Title: The Labyrinth: The Way Back
Author: Aviry Nolane, slvrluna47@aol.com
Notes: Ok, SO - here's the newest installment, dedicated to Molly Priest :)
please r&r, as it wins you brownie points and dedications!
( and as always, thanks be to my muse, Solea! )
*avi
Chapter 9 - Oh, The Implications of It All.
Sarah was groggy, she was confused, shaken, and out of bed long before a time that she would consider sensible on a Saturday.
Her head was buzzing with hundreds of half formed and unsettling thoughts. They whirred and spun through her mind at the rate of roughly ten million per second, so that she hardly even knew her own name, nevermind grasping more complex concepts, such as exactly where the hell she was or what she was doing there.
It had gotten to the point that she really only knew one thing for sure.
She was going to kill him.
Her body grew rigid with this new and strikingly clear thought. She was going to kill him, slowly.
She was halfway through plotting some of the rather amusing fine points when the more complex details of her situation did occur to her, such as 'exactly where the hell she was', as she had so eloquently put it a moment earlier.
She looked up with a start to find a fairly puzzled Goblin King staring down at her.
"Is something funny, Sarah?" He probed with a smirk.
There was no thought in what she did next. It was a somewhat primal reaction to her situation that took a hold of her and there was certainly no stopping in it.
She was nearly as surprised as he was when her hand slapped the side of his face, though not all together disappointed in her subconscious decision.
To Sarah's dismay, Jareth had a few primal reactions of his own to dish out.
She cried out in a mixture of shock and pain when her bottom made contact with the stone floor below.
"Really Sarah," Jareth snarled from somewhere above, "you ought to learn to control that violent temper of yours. Soon." The last word was a low growl, and she found it difficult not to tremble at the tone of his voice.
But she managed.
As she could only make eye contact with his waist or below from her vantage point on the floor, she settled on staring down his boots.
"Pardon my imprudence, Goblin King, but you really aren't one to give advice."
Jareth sneered. 'Goblin King' ? So they were back to that again were they? Fine then.
"By all means, Sarah" he spat down at her, "make this as difficult as possible. You seem to enjoy it ever so much more that way."
Was that growl coming from below him? He stepped away for the sake of caution.
"I don't know what that is supposed to mean Jareth, and I really don't care." She threw these pointed words at him as she drew herself into a standing position before him and straightened her nightshirt with an enraged jerking motion.
All things considered, what with the look in Sarah's eyes that screamed murder, the way that she was quickly advancing toward him, and her thoughts from earlier that centered around the slow assassination of the sorcerer before her, the sorcerer who had just recently regained the capacity for mind reading - one would think that Jareth would be running away in fear. Or at the very least, cowering behind his throne.
There was certainly no rational explanation for his reaction to her infuriated ramblings.
Sarah was seething. Was he laughing at her?
'He's laughing at me?' Sarah's inner voice screamed, 'He thinks this is funny ?"
Part of her wanted to cry, the other part somehow managed to lust after his blood even more.
"Send me home, Jareth." She commanded.
He didn't move. She wasn't really expecting him to.
Instead, he leaned back casually onto his throne, clearly awaiting the end of her fit. He draped a leg idly over one of the protruding arms of the high backed chair and stared at Sarah with indifference, as if her outrage was the most natural thing in the world.
She snapped her hands atop her hips and glared at him. Goblin King or no Goblin King she was no one's prisoner.
"I didn't wish myself away. You have no legal right to keep me here." Her eyes narrowed as she approached the throne menacingly. "Send me home." She threatened slowly.
Jareth took his time, letting her anger settle around him. He let his eyes roam around the throne room for a moment, his gaze tracing over the cracks in the stone floor, the soft sheen of the velvet panels, the soft flicker of the torches that lit the walls, not truly absorbing any of it.
His stare moved coolly back to her, portraying no emotion, giving away none of the empathy or concern he may have felt for her.
He answered calmly, and he thought, without any room for further argument.
"No."
She seemed to boil under his scrutiny.
She took a step closer and was now only inches away from his unwavering form.
"You don't have any power over me, Goblin King. You never did and never will. Take me home." Her voice was icy and was laced with barbed loathing.
