Very, very sorry for the long hiatus. I wanted to put up a little notice that I wouldn't be updating for a while, but I never got around to it... Which is a bit ironic, in a way...

Anyways, I've been majorly busy writing things, but not fun things like Labyrinth fanfictions. I've been busy writing a boring, tedious, mind-numbing thing called the Junior High School Research Paper. And it was horrible, and devastating, and I'll never be the same again.

But I have updated now and I hope you enjoy. (:

Chapter 16

Sarah quickened her pace to catch up with both the dubious Hoggle and the excited Toby, towing Thilly along with her until they reached their two traveling companions. For a fleeting moment Sarah didn't see anything remarkable other than very large, broad leaves in varying hues – a nice alteration from the miles of dusty stones and rock walls they'd seen so far, but still nothing that a six-year-old boy would be excited about. But as Sarah drew closer, she realized that the vivid fauna surrounding them was little more than camouflage for the incredible sight beyond.

Hoggle stood next to Toby, one hand grasping the back of the boy's collar as the other held on to the stalk of what looked like a giant flame-colored fern. Toby was leaning precariously over the edge of a rock face, the tips of his tennis shoes just a few inches past the ledge, and grinning wildly at the sight below him. Thinking quickly like the protective sister she was, Sarah snatched Toby back from the ledge and forced him to sit a safe two-foot distance from the steep, rocky drop.

"Hey!" Toby cried, his happy grin vanquished for the time being. "Hoggle had me just fine! I was perfectly safe – tell her Hoggle! I want to see!"

Sarah just shook her head, inching closer to the ledge herself and holding onto a bright green, bamboo-like plant for support. She squinted down into the darkness and could see, by the light of the moon overhead, that the chasm was enormous – large enough to fit three or four of the Williams' house on the gorge's floor and still have room leftover. Sprouts and sprigs of various vegetation, trees, thistles, all covered ledges both wide and narrow, and a tiny stream trickled through the center of what seemed to be a village.

"What is this, Hoggle?" Sarah asked.

The dwarf let out a sigh and Sarah turned to see that he was squinting at the canyon and its village with concentration. He shook his head, then looked up, to the left, and to the right.

"Looks like this's where the Forest and the Bog used t'be," he stated after a pause.

"But... How did it sink? You said it was demolished, but never that it sank. And there are no signs of a bog being here, or a forest other than these plants – what could have happened?"

"I never said nothin' about it bein' destroyed naturally… I said that Jareth destroyed it. Completely gutted it 'till nothin' was left but rocks, it looks like."

Sarah's eyes widened, "You're telling me that he removed the forest and the bog? Like… Slicing out a piece of pie or something?"

"Looks that way."

Sarah shook her head, still not understanding. "But why didn't he just... flatten it out? Why did he remove it?"

Hoggle shrugged, "Jareth ain't right in the head – simple as that."

Toby rushed up next to Sarah and she instinctively gripped the stalk she'd been holding on to tighter. Thilly moved to grasp her skirt hem in what Sarah assumed was another instinctive motion, but Toby apparently thought that gravity didn't affect him and looked at the long drop from the ledge with the same carelessness as someone stepping down from a step ladder. Sarah wondered if it was an after-effect of the time when he was an infant and Jareth had made it so gravity didn't effect him in the Staircase Room. Toby looked down on the village with bubbling glee, verging on fanatical happiness.

"Can we go down there? Can we please? I want to meet some Underground-ians!"

Hoggle rolled his eyes, "You've already met some. Lots of 'em, in fact!"

Toby frowned, "I want to meet more!"

Sarah looked at Hoggle, silently asking his opinion on whether or not it'd be safe to go down to the village. The dwarf sighed and shrugged again, moving away from his flame-colored fern and walking to the left. He pushed back some hanging, seaweed-looking vines and revealed curving, shallow stairs that had been carved directly into the rock and wrapped all the way around the gorge until the leveled out on solid ground almost halfway to the other side.

"I suggest y' mind Master Toby," he said gruffly. "There ain't no hand rails."

Toby hopped up and down a few times before Sarah snatched him into her arms. She moved carefully away from the ledge and to the stairway, eyeing the narrow steps with caution.

Thilly smiled pleasantly at Sarah, "If you don't think you can carry Pri- I mean, Toby… If you don't think you can carry him down the stairs, I'd be happy to."

Sarah shook her head, "No. I've had to descend ladders as Juliet, without looking, while remembering lines, on a stage built by college Freshmen… I think I could manage some stone steps."

Toby nodded, leaning in close to Thilly to whisper seriously, "Sarah was an actress."

Stifling a giggle, Sarah followed Hoggle and navigated her way down the stone steps. They were shallow, which was thankful, but she also noticed that they were very narrow. In order to keep Toby from dangling over open air as she carried him, or scraping against the sheer rock on the opposite side, Sarah had to go down sideways.

