A/N: You have no idea how sorry I am! School and work have been, quite frankly, hell, so all I've managed to do lately is scribble random sentences of this fic down on whatever was available. I thank all of you for being so patient with me. I promise the next chapter will be up much sooner.
Note: See if you can spot the quote from another fandom and you get a cookie!!
Disclaimer: I have reordered time…and still, I don't own Labyrinth
Sarah was already wide awake and glaring at the ceiling when Musa came to get her up the next morning. She hadn't slept well at all, her dreams punctuated by peaches and unicorns and Goblin Kings. And, of course, while Sarah was dead exhausted, her companion was overly enthusiastic about everything.
"Are you ready to have a spectacular day?" she asked brightly. "Because we're going to. I can feel it."
Sarah mumbled a reply into her pillow and the sprite smirked broadly. "Did you sleep well?" she asked knowingly, a twinkle in her steel-colored eyes.
Sarah sat up in order to look disbelievingly at her new friend.
"Your hair looks like a haystack…I like it."
Sarah scowled. "Do I look like I slept well?"
"Well, you do know what they say about insomnia?" Musa remarked. "People who can't sleep have guilty consciences."
Sarah said: "I don't know what you mean." and climbed out of bed, ending the conversation.
Musa forced the human girl to hurry, getting dressed and then dragging her off to breakfast. Sarah was sure it was illegal to be so energetic this early in the morning.
"Why are you in such a rush this morning, Musa?" queried Sarah, jabbing at her eggs until they got cold and runny.
"You'll find out after breakfast." the sprite said vaguely, spooning more porridge into her mouth. Sarah sighed in exasperation and set her fork down, waiting for Musa to finish.
"Are you still boycotting food?" wondered Musa, eyeing Sarah's untouched plate. Sarah decided not to reply and the Fae woman sighed, but waved a hand and all the extra food disappeared. Sarah tried to ignore the rumbling of her empty stomach and stood up.
"What's on the agenda for today?" she asked, trying not to sound impatient. The sprite's silver eyes lit up and she fluttered to Sarah's side.
"You and I," she said excitedly. "Are going to visit the sea!"
"Really?" Sarah tried to sound uninterested and failed miserably. "Just you and me?" she asked with some suspicion. Musa nodded, her ebony curls bouncing.
"For the whole day! We're leaving now. Everything is ready!"
"Then what are we waiting for?" Sarah exclaimed, allowing herself to be excited. "Let's go!"
Musa led her the same way they had gone the night before and, in a few minutes, they stumbled out into the sunlight, a few yards from the stables.
Sarah stopped dead in her tracks. Standing outside the stable were two horses, watching them approach calmly, both unteathered. The first was smaller, with a rippling roan coat and dark brown eyes.
The second horse was larger, tall and proud. Her coat shimmered somewhere between stormy grey, metallic silver and coal black. The horse leveled an imperious gaze at her and Sarah swallowed nervously. She got the feeling that they were waiting for her opinion. Never before had she seen such intelligent looking animals.
"They're beautiful!" she cried, taking a halting step forward. She longed to reach out and touch them, to see if their coats were as silky soft as she imagined. "What are their names?"
Musa was smiling as if she knew something that Sarah didn't. "They were named in ancient Fae languages, but the roughest human translations would be Willow--" the tan horse inclined her head. "And Stardust." The second horse continued to watch her with prideful curiosity. "We're going to ride them. You can ride, can't you?"
Sarah nodded, still maintaining eye contact with Stardust. "My father took me to a ranch to learn when I was nine." Before he thought I was crazy. she thought to herself with a twinge of sadness.
Musa clapped delightedly. "Excellent! I'll be on Willow then and Stardust is yours."
Though Sarah had expected such, it didn't make her any less nervous. She approached the horse so slowly that Musa was already mounted by the time she got close. She extended her hand slowly for Stardust.
"She can be a bit stubborn." warned Musa. "A bit like you." Sarah looked away from the horse for a split-second to give the sprite a scathing look. Then, her hand trembling, she reached towards Stardust again.
To Sarah's surprise, the horse nickered softly and nuzzled her nose against Sarah's hair. Before she could react, the horse was kneeling for her to climb on.
"Wow." Musa murmured as Stardust climbed lithely to her feet. "She usually insists on being difficult. I suppose this time similar personalities mix well." She gave Sarah that mysterious smile again and urged Willow forward, with Sarah following on Stardust.
