As The World Falls Down

"I found her brother."

~~~

I sank into the water with a glad sigh, immersed myself beneath the bubbles and let the warmth surround me entirely. I wanted to stay there forever, anything to escape the chill that had crept into my bones in the presence of that painting. Foggy memories teased the surface of my mind and beneath the water I focused until they began to take shape. Voices I could recognise, landmarks I now could confirm were not just the imagination of the moment, but a place that I had been. I had stood there...nay, I had lain against that tree, that ripe fruit grasped within my palm before it had rolled from my hand and my mind had been enveloped in dreams.

Masquerade. Hidden faces and the rustle of silk over silk as the figures moved. Beneath the bubbles I could hear the music play a flowing tune as strong hands guided me over the floor, a gaze of green and blue holding me captive...

Shit! I sat up with a sudden rush as I drew in a needed breath, only to be stopped short at the sight that greeted me. In awe, I looked around me as dozens of perfect sphere bubbles floated on the air around me. Tentatively touching one, it lay still in my palm – a solid weight, as that sense of déjà vu swamped me. I had been offered one of these before...

I've brought you a gift...

...what is it?

...It's a crystal. Nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it, it will show you your dreams. But this is not a gift for an ordinary girl who takes care of a screaming baby.

"Oh my god." I whispered, watching as all the beautiful spheres floated gently to land and burst, existing no more.

Washing swiftly, I was dressed and out the door in barely ten minutes, barging past Aster on my way. I didn't even stop to answer her when she anxiously asked me where I was going. In truth, I wasn't sure I should go there at all. Absently as I ran through my studio, I noticed the painting was gone, and instead of the relief I had expected to feel, the dull sense of foreboding intensified. I should never have allowed that painting out of my sight, I should have destroyed it.

Aster took hold of my arm as I reached the door to the outside world and I swiftly shook it off with a promise I would return in ample time for the event tonight. The sky was already darkening as I ran to my car and jumped in the reliable little engine. Praying it started, it seemed willing to obey me this once, and I set out on the dark road towards my father's home. Each mile passed with agonising slowness as I drove, the trees overshadowing the moon casting an odd light to mingle in the darkness, until suddenly, their street appeared and I was pulling up alongside a house I had not been in since I left nearly three years ago. They were out, I saw no lights to brighten the inside and for this luck I was glad. I don't think I could have explained myself coherently had they been there to confront me.

Using the emergency key behind the azaleas, I let myself in quietly and listened for any hint of noise. Not so long ago, Merlin would have come to greet me by the door, but he had disappeared from the house just before my 'delusions' had begun. No one had ever been able to explain how he had simply vanished that night. Though I had tried to suggest he was with Sir Didymus in the other realm, it was enough to ensure my father and stepmother believed me to have a mental health problem.

I listened for a moment, happy that no one was home and that Toby was likely at a neighbours, I climbed the stairs and headed for my old room. It had been changed from my childhood sanctuary into a gym since I had left, all my things were gone, and I felt panic flood me. I needed to find it...I didn't know just how much I had forgotten, I needed to know, remember. I had to know His name.

I ran to the attic stairs, and entered the dark unused room. There, in three boxes, lay my childhood, hidden away in a corner. Ripping open the first box, I found my stuffed toys; another held all my linens and the clothes I had left behind. The final one, held the things from my desk I had hoped to come back and collect when I was not living out of my rucksack. A time that had never come. My music box caught my eye, I let out its tune and tears sprung to my eyes as the music touched something deeply buried. With shaking hands, I put it aside, and reached to the bottom of the box. When my hands clasped around the supple leather, I knew I had found what I came for. The book still looked the same in my pale fingers as it had when I was fifteen.

Opening the book was like a balm to my soul. The tension, coiling in my being since I had begun to forget the world that I had believed existed alongside our own, suddenly released as the words flowed from the pages and my lips whispered their sounds.

"Well I must say, it is about bloody time!" A gnarly voice grumbled as a dog gave an answering bark from the shadows.

"Sir Didymus?" I queried, though I already knew the answer. When the first white and grey paw exited the shadow, my heart lightened.

"The only, my fair maiden." The charming creature answered with a bow before Ambrocious, my Merlin, licked my face. "Though I must admit, I was beginning to wonder if we were to be confined to the prison of your forgetfulness forever."

"I am sorry Sir Didymus; I thought I was going mad..." I stopped, sad that I had caused them such grief.

"Well, never mind. We, my Qu...um...dear girl, have much work to be done." I watched him reach for my arm and hold on.

"What are you doing?" I raised my eyebrows at him, just as he looked on at me curiously.

"You haven't figured out what he did for you yet have you?" Sir Didymus actually looked slightly disgruntled with my apparent ignorance. "Well then, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and focus on us being back at your studio."

When he failed to say more, and just closed his eyes, I decided to do as he had asked. Closing my eyes, my companions holding onto my arm as I clutched the small leather bound book, I imagined us back within the soothing scents of my studio. Within a heartbeat I could smell the paints, the earthy scent of the charcoals...the sound of Aster gasping...

"What the..."

"See my Lady, verily tis the easiest method of travel from a known point to another."

"She can see you?" Aster asked my companion, and I stopped my gaping look to fix a glare upon her.

"You can see them??" I asked pointedly. When the three of them only stared back at me, I released Sir Didymus' hold on my arm and cradled the book against my chest. "I suggest you tell me what is going on Aster, that you can see these two whilst all others have proclaimed them a figment of my over active imagination and delusion."

"Well..."

