AT THE CENTER

The idea of a House built expressly so that people will become lost in it may be stranger than the idea of a man with the head of a bull, and yet the two ideas may reinforce one another.
... It is fitting that at the center of a monstrous House should live a monstrous inhabitant.

- 'The Book of Imaginary Beings', Jorge Luis Borges

Jareth and Sarah appeared in what seemed to be a small anteroom, cordoned off by drapes. There was some furniture—a table, a chaise longue, carpets and furs, a bizarrely shaped mirror—but most was the weird architecture, that mix of primitive and decadent, that prevailed in Jareth's castle and that ballroom she had been in. Seating and reclining spaces were built and scooped right into the stone. Sarah wondered if that was just expedient as the owner could change it at his or her whim, or whether creatures like Jareth liked their decoration that permanent.

Outside the veils and gauzy curtains, she could see shadows and blurs pass by against a paler background.

"Is this the court?" she asked, not bothering to be surprised or nonplussed anymore.

"Yes," he said.

She walked gingerly to the translucent drapes, pulling them back very slowly.

She looked out at vast pale room with a high nave—she was reminded of nothing so much as a cathedral of marble and crystal. Huge windows let in diffused light from a sky of dark snarls of cloud.

There was even an ambulatory, of which their current room abutted. People—creatures—walked slowly around it, in pairs or in groups, only in a few cases alone. Most were crowded into the center. A woman crossed her field of vision, turning to look at her clutching the curtains around her face with an amused but polite curiosity. Sarah jerked her head back into the room.

"Whose court is this?" she asked. "Yours? I thought you were the king."

He nodded. "The goblin king, ruling over a goblin court. This is a fae court, of a friend." He folded his arms. "I don't think your understanding of court adequately expresses the finer semantics of this place. Think of it as a neutral meeting ground, presided over by the only one all of us...have a profound respect for."

Sarah asked the first question that popped into her head. "But you're not a goblin."

"What? Of course I am. Don't be stupid."

She raised an eyebrow at his last command, but let it slide. "Are you telling me that under—that—" she said lamely, waving her finger and gesturing him up and down, "there's a…" she couldn't think of a way she could say it politely or without sounding lewd. "Is this not what you look like?"

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow, obviously considering several answers. Happily for Sarah he settled on the most obvious. "Of course this is how I look. There are many kinds of goblin, just as there are many kinds of fae and vampire and nymph and sprite."

"Is it like a political affiliation?" she said drily.

Obviously he was not going to honor that with an answer. He folded his arms. "Are you ready? You can meet them. Talk to them."

Sarah folded her arms. One part of her was incandescent with rage at how he was exerting power over her despite all his and her protestations to the contrary. "Why are you doing this? Why am I not still in the round room?"

His face looked drawn and tired, for a moment, then he shrugged his thin shoulders. "Like I've said and reiterated, I don't want to cause you pain. You made a choice to stay here, so I am happy to make it as pleasant and possible."

She paused for a moment. "I still don't forgive you, Jareth, for everything you've done." She wanted to, a little, because she did feel he was acting defensively as well as selfishly, instead of just enjoying lording his power over her. She wondered why her stating this fact did not bring her home like last time. Perhaps it had to be at a cinematically dramatic moment. Or at least until they were on an equal playing field.

If the sentiment hurt him at all he did not show it. "That is your choice to make, of course."

Sarah looked down. Her clothes had been being mysteriously washed and pressed regularly while she slept, but they were still not the stuff for a fae court, whatever that was. After her initial experience in the Labyrinth Sarah had gone through great lengths

"Can I go out like this? I can't go out like this."

Jareth looked her up and down, calculatingly. "Perhaps not." He drew out a crystal from heaven knows where and crushed it in his hand, before blowing what was, as far as she was concerned, broken glass into her face.

She cried out and drew up her hands to shield herself for the barrage that never came. Instead, when she looked down, she was in the same overblown white ballgown she had worn at a very naive fifteen.

Seeing the thing affected her more profoundly than she might have expected. She felt a little faint, remembering. She was reminded of the lurch of just being about to trip—or jerking awake as you dreamed of falling. That dream ball had been such a strange experience walled off to fester—it was not ready for any sort of the conscious-bringing –out-into-the-open that this was.

"No…" she murmured, before looking up at him defiantly, not even countenancing his smirk. "God, Jareth, not this," she said, perhaps a little too loudly. "It's not the freaking eighties. When's the last time you've been above in New York for any length of time?"

He didn't answer; just held out his hand.

"What," she said.

"Give me your hand."

