Title: Coming of Age
Summary: Sarah discovers her family's secrets, and must now deal with the aftermath of the Labyrinth, and her family's desire to marry her off now that she's come of age.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Labyrinth. All characters associated with the movie belong to Jim Henson and whoever else has rights to them, and I make no money off of this.
Special thanks: to all my readers, especially those of you who took the time to review. Your words are most appreciated, and I find them very encouraging. And an extra thanks to Karol Wolfe for checking over previous chapters and advice.
Chapter 3
"Mr. McAillen, what a surprise! Dad isn't here right now if you're looking for him," Sarah gestured the man standing on her porch in as she spoke.
"I'm not," Caellum answered shortly.
"Oh, well then why are you here?"
"It's you I've come to speak with Sarah. It's important."
"Me?" Sarah shook her head, confused. She still held her brush and a hair tie in one hand as she had been in the middle of fixing her hair when the doorbell rang. Hastily she pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail while she tried to think what kinds of drinks they had to offer. Sarah was supposed to run to the store later that day to get more juice and milk since they were out of one and low on the other, so it was coffee or water. There were some danishes if he wanted something to eat. Sarah was about to ask him if he wanted anything but he was already heading to the counter with the coffee pot.
Caellum grabbed some cups from the coffee holder tree where they were hanging and tipped coffee into each cup. He added a small amount of sugar to one and left it black. Without asking the Irishman added three spoons of sugar and a spoon of creamer, just the way Sarah preferred her coffee. She gave him a strange look when she realized that he knew her that well. That was her favorite cup. Karen had gotten it her for her last birthday since a caffeine addiction seemed to be the one thing that they both had in common. It truly had been a thoughtful gift, considering that the design took her personal tastes into account. Although Sarah rather suspected that Toby had more to do with the pensive looking fairy sitting curled up on a leaf on the side of the cup than Karen it still had been a nice gift for a change.
"Did you know that we go to great lengths to get coffee in the Underground?"
Sarah stared at the offered cup like it was a snake. She jumped back from him and with a scuttling maneuver she managed to place the table firmly between them. Caellum seemed amused at her hasty retreat, even as something like approval flashed through his deep blue eyes. Then gave a dismissive roll of his shoulders and set the cup on the table toward the side where Sarah was now standing.
The dark fae didn't feel especially surprised at her reaction given her last experience with the Underground, although he had hoped her lingering friendship with some of Jareth's little goblins would have made her more open to the idea of a visit without ulterior motives- except he did have some ulterior motives so she had every right to be wary he acknowledge to himself ruefully.
"You're not minding that I have a seat are you?" he asked lightly. Without waiting for an answer he poured himself into the chair across from where she stood with the brush raised defensively as though it were a flashing silver sword instead of a cheap bit of plastic with bristles.
She watched him with a new eye noticing that his movements were too fluid, too graceful to be human. Small things that she had barely noticed at the time started to click into place, like the way the business her father represented flourished despite the fact that Mr. McAillen seemed completely unconcerned with running it. And when someone lost something the man had an incredible luck in finding the missing items. And there was that time he had stopped to talk with her and Toby one day. She hadn't realized it at the time, but if he hadn't stopped the two of them right then they would have been hit by the car that sped through the stoplight where they would have been crossing.
He had to want something. People from the Underground didn't come up to strike up friendships with random human families. And he knew that she knew about the Underground, so he had to know about her time in the Labyrinth. Did He send Caellum to- Toby! He was here to steal her brother? But… if he were after Toby, then wouldn't he know that Toby was spending the day with Karen after she got out of her appointment this morning? So, Caellum was here to get revenge against her for the Goblin King since he… wasn't able to come after her himself? No, that doesn't make sense. The Irishman wouldn't have spent so much time with her family or would be threatening her if he were here for the Goblin King. Right? So why was he here? There was only one way to find out for sure.
"Who are you? What are you?" she asked coldly. She brandished her hairbrush. "And what do you want with me?"
"I am Caellum Díneartach Mac Aillen, Lord of the Sidhe Finnachaidh."
"Lord of… geeze that's a mouthful. Well that answers one question, so let's hear the other two," she raised her chin and glared down at him.
"What I am is your grandfather, and what it is I'm trying to do is save your life," he answered gently.
She lowered the brush. She stared. She shook her head.
"You want to run that one by me again?"
"The headaches have been bothering you for a while now, and its worse that it's going to get if you don't get them treated properly."
"What?" Sarah asked blankly.
"The headaches will kill you."
