Here is the next chapter. Thank you for reading and special thanks to those that reviewed.
I've gotten my self a beta! All hail Marajade179!
A very different sleeping beauty chap 3
The Labyrinth was just as Sarah remembered it and still different.
She stood at the hill where she had started last time, by the scraggly tree with a full view of the Labyrinth all the way to the goblin city and the castle beyond it.
It was to quiet she decided - not that there had been many sounds last time either - but then it had been like the silence of an audience just before the play began, now it was just a sleepy silence.
She followed her friends down to the gate and Hoggle opened the doors with a hand gesture. As they entered the labyrinth Sara saw a fairy on the ground by the gate. It seemed to be sleeping and as she looked closer she saw that there was many more lying around. Hoggle had told her that the potion he used on the pests only made them dizzy and made them stop destroying his plants and that it only worked for a short while, then they flew off again. So this must be something different.
"They are all asleep." Hoggle said sadly. "They started a short while after we discovered the king."
Sarah did not say anything just gave the sleeping fairies a long look and walked on through the gate.
Sarah looked down the corridor both ways unsure, she remembered this one but Hoggle walked neither left nor right. He walked straight on into what seemed like solid brick wall.
"So that's what you meant when you said you'd go neither way." Sarah said and gave Hoggle an accusing look.
"I can't help it that you didn't get the hints Sarah." Hoggle excused himself grumpily. Sarah just snorted and followed him.
This way was much shorter - straight forward and some left turns and there was the goblin city.
This time no one tried to stop them as they walked through the city. Sarah saw some goblin kids playing on the street but even they had a sleepy expression and languid movements.
There was a high hedge of thorn bushes growing around the castle. Sarah's first instinct was to start laughing uncontrollably. Somehow she managed not to and Hoggle, being a gardener, cut through the thick shrubbery to a small door, probably the kitchen door Sarah thought, and they where in the castle.
Sarah first noticed the stale smell, reminding her of visits to summerhouses in the early summer when they'd not yet been aired out after being locked up all winter.
She almost tripped over a sleeping goblin as she followed her friends through the badly lit hallway. As her eyes got used to the bad light she saw that there were many small goblins lying around all over the castle she walked through.
"Are they also asleep because of the curse?" She asked Hoggle.
"Nah they are always like this. Only wakes up after nightfall if ever." Hoggle sneered.
"But they have gotten harder to wake up after the king fell asleep." Sir Didymus objected.
"That's because there is no one to threaten them with the bog if they don't wake up." Hoggle told him.
Hoggle found a candle lying around to light up the dark corridors of the castle. The castle turned out to be a labyrinth within the labyrinth. Sir Didymus told Sara that the trick was to always go left to get to the centre, or in this case the royal chambers in the centre tower.
After a very long walk and a maybe a longer climb of stairs, Sarah stumbled in to the royal bedchamber.
"Damn. I need to work out more." Sara commented feeling the stair climb in her legs already.
The room was big and circular, there was one door leading to a bathroom and a balcony door as well as three windows with windowsills big enough to sit in.
If Sara had known anything about architecture and building work she probably would have noticed that the room was much bigger on the inside then on the outside and how there could be rooms attached to this when the tower was round. As it was now she did not think about it.
The room was done in gold, silver, white and black colours that was just on the edge of being to much but some how pulled it off anyway. Its definitely Jareth's room Sarah thought to herself.
Right in front of her was the large gold and silver bed and on it was the origin of several of Sarah's dreams, both good and bad. The goblin king lay on his back on the bed, boots and all.
Sarah moved so she stood by his head. Even the fearsome goblin king had a cute and vulnerable expression as he slept she noted in her mind.
"So… now what?" she asked her friends in a uncertain voice.
"You're the fairy-tale expert here! How do you usually wake someone from an enchanted sleep?" Hoggle said in a 'are you stupid or what?' voice.
