Sarah heard footsteps approaching and screwed her eyes shut tighter. They weren't loud, but they were irregular and close together, as if the person walking was short and had a limp.
Not Jareth, then, she thought, and cracked an eye open. She opened her other one when she saw it was Hoggle.
"I'm supposed to be meditating," she said, sounding like a sullen child.
"Not doin' very well," he said, dropping to the ground beside her. Sarah shifted so that he could sit easier.
"I know," she said. "My problem is that there's just a lot going on in my head."
Hoggle considered her for a long moment, a frown etched on his craggy face. "Don't doubt it," he finally said. "Didymus told me about your problem."
He didn't need to elaborate on what her problem was. Sarah sighed and rubbed her temples with her fingertips, all pretense of meditating forgotten. It wasn't doing her any good anyway; the more she quieted herself, the easier it was for the restlessness within to wrest control away from her.
"We all want to help, you know. Bein' friends and all. But I'm the one who's been here the longest, so I'm the one who probably knows the most. 'Specially about that spear over there," he nodded towards the bronze spear, which Sarah had unceremoniously stuck in the ground. It gleamed in the sunlight, as if proud to be recognized. Sarah tore her eyes away from it and nodded to Hoggle, urging him to continue.
"Used to be some lady's, 'till it wasn't. She was a bad sort-full of fury and fire. Like you said you've been. Don't remember her name, 'Course, this was a really long time ago, just before that king came stomping through, so…" Hoggle paused, glanced at Sarah, and wrung his hands for good measure. "She and Jareth got into it. I won't lie to ya'; it was a bad fight. She limped off, left some of her stuff behind, and that's the last anyone here has heard of her."
Sarah frowned. Hoggle hadn't told her much, even if it was still more than she knew before. The mystery woman fighting Jareth was interesting, but not incredibly helpful. After all, that was all in the past. Wasn't it?
"Thank you," Sarah said anyway. "I'll see if I can find out any more, but at least I have somewhere to start now." She leaned over to give him a hug-the dwarf had been wary of her kisses ever since she first ran the labyrinth-she she could feel the tension radiating off of him. "It will be fine," she assured him. "It always is in the end, isn't it?"
And she supposed it was at least mostly true. One thing always lead to another, but up until recently she'd always ended up okay. Her attention wandered to the spear again, and she frowned. There was something about it, something magnetic, something-
"You were meant to be meditating," Jareth said. "Not making idle chatter."
"I don't take orders from you," Sarah snapped, standing so that she wasn't at a disadvantage. Hoggle tried to make himself seem even smaller than he already was, hoping to avoid notice.
"Clearly," he sniffed, looking down his nose at her. "But perhaps you will heed a warning. Advice, if you will." He brandished the folded and tattered pages of the notebook at her. "It was rough going, I assure you, as this thing," he said, shooting a withering glance at the prophecy, "seems resistant to translation, but… You might find it beneficial to check on your brother. It seems as if he might be in some life-threatening danger." He said it casually, as if he expected that Sarah wouldn't care about her only other sibling. She could have set him right, but that would have wasted time.
Sarah was already gone.
Toby lived with his fiancee in their tiny rented house with their small pride of cats. It was Isobel who was fondest of the cats and unable to say no to any stray that wandered into her path. Toby often joked that was the reason she kept him around. Isobel's car was gone, which meant she was likely at work. Toby, however, seemed to be at home. Sarah's heart hammered somewhere in her throat as she pounded in the front door.
The seconds ticked by, feeling like minutes. Sarah knocked again, harder this time. If something had already happened to him… Sarah growled in frustration and prepared to break the glass window beside the door.
"Keep your hair on," Sarah heard Toby groan from the other side of the door as he unlocked the deadbolt. "I'm coming."
Sarah was so relieved, her knees felt weak. If he was well enough to make wisecracks, then whatever hint Jareth had gleaned from the notebook couldn't have come to pass yet. Maybe she could even stop it.
