Alright, everyone - here we go. Chapter five. I'm a little late putting this up because I forgot what day it was... for three days... well... whatever. Anyways, to those of you who are worried about Jareth's last sentence in Chapter 4, don't worry too much - it'll come into play again later. I won't be ripping the rug out from the LOVELY ROMANCE just yet.

Please review.

Chapter 5

Sarah sat on the mattress of straw and feathers that was the sad excuse for her bed as she listened to Thilia's summary of her meeting with the Goblin King. Sarah hadn't told anyone that she'd met Jareth before, and neither had he, so when she'd asked to speak with him Thilly was utterly shocked. After all, no one spoke with the King. A wrong word and you could be damned to spend the rest of your life wandering the Labyrinth, trying to find a way back to the City, or beyond it, though no one really knew what was beyond that web of stone and hedges.

No, they were all quite content in their little shells, hiding from the wrath of King Jareth and hiding from any whisperings of truth or disbelief. They closed their minds from anything out of the ordinary. To them, if it wasn't Law, it simply did not exist. Frankly, their total willingness to just give up disgusted Sarah. Was it always like this – even before she'd rejected Jareth? Or was this part of the 'change' Jareth had created for his new world? A world of creatures and subjects who didn't doubt him and didn't question him? Sarah had a feeling that the Goblin King didn't like to be questioned.

"You can't talk to the King," Thilly said, a look of panic on her sweet face. She looked around her nervously, as if Jareth himself would smite her just for speaking of him, and then continued in a whisper, "It's a risk that none of us take! And, you, especially – you're new. You haven't even Changed yet!"

The other Changelings, who were the only truly intelligent residents of the castle besides the King, all thought she was a 'new edition', even though she was far too old to have been Taken.

"I'm not going to change," Sarah said to her with a tinge of malice. Jareth had specifically said that he wanted to 'keep her pretty face in tact' for his own amusement. "And I don't care. I have to talk to J-" Sarah stopped abruptly, clenching her jaw to keep herself from saying his 'improper' name, which was yet another taboo in the Servant world. "-King Jareth."

"This is about the Prince, isn't it?" Thilly asked, lowering her head and her voice in another secretive whisper. "Oh, Sarah, you shouldn't spend so much time with him."

Sarah almost screamed, but out of fear of sending Thilly huddling in a corner, she kept her composure. "And just why not?" she asked. "The King hardly speaks with him, and he's my brother in the first place!"

"Oh, Sarah, Sarah," Thilly said, shaking her head in misery. "You shouldn't say such things... A servant stating relation to royalty? It's unheard of! No, no, no!"

"Thilly!" Sarah said sharply, because the Changeling girl had taken to shaking her head and tsking to herself softly, completely ignoring Sarah's attempts to make eye contact. "Thilia! Thilia, stop it now!"

Thilly looked up. A Changeling rarely could disregard a direct command – even by another servant. Sarah took Thilly by her thin wrists and held the girl's fretting hands still. Sarah hated how all the servants – especially Thilly – were always on the edge of everything. A plate drops, and they all fear for heir lives before rushing in disarray to remove the evidence from sight.

"Thilly, didn't you notice that Tob-" Sarah stopped herself yet again. "-the Prince, and I arrived at the same time? We even look the same." She meant in the fact that neither one of them had been Changed yet, which set them both as a minority in the Castle.

But Thilly shooke her head, taking the meaning differently, "No, the Prince looks like King Jareth."

That sentence made Sarah's blood run hot, then cold. "Thilly. Because you're my friend, I'm going to pretend that you didn't say that."

Thilly looked down at her hands with such a shameful expression that Sarah instantly felt guilty. She apologized, and Thilly stood up.

"I have to do kitchen duty during supper," she said meekly. She turned to leave the dark little cupboard-room and, just as her hand was on the door handle, she looked over her shoulder at Sarah. "Did… Did you mean that? About us being friends?"

Sarah looked at her for a few moments before smiling and nodding. "Yes, Thilly... Yes, I did mean it."

Thilly looked slightly more cheerful at that and Sarah felt less terrible as the Changeling girl left, sweeping away in a flurry of thin cotton skirts and dingy apron before closing the door behind her with a hollow thud. This left Sarah alone in the stone room. She shivered and looked up at the small window – barely the size of an average piece of paper – with distaste. The glass in the window was stained a near-opaque yellow so that, even though a dull light could filter through, Sarah wasn't able to see outside. She hadn't seen the world out there since she'd arrived, and she found herself wondering about the change Jareth had mentioned. How much had it changed?

With a sigh, Sarah looked down at her hands. She thought about the Labyrinth as it'd been five years ago – when she had a group of wonderful friends to see her through every difficult situation. It was nice to have Thilly to talk to, but she wondered about them. Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus… What had Jareth done with them once she'd left?

Sarah thought back to the last day she saw them and closed her eyes.

"And remember, fair Maiden… Should you need us…"

"Yes… Should you need us... For any reason at all…"

"I'll call," she'd said. She'd promised.

Within an instant, tears fell from Sarah's eyes and she tried her best to fight back the sobs that wanted desperately to escape her mouth. How could she have been so selfish? She could escape Jareth's anger after she'd rejected him, but what about the actual citizens of the Labyrinth and the lands around it? She just thought that, once it was over, that it was over. She'd slowly forgotten about it, them, everything, and she moved on with her life.

But none of them moved on. She sometimes heard the cooks in the kitchen talking about the 'construction after the Girl' that was happening in the city. They didn't know her by name or face, however – just as a stubborn, selfish girl-tornado, tearing up their city and angering their already bad-tempered king. All she cared about in the beginning was herself – her wishes, her hopes, her fantasies, and in the end none of that really changed.

Except Toby. In the end, she realized that Toby mattered, and she cared about him. For a long time during her journey through the Labyrinth, her mission was fueled by fear – fear about what her parents would do to her, if she'd be arrested or if she'd tell them the truth and be admitted into an insane asylum. But in the end, when she saw that other people cared about her, and that she was capable of caring for other people, her mission changed. It wasn't for her, anymore. It'd been for Toby.

Sarah thought back to what Thilly had said. The resemblance between Toby and Jareth was frightening for her, though she didn't know how Jareth was explaining the sudden appearance of an heir to his 'Goblins'… Maybe he didn't have to? Maybe they just believed what was easiest, incapable of forming theories and hypothesis. Toby was the prince. Respect the prince. That was all they needed to stay safe in their little worlds.

Judging by the sudden orange-red tinge the light filtering through the yellow window was taking on, Sarah figured that sunset must be close. She inhaled deeply then exhaled in a self-composing rush.

Thilly appeared in the doorway, ready to guide Sarah to Jareth.

It was time to greet the King.