Rites of Passage by Betty Bokor
Jareth/Sarah. When Sarah is called to save the King, her life takes a whole new course, again.
Spoilers: The movie, the book, and some of the Return series.
Disclaimer: The Labyrinth original characters belong to The Jim Henson Company and Lucasfilms Ltd. This was written strictly for the purpose of entertainment. No attempt at copyright infringement has been made.
A.N. The ball is coming...
Rites of Passage
Chapter 11
After agreeing to going to the ball, Sarah explained she needed to go get dressed and left the kitchen so that Jareth and Shawn could talk privately. After a while, she returned expecting to see the King about to leave. She was certain Shawn was already gone, because she could no longer hear his voice, but she hoped Jareth would wait to say goodbye.
She was truly surprised when she walked into the room and found him surrounded by pots and pans and wearing one of her aprons.
"What are you doing? I thought you had to go."
"Tired of me already, precious?" he asked with a smirk before tasting something on the tip of a spoon.
"No," she rushed to explain, "I thought you were needed in the castle."
"Well, I'm certain they can survive without me until the evening… or start getting used to it," he muttered.
Sarah shuddered, but did not dare ask. She knew he had dark plans, but she was not ready to talk about that. It scared her too much.
"So, what are you doing?" she asked again while trying to look inside the pots.
"I promised I'd cook today, so I'm getting lunch ready." He turned toward one of the counters and, with a flick of his wrist, a small group of potatoes lost their peel.
"Hey, that's not fair! I can't use magic to cook!" Sarah complained with fake indignation.
"Do you believe that peeling the skin of the potatoes with magic would in any way affect the flavour of the meal?"
She had to concede that one; "No, not really… bur you could be using magic for something else."
"I am using magic, especially since there's still no electricity," he admitted, "but so could you. You could use the powers I gave you." He said it without any particular inflexion, as he focused on the cooking.
Sarah was floored. What powers? When did he give her anything?
He looked up to see why she was not part of their daily verbal battle anymore. "Sarah?"
"You gave me powers? What powers?"
She was completely serious and he realized the importance of what he had said so lightly. "After I met you," he carefully worded his answer. He hoped she would assume they had met when she had wished Toby away and not before.
"Why?"
"It was necessary. They helped you navigate the Labyrinth, for instance."
"How did they help me?"
"In many ways."
"Tell me one."
He wanted to veer the conversation in another direction, so he had to be very careful with his responses. "You were allowed to see objects and beings that are usually invisible to others, for example. Toby needed to return home, so you had to reach the castle. Everything has a reason." He knew he was playing with the truth, but he saw no other way to avoid revealing his secret.
She was quiet for a short while, lost in thought. "Did you give powers to my mom and Elisa?" she suddenly asked.
He stopped what he was doing and looked at her. He did not want her to think he saw her mother or her friend the same way he saw her. "No; we had other methods to make sure they got out of there fast," he said with some irritation. "Besides, you wouldn't be able to call your friends through the mirror as you do if I hadn't given you those powers. You should be grateful."
"I am," she emphasized. "It's just that I'd never thought about how I was able to communicate with them. I just imagined the magic was only theirs." She seemed pensive again. "It was in the book, wasn't it? He gave her certain powers…" she quoted.
The line right before that one said that the King had fallen in love with the girl, so he needed to move on from the book. "Would you like to help me here, or will you stand there doing nothing all morning?"
She smiled. "Sure, but you have to tell me what else I can do with my powers," she raised her hands and imitated the gesture of a wizard using his magic as she laughed.
He was slightly offended. Her powers were real. "Find me some salt. I'll make sure Didymus teaches you what you can do later."
She searched for the salt shaker inside one of her cupboards. "You know, I've been suspecting that my mother knew you since the day I came back from the Labyrinth."
"Why?"
"Elisa and my mom made all these toys that looked like people from the Labyrinth. Not exactly, of course, but there was a clear resemblance. There's Ludo, Sir Didymus, and Hoggle, and also a Firey and even you. She gave me a drawing of the Cleaners and an Escher print…"
He was not going to talk about what happened in the Escher inspired room either. "They made them?"
"Yeah, like stuffed animals and crafts; that kind of thing. I still have them in a drawer in my bedroom. I don't put them out because Hoggle doesn't like his lookalike. You wouldn't like yours either," she added with a smile.
"Why not?"
"It doesn't do you justice," she said with complete honesty.
He smirked and kept on working.
She sighed. "There was also the fact that she left my dad for Jeremy… and he kind of reminds me of you," she waited for his reaction.
"I most certainly don't think so. That old man resembles me not!"
