Disclaimer: I do not own anything Labyrinth-related.
Chapter 4
She whipped around and stumbled backwards at the sight that greeted her. She was no longer in her room; the scenery before her was bleak and dotted with skeletal trees, patches of parched grass, and crumbling stone. When she turned back, the Goblin King was not lounging against her doorframe, but rather, against a post that looked suspiciously like the one a certain barn owl had perched on in a greener landscape. Behind him loomed the forbidding outer walls of the Labyrinth.
"What have you done?" she demanded, unsuccessfully trying to squelch the fear in her voice.
"What have I done?" A corner of his mouth curled up sardonically. He waved an arm carelessly at their surroundings. "This is what you wished for, isn't it?"
Sarah gaped. "Then…this is all…real?"
"I don't know. Is it?"
Sarah's mouth snapped shut as she stared at the figure before her. He was attired entirely in black except for where the dusky light hinted at strange colors in his cloak, much like when she saw—or at least imagined—him for the first time. His ash-blond hair was still choppy and wild, giving him that wolfish appearance. But his exotic eyes, one blue, one nearly eclipsed by the pupil, were veiled. He was mocking her, and she felt the stirrings of anger seep into her fear.
"I wished for you to tell me the truth about whether my time in the Labyrinth was real or not," she snapped. "I didn't ask for games."
"That is not what I heard," he retorted, peeling away from the post to stalk toward her. "You wished for the Goblin King to show you the 'truth', and that is what he is doing. You didn't articulate the nature of the 'truth' you wanted, so you are seeing 'truth' in the broadest sense that it applies to you."
Sarah, who had taken a step back for every step he took forward, stopped. "What do you mean?"
"Oh come, now, Sarah, do I really need to spell it out for you?"
"Maybe if you stopped speaking in riddles, you wouldn't have to!"
"I am only speaking according to the script I was given."
Sarah digested his words, and an ill feeling rose in the pit of her stomach. "What script?"
The Goblin King's smile was acidic. "If you don't know the answer to that, you're a lot duller than I remember, little girl."
Sarah felt her shoulders slump. She closed her eyes. "So it really is just a dream," she whispered. The truth was that she had longed to return to this place ever since she had left it, even if only in some terribly realistic hallucination as it was when she ran the Labyrinth for Toby. She wanted the Labyrinth to be real, including its ruler, embittered or not. Perhaps her imagination was casting him in a cruel role out of guilt for what she had done to him when she was 15-years old…but the whole damn thing was my imagination anyway! Why should I feel guilty about an imaginary character?
"Imaginary characters can't feel."
"Can't they?"
His voice was a silken caress, and it was close, too close. Sarah's eyes snapped open and she hastily retreated back a ways. Up close he was too…much. She wanted to touch him.
She shook her head. "No, they can't. Like you said, you follow the script you were given. Back then, everything that happened happened because I wanted it to. I wanted my 'toys and my costumes' to come to life, and they did. I wanted friends, I wanted adventure. I wanted a villain to vanquish, and you gave that to me, because I wanted you to. Don't you remember, Goblin King? 'Everything I've done, I've done for you'?" She saw a spark of anger light his strange eyes, but she pressed on ruthlessly. "You were very generous. You gave me everything I wanted, because I wanted you to! Even the anger you feel right now is because I want you to be angry with me, because I want to deny that you're just my imagination talking to me."
The Goblin King paused in his leisurely prowl to stare disbelievingly at her. Then he threw back his head and laughed. "Oh Sarah, Sarah, perhaps you haven't changed as much as I'd thought." He continued to stalk her; they were moving in slow circles now, predator and prey trying to gauge when the other would strike or flee. "Do you realize what you've just said? The anger I feel? I thought I was an imaginary character."
"You are," she said, but there was a hint of uncertainty.
"Am I?" he replied sharply. His eyes glittered dangerously. "Then what are you running away from? If I am only a dream, make me disappear, Sarah. Make this all disappear."
Sarah's retreat faltered. There was something strange in his voice, although she couldn't put her finger on it. But what he said rang true—unlike the last time she was here, she was fully aware that she could wake from her hallucination if she wanted to. As soon as she had the realization, she glanced up at the walls of the Labyrinth to see the entire scene begin to blur and lose shape, and she could vaguely make out the lines of the wall-shelving and books in her old room. In some terribly bizarre way it was like seeing two images in the process of being superimposed on each other, but which was on top and which was behind, she couldn't tell.
"It seems I've underestimated you again."
Sarah was startled at the proximity of his voice, and the scene before her warped and solidified into the Labyrinth walls once more. She whirled to face him in surprise. "What?"
"Still so clueless and yet so powerful," he murmured, looking down at her. His face was a stony mask. Almost as if to himself, he added, "Such a selfish little girl."
Sarah narrowed her eyes. "I'm not a little girl anymore, Goblin K—"
"My name is Jareth," he interjected vehemently.
Sarah felt a pressure beginning to build at the back of her head. "You're not even real!" The landscape shimmered.