She didn't blink, didn't move, didn't shift. And neither did he.
The air around them grew stale with empty anticipation and thick with unspoken words.
He had endured just about enough of her antics.
"Sarah, there are so many things wrong with that statement that I don't have time to explain it to you. Let this suffice for now," he raised an eyebrow at her, and she got the feeling that he was enjoying mocking her with some basic knowledge that she didn't understand. "You are home. I have every right to keep you here, legal and otherwise, Sarah." He paused, raising a crystal before him leisurely.
"I wished you away."
Her mouth fell. She knew it was trite and that it only happened in movies, but she did it anyway.
"You can't..."
"Oh yes," he interrupted, tossing the crystal aside, "I can. I told you before that when you left here you took a part of the Labyrinth with you, didn't I? A part of its magic?"
She nodded, unsure of what she had now just agreed to.
He gave her a derisive smirk. The look on his face proclaimed his victory even before his words did.
He couldn't help it. "Who does the Labyrinth belong to, Sarah?"
She felt dizzy suddenly, sick to her stomach. Her eyes fluttered shut as a soft moan escaped her lips. She had never fainted before, but she figured that if she ever did, this would be the time.
It seemed Sarah had a remarkably strong constitution.
His words from their dinner floated back to her in her dreamlike haze of animosity and ruin.
"When magic touches a person, it leaves their mark. The moment you left the Underground you took a piece of its magic with you, a piece of me."
A piece of him.
All too suddenly another memory of the previous night surfaced to her.
She opened her eyes. He had not moved though he seemed to be watching her more intently than before.
The book. Jareth's sudden visit. The restaurant.
Something clicked.
"Why am I here, Jareth?" She asked simply.
He, of course, misinterpreted this as secession.
Perhaps he was a bit too blunt.
"To become my queen."
She blinked. What was that he had just said so factually?
"Excuse me?"
The tone in her voice brought back his cold demeanor that had been shed for a brief moment of honesty.
He stood up and offered her his seat.
"Sit down, Sarah."
She shook her head, defiant tears beginning to brim her eyes. "I'm not sitting there."
He looked back at his throne and opened his mouth to object.
She turned her head away from him and smoothed her hair self-consciously.
Defeated, he pulled a crystal from the air and offered her an inconspicuous seat of blue velvet.
She sat.
Finally.
"I tried to explain this to you before at dinner," he began calmly. "I hold the position of Lord Protector of the Underground, which is vital to the survival of my kingdom, as well as all those in the realm. When you defeated me eight years ago, you jeopardized my status." He took a breath and continued, "you jeopardized my life." This seemed to be a weighty revelation to him and Sarah waited for him to proceed, "More importantly, you put the Underground as a whole in danger, as did I by letting you return." He gave her a look to quell any rebuttals she may have had at this point, she was silent.
"Your return to the Aboveground is high treason, Sarah. It is punishable by one penalty only."
She looked up at him with something like hope in her eyes. Anything. Anything to go home, she would stand court, she would do her -
"Death."
She gasped and her gaze fell to her lap, the crown of her hair hiding her expression from the world. From him.
Maybe now was the time she was to pass out.
There were no words for a moment, and the clicks of Jareth's boots signified that he was moving further away from her. Her head jolted up, she was ashamed of it, but she was afraid to be left alone.
"You brought me here to die?" She pressed, the tears now spilling heavily down her cheeks one at a time.
He wasn't facing her any longer. He stood, back to her, looking out the window that displayed his Labyrinth.
He turned to her languidly, shaking his golden locks.
"I've already told you what I brought you here for."
She didn't understand, and that made her angry. "Jareth, you just said -- "
He sighed, moving closer to her. "Members of the royal house are exempt from such offenses as yours Sarah. It all simply goes away. Becoming my queen wins your battle and mine. You live, and I remain Lord Protector by affirming my strength over your will."
She shook her head. "Jareth, I-"
He silenced her with a wave of his hand and a slur of words in a language Sarah didn't understand.
Her body slumped in the chair and Jareth stood over her, watching her as she slept, trying not to feel like he had just had the weight of the world thrust upon his shoulders.
He smoothed the hair from her face.
"Such a pity."
- - - - - -
* avi