She smiled. She loved to push his buttons. "Well, he's undoubtedly younger than you," she joked, "but there's something there… Maybe his cheeks…"
He was about to protest again when he noticed how hard she was trying not to openly laugh.
"I already know you can be very disrespectful, Sarah Williams; even to the King," he mockingly complained instead.
"Not my king; I'm not one of your subjects, Your Majesty."
"Don't you think it's about time you stopped calling me that and used my name?" He stretched a gloved hand towards her. "I'm Jareth, how do you do?"
She smiled. "I'm Sarah; nice to meet you, Jareth."
They both smiled at each other and, for a second, they forgot everything around them.
Then, he went back to cooking and she looked down.
"I have to write a couple of thank-you notes for the celebration last night. Do you mind if I do that here while you finish?"
"Not at all."
She brought a little box with cards and envelopes and was busy writing for a while.
Now and then, he looked at her with longing.
Now and then, she looked at him with pain in the heart. How much longer could she be in his life? Was she ever going to see him again after that night?
"Okay, I'm done," she said as she stood up. "Mom and Jeremy, Dad and Karen, Laura, Pete and Mike, and Terry." She turned to look at Jareth. "I didn't write one for you, but you should know how much I appreciate what you did last night, especially the music part. You were impressive and that wasn't magic. You knew exactly what you were doing… How did you know those were some of my favorite songs?"
He smirked. "Magic."
"Come on, tell me," she insisted.
He smiled. "I was bored and I played with your little device over there while you were at work," he admitted.
"My mp3 player?"
He nodded. "Those were some of the most played songs."
"Oh… I see. Anyway, thank you. I really enjoyed the whole performance."
He bowed to her slightly. "It was my pleasure."
"And Terry's displeasure… He was so mad at you!"
"I believe the correct term would be jealous. He was jealous of me because I was with you."
"Well; he had no reason to be. He's just a friend."
He stopped what he was doing to look at her. "May I ask how is it that a bright and beautiful woman like you has no man by her side? There must certainly be more ‒and better‒ suitors than Terry out there…"
She sighed. "Thank you for that, but I'm not so bright when it concerns men. I've had one relationship disaster after another. I think I'm always looking for something that it's not there… I don't know what it is, but it's not there, and when I realize that, everything goes downhill fast." She shrugged. "I guess, no prince charming for me, eh?" she smiled, grabbed the envelopes and the box, and started walking toward the living-room.
"I'm sure there's someone waiting for you, Sarah," he said out loud, and then murmured, "I just wish it was a king…"
When she came back, lunch was served in the dining-room. Every detail had been taken care of and she felt it would have been a perfectly romantic meal for two if there were any chance that he was interested in her. But he had other things in his mind.
After the delicious lunch and the magic cleaning ‒she wished her powers included that‒, he offered to return her bedroom to the way it was when he arrived, but she insisted on keeping it as it was since then. He helped her bring everything she had taken to the guest room back to her own and, before it was time to leave, he made sure the apartment was ready for her to come back.
Once back in the castle, he quickly disappeared amid a mob of elves, fae, goblins, and other creatures Sarah did not recognize. She was suddenly standing alone in the middle of a seemingly deserted room.
"Jareth asked me to help you with the preparations for the ball," she heard an unexpected voice behind her.
She turned and saw the Queen looking at her with a smile.
"Oh, no; don't worry. Just tell me what to do and I can do it. You don't need to waste your time," she said with a little embarrassment.
"In my life I've had four sons, two of mine and two from Hagan's wives, but I never had a daughter. For once I'd really enjoy helping with dresses and shoes rather than armor pieces."
Sarah did not know if Lady Anwen was just trying to be polite, but she had no reason to fight it. She agreed and followed her. The Queen took her to the room she had occupied her last time in the castle and they started searching for the right dress in the walking closet.
"I found some that you can try," the Queen said as she walked back into the bedroom with a few dresses.
"So did I," Sarah followed her with a few more.
"It has to be something light, because summer nights are rather warm around here," Lady Anwen said.
Sarah tried on several dresses and they discussed the merits of each one. After a while, they both agreed on a dark green silk dress.
"Ja- … I mean, your son seems to think this color complements my eyes. He told me so last night… But I don't know if to wear the same color I wore for our last dinner."
"Nobody here saw you last night, except Jareth, and, if he liked that color on you before, he won't object to it now. I'll go get some ribbons for your hair and some jewelry to complement this dress and I'll be back soon."
Sarah thanked her and hurried to take a short bath before getting dressed. She had just finished, when the Queen came back. She offered to comb Sarah's hair and fix it for the ball. Sarah agreed; she had no idea what would be appropriate for the occasion.
