A/N: Oh my God, you guys! I am SO sorry it took so long to get this chapter out! I just had a lot of things pile up on me in a really short amount on time and I went out of town for a few days because got a little depressed over some crappy stuff, but I'm back now and ready to get back to this story!
Everyone gaped at the animal before them. The light had melted into Jareth's skin several moments ago, but no one seemed to be able to move or speak.
Finally, Sarah managed to muster up enough gumption to break the stunned silence:
"He's a sheep."
"A-actually, my lady," Sir Didymus stammered, "I believe the proper term is Dall ram."
"So, a sheep!" She emphasized in annoyance, glaring at the knight.
Her friend blushed.
"Erm, well…yes, my lady, yes, a…a sheep."
"Baa!" Jareth cried.
Sarah jumped in surprise as Hoggle suddenly burst out laughing.
The dwarf was so overcome with mirth, he started rolling around on the pavement and tears streamed down his rough cheeks.
Sarah had to bite her tongue to keep from joining in.
"Oh my heavens." Sir Didymus muttered to himself, rubbing his temple as if he had a headache.
"HORNS LIKE MINE!" Ludo hollered, pointing at Jareth's head in excitement.
But Jareth's attention was focused solely on the cackling dwarf. His beady, heterochromic eyes seem to narrow in fury.
"Uh, Hoggle?" Sarah asked hesitantly, noticing the Goblin King's change in mood.
Her increasingly hysterical friend didn't seem to hear her.
Jareth scraped his front hooves against the flagstone.
"Hoggle." Sarah warned again, leaning toward the still completely oblivious dwarf.
The ram lowered its horned head at Sarah's friend.
"HOGGLE!" Sarah now shouted, loud enough to snap him out of his gaiety. "KNOCK IT OFF!"
Unfortunately, it was too little, too late, because once Hoggle stopped his incessant chortling, Jareth charged forward.
Letting out an alarmed yelp, the dwarf took off running in circles around the three remaining companions, Jareth in hot pursuit.
"HELP!" Hoggle wailed in terror. "HE'S TRYIN' TO KILL ME!"
"Well you shouldn't have laughed at him, Hoggle!" Sarah scolded, frantically twisting her body in an attempt to keep both the dwarf and the ram in view. She wasn't sure who to grab first.
Before she could try her luck with tackling Jareth, Hoggle unexpectedly darted down a random passage. The Goblin King tore after him without a single misstep.
"HEY, WHOA!" Sarah yelled, now panicking herself as she sprinted down the path, Sir Didymus and Ludo following close behind her. "STOP! COME BACK!"
As she raced through the winding turns of the Stone Quarter, refusing to let the sheep out of her sight, she silently prayed than no one would fall into an oubliette or worse.
Thankfully, it didn't take long until the group rounded another sharp corner and found themselves at the mouth of a wide, straight passage with no other openings along the walls.
Hoggle and Jareth were still a few yards ahead, with Sarah, Ludo and Sir Didymus struggling to keep up.
By now, Sarah's legs were throbbing painfully and as she just happened to glance ahead of the dwarf and rapidly gaining Goblin King, her eyes widened when she saw what they were heading for.
The crack.
Oh my God!
"HOGGLE! JARETH!" She shrieked, heart pounding. "LOOK OUT! STOP!"
Neither party showed any sign of slowing down. Sarah skidded to a halt, along with the remaining two in her group. Her hand flew to her mouth in horror as Jareth at last managed to head-butt poor Hoggle in the rear end, only several steps from the edge, sending the screaming dwarf flying over the fissure.
Jogging the last few feet to Jareth's side, Sarah had half a mind to shove him off the cliff in retaliation, had her eyes not landed on her friend. He was a bit winded and disheveled, but safe and sound on the other side.
"HOGGLE!" She called in relief. "ARE YOU OKAY?"
"Yeah," came his distant and disgruntled response, "I think so."
Sarah watched as Hoggle got to his feet and dusted himself off. After shooting a quick glare at the ram, the dwarf glanced around to see where he'd landed. Large trees with thick, gnarled and glittery trunks dotted the landscape. The ground was covered in rocks, ferns and dead leaves.
"Well I'll be damned!" He grunted. "What incredible luck! HEY EVERYONE, I'M IN THE FIREY FOREST!"
"ARE-ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Sarah's incredulous voice echoed through the air.
"YAY!" Ludo bellowed
Sir Didymus bowed to the ram.
"Excellent aim, your majesty."
"Don't encourage him." Sarah lightheartedly checked the knight. "It was still a very mean thing to do. Besides, how are we going to get over there?"
She scanned the area. The split in the Labyrinth was somewhat narrow, but very deep. There was a strange, amethyst-colored substance at the bottom. It churned, gushed, sparked and smoked. Was it fire or a river? She shook her head to focus.
Maybe we could make a bridge?
