Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth.
Sara pushed past him roughly, still blushing scarlet. She furiously opened the great oak doors which lay before her which normally would have been too heavy to even attempt to move, but her determination to prove that she was not affected by his spells served as her adrenaline to muster the strength to open them to a crack she could easily squeeze through.
The sight that lay before her made her wish she had not been so rash.
Her eyes were fearfully greeted with a huge, dark stone hall, medieval in its architecture once more which spanned the space of a football field. It was not the size which frightened her; however, it was the countless number of laughing goblins which sat at a banquet table as long as the hall which did that.
"Jareth…" Sara whispered fearfully as the goblins barred their yellow teeth in mocking smirks in her direction.
Jareth suddenly appeared at her side and placed a white gloved hand on her shoulder.
"Do not fear, my dear," he whispered as gently as a lover's caress, "as long as I am with you, you need not be afraid of them. They are but tiresome children in reality and all they want is a little fun."
Sara doubted this very much as she watched a rather large and ugly goblin take a huge bite out of the wooden table in front of him and chew it greedily.
"Come Sara," She heard Jareth's voice say beside her.
She followed him without hesitation, not wanting to be without human company for a second. Jareth displayed every quality of a king as he made his way along the table, the goblins still smirking but clearly showing as much respect for him as they possibly could. Sara followed timidly in his wake; avoiding eye contact with the goblins as if one look would prompt them to attack her. They did nothing of the sort, of course, as Jareth was with her.
After about five minutes of what seemed to be a never ending line of hungry looking goblins, they came to a regal looking high backed chair made of a dark wood.
"This is for you, my dear," Jareth said drawing the chair out for her with a slight flick of his wrist, "and this is where I leave you."
Sara, who was struggling into the chair, fighting with her long dress which had begun to twist around her ankles, looked up at him suddenly in surprise.
"You can't be serious!" but he was gone.
Panicked again, Sara sharply looked around the room, not wanting to believe that he had left her all alone…with the goblins…
'Why do I always get left alone in this place?" Sara thought as she smiled timidly at the surrounding goblins, "If only Hoggle or Ludo were here…"
Her mind drifted to her friends that had helped her in her adventure and hoped dearly that they were safe and well. She sighed silently, doubting that she would ever lay eyes on them again.
'Well, there's no point getting upset about it now…' she rebuked herself as tears of grief threatened to fall, "you chose your lot, now you have to live with it…why the hell you decided to live it is beyond me…"
The dinner, if you would even consider it that, reminded Sara greatly of a scene straight out of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The goblins, not merely content with eating the meal, what that meal consisted of she wasn't quite sure, but behaved with lacking manners, throwing food at the ceiling and, of course, at each other.
"SILENCE!" A powerful voice bellowed from all corners of the hall, quieting the goblins immediately.
Sara searched for the source of the voice, her eyes widening as she found what she was looking for.
It was Jareth who had made the command and who now was standing on top of the table at the far end, every last goblin now focused on him as he walked slowly but surely down its length. No one said a word as progressed he glared at each of the goblins in turn, silently cursing them all as they had made a mockery of his kingdom before his new bride…
Before she knew it, Jareth had reached her side of the table, his knee high black boots in her line of vision. Sara nervously looked up at him, her heart stopping momentarily as her eyes locked with his.
"My loyal subjects…" he began sarcastically, his steely eyes still focused on her, "acting as if you were uncivilized animals is not the way to behave in front of a lady…"
The goblins momentarily abandoned their fixed gaze upon their ruler as they began to whisper furiously at this announcement.
'What is he up to?' Sara asked herself, extremely confused at what he had to say, but terribly interested at the same time.
Jareth smirked at them all and continued to speak.
"Therefore…as it seems that none of you even care about your King's well being, I suppose that I will no longer care for your own."
And with another flick of his wrist, the table and all that it held disappeared. The goblins landed with a rough drop from the benches which had also disappeared, as Jareth landed gracefully on his feet to the granite stone tile.
An angry uproar from the goblins echoed throughout the hall, as they were still quite hungry from the day's work in the goblin city and the castle. They bared their teeth at Jareth, threatening him in hopes that their meal would be returned to them but retreated as Jareth merely shook a finger at them in disapproval.
