Sorry again for the long hiatus, life been kicking my creative mojo to the ground. But I'm on a quest this week to do a mass update!
Thank you for all the lovely reviews, they give me so much joy and really do keep me going.
Enjoy!
Sarah had been unconscious a few times in her life.
Once, many years ago in what seemed another lifetime now. When her nephew Corwin had hit a truly amazing home run into the stands, and right into her head. Quite a few times in university of life, liberty, and the pursuit of drunkenness. She knew it consisted of sudden blackness, almost no feeling of the passage of time and then waking up with some incomplete memory of what had happened.
This was not one of those times. This was very different.
She still saw black, at first. But slowly her awareness began to track along with several small veins of purple energy. They crackled along with her senses until they became her senses. Outward they spread from her heart, down through her arms, the tips of her fingernails, and the ends of her hair. Whether she was willing or not she was being pulled inexorably with them wherever they deemed to tread. Out and down. Out and down. Down from the carriage, from the wood, from the wheels, from the grass, from the earth. She and the energy crawled hastily into the waiting world.
It was pure Magic. And it was beautiful. Magic that was part of even the smallest parts of the world. It was in her. In everything around her. Vibrating with this hum that was at once entirely foreign and deeply familiar. How could she not have felt it before? This throbbing heartbeat at the center of all things. She felt the slow countenance of the blades of grass. The industrious passion of the insects in the soil. The haughty observation of a distant hawk. The unseen dance of the winds in the sky. Everything fit with each other. And she could trace all the paths. So simple, and so perfect. She could feel Jareth, a beacon of magic in his own right. The sweat of his brow, the amazement in his heart entangled with something far more complex and frightening. She turned her gaze away from that. She felt the faithful guards, their fear, bravery, and their injuries.
Fear not, I am here.
The deafening thought came in two voices, only one of them Sarah's. The second was deep, old, and immovable.
Soothing warmth bloomed from the magic into their bodies, easing their fear and healing their wounds.
Next, they passed through Jareth, and she couldn't help but feel him as the veins lightly brushed against his own connection with the magic. The tension in his knuckles, the power in his arm, his long eyelashes against his cheek. He was strong. He was beautiful. He was sincere.
Proud. We chose wisely.
The magic thrummed in harmony within him.
She heard his voice too, and yet not his voice. His innermost instincts and emotions answered their primal call with the impressions of his heart.
Iron loyalty. Obedience. Gratitude.
Seized by a sudden compulsion, Sarah felt the strange sensation of reaching out with a hand to touch him herself. Her affection and regard effortlessly glided along his mind like warm water on glass.
Shock. Confusion. Repentance. Excitement. Haste.
Hesitation.
Resolve.
Without warning, she felt him open his whole heart to her with single-minded intent. A clear and unquestionable message.
Adoration.
She was shaken to the core with the force of it. If it had been a bright light, she would surely have gone blind. But she had not the time to respond for soon the magic swept her along for what it perceived to be far more important business.
They passed through the drow. And their veins lit with purple fire. Their deaths were slow, painful, and merciless. Sarah felt the cold ire echo in her own heart, even as she knew she should fight against the wasteful killing.
Filthy murderers.
With difficulty, she found her own voice.
Spare one for information.
A feeling of begrudging concession answered her. And suddenly the veins were twisting and writhing through the grass. Bringing great vines from the earth to hold fast to the one who might have slain her. The arcane fire still licked at the elf's nerves but she was kept alive and bound. But she was strong too. And Sarah felt a sharp pain in retaliation as the magic skirted the outside of her mind.
Who?
Obstinance. Loathing. Fear.
Sarah felt the magic press harder, the glass of her mind starting to fissure under the assault.
Who? Why?
Pain. Fear.
An image of Sarah flashed before them. Old and decrepit. Revulsion and fear whipped through the connection. But the source was unclear since Sarah hated it so much her own self.
Unknown. Threat.
Who sent you!?
Fear. Overwhelming fear. Escape.
Sarah felt the crack of a tooth, and the flooding of poison in the elf's mouth.
She's dying. We have to hurry.
For the first time, Sarah reached out her mind to the magic willingly. Together they began tunneling through the mind of the quickly expiring woman. It cracked open like an egg. And from her flowed the flotsam of a life lived in violence.
Running along the river as a child from a gang of slavers. First learning how to use a blade in a thieve's den. First love. First loss.
A Fae man. In long lavender robes with gold embroidery. Snow white hair brushes against tattooed ears. He holds a heavy bag of gold in his hands and a heavy threat in his dark eyes. Lines of great stress barely etch his brow, and a firm set in his mouth proves him a man long stubborn. A deadly keeper of his word.
Regret. Fear.
The dying woman's mind was unraveling, trying to come to terms with every one of those million decisions which led her here to this terrible moment. She was a creature of this world too was she not? Did not her life hold the same glorious potential as all born within the sanctity of magic? Pity and the sorrow of a mother surged through the bond.
Forgiveness.
And then everything went black again.
The past few minutes in Jareth's life had been incredibly stressful.
First, a highway robbery. Already a dangerous and precarious situation. Then as if that wasn't enough, it became a blatant assassination attempt. Such a thing had never once occurred to the Labyrinth's caretaker. The political fallout would simply be too great. After all, the Labyrinth was even more vengeful and mercurial than the Fae themselves. A terrifying fact in and of itself. Simply too much depended on its magical resources to risk enraging it. But someone had deemed that enormous risk to the ecosystem of the Underground meaningless. Someone capable of that decision is very, very dangerous and even more unpredictable.
And then there was Sarah. An hour ago she hadn't even been able to walk unassisted. But there she was, Suddenly half her age. Standing on top of a carriage like an urchin, swearing like a sailor, beautiful as a dream, and wielding power most high mages had spent centuries trying to get their hands on.
Then she had collapsed. And his heart had all but leaped up to her without him. But the Labyrinth had called to him. He had felt the great beast reaching through the land and into his bones, and he had heeded the call. But for the first time, it wasn't alone. He had felt her, Sarah, in his mind and in his heart. They hadn't had much time before their presence had faded from him. And he had tried to show her how he felt, despite the fear, despite the uncertainty. The opportunity was simply too magnificent to pass up.
And now. Worst of all. He was waiting.
The Goblin King. Merely waiting. Like a child. Like a servant. Rocking helplessly in a rocketing carriage as he carried Sarah fast asleep in his arms. They had to get to the capital. Under orders of course, but now for urgent help and for answers. Someone, someone in that great city of crystal spires must have the wisdom to save her.
He pressed his forehead to her own furrowed brow which was covered in sweat.
He loved her. he loved her and she knew it. It couldn't end now. It mustn't.
"Spare her." he begged.
"On my life and my soul, spare her."
He held her as close to him as he possibly could. Together as they could be in what might be their last moments together.
He would have changed the stars for her. But now, he only wished he could.
And so the great caretaker of the Labyrinth brought low by grief, reached into himself.
He plucked the string the connected him to the maze and felt it hum.
And he made a bargain he would never forget.