Chapter Four~ Dark

The air seemed to become closer in the stone maze. It was hot, humid, and Acacia couldn't help up tie her hair up in a bun on the top of her head. Even after shedding her top shirt, leaving her in only a green tank top, she was still sweating up a storm. How could it be so damn hot in the Underground? Looking up to the sky, she silently cursed the eternally cloudy red color. Her hair was starting to soak through, leaving her feeling all at once burning up and like she just took a dip. Her water bottle was almost empty, and she knew she would need to find more soon, lest she end up getting sick from dehydration in this wretched heat.

"Seriously, how does he stand this with his freaking poofy hair, and those freaking layers and layers of clothes. Fuck him." She said to herself as she entered into what seemed to be a courtyard.

"I wouldn't have thought you an exhibisionist, my dear. But, I am more than happy to accept your request." Acacia spun around to find the King in question leaning against a pillar.

"Go suck an egg, Goblin King." Without giving him a chance to say anything else, she continued across the courtyard. There was a hall right in front of her. She figured that if she didn't give him a chance to catch up with her, he'd leave her alone to continue her quest. Unfortuantely, the corridore ended quite abruptly. Damn dead ends. Acacia's lips scrunched up in a scowl as she stared at the wall.

"My, my. Another dead end. Must be so frustrating, love. Wouldn't it be so much easier for you if you just gave up?"

"It would, but then I'd be stuck with you for the rest of eternity. I'm not too keen to be stuck down here for any longer than I have to be." She moved around him to go back to the courtyard. Once there, she stopped. The whole thing had changed.

"Would it really be so bad?" The sound of his voice in her ear made Acacia jump. "Honestly, precious, would it? You'd have a king giving everything you've ever wanted. And you know me and my kind. I could do it. All you have to do-"

"Is let you rule me?" The woman swept a few soaked black hairs off her forehead and turned to look him in the eye. "I appreciate the false sentiment, but I know that you're only doing this to distract me from solving the Labyrinth."

"Am I? Are you so certain, my dear?" The witty retort she had readied died in her throat when he moved towards her. Nearly tripping over her own feet, she backed up until she was against a decorative urn in the middle of the space. The Goblin King hesitated for a moment at the sight of her retreat, before a smile broke over his face and he continued his advance. "And what if my offer is completely genuine? Would that sway you?"

"Not a bit," she croaked, her throat very dry. Suddenly, all the bravado she had thrown in his face seemed to evaporate as he placed a hand against the urn beside her...effectively trapping her. Acacia could have sworn he could hear the way her heart beat wildly, even more so when his smile widened into a grin.

"Are you sure? It seems to me that your voice betrays your words." He raised his other gloved hand to run the backs of his fingers over her cheek. A shudder ripped through the young woman, who valiantly tried to hide it. Taking a deep breath, she met his mismatched eyes. Deep in her belly, she could feel that inexplicable knot. The one that told her not to trust him. The power radiating off of the Goblin King was palpable, almost as much as the warmth coming off his skin. Despite the sweet look on his face, the way she could feel him weaving his net around her, there was no hiding the way his eyes screamed at her. Deeper and deeper, for a moment everything swirled as she physically felt him moving closer, but only saw the pits of color.

Swiftly ducking under his arm, Acacia took a few breaths facing away from him. "I'm going to leave now. Do yourself a favor, and don't follow me this time." And back into the stone maze she went.

Away from her gaze, Jareth watched sadly as she walked away from him, back into the Labyrinth. "Please," he whispered to the air, "Don't do this." But, she was already too far away to hear him. A quick swirl of glitter, and he was gone. Once back in his throne room, he conjured up the green crystal that held the woman's soul, examining her through it, and watching as the Labyrinth changed around her, as it would always do in an effort to keep her away from him.

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Acacia kept on towards what she perceived as the right direction towards the castle. All the turning was starting to give her a headache, but at least the heat had abated some so she was able to breathe a little easier. Going on and on, the black-haired woman had not run into a trap or dead end. At some point, she had also started picking up little stones and leaving them on the walls so she could track where she was going. If she ever did have to turn back, she could know where she'd already been and go a different way. Yet another twist, another turn, another stone, and suddenly she was faced with a dead end.

