After Hoggle had gone back to his cottage, Sarah stretched out on the settee and tried to relax. She didn't want to take a nap… she knew that she'd only wake in a bad mood if she did. Instead, her mind worked to process all the information she'd received in the last few hours. Mercifully, the Labyrinth kept quiet while she examined her thoughts.
As she ruminated on what Hoggle had told her, she found her heart hurting for Jareth. She knew what it was to be alone, to be almost desperately lonely. And he'd endured it for centuries. She remembered the despair she'd fallen into, the night Sir Didymus had talked her into writing to Jareth. That despair had been deep and sharp, but how much more horrible would it have been to have suffered it for as many years as Jareth did? Could she really be surprised that he had been caught in a spiral of depression?
Worse… he'd once told her that he'd recognized her as his heart-mate on the day of her Run… when she'd spoken to him in his owl form. She remembered how she'd fantasized that he was a Prince, come to take her away. She had no idea how true that would turn out to be. But how would that have felt? To have found his heart-mate at last, perhaps an end to his loneliness… only to watch her walk away from him and bar him from even speaking to her again. Her own heart had been shredded when she'd left him, but the pain he had felt must have been brutal.
She could well understand how he might have sunk into darkness, especially after she'd left him. But… he never forced her to return. Even the Labyrinth admitted that Jareth could have 'nudged' circumstances towards giving him the end goal he wanted. But he didn't. He didn't even try, because he knew it wouldn't end well… for either of them. It seemed to Sarah that while he may have skirted around it, there was enough basic goodness within him that he was able to step back from the edge of doing something… horrible. Hoggle certainly thought so, and he was the last person that would cut Jareth any slack.
This made her even more hesitant to bring up her qualms about the brainwashing. The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt him, and she didn't really see a way around it. No one wants to be told that they're doing… evil. Especially if that's not their intention.
But it's wrong. You know it's wrong. And if you don't tell him, who will?
Sighing softly, she conjured another crystal and summoned a vision of the Runner. She was in the Eastern part of the Labyrinth now, and Sarah felt a little disappointed that the girl was going to miss the Bog of Eternal Stench. She'd been looking forward to the expression on the kid's face when she caught a whiff.
The girl was tired, that much was clear. Her steps were almost in a stagger, her shoulders were slumped and her head down. Glancing up at the clock, she realized that the girl only had a little over two hours before the deadline. Thinking back, she realized that she hadn't had any way of telling the time within the Labyrinth back in her Run and wondered if the girl knew that her ordeal was going to be over soon.
Almost as soon as she'd thought it, the girl apparently decided that she'd had enough. She slumped against the wall, sliding down until she was seated, crying softly. Sarah felt a little pity at this point, although part of her thought that she shouldn't. This girl let her selfishness get the better of her, and instead of trying to make things right for her sister's sake, she was only worried about her own situation. Sarah wished there was a way for the girl to see her own selfishness, see what it would bring into her life and maybe… change for the better.
*There is a way, Sarah. If you want to use it.*
"Oh? What did you have in mind?"
*The Dream Crystal. You can encase her in it, and it will show her a vision of her life if she stays on the path she's been treading.*
"Is that… what was supposed to happen to me after I'd eaten the Peach?"
*Yes. Originally, we would give the Runners a Peach to make the transition more dreamlike… something that they would remember through the years in their dreams. But your Run changed all that.*
"As well it should. Being roofied like that was what made me mistrust Jareth in the first place."
*As we discovered. In his defense, he really didn't see it the same way you did, certainly not after I'd pulled the same trick on him, back in the day.*
This startled Sarah, and she felt her brows go clear to her hairline. "You… used a Peach on him?"
*The first time he came here, when they'd found me. I set up an area near the Peach tree for us to commune with each other. I knew he was hungry and thought he'd take a Peach from the tree. It was only intended to lessen any sense of fear and allow him to be truthful without worry. But he didn't fall for it. So, I dropped him into an oubliette and used the scent of the Peaches in order to sedate him. As I said, it had only been done to ease any fear he might have had when talking to me. That, and he was so exhausted that it was a wonder he was still on his feet at that point. I had used the scent on Randel and his men as well, when they first came here. It allowed them to rest without fear and gave them a sense of comfort and welcome. Jareth wasn't afraid of the experience, so he thought there was no harm in using it on Runners. I thought the same. It honestly didn't occur to either one of us that you would see it so differently. I felt a bit of guilt about that… he might not have done it at all if I hadn't done it to him first.*
"But… he discontinued using them on the Runners, didn't he?" asked Sarah.
*Absolutely, he did. I think he was tempted to burn the tree down after what you'd told him. He didn't, but only because Melina talked him out of it.*
"What? Why?"
