Chapter 16

Not a Faerytale

I hate feeling confused. I hate it with a blinding and passionate fury, and as you might expect, I have never known myself to be more confused in my life than when the Goblin King left me alone in that Labyrinthian forest. My heart and mind blazed and whirled alike, conflicted battlegrounds each awash with curiosity, frustration, and some strange sense of giddiness that I was too afraid to put a name to. I caught myself smiling when I wanted to scowl. I felt that I might just begin walking on air as soon as I took a step, so I dared not move, instead electing to stand there perfectly still, eyes fixed on the empty space that had only just been occupied by the source of all this sudden agony. The imprints of his boots were still visible on the mossy earth….

"So then..."

Paralysis broken, I turned to find Bartimeo perched in a nearby tree with Clutch standing just below him.

"A pleasurable tête-à-tête, was it?" the dragon asked.

I managed to force my tortured features to assume a disgruntled frown. "Unfortunately, yes. But that's beside the point. You shouldn't have abandoned me like that."

The dragon only clicked his tongue, seeming amused by my apparent frustration. "Oh, be at ease, Champion. You were hardly in any danger."

"Hardly in any danger? That man is an enemy of mine, in case you've forgotten!"

"Lara, for shame! I thought we'd moved past this stubborn petulance of yours."

I pressed my lips together sheepishly. We had moved past it, of course. I was just…using violence to compensate for feelings that frightened me. Oh, very astute, Lara…, my brutal conscience sneered mockingly. Glad to know you're so in touch with your emotions after all these years of learning to squash them.

"Besides," the dragon continued, "he wasn't acting much like your enemy from what I could see... And neither were you acting like his. Did you have to flirt with him quite so much?"

I gaped at him, for once at a perfect loss for words…almost. "I-I wasn't flirting! I never flirt! I don't even know how to flirt."

This only served to amuse him further, and I could see sparks of mirth flashing behind his beautiful eyes. "So, you would have flirted if you knew how?"

"Don't twist my words!"

"Who's twisting words? I merely call attention to the things I've seen, that's all."

"All you've seen is a poor girl being harassed by a menacing overlord! Nothing more."

Thankfully, he decided to let the matter go, and proceeded only to shake his scaly head with a fond smile. "Whatever you say, Thursday's Child…."

Clutch, who had been observing me with a rising expression of obvious delight, began to giggle.

"And just what are you laughing at, you little twerp?" I growled.

"Miss Lady's face is pink. It's a funny color."

Furious with myself, it was all I could do to keep from clapping my hands over my cheeks to hide their traitorous shades. Instead, I gathered what little dignity remained to me, grumbled, "Oh, come on, both of you!" turned on my heel, and began to stride through the trees once more, though perhaps with an excess of vigor.

"Lara," the dragon called gently after me, his voice so infuriatingly patient.

"What?!" I snapped.

"It's this way to the castle."

"Oh… I knew that."

Much to my relief, my bizarre companions seemed content to let the blazing topic of my humiliation rest and we travelled in silence for a time. Truth be told, I was glad for the chance to allow myself to meditate further on my audience with the king, even though every recollection set my stupid heart a-flutter. What a rotten time to be me. Had I really been flirting with him? How could I have been so pathetic? It was all Bartimeo's fault... Why'd he have to go and tell me so much about the king's past? Why'd he have to alter my perspective so? All that coupled with His Majesty's gentlemanly conduct toward me was making it rather difficult for me to maintain the role of intimidating heroine...particularly in his presence. Why did he have to act so...human? I longed again for simpler times, when I'd thought His Majesty to be little more than a monster. Life had been good then, and my purpose clear. But now….

I suppose the thing that troubled me most was how much I had actually enjoyed his company. He was pompous, yes...smug, spoiled, and a bit rude...but he was also charming, engaging, and at times almost funny. Not to mention handsome, Lara...You left that part out. Handsome, elegant, and well above your station with a Labyrinth, a castle, and a kick-ass name. Damn it all... What good was all this daydreaming to boring little me? Boring little me with all my new awareness of how starkly the last Champion's beauty and grace must clash with my own common roughness. Suddenly, I found myself nostalgic for a world that did not exist. A world in which I possessed beauty enough to match his, a world in which we were not separated by conflict. Perhaps…in that other world...in another lifetime and under different circumstances…. Who knows.

These are dangerous waters, Lara…and this is no faerytale you're living. This is real, fool girl. You know you can't afford these flights of fancy….

