"What do you mean belong to you?" Sarah's hands shook and her voice was strained. Now would be the perfect time for a nice fix, to get that feeling of dread from the pit of her stomach.
"Come now, Sarah, you have been through this before." Jareth rolled his strange eyes ostentatiously.
She was silent as the knowledge sank in. How could this happen? How could she have been so stupid? Then an idea struck her. Of course. She smiled frantically. "The labyrinth then! I'll do the labyrinth again."
"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. How I adore your efforts. Unfortunately, I will not allow such an endeavor once more." He placed his cheek in his gloved hand, never letting his smile falter.
"But." She stammered. "But, I have done it already….for my brother. You have to let me do it again! It is the rules!" She was pleading.
Jareth may have laughed if his patience was not being tested. As it was, he was growing agitated. His smile now fled from his face. "Rules, Sarah? I am the King. I make the rules." He leaned forward causing Sarah's nervosa to jump seven-fold. He assumed the drug gave her weakness to her emotions, for she was never so upfront with her fear before. "Besides, seeing as I have saved your life, I declare you owe it to me." He found his smile now as he festooned it back into place, one corner slightly higher than the other.
How he was loving fate. The once bold, adventurer, Sarah was reduced to this fitful girl. She was to be his slave. He laughed inside; how fitting.
"And just what am I to do here?" Her neck grew painful from staring up at him. She dropped her eyes to the floor in defeat. Trapped in the Underground…but for how long? Forever isn't very long at all.
"Hmm," The King began circling her again. He could not help but compare Sarah to that of a field mouse when he has cornered it from the sky. "Well, for starters, you are to address me as 'Your Highness' or 'Your Majesty.'" He paused, behind her, waiting for a reply.
She realized what he wanted, but she was not sure if she could muster such a saying. Pushing something back down into her stomach she let the words free. "Yes, your majesty."
He nodded although she could not see the playful gleam in his eye. How he loved to toy with his prey.
"Let's see. What can our Sarah do?" He placed a finger on his chin to mimic deep thought. "Perhaps I may have you clean the entire castle with a bar of soap and an old dirty rag? Maybe I'll have you analyze the fecal matter of my kingdom." He laughed at this thought. "No, no, perhaps not." He stepped in front of Sarah again. "I think I have a job better suited for you though."
Sarah stole a glance of his face. Jareth's entire body oozed malice. The way his eyebrows narrowed to the way his hands seemed to be restraining themselves from choking the life out of her. "And, just what, Your Highness, is that?" She sneered out her words.
"You will be my goblin sitter. There are so many younglings around here and they are so very distracting from their parents. So, you shall keep an eye on them, all day, everyday."
Sarah secretly hid the joy that danced under her skin. Children, he wanted her to watch children? How simple. She began to wonder if he knew of her background, or at least her job back home at the daycare. "Very Well." He stared at her. "Your Highness."
Jareth was overjoyed. How easily Sarah had given into him. The ordeal was almost not fun due to Sarah's early acceptance. Actually, it quite troubled him.
"Good. Then, you shall start tomorrow." He sauntered back to his throne, lounging powerfully against the bony armrest.
"Then I guess I'll return to my room." She turned to leave. "If you'll excuse—"
"Oh, Sarah." Jareth's voice rang with a sort of amusement. She turned to face him her face wreathing. "The room you have been residing in is a guest room."
"Am I not a guest?"
He ignored the fact that she was deliberately refusing to address him properly. He let a low chuckle escape his lips. "No, Sarah. You are a belonging. Tell me, dear, where do belongings go?"
Her teeth grit together, almost paining her jaw. "I do not know, Jareth. Where do they belong?"
His temper flared. How dare she use his name! He pushed the anger back down. He mustn't let her affect him so. "Sarah of all people, I would think you to know. It is the same place you have stuffed all of your fifteen year-old items." He let his eyebrows cock.
When he spoke, his voice had lost all sense of humor. "In the back of the closet."
He snapped his fingers causing a goblin to appear in the air. It screamed wildly before landing on the stone floor, face first. Sarah gasped at the little creature before her. It was the one she had been following! She recognized the green hat covering his red hair, but now she looked in his bright, yellow eyes. She was slightly disgusted by his large, pig nose and black fingernails. He grumbled as he picked himself up.
"Take Miss Williams to her new room, Flagger." Jareth looked out a window, showing how clearly disinterested he was in Sarah now.
The goblin looked to his master. His bushy eyebrows conjoined as he made a face—perhaps to hold some nasty words in. The creature stepped past Sarah and led her through the doorway. Sarah did not set eyes on the Goblin king as she was escorted away.
When the wooden doors closed behind Sarah, Jareth let his cold mask drop. He knew this feeling, didn't he? He had felt it once before, a long time ago. He recalled the specific moment vividly. He saw the white dress she had worn adorned with glitter and jewels. Then his eyes took in the milky cream of her face and locked his vision with those deep, brown eyes.
And then, they danced. They danced in a most obscure rhythm. He couldn't keep time with the music too well, not with those eyes burning him. All he could see was those eyes. They carried so much magic and curiosity.
