A/N: Hope you guys like this chapter, it was fun to picture in my head!
Sarah gingerly set the bright, morphing mass on the ground as it began to expand. When it was over, a sleek and powerful white quarter-horse stood before her.
Unable to stop herself, she tenderly stroked Jareth's long face.
"I know this is technically bad cuz it means we lost another hour," she commented with a small grin, "but you do look awesome."
Jareth shook out his light blonde mane as he shifted to the side, knelt down and presented his back to her.
"Seriously?" She blinked in surprise before an eager gleam flashed in her eyes. "Ok!"
Channeling only three (once-a-year) sessions of leisure horseback-riding experience, Sarah straddled Jareth's back and clutched his mane as he rose to his full height again.
"YAH!" She hollered, giving the Goblin King's flank a gentle kick.
After a short and completely motionless pause, Jareth stared over his shoulder at the girl.
"Sorry," she giggled, "just kidding!"
Who needs prince charming, she thought cheekily as Jareth then began trotting through the passage, when you can have a king AND a horse in one?
As Jareth followed the logically impossible twists and turns, Sarah's face gradually pulled into a determined frown. The image of Mya's laughing face made her grit her teeth in loathing. She'd lost all of her friends because of that…that psycho bitch!
She'll pay for what's she's done to my friends. I won't give up. I have to keep fighting for Hoggle. For Ludo and Sir Didymus. For Jareth. I beat this Labyrinth before and I can do it again. I can do this.
We can do this.
We'll win.
We'll win.
We will win!
About five minutes later, the path came to a fork. It continued straight on ahead, but there was an opening to the right leading to another narrow alley.
Jareth moved into the new area and Sarah's jaw dropped in astonishment.
"I don't believe it!" She huffed, angrily planting her hands on her hips as she surveyed the brown bricks and eyeball-lichen. She glared sharply at the way they'd just came.
"This I the same opening I took when I started! If I hadn't listened to that worm and kept going left, I would've beaten your Labyrinth like that!" She snapped her fingers for emphasis.
Jareth snorted.
"Sore loser!" She muttered with a smirk.
"'Ello!" A voice greeted pleasantly.
Peering in the direction of the voice, Sarah spotted the same blue worm from before, sitting innocently beside a tiny crack in the wall.
"You!" She exclaimed.
"Come ta meet the missus, then?"
"No we haven't come to meet the 'missus'," Sarah retorted, "we're trying to find the Labyrinth's Treasure. Where is it?"
"Come inside and have a cup 'a tea." The worm replied.
Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep, calming breath.
"I'm sorry," she managed to say in a clipped voice, "but we don't have any time for that. We have to find the Labyrinth's Treasure so we can break the spell on the king, save my friends and send Mya and the fairies back where they came from. Now please, do you know where the treasure is or not?"
"No, I'm just a worm."
Sarah rolled her eyes.
"I don't see how you can expect me to believe that when you lied about not knowing how to get through this Labyrinth."
"Oh no," the worm shook its head confidently, "I didn't lie ta ya, miss."
"Yes you did!" Sarah protested, gesturing behind her. "You told me to never go that way and it leads into the Goblin City where the castle is! You made me take the long way around!"
"Ya 'ad to." The worm countered. "Ya'd never have gotten through the city by yerself."
Sarah opened her mouth to argue but stopped short.
She hadn't considered that.
The only reason she'd been able to get past the city and reach the castle was because Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus had helped her fight off the Goblin Army.
"Ya don't go through the Labyrinth, miss," the worm calmly explained, "ya solve it. Ya can't go in and out like ya do in the woods, ya can only explore it til ya find what ya want in the middle. There's no bypassin' it. Ya have ta face the dangers untold and 'ardships unnumbered before ya claim the prize. Ya 'ave ta be challenged and learn."
If they decide to solve the Labyrinth, there are certain trials that they must overcome…They must learn to be brave, to trust, to be selfless, to use their wits, to be kind, to forgive, to show respect, to resist temptation, to show honor and most importantly, to never give up.
Sarah was speechless as she remembered the knight's words and through her amazement, something the worm just said tickled and nagged its way to the forefront of her mind.
"Till you find what you're looking for in the middle…" She whisper-repeated, mentally putting two and two together. "The castle beyond the Goblin City is in the middle of the Labyrinth," she surmised, "so the treasure…must be...under the castle!"
Jareth bobbed his head up and down.
"Alright!" Sarah declared, licking her lips in anticipation.
"So now we just need to find an oubliette. You wouldn't happen to know where one is, would you?" She asked the worm doubtfully.
"Who, me? No, I'm-"
"Just a worm." The girl finished with a sigh, directing Jareth back towards the alcove, the Stone Quarter was just a few miles to the right. "Well, thanks anyway."
"Wait!" The worm called, urgently. "Don't go that way!
Not this again. Sarah inwardly groaned, eyeing the worm suspiciously.
"Why not?"
"Goblin guards started patrollin' the Stone Quarter a little while ago." The worm warned. "Best to go this way."
He nodded in the direction Sarah had come from when she first entered the Labyrinth.
"No goblins or fairies or thorns that way. If ya just keep goin', yer bound to find somethin'. Ya always do in the Labyrinth."
Let's just hope it's a good something. Sarah thought anxiously.
"Sure ya won't come in ta meet the missus and 'ave some tea?"
"Some other time, thanks." Sarah declined, tapping Jareth again with her heels.
Instantly, the stallion took off down the corridor at a brisk canter.