"Oh, I'm not?" He raised a gloved hand to her face, and she jerked away. The landscape stilled. He gave her a sharp smile.
"What," she swallowed. "What is going on, Goblin King?"
The Goblin King tilted his head. "Don't you know? This is your dream, isn't it?"
"Yes. It is," she said through her teeth. "But you're preventing me from leaving, somehow."
He spread his hands innocently. "I'm just an imaginary creature. I have, one might say, no power over you."
Sarah resisted the urge to scream. "Stop toying with me!"
"Who is toying with whom?" The mask cracked and suddenly the Goblin King's face was a picture of rage. He advanced on her so quickly that in her frightened rush to get away, she tripped and fell hard on her backside. He made no move to help her, but towered over her like an angry black wraith. "You wanted me to show you the truth, Sarah? Look!" He gestured in a manner that encompassed the whole of their surroundings. "This is the truth! This space, the Labyrinth and myself exists, but only when you believe it."
Sarah stared up at him uncomprehendingly.
"For as long as I can remember, I have been dreamed in and out of consciousness by your kind; children read the book, daydream about it, and then forget it. My self-awareness is subject to the dreamer's mind, for I am a creature of fantasy, and if no one thinks of me I simply don't exist. I was just an idea, a dream that was dreamed about so frequently that I'd come to develop a mind of my own."
"But how—"
He held up a hand and she fell silent. "My self-awareness shouldn't have mattered. I am only one among many dreams that you mortals birthed consciousness into. But never, never until you did I possess feelings. Always before, I was given a role to play but the dreamers never believed me separate from them. The Labyrinth was merely a temporary playground, and its creatures—poor bastards—were never thought of long enough to become self-aware. But you! You brought the Labyrinth to life. Every single creature you imagined suddenly acquired a history and a personality. They acquired the ability to feel. Every single one of them became aware of their place within your fantasy."
Sarah sat frozen in wonder as a crystal sphere materialized in his hand. He let it roll off his fingertips and fall, only to float serenely before her eyes. Her heart contracted when it showed her a certain dwarf foraging around the lush foliage of the hedge-maze.
"Hoggle," she whispered. The image morphed into a scene of a forest, where she saw her noble knight on his furry steed, followed by an enormous red-furred beast tramping among the trees. The image morphed yet again, and she realized with amazement that she was looking in on the throne room of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City. It was teeming with goblins. "Even the goblins?"
"Yes, Sarah." The Goblin King crouched down to her level and plucked the sphere from the air. He gazed into it for a second and looked vaguely surprised when it vanished from his hand. When he looked at her again, the anger seemed to have drained from his face, leaving in its place resigned weariness. "While you were running the Labyrinth, your belief in the reality of your dream was so strong that for a time, we were almost real."
"Almost?"
"Concern for your baby brother stopped you from fully accepting that dream as a reality. I could see it in your eyes."
Sarah felt her throat constricting as understanding began to dawn on her. Your eyes can be so cruel… The Goblin King was an entity whose consciousness fazed in and out on the whims of dreamers' fantasies, his kingdom always changing, and his subjects only temporary company that would be replaced by another set of strangers in the next dreamer's dream. Then she had changed everything. She had given him the ability to feel, and thus realize the bleakness of his pseudo-existence. She had given him hope that someone would finally bring him into true reality—but in the end he had seen that she would not, could not grant him that, and she would leave him chained to the near-existence she had brought him to.
Live without the sunlight…
It was an appallingly lonely thought.
"I was so close," the Goblin King murmured, leaning toward her. She let him hover over her until their faces were almost touching. She bit her lip when she realized she could not feel his breath on her cheek, or the warmth one would expect from being so near to another living being. "So close."
Love without your heartbeat…
Her heart ached as she reached out to touch his face, only to see her fingers pass through it, as if he consisted of no more than fairy dust. The sky and the ground wavered and faded, then solidified, then began to fade again. Oh god, what have I done to you? A lump formed in her throat.
"I couldn't," she managed to say in an anguished whisper. "You would have turned Toby into a goblin."
"That was the script I was given," he replied tiredly.
"I couldn't make that Toby's reality." Her voice broke. "It was his reality or yours, Goblin King."
He turned away from her and stood up, surveying the distorted landscape. It was the Labyrinth, and it was not; it was a girl's room, and it was not. It was the impasse between belief and disbelief in what should have been a simple fairytale. After a while he said almost too quietly for her to hear, "Say my name, Sarah."
She shook her head, trying to keep her heart from splitting. The script of her dreams had condemned this world to fantasy the second she declared it had no hold on her. And now that she had seen the truth of things, she would never be able to return. "It's too late."
A self-mocking smile played at the Goblin King's lips. "I know," he said simply.
Oh god. Sarah's face crumpled, and she could hear herself screaming wordlessly inside. It wasn't fair. He'd never been given a chance, if only she'd found another way into the Labyrinth, if only she hadn't imagined them with feelings, if only it could have worked out differently, if only it didn't hurt so much, if only dreams came true. She was crying now, the back of her hand pressed tightly against her mouth as if she could push the silent sobs back into her body.