That was the last time he had felt this emotion: guilt. He had felt guilty then for dancing with Sarah when she had other obligations. He laughed. How easily she had given into him though. But why had it caused him guilt? He shouldn't have cared if he was stopping her from saving her brother.
The subtle feeling was creeping all over his bones. This time, he had lied to her. He easily recalled the spell he had placed on the orb to remove him from her memory of that night. Yet, he wasn't sure if this little spell would work.
Needless to say, he was quite pleased when he realized she had no remembrance of that night. Then, again, it was probably due to her slight bump-on-the-head.
He momentarily looked around the throne room enjoying the quiet a bit too much. He was falling into places he was not ready to explore himself.
He should have left her. He was aware of this. He slammed a hard fist upon his arm rail. Damn his willpower. He had promised himself when he began watching Sarah, he would never meddle with her affairs—he locked his jaw—even if she was being profusely stupid with the Aboveground's plants. He brushed his hair lazily away from his shoulder. Though he had promised himself, or someone, he would only be an observer, he was forced to intervene.
He had been sure her intellect had dissipated when she led that ugly man away from her friends. He had been even more sure when the man leaned into her neck. He had fought an utmost strong urge to leave his owl form and destroy the boy in that very second. Yet, he refrained.
This was when he saw Sarah's eyes flash wildly under the moonlight. She looked at the man before her and then screamed wildly before lurching herself into the forest.
Jareth couldn't control himself then. He felt the situation take on a darker tone. He descended from the tree branch he had been residing in. He landed in his human form, obtruding the boy from Sarah's path.
"I suggest," Jareth began stopping himself from turning the pathetic mortal to dust, "You turn around and return to camp."
The boy eyed Jareth suspiciously. Jareth groaned in annoyance. In the present however, Jareth admired the boy's ability to care for a girl he had only just met. Although the bloody human had wasted a King's time, he did attempt to protect Sarah. Still, he could not bring himself to approve of that boy.
"I'm a good friend of Sarah's" Jareth feigned wishing he had chosen some other attire for this particular outing. His usual Goblin King wardrobe of dark cape, wild hair, and tight pants didn't help him with this annoying thing's favor.
Finally, the idiot threw his arms up into the air in surrender. "Probably a theater friend." The guy Sarah had once called Daniel sighed and began walking in the direction of the camp. Jareth turned and ran after Sarah. His heart pumped in this ears with fury, but what was he enraged about? This boy? Himself? No, it was Sarah. She had created this mess.
He soon found her, lying on the ground. He knew something was wrong immediately the way her body coiled on the ground. Jareth saw the blood dripping from her skull. He picked her up, unsure of where he planned to take her. His mind was jolting from his forehead. She may have had a concussion or possibly worse, but Sarah wanted to go to sleep.
He desperately wanted to save her. Every fiber of his being longed to keep this wretched, helpless girl alive, but he couldn't. He didn't have enough magic Aboveground to do what was necessary to keep her thriving. The only way Sarah could survive that far out and avoid the troubles of her land's legal system, was for Sarah to wish herself away.
He placed her out of his mind as he began trying carefully to slide his mask back into place. He could almost feel it latch on to his cheeks and adhere to his skin.
He waved a hand in the air as his subjects appeared in the throne room. They fell back into their way of playing and dancing. Jareth just smiled.
When the giant throne doors closed behind Sarah, the small goblin glanced up to her. He made a distained face.
"What's the matter with you?" She asked remembering that she used to be a friendly person, but that was when she was fifteen.
"My name is not Flagger." The Goblin derided the door as if shooting the Goblin King on the other side an angry stare. "My name is Flogray."
"Yes, well, His Highness only cares for himself, Flogray." Sarah followed the goblin down the hall and to the stairs…except the stars were splitting many different ways. Some stairs went up, some down. Some sideways? "This…is strange."
The Goblin in front of her scoffed, "Magic castles do magic things."
"Then how do you know your way around, Flogray?"
The Goblin chose a flight of stairs leading down as she asked the question. He smiled, his big ears twitching in pride. "A human girl wouldn't understand."
Sarah was in the mood to argue, but for some reason she bit her tongue. She knew, if she let one ounce of her emotions slip, everything she felt in that moment would explode. And, all of it would fall on to Flogray's shoulders.
They went up stairs and down stairs. They walked through fancy hallways and then, suddenly the atmosphere changed. The rich feeling the castle had before, now became more of a lonely feeling. The once long, golden halls became gray and dull. Dust and cobwebs hid in the corners and ran to the edge of the floor.
Flogray stopped and turned to a door on the side of the hall. The door was very ancient and monotonous. "This is your room." With that, Flogray continued down the hall, leaving Sarah standing in front of a quite boring door.
Slowly, she went inside the small room. Yes, a closet, that seemed to describe the estate of the room. There were empty crates stacked upon each other with dirty sheets thrown on top of those. Her bed was a cot shoved in the corner of the room under a small square window. The walls of the room were stone gray and bare.
Sarah, once again, checked her pocket with a nice pat. Good, now was the time to get high.