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.

Chapter 14 – Reasoning the Madness

They passed back out into the sparkling ballroom and found a relatively quiet corner so that they could speak, Jareth and Lucia passing muttered messages to Theo who would often disappear into the crowd. Sarah could brood about the cryptic conversation she had just witnessed in the High Kings chamber, leaning languidly against a cold marble pillar and nursing a glass of strong liquor. Jareth kept his back to the rest of the room, trying to avoid all the single Fae women, feeling slightly uneasy about Sarah witnessing their attempts to get him into their beds. She must realise he mused that even a King such as himself could offer many things to a woman who wished for power. Even being a Queen of the lowly Goblin Realms could not dissuade them from trying to catch his eye.

He turned away from watching Sarah drowning her depression in the bottom of some fine whisky out of the corner of his eye and listened curiously as Theo returned and reported back to him his limited success. At the end of Theo's muttered speech he scowled convincingly at the young Fae for his apparent incompetence and then couldn't help but smirk as Theo winked and disappeared back into the crowd. He sighed inwardly, hating the politics of the Fae court, and thanking once more his nephew's ability to make light of so many plots, and subplots. Finding the truth amongst rumour and hear say was one of Theo's remarkable traits, along with rumour mongering like there was no tomorrow, the boy lived for the slander and veiled insult and threat that he could turn into profitable lies.

"Why are you smirking like that Jareth?" Lucia asked after one of her own forays into the swirling crowds.

"Because it makes everybody else think that he's up to something terribly devious when really he's waiting to hear what other rumours Theo can come up with." Sarah said interrupting them as she reached between them for another glass of whatever it was she was drinking. Jareth raised a brow at her in mild reproof, but couldn't think of anything scathing to say that would put her in her place. Not that he was entirely sure where that was. The other Fae seemed to have forgotten his words in the Seelie Court, releasing her from his slavery, but reminding them that should she leave the borders of his kingdom she would still be his slave. He sighed again, changing his smirk to a frown as he saw Elindah across the room with his sharp eyes. With a suddenness he felt his mind torn away from the room, and out into the dark void to the Aboveground, heard the whispered wails of a frightened child and then the clarity of the wish.

In the blink of an eye as Sarah and Lucia watched him, he changed form into a barn owl and flew away above the crowd and out of an open window.

"Bye then." Sarah said waving absently, trying not to slop her drink. Theo arrived back and nodded at his mother.

"Time we were gone also. The Princess has returned to grace us all with her unpleasantness." He said removing the empty glass from Sarah's hand and leading her through the edges of the crowd behind Lucia. The cool outside air hit Sarah hard as they found their cloaks and were finally disgorged by the crowd outside the main entrance to the palace.

"BBbrrrrrrr." She said as her teeth began to chatter. Theo grinned at her and then whisked them away into the darkness. Lucia helped her into bed once they returned to the castle, and as soon as her head touched the lumpy pillow, slept the sleep of only the truly drunk, or the dead.

He was again sat at her desk as she woke the following morning. No, afternoon she amended to herself as she noted that the sun had crept beyond the edges of the windows. She groaned, feeling as though there was a small gnome trying to mine its way out of the top of her scull and made her way carefully to the bathroom, leaning her head against the cold tiles on the wall whilst she sat on the loo. She spent some time gargling and cleaning her teeth to get rid of the grass that had grown on her tongue overnight and gave up trying to brush her hair, which refused to lie flat. As she unlocked the bathroom door, feeling slightly more whatever it was she was now meant to be and was greeted by Jareth's outstretched hand holding out a glass of a vile looking liquid. She glared at him before ducking under his arm and crawling back into the bed, ignoring the proffered glass.

"You will need to drink this at some point." He said setting the offending glass down on her bedside table.

"Unless its poison I'm not interested." She said from beneath the quilt.

"I can safely assure you that I wouldn't waste my poisons on you." He remarked pulling the duvet off the bed.

"That's a shame." Sarah sighed trying to cover herself over with the lumpy pillows, which also were removed from the bed.

"Drink it." Jareth demanded walking back to his chair, leaving her writhing in her slip with cold, frustration and the biggest hangover she had ever encountered.

After glaring at him stonily for several minutes from her stripped bed she picked up the glass and judiciously sniffed the contents before gagging and running to the bathroom to throw up. By the time she had finished cursing the porcelain gods she was shaking, exhausted, and quite ready to take any poison Jareth offered her.

"I told you to drink it, not sniff it." He sighed helping her up off the bathroom floor and handing her the glass. "If you don't drink it yourself, I will be forced pin you down and make you drink it." He said without any remorse as she thought about accidentally dropping the glass. She rolled her eyes and pinching her nose downed the thick dark liquid on one go.