"We're going to have to discuss that one more in depth, but can we go back to the bit about you being from the Underground, and specifically my grandfather?"
"Your mother's mother was my wife until she left the Underground trying to return to the Aboveground. Succeeding if it's more technically speaking you want to get on the matter."
"My grandmother was your wife? My grandfather… he died when I was little. No, no that's not possible. Grandma loved him too much to be married to anyone else."
Sarah's instinctive protest at his words made Caellum's teeth clench, tightening his jaw. His fingers convulsed around his cup so hard that ceramic shattered. Coffee spilled all over his hands and across the tabletop. He barely noticed Sarah's gasp of alarm. The brush clattered to the tiled floor. Her frantically rush over to a drawer to yank out some dishtowels barely registered. He watched the steaming liquid mingling with blood as red as any human's.
That vicious bitch. Even in death she managed to punish him for loving her.
Caellum had learned about his daughter. He had discovered the career she had chosen to pursue. He knew that Cainche had passed away shortly after Sarah was born. She'd never told their daughter the truth, and Clindhna had only known the love of that pathetic little human. She had been fed tales of their love and the way that Bran McMorna had followed shortly after her death because he couldn't wait to be with her. And those stories had passed to his grand daughter, had fed Sarah's ideas of true love. The idea of a love so strong and faithful that even death couldn't separate them, an idea that Sarah clung to in the face of her mother's abandonment.
He started when he noticed Sarah kneeling in front of him, a towel cupped under his hands and she was dabbing at his cuts to try and see if there were any shards in his hands.
"Oh my god, are you alright?" Sarah watched him with worry.
He gave her a reassuring smile that felt forced even to him. The girl was bound to see the weakness of the attempt so he let it go. His gaze dropped to their hands. There was something appropriate about the contact they were sharing at that second, a symbolism that he felt. It was as though the universe was warning them that only in pain would they ever be united. She would be even more upset than she felt right now once she learned the extent of what would be required to save her life, and that would hurt him in turn. Then he would lose her to the husband he'd had to choose for her.
"Incredible isn't it? The fae are driven by desire, and sometimes by the dreams that the magick whispers to our souls. Its part of our nature and it's like as what made your mother restless when you were young. And yet… And yet for all that only a human has the ability to break a vow made, and it was her humanity that allowed her to walk away as surely as it allowed your grandmother to walk away from me."
There was a hurt look on her face at his observation. Yet for all that he felt his own pain was showing through the lines on his own face he did not bother apologizing for his words were nothing less than truth. The combination of fae and human blood would not have insured a human raised child to hold the personal honor that was so important to the fae. That sense of honor truly well and truly bound them, weighing heavily against any personal desires and instincts. They could slip and slide around the intent if the promise offered wasn't worded carefully, but honor bound they were once terms were set. Humans had once held to a similar standard of behavior, but even then they'd a choice, it was willingness to keep their promises rather than compulsions that trapped them.
He flexed his fingers and the shards that were in his hands pulled free of his flesh and hovered in the air. The ceramic remains floated up to greet them and soon the cup was fused back together. The coffee was a waste so he banished the liquid with a wave of one hand. He took the cloth from Sarah's hands and wiped the remaining blood off his fingers.
"Don't concern yourself with me. Such small damage, it's already healing." And it was. Skin knitted together, forming small red lines that faded to white. Then even the faint lines disappeared. Sarah stared at his hands as he wiped them again to clean off the last of the blood. He folded the towel up and handed her material that was as clean and dry as it had been when she pulled it from the drawer. She stared at the material for a beat before she accepted it.
"I… my grandmother left you? What… I mean, why? What happened?"
He couldn't prevent himself from raising his hand, of reaching out. He caught himself before he could complete the gesture. He'd no right to comfort the pain he had inflicted, and she'd not accept it in any event. He gazed down at her levelly. She hesitated for a second, her eyes flicking to the clean towel and then to the reassembled coffee cup before landing once more on his face. She stood up and pulled out the chair next to him and turned it so she was facing him. Her own coffee sat forgotten on the other side of the table.
"Is it truth you desire or comfort?"
"Truth. Please," she added when he hesitated.
"As you will," he gave in. That invisible rush of power tingled through his limbs, until it settled into his chest wrapped in a warm pulsing band around his very heart. He accepted her terms, and they were set for him. It was no longer a choice.
"What you have to understand little girl," he ignored the way she bristled at the term, "is that the fae do not love as humans love. It's not an emotion that comes easy to us. Never will some fae feel it, and it's a relief to them that they haven't as it rarely turns out well for those of us that do experience it."
