Disclaimer: If I owned it would I be putting it on here for you all to read for free? Maybe… but not very likely. So there you go, I don't own 'the Labyrinth'.

Jareth gets a rather interesting surprise from his Father and the High Council... Now how to tell Sarah…?

Mornings of Gold:

His foot swung irritably back and forth, like a cat flicking it's tail in displeasure. Before him was a goblet made of spun-glass, several delicious side meals, and a large roast pheasant. He knew that it wasn't going to taste like the roast fowl in the Underground, raised without chemicals and human interference. But it was going to be as close to the real thing as he could get, for now.

Oh yes, for now…

"You summoned me, Mr. Cain?" The speaker was pretty enough, her hair auburn, her eyes downcast and demure. Yes, she would do. She was well-rounded, limbs long and well-turned. She was not his Elyse, but she would do well enough. He hated to settle, and it seemed that he was doing a lot of it lately.

"Yes. Oh come now, pretty one, do not stare so hard at the ground. In fact, I give you the rest of the evening off. Come, sit with me and have something nourishing. I know you don't earn enough here to eat like this."

If his words embarrassed her, he couldn't tell. She eyed the table hungrily, but turned away. "I can't, Sir, I have to get home and make dinner for my husband and my daughters. They will not manage without me, I'm sure--"

"Come here, Miss Rhianne, I would have a word with you without the entire house learning of it." At his order several servants who had indeed been listening scurried off to do what he paid them to do. When the auburn haired Miss approached, Duncan stood and met her eye to eye. Another strike against her. His Elyse had grey eyes, like the sky overhead. This Rhianne had eyes like strong sherry.

"You live in the cottage I gave you, do you not? You and your husband and your daughters?"

She nodded, mute.

"And you earn a wage here, you and your husband alike. Do you not?"

"Yes, Sir, we do."

"Well now, don't you think that there is a little something missing in your debt? Surely you didn't think the house was a gift. You know what I am, Miss Rhianne. You work in the library, you study the portal, and the veil. What do you think would happen if I simply… snapped my fingers… and everything you had come to rely on was gone? Your job, your husbands job, the home your children live in, the money you use to buy food…?"

"Please, Mr. Cain, we are close to finding the source of the portal, we almost have it figured out--"

"Did I ask about the bedamned portal?!" His voice thundered throughout the dining room, and Rhianne winced. It pleased him, but not enough that he'd show it. "Now, you will sit, and you will eat. And afterwards you will accompany me upstairs. Your family will be sent some of this food, and your husband will be told that you were informing me of your progress. Unless, of course… you refuse?"

He lifted a hand, fingers poised to snap. He couldn't actually do it, not if he wished to win the deal with Jareth, but this weak, poor mortal wouldn't know that. Her fear was palpable, and he reveled in it. Oh, yes, she would do nicely…

"No! No, please, I don't refuse. I'll do whatever you need me to." She hung her head and sniffed, and he was sure she was fighting tears. They meant nothing to him. Nothing at all. She approached his side of the table, and let the other servants pile food on her plate. True to his word he ordered food to be sent him while she stayed, and a letter to be written to her husband.

They ate in silence, Rhianne with little appetite, despite the hunger she was growing used to. Her daughters wanted for nothing, and so she and her husband sometimes went without. Duncan knew this because he had been watching her for a little under a month. She had been selected, from the beginning, for her loyalty and her devotion to her family.

He smiled at the thought of the things she would soon be doing 'for her family.' He shivered in delight, eager for her to finish her meal. Maybe, if he was well-pleased, he would send her home with some of the gold he had hidden away. Maybe.

The night wore on, and she was good to her word. She did all that he asked, suffered degradation after degradation, all at his whim. She cried several tears, and made a hundred promises. A thousand pledges. But his words were not for her. Not at all. He had insisted that she close her eyes, and not open them. And he called her "Elyse", in a tone she didn't recognize.

There was not a single pleasure he didn't give, not a single one he didn't demand. She was violated and abused, and then cherished and pleasured again, all at his whim. When she had dared to cry out, whether in pain or pleasure, she had been struck. She wasn't allowed to speak, no, hers wasn't the voice he wished to hear. Just as hers was not the body he desired, her pledge not the one he craved.

When morning came she was a sobbing mess of nerves and strains, mental emotional and physical. Beside her in the large canopied bed Duncan stretched, and then rose, without any care for his nudity. From his drawers he retrieved a small pouch filled with gold coins. Enough to get her and her family far away from him. He never wanted to see or hear from her again.

"Go." He tossed it to her, turning his back on her as he went towards the bathroom. "Be gone before I get out of the shower, and be out of the house by day's end. It will not be there come tomorrow morning."

She closed her hand. Then opened it again. And then closed it. It was an endless cycle, open, close, open… She watched the light play on the emerald, watched the golden sunlight pouring across the room…

She had woken with a headache, hours ago, her memories almost entirely restored. There were only a few of the same gaps, places where she knew something was missing. It was with a wince that she stretched, her arms sore from throwing snowballs and carrying groceries. She should really get a shower, get dressed, and find Jareth. He said he would have answers for her. There was only one question now: To wear her ring, or to leave it upstairs?

With a defiant tilt of the chin she huffed. It was a habit she had gotten from her mother, dramatic and slightly over-done. She loved it. She fisted her hand again, her decision made. It was her ring, she was going to wear it.

Four nails, sawdust, and a dubious hammer lay at the foot of the stairs. It had been rusty, and so Maeve had asked the general supplies shop in town to bring her a new one, one used for horseshoes. It held no iron, she recalled. Her mother had always carried two, she told Jareth, one for horseshoes, one for menial chores.