"I think I'm going to be sick." She wailed as the taste hit her tongue.

"No you're not. Get dressed, I've been waiting all morning to begin your lessons, and I tire of listening to you snore."

"I do not snore." Sarah shouted indignantly from her dressing room as she put on a black dress which she turned a soft rose colour. She walked out of the dressing room and went in search of the breakfast tray, hoping somebody had put some water or something with it. She found a glass of water next to some very cold toast and downed the whole lot in one, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she put the glass down again.

"You really are an animal sometimes Sarah. I must remind Lucia to force some manners into you."

"You're one to talk, at least I don't turn into a bloody owl."

"No, it's much worse, you become a dragon after ingesting alcohol. Its most disturbing." He said sitting resignedly back down in the chair behind her desk.

"Its you're fault anyhow." She said flopping down into the chair opposite him ungracefully.

"And how did you come to that conclusion?" He asked looking at her over the edge of one of his books.

"I wouldn't have drunk anything if you hadn't taken me to wherever it was we went last night."

"You never cease to amaze me." He sighed and looked back down at his book. "I thought I told you no experimenting." He growled from the depths of the leather bound book and Sarah sighed, leaning back in the chair to hold her head.

"I did it exactly how Lucia showed me." She said.

"Lucia showed you?" He emerged once again from the book and stared at her.

"Not exactly." She said not meeting his gaze.

"I thought as much. Not even my sister would defy me, though you seem to enjoy doing so."

"Oh get over yourself already." Sarah moaned leaning forward and taking his book away from him. They glared at each other across the desk.

"Are you going to be this childish all day?" He asked not blinking.

"If I have to." She replied smiling sweetly at him and turning to look at his book. He groaned and clutched his head in his hands, leaning his elbows on the desk.

"Why me?" He asked accusingly.

"A very interesting question Your Majesty. Why you exactly. What made you, or perhaps your family the ones to take over ruling the Labyrinth? What did you do to become the black sheep of the Fae nobility, yet make the bored and impressionable young women lust after you like a herd of excited buffaloes? Its all very intriguing, and I can't seem to find anything about it in any of the books I've read. Leaving me with you." Sarah mused in a fruity voice flicking through the first pages of the book she had taken from him.

"I refuse to talk to you about my family history." He said still holding his head in his hands trying to understand her lightning change of subject.

"How long did the High King give you to complete your marriage petition?"

"I beg your pardon?" He asked incredulous as he looked up at her.

"Certainly Your Majesty, its very noble of you to beg for my pardon, normally it's the other way around. I wanted to know how long the High King had given you to… make your move… Was she there last night? Was she one of those simpering clueless women who crowded around you? Will you treat her the way you've treated me, or will she be able to hit you back if you hit her first? Would she even want to?" Sarah said to herself, standing up from the chair and dropping the book down in front of him. "Is she intelligent enough to see you for the man you really are? At least she might be able to make you stay out of her bathroom once in a while…"

"You were trying to drown yourself."

"I was having a bath!"

"I know what I saw."

"Then you need your eyes checking."

"STOP SHOUTING AT ME!"

"THEN ANSWER THE QUESTION!"

"No." Jareth told her as he sat back down in his chair. "I don't know what's gotten into you Sarah that makes you think you can talk to me this way, but shortly I will have to teach you otherwise."

"Why did you take me with you last night?"

"Because whilst you are with me you are protected. And also because the High King wanted to meet you."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care if you believe me or not."

"Did you want to make me jealous? Thinking that I'm not good enough, I'm not beautiful enough to be among them, just your mortal whore. Did you gloat with them about me, how you have beaten me into submission, how you command me into obedience, just your slave."

"Sarah stop."

"I wouldn't want to get in the way of you bringing your new wife home Your Majesty, I'd just keep her away from me, you never know, if I saw her I might have to educate her on how much of a manipulating heartless bastard you are." She whispered, the strange energy she had felt draining from her body like her headache, leaving her sat in her chair sobbing. Jareth stood up and walked round the desk, perching on the edge in front of her.

"Perhaps we should leave my teaching you about magic for tomorrow. You seem inexplicably overwrought." He said looking down at her.

"You didn't answer any of my questions." She whispered again, looking up at him through tear blurred eyes.

"I do not think you would really want me to." He remarked concentrating on playing with his gloves.

"I don't blame you." She said suddenly.

"Oh good."

"Jareth stop it! Don't you even understand anything that I'm going through?"

