"Sky's Eclipse"
Chapter 62
By Aiijuin
*Disclaimer =Labyrinth (c) Henson, Lucas, Jones, Froud; Gröeg (c) Brian Froud, Winkin', Blinkin' & Nod (c) Mothergoose Nursery Rhymes. Torok is from 1986 movie Troll, but has been changed around to meet my story expectations.
Be warned: Although this is a Sarah/Jareth romance story, it is also a profoundly dark fairytale!
Rated M+(Adult Scenarios, Abrasive Language, Innuendos, Sensuality)
**NOTE: Story numbering is behind by 1 chapter, because there is a prelude, which is not considered a chapter. Fanfiction . net automatically assigns numbers to the chapters by default, which I have not control over. Thank you!
Chapter 62: Move the Stars
Sarah stood up slowly as her eyes began to open. There was a strange look upon her face, but Jareth immediately recognized it as the alter ego of the Goblin Queen. Still angry with her for her recent betrayal with Arther, Jareth asked Sarah snidely, "So, which Sarah are we masquerading as this time?"
Sarah narrowed her eyes, released her grip upon his arm, and then glanced upon the glass jar within his hands. She quickly swiped it from him, and then marveled at the spider within. After studying the creature for a moment or two, Sarah returned Jareth's gaze and finally answered, "All of them…"
Then, she pursed her lips angrily and threw the glass to the floor, which smashed it into tiny shards and released Arachni from her imprisonment. The platinum haired 'Jessica' had resurfaced with tears of fright streaming down her face. Jessica glanced up at Sarah for an explanation, but the only word that the Goblin Queen uttered was, "Run."
The she-elf didn't waste any time by asking questions. Immediately, she ran towards the exit of the castle without looking back.
Sashya tried to run forward to embrace Sarah, but was stopped by Torok. Sashya was about to ask her husband why he had stopped her, but she became distracted when Sarah turned towards the front doors of the castle where Jessica had just exited. The Troll Queen cried from Torok's clutching arms, "Sarah! Where are you going!?"
Sarah didn't turn to face Sashya, but answered her in a calm voice as she continued to walk towards the doors, "Outside."
At that word, the massive doors of Jareth's castle were thrust from their hinges and flung outward into the crumpled Labyrinth. Jessica, who had been running towards Mr. & Mrs. Williams's last known location, in order to get them to safety, found herself directly in one of their paths. Arachni flinched as she saw the huge door veering quickly towards her head, and knew that she wouldn't be able to dodge it in time. Suddenly, Toby had reappeared directly behind her as his youthful, teenage-self again and pulled her towards the ground at the last second. However, since neither was low enough to escape the bottom corner of the door, the she-elf used her magic and wove a net to catch the door before it hit them. Both of the youths looked in shock for several seconds, and then Jessica finally caught her breath and uttered, "Toby? I thought that the Goblin King had done something horrible to you?!"
Toby stammered, "Yeah, he did… He sent me to a place that smelled worse than B-Man's gym locker at the end of the school year… I still have no idea how I became young again. Weird, huh? Maybe my sister broke Jareth's spell and freed us. I guess it doesn't matter anyway. We're back, right?"
Karen and Robert had also been returned back to their average, middle-aged selves and were calling for Toby and Jessica to hurry towards their position. When the she-elf and the teenage boy had finally reached the parents, Mrs. Williams was already in an uproar, "Oh! This is a terrible place and just look at all of these crazy things that are happening here! Robert, where is that horrible man that brought us here? I hope we never have to see him again…"
Robert interrupted his wife's comments by shouting, "Look! It's Sarah! Sarah! Honey! We're over here!"
Toby tried to run towards his sister, in order to get her to safety, but Jessica pulled him back.
"Toby!" Jessica yelled, "Don't! She's a part of this place now! You can't help her anymore… We need to get out of here before it begins."
Although vague, Jessica's words had said it all. Toby Williams understood what she had meant and remembered that Sarah's great power had awoken at last. However, as he looked around him, he could see that it was already too late to reach a safe location. The fallen Labyrinth walls began to disassemble themselves into basic stones and hover above the ground. Robert fell backwards as a huge stone flew closely by his nose. All of the rocks began to rotate around the castle and spin higher and higher into the skies as they did so. Sarah walked forward without any emotion on her face. Torok and Sashya followed arm in arm at a far distance behind her monitoring everything that she was doing. Jareth observed from his palace entryway, where the two massive wooden doors had once stood. He didn't walk beyond the stairs.
Sarah began to strut forward into the cyclone of rocks that swirled around the castle like leaves caught in a fall breeze. Toby and his family had all covered their heads as they ducked low to the ground for safety. They couldn't run, because they were surrounded by the rocks that kept soaring faster and faster within the vortex around the perimeter of the Jareth's Castle.