"Hey!" Suddenly, I all but tripped over Clutch, who stood rooted to the spot in the middle of my path. "Clutch, what the heck?" I grumbled, not wanting to abandon my perplexing musings, but the little creature drew me back into reality by latching on to my trouser leg with his fist as he continued staring into the forest with wide, frightened eyes.

"Clutch heard a noise, Miss. In tha woods."

"Is it the Fireys again?" I asked, eyes narrowing as I began to raise my sword in preparation. But before the goblin could answer, there came an ethereal babbling from the trees. It was a language I had never heard before, beautiful, but alien, as if a stream could speak, and the voice which spoke them was sweet. Curious for the source, I peered in the direction of Clutch's gaze. A shape began to move in the forest there, detaching itself slowly from the shadows. It was a child. A little boy. He looked as though he were a part of the very forest he emerged from, naked but for carefully woven trousers of leaves and vines which preserved his modesty. There was a strange, mossy-green tint to the color of his skin, though he did not look unhealthy, and his hair was a mass of rich chestnut curls that tumbled about his face, failing to conceal the pointed tips of his elfin ears. A sprite? A wood nymph? By the overall look of him, one might have assumed him to be no more than six or seven years old...if not for his eyes. His eyes betrayed the truth. Bright and amber, they were, almost glowing, but not with the intelligent warmth of Bartimeo's molten eyes. These eyes were quick and impish, lacking the innocence one might come to expect from a being as youthful as he appeared. Gazing into those eyes left me with a curious feeling in the pit of my stomach, a strange thrill of near primal fear that I found almost disturbing…and yet, I could not look away. I felt hypnotized, captivated by the whispered echoes of ages past behind the boy's gaze. Strange impressions of ancient rituals, mid-summer songs, and earth smells began to infiltrate my senses, and I could again feel that bizarre tingling in my skin that I had learned to associate with magic.

Oh, come now, Lara... That wild imagination of yours is getting away from you. He's only a boy...just a few years older than your Callie. Stop being ridiculous.

Almost unknowingly, I found myself smiling at the child. "Hello there, my lad. Is your mummy around here?"

The boy grinned back at me, displaying startlingly sharp teeth as he repeated his musical sentences, holding his hand out to me and tilting his head.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't understand…."

Clutch reached up and took my hand, trying to draw me away from the strange child. "Better not talk to 'im, Lady…."

"Why not?"

A yet more musical voice wove its way through the air, coming from just behind me. I turned to find a young girl, perhaps a year or two older than the boy standing and smiling at me with that same near feral smile. Like the boy, her skin was greenish, her eyes golden, and her hair a rich chestnut color, the magnificent tresses long enough to clothe her and woven through with vines and leaves which peaked at the top of her head like a coronet of living greenery.

Suddenly, Bartimeo landed on my shoulder and whispered into my ear with an intensity that turned my blood to ice. "Lara, listen to me carefully. Keep walking. Try not to look in their eyes."

I felt an alien panic shoot it's barbs through my heart, and my smile dissolved. "Who are they?"

The dragon's grip on my shoulder tightened, almost certainly putting holes through my shirt with his talons in his distress. "I'll explain when we're free of them. Now move."

I obeyed without a word, trying to keep my gaze fixed on the path ahead. The children pressed in on me from both sides as I walked, reaching out to tug at my sleeves or touch my hair, tapping playfully on the blade of my sword with their sharp little fingernails and babbling away incessantly as they tried to captivate my attention. The girl seemed particularly keen on irritating Bartimeo, questioning him with a strangely playful impudence in that musical language of hers. Bartimeo ignored her stoically, though I could see the corners of his lips twitching in irritation. At last he could take no more, and the girl's persistence succeeded in prizing a curt answer from him in that same fluid language. The girl giggled at this, and played with her hair in a manner that seemed disturbingly mature for her years. She began to question him again, coyly, mockingly, obviously trying to unsettle him. Why did little kids have to be so creepy sometimes? Bartimeo squeezed my shoulder tighter than ever, leading me to wonder if he would draw blood. Finally, he addressed the girl with an angry tirade of cold formality that led to an explosion of musical laughter from her.

While the dragon was distracted by the girl, the little boy stepped close and whispered to me in gracefully accented English. "For you, my lady."

Despite my growing sense of unease, curiosity won me over and I looked down at him. In his youthful hands he held a delicate rose, easily one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved from living embers, with gracefully curling petals of blackest velvet which transitioned softly to a strange, almost luminescent crimson at its center. It's stem, the same charcoal black as its outer petals, was lined with a series of wicked looking thorns, similar in shade to the rose's heart. Further investigation proved that the rose was indeed glowing, the red of its center pulsing ever so faintly, as if it had its own heartbeat. Instinct told me to look away, but again, I found myself almost hypnotized by the wild beauty of the rose...of this world in which I found myself. The boy held the blossom out to me and I, forgetting myself entirely for a moment, felt a smile playing at the corners of my mouth as I reached out to receive it.