"This feels very different than the last time," she said as she looked at herself in the mirror.
"The last time?" the Queen asked with real interest, slowly combing Sarah's hair.
"Well, that time wasn't really real, but it felt as if it was."
"When was that?"
"You know that ten years ago I had to recover my brother that I'd wished away, right?"
"Yes," the Queen admitted.
"Well, when I was close to the castle, Hoggle gave me a peach the King gave him and I had a hallucination because it was drugged."
"That sounds about right," the Queen agreed. "It usually happens to many runners."
"Well, in that hallucination I was in a ball, in the castle, and I had this puffy white dress ‒I thought it was wonderful by then‒ and there were fae everywhere, with masks. It felt like they were talking about me, mocking me, but I didn't care because all I could think was that I had to find someone." She had not told about all that to anyone, ever, and now she could not stop. "And I kept looking and looking… and then I saw him, the King. He had a horrible mask, but he took it off and he smiled at me… and I knew he was the one I was looking for, so I tried to reach him, but he kept disappearing until –I don't know– I just turned and he was there… and he asked me to dance and we danced and danced and he sang to me… And I really wanted him to, I wanted him to-" She suddenly realized who she was talking to and stopped.
Lady Anwen lowered her head to get close to Sarah's ear. "You wanted him to kiss you, didn't you?" she asked very softly, hiding her smile.
Sarah sighed. "Yes, I did; I was a teenager and I thought he was kind of dreamy…" she giggled a little; "but he kept me at arms length, and then the clock on the wall started chiming, so I remembered I had something else to do ‒I had completely forgotten about Toby; can you believe it?‒ and I threw a chair at the mirror and everything went crazy and I fell and… I woke up in the middle of a landfill or something," she laughed at the memory. "It's funny what we can dream…"
Lady Anwen smiled, but changed the topic of conversation and talked about the impending ball, what was going to happen in it, and what Sarah should do.
When the hairdo was done, she left Sarah to finish getting ready and walked to the room where Jareth was.
She opened the door and saw her husband, her son, Keene, Shawn, and Ruy getting ready for the ball as they talked about the war.
"Alright, Jareth," she said in an imperious tone as she entered the room, "who is she?"
The men stopped talking and turned to look at her.
"Mother?" Jareth tried.
"Don't even think you'll get out of this one that easy… and you, either," she added looking at her son's friends. "I'm sure you all know what's going on here, so tell me, who is Sarah Williams?"
"Why?" Jareth tried one more time.
"She was a runner, yes?"
Jareth nodded.
"And she went through all the normal stuff until you gave her an enchanted peach, right?"
Jareth agreed again, quickly seeing where the conversation was going.
"But she didn't have a nightmare, like everybody else, did she?"
"Not exactly," Jareth conceded.
"She had a dream where she was a princess in a beautiful dress and you were her prince charming, and you danced with her… and sang to her…"
"Mother, I have no control over what the runner will dream after eating the enchanted fruit."
"A white puffy dress?" she asked and this time she had to make an effort not to smile.
"Oh, that came from her imagination, completely!" he exclaimed, annoyed that she would have thought that was his choice. "She had a music box with a girl in a white dress and she took it from there."
His father watched the scene unfold with evident amusement and his friends wished they could vanish from the room.
"Jareth…" Lady Anwen warned, but her son heard more the concern than the warning.
"Alright, alright!" he almost exploded. "She's my soul mate. Is that enlightening enough? I didn't do anything special for her; I was just trying for damage control, but it didn't work. That's why I put the clock in the dream. She needed to save the brother and return to her world. By then, there was still a chance that I could change things in the future."
"Did you know it beforehand?" his father asked as he approached, now clearly worried.
"Yes. The Wiseman and I tried to handle the situation since the moment I figured it out, but, then, she wished her brother away and everything went awry."
"You could have used the ball in her dream to tell her who she was," Lady Anwen said. "She must have sensed something; she was expecting you to kiss her."
"She was a child!"
"Alright; I understand, though I don't think she was that young. She's human and her life span is different. Many human women have married and had children at that age, even younger. Many great women in their history… Nefertiti was fourteen when she had her first child; Queen Leonor de Castile was eighteen, and-"
"You know as well as I do, Mother, that there have been many changes in human customs since then. Sarah was not prepared for anything like that."
"Then, my question is, what are you going to do now?"
The High King gave her his support with a gesture.
"Nothing." He turned and looked away through the window. "We're at war, remember? What could I do? Kidnap her and leave her here, away from her family and friends, while we all go out there to die? There's nothing I can do now. She has a life without me… and these days I've been given with her are all I'll ever get." He sighed and before anyone could add anything he left the room.
