Even as she stalked down the hill and into the forest, Sarah knew that she wouldn't be able to run away forever. She didn't want to run away forever; she didn't want to think of herself as a coward, but it was so easy to be one. At any rate, it was either leave or gouge Jareth's eyes out. Sarah preferred not to get her hands too messy.

She did feel bad about leaving Belinda alone with him, though, but the witch could handle herself. If anything, Sarah felt she was the better equipped of the two at the moment to handle him, even with the witch's rambling and vague words. Sarah wondered how long that was going on-although all of their previous meetings had been rather brief, Sarah remembered Belinda as almost always being blunt, sometimes to the point of rudeness. The words "please" and "thank you" hadn't seemed to be in the witch's lexicon, which was why Belinda's plea had so shocked Sarah.

But Belinda wasn't stupid, Sarah reasoned; she knew how to get what she wanted. And Sarah's sense of honor prompted her to accept the task before even really knowing what it entailed. She still didn't really know what it entailed. The thought made her frown, and she scowled at a perfectly innocent sapling as if it were the plant's fault. It wasn't. She knew that.

Sarah scowled anyway.

Not even the trees, once she was into the forest proper, helped to soothe her anger. She could tell which ones she planted herself all those years ago; they were in the very center and were the tallest by far. If she stood at the edge of the forest and looked up, she would be able to see their crowns looming tall over the rest. That was where Jareth held court, unless that had changed in the fifteen years she'd avoided the forest.

That was also the place Sarah would only go if she absolutely had to. There were too many things there to remind her of how things had been for it not to be painful.

Instead, she wandered towards the eastern edge of the forest, where she knew there was a spring. If it had rained recently, it would be much larger and faster than normal; she hoped it had rained. Although she hadn't grown up near any real bodies of water-she didn't count the small pond and drainage ditch at the park from when she was a teenager-somehow rivers made her think of home. She couldn't remember when she made the connection between rushing rivers and home. Perhaps it had always existed within her. She didn't know, and didn't particularly care to examine it.

Sarah found the swollen spring and allowed herself to rest on a flat boulder laying at its edge. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and imagined she could hear the calling of sea birds.

This helps, she thought, feeling the tension ease out of her shoulders. The sound of the spring wasn't loud enough for her to imagine the roaring of twin rivers, but it helped nonetheless. If it wasn't for some nagging feeling that she couldn't quite pin down, Sarah would have tried to sleep.

But nothing in a realm populated with goblins could remain peaceful or quiet for too long, and before Sarah had time to find the courage to poke, again, at the festering fury towards Jareth within her, she was disturbed.

It's for the better, she thought as she watched Ludo's lumbering frame weave through the trees. Didymus and Ambrosias weren't too far behind, but it was harder to catch sight of the dog-steed than it was its master or the tall beast. The livery that once adorned the dog had been removed; Sarah wondered when that had happened, but that reminded her that she hadn't seen her friends in years, which only made her angry again.

Sarah took a calming breath and tried to smile.

"Hello," she called out. "It's nice to see all of you." And she meant it. Whatever else was wrong with her, it hadn't altered her affection for her friends. That, at least, remained hers.

"Friend," Ludo ground out. The years hadn't been kind to his already stunted vocabulary; although Didymus was his brother in arms, now, the fox goblin still did most of the talking. Sarah could see that hadn't changed either.

"My lady," Didymus said, doffing his cap and trying his best to execute a bow while sitting on his steed's back. "It has been an age."

Sarah's smile faltered.

"It has," she acknowledged, patting the space on the boulder beside her. "Why don't you both sit down?" Ambrosias curled up at her feet, but Didymus and Ludo took places on either side of her. They were all silent for a beat; Sarah, for her part, was choosing her words carefully.

"I know I haven't been around and that I'm a bad friend. Again," she added pointedly. "But I want you-and Hoggle, when I can talk to him again-to know that it's not because of any of you." Sarah grimaced; her words sounded too much like what her father had said when he sat her down and explained that he and her mother were getting a divorce. Ludo and Didymus remained silent on that front, as Sarah suspected most of the goblins would, if she were to confide in them as well.

But as much as she wanted to be able to confide in her friends, Sarah found herself unable to. She opened her mouth once, closed it, and looked down at her hands. They were a bit dry, and one of her knuckles was cracked from the cold weather back home.

