Back to the Labyrinth (closed for Tx_Liquor)

Jareth spun, burning his thorn shrouded back to Sarah and said, "How much of an ego do you have to think I was the one who brought you here-" he stopped suddenly, turning a knitted brow and troubled gaze to Sarah as if just now realizing what he said. He hadn't been the reason to her return.

Quickly recovering he looked away, eyes turning upward as he walked towards the place where the pool of water once was. "Tell me, Sarah. Have you even bothered to look. Do you even know what is missing from my kingdom?"

After a moments pause he looked back at her answering, "Goblins." Turning he advanced saying, "The Goblins are all GONE because of YOU."

Jareth stopped again, just short of touching Sarah and took a step back to add a measure of distance between them. "When you took your baby brother I gave the order that no more were to come to this realm. I couldn't risk another, like you, wreaking havoc in my kingdom. And so, a hundred years later, the Goblins are all but gone and those that are left have been twisted into something even I could never have dreamed in my darkest of woes. This kingdom is just the shadow of what you've forgotten, so tell me." He looked into Sarah, as if through her and into her soul. "Why would I EVER wish for your return?"

“Oh I don’t know, you weren’t particularly pleased at our last meeting. Forgive me if I believe that revenge is a tool in your arsenal.” She spat back sarcastically and then paused to listen to the rest of what he had to say.

She had indeed noticed the dark cloud that had engulfed the labyrinth, she had thought it a reflection of his bad mood, a punishment to all those that allowed her to succeed in the rescue of her brother and her escape. She had noticed the lack of goblins, but again she thought it simply a reflection of events past. She held her breath as he almost touched her, her heart fluttering suddenly.

She didn’t know how to respond to the lack of goblins, about how he had stolen no more children. She had foolishly thought that goblins reproduced, but in retrospect, she had only ever seen one female goblin that she could recall.

Her muscles relaxed slightly as she thought about the devastation that had been left in her wake. She had never thought that she had such power over this place, she thought it had been around long before she arrived and would continue ever more.

“I…I’m sorry. I would never have wished this wasteland on the goblins. I would not wish for their extinction…I simply wanted to save my brother.” She told him softly, unsure of what else to say, leaving a long silence between them.

“If you did not bring me here, then who did?” she asked finally.

"Oh, but you DID save your brother." Jareth lifted a wine glass to his nose, sniffed and threw it aside as if it was so ruined that even the glass was beyond salvation. "You saved your brother. You saved your friends. You stole my heart and you never looked back."

Showing a strength one would not imagine Jareth grabbed the edge of the heavy wooden table with both hand and lifted until the object that probably weight more than several people toppled over like a building falling to the ground. "It's all worthless!"

He turned on Sarah and charged forward, "I watched you. I saw you play games and laugh. Tell me, Sarah. Did you even think of me? Did you wonder what would happen to my kingdom now that you'd rid yourself of any power I had over you. Over Toby. Over this world! Did you smile when you imagined me living off rodents and picking my feathers clean. Or did you just not CARE!" He stopped short, as if he could only move while he was speaking and now just inches away from Sarah she could see that the tips of his hair shifted slightly to betray the trembling he was hiding. And still, his face and eyes were just stone cold and glaring as if daring to hear what she might respond.

“I didn’t believe you had a heart…” She replied softly, still in shock that she had manage to steal something that seemed to be a fiction.

She looked down and the ground and chewed the inside of her cheek as the rant went on. If he had only know how many time she had thought of him in the time after her return…though she doubted he would believe her. She had to push past it, thinking that there was no return to the Labyrinth, it became painful to think back on it, to even see her friends, and so she had worked on blocking out what had happened, took the medication she had be prescribed for her “delusions” and tried live a life that seemed gray and dull compared to what she had experienced.

She too shook and it was only when she looked up at him that her face betrayed the fat tears that threatened to spill from her green eyes.

“How could I know?” she asked as her own rage began to rally against his own. “How could I know that silly girl could change an entire world?” she spat back. “But it’s always about you Jareth, isn’t it? Can you even conceive the hell I faced when I returned to the other side? The doctors, the pills shoved down my throat? No. I very much doubt it as you know as little of my world as I know of yours.” She told him.