Sara blushed and thought about how things usually went in stories and blushed some more. She had to kiss Jareth! Then her mind went on and thought about the original sleeping beauty story in which the princess doesn't wake up by a kiss, the prince rapes her and she dose not wake up until she gives birth to twins. And then she remembered the version of Snow white by Neil Gaiman from the stepmother's perspective in which snow white is a vampire and the prince a necrophilia. I hope this story is PG13 rated, Sarah though because she had no intentions of doing anything more than kiss the goblin king, 'At least not when he is asleep', a small part of her whispered.
Hoggle coughed discreetly and Sarah returned from her thoughts seeing them standing by the door waiting for her to do something.
Don't think just do it she told herself, took a deep breath and kissed the goblin king.
It felt magnetic, like she couldn't stop even if she wanted to. For a moment or two she felt like she was flying light as a feather, the moment past and left her light headed wondering if she'd only feel that way when waking someone from enchanted sleep or if it was because of Jareth. She slowly withdrew from the goblin king still a bit dizzy. Realising she had not opened her eyes yet she did so, and saw right in to the miss matched pair of Jareth the goblin king and froze.
"Sarah?" he said slowly reaching up whit a leather clad hand to touch her face. "You have grown." He remarked before he dragged her down for another kiss.
'Definitely nothing to do whit breaking enchantments', was Sarah's first thought when she recovered her ability to think, the next was 'wow' quickly followed by 'he's really good at this', after some more kissing with out any real thoughts she got the feeling that she had forgotten something, it took even more time before she remembered what. 'You're making out with The Goblin King in front of Hoggle, Didymus and Ludo!' That thought made her end the kiss fast, whit a small part of her cursing wildly about the unfairness of things.
Jareth did not seem very happy about it either, and he seemed to consider complaining until he noticed her worried looks and his three subjects in the doorway. Yawning and stretching like a cat, Jareth sat up. Sarah felt herself blush again and blamed it totally on the small part of her mind that was not so small really and just now had been undressing Jareth with her eyes.
"So" Jareth said when he was done with his stretching. Sarah never heard one short word say so much, in that syllable he demanded that they'd tell him just what they were doing in his bedroom, why everything seemed so dusty, why Sarah was obviously much older and why his subjects looked like something the cat dragged in.
"Your majesty, allow me to explain, you have been the victim of a curse making you sleep for the last seven years. Me and my brothers in arms have help to guide Lady Sarah here as she was the only one who could wake you from the enchanted sleep." The little knight explained sweeping with his plume hat.
"I was asleep for seven years?" Jareth asked.
"Yes your majesty."
"Is the kingdom still standing?" One royal eyebrow rose with the question.
"More or less your majesty, we have done our best to keep it intact."
"Well done."
"We have managed to keep your situation unknown to the neighbouring countries to your majesty."
"They would not care anyway" Jareth scoffed and rose from the bed and walked to stand by the window. "Why is there a thorn bush grooving around my castle Hoggis? As head gardener I would think that you where a bit more dutiful than to just stop working because I'm not here making sure you work."
"I have been cutting it down! It ayn't my fault that the blasted hedge grove's up again every night. We figured it had something to do whit the curse." Hoggle defended himself.
"Should it not be gone now when the curse is lifted then?"
"Well eh um" Hoggle stuttered.
"How about you do something about it Hegdwar?" Jareth said with a voice like silk hiding a razor-blade.
"Well of coarse your majesty, immediately." Hoggle said and almost ran out of the room. Jareth smiled as the dwarf left the room in a way that you usually do to an old friend, but stopped as he noticed the other inhabitants of the room looking.
"Why don't you take the furry beast and go help him sir Didymus?" He asked in an almost friendly way.
"It will be a pleasure my sovereign. Come brother! Let us help our gardening friend!" the little fox knight said and he and Ludo left the room.
Sarah didn't realise until the door closed after her friends that she now was alone in the room with the king.
"So Sarah, care to continue what we started?" She heard the king just behind her.
To be continued…
(Is there anyone else that can't here the word shrubbery without thinking of Monty Python? Ni! Ni! Ni!)
As always please keep reviewing!