The bog and beyond
Jareth went back to his castle to check in on his little visitors. He sat on the bed and looked down on Sarah's children. He would not want it to become common knowledge but he was rather fond of children. The castle nursery and orphanage were proof of that. He did however keep a low profile and did not visit the nursery too often. When he had become king there had been no nursery, no orphanage. The children taken in the night, and of course in the day, were shipped off to other kingdoms in the Underground Realm. He thought that was stupid and told the High King so. Why should other kingdoms benefit and not his?
He could never understand how humans could be so careless with the precious treasure of children. Perhaps it was because they could so easily breed that they devalued the treasure. While Fae males were ready willing and always able, Fae females were not. The purer the Fae bloodline, the harder it was for the females to conceive. Adopting changelings had become second nature. There was not a Fae family in the Goblin Kingdom that did not count changelings among its members.
He thought of the father of these two little treasures, and his blood boiled. That man had been so apathetic, so thick skinned and so full of himself. 'Stupid man', thought Jareth tucking a blanket around little Gywnn. He looked then at Jenny, so like her mother. Same face, same hair, eyes, and that pretty little mouth. She would be a winning beauty when she got older, and Jareth promised himself he would find her a husband who would appreciate the treasure she was.
There was no question in his mind, this time he would win. Sarah was much slower at finding ways thought the Labyrinth this time. She had new obstacles, things that had not affected her last run. She had been a child back then, and there were protections for children. No child was ever harmed in the Labyrinth. Frightened, sure, terrorized, of course, but no physical harm was ever allowed to befall a child. Adults were on their own!
Jareth sighed and pulled a crystal from the air to check on Sarah. He did not mind her having trouble, but he didn't want her damaged. If there were to be damages inflicted it would be by him alone. He gazed at her face, then looked back down at the little girl asleep in his bed. "You should have been mine." He said in a sad voice. "Sweet child, you and your brother should have been mine." He swallowed the frustration of defeat at the hands of a mere mortal girl. It mattered not, he had her children now, and soon he would have her as well. He looked back at the crystal in his hand. "I think a life sentence is fitting."
Tossing the crystal into the air and watching as it burst, he then lay down beside the sleeping children and closed his eyes to just listen to them breathe. His treasure, their father's loss and the man was not smart enough to even know it. After listening to the quiet symphony of their breathing, Jareth drew the sketchbook to him from thin air. He lay on the bed, and leafed though the pages of the book. Sarah had given him more admonition then she could know. She had a wonderful habit of dating the drawings and writing little comments she thought would never be read. Little things like the comment of why couldn't Paul be like this. He smiled, as he looked at all the dark secrets his vixen held in her depths. Every time a mortal male in some way had disappointed Sarah, she drew the Goblin King. The first drawings while suggestive were mild. The most recent ones took even his breath away with their hunger, and details. The more frustrated that Sarah got, the fewer clothes the man she drew wore. Jareth studied the pictures, she seemed to focus a great deal on the white owl cape he'd worn in their last confrontation. He smiled at the study she had made of his walk. Closing the book, he changed the plans he had made. The new plan pleased him more than the old one. He was glad he had to wait so long to take revenge. Revenge was after all best served cold, and after twenty years, it was damn near frozen. He drew a crystal to check her progress, and then laughed. It was time to put the nails in her coffin.
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Sarah edged her way round the base of the wall; the sock gave little protection to her feet. Her nose was assaulted by the unforgettable odor that was the Bog of Eternal Stench. Sarah gagged as she neared, time had not improved it one bit. At the foot of the wall, was a vast mire. It was darkish khaki in color. All across its surface, bubbles of fetid air, having forced their way up through the viscous sludge, were gently popping. As they popped they cast a little spray of filth in a ring around them, and it took several minutes for the droplets to settle back again. There was only a small ledge between her and the Bog, and Sarah had no intentions of falling in and stinking for the rest of her life. She plastered her back to the wall and inched along.
In her mind she heard Hoggle going on and on about the Bog, and how it was her fault they were here. She shook her head, still missing that whining voice. Funny the things one will miss, she thought.
She stepped on a little shoal beside the bog, which had been imperceptible from the ledge that curved the wall. From only a few feet away, the stench of the putrid morass. Sarah stopped and tried not to take too deep a breath. She ached and felt sick, she looked toward the rustic bridge. It ran from a point farther along the shoal she was standing on, across a narrow neck of the bog, where a few sick-looking trees grew out of the mire, and finished on the opposite shore. Beyond it stretched a forest.
Sarah looked closely it was not the same bridge she had had collapse under her. That one was long gone. The bridge stood on piers of stone. They had been only a few steps away from the nearest pier when a belligerent little figure came running out from behind it and confronted them when she made this journey the last time. Sarah paused, and touched the bridge. Sir Didymus had been the guardian of the bridge. She could not help but smile as she remembered the little rascal of a Knight. She had a hunch that in his day he had been quite the favorite of many a lady. Thinking of her friends bothered her now. She had not called them once in twenty years. Not since the night, she had returned. She had thoughts of them, and sent them good wishes and happy thoughts. Yet not once had she called on them. Now standing at the bridge she wished she could call on them. But Didymus like Hoggle and Ludo had been labeled a traitor by the King, and he too was serving a punishment. As if having been guard here was not punishment enough. She promised herself to try and free them when this was done and she'd won.
The rocks Ludo had called up stood beside the new bridge. Sarah looked at the bridge, then the rocks. She chose the rocks and walked carefully over the stones in her stocking feet. She trusted that they would stay up, while she was not so sure of the bridge, no matter how sturdy it looked.
Once over the bog safely, she shuddered and gagged. Her little white socks could not carry her fast enough up the embankment, away from the stench and in to the woods. The wood darkened, got thicker and the path began to wind down a hillside. Sarah knew the spot, Ludo had announced his hunger here. A few steps more brought her to the place where Hoggle had given her that damned peach.
No sooner had she thought of the peach, her heel went down on something that went squish. Closing her eyes, she shook her head. She did not want to look down, but had to. Sure enough a peach, a partially eaten peach was under her foot smeared to her sock. Something was poking her foot, pinching the skin. She hobbled over to a tree stump and sat down. Lifting the foot up she noticed something sticking into her foot from the peach pit. She pulled the sock off, saw the scratch but did not give it much thought. She tossed the sock and its mate off to the side. "Barefoot, so be it." The moment she stood up, her head began to spin. She began to sway. Feeling that she might be going to faint, she stumbled. With one hand, she wiped her brow, trying to remember the last time she felt like this. Then she remembered the peach. "Why is it always a peach," she asked quietly. Sarah managed to stagger to a tree, and leaned against it. All her thoughts went to Jareth, and her eyes were looking up at the sky. "Damn you," she whispered as she slumped down. "Damn you."
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Jareth held four crystal balls close to his face, staring into each in turn, catching the light. He took one of them and swirled it into the air, with a flick of his wrist and a gentle gust of wind from his mouth. It became a bubble and floated away from him. Then it drifted through the open window, in which he was seated, and away through the darkening sky. The other three followed in turn. Coldly beautiful bubbles floating through the dusk. He smiled as the last one left his fingers, and he blew a kiss on the wind. "I'll be waiting, Sarah. Do hurry."
Sarah was still leaning limply against the tree, too dizzy to move. Four bubbles approached her in the sky. She raised a hand, and tried to pop one. It did not pop, but it swallowed her finger, her hand, her arm and then the rest of her. It carried her up and away. She lay in the bottom of the bubble, pulling her ripped blouse closer.