"I can walk on my own," Toby whined, trying to wiggle out of Sarah's grasp.

She held on tight. "No, you can't. If you'd stop squirming this would be a lot easier on me, you know. Just stay still for five minutes and we'll be down on level ground and you can run wherever you like, poking fairies, kicking talking trees and waking up these poor peaceful villagers just to get a good look at them - whatever, just give me five minutes while I try not to fall to my death, will you?… I don't know where you got this irritating, stubborn independence of yours but it's getting really old, Toby."

Hoggle coughed loudly ahead of her, and Sarah had a distinct feeling that he was trying to say something. She gave him a glare that he couldn't see, as his gaze was directed precisely away from her.

"What did you say, Hoggle?"

"Nothin'. I ain't said a word."

Thilly giggled happily and Sarah turned her head slightly to shoot the Changeling another glare. Thilly covered her smiling mouth with a thin hand, but her large, expressive eyes were sparkling with laughter.

Sarah's head turned back and forth between her friends, "No, really – what is it, you guys? …Hoggle? What?"

Hoggle muttered something that Sarah couldn't hear, and she asked him to repeat it.

"I said," he started, "he'd prob'ly got it from you."

Aghast, Sarah's eyes widened. "You're implying that I'm stubborn?"

"I ain't implyin' nothin'. I'm flat out sayin' yer stubborn – and irritatin', and too independent fer yer own good, and there were times in our acquaintance that y'reminded me quite a lot of a overactive, curious child not unlike young Toby there."

"You're saying I was like a six year old when we first met?"

He stopped and turned around and Sarah was thankful that he was several steps ahead of her, or she would have stopped short and probably would've been flung into the chasm. "If it makes ya feels any better, you ain't as annoyin' as ya were," said Hoggle, his face serious.

"Thanks."

They continued on in a pleasant silence – save for Toby crying out occasionally when he saw something interesting in the distance – until they were all finally on even, solid ground. Sarah let Toby down and moved her aching arms, sitting down on the second to last step to try and catch her breath. Her brother ran off to one of the stone cottages and Thilly raised her brow in a silent offer to go after him. Sarah nodded, too tired to try herself, and Thilly set down the supply packs to trot after the little boy.

"What're ya getting' too old for all this adventure'n stuff?" asked Hoggle, walking up beside her and setting his own pack next to the pile of others.

Smiling wanly, Sarah shrugged, "Maybe. This was really exciting when I was fifteen – scary, at times, but exciting – and I wouldn't give up my experiences, even the bad ones, for anything… But now it just seems so desperate, and I don't know why… I mean, I know I should get Toby out of here and everything, but it's not as direct as it was… Not as black and white."

Hoggle sat down on the grown next to her, looking up. "How's that again?"

Sarah shrugged again and winced, the movement making her aching shoulder creak. "Before it was simple – complete the Labyrinth, defeat Jareth, get Toby, and we'd just go home. One, two, three, done… But now I feel like I'm taking a trip around the world just to go next door… I feel like I'm taking the long way around, and what's worse is I don't even know what's out there… I don't know what path I'm taking, where I'm going or…"

She trailed off, unwilling to say the words she was thinking: Why she was going. She didn't know why, deep down – she knew well enough that, once she got home, she would be even less happy there than she was when she was scrubbing the floors of the Castle's dining hall. She had friends here, and her brother, and…

Jareth. She'd have Jareth, and she could no longer tell for sure if that was a reason for leaving or a reason for staying. Sarah glanced up at the large moon – no longer full, but large enough to look like it. Large enough to feign perfection. Was that all Jareth was? Feigned perfection? He held himself like he could do no wrong, but Sarah knew he often did. He made many mistakes and the most prominent one was underestimating her, lying to her…

But then, in that aspect, Sarah was just artificial. She remembered her days of making herself up, making herself someone else than what she was – she was an actress, after all – and she remembered how she'd believed that the world was always out to get her. Back then, she'd thought she could do no wrong, blind to all her faults… and Jareth had opened her eyes to them, in his own way. He'd tested her, made her break under the pressure as she tried to get through the Labyrinth, and she'd tested him during their final meeting. She'd revealed his faults to him when she'd rejected him, when he'd realized that not everyone would succumb to his promises of perfection and fantasies.

"Sarah, Sarah!" Toby cried, racing out from behind one of the stone houses and breaking her concentration.

When Sarah didn't see Thilly with him she though that something had gone wrong, that maybe Hoggle had made a mistake in assuming that this village was safe, but then she saw the large figure lumbering up behind him and she grinned much like the six-year-old child Hoggle had compared her to earlier that night.

"Friend!" the beast growled, slowly and deliberately.

Sarah laughed something that sounded like a cross between a chuckle and a hysterical sob and rushed up to wrap the wooly creature in as big a hug as she could manage.

"Ludo!"