Sarah was standing unscathed within the walleye of the stony hurricane, as a flock of crows soared down from the skies. They moved directly under Sarah's feet as she strolled casually forward unto their backs. The flock kept getting thicker until it formed a moving sea of stairs that made their way towards the sky. Sarah stepped on each stair, which was actually the birds taking turns supporting her feet as she moved upward.
The sound of the high winds, multitude of crows, and the swirling rocks made it impossible for Toby to hear his mom ranting next to him. She wasn't able to say much anyway, because the dust kept getting in her mouth. As Toby looked upon the spectacle, he could only respond, "Whoa!"
Up, up, up, the Goblin Queen climbed until several of the rotating stones formed an archway directly in front of her. Meanwhile, the two broken castle doors had been blown up to meet the archway and formed a portcullis within the clouds.
The birds under Sarah's feet glided her towards one of the doorknockers and she proceeded to use it. After Sarah knocked three times, the two castle doors opened to a vestibule within the sky. Out of it flew the white barn owl that Toby recognized from the Isle Beyond Time. It alighted on Sarah's arm as she whispered to the bird, "Go!"
The owl returned back into the entrance, and when it returned, it was followed closely by a trail of moon fairies and various other magical creatures that Toby had seen within the mystical Isle. Haggle, Hogwart, Hogshead, Huggle, Higgle, and Horrible came tumbling out of the door with a startled cry. They hadn't realized they were high within the skies…
Luckily, the two sphinxes chose this moment to fly through the portcullis, grab hold of the six falling dwarves, and lower them safely to the ground. Their long lost brother, Hoggle, stood there tapping his foot angrily. He confronted the six dwarf brothers with impatience in his voice, "So, this is where ya' all been hidin'? Figures that I get stuck here with that rat Jareth, while you get an extended vacation somewhere peaceful without no rules."
"Oh, 'peaceful' he says," Joked Higgle, "At least you didn't hafta' stand guard watchin' a dead lady for all eternity…"
They didn't have time for further reunion conversation, because at that moment, the doorway had closed and the wooden doors fell back down to the ground with a deafening crash. The seven dwarves ran for cover until the storm of stones subsided. Jessica and the others had to twist and dodge all of the falling debris from the archway as they continued to avoid being hit by the continuously flying rocks as well.
Sarah looked towards the boundaries of the Goblin Kingdom, as the two gigantic sphinxes grabbled the spires of Jareth's castle and pulled upwards. The Castle Beyond the Goblin City began to shift off of its foundations and soar high into the air. The birds became thicker and thicker, until they had taken the place of the ground beneath the feet of everyone below Sarah. Toby had never felt anything like it before, nor would he ever again. He and his family were, literally, being lifted high up into the skies upon the backs of common birds. The stones began to crash down again to the ground, as they reformed the walls of the Labyrinth, however, they didn't have such a far distance to fall anymore.
The ground had been built up to its once normal surface level as it had once stood before the cataclysm of the Great War had struck long ago. Now, the ravine that had once separated the Goblin Kingdom and the Troll Kingdom no longer existed.
The whole moment ended with a climax, as Ludo called the rocks with his song and they rolled to the center of the Labyrinth, creating a new foundation for the castle to sit upon and, thus, raise it back to the highest point within the kingdom. The sphinxes lowered Jareth's castle back down to sit upon the newly settled foundations. Ludo called more rocks until a high stairway was rebuilt up to the entrance of Jareth's Castle.
When the dust had finally cleared, the swarms of birds lowered the people and goblins upon their backs and placed them carefully down onto the ground right at the bottom of the castle's new steep staircase. Fairies danced around the palace carrying the old wooden doors back up to its entrance. Torok and Sashya watched as the tiny, sparkling beings reconnected the doors and then transformed them into something more welcoming with their magic. With a bit of pixie dust, the old, massive, wooden doors became shiny, golden doors with ornate, silver hinges.
Other fairies began to use their magic to reanimate the gardens around the castle and within the Labyrinth. The crows and ravens took their place in the newly grown trees and small forests. Several even sat high upon the spires watching the final moments of intense magic take place. The guardian sphinxes reclaimed their ancient spot at the entrance of the castle doors.
The white barn owl encircled the palace high above until it decided all was back in place, and then returned to its favorite place upon Sarah's shoulder. The Goblin Queen, Sarah, stood atop of one of the inner walls, walking along them like a ridge post. She had a look of amusement upon her face as she approached the innermost wall overlooking the bottom of the steep castle stairs. Jareth strutted down them until her reached the lowest one, and then glanced up at her as she remarked slyly, "There, now. I've finished the yard chores, so you can go back inside and complete the house chores."