Make Me Cruel
He has, she reflects, the same instinctive, elemental draw as any good blackguard: he is not tamed and never will be.
The more mature female runners think his potency springs from his bad-boy, devil-may-care elegance; they thrill, imagining how his love would bend him to suit their own feeble hearts. The younger ones are attracted to his fierceness, to his sheer power, more from awe than any idea of bringing the Goblin King to his knees.
The males just feel threatened by him, no matter where he is or what he does; his presence reminds them that they cannot match him in any way.
Sarah's lips curve, briefly. She watches from the throne in the Castle, a long chain dangling from the torc at her throat to the glorified chair. The windows let her see the runner at all times, and she watches Jareth torment the hapless woman: this one wished away her nephew, a sickly, whining boy whom Sarah didn't much care for.
The woman sobs her way through the first hours of the Labyrinth, struggling against Jareth's pernicious charisma and the Labyrinth's vile mischief. Sarah sneers, watching the woman stumble against every obstacle, motivated by fear rather than love for the child she lost.
That, Sarah muses, is the difference between herself and Jareth: she will not tame him, and he cannot tame her, but they may check each other. Sarah can tell—always—if a runner quests for themselves or the wished-away; she takes pity on those who truly repent their actions but holds the rest in as much contempt as Jareth holds them all.
As she absently rubs the bridge of her nose, the chains clink. Bored, she glares venomously at the clock nestled between two windows. If the runner hadn't interfered, she and Jareth would be doing… something. It doesn't matter to her what they would be doing; only that Jareth would be with her and not seducing the twit in the Labyrinth.
She hates that.
She knows why he does it, of course—he uses seduction to mask the threats and viscous promises, to distract human women and—this part niggles at her conscious, sometimes, but jealousy overrides the kinder sentiment—to hurt the runner, cutting them in a way the Goblin steel can't.
Hours pass slowly for Sarah, with only her off-hand, slightly malicious, somewhat philosophical reflections to amuse her. At last, the runner makes her way into the Castle—they all make their way into the Castle, since this is a Labyrinth and not a maze, so this accomplishment doesn't truly reveal the runner's skill or intelligence—and up the steps, into the throne room. Sarah studies the woman lazily, watching shock and disgust flit through the mortal's plain, haggard features.
"He keeps you chained?"
Sarah loops the metal links around her wrist before letting them slide across and off her fingers. "Is that really the question you want me to answer?" The runner shakes her head, confused.
"How do I get to Linton?" The mortal demands, some fire returning to her eyes. Sarah sits up, swings her legs to the front, and leans forwards, smirking.
"Straight to the point, aren't you? I approve. It's very simple, really," she gestures vaguely, noticing how desperately the runner listens for her advice. "You pass through the red door."
The mortal reluctantly shifts her gaze from the unearthly woman to peer through the gloom. "There is no red door," she exclaims, dejected.
"Isn't there?"
"There are no doors at all!"
"If you insist, although I did tell you…" Sarah leans back again, eyelids shuttering and inhaling deeply as she anticipates the end of the runner's trial. The child will be sturdier as a Goblin, cleverer, and much more useful.
The runner gasps, and Sarah can't resist cracking one eye open. The windows that once circled the room are now become doors, all of them crimson.
"Now they're all red," the runner wails. Sarah cringes at the mortal's need to state the obvious.
"I've given you my advice," she replies, merciless, "the rest is up to you."
The human wavers for a few precious moments before darting through a door chosen at random, which Sarah supposes is better than a door not chosen at all. The latch has only just caught when Sarah hears a chuckle.
"How you turn my world, you precious thing," he croons, and she hums the next few bars even as she leaps from the throne into his embrace.
"Finish her quickly, Jareth," she murmurs, "the human is nearly ready to give up, anyway, and I am growing… restless." He tugs reprovingly on the chain, which quivers beneath his fingers.
"It would not do to be hasty, love; but I will return as soon as the pest is gone and the child Turned." He releases her, stalking away to complete his latest game, and she returns to her melancholy thoughts.
Sulking, she taps her fingers against the armrest of the throne, considering what a runner once told her, that her "problem" lay in her willingness to "sink to that monster's level." She recalls one of her favorite books and tugs carelessly on her chain again.
Jareth prowls back to her, stooping to kiss her lightly. The chain glows softly before darting forward to connect, once again, with the chain dangling from Jareth's medallion.
The real problem, if she were to call it that, wasn't that Sarah was in love with a slightly—alright, more than slightly—evil entity and had adapted to him; according to the previous runner, it was that she suited him as well as he suited her, his match for wit, power, and intensity, if not quite the same in morals…
"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same," she sighs, and he rumbles his agreement.
"Haunt me, then, Sarah," he growls, and she giggles, her glum mood gone.
She was more than willing to be the Cathy to his Heathcliff.
Oro: This one I pin on Quill and Bronte. Several direct or warped quotes; in order:
"Make me cruel" from "Terror made me cruel", one of Mr. Lockwood's lines.
"Whatever souls are made of...", a direct quotation, one of Catherine's (the elder) confidences in Nelly.
"Haunt me, then" is Heathcliff's line.
Isn't it strange, the similarities between Heathcliff and Jareth? I had to get this one out here, but I'm not sure how it came out... Respective characters to their respective copyrights.