She sighed, "So much for that. And I was doing so well." Taking a moment to breathe, Acacia turned herself around to reposition her rock, which she had left on the wall right next to her. Only to find it wasn't there. Her brows scrunched in confusion. A quick search of the area revealed that it had been moved ten feet away to another path. "Seriously?!"

She let out a frustrated growl, picking up the rock and hurling it at another wall. It shattered on impact, and Acacia gasped as she went reeling. Her senses were suddenly assaulted. The area darkened, pieces of rock floating all around her in the form of partial staircases and columns. But, her vision flickered, as if someone was turning a light on and off. The scent of stale air and decay reached her nose. Beside her a clocked ticked away the minutes, the face showing that her time was almost up, the hands were only a few moments from both landing on 13. "No! No, I have time! I've only been here a few hours!" Trying to look around was dizzying, with the rapid flickering. To her left, movement fluttered, drawing her attention. Acacia's jaw dropped and her vision evened out, focused on the sight before her. There stood the Goblin King, dressed all in white, his skin washed out, making him look so tired and sick that she almost told him to go to bed.

"Give me the child." She said, but it wasn't her voice, nor were they her words.

Another flicker, and he was right in front of her, "Sarah," Holy shit... "Beware. I have been generous up until now, but I can be cruel."

"Generous?" God, that voice was so condescending. Was this really the girl she had idolized as a child? "What have you done that's generous?"

"EVERYTHING!" He barked. As he spoke, Jareth began circling her. "Everything that you wanted, I have done. You asked that the child be taken, I took him. You cowered before me, and I was frightening. I have reordered time." One airy-clothed arm raised to point at the clock that was now spinning out of control. "I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you!" He went around one more time before coming to stand still. "I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me." His mismatched eyes bored into her, begging her with such sincerity that she felt like she needed to look away, lest she be swept away by them.

Acacia's vision darkened, whatever she felt like she was supposed to say next died on her tongue. When she managed to open her eyes again, she was staring at a wall, shivering despite the warmth of the day. Her skin was drenched in icy sweat, like she'd just woken up from a nightmare. A shuddering gasp made it's way through her lips, her lungs burned like she hadn't been breathing the whole time. The stones bruised and burnt on her knees and hands as the woman fell down trying to catch her breath. "This place is awful!" She yelled once she could.

"Of course it is," came a voice from behind her. Acacia did a fast 180 to see who was speaking, and was faced with two doors, guarded by two playing card looking...things.

"It's the Labyrinth!" A second voice added, more erupting into laughter.

"Holy crap." Acacia managed to stumble to her feet, having to use the wall to steady herself. Confused, she turned around again. That wall hadn't been there when she threw the rock...she was stuck in an area where she couldn't get out. Unless...

"What's the matter, lassie?" The first voice asked.

"Ye stuck?" The other asked. They all started laughing again.

"Of course I'm stuck, but...you didn't see that?" She asked them.

"See what?" The bottom red face asked.

"That whole thing that just happened right...you know what, nevermind. So, let me guess...I have to go through one of you to get out of here?"

"That's right!" Said the blue head. "You have to choose one of these doors."

"So, which one is the safest?" She crossed her arms, already knowing what was happening.

"We can't tell you. You can only ask one of us. And remember-" The red one said.

"One of us always tells the truth, and the other always lies." Finished the blue.

"He always lies."

"I do NOT! You're the liar, you bloody liar."

Not in the mood to listen to them banter, Acacia shushed them both. "Alright. This is easy. I know how to get through here." Steeling herself, she went to the blue card. "Would red guy over there tell me that your door leads to the center of the Labyrinth?"

The blue heads both looked at her like she'd grown a second head, but began whispering between themselves anyway. When the top head was done, he popped back up and, with an unsure tone, said, "No?"

"Good." Without waiting for him to move, she went to the red one and pushed him aside.

"Wait a minute! How do you know that this is the door?!"

"Because, he said it was."

"No, I did not!"

Rolling her eyes, she sighed. "He told me that you would say that his door didn't lead to the castle. If you were lying then that meant that it did. Same if he had been lying. But," she held up a finger, "I know how Jareth works. You're supposed to tell me the opposite of what is true, whether or not it actually is. So, therefore, your door leads to the center, his will put me in a deep dark hole to waste away until it's too late for me to save my soul. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to the castle so I can win my soul back." Pushing open the door, she stopped to examine the passageway. There were no holes for her to fall into, but that didn't mean that there weren't any traps. There weren't anymore rocks in the general vicinity, so she pulled her bag off and lowered it to the ground so she could rifle through it.