"My head is killing me; did you have to hammer on the door like that?"
And there stood Toby, whole and unharmed, if not looking a little groggy. His curly blonde hair was ruffled, and his eyes were a little bloodshot, but otherwise he looked fine. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief.
"You're okay," she said, leaning against the porch railing behind her. "Good. I was… worried. You didn't answer your phone." Hopefully it was dead again-that was a terrible habit of his-and her lie wouldn't be discovered too quickly.
"It's just a hangover," he said, looking at her as if she'd grown another head. "Is mom still worried about the family reunion? I told her I'd talk to Isobel and let her know if we can make it or not as soon as possible…"
"No. I mean, I'm sure she'd be glad to hear from you, but… no. I just wanted to check up on you, and I was in the area. And I wanted to give you this." She pulled a leather and metal necklace out from the back pocket of her jeans. It hadn't been there a few minutes ago, but that was how her magic worked. As long as she expected it to be there, it would be. And as long as she expected it to work a certain way, it would.
"It's for good luck. And protection," she added. "I thought you'd like it."
Toby nodded and took the necklace from her.
"Yeah, it's cool," he said. "Give me a second, I've got to get some aspirin…"
Sarah slipped away and retreated back to the forest. Life-threatening danger my ass,Sarah seethed. He just had a hangover… But he'd said it was a killer hangover, so perhaps Taliesin's prophecies were literal in the worst possible way. Sarah snorted and brushed off her clothes; travelling magically always made her feel musty, somehow.
If things really were so literal, then Sarah thought she should maybe be on the lookout for an actual lion and an actual stag duking it out somewhere.
She should have known her life wouldn't have been that easy. When she made it back to the area she'd left Jareth and Hoggle on, she found that Hoggle had fled, but Jareth was still there waiting with a scowl on his face.
"Ready yourself. Your training starts now."
Sarah blinked back at him, his words taking their time to make their impact.
"Wait, fighting training? Right now? As in this second? Ow!" She cried; he'd tapped a wooden walking stick against her knuckles. "Okay, okay, jeez! Keep your hair on; you could ask how Toby is, you know, but since you didn't, I guess I'll go ahead and tell you he's perfectly fine anyway. And my magic works just fine. I gave him a protection amulet."
She had a second-half of a second, really-to consider that she wasn't blazingly angry with him, and another moment to wonder why that was before she was on her back in the grass. All of the air that had previously been in her lungs was expelled, and Sarah took a few gasping breaths.
"What was that for?" She asked, feeling her anger now.
"You must always be prepared for an attack. Your enemy will not wait for you to finish pleasantries." He twirled the walking stick in his hands, having just used it to sweep her feet out from underneath her. Sarah glared up at him.
"You didn't even give me a chance-" she protested.
"Neither will the person trying to kill you."
She growled low in her throat and used the spear, which she had abandoned earlier, to help her stand up. As if moved by a force outside of herself, she pulled it from the earth and brandished it at Jareth, dropping into an offensive stance. Her legs were spread, her knees bent slightly; he would not be knocking her off her feet again.
"Try it again," she dared him, and when he did, she knocked the staff away with the butt of her spear. He tried again, and she deflected again. When he hit her right forearm hard enough to make her fingertips go briefly numb, she hit him back harder. There was a strange poetry to their back-and-forth, and it felt, in a way, like going home.
Sarah bared her teeth at him, noticing a weakness on his left side. She hefted the spear and knocked his weapon away, then raised it again to aim for his heart.
His eyes widened in shock, disbelief-
Sarah's grip tightened on her spear. This was it; she would aim for his chest and tear his heart out, still beating, and then-
She dropped her spear and clutched her head, gasping for air that felt too thin.
"I almost killed you," she breathed out. "I was going to kill you, and some part of me wanted to. I… You…" Sarah paused and then spread a hand over her stomach. "I remember that sword you pulled from the armory. I remember you… Right here," she indicated a wide slash from her right shoulder and down to her navel. "But that never happened. Why is that in my head?"