She angrily wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and took a deep breath. She never understood how she could feel such rage and such affection for him at the same time. Part of her wanted to slap the living hell out of him, the other, to be embraced by him.

“I never wanted this for you, or your world. I will do what I can to right it, if that is even possible.”

Jareth fixed Sarah with a hooded glare, his silver shadowed eyes a bright contrast to his dark and knitted brow. "Fix it? Tell me Sarah, how do you fix shattered dreams? How to mend a wounded soul? You think you can quest a solution or find an answer? Even I cannot truly turn the hands of time! What is it that you think you can do, which I cannot?"

The voice of Sashes squeaked out, "M'Lady?" When Sarah would turn to look over at the small fey, she would see they were no longer in the dinning hall. The one with the secrete passage that lead to the castle. Jareth had put in right in the middle of a hedge maze more lost than she was before.

Sir Didymus spoke the unspoken, "Yes. I believe we are lost again?"

"Take this." Jareth demanded, and held a black sphere, much like his other crystals only this one was as dark as a starless night. It felt almost like ice to the touch. "It is riddle that answers a riddle. If you find the answer to both and you might have a chance to save them. Fail, and you'll be trapped here until the darkness twists your own mind into a nothing but shadows of a person."

He gestured high above the maze walls where a clock could be seen, "You have 7 hours. No more. No less. This time I won't be as kind as I was before." He seemed to hesitate, his hand trembling as he pointed as if waiting for something.

She looked at him angrily, he had completely written off her own worries and struggles to seemingly content to believe he was the only one that had suffered. She looked over to Sashes and then Didymus and now found that they were in the hedge maze.

She allowed herself to take hold of the dark crystal and then looked at him as began to spin his clock. For someone who seemed so angry at her and the destruction of his land – he treated it entirely too much like a game.

“This is cold, it must be your heart.” She told him as she placed the orb back into his hand. “I will play no more games with you Jareth. You can either tell me what it is I need to do to make you contented and somehow help this place to regain itself, or I will die here in 7 hours. I will no longer wander aimlessly for your entertainment.” She told him stoically. “If you choose to leave us here, then so be it.”

"My heart?" He looked at the orb, now in his hand, "Haven't you heard. I have no heart. You took it from me. You broke it. Around you lays the result of that. You press my hand, in my kingdom? You are not worth of making demands."

He threw the orb deeper into the maze then turned back to Sarah, "You are not afraid. I can see that. But remember - it's not only you who will go mad and die. You *friend*," he gestured to Sir Didymus, "Will suffer that fate. And the last thing he hears before he goes made is the dying cries of his steed and only friend, Ambrosia. In the end he'll blame you because you had..." He looked at the clock then back, "6 hours and 57 minutes to save him and his friend. Only you chose, not to. Once again - you chose what you wanted over what someone else needed."

He stepped back into the wall of thorns and black leaves saying, "Have you truly become that selfish?" He stopped, let the brambles fold over him and was gone.

His voice echoed, "Such a pity."

His logic made no sense, but then again, she supposed it never did; nothing in this place every made any sense. She would not let her friends suffer but she wish she knew what the point of it all was. To solve a riddle to save a kingdom she was told could not be saved. It seemed that no amount of confession or apology would do for the Goblin King, instead, he wished to send her on fruitless ventures; perhaps that was her punishment.

She screamed in aggravation and went running down the maze, following the clanking sound of the crystal orb until she held it at last. It seemed even colder now and she had no pockets. She pulled up the front of her dress and deposited the orb there as she ran back to Didymus and Sashes.

“Do either of you have a cloth or handkerchief I can put this in? It’s so cold…”She explained, doing her best not to expose her panties to them while still holding onto the crystal. She ended up sitting on the ground for a moment with the orb still in her skirt as she thought.

“Didymus, you say you’ve been around him all this time – what is it I could possibly do to change anything? What does this quest even matter if nothing can be fixed?” she asked, desperate for some clue in the right direction.

Sashes offered Sarah 2 Belts to hold the Orb comfortably.

Sir Didymus said, "I was tasked with making sure you go the castle. I will do as M'Lady wishes."

He looked about, as if making a choice then pointed his lance, "This way! I believe he wished for you to experience the darkness as a test. A test of self. Are you willing to give up your old life?"

In the winds Jareth's voice whispered, "Give up the old, or give up the truth?"