"Yes. But I find it increasingly difficult not to wind you up about it. I so enjoy making you angry." He smirked at her as she glared at him.

"You are a bastard." She said unhappily.

"Unfortunately not Sarah, unfortunately not."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what I want it to mean."

"Is cryptic your middle name?"

"Not that I'm aware."

"Shame, I think you'd have made a very interesting "Lord Jareth The Cryptic". Perhaps one day the Labyrinth will have a statue of you looking down your nose at the poor mortals on their way to death with a little plaque underneath quoting "So cryptic he refused to even explain why he was here in the first place." Sarah said sniggering to herself.

"Have you been taking drugs?"

"I'm not sure, that entirely depends on what it was you made me drink." Jareth sighed and shook his head, taking a glass of water from the air and handing it to her.

"Perhaps this will help clear your head."

"Perhaps it will help me die."

"Why do you have such a thing about wanting to die?"

"Why do you have such a thing about being an asshole? I don't know, I haven't tried psycho analysing myself. That was always James's job." She shut her mouth with a snap as she remembered James.

"The first rule you must learn Sarah is to control your emotions. In order to control magic, in order to change the world around you, you have to be still, in your heart, your mind, and your soul. You will never be able to work great acts of magic unless you learn to put away all the things you fear, and hate and desire into a locked box in your head. An example if you care to hear one?" He said clicking his fingers. They disappeared and arrived in the black and white perfectly created paths that Sarah had first entered. She found herself sitting on top of a small black pawn with Jareth leaning nonchalantly against the beautiful life-size figure of a white queen across the way from her.

The Chessboard pathways in the Labyrinth, created purely by yourself before you even understood what you were doing within the Labyrinth. It is the only place that has truly remained since you came here, why?"

"I don't know? Perhaps I always had a thing about chess?"

"The memory, or interest did not need to be remembered by yourself in order for the Labyrinth to incorporate it into its existence. You had no memories, no perception of anger or hate or fear, apprehension perhaps, and curiosity. This area has many more figures of authority with regards to chess, than it naturally should have. Therefore it could be assumed that you yourself felt like a pawn, sacrificed in the first instant to the bishops sideways move, or the queens forward attack. In fact, there is only one pawn in the whole of this chessboard maze, and you are sat on it."

"I don't get you. So I was feeling insecure in my position, since I didn't know what position I was in to begin with."

"So why did you not choose yourself to be a Queen, or a Knight?"

"I'm not sure, because I'm not honourable and noble like the Knight, or pure and beautiful like the Queen?"

"Now you are just speculating."

"So are you."

"That is beside the point. We're talking about you, not me. The colour of the pawn is black, whilst every other single statue in this part of the Labyrinth that was created with your mind, is white."

"So I'm a black sheep. What's the point?"

"The point is the clarity of the situation. The Labyrinth understands you far better than you do, or any stupid mortal psychologist for that matter."

"Don't you dare speak of James like that, he was there for me when nobody else was!"

"Let us ask ourselves why these first two statues stand equally opposite the place where you first entered the true Labyrinth." Jareth continued ignoring her as he turned to face the white queen.

"We've already established that I don't understand what you're getting at." Sarah sighed running her fingers down the smooth side of the pawn.

"Look at yourself Sarah. Why do you believe yourself to be the outcast? The pawn among the great and noble, the one who doesn't fit in, the one who can never understand why people see her differently."

"Because I have always been different. Even my mother didn't like me, didn't want me near her. I don't have any true friends, haven't ever really wanted any. I've never fitted in anywhere, even here, I'm seen as a slave, a mere mortal wished away and now at your mercy, or lack of." She said spitefully.

"Look at what the Labyrinth knows you to be in your soul." Jareth said moving away from the white queens statue and watching her. Sarah for the first time looked up and truly saw the white queen. She gasped as she stood and moved closer to really see. She could have used the statue as a mirror, from the way her eyes looked to the shape of her delicate hands holding a wreath of flowers and the annoying way her hair always looked as though she was standing staring into a heavy wind, with a faint, knowing smile on her lips. "To the Labyrinth, this is what you are. It cannot lie, and can only show the truth, of any nightmare, or dream or soul. This is your soul." Sarah clenched her fists and sighed, looking away from her own face to Jareth.

"This is a pointless exercise in wishful thinking. Teach me how to hide my emotions like you do."

"All in good time Sarah. We have made progress this afternoon. Before you can control your emotions, you have to understand why you have them in the first place. Dinner will be served in 1 hour. I trust you can get yourself back to the castle." He said smirking at her as she opened her mouth to protest. Before she could say anything he disappeared and left her standing there indecisively between the pawn and the queen.