Sarah shook her head. She looked like she was struggling to understand the implications of what he was saying. He waited patiently for the question that was forming on her tongue.
"What do you mean the fae don't love like humans? Why wouldn't they want love? Everyone wants someone to love. Don't they?"
"It truly is so simple for you isn't it? Surely you humans love in so many ways. You love your family. You love your friends. You love your pets. You love your lovers and your spouses. Your companions may die or you may fall out of love, but even if it is fleeting that love is still there, still real.
It's different for us, Sarah. Less is having a relationship among the fae a matter of affection than it is a matter possession. And how unfortunate it is to have strong emotions knowing that there are so few who can return your feelings. Do you know what that's like to feel but knowing that you are unlikely to ever find anyone who can return it?"
"No, I don't," Sarah admitted simply. Not being loved when you were in love? Knowing that the person wasn't even capable of loving you and that you'll never find anyone else who will either because they can't either? It was… not something she even wanted to try to understand. Except a small secret part of her could understand it, and that part of her felt as though no one in this world could love as she did. She ruthlessly squashed that spark of recognition.
"I was surely one of the unfortunate ones. My father was forever playing for the humans Above our realm. Playing for them, playing with them. He was more caring than most of the fae, but there was a cruelty in him. For that the humans had their best warrior murder him. It was this way that I discovered Cainche. She was the daughter of the man who killed my father. She was like no one in the Underground, all fiery passion trapped in a soft and delicate body. She was incredible. And I, fool that I am, fell to her feet without her even knowing it. Such pride she had and such a childlike self absorption also. Yes, for all that her body was grown she was still such a child. She knew she was special and not even the men of her clan were free from her scorn when she felt it warranted. I knew she would never accept my paying court to her, so…"
"What happened then? Why did she marry you if you were enemies?" Sarah leaned forward, lips parted. She was falling into the story, trapped by curiosity.
It was another weakness of their race, the need to see a story through to the end even if you knew you would like the ending. Certainly the Goblin King held the same weakness. He knew that Sarah would play the story as it was meant to be told. He knew that she would walk away and yet he had to see the story through. Caellum had no such guide, and he wasn't sure whether that was a blessing or not. He had offered her the truth though and he would see the story through as honestly as he was able to. The girl deserved that much.
"I can be cruel in my own way. I wanted her, needed her so much. I told myself it was revenge for my father's death. It's not often that I lie to myself, but in this I was convincing. And not only to me, but to everyone who knew what had happened. I went to her, and I tricked her into accepting my vow. I was not kind about it. I told her she had the choice of becoming my wife, or allowing her clan to be slaughtered by the goblin army."
The dark haired girl leaned away from him, another unconscious rejection of him. He cringed internally at the look on her face, but he kept his own countenance impassive. Lord and Lady above, she truly looked just like her grandmother. Cainche looked just as that whenever she'd felt repulsed by him.
"You tricked her? You threatened her with an army to get her to marry you?!"
Caellum gave her a grim smile.
"I said we don't love often, but perhaps I forgot to mention how fierce it is when we do. I loved my father, Sarah. Goblins are ferociously loyal creatures, and they would have happily rallied beneath my banner had I decided to wage war against the humans. It wasn't the threat of war that I was tricking her about. It's certain I would have run her people into the ground, every last one of them had she refused me. It was my reason for marrying her I deceived her about. That I allowed her to think it was revenge that drove me, that was the trick."
"That is so twisted. Of course she wouldn't be able to love you if she thought it didn't mean anything to you. How could you not tell her the truth?" Sarah asked, leaning forward once more. There was a demand and entreaty in every line of her body. Surely she didn't understand, and she was trying to desperately, Caellum noted with a heavy sigh.
"I regret that it was necessary but it was the only way I could see to claim her. I told you I needed her. I needed in ways that words can only fail to express. I had hoped that once she was in my arms she would realize- that she would understand what she meant to me. I did everything within my power to make her happy. Everything. Clothes, jewels, power, knowledge, her dreams, my lands, my body, my heart… I offered everything that I had and everything that I was to her to do with as she willed. I thought she had accepted it. When our daughter was born… I loved her too. So fierce was my pride and my joy," he trailed off, remembering.
"So what happened? Why would she leave you?"