Sarah wrapped the orb in the belts and stood. She listened carefully as Didymus spoke and thought about that for a moment. Did she even wish to return? Return to the pills and blandness of a normal mortal life…she had never truly fit in there, so why should she wish to return.

“I’ve experienced quite a lot of darkness in my life, this should be a piece of cake.” She said blandly and walked down the path of the maze.

With each step, the maze faded leaving only darkness and cold. Her friends seemed to fade away as did everything else and every negative emotion she had ever felt seemed to penetrate her at once. She collapsed into the nothingness as her years of psychotherapy seemed to come to life. She was once again in a cold hard bed, her stomach queasy from the medicines they had forced her to take. Then, she was in cold room receiving experimental treatment as electrode needles were pushed into her skin and courses of electro shock were sent through her nerves.

She looked up to see her father turn away…her family…even Toby. Everyone was tired of her stories, tired of her constant belief in something that seemed so fantastical. It reminded her that perhaps, she had never really belonged there. She then saw her dorm room and no one even realized she was missing.

Sorry turned to anger at the all of them. Why was it so difficult to think that perhaps there were truth in her words. Why did no one care? She had tried to be better to her step mother and be a better daughter and sister – and no one had cared.

She felt tendrils of – she wasn’t sure what it was- star to unfurl from her heart and leave, as if releasing her from something. She screamed in pain as this invisible thing was ripped from her body – screams that could be heard throughout the kingdom. Then, after what seemed like hours, days, years, she landed on the ground next to Didymus and Sashes, though it seemed as though no time has past. She was tired, trying to recover from the pain, but seemingly freed from her past life.

“I…I cannot move…” She told them weakly.

Didymus and Sashes looked from Sarah to one another and back a few times. It was as if each expected the other to come up with a solution. They knew Sarah was tired, weak drained but they also knew she had to get moving.

They would have carried her or at least pulled her along if they could, but Hoggel would have had an easier time pulling the castle to her. Didymus was the first to try by lifting a tired arm but he could get no leverage, even with Sashe's help.

"M'Lady," Didymus finally said, "I will find help. Our larger and stronger companion will stay behind to hard you." Sashes, who was equal in size to Didymus started in silence when the fey realized the one eye'd Knight was talking about him.

Sashes could do nothing more than stroke Sarah's hair trying to comfort her as moments ticked by and rest was all that Sarah could do until the heavy rumbled of foot steps grew closer. Moments slipped in and out as Sarah was picked up. Now she was moving on a bed of leather and firm cushions. Now her makeshift bed was moving higher if seemed. Then higher still. Furs and Leathers now draped her until finally she was in a bed, in a cool room, feeling somewhere safe. Somewhere Regal.

"Thank you, brother." Didymus spoke through the din.
"Ludo sad." Came the hollow response.

When Sarah awoke her head throbbed and all she wanted to do was roll over and go back to bed. Her eyes slowly cracked open as she thought she might be late for a class, only to realize that she was not in her dorm room. Her eyes opened wider as they roamed over the room and the memory of what had happened and where she was all flashed back to her.

“Didymus? Sashses?” she asked in a hoarse voice as she slowly sat up. “Where are we…how long has it been?” she asked and then looked up to see a familiar friendly face.

“Ludo!” she started to cry out but her choked on the word and her head throbbed more painfully. She started to get up. She could not let her friends die. “I have to go somewhere…I have something I need to do…” she said as she tried to stand and get herself ready to leave without much success.

Ludo's fur was shorter and much of it looked thin in areas. Leathery skin showed through what was once a thick carpet all over his body. Even his tusks seemed jagged and sharper and his ears now thin and ragged. But his eyes were still the kind and innocent orbs they always were.

"Sarah sleep. Sarah go home." He padded over and sat down next to the dense bed.

Sir Dydimus bounced up on the other side, "Yes, M'Lady. The hours have not been kind. I'm afraid it's too late for us. But, when the hour strikes you'll return to your realm. You'll be free."

"Because we'll be no more!" Spat Sashes. "When all collapses she will remain. Sashes will be gone! But, M'Lady will go on."

Sir Dydimus growled at the similarly sized Fey, "I have no fear. Not even of death! I would die three- No! Four times over if it would assure M'Lady is safe in her own realm!"