"What in the world are you doing?" Asked the red guard.

"Checking." Was all she said before she managed to find what she was looking for. The little rubber ball she threw bounced against the floor tile just in front of her, and she caught it. It didn't take more than a second when a trapdoor opened up right where the ball had just hit. "That's what I thought." It wasn't a very large, so she was able to easily step over it. It continued this way through the tunnel. She would bounce the ball to check it the next tile was safe. Sometimes a hole would open, sometimes it wouldn't. Either way, she was safe.

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"What the hell is she doing?!" Jareth hollared, scaring the goblins into silence. If her soul hadn't been in the little green orb he held, he would have hurled it against a wall. Within it, he watched as the girl continued to bounce a little ball of some sort on the ground. Every so often, another pit would open up, and would have sent her directly into an oubliette, if she had actually been standing on the tile instead of right behind it. Then there was the way she had frozen up right before the cards had gotten her attention.

The goblins couldn't understand why their king was suddenly so mad, but it wasn't really all that unusual for him to randomly fly into a rage. By now they were so used to it that those of them who had been there for more than a few years just moved to the edges of the room so they didn't get kicked or thrown out a window. What they did know, is that this girl seemed to be even more infuriating to him than the last girl he watched to closely. They watched as their king stood up from his throne and started pacing around the room. Most of them didn't quite understand what he was ranting about, except for a few of them who had been there for who knows how many centuries by now.

"She saw something. She had to have seen something! But, what was it?!" He yelled, kicking one of the smaller goblins. "She didn't even notice when the wall moved." At that revelation, Jareth plopped back down in his seat, throwing one leg over the arm of it and leaning back. With one finger to his chin, he mused, "What did she see?" The crystal floated in front of him, close enough that he could see, but where none of the goblins could hope to watch this mysterious woman that aggravated him so. At the moment when she had frozen up after throwing that stone, Jareth could feel the pull of magic from the Labyrinth. Sure, there was always the feeling of magic constantly buzzing, or when it changed, but this was different. Something that he had never felt in his many, many years as the Goblin King. So, what had this simple girl from the Aboveground done to warrant a surge that held her in place. "What are you?" She continued walking, not hearing him as he spoke to her form the comfort of his throne. Jareth's lips turned up in a smirk as she broke from the tunnel. "Bring me the dwarf!"

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The ball bounced one final time, and Acacia emerged into the light. Here, the air was sweet, and heavy with humid heat within the closeness of thick trees. Not knowing what things could be hiding in the brush, Acacia popped the button that kept her knife in place within it's sheath. Assured that she could easily pull it out, she proceeded into the forest with one hand on her knife. For the most part, it was very flat land, only occasionally having to step over an exposed tree root.

Now that her mind was less occupied with staying alive, it drifted back to the vision. As a little girl, she had thought that Sarah was the heroine of the story, triumphing over the wicked Goblin King with her logic and smarts. Of course, every other girl thought much the same. It had been years before she watched the movie again, or read the book, having become so caught up in...well, growing up. Many years later, at the ripe age of twenty-one, she had finally found it again and watched it more closely. Upon doing so, she noticed so much more than just and evil fairy king and a brave girl who fought valiantly to win her brother back.

No, she had also noticed the sad little man that was so lonely and trying so hard to win the heart of a girl who saw only a monster. But...that was just the movie, right? Surely this crazy fae who had stolen her soul wasn't the same as the one she had seen. Even if he was...he must be so sore from the rejection. From what she knew of mythology, fae tended to think of humans as beneath them. So, when they did find one that they found attractive, they became a little obsessive. When those humans didn't return their affections, there could be horrible consequences. But, then again, fae were also fickle creatures, and most humans back in the day knew that, which was one reason not to get mixed up with them; never mind the fact that they could trap you to them forever if you weren't careful. So, if Jareth the Goblin King really had been in love with this girl, and been rejected by her, then he must have been so torn up about it. The thought almost made her stop...almost.

If she had, then she might have noticed the creature sneaking up on her from the tree.

But she didn't...

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A/N: Holy freaking mother of god! I finally got a new chapter out. And just in time for Halloween. Don't worry, I'm not leaving you here, but it is 12:15 am for me and I still have another chapter to finish on another story. Enjoy, my lovelies. Read and Review.