"Lara, don't touch that!" Bartimeo snapped, but of course it was too late. Though I handled the rose as gingerly as I could, its thorns proved almost impossibly sharp, and I found myself giving a startled gasp as one of them sank deep into the pad of my left thumb.

"No!" the dragon howled, taking after the children immediately with fangs bared and flames streaming from his jaws. The children reacted with a frightful violence, dropping into catlike crouches and scurrying backwards to get away from their enraged attacker, letting out terrible hissing noises like feral animals. The change was so sudden, so horrible that I knew I should have been terrified, but I couldn't seem to react appropriately. My balance was failing. I stumbled gracelessly over my own feet and into a nearby tree, sagging heavily against it and sinking slowly to the ground as Clutch jabbered and shrieked away at my side, taking up the sword that had tumbled from my listless fingers and placing himself bravely between me and the frightening scene before us. I wanted to say something to calm him down, but words seemed…elusive. Once the children had fled, Bartimeo gave up the chase and returned to me and the goblin, landing in my lap and sniffing at the rose in my hand. With a snarl, he batted the thing away from me.

"Bartimeo," I managed to gasp at last. "I…I feel strange. I—" Of all things, a powerful yawn ended my sentence. Clutch whimpered and took my injured hand in both of his, blotting at the bleeding wound in my thumb with a little handkerchief as tears welled up in those massive eyes of his.

"Oh, Lara, no..." Bartimeo said. "Get up. You have to fight it, Lara, please! Get up!"

"Just need...need a moment... Gonna shut my eyes. Just for a sec..."

"Don't close your eyes. Do you understand? Lara? Look at me, Thursday's Child!" He kept talking and talking, brushing at my face with his wings as he tried to keep my attention. Oh, how my head ached…how my hand throbbed…how difficult it was to focus. Bartimeo's words began to slur together, fading in and out like a poor radio signal. I was able to catch bits and snatches, but none of what he said made much sense. And then the little jerk bit me, sinking those sharp little teeth of his into the flesh of my right hand between thumb and forefinger. Doubtless he meant only to snap me out of this horrid stupor, but the violence of his actions made poor little Clutch cry out in alarm as I jumped and cursed. It hurt like hell, but…perhaps not as much as it should have. I was too tired to care, anyway.

"Oh, Lara, no..."

My eyelids were so heavy, but I could still see the shimmering bubble floating delicately out of the forest. Bartimeo was almost in a frenzy.

"Jareth! What have you done?!" he howled, accosting the sphere with an edge of desperate fury that I never would have thought him capable of. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!" He tried to bat the bubble away from me with his wings, going so far as to spit a jet of flame at the thing, but to no effect. The bubble passed right through him, proceeding to bump gently against my nose and pop, causing me to blink...and smile. Why was Bartimeo dancing? He looked absurd. Clutch too…but then...everything was dancing.

"Lara, please! Don't close your eyes!"

I just couldn't help it. They were so heavy... I had to close them. Just for a second... Only a second...

Author's Note: Hehe. I'm back. Sorry for the brief hiatus, but it's been a busy few seasons for me! Summer and Fall were spent moving house, getting a new job, learning new languages, dodging kidnappers in a third-world country…not necessarily in that order. Life can be so bloody interesting at times.

Anyway, I hope you've all enjoyed this latest installment! Sorry if it was a bit short...and a bit of a cliffhanger. Bet you can't guess what comes next ;)

And to those of you who may be losing patience with my excruciatingly slow progress, you'll be pleased to know that I have constructed the bones for all of the remaining chapters! The end is in sight, loved ones! It won't be long now...

Special shout-out to Lil'Sparrow7: Thank you so much for loving my story! Your kind words mean the world to me, and they help to keep me motivated on days when I feel like scrapping this story altogether! Yes, I quite agree…our Lara's been having to push herself to the limits, both mentally and physically. It's a long bloody way to that castle, after all (even without having to fight for her life to avoid being eaten by a gigantic cannibal,) and Lara is hardly superhuman! Perhaps this little nap will do her some good...then again, perhaps not ;)

Please remember, my Readers, that I am eternally grateful for you. A story is not a story without an audience, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for fulfilling that role for me!

Peace be with each and every one of you.

Yours Always,

FireDancer