She glanced up, shaking, to see that Jareth's face had gone carefully blank.
"Wake the witch," he finally said, his words curling around the hatred coating them. "I have no doubt that much of this is her doing as well."
And, as if disposing of something he had no particular desire to see-which Sarah thought was perhaps the truth-he magically dropped her beside where Belinda was still sleeping on the hammock. Sarah's mood was not improved by being so disposed of, especially not when she was feeling so vulnerable.
Sure, she thought. Maybe it's a little much to expect some compassion or reassurance after I technically just tried to kill him, but…
Sarah reached out and tapped Belinda's shoulder, determined to get to the bottom of the latest curveball life had thrown her.
I couldn't control myself. Is it really my fault, then?
Belinda blinked up at her, still looking dazed. There was, again, that pull Sarah had to protect the witch, and Sarah had to remind herself she was angry with Belinda.
"I need your help figuring out what's wrong with me," she said bluntly. "And since I just tried to kill Jareth with this stupid spear," she shook the offending weapon in her hands, "it really can't wait."
Belinda blinked at her once more, then twice, and screwed up her face in confusion.
"I know the thread is fraying, but really, Sarah. Killing him?"
"It wasn't me!" She protested, resisting the urge to stamp her foot like a child. "I mean, it was, but… Look, ever since I traded away my mortality, things have been… wrong. Before you ask, my magic is fine, and aside from the fraying thread which wasn't supposed to be mine in the first place," she shot a glare at Belinda, who ignored it like always, "almost everything else is fine. Except… I can't stand Jareth. It doesn't make any sense. One moment I'll be fine, and the next… Well…"
She gestured with the spear, which finally caught Belinda's attention. The weaver focused on the bronze tip, reaching out to trace the edges with a fingertip.
"Oh, hell, Sarah. We really messed up."
"We?" Sarah snarled.
"Nobody asked you to give away what made you human," Belinda snapped back. "And I'm not surprised at all that my sisters picked her to replace. Ugh," she grunted. Belinda looked Sarah over again and ran her hands down her face. "Look, sit down. I don't want you standing with that spear while I'm within poking range."
Sarah sat down and waved her hand, urging Belinda to continue with whatever explanation she'd deign to give.
"A while ago, there was this goddess who was travelling around. For whatever reason, she wanted Jareth as her lover, but, well… he disagreed, I guess; I don't know all of the details, just what got woven into the tapestry. She got hurt really bad, so she wandered off to lick her wounds. But because battle was kind of, like, her thing, she got caught up in another before letting herself heal. She died." Belinda looked down at her hands, and Sarah, letting herself feel a little empathetic, could see how the story of an immortal dying would worry another immortal. But still…
"If she was actually immortal, how did she die?"
"Her body did, but not her… spirit, if you will. Her powers. Her name was Ishtar, and I think, Sarah, that she's living in you now." By the way that Belinda chewed her lip and refused to look her in the eyes, Sarah knew that there was something else she wasn't saying. It wouldn't do any good to try and drag the information from her, either. Belinda was like a force of nature; she wouldn't do something she didn't want to.
"What else did the notes say?"
Belinda buried her face in her hands.
"The stag defeats the lion in battle," Belinda whispered. "The lion's den will be cleansed by fire. The stag's younger kin will fall ill, which in turn will lead the stag to seek out the lion, and then they fight."
"I already checked on Toby. He's fine-he just had a hangover. According to that, I should already be looking for this other person." Sarah frowned. "Should I be? I don't feel ready."
If she was the stag, then she would be preordained to win. She shouldn't need preparation, like she told Jareth, but the way that Belinda looked at her dented her confidence.
"I don't think preparing yourself will do much good," Belinda said quietly. "If you'd like, we can work on your anger. It might help to have you feel more like… you."