The ride wasn't as bad as Sarah had expected. Though it had been years since she last rode, Stardust seemed to know exactly how fast or slow to walk to make sure her rider was comfortable.
The two girls rode in relative silence for a long time. They passed through a emerald-green forest and came out in a deep gully, with high cliffs on either side. Sarah was so lost in her thoughts that she barely noticed the surroundings.
She couldn't stop thinking about the consequences of this latest adventure. She was living under the roof of her worst enemy, her father under the impression that she had run away from a Psych ward and on top of all that, her precious baby brother no longer had her to protect him from goblins or anything else.
"We're nearly there." Musa's quiet comment broke through Sarah's thoughts and jerked her back to the present. She was suddenly aware of the sound of crying gulls and the smell of salt, water and sand. They rounded a corner and the cliffs stopped abruptly. Sarah was able, for the first time, to see the Labyrinth Sea up close.
It looked even more vast close up. Beyond a stretch of fine white sand, water lapped at the beach, glittering grey-blue in the sunlight. The water seemed to reach out to the very edge of the world, to the very end of everything and disappeared over the horizon. Overhead grey gulls floated on hot air thermals, barely taking notice of the newcomers.
"Hungry?" asked Musa as she slid gracefully from Willow's back. As soon as she did so, the horse galloped straight into the waves with a delighted whinny. Musa waved her delicate hand and a picnic basket and blanket appeared out of nowhere. Without waiting for a reply, she spread the emerald green blanket on the sand and sat the basket in the middle of it. The sprite folded her legs, dropping into a sitting position on the blanket and opened the picnic lunch. She started to pull out all sorts of dishes, still taking no notice of Sarah, who was still perched on her horse.
After a moment of hesitation, Sarah climbed down from Stardust's back. As soon as she was safely on the ground, the horse trotted down to the shore to waves where Willow was already playing. Musa looked up at the two horses, who were obviously enjoying the cool water after their long walk and smiled. Still, she made no sign to indicate that she was aware of Sarah's presence.
Her continued ignoring was really starting to irritate Sarah, so she took a seat on the blanket, grabbed a juicy-looking green apple and, after a split-second's pause, took a bite. She didn't realize she had eaten the whole thing until she noticed Musa staring bemusedly at her as the sticky juice ran down her bare arm to the crease in her elbow. She blushed.
"How long has it been since you've eaten properly?" the sprite asked. Sarah shrugged.
"A long time." She started to reach for the loaf of bread but, before she had even touched it, Musa had filled a plate with food and shoved it into her hands. Sarah scarfed it all down while her friend sat watching the waves.
"Better?" Musa asked when she had finished. Sarah nodded contentedly. "So you trust our food now?"
Sarah started to nod, paused and then nodded again. "I'm sorry."
"I understand." Musa hesitated momentarily and then spoke up again. "Sarah? Can I ask you a question?"
Sarah was lying back on the blanket with her eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face. "Mmmhmm?"
Musa tried to choose her words carefully. "Why did you…what made your parents…put you up in…that place?"
Sarah opened her eyes. "They...heard me...talking to myself. I had nightmares and--" she hesitated, sitting up and looking at her new friend somberly. "I saw faces...in the mirrors." she ended in a whisper.
"What kind of faces?" Musa was unsuccessful in keeping the curiousity out of her voice.
Sarah's eyes darkened. "I never could tell. They were too vague."
Musa sensed her dishonestly, but let it pass and changed her tact. "Are you glad to be out of that place?"
"Of course, but..." Sarah paused, trying to find a safe way to word her thoughts. "I never expected to end up here again."
Musa nodded. "Why do you hate him so much?" She didn't have to say his name, Sarah knew who she meant.
She opened her mouth to reply, paused, and closed her mouth again. Several long moments passed as Musa waited patiently for Sarah's answer. Menacing clouds began to unfurl overhead and thunder rolled in the distance, but Sarah was still contemplating.
The rain started gradually, a light pattering that they found easy to ignore. But, within minutes, it was an absolute downpour. Cold, fat drops thundered down, drenching them both in a matter of seconds. They jumped up and Musa used her magic to get rid of the picnic things as the horses trotted towards them.