He was fairly sure he had been found out. It had been clear enough when she handed him the silver-stud nails rather than the usual iron-made ones, and the heavy work gloves. This business with the hammer was the final straw, so to speak.

"So, you know what I am." It was a statement made as he fitted the new wood under the slope of the old stairs. She didn't even stop humming as she dusted.

"I've been around and about fer a while, lad, if I couldn't tell yer kind from ours I'd be a sure fool." She continued dusting, but the humming fell silent for a while, before she spoke again. "Ye had yer question, lad, now I'll have mine. I notice ye and the lass wear the same rings. What is she to ye? Can ye recall?"

"I hate to admit it…" the hammer fell again and again, nailing the new board in place. "But I was aware of everything when I came to you. I just didn't wish to be tossed out. I assume that since I'm still here, despite what you know, it wasn't an eminent danger to begin with."

"Och, now, I wouldn't be sayin' that. I would have tossed ye out the first morning', had ye not been wearing the same ring as Miss Sarah, and had she not recognized ye too, to some extent. I like the lass. And ye tried te dodge the question, lad." She stopped her dusting, all pretenses of occupation now gone as she fisted her hands on her ample hips. "I'll ask ye again. Are ye wed? Or intended at the least?"

Jareth fought the possessive, wolfish smile, and knew he lost when her face lit up. Sarah was going to flay him, neck to navel and a few other choice places.

"Well which is it, wed or intended? And why didn't ye tell me? I've been cleanin' two rooms when by all rights-- I didn't mean toe keep ye two away from each other. 'Tis proper that ye share a room, now." She tossed his a saucy wink, and the breath left Jareth's lungs in a whoosh.

"No, Miss-- Sarah wouldn't--"

But she carried onward like a steamroller. "And there has te be a party, at least a small one. Just a few folks. Not a lot, mind ye, Sarah was only here a day or so afore ye showed up. Still, there will be many a man whose heart is broken, I'll tell ye that much…"

"No, Maeve, I cannot allow--"

"Not at all, lad, not at all. I insist. But I'll not be inviting that rogue Duncan… Cain, pardon. Now, he was just too interested. And for one of your kind I have to say he is entirely without tact. But he has always been that way, yes indeed. Insisting on having his way, hiring the finest scholars with not a dime to his name. Leave the veils alone, I told him…" She had put down the feather duster, and was tugging on her hat in just a fast moment.

She was almost out the door, and Jareth's brain was caught between fury at the woman's bossiness, the urge to shake her, his fear of Sarah's reaction, and his questions about Duncan and the veils. But before he could form a thought or a question on any of those topics, Maeve had stepped out into the watery sunlight and shut the door smartly behind her.

With a few choice Goblin curses Jareth dropped his hammer and looked around the room. He gathered his tools and placed them on the side table by the long couch, careful to stay far away from the rust-covered hammer. The last thing he needed was iron-poisoning on top of the rest.

He heard the water turn off upstairs, and wanted to swear all over again. Now he was alone with Sarah, and he had to explain that the Underground had married them with or without their agreement, and that now she was going to have to play fiancée before a gathering of her mortal peers. Jareth, King of the Fey, Keeper of the Labyrinth, and next in line for his father's seat in the High Council, was desperately thinking of a good hiding place.

He still hadn't thought of one when Sarah called down the stairs, asking Miss O'Fallon about breakfast.

"She isn't here. She left on… errands."

"Oh… well what was made for breakfast, then? I'm starving." She stepped out onto the stair landing, a smile on her lips, her half-dry hair spilling around her face in loose waves. She was wearing a simple sweater, some color between green and blue, her feet bare and her legs in dark blue denim. For a moment desire overwhelmed the urge to run away from the wrath he knew was impending.

"She… I don't think she made anything." He looked at the light coming in through the windows. It was bright out now, after yesterday's storm. Bright and cold.

"Hey! You fixed the stairs!" Her smile made him smile, and Jareth could almost make himself believe that it would be well, that she would be reasonable-- who was he lying to? This was Sarah.

"Yes, I did… but that does not mean that you should be jumping on it like you are. You seem rather pleased with yourself this morning, Precious thing. Is there something you aren't telling me?" His tone was regal, and Sarah laughed.

"No, not really. Just in a good mood. I remembered some more about the Labyrinth. Hoggle and Ludo, and Sir Didymus… I remembered the tunnel." She continued down the stairs. "All along I thought the characters in my books were imaginary. And they aren't, not really. The names are different, but they really exist. Don't they?"

She stopped on the third-from-the-bottom stair so she could meet his eyes. He took two steps forward, wrapping an arm around her waist and smirking. "They do, as much as you and I."

"Good…" Her eyes went a little hazy, and she leaned forward, her eyes fixed on his… A breath away she jerked upright, retreating a step before sitting. "So… Did you ever solve the mystery of the rings? Where they came from, who sent them…?"

"About that…"

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" She sighed, and watched a thousand emotions flare across his suddenly expressive face. Has he become easier to read, or was she just becoming more adept at discovering his moods?

"How would a mortal say it? I doubt, in your mind, 'til death do us part' will come soon enough." To her credit, she didn't kill him in that instant. But it was clear in her face that she was seriously considering it.

Author's Note:

I know this chapter was really short, and a little darker, and that some of you will never forgive me… but I wanted you to see a little bit better into Duncan's character, before now he has seemed pretty meek and harmless. All right, please review, fast!

Sarah is probably going to tear Jareth a new one, so to speak, so I'd stick around for the next chapter if I had to wait in front of the computer screen. Depending on how many reviews I get, I may actually post it tomorrow morning.

Until then,

-Chaotic Reverie