"Such a pity…" he said, laughing at them as they lowered their heads, not wanting to upset Jareth and provoke his wraith any further.
Sara, who had been watching the entire scene and sympathizing with the goblins stood from her chair, determination etched onto her face.
"Jareth, please allow your subject to continue the meal," she entreated, each careful step bringing her evermore closer to him, "as you said before, they are merely tiresome children just wanting to have a little fun."
Jareth watched her as she made her argument, pleased with what she had said. Nevertheless, he continued to smirk at her before he gave an answer.
"And like tiresome children, Sara, they deserved to be punished," He said, looking around the hall once more, "For their punishment, they will be responsible for their own sustenance until they learn to behave properly in front of a lady. Or, better yet, perhaps they would learn proper manners if the lady they were so desperate to impress was, in fact, their new Queen and their King's new bride…"
Sara couldn't help but blanch at Jareth's words. His Queen…his BRIDE! She could say nothing as he continued to speak.
"There it is then!" Jareth said triumphantly, "My subjects…my dear subjects…will fend for themselves until I have a new Queen!"
His eyes traced over every being in the room as he confidently walked to the double doors. He stopped as he beheld Sara, her mouth open slightly in disbelief.
"And let me warn you Sara," he said, one hand upon the elaborately carved silver door handle, "When I told you they were "tiresome children" I was not exaggerating…"
With a final laugh and a look back at the occupants of the room, he left.
Sara continued to stare after him, long after each of the goblins in turn had gazed at her with pleading eyes and quietly left the room. As the last goblin, a rather small one who could barely open the great door a crack without accidentally crushing his skeletal fingers, Sara finally abandoned her post and solemnly crept into a far corner of the room, dark and quiet enough to regain her thoughts.
Sara…her…a Queen and a bride?
It wasn't like she hadn't been excepting it; why else would she have been offered the chance to stay with him? But to finally hear it said out loud was more than she could handle at the moment after mere hours before having made probably the most important and life altering decision of her life.
Sara shook her head and stood up, crossing the massive hall once more towards the infamous oak doors, which took her a few minutes to manage open. She stepped out into the much smaller room Jareth had taken her to before, continuing on until she reached a part of the castle she had not been to yet, her mind set on returning to her room.
'Nice going Sara!' she thought angrily, 'Of course you have no idea where your room even is!'
After cursing to herself under her breath for a few moments, she bit her tongue and began to wander around the many halls and corridors, which all looked exactly the same, hoping to be lucky enough to stumble across her destination.
"Damn!" she yelled loudly, after at least a half an hour of searching, "I know I have passed this tapestry at least twice! Is everything in this universe a labyrinth!"
"It isn't when you know where you are going…"
Sara, who had been scowling intently at the smiling hunters in the tapestry blissfully chasing a mythical beast, nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise at the voice just behind her. Or rather, below her…
"Agnes!" She said, spinning around with joy at blessed sight of the friendly female goblin, "Thank God you found me! I have no idea where I am!"
Agnes smiled pleasantly and grabbed Sara's hand, pulling her in the direction of what Sara hoped to be her room.
"You certainly had us worried, my lady," Agnes said in her squeaky little voice, "You do know how to get lost!"
Sara ignored the "us" statement as Agnes brought her to her bedroom door in a matter a minutes and kneeled down to Agnes's height.
"Thank you for finding me, Agnes," Sara said, feeling rather foolish for being so close to her room after all.
Agnes smiled at Sara as she stood up once more and entered her room and bowed as a response. The Gobliness continued her chores she was told to do before ordered by Jareth to go fetch Sara from wherever she may have wandered off to.
"Oh dear…" Agnes whispered to herself as she picked up her miniature broom and dust pan, "I do hope that Sara knew I was to take her to King Jareth's chambers…"
Shrugging and deciding that it really wasn't her business to question this, she began to hum a little tune as she began once more with her house work.
...I'm not going to make excuses as to why it took me so ridiculously long to update…just please know that I am really sorry and that I hope you still continue to read and review my story…I promise I'll be better about updating! Love and Peace! Kupo!