He had felt so certain that he truly had won Cainche's favor. He would never be powerful compared to some of the fae, but he'd had a family that he would love and protect forever. Why would she have left him? Was her heart so firmly attached to a land that couldn't return her fondness? Her people were long since dead by the time their child was born. There was nothing left for her Above, and yet she returned to that world. Had she but asked he would have given her that as well. There was nothing in the Underground that had been as important to him as his family. He would have left it all behind and moved with her Above. Even if the loss of his magick killed him, he would have gladly offered his life to keep her happy. So what did happen?
He leaned back in his chair, his elbow pressing heavily on the table. He laid his knuckles against his lips as he tried to come up with an answer. He had asked himself that very question for years. He'd never have an answer as his beautiful, treacherous wife had taken it with her to the grave. He flicked his fingers out in a helpless gesture.
"I don't know," he admitted softly. "One day I thought everything was right with the world and the next night she gathered our child up and fled. I never knew why. I never had the chance to ask."
They were both silent for a while after that. Sarah glanced about the kitchen as she tried to sort through things in her mind. Her eyes fell on the empty and full coffee mugs and she gathered them both up and wandered over to the sink to rinse them out. She moved back to the coffee maker and poured them both fresh cups. She took them to the table and sat back down on the chair next to Mr. McAillen.
"And she moved here and married my grandfather. That means he wasn't my mother's father… so I'm a quarter fae. What does that mean for me?"
"It's more than a quarter you are," he corrected.
"Uhm, my math isn't that great but I'm pretty sure that half of half is a quarter," Sarah insisted.
"Truly. Yet Cainche had lived in my realm for more than a century by our reckoning of these things, plenty enough time to be changed by the magick. Never truly fae, it was very close to that she became. That is why she died when you were so young. The magick fills one's body, even a human once you have been exposed to it for such a time you will have a hard time surviving without it. It was only luck that Clidhna had been a babe and too young for the magick to call for her when Cainche fled with her. Mere hours after our child's birth, my stubborn wife had no sense to be fleeing in that state. And yet had she stayed any longer your mother would have become attached to the land and the power that it grants. As it was it was it was something she'd felt before she knew anything else. It matters not what Cildhna, what Linda gains in this world, she will never have what she will always seek."
"Why didn't you go to her and tell her what she was?"
"What makes you think I did not? Do you believe I would leave my blood, my child in this world had she not made that choice to stay? And she will not suffer anything but frustrated dreams for that rejection. She'll not understand that what she chases in this realm is not what she truly desires, but unlike you her power has not manifested. She's a woman grown and hasn't the need for the magick that you do. Its respect I have to offer to her wishes, though it pains me to do so."
"Mom is safe because she never really had her magic right? So it sounds like her fairy powers stayed completely dormant. But I'm even less fae than she was and I was actually born, you know, up here. So why would I be more affected than she was?"
"Please refrain from calling what you're having as fairy powers," he winced.
She grinned at him. "Bothers you does it?"
He chose to ignore that one. It was the brand of humor peculiar to their bloodline and he knew better than to indulge it.
"When you invited yourself to the Underground you were old enough that the land recognized you, it welcomed you and it claimed you as one of its own. Those powers you got would have remained dormant also had you never had experienced magick, never would it have come to life. And though you left the Underground the magick continues to reach out to you."
"So you're saying I do have magic powers?" Sarah's eyes went wide and she pointed to herself. At his nod she grabbed up her cup from the table. She took a huge gulp of her coffee and set it back on the table with a clunk. "I don't know what to think about that."
Caellum also took a sip of his own coffee but didn't near slam the cup down because the liquid was too precious to waste. The only drink that was worth more in the Underground was Goblin wine. Say what you want about the ugly creatures, but Jareth's little monsters knew how to make the good stuff, and that was a truth no one would argue.
"Aye, you do have magick now. But I should warn you that it is dangerous to keep calling the power when you have no contact with the land."
"Why? Oh geeze I feel like a kid asking why all the time, but this is crazy."
"Not so crazy as much as magickal," he smiled again but the smile faded once more as he grew serious. "But it's dangerous for several reasons."
Sarah waved her hand, "Give me the most salient points, and then you can give me the bad news."
"And how is it you're thinking I'm going to be offering bad news?"
"Because that's how these things go. There is too much information which means too many reasons that can provide too many excuses all of which can only lead up to bad news," the teen pointed out dryly.
"Such a suspicious thing you are. A correct one, but suspicious. Where ever did you come up with logic like that?" Caellum stared at her with interest.
"I started thinking like that while I was in the Labyrinth. When I got back home I started watching people a bit more closely. I've gotten better at understanding patterns in the few years since." He blinked at that, but then tilted his head with that small smile that she was starting to like. It seemed such a natural expression for her grandfather.