She placed her hand in his, haltingly. He took it and after kissing it to his lips—she blushed, angry—he put his other hand over hers, cradling her hand between his. She set her mouth into a frown as her body betrayed her, fluttering at his touch. He drew back his top hand to reveal her own hand cradling a crystal sphere.

"Aah!" she said, panicking. Was he going to crush glass into her palm as she had done to him? "I'm sorry about hurting your hand earlier, I won't—"

"I'm not going to hurt you," he laughed. "Here. I'll show you how to change yourself."

After he said that, he crunched her hand closed over the crystal. Sarah heard a muted pop, like a crumpled Christmas ornament, and she closed her eyes and waited for pain—that never came.

He let go of her hand, slowly. "Now," he said. "Think of something you'd like to wear. And blow into your hand."

She paused. He was looking simultaneously smug and delighted, like a cat who had brought its owner a dead mouse. She paused, imagined one of the more restrained Alexander McQueen dresses as she thought the tattered structure and influence of nature might fit in, and blew. Even though she was careful, crystal dust got into her eyes and it took her a moment to blink it away

She looked in the mirror. It was perfect. More ridiculous in its own way than the white monstrosity, but at least it was a more modern ridiculous. It was a dark bloody color that wrapped and bound her body like it was a living thing, yet she could still move—unlike the white dress. She loved it.

Jareth evinced no surprise at her choice. Instead, he came to stand behind her as she looked in the mirror. His expression was unreadable.

She looked at the two of them in the mirror. They looked like a couple—a handsome couple. Her face was leaner, sharper than it used to be, and he was less jaggedly put together and more subdued in dress, but it was the same as before.

"You'll be here as my guest," Jareth said, "which should preclude any abuse or threat, at least for now. "

"Abuse?" she said, fingering her feather collar. "God, you're dramatic. You know I've been around your friends before, if you remember."

He raised his eyebrows. "Sarah, I'd hope it would be obvious to that these are not the small goblins and silly creatures you encountered as a child. Those people out there are like me, and like me they live a very long time and they become very bored. These are real dangers, and thus will not appear as such."

"Whatever that means," she said, although she understood perfectly. She had been to enough alternative parties and clubs as an adult that she knew how to stay inconspicuous and close to her friends, if that's what she wanted. She just had no patience for his vague pronouncements. If her life had taught her anything, it was how to be hard and not cede power to anyone. "So, I'll introduce myself as some, what, some girlie you're amusing yourself with?"

"Isn't that what you are?"

She glared.

"Don't worry. They'll remember you," he amended softly, putting his hands on her bare shoulders. His touch was electric, and she had to stop herself from shivering. He must have felt her tense, because he withdrew, brushing her hair back as he did so.

"I missed you, Sarah," was all he said.

She continued drinking in their reflection. They looked lovely. Sarah did love to be admired, it was a weakness, and what few boyfriends she had had, she made sure they were exceptional in some way, be it looks or talent or both. But she had imagined variations on this scene since she was a child. She turned to face him. He really was beautiful. Her eyes lingered on his lips.

He must have seen, for he leaned in to kiss her, lightly, on the mouth. For a few brief seconds, she let him.

Sarah's heart dropped out from under her again as she pulled back, pushed him away. "Stop it," she said sharply. "That won't work on me. It didn't before and it won't now."

He look confused, which angered her further. She did not like being taken advantage of. She did not like being vulnerable. Ever since, well, ever since Jareth she knew that people will lie and manipulate and exploit to get what they want—and surely what Jareth wanted was not her.

"What are you talking about?" He said it low, and quiet, daring her to speak her concerns.

And what was she going to say? Don't do that, because I'm an idiot and these last ten years have been extremely hard, and all I would want is some magical dude to whisk me away to a magic kingdom. That no one I've ever dated has ever compared to the way you made me feel. That I have missed you every day. That I hate what you've done to me. That if you pretend you love me or are even attracted to me, there's a real possibility I might give in, in a moment of weakness.

"Nothing," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," he said curtly. "I wasn't aware I'd be taking such a liberty with a woman who had, if she'll remember, kissed me of her own volition."

He said woman, not girl. Certainly not ordinary girl. She sighed. "I had had like four glasses of wine."

"I'll remember that," he said, nonsensically. His face was dark, his lip slightly curled.

Sarah, for some reason, felt terrible. She had been well within her rights to set boundaries—besides which, the man had locked her in a room for quite a bit of time—but for some reason she felt she had made a misstep.

"Don't…don't worry about it," she said.

