IT WAS A HARD CHAPTER FOR ME TO WRITE ON A VERY PERSONAL LEVEL. ALSO TO NOTE, THAT I DO NOT CONDONE SELF-HARM AS A VIABLE CAUSE OF ACTION TO ANY WHO READ THIS WHO MAY FEEL AS HOPELESS AS SARAH, THERE ARE OTHER WAYS.
Chapter 11 – Shattered
"Let go of me!" Sarah yelped trying to prise his fingers from around her wrist. "Please Jareth you're hurting me!" She gasped, tears springing to her eyes as he refused to let go and began dragging her back up the narrow stairs. He stopped finally once they were back by the large open staircase.
"You are forbidden to return to that place. You will not under any circumstances go anywhere else in my castle unless I have taken you there previously. Unless I specifically ask for you, you will remain in your rooms." He snarled, anger making his eyes dark.
"I just wanted to know who they were! I was hungry! What did you expect me to do, stay in my rooms and starve? I'm not a prisoner!"
"Do not defy me Sarah. I have no time and no patience for your tantrums. You will do as I say. I am your King!"
"Tantrums! Look at who's making demands! I was just hungry! If I wasn't supposed to go to the kitchens, then you should have told me in the first place! Nothing like locking the stable door after the horse is gone is there Jareth!" She shouted back at him. She gasped as he slapped her hard across the face, tears once again blurring her vision.
"This is for your protection you foolish girl. If I don't know where you are how am I supposed to protect you?" She shook her head, trying not to cry, and as soon as she felt him release her wrist she ran from him, not caring where she ended up, not caring if she fell in her haste and broke her neck, not caring if she never saw him again. It didn't surprise her when she found herself back outside her own rooms, and was grateful that she could clamber into the bed to hide her weeping. The side of her face burned where he had slapped her and her wrist ached from where he had held her, but she didn't care.
"You are more foolish than she is. How do you expect her to trust you, want to give her soul to you when you do that?" Lucia asked incredulously once Sarah had fled to her rooms.
"There were 3 more attacks last night, all on the Others. She is the reason they have lost some of their brothers and sisters; don't you think they will want revenge? I shouldn't have to explain myself to you Lucia, you know how dangerous Elindah's assassins are. So long as she doesn't leave that room, I don't care what she does." He said running his fingers through his hair in frustration.
"You hurt her Jareth, you will have to apologise to her."
"I will not apologise for trying to keep her safe. She wanted to come here, so she must live with the consequences." Lucia sighed and shook her head.
"Then on your own head be it."
"Aarrggghhh, WOMEN!" He groaned, walking away into nothingness, leaving his sister standing on her own staring sadly after him.
"You will never know how much you have hurt her my brother, will never know what you have just lost."
She sat in the half illuminated darkness of the bathroom and watched her watching herself in the mirror. The woman who returned her stare was unrecognisable to Sarah, this pale, fae like woman with ebony hair and hazel eyes, and a livid handprint across her pale cheek. All she was lacking to complete the image were pointed ears. She laughed at herself and sank down onto the marble floor, watching the flickering shadows cast by the candles. Picking up the broken glass she watched emotionlessly as tiny beads of bright blood formed across her arm, watched them pool and join together like mercury before dripping silently to the floor to spread and merge with the water from the bath. With the blood went the pain, and misery and aching loneliness. Emptiness was all that she craved, the pure white nothingness of oblivion. Tears spilt, merging with the blood and the water making patterns on the white floor, beauty amongst the chaos. She moved to touch the shard of glass against her flesh again, and winced as the movement sent shivers of pain from her injured wrist to her elbow. She dropped the glass, listening to the sound of shattering, echoing endlessly around the room as the chandelier above her chimed in time with the echoes and the constant dripping from the water of the bath as is overflowed, a drop at a time.
She slept, not knowing how long she slept for in the windowless, timeless room. She woke, knowing only that though scars faded, her memories would not, that though she could lie here forever, the oblivion she sought would elude her. The pain would never cease, the horrors would never change, and she would never be able to look at him again knowing what she now knew with a certainty that made her fear to open her eyes. The King she had imagined so long ago, the King she had fought against and won, the King she had fallen in love with, had never existed, except for in a dream of her own creation. The Fae King who controlled her life, the man who she had wished herself away to and now ruled over her was realer than real in this world. He was hard and cold, unbending in his surety that his will was law, his every command performed to the letter. He was just a man, hidden behind glamour and ebony robes.
