Seriously! That's How You Ask!

Jareth followed the pair into the depths of the keep. Down flights of stairs, in and out through several corridors and multiple connecting rooms, the building itself appeared to be as much a maze as it was outside. The first areas they'd passed through had been opulent and plush becoming bare and spartan the further down they went. Now well below the castle, they were walking in areas carved from the bedrock, rough and crude with uneven stairs and floors. The sides being less like walls and more like a tunnel hued out with only a care given to the structural support but little else. Eventually they came to a massive door embedded in the stone.

Cynfael pulled hard on a bell cord just to the left of the door, the resounding gong caused Jareth to twitch slightly. Just a flex of his fingers really, a natural reaction to wanting to protect his sensitive Goblin hearing. Cynfael smiled at him as if he'd screamed bloody murder and jumped out of his skin in fright. Brangwen smacked her brother upside his head and gave him a look that said to cut it out or pay the consequences. His smile turned sheepish as he slightly bowed his head in apology towards Jareth's direction general direction. Jareth just stared at him, counting it as a small victory when his continued staring seemed to discomfort the man. The door began to slowly grind is way forward. Jareth having had enough of the siblings, slipped through as soon as his lean physique allowed him to. Ignoring their calls and commands to stop, he swiftly strode into the room. At only six paces from the door, he came to a complete stop.

The void within was darker than anything he had ever seen yet was riddled with light. Every shade of color, even some he, old Goblin that he was, never knew existed. Nebulas misted across the shallow surface of the void, while galaxies pooled in the deeper areas, others clung to the ceiling in wet clusters. Forming glittering stalactites, stalagmites and columns that dripped worlds and stars into the pools below. Skipping towards him was a young girl, the cosmos sloshing up the front of her shins and white frock. Droplets of planets and stars fell from the hems of her dress while rivulets of stars systems ran down her legs and arms, splashing into the void around her. Solar systems broke around her little ankles reforming into new galaxies and nebulas in her wake.

Brangwen came up beside him, soft smile on her face, "Hello, Princess. Look who's here!"

Jareth hadn't come across Sarah until she was three months from turning sixteen. She'd been in her mother's costume from the Broadway production of the play. Sarah had added words from a small tome that her mother had included with the playbook. Jareth had had no idea where the woman had found an original book of tales from the Underground and his Labyrinth but he'd be eternally grateful that she had. The words to open the Faelands had been lost to time but one teen armed with nothing but a play script and an old book had hashed her favorite words and parts together. Then preformed them faithfully until it became the ritual it was meant to be and had been in ages past, thus dragging his people into the 20th century. Her combining these words of power within the children's books she'd written were reviving the belief in them like never before, opening new branches and paths that had been closed since well before the Middle Ages.

And here before him was the little Sarah he'd never gotten to meet. He'd looked into her past some but he'd never dared to do more than that. Somewhere between seven and eight years in age, the girl before him with her bright smile tugged on his heart strings. Little Sarah rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. Her hair wasn't as long as it would be at twenty-one or even at sixteen. It puffed out around her ears and the crown of her head like dandelion fluff. She was missing a tooth in that bright grin but it only made her more endearing.

"Princess, this is Jareth. Jareth meet Sarah's inner child," Cynfael lazily waved between the two of them.

"Why are the eyes of Sarah's inner child mismatched?"

"No."

"No?"

"You can't ask why? So no."

"You are purposely being belligerent!"

"Welcome to life with you. How do you find it?"

Jareth wondered if it would harm Sarah in anyway if he ripped the personification of her masculinity to pieces.

"You can't do that either. Can't read your mind but you got that glint in your eye that says I'm gonna die. We're in Sarah's head and I'm just a manifestation. It's physically impossible for you to damage Sarah herself in anyway while you're here. Emotionally and mentally are a different story but she did trust you enough to let you in, so…"

"Jarwhiff," Jareth cringed internally at little Sarah's lisp. She was scowling at Cynfael for being mean but was quickly smiling again as all attention was directed back to her. That beaming grin was turned up at Jareth as she took his hand. Little Sarah turned back to the way that she'd come, lightly swinging at the end of his arm as she began to skip. Jareth fell in stride beside her, leaving the siblings behind. They walked for only a little while, not more than ten minutes at best, but a glance back over his shoulder showed the door to be barely the size of his hand in the distance. They eventually came to a larger nebula that little Sarah pulled him into. After hitting his head on the edge of it he ducked down to fit through the glowing mist. Two steps in, and the air suddenly cleared to reveal a massive meadow.

"The inside of your head makes my head hurt."

Little Sarah burst into a fit of giggles that she tried to smother with both hands. She ran forward through a riotous variety of wildflowers, some taller than she was, others smaller than her chubby little toes.

"Those five don't even belong in the same hemisphere…"

"It's my headspace Jareth, I do what I want."

The Goblin King's head whipped towards the maiden so fast his neck cracked. Sarah flinched at sound before giving him a rueful smile. A growl built in his chest until it rumbled out of him in a ferocious roar. Sarah was bound and bound again. Her form was wrapped in briars and vines mixed with manacles, thick leather straps and chains. Some broken, others appeared to have been reforged. Plants trailed up, turning into iron links and back to wood again, crisscrossed and pressed around her body. Her skin was bruised and broken from the weight, her once white dress covered in blood and sweaty grime. She hissed in pain as he grabbed up as many as he could fit into his hands before ripping them from her. He screamed again as the holes filled and broken chains regrew before Sarah could but so much as the tip of a finger through.

"Jareth!" He took a shuddering breath as he tried and failed to gather his composure. Little Sarah was quaking behind the horrific hedge that covered Sarah's core.

He could feel her. Everything that was his Sarah was right there. Her loving heart, her kindness and humor, quick wit and even quicker temper. Jareth hadn't even realized that he'd missed her this badly, with every fiber of his being, until she was right there before him. That it had hurt this much to be so far from Sarah. Now she was right there and he could feel all that he had lost, still just out of reach.

"Sarah…" a sobbed escaped her at his broken utterance.

"I did the first to myself for protection but some of their curses built on top of them and then turned mine against me."

Jareth hunched down, balancing on the balls of his feet with his elbows on his knees and his head in hands, "what must I do?"

"Unknot them, they're all here, there are no other curses left in the rest of my being. I'll help where I can. Well, Princess will. She's my embodied innocence and has the purest, rawest and most powerful magic in here. She is my power of belief, but I can't see all that has been done or how so she needs a guide... I'm so sorry, Jareth."

"Stop those tears, you precious thing. I'll have you free soon enough."

"I love you."

"Gundahar is going to marry us as soon as I get you free and I get back to the land of the living. The second we're together, love, I mean it," Jareth growled as he rocked forward, dropping down onto his knees and began to push his magic into the tangle of roots and chains.

Sarah's beautiful laugh rang out across the meadow, little Sarah's laughter quickly joined hers as she moved to Jareth's side. Sarah's inner child set her hands over Jareth's spellwork, twining Sarah's magic with his.