Ludo reached over to pick Sir Dydimus up and hold him, to calm him, "Brother angry. No time for angry." he gestured and smiled, "Look. Sarah's here."

Sir Dydimus looked back as Sarah and sighed, "You're right, Brother. We have less than an hours time. I will not spend it upsetting our Lady."

As Ludo told her to go home, the fog that had clouded her mind seemed to clear finally, and she remembered what she had to do.

“I will not go home Ludo, I will no longer leave you all to suffer because of me.” She told him. She then looked around the room and found her boots. She slipped them on, pulling the laces tight and then rummaged through the room madly looking for the orb.

When she found it, she grabbed the strap around it and looked at them. “No one is dying tonight or any other night!” She growled as a fury began to spark and flame in her chest. How dare Jareth put this on her! How dare he be so vague and condescending…

“You may come if you wish, but know this, I will not allow you to perish…” she said as she found her way out of Ludo’s home and started running through the Labyrinth at a mad pace.

She walked through it’s corridors, crumbled, decaying and covered with dead things. She would not give up, she couldn’t. It was as if her very spirit depended on her finding and conquering whatever it was that Jareth had set out for her to do. She screamed in frustration and just when she was about to scream again, she felt herself fall.

She wondered at first if the hole was an oubliette, it was dark enough, but as she fell, she somehow landed on her feed, as if she had landed on the opposite side of something. She looked up and saw Jareth’s clock. The ticking echoed loudly, each tick booming against her ears and shaking her soul.

She ran towards the clock with frustrated tears as she saw time, her friends very lives, ticking away. She screamed the warrior’s scream and then flung the orb at the clock; if her friends were not to live, she was prepared to die with them.

The clock erupted as if the orb had hit a reflection in a mirror. The air itself seemed to fracture and split and even the walls. It was if the whole of the room was just a picture on the inside of bowl and now that it was breaking the world was falling away. Even as the glass rained down none of it seemed to touch Sarah. It didn't even get close to her.

Once the world had finished falling away the throne room just grew out of the darkness beyond. Torches and candles lighting up to illuminate Jareth and the emptiness where goblins once slept, drank and sang. Now, there was nothing but the cold and emptiness.

Jareth's knitted brow tightened as he looked at Sarah, part puzzlement and part emotion. "Sarah. Breaker of worlds." He sat down after speaking those words and leaned back in his moon shaped throne. "You've beaten me again. But I'm afraid it's for not. I don't have the power to send you back - you stole that from me when you left me the first time. Remember?"

The sudden shattering of her world was almost familiar to Sarah as she watched it all move around her in fragments. She guarded herself from them only to find that she seemed to be protected from them. When they finally fell away she found herself in a place she had never been before – the throne room.

Before her was the man that had haunted her dreams. She walked up the small set of stairs and stood before him.

“Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is your kingdom. I will fight with you to restore the damage I have caused and bring life back to this place, for I cannot escape you, you are a part of me.”

Jareth's eyes narrowed as he continued to sit, watching Sarah as if seeing her for the first time and trying to understand who she was. It was as if her words had transformed her into someone beyond his comprehension and for a long moment the lingered in awkward silence.

Slowly standing he rose to his full height and looked down at Sarah, eyes still searching for something he couldn't seem to find. "You understand far more than I give you credit. You are not he girl who left the Labyrinth so many years ago. You're so much more."

The sounds of something rolling across the floor drew the Goblin King's attention and he saw the black orb rolling towards them. It then hopped, bounced and he reached out to catch it but as his hand closed around it, it seemed vanish. In that moment he took a sharp intake of breath and closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them again there was more warmth in his expression, and much more pain. "Welcome home, Sarah." He stepped aside and with a wave of his hand, offered her the throne he'd been sitting in just moments before.

She was taken aback at the look of warmth he gave her. She had thought he had brought her back to punish her, to torture here in some way, especially given that she had been the cause for the ravaged landscape she now saw all around her.

She did not take the throne he offered but instead stood beside him, looking up into his pale eyes. “What can we do? Tell me all that has transpired so that we can make this right.” She told him, blushing hotly at his proximity to her. She was sure he felt nothing but pain and anguish when looking at her, she felt some of that when she looked at him, given what she had gone through, but there was always something…something more.

“We will take back the kingdom.”