Happy Holidays everyone! :) Wishing the best for all my lovely followers, favers, reviewers, and anyone who's bother to read this far into my story; hope your holidays are filled with cheer and gladness, and not with grinches and judge-y relatives!

With lots of love,

mpenguin

Chapter Fourteen

The shadows thickened as the taut silence took command of the room. Sarah stood with her hand still grasping the doorknob, searching for words; means of escape were no longer capable of being conceived in her head, yet even if one were able to make its way past the tension-filled void that presently occupied her mind, Sarah would have pushed it aside. This confrontation was happening, and she was finally going to stand her ground.

"It wasn't nice of you to trick me like that."

Her words hovered uncertainly into the silence. There was no response. In fact, it wouldn't have surprised her if the silence had swallowed the words the moment they escaped from her lips. Sarah opened her mouth to speak once more, when suddenly his voice said, "Well, turn around."

His command cut through the silence like a winter's evening wind, bitter and harsh, yet his cold tone only strengthened Sarah's resolve. She turned, leaning her weight upon the doors and letting her eyes settled on him.

The Goblin King still sat at the table; his face was unreadable, but his fingers played with his bottom lip, giving off the impression of him doing quick yet deep thinking. Suddenly, his mismatched eyes met her gaze sharply, staying there for only a moment before deciding to study the rest of her. He observed her, she realized, like how a hunter studies a doe before he releases his trigger. Sarah tried her best not to shiver. Finally, his eyes resettled back onto their blazing green opponents, trapping them in their icy mismatched glare.

Then the Goblin King smirked. "Your eyes sure do fit better in this form."

This statement brought out from her a shaky laugh, and Sarah felt her tensed muscles letting out sighs of relief.

The Goblin King finally stood, his fingers restlessly grazing the wood of the table as he smiled at her. "So you're the woman that has been running around in my Labyrinth."

Sarah nodded her head, sheepishly avoiding his eye.

"And this has been going on for, what, a week now?"

Sarah tugged at her ear, mumbling, "About two months."

"Two months." He said in a chuckle. A chuckle that made the hairs on her neck stand. "Well isn't that something."

His voice had suddenly gotten louder, and Sarah looked up to see him approaching her. She felt terror seep under her skin like how frost does on windowpanes; she gripped the doorknob behind her tightly as though doing so allowed her to better grasp her courage. The Goblin King halted a mere step away from her, and his lips twisted into his false, frigid smirk.

"Tell me, would two months be around the same time that you started working in my study?"

Sarah's eyes grew wide, and they imploringly locked onto his, "No. I never laid a finger on any of your magic books. I made a deal with you, and I keep my word."

"Apparently not."

His raised voice caught Sarah off guard, and she stood there in stunned silence while he seemed to struggle with—well, Sarah didn't want to think what. She blinked, and suddenly his face was right there, craning down a mere inch away from hers. Sarah cowered as far back as she could, jumping with alarm when she felt her hair brush against something; it was his hand, which was pressing against the doorframe beside her.

"How were you able to turn back human then?" He demanded, "How were you able to do this? To keep this from me? How were you able to run around in human form, undetected by both my Labyrinth and I for all these weeks if you never laid a single finger on any of my magic books?"

"I don't know! But I didn't touch any magic book, not even a damn pamphlet. I swear, it just happened. And it wasn't completely undetected; the Labyrinth knew, and she was kind enough to help me out a couple of times—"

Sarah realized too late that this little confession wasn't the best thing to say right then. The Goblin King's expression become livid, and he aggressively turned to leave, but Sarah frantically grabbed his arm, saying, "Don't be angry with the Labyrinth; it's not her fault. And I swear, I didn't do anything; I mean, really, the dreams had been nothing, and then one day they were something, and there was pain, and then one day I was a goblin and then poof! This happened. Nothing more. And I swear—"

"Dreams? What dreams?"

Sarah let out a nervous laugh, "Oh, you know, just normal boring dreams. Like something about a dog, or two kids running around, or parents asking what I wanted for dinner. Nothing special or dangerous."

Her little speech faltered into nothing, and Sarah studied the Goblin King's face, trying in vain to detect what was going on in that mind of his. Finally he spoke, "You've managed to prattle out so many infuriating things within these past couple of seconds, but out of everything you could have possibly imagine to tell to me, you could not have picked anything worse. Dreams? You dream? For how long?"