Unfortunately, the more she considered it, the less she liked the idea. There was nothing but loose rock and two stone pillars that marked the entrance to the forest on their side, and even if Hoggle managed to construct a bridge (all by himself) using any logs or vines that might be in the forest, what guarantee did they have that it could support Ludo's weight?
We're short on time enough as it is, but it might take even longer to find another way over.
"My lord?"
Snapping out of her thoughts at Sir Didymus's voice, Sarah turned to see the knight and Ludo staring behind her.
Jareth was backing up down the alley. He lowered his horns and scraped his hooves again.
"Oh, no." Sarah gasped, face turning white. "No way! Jareth, don't you dare!"
The Goblin King ignored her and, in the blink of an eye, rushed forward like a freight train.
"JARETH!" Sarah squealed in fear as she and her other two friends scrambled to get out of the way. "I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU-!"
Her rant died in her throat as the ram shot right past the trio and smashed into one of the stone pillars.
The column wobbled.
Jareth stumbled back, shaking his head in obvious disorientation and Sarah felt an overwhelming sense of worry fill her chest as she realized what he was trying to do.
"Wait, wait." She pleaded as the ram retreated for another go. "Jareth, don't! You'll hurt yourself!"
But Jareth just dashed forward again and slammed into the unstable pillar a second time.
"SIR HOGGLE!" Didymus barked as the column tipped forward. "HEADS UP!"
The dwarf bolted out of the way as the pillar fell across the gorge with a thunderous crash, forming a perfectly sturdy bridge.
Ludo and the fox knight cheered as they hurried across to join their waiting friend. Only Sarah noticed that the sheep had collapsed.
"Jareth?" The girl whispered cautiously as she knelt beside the unconscious ram. "Jareth, are you alright?
No. Please, no!
"Can you hear me?"
He was breathing, but otherwise motionless.
"Jareth," Sarah repeated in a wavering tone, "you've got to get up."
She gave him a gentle nudge.
"Come on, get up." She begged, running her hand across the course, white hairs on his back.
Tears pricked her eyes when he remained unresponsive.
"Please, Jareth." She almost whimpered. "Please, wake up."
As her fingers passed over Jareth's upper back and neck, she paused when she heard a soft moan.
Furrowing her brows, she carefully rubbed the spot again.
The ram twitched and moaned louder, pressing its body against her hand.
With a mischievous grin, Sarah firmly scratched Jareth's shoulders, unable to resist the temptation.
He squirmed and groaned in contentment under her ministrations.
When one of his hind legs kicked out like a dog's, a feminine giggle burst from Sarah's lips...
...and instantly, Jareth's eyes snapped open.
The girl and the Goblin King stared at each other for a grand total of three seconds before Jareth quickly and clumsily got up, snorted angrily in Sarah's (now beet-red) face, then bounded across the bridge to the others.
Sarah blinked as her mind absorbed what had just transpired.
Oh my God! She thought in embarrassed astonishment. What the heck was that? I-I just…pet him!
"Anythin' wrong, Sarah?" Hoggle inquired once the girl trudged across the bridge.
"Just take us to your house." She murmured, ducking her head to hide her extremely flushed cheeks.
As the dwarf led the way through the Firey Forest, Sarah kept her gaze glued to the dirt, trying to banish the annoyingly persistent image of touching Jareth that way again…in his true form.
It had taken about fifteen to twenty minutes for the group to arrive at Hoggle's house.
It was a quaint little adobe, one-room cottage covered in ivy. The door was too small for Ludo to squeeze through and Hoggle had threatened to skin him if he tried that 'pulling the wall open trick', so their big friend had to stay outside as the rest did their research.
Hoggle's home was plain, but cozy. The south wall was lined with four built-in shelves, jam packed with folded maps and numerous leather-bound journals cataloguing the various creatures, adventures, and places Hoggle had encountered in the Labyrinth. Various stacks of papers, a worn out-looking quill pen and an empty ink bottle sat atop an old wooden table in the center of the room. There was a kitchenette on the east side of the house next to a humble fireplace. A lumpy bed sat in the north-west corner to the right of the front door.
"Hmm," the dwarf grumbled as he inspected his twenty-third map of the Labyrinth, "we may have more of an advantage than I thought."
"Why do you say that, Hoggle?" Sarah asked hopefully, looking up from the pile of papers she was skimming through.
She'd been tasked with examining any loose documents and manuscripts the dwarf had lying around. Sir Didymus was flipping through the journals while Hoggle studied the maps and Jareth…sat on the floor doing nothing.
"Well, it looks like the Labyrinth's stuck." Her friend explained, picking up yet another map and tracing a finger across the marked parchment. "Yes, I'm pretty sure of it. It's true the Labyrinth's broken alright, but we already know it's not dead 'cause it rejected Mya as queen and created an electric discharge when I threw that rock. But that trail we just took through the forest to get to my house, I took that exact same path this mornin' when I left to patrol the perimeter and ran into you, Sarah. I swear that trail hasn't changed one bit!"