Just talk, she told herself. Just open your damned mouth and talk; nothing is going to get better if you keep it all to yourself. She parted her lips again, but couldn't form her words. Irritated with herself, she growled and hit the boulder beside her hip.

"There is something feral in my lady," Didymus noted, whiskers quivering. He placed a tentative paw on her knee and patted her reassuringly. Whether he was trying to reassure her or himself, Sarah wasn't quite sure.

He's right. Just try to talk, she ordered herself, swallowing hard.

"I think something went wrong when I traded my mortality away," Sarah admitted after a long pause. Her mouth was dry and her voice was low. Although she'd never voiced her suspicion before, it was easier than she thought it would be with Ludo's warm brown eyes staring at her. "I don't know what, but I feel this terrible anger whenever I see him. Jareth," she clarified. "I get angry and upset and I want to hurt him and I don't know why."

Didymus pulled his paw away, clearly torn between comforting his lady and defending his king.

"But what's worse," Sarah admitted, hugging herself with her arms, "is that it doesn't feel like me. I know myself. I know my emotions. This doesn't feel like me; the anger doesn't feel like mine."

Ludo tilted his head, confused, and Sarah stared back at him. Of course he wouldn't be likely to understand. Ludo understood rocks, and friendship, and the steady thrum of the earth. He knew that she was upset, and that was enough for him. Didymus, on the other hand, understood honor, and gallantry, and refused to even try to understand despair. The nuances of human emotion might not have been completely lost on him, but Sarah suspected that he still clung to his rather binary worldview.

"I need help."

The creek gurgled beside them all, breaking the silence between the three-four, if you included the dog. Sarah waited for her judgement and hoped they would still want to be her friends. She wondered how she would fare in this world if they decided it would be too much trouble, that she was too unstable. Sarah couldn't even be upset with them if that happened; she'd agree with them, after all. But if she couldn't tolerate their king, and the goblins all turned their backs, where else did she have to turn? In another decade or two she'd have to figure out how to start her life all over again, and then what? She'd be alone in a distant, unfamiliar city.

But maybe if everything turned out okay with Belinda and her wife, just maybe she'd have those two as friends-or something close, anyway. Sarah smiled wryly.

"We did say that you should call upon us, should you need us," Didymus reminded her, having made his decision. "All of us. We gave no stipulations and, if my lady does not mind me saying so, it seems you need us quite badly right now."

Tears prickled in Sarah's eyes.

"And so," Didymus said, hopping off of his seat to execute another steep bow, "it would be our privilege to help you in whatever way we can. Excepting regicide, of course," he added nervously. "I am afraid my chivalric code does not allow for that."

Ludo stood beside his fox goblin brother and attempted his own bow, which was more of a shallow inclination of his head.

"We help," the beast said, ignoring Didymus's chastising over the imperfect bow. "We friends."

Sarah stifled a giggle and felt one tear slip down her cheek, which she wiped away.

"Thank you. Both of you."

She shouldn't have doubted them. They had more than proven themselves time and time again-more than she had, at any rate. If nothing else, she could have relied on Didymus's honor and Ludo's unwavering loyalty. She was the one who couldn't be depended on, at least not at the moment. Sarah tried not to frown at the thought.

"Thank you for supporting me, but I probably should be getting back to Belinda and Jareth. Leaving those two alone is probably an even worse idea than me alone with him, and that's saying something at the moment." Sarah signed and hopped off the boulder. "But if you two wanted to come with me, I would appreciate it. A lot."

Didymus nodded his head, thinking; Ludo copied his actions.

"Perhaps it would be best if we also informed our friend Hoggle of your predicament. He may have some ideas, being the one with our king the longest."

And that was a perspective Sarah hadn't considered before, not that she knew too much of her friends' lives from before she met them. Ludo's might be impossible to coax out, Didymus seemed likely to talk about his freely, and Hoggle… Well, Sarah had never really considered Hoggle's past before at all.

But it did make sense that he knew the most about Jareth.

Sarah nodded her head and led them all back through the forest. Sarah held one of Ludo's massive paws while Didymus regaled them both with stories about his valor and all of the battles he had won since Sarah had last visited the forest. It seemed to Sarah that most of the battles were more petty goblin squabbles, and that most of them had been won due to Ludo's sheer size alone, but she let the diminutive knight continue without saying a word. Having him fill the silence was nice.