Grandfather, huh? It was so weird to think of him like that when he looked younger than her father. And yet she felt, without a doubt, that everything he had told her was truth. She didn't feel as she had when she was lost in the dreams He had sent her, and she didn't get the feeling she had when she knew that someone in her mundane life was lying. She had spidey senses about these things, and they right now they weren't tingling.
Sarah knew she probably should feel more suspicious than she did even if she knew he was telling the truth, but… There was a part of her that wanted more from life than going to college to get her MRS and then settling down to a boring life of tending to a husband, two-point-five children and the dog that stays inside the white picket fence. All of that would happen if she kept on doing what was expected of her. Except the dog, because it would probably escape from the fence and go around digging up other people's gardens and dragging her into what could possibly turn out to be amusing lawn wars with her neighbors that her goblin buddies would get involved in. Which didn't sound too bad really, but there was that whole things could go horribly wrong vibe he'd been giving off…
"Ok, list of dangers and bad news. Go," she gestured firmly for him to speak. He nodded thoughtfully and then began to tick off his points on his fingers.
"Summoning the magick from the Underground while living here can be traced by the fae and there are several who would consider summoning the magick between realms as stealing magick from our world. And technically they would be right since magick used up here will not return to the faery world and weakens the land. If they found you they would kill you. The magick is tied closely to the land, to be away from the land and summoning the magick will put a strain on your body that will kill you, which is what your headaches are leading up to. As you grow closer to death your magick will become less stable and it's a danger to allow it to progress that far."
Caellum hesitated. He decided that now was perhaps not the best time to bring the danger to her family into the equation. The last time he'd explained the threat to a woman's family to bend her to his will it had failed spectacularly. And Sarah shared too many traits with her grandmother for him to be willing to risk it.
"Wow. That um, is bad news."
"Those were the dangers. The bad news is that in order to keep from dying you will have to the reconnect with the land and cannot be allowed outside interference. Until you do so your power will be unstable, which the other fae'll not have a tolerance for and will enforce the laws to ensure that you aren't posing a threat to society."
"I'm a threat? What it's dangerous for me in this world, and I'm going to be dangerous in your world? It sounds like I'm not going to win this one no matter where I go, so why shouldn't I just stay here?"
He'd not anticipated Sarah being every inch as arrogant and stubborn as his wife. Except it was worse coming from his descendent as she had been raised in a ridiculous society that insisted on allowing women to fill roles that they were ill suited for in order to appease their need to feel equal to men. He grabbed onto his self control and held on tightly.
"The only way to stabilize your magick would be to anchor your powers with the aid of a lord, and you would have to remain bound until you do have an open flow of power and an ability to control the extra power you're to be gaining from your connections."
"Translation please?" she frowned. She had an idea of where this was going but she did have some confusion over the details and she wanted the full picture before she decided to freak out.
"You have to return to the Underground. You'll not be able to return Above until you'll not die from leaving the Underground, but your family will be long dead before you do so. The other fae'll not allow you any rights until you are fully bound to the land, and you'll be punished if you're resistant to being bound. Best case scenario in that event is you'll be kept strictly as breeding stock, worst case is to be killed. The only way you can anchor in order to begin the connection be bound to the land is -"
"Is what?" she glared at him. He heaved a heavy sigh. This was not going to be fun he knew, but there was no way around it. He sat up straight and stared down his nose at the child before him.
Caellum answered through clenched teeth. "The only way you can be fully bound to the land is by marrying that land's lord."
"My- Did you just say- You have no right to try to marry me off against my will!" Sarah screeched and pushed away from the table. He matched her stance and stood facing her down. They were equally willful and unused to considering the feelings of others. Anger stretched through the air between them as a tightly strung as a bow string, and very near snapping.
"As the patriarch of your family line it's a truth that I have every right to choose a husband for you. You're grandmother may have been able to walk away because of her human blood, but its damned I'll be before I allow you to be so selfish as that heartless bitch! I've already chosen your husband and unless it's responsible for the death of your family you wish to be you'll do as I say you ungrateful brat!" he roared back.
Sarah gasped and paled, then just as quickly turned red as jagged edged rage tore at her throat. She shoved up into his face, not caring who he was or what kind of magic powers he had. Her voice was hissing venom when she managed to respond.
"You're threatening my family? The same way you threatened her family because you can't get your way otherwise? It's no wonder my grandmother left you, youcoward!"
The world exploded in a furious shower of glass and splinters.