The Goblin King kneeled before her and tried to brush the tears away in vain. He made a sound of frustration when his fingers passed through her as hers had done to him. "Sarah—"
She heard the note of distress and cried even harder, her body shaking with the effort to contain her grief.
"Can't you do something?" she choked out, reaching futilely for his hands at her cheeks. "You're the Goblin King."
"Sarah, I don't exist." He stared at her helplessly.
Sarah bowed her head and let the tears fall into the withered grass. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Jareth."
His eyes widened fractionally when his name fell from her lips. She said my name. For one dizzying moment Jareth felt a surge of euphoria, but as he gazed upon the miserable woman before him, it petered into sadness. Don't cry anymore, Sarah. If you're going to say my name, at least say it with some joy.
He tried to put a hand under her chin but she was like a ghost. Or was it he who was the ghost? Jareth felt resignation begin to take hold within Sarah, and an all too familiar sensation of numbness began to creep into his mind. Not yet. Don't push me out yet.
Jareth sensed the presence of the Labyrinth receding, and the fabric of his world wobbled. The walls of Sarah's old bedroom were becoming more apparent.
"I wish I could touch you," he sighed.
She was startled by a sudden warmth under her chin—it felt like—gloved fingers. She looked up and saw her astonishment reflected in Jareth's face. Before she could open her mouth, she was being pulled up and against him in a solid embrace, his cloak enveloping them both.
"What's going on?" she asked hoarsely.
Jareth was silent for a beat, choosing instead to relish the feel of her warmth within his arms. How he had yearned, dreamed to do this just once more before he faded out of consciousness again. He laughed softly. "Can dreams have dreams, Sarah?"
She pulled back just enough to peer up at him. "Is this your dream?"
He brushed a thumb over the tear-tracks on her cheek and smiled crookedly. "Perhaps a small part of it."
Sarah rested her head beneath his chin and closed her eyes. So that was why he was still here, seemingly as warm and as real as any living being might be. Even though she knew it was just a transient wish, perhaps Jareth's dreams were so strong that they were sustaining the fantasy for just a little longer.
"Dance with me," he whispered.
Sarah blinked away the remnants of tears as he led her into the opening steps of a slow sequence. They danced without music, across the strange not-Labyrinth-but-not-reality landscape, across sand and carpet, around desks and bare trees. At some point the surroundings changed, and Sarah didn't know where they were, or if their feet were even touching a surface. When she wasn't staring transfixed into Jareth's extraordinary eyes, she would sometimes glimpse an ocean below them, or city skyscrapers, or a heaven with five moons. Sometimes she saw things to which she couldn't give a name. It was as if they had transcended time and space and were making a languid journey through the universe.
"Jareth," she said once.
"Hm?"
"What happened to the miniature statue of the Goblin King, and the musical figurine I used to own?"
Jareth looked puzzled. "I don't know. Are they missing?"
"Yeah."
He angled his head, bemused. "You haven't wished away anything to my side of reality in ten years."
"I…see." She resumed her silence and decided to worry about the matter when she returned to real life.
They danced over, under, and through countless landscapes both familiar and strange. They might have passed through the dreams of humans or faeries or of some creature unknown to either of them. They dipped, turned, and circled slowly together, their bodies moving in fluid synchronization. Sarah thought they might have been dancing for days; it didn't matter. Time seemed inconsequential.
But she could tell when the dream began to end. Their steps slowed, and the presence that encircled her gradually grew lighter, more transparent. She squeezed her eyes tightly as if to block out the sight of her Goblin King fading, and gripped his hands in a desperate attempt to keep the feel of him against her skin. His fingers squeezed hers in response.
"Sarah," he said gently.
She knew without looking that they had returned to the entrance of the Labyrinth.
"What if dreams came true?" she asked inaudibly, without opening her eyes.
She felt him shift—and a single tear spilled down her cheek when his lips pressed faintly against hers.
"We'd be dancing," he whispered.
And then he was gone. When Sarah opened her eyes, she was standing in the doorway of her room, the sound of Toby's laughter drifting up to her from downstairs. She glanced back toward the vanity at the spot where the Goblin King statue used to stand, and then at the empty space in the drawer.
Maybe we still are, she thought with a ghost of a smile. She closed the door softly behind her.
Somewhere in a place not bound by time and space, in a place where dreams are born and dormant dreams lie, there was a single crystal sphere. It was such a small little thing that floated among an infinity of other what-ifs, what-might-have-beens, and things-that-may-come-to-be. Yet it shone brightly with the light of many dreams.
The crystal wasn't something that could be touched by hands. But if you could turn it a certain way, and look into it—it would show you the figures of a certain woman and a certain man, dancing their way across the stars.
...
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A/N: ...........I'm still not sure what genre to put this under, but it ended more...hopeful, I guess, than I had originally planned. x_x; Anyway, I'd love to know your thoughts on the story. Thanks for reading!