Sarah tilted her head in confusion.
"So?"
Hoggle sighed impatiently.
"So, I mean that, for the most part, the Labyrinth's like an ordinary maze now. Pretty much everythin' is stagnant. We don't have to worry about weird doors poppin' up or getting' separated by movin' walls. We can even retrace our steps if we need to! No one's ever been able to do that!"
"But how can you be absolutely sure that that's the same path you took before?" Sarah nodded towards one of the tiny windows. "How long does it take for the Labyrinth to change anyway?"
"It can take any time between a few seconds, to several hours, my lady." Sir Didymus supplied. "However, the entire Labyrinth is supposed to automatically take a brand new form once a runner has returned to the Aboveground. It appears that the Labyrinth has not…reset since you completed it. It is not the Labyrinth itself that changes, fair maiden, it is only the routes one takes that alter over time."
"Right." Hoggle continued. "The areas in the Labyrinth always stay the same: the Outer Hall, the Stone Quarter, the Oubliettes, the Tunnels, the Hedge, the Firey Forest, the Bog of Eternal Stench, the Junkyard, the Goblin City and the Castle. The 'where ya go' never changes, just the 'how ya get there'. Understand?"
"Um, yeah…I guess so." The girl shrugged, going back over her handful of pages. She paused as her eyes caught a certain passage. "Hey, guys? What's the Labyrinth's treasure?"
Three pairs of eyes looked up at her.
"Oh, it's nothin' but an ol' wives tale." Hoggle said dismissively. "I just wrote that down one day out of boredom."
"According to legend, my lady," Sir Didymus answered, clearly more interested, "the Labyrinth's treasure is a jewel with magic powerful enough to grant any wish without any restrictions. They say it is hidden somewhere in the Labyrinth and is as old as the king himself."
"Rubbish!" Hoggle spat. "If somethin' like that existed, don't you think somebody would've found it by now? Nobody's ever seen it!"
"That doesn't necessarily mean it isn't real, Hoggle." Sarah countered. "It sounds like the perfect way to restore the Labyrinth, to me!"
"But it's just a story!" The dwarf protested. "We've got no proof that there is such a thing! Besides, even if it is true, how would we ever find it? We don't have any clues and Jareth can help us!"
The Goblin King hung his head in apparent defeat.
"I hate to admit it," Didymus mumbled, "but I'm afraid Sir Hoggle has a valid point, my lady. It could be a waste of time."
"Do you guys have any better ideas?" Sarah challenged. "Somehow, I know we're gonna need some kind of magic to fix this. Everyone else is being held prisoner at the castle, so we're on our own. Jareth doesn't have any magic and we sure as hell can't get any help from the fairies."
Hoggle's jaw opened and closed stupidly.
"If there is a Labyrinth treasure," she went on with growing conviction, "and if it can do what the legend says, then…I think it's the best option we've got."
No one said anything for a short while, not until Jareth marched determinedly to the door and eagerly tapped his horns against the frame.
"Well," the dwarf sighed with resignation, "it's a long shot, but then again, so is runnin' the Labyrinth under normal circumstances."
"And I do so relish a noble quest." The fox knight declared with gusto. "A harrowing adventure, a heroic challenge, a daring brush with-"
"Thank you, Sir Didymus." Sarah cut in, stuffing the paper into her pocket and heading to the door. "Let's just get moving"
The quartet had barley taken three steps outside when a sharp titter rang through the trees.
Everyone froze in their tracks and looked up to see Mya reclining on a nearby tree limb.
Ludo growled dangerously.
"Sorry," the Fairy Queen giggled scornfully, "I couldn't help overhearing. So you're going to try and find the Labyrinth's treasure, are you? But isn't that just, as you humans so delicately put it, a fairy-tale?"
She sneered directly at Sarah casing the girl to clench her fists.
"You're all so incredibly pathetic. I swear, it's the most amusing thing I've ever seen." Mya squeaked cruelly, taking wing and slowly floating closer. "I'll enjoy watching you all wander about like fools, looking for a gem that may or may not exist.
"But rest assured," She stated in a low, sugary tone, "if that treasure is in fact, real," she stopped her advance and hovered few inches from Sarah's face and teased with childlike haughtiness, "you'll never find before I will. So why don't you just all...give…up!"
Before Sarah could utter so much as a syllable in reply, a bright flare shot out from her left.
Jareth bleated in pain as the light consumed him again.
"Oh, dear!" Mya exclaimed in mock concern. "Looks like you've lost another hour already!"
The shining form began to morph into a new shape.
A larger shape…that grew bigger…and bigger.
Sarah and her friends backed away nervously.
Mya's high pitched laughter immediately dried up when the glow faded and Jareth's new form was revealed.
A/N: Pleasepleaseplease review! I've missed you guys so much! If you can guess what animal Jareth's has changed into, you get a sneak peek at the next chapter!