The return journey went by faster, and too soon Sarah could feel her mood souring again as she drew closer to Jareth. Sarah took her place next to Belinda, who was radiating fury and generally not helping Sarah's private struggle. She waved at Hoggle and avoided Jareth's gaze completely while Didymus pulled Hoggle side and whispered in his ear. Sarah was relieved to see that the two were far enough away that not even Didymus's version of a whisper could carry over.

"Ah, our brave champion returns."

Jareth's voice was all forced lightness and pleasantries, but Sarah could feel the claws that hid underneath. She continued to ignore him, choosing instead to reach behind her to hold Ludo's hand again.

"Your witch," Jareth sneered, "was explaining that she has a bit of a problem, and that we were somehow integral to solving it. And that you already agreed to help." Although Jareth did not like Belinda, Sarah could tell that most of his ire was directed at her.

"I have," she told him defiantly. "And I plan to." Sarah bit her tongue to keep herself from saying "with or without you." She didn't want to start a fight.

Jareth seemed not to share her sentiments.

"Of that, I have no doubt. You've always chosen to do what you felt best, and damn the consequences." He looked her up and down, and she couldn't help but to feel that he was still finding flaws in her. If it were anybody else, she wouldn't mind; age had given her perspective. But in front of him, she was still a twenty-something-or worse, still a teenager.

It made her angry.

Ludo patted her head, his big hand coming down harder than perhaps was completely comfortable, but it shook her out of her angry thoughts.

This isn't you, Sarah told herself, and turned it into a mantra. Before she could open her mouth and say something that would make the situation worse-again-Belinda came to her rescue in a sideways sort of way.

"Oh, would you two quit quibbling. I swear; gods are always so petulant. Should have done away with them long ago and saved ourselves the trouble and not left it up to-ah." She paused, blinking, coming back to herself. "Ah, sorry, I got… I got swept up, you see. It's so easy for me to do. Anyway. Back to the matter at hand."

And without another pause, Belinda grabbed Sarah's wrist, jerking her forward. She tried to grab Jareth as well, but he was too quick; instead of suffering the indignity of being manhandled, he made a show of holding his own gloved hand out. Belinda rolled her eyes and grabbed his wrist anyway.

"Look," she commanded, bringing the faded and frayed thread into view. When Sarah saw it again, she winced; the thread was in bad enough shape as it was, but she couldn't help imagining what it would have been like finding her way through the darkness with nothing but its frailty to guide her. She suppressed a shudder.

"Has your end been hurting?" Belinda asked Jareth, prodding his wrist. The thread wrapped around his skin didn't look nearly as worn as Sarah's, and she tucked that information away for later. "Sarah's has been," Belinda added.

"I have been perfectly fine," Jareth said, as if it were a point of pride for him. Which it couldn't be-he probably didn't even know anything was wrong with their shared thread before just now. Sarah suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

"Well then, this is a bit of a pickle."

Sarah got the feeling that Belinda had made a deliberate understatement, and that worried her more than the witch's trademark bluntness.

"Of your doing, no doubt."

Sarah would never, ever admit that in that exact moment, she agreed just a little bit with Jareth. Just a little bit. But she didn't think that he had to be quite so rude about it because after all, nothing had been proven yet, and-

"Yeah," Belinda sighed, halting Sarah's train of thought. "Probably mostly. But it's also your fault a bit, too, you know, you great glittering git."

Jareth opened his mouth and curled his lips into the beginning of a sneer, but Belinda was on a roll. And once the weaver was on a roll, there was no slowing her down, let alone stopping her.

"If you weren't the one on the other end of Taliesin's own thread, then we wouldn't have had to figure out how to transfer it, and if we didn't have to figure that out, then I'd never have woven that awful king into your life-I do feel badly about that, to be fair-and we'd never have had to set you up to meet Sarah so that we could transfer the thread to her. And then Taliesin would never have gone missing, and neither of us would have ever had to see you again. So, you see. Your fault." Belinda paused for a breath and glanced between Sarah and Jareth.