He walked to the curtain and drew it back, gesturing—rather snidely, if such a thing were possible—outside. "After you," he said.

"Jareth," she said.

"Yes?" He smiled, one of his cold ones that just as often turned into disdain and hate as not.

She swallowed. She was experiencing a fear she could not quite articulate. "Never mind."

She walked out into the ambulatory, where she felt extremely exposed. So, she drew herself up and reminded herself that nothing could defeat her. She had, after all, ran the Labyrinth by herself as a teen.

Jareth joined her. She took his arm without him offering. He did not react. They began strolling around the ambulatory. As they approached people and creatures, they would nod respectfully at Jareth. They would regard her with naked appraisal, like she was a particularly fine exotic bird. Nice to look at, not someone you introduced yourself to.

"So," she said. "Who here might know about what is happening to the Labyrinth?"

"Hush," he said, looking around. No one had heard them, it seemed. "That is a private matter."

"All right, fine." They walked. Sarah drank everything in. This seemed a much more subdued affair than the ball she remembered. Then again, it was still technically daylight, although the setting sun was bleeding red light over stone and fae alike. The clouds still loomed and roiled. It was actually fairly nightmarish. She tried to see if she could find any humans, but everyone seemed very cold and self-possessed. "You said this was your friend's court?"

"I did. Although…friend, perhaps, is an overstatement. Rather, she wields a great deal of power and I am civil to her to protect my kingdom. Would you like to meet her?"

"Can she…uh, can she help us? Does she know?"

"Yes. She is why I brought you here."

They left the ambulatory and began to make their way to the general clot of people. There were recesses in the floor, with carpets and furs and cushions, where some people were talking and some were…more than talking. Sarah looked away quickly, stole a glance at Jareth. He did not even seem to notice. She adopted the same bored imperious attitude.

"Where is she?" Sarah asked.

"Somewhere," he said, not helpfully.

Something strangely familiar caught Sarah's eye, and against her better judgment she turned to a strange sort of dais to her left where—yes—

"Britta…?" Sarah said, before repeating herself a little louder to be heard above the ambient murmur. "Britta!"

There was her best friend, lounging on a couch that had to have been hammered from some disgustingly expensive metal to gleam almost opaline like that, while the fabric looked sumptuous even from a distance. Britta was dressed in black, but with blue undercurrents whenever she moved or where the light hit her, like raven feathers, Sarah thought rather dramatically. She was speaking to a handsome man with pale blue skin and light hair. At Sarah's voice, she turned. It was definitely her—or someone who looked exactly like her.

"Sarah," Jareth hissed. "What are you—"

"Sarah?" Britta said, with some evident shock. "How long have you been here?"

Without thinking, Sarah tore away from Jareth, picked up her skirt, and ran as fast as she could to Britta. On the way she almost tripped over another man, a frail blond, but after a hasty apology she reached what looked to be her friend.

"Britta, is that you?"

Britta paused, and gave her placeholder smile that she gave when she was considering things, like whether to give a guy her number or not. "Yes," she finally said. "It is."

Sarah went to embrace her, but as soon as she touched her, the people around gasped and stiffened and looked terrified. Sarah froze, and pulled back.

"What's going on?" she asked her friend. "Why are you here?"

Britta stood. "It's fine," she said to those surrounding her, attendants and court-goers alike. They visibly relaxed. The blonde turned to Sarah, leaning forward and giving her a polite kiss on the cheek, which unsettled Sarah more than anything else. Her friend never acted like that. Her friend was never so formal.

Jareth reached the dais, putting his hand protectively on Sarah's shoulder. Sarah was too surprised to brush it off.

He nodded to Britta, slightly, guardedly.

Britta did not nod back. She smiled her placeholder smile and said, "Ah, the reluctant king," she said.

"The monstrous queen," he said.

A/N

Common enemy uniting people, and all that. Britta's from the first chapter. I expanded her cameo somewhat, to say the least.

I can't believe it's been a freaking year since I wrote the first chapter of this. Freaking thesis ruins everything. Well, I have this plotted out and if it's not done by December, kill me. This will include my super-awkward attempts at writing sexy things, so. There's that.

Hopefully this chapter will provide a pleasant sort of procrastinatory respite from studying for finals. Or a celebration for finishing finals because you don't go to the worst school ever that would not take off time for Christmas if it wasn't I think a legal requirement.

As always let me know ways I can improve my writing. I'm sorry I used a Borges quote on a Labyrinth fanfiction. I'm just going to pretend it was like super meta and pomo and meaningful.

Anyways. Happy Holidays.

Love,

Dollfayce