She was nothing to him, just another wished away, hidden within the confines of this prison created by his own mind, an aggravating blip in his perfect Fae existence. The games they played, the fantasies they lived, were all just a part of who they were, every single one of them. Whatever he had told her, whatever assurances he had made were just part of his own game, his and Elindah's in the perfectly timed dance of war.
"My King." Isenith said, entering the study quietly. "There was another attack last night."
"Who?" Jareth asked, not looking up from his papers.
"Vestria My Lord. She is wounded, but not dead, I caught the assassin before it could complete its work."
"Very well Isenith, you have my thanks for saving Vestria. No doubt you will be the light in her eyes for some time to come." Jareth sighed leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes.
"My King?"
"What is it Isenith?"
"How long will you leave her in there alone?"
"Why so concerned Isenith? She is none of your business." Isenith sighed and nodded as he avoided his Kings glare.
"I would not have brought it up My King, but I smell blood from her rooms, every so often, fresh and pure, it has been 4 days My King."
"Go about your duties." Jareth told the Darkling standing up and summoning a crystal to him. He swore mentally as the crystal showed her main rooms empty, and he knew the only place he could not see her was the bathroom. With an oath he moved from his study to the darkness of her bedchamber. The food left for her had not been touched, and neither had the bed unless she was a cleaning freak, which he very much doubted.
He strode into the dark bathroom and snapped his fingers for more light. In the glare of a hundred candles his heart leapt into his mouth. Blood and broken glass lay scattered across the floor, flooded with water from the bath. From where he stood he could see her submerged, her hair floating like a black halo around her, the water tinged red. In a single motion he made it across the floor to the side of the bath, sweeping her up from the depths of the water, holding her cold form to him, trying to feel for a pulse with a trembling finger. It wasn't until he realised that she was struggling to be released from him that he let her go. She fell to the stone floor, coughing, her hair and nightgown plastered to her body.
"What the hell were you doing!" He roared picking himself up off the floor to stand over her, shock and fear giving way to anger.
"Having a bath." She whispered dragging a towel from the rack to cover her as she still knelt on the floor.
"In freezing cold water?"
"Nobody told me how to get any hot. It was that or stink." She said turning away from him so he couldn't see her bruised face and cut arms. Standing up to get out of his oppressive and frightening shadow she stumbled reaching out to grab the doorframe. He moved to support and steady her when she flinched and moved out of his reach.
"Don't touch me." She cried backing out of the bathroom.
"Sarah…"
"Get out! What do you care if I drown myself? What do you care!" She screamed placing the bed between them as he followed her out.
"I haven't spent all this time and effort for you to go and drown yourself in a fit of self pity." He snarled waving a fragment of bloodstained glass at her. "I can't leave you alone for 5 minutes without you doing something stupid."
"What like believing that dreams and reality were the same thing? That I could trust the only person I thought I had left, how wrong was I? How stupid and foolish of me to think that you were any different! You're just like the others, all of them! I'm nothing to you if you can't use me to make yourself feel better; I'm nothing to you unless I give you everything that I am, well you can have them! Take every single dream I've ever had, every hope, and desire. Take them all! You've already destroyed the one thing I've held on to for longer than I can remember. I hope they make you choke!" She said, the anger flowing from her as swiftly as her energy. She held onto the bedpost and watched the world swim away.
Jareth sighed and walked around the bed, picking her freezing cold body up and placing it under the covers. He motioned to her hair and gown, drying them with a single thought and heating the bedclothes around her. He saw with momentary shock the bruising across her cheek where he had slapped her, and the swollen fingerprints around her wrist, merging with the cuts on her arms. He looked up into her eyes as she came to, and for the first time realised that he had truly done irreparable harm. There was no emotion on her beautiful face, and her eyes, regarding his were shattered, her innocence and love for life forever gone. He moved to touch her hand but she pulled away from him.
"Please don't touch me." She whimpered, moving her hands to cover her face as she wept. She turned from him, and buried her head in the pillow.
Inkie pinkie - aw! I like this story! Write on!
A/N Thanks for continuing to read! Hope you liked the new chapters!
Dragoneyes171986 - enchanting! Simply enchanting! I can't wait for her lessons to start those should be quite interesting.
A/N Thanks for the review! Things are definitely going to get more interesting…
Theshadowcat - Nice update. Going to be interesting to see how well she can learn everything.
A/N Or how well she can hold her own against him!