Sarah was about ready to pull her hair out. Twenty minutes of nothing but a straight line!
God she was bored!
Not to mention extremely tired. She kept drifting in and out of consciousness only to blink fully awake lest she fall off the horse.
Her eyelids began to drift shut again and her head drooped. She longed for the comfort of her warm bed. She felt herself tilting…
She jerked up with an un-ladylike snort and harshly rubbed an arm over her eyes.
It took her a second to realize that Jareth had stopped in his tracks.
She groaned when she saw that the Goblin King was staring at.
The crack lay across the trail several yards away.
"Perfect." She grumbled as Jareth turned around and began walking away from the unfortunate roadblock.
After a few more minutes, just as she was about to suggest that they try their luck at finding another optical illusion-themed opening, Jareth made a sharp about-face.
"Jareth?" She asked nervously. "What are you-?"
Her question was cut off when the horse abruptly charged, getting faster and faster.
"Jareth! Sarah cried in alarm, fisting her hands in the stallion's mane and clenching her knees against his sides. "What the hell? Slow down, will ya? Have you lo-?"
At that moment, the sight of the rapidly approaching split in the Labyrinth caught her eye and her blood ran cold.
"JARETH!" She shouted over the wind rushing past her ears. "JARETH, STOP! STOP!"
She yanked on the Goblin King's head as hard as she could but the horse just ignored her.
"JARETH, DON'T! IT'S TOO FAR! WE WON'T MAKE IT!"
The edge was a few strides away giving Sarah only enough time to seize Jareth around the neck for dear life and squeeze her eyes closed.
With all of his strength, the horse leapt over the gorge. Sarah screamed as she felt the weightless sensation of being airborne.
"SHIIIIIIIIT, JAAAAARRREEEEETH!"
A firm jolt made the girl yelp and she timidly peeked one eye open.
A brick wall sat in her line of vision. They weren't burning to death in the lake of Fairy Venom.
Slowly, she straightened up and glanced behind her at the twenty-five foot long jump Jareth just successfully made.
"You idiot!" Sarah screeched, slapping Jareth's withers. "Don't you ever scare me like that again! Jesus!"
She rubbed her temples as she waited for her heart-rate to return to normal.
"Ok…let's go." She finally sighed, though she still felt a bit jittery.
"Hey," she said randomly once Jareth started pacing again, "you wanna hear a funny story about me and Toby?"
Hopefully, talking would help relax her nerves.
"So that's how I (yawn) lost my last baby-tooth. Mom wouldn't let Dad take me (yawn) bowling again for a year."
Sarah had been filling the drab silence with her rambling anecdotes for about the last ten minutes, but her exhaustion was becoming harder and harder to shake off.
"Man," she moaned after another particularly big yawn, "I am so gonna sleep for a week when this is over!"
After you and I have a clear talk about where we stand, Jareth.
"I gotta ad-(yawn)-mit," she continued, "this whole thing has been kinda weird (yawn) with you being so quiet."
"Not that I mind that much," she smirked, "since you can be a bit of a (yawn) windbag."
Jareth peeked at her again and neighed.
"Yeah, I did just say windbag." She yawned again. "Oh don't look at me like that; you know it's true."
Raising her arms over her head to stretch her muscles, she lost her balance and slipped off the side of the horse, landing in the dirt with a heavy thump.
"Ow!" She whined, rubbing her now bruised shoulder. "Son of a-!"
"Who goes there?!" A voice snarled.
Sarah clamped her hands over her mouth and listened closely. Neither she nor Jareth moved an inch.
"What are ya yellin' about now?" Another voice demanded in annoyance.
"I thought I heard somethin' over here." The first voice grunted.
Sarah trembled and broke into a cold sweat at the sound of nearby metallic shuffling. They sounded like they were just on the other side of the wall.
Cautiously, as if she were navigating a mine field, Sarah crawled towards Jareth and climbed onto his back.
"Go, quietly." She hissed under her breath.
As Jareth slowly and carefully stepped forward, a gentle breeze swayed the tips of a tall patch of grass over a twig, obscuring it from his view as his leg came down…
*SNAP*
A band of about fifteen goblins filed into the area behind the girl and the Goblin King.
"Told ya I heard somethin'!" A stout one with a hooked nose croaked, aiming his spear at the pair as did the rest of his comrades.
"Halt!" A different goblin growled. "Yer under arrest!"
"RUN!" Sarah cried needlessly as Jareth had already bolted and was now racing through the Outer Wall at a full gallop.
The teenager fisted her hands in the steed's mane and leaned in tight. The metal clang of the goblin's armor as they chased after them, pounded in the air.
Suddenly, they were falling.
The ground and the goblins vanished as she and Jareth plunged into darkness with nothing but a shrinking square block of light overhead.
All at once, she felt herself slide off of Jareth again as grasping fingers brushed against her and the horse, eventually stopping their descent.
"Hey there," a pair of hands chuckled forming a gnarled face, "we're the Helping Hands. Which way do you want to-?"
"Down, down, down!" Sarah frantically pleaded.
This was it. They'd found an oubliette!
"She chose do-own! Again!" The hands gleefully chorused immediately releasing the two.
What Sarah hadn't counted on, was what appeared to be a double sided chimney chute a few feet below.
"NO!" She shrieked as Jareth disappeared through the hole on the right and she plummeted into the left one, alone.
Dropping through a wooden trapdoor, she crashed into the dank darkness of The Oubliette.
A/N: Getting into the final act!