*She found the Peaches to be useful in crafting painkillers. The juice, when mixed with other herbs and nectars, gives the patient a calming effect.*
Well, that made sense. While Othánas women had Healing magic, they tried very hard to save it for only the most drastic injuries and illnesses. Of course, they would use the native plants for such things as medicine and pain relief.
"So, how do I get her into the crystal without the Peach?"
*Just conjure it and send it off. It will envelop her on its own. She'll be fully conscious.* Here the Labyrinth paused. *Sort of. She's half asleep right now anyway, but not from any outside source.*
Sarah moved to the glass door to the small balcony off the solar. Willing the crystal into existence, this one was lighter than the others, almost like a bubble instead of a crystal. Almost instinctively, she brought it near her mouth and blew on it, watching it drift off into the night.
"So, once the crystal envelops her, then what?"
*It will read her thoughts. Her fears. And it will construct a dream around them. In her case, she's afraid of being made a laughingstock at school. She'll experience exactly that, tied into her selfish actions. The idea is to perhaps inspire some self-reflection. At any rate, it will end in an hour or so. She's so close to the end of her Run that you may as well leave her in it until it's over.*
"That's not what it did to me…"
*No. And that was a surprise to both me and Jareth. The crystal read you and took some of your fears. You were on the cusp of adulthood, and reluctant to leave your childhood and innocence behind. That's why your dream originally had what looked to be debauched, hostile partygoers. And you walking through the room like a doe through a wolf pack. It was reminiscent of your mother's parties, and likely where you got the idea from. The crystal took your dream of a masquerade ball and generated it, but your own imagination took hold of the Dream Crystal and turned it into what you wanted it to be. A ball where you found your Prince. It just so happened that Jareth was napping at the time, and you pulled his consciousness into the Dream Crystal too.*
Sarah was almost speechless at that point. She had always thought that Jareth had created that dream, not her.
*No, it was all yours. You wanted a Cinderella tale with a handsome Prince to claim you. He wanted to be that Prince for you. That's when your subconscious recognized him for who he was… or rather, who he was going to be to you. I think it scared you on some level. Instead of it being a fairytale moment, it became frightening to you. All you could think about was to escape. I believe you knew deep down that it was your own dream, which was why you were able to shatter it and free yourself. It was too early for the Peach to have worn off, which is why you were a bit disoriented for a little while afterwards.*
For so long, she had thought the Peach Dream to be a vision that Jareth had forced upon her. It never occurred to her that it was comprised of her own desires, powered by her imagination. And that, if anything, she'd forced him to participate. She'd been so young at the time, so… untried. And because she'd thought it was Jareth's doing, it contributed to her fear of him and was one of the few subjects she never discussed with him.
And… if she were being honest with herself, part of her had always wondered if he played the part of the handsome Prince for other girls in the past. If she'd just been one of many.
*Oh, no. No other Runner was ever able to pluck him from his catnap and plop him into the middle of her own fantasy, as you did. It was the first time he'd ever directly experienced just how powerful the human imagination really was. Do you see now, why I said your Kingdom was as great as any here Below?*
She did. It was both awesome and humbling at the same time.
*That's not to say that some of the wishers wouldn't have wanted him to seduce them. They did. Many of them tried to be enticing, certainly. Sometimes, their attempts were enough to make even me blush, if it were possible. He didn't bother to hide his revulsion when they did.*
Somehow, this made her heart feel much lighter. She couldn't fault him for his lifestyle before he'd even met her, but the thought that he'd dallied with any of the wishers was one that hovered in the back of her mind and contributed to some of her insecurities. While she knew that she never had to worry about adultery rearing its ugly head, she did sometimes wonder if she was in some way a disappointment when compared to the women he'd known in the past.
*You were never a disappointment to him, Sarah. You delighted him, challenged him and sometimes confused him. But you never disappointed him. Not then and not during your marriage. If anything, he fears disappointing you.*
"Why would he fear that?" said Sarah, her voice breaking. "He's… he's everything! Powerful, handsome, charming… how could he possibly disappoint me?"
*He's a man in love, Sarah. You are all he has ever dreamed of. And the one thing he fears, above all else, is that he will somehow prove to be unworthy of you.*
It was dawn when Sarah returned to the castle. The Runner had been returned to her home, somewhat worse for wear but with a little more compassion perhaps than she'd started her adventure with. Maybe it would stick. Maybe not. Sarah preferred to hope.
Erasing the child's memory from Above was relatively simple. She hadn't been around long enough to make much of an impression, and it was a quick process of touching the baby with her magic and wiping away the memories of all Above who came into contact with her. Through the parents and Julia, Sarah was able to touch their friends and family members and do the same for any mental references to the existence of the child. The Labyrinth showed her how to project her magic, using the name and image of the baby, to find all physical traces and banish them. No document, no picture would remain. The nursery items had been banished as well, replaced with generic guest room furniture.