Blinking the water out of her eyes, Sarah looked out at the sea through a curtain of rain. The waves had become black and angry, churning like the contents of an overboiled kettle. The clouds overhead were a violent purple and growing larger by the second. It was as dark as night until, only several hundred yards down the beach a purple-white lightning bolt flashed to the sand. Sarah stumbled, blinded and terrified back to the horses and Musa as the following thunder shook the very ground.
"Let's get out of here!" cried Musa, already clinging to Willow's thick neck. Sarah struggled to climb on Stardust's back, her hands slippery with wet. Finally, she managed, and they took off into the quickly worsening storm.
Sarah wanted to close her eyes, but, she was too scared to take her eyes off of the path barely visible through the rain. Water flew into her eyes and she blinked furiously, momentarily loosing her grip on the horse's soaked mane. Another flash of lightening and a loud boom of thunder later, Sarah heard the horse's terrified whinny and felt herself thrown into the air. She landed on her back in a puddle, all the air knocked out of her. Blackness clouded at the corners of her eyes, but she blinked in back and forced herself into a sitting position.
Gasping for breath, she clambered to her feet and squinted into the onslaught of rain. No Musa, no Stardust. She was utterly alone. A flash of lighening and the ensuing crack of thunder, both much closer than ever before, made her jump and her heart started to thud as she began to panic. She was alone in a terrible storm with no way of reaching safety. What was she going to do?
Another ear-shattering peal of thunder briefly interupted her panic with confusion. Why had more thunder come without lightening? Without warning, a hand closed around her wrist and pulled her off the path, under the trees where the rain was a little less heavy. It look her a moment to realize that an enormous, charred tree-branch lay on the path where she had stood just seconds before. After a few moments of her heart stuttering frantically, it occured to her that the hand was still wrapped around her own.
And then, suddenly, it was no longer raining. Sarah blinked in confusion, adjusting to the light and she gradually realized it was still pouring, only now she was inside. She was in the castle's entrance hall. The thunder outside seemed suddenly more distant and less dangerous.
She had been released as soon as she arrived in the room, but, once she got her bearings back, she knew she was not alone in the hall.
Sarah spun around. Standing directly in front of her was Jareth, somehow completely dry, though she was still dripping on the marble floors. His facial expression registered in her mind slowly. He looked furious and, for the first time in a while, Sarah felt a true thrill of terror rush through her.
"What" he said in a clipped tone, "were you thinking?"
"What exactly do you mean?" Sarah asked her voice sounding, if possible, colder than his.
"How could you allow yourself to get caught in such a terrible storm?" he elaborated.
Sarah's temper flared. "How can you possibly blame me for a thunderstorm?" she snapped in disbelief.
"If you had left the beach at the first sign of thunder" he argued. "You might have made it back before the storm had even begun!"
"Were you spying on us?!" Sarah shrieked indignantly.
"You could have gotten yourself killed!" he exclaimed, glossing over her question.
"What do you care?" she retorted. His mismatched eyes narrowed.
"I would think" he said deliberately and with the merest trace of a growl, "that point was made inescapably clear the last time you were here."
Sarah shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold. Nontheless, she persistantly clung to her argument. "I don't believe that for a second."
Whatever insult or remark he had been expecting, it wasn't that. His face was uncharacteristically screwed up in confusion. "You--"
The doors suddenly burst open and Musa shot it, droplets of rain flying off her wings, sparkling like diamonds. "Sarah!" she cried in relief. "Oh thank heavens!" She was soaked to the bone and shivering. It seemed to take her a moment to recogize the Goblin King's presence. "Oh! My Lord!" she bowed hurriedly, her damp wings trembling with cold.
"Musa." Jareth spoke without ever taking his eyes off of Sarah. "Please take our guest to her rooms, get her cleaned up and give her some dry clothing. If she is hungry" his lips curved into a bitter sneer. "Have some food sent to her chambers. Make sure to get yourself something dry to wear as well or you'll be ill."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Musa's head bobbed respectfully and she took to the air again. "Come Sarah."
Sarah walked slowly past Jareth, following the sprite. She didn't dare look up at him, though she could feel his eyes on her. As the door swung closed behing them, she risked a glance back at him. He was standing, motionless, staring directly into her eyes. She turned away hurriedly, as the door clicked shut, feeling far worse than she had at any time before.
A/N: Well, that's all for now, folks! Thanks so much for your patience, the next chapter is in the works and should be completed by Friday at the latest. Until then, ciao!