"Since always! But they're absolutely meaningless. I mean like one of them was about me wanting a bear, just a normal bear dressed as a knight, and another one would be about me playing fairy princess with Stacy after school, and—" At that, the Goblin King torn his arm away from her grip, intense anger practically radiating from him, and Sarah, in her panic, shouted out, "Please, just calm down!"

"Calm down?" He said, his voice cruel and sarcastic, "Calm down? Of course, how can I not? Let me think, not only has my Labyrinth been keeping secrets from me, and you've been roaming about it as a human for months now for all to see, including my sister, which, as horrendous as that is on its own, she had to discover that I was completely oblivious to all this, this disaster that was occurring in my kingdom, but before I can let this fantastic catastrophe sink into an already horrendous week, you top this off by having been remembering everything this entire time. My curse hasn't been working this entire time? No, impossible. I don't believe this; I can't. My magic always works; this curse always works. No, somebody help you—who told you how to break it? My mother? My father? Who?"

By this point, the Goblin King's face returned to its threatening position only an inch away from Sarah's; her face was pale, and her lips trembled, but Sarah was far from feeling fear.

"What curse?"

The Goblin King pulled back and scoffed, "Don't play dumb with me."

But Sarah wasn't playing. In a dreamlike state, she took a step to the side, her brain reeling. A curse? What curse? She took a bleary look around, looking at the bare walls, the chewed up bookshelves, the stack of books still lying obliviously on the table. Then suddenly it clicked; it all made sense, and she felt like an idiot for never connecting the pieces together. But now that it was made clear, she knew she had known somehow all this time; she just hadn't been able to see it; something prevent her, but now—

"Oh my God, the children. We're the children." Sarah looked at the Goblin King, who just stood there, slowly comprehending his mistake. "The children from the Aboveground that the runners run for, you turn them into goblins? I thought I was just—oh my god, Mimion. Fifo. Copperpot. Even Marcus. You stole us. You kidnapped us!"

Rubbing his temples, the Goblin King opened his mouth, then shut it. He did this several times before he gave up. He turned away from her, and bring his arms back down, said to himself, "Oh fuck. She hadn't known. Oh no. Oh crap. I got to fix this right now." He made a motion as if to take a step, but before he could warp away, he found himself falling. His head hit against the hard cement floor with a nasty bang, and he swore, trying to get back up again, but he found himself not able to; when he finally opened his eyes again, he found himself being regarded by a pair of furious fiery green one.

"Ravie, let me go."

"My name's not Ravie." Sarah snapped, struggling to keep her hold on the fighting Goblin King. "And I can't believe you ever made me think it was; I can't believe you kidnap children and turn them into your little warped subjects; I can't believe you made me and my friends goblins; I can't believe you took me away from my home, my parents and friends. What kind of monster are you?"

Sarah let out a little scream as suddenly her hands found his wrists too hot to touch. The Goblin King used her momentary astonishment to his advantage; he rolled themselves over, now pinning her to the ground.

"Listen, you little brat," He said, holding Sarah down painfully tight, "Beside what your little inflated head might believe, I didn't just decide one day that you were special enough to kidnap. No, your family wished you; they didn't want you. They asked me to take you and so I did. Now you're mine, you're under my rule, and you have to do what I command, and I command that you return back to your little unknowing goblin state where you belong."

Sarah let out a bitter screech, kicking and flailing about, but it was hopeless. The Goblin King firmly held his grasp on her with no signs of letting up, so Sarah let her head fall to floor, fighting back bitter tears. Then she caught sight of the Goblin King smiling smugly, and, with a burst of rebellion, Sarah managed to spit out, "My family may have wished me away, Goblin King, but I will never be yours. I'm not a goblin, and I refuse to be turned back into one, and if I somehow managed to fight your curse before, you better believe I'm sure as hell to do it again; and like this time, your new curse won't work. So let me get this one little simple thing in your big dense head: you have no power over me."

That last part rung through the air, vibrated off the walls and perhaps even the shadows. The Goblin King's face went blank. Slowly, he decided to pick himself off her and stood, deliberately brushing the dirt off himself. Sarah slowly sat up, watching him skeptically. He, however, showed no signs of trouble, so cautiously Sarah stood back up. The Goblin King turned away from her and Sarah, with a sigh, began brushing the dirt off herself as well.

Then suddenly something crashed her head; it broke with the high chime of glass shattering, and everything went dark, and Sarah felt the undeniable sense of falling.

I really need to stop with the cliffhangers, huh? And for those wondering/worrying, Jareth and Sarah will eventually not be angry at each other, but they got things to work out before they can be all cute and fluffy because, well, obviously they have issues...