That's why Jareth brought all that stuff from Mom & Dad's house, after they died. He knew we'd want the pictures and mementos of Toby before they vanished forever…
Oddly, this wouldn't work for computer records, but without a physical backup, any references to the child in a computer system would be chalked up to a data entry error.
This gave Sarah a bit of alarm, which she shared with the Labyrinth, "But… Julia will remember the child. Remember her name. What's to stop her from trying to track down evidence of her existence? Sure, there's no hard copy evidence, but if she asks the hospital to look up her sister… they'll find her. At the very least, it can cause a lot of questions to be asked."
*Hmmm… you have a point. Perhaps we should let her keep the memory of the child, but not the name.*
The baby was now sleeping off the transformation in Melina's office. She hadn't thought of it back when Toby had been transformed, but apparently making such changes on the genetic level would have been excruciatingly painful. It was a slow process, done while Melina used her power to block the pain receptors and keep the child unconscious. No memory of the transformation would remain, and as this particular child was too young to retain much in the way of memories anyway, a mind wipe was unnecessary. Sarah could tell that the baby was so starved for affection that she would bond with her new parents joyfully.
Like a sleepwalker, she made her way to Jareth's study. On the left side of his desk was a built-in file cabinet. She stared at the numerous folders within, almost awestruck with how many there were.
*When Jareth negotiated adoptions with the Fae, he insisted that he retain the final approval. Couples who wish to adopt must go through a rigorous screening process, including letting me scan them. If they pass, he puts their information here, so he can match the child properly. Even now, he remembers every wished-away that's been adopted out.*
This warmed Sarah's heart, that even after the children were turned Fae, Jareth still had concern for them. "How will I know which couple is the right one?"
*Eventually, you'll get to know who's in the files and will develop a sense of where the child belongs. For now, I think Lord and Lady Palinor are the ones best matched for our little visitor.*
Sarah picked up the file and perused the contents. Milo and Rayna Palinor. Married for three hundred years. Living in the Silesian Glade. Milo was a glass manufacturer and merchant, and a very successful one. Rayna was a glass artist, who worked with her husband to make fantastical creations that graced palaces all over the Underground. Including this one.
Hmmm… artistic personality…
Sarah could picture the child growing up and learning to create artwork of her own. Somehow, she knew that the girl would love it…
"So, how do I get word to them?"
*Draft a quick letter letting them know you have a child for them. Request that they come here this afternoon. They'll jump at the chance. They will transport to the Visitor Center and will be taken here, where you can initiate the transfer of custody. They'll go back to the Visitor Center and return to their home, a happy family.*
After drafting the note, the Labyrinth bade her to summon a crystal and will the note inside of it. She went over to the window and blew on it, like she did for the Dream Crystal. It floated from her fingers and drifted off about ten feet before streaking towards the Silesian Glade, leaving a sparkling trail behind it.
Dragging herself over to her chamber, she poked her head into the nursery. Jacen wasn't there, apparently Lily already brought him and Toby to her chambers. Waving her hand, she banished the Dragon Queen outfit in favor of a nightgown and restored her hair to its usual color, tied back with a simple velvet ribbon. She staggered over to the bed, throwing herself across it without even bothering to get under the covers.
But she couldn't fall asleep.
She rolled over onto her back, staring at the ceiling. The draperies were closed tightly against the morning sun, and Koriane had been informed that Sarah had dealt with a runner in the night. She wouldn't come into Sarah's chamber until well past noon. The adoptive parents were scheduled to come at about 2 p.m. and her meeting with the Ambassador was scheduled for 3 p.m.
Breathe, Sarah, she thought to herself. Just breathe.
*You didn't plant the compulsion.*
"No. I didn't."
*He will know.*
"Of course he will. Either by noticing it himself, or one of us telling him."
*I didn't tell him you were going to solve my mysteries, way back when. What makes you think I'll tell him this?*
"Well, I hope you don't. He needs to hear it from me."
*Oh, I agree. I look forward to seeing his reaction.*
"I don't."
Author's Notes:
Here we see the Labyrinth's perspective on the Peach Incident, and a reason for Jareth's nonchalance about using it. It doesn't excuse him, but it does show that he really didn't think about it from the same point of view that Sarah did and truly did not have any evil intent with it.
It also throws a bit of a monkeywrench into Sarah's perception of that incident. She'd always thought that it was a dream Jareth forced her to participate in, and all along it had been her who dragged him into her own fantasy. I'll be exploring Sarah's Run and the alternate perspectives on it in a future fic, but for now… I thought it was a nice little twist.