Well, there's that mystery solved, Sarah thought, mouth dry. No need to wonder why my end is the bad one. She felt like the earth had somehow been pulled out from under her feet and she'd been set to spinning in its wake, head over heels. But not in the good way.

Sarah was still trying to process the chain of events that Belinda had laid claim to, but Jareth was already ahead of her-and naturally, he picked the one that Sarah cared the least about at that moment.

"That end of this infernal thread belonged to your wife?" He asked, as if his words were venom he was spitting out at the witch. He yanked his hand from Belinda's grip, and she did not fight it.

"Did I say that?" Belinda asked, looking between Jareth and Sarah. "I'm sorry, I… I'm having a difficult time staying in the here-and-now. What else did I say?" She looked confused and tired, and Sarah was torn between pitying her and kicking her out of the forest. Everything was her fault-the labyrinth, the danger Toby was in, the loss of Sarah's mortality. All of it.

But kicking her out wouldn't solve anything, Sarah reasoned with herself. And if she herself had turned feral, as Didymus said, then Belinda was adrift now, too. Sarah couldn't-wouldn't-send her out into the wide world to fend for herself.

"I suppose I must have," she agreed when she did not get an answer. "Yes, Sarah's end was once Talisin's, but Taliesin did not want to be connected to you. No hard feelings, I hope." The witch looked at him nervously. "So I might have broken the rules a little bit and tampered with fate just a smidge. And that is why she's gone missing. A weaver isn't supposed to have any connections like that, so when they found out I was forging a new thread for us both and helping you to boot, well…" Belinda shrugged, looking through Sarah. "My sisters were not happy. They… They did bad things. They hurt… They took Taliesin."

Belinda's eyes were glazed and she mumbled incoherent words, staring down at her feet. Whatever she was seeing, Sarah knew it wasn't where they all were. Belinda was not seeing the grassy hilltop, and she was not feeling the warm breeze. Sarah took a step closer, out from underneath Ludo's protective grasp, and placed her hands on either side of Belinda's face.

"Kriecht alle durch, kreicht alle durch, kriecht alle…"

Tears rolled over and between Sarah's fingers, cooling quickly in the air.

"Belinda, come back. I don't know where you are, but come back. Listen." She drummed her fingers over with weaver's temples, mimicking a heartbeat. It was a trick she learned as Toby got older and his anxieties got the better of him.

Belinda's tears only came harder.

"Den letzen wollen wir fangen."

"Shh-hhh, Belinda. It's okay. We're here; come back now." Sarah pulled an unresisting Belinda down to the ground and placed her hands in the grass one at a time. "Feel where you are. Tell me where you are."

"I'm… I'm…" Belinda blinked, pushing the last few tears out of her eyes, which looked brighter and more lucid. "I'm in the grass, for some reason. What are we doing down here?"

Sarah stared at Belinda, aghast.

"You're not well," Sarah stated. "You're really not well."

Belinda ran her fingers through the long grass, selecting certain blades seemingly at random. Sarah wasn't sure that the weaver-witch heard her at all, so she opened her mouth to repeat herself.

"No need," Belinda said. "Just watch."

Sarah closed her mouth and ignored Jareth's snort of derision from above her. The long blades of grass twisted in Belinda's hands until they started to form a sort of chain, all woven together. For grass, Sarah thought that it looked remarkably stable; Belinda tugged it once, demonstrating how well it held together.

"I drift sometimes," Belinda admitted, as if nobody had just witnessed it. "And sometimes… sometimes it is easier to use the words of others. Words can become difficult for me, and… Look. This is me." She held the woven grass up to Sarah's face, and Sarah raised a single eyebrow in disbelief. Belinda was no longer so stable a creature. "Or it was. But Orin-Taliesin… Without a thread between us, we could not be bound. And I can have no threads to me. It is forbidden. But, see! If I pull from the core, the thing that makes me, and give it to another…"

Belinda pulled up Sarah's hand, gently this time, and placed the longest blade of grass between Sarah's fingers. Sarah tugged on it with Belinda's encouragement. The whole woven chain fell apart, spiraled out of control; though Sarah still held her end, and Belinda kept a grip on her own, but the rest of the chain fell away. Belinda opened her mouth and seemed to choke on her words.

"So entangl'd and so lost a thing," she settled on mournfully.