~~~

I almost wish I had not asked.

"So what you are saying is that you are a fairy I met on my first day in the labyrinth, the one I saved from a dwarf." I shook my head, my fuzzy memories making my brain ache. "You bit me!"

Aster had the decency to look abashed. "You were pretty, and you were the Goblin King's size. It was bound to make for a little jealousy on any fairy's part."

The Goblin King...

Grabbing the book, I had to know. He knew my name, I had heard him whisper it in my dreams over the years, the sound of it on his lips heated my blood and left me dreaming of things I had no experience of to be dreaming. I blushed as I quickly scanned the pages, ignoring those around me. Each page brought back memories of their own. My quest through those strange lands; the never ending walls of his labyrinth. The creatures, the tests. Everything that had tormented me came flooding back with startling reality. I could see flashes out of the corners of my eyes as more creatures appeared to stand beside Aster and watch me silently.

My legs cramping, I stood, pacing back and forth as I continued my search through the pages – some passages remaining as they had always been...and others became a retelling of my history with the Goblin King before my eyes. I began to wonder how much of this would have stuck with Toby; if he too could see the creatures of the Labyrinth appear from the shadows.

Long minutes flew by as I scanned each page until finally I came across one word that made my heart jolt with a pleasurable pain that filled me with strength and joy and yet drained me at the same time. My last thought before I fell to the ground in darkness was a whisper from my lips.

Jareth...

~~~

Goblin faces watched beneath hooded shawls, their bodies cold, frost glistening on their skins and the once vibrant hues of the land shone with ice in their place. The endless void encroaching on their realm was a gaping yaw; vicious nothingness that pieces of the Labyrinth could constantly be seen floating away into. The lack of magic in this once great palace left it lifeless. I could feel the gaze of the goblin army settle on my ghostly image as I roamed their halls, climbed the impossible stair cases and archways that had been locked away in my mind. Long minutes...hours in this realm, passed before I entered his throne room through a door I had once ran through. There was no streaking sunset to illuminate the sandstone now. His throne, streaked with blood instead, made my heart beat hard beneath my breast and my stomach lurch. It was his blood, Jareth's...and another. A long battle had been fought here, daggers fallen to the floor where they had both resorted to the strength of their hands.

The world tilted suddenly, spilling me from its icy clutches and back into my studio with a thud, my companions all shielding me from impact with my tiled floor.

"Oh god...they are dying. They are freezing to death with out him, and there is this void, this darkness eating the labyrinth." I was standing once more, brushing my frost laden limbs with shaking hands as I felt a panic like none other wrap around me like a vice. "We need to find him."

"We will Sarah, we will."

"Hoggle?" My voice sounded tiny to my ears as the unusual looking male stepped from behind Aster and knelt beside me. "How could I have forgotten you? How was I so easily convinced?"

"You had better tell her Hoggle." Aster said quietly, moving to the front of my studio to lock us in.

"How much do you remember?" Hoggle asked, and he sat down as I summed up. "Good, that will help. A thousand years ago, a new prince was born to the realm, but not to the true Queen of the Labyrinth. Instead the babe was born to a witch, who had used her considerable magic to lure the ailing King to her bed disguised as his beloved Queen. Jareth, who then at three hundred years was still considered a youth, pleaded for the life of the babe, who bore a striking resemblance to himself. The Queen, his mother, reluctantly agreed, though the babe was placed in the far end of the realm with a Goblin family to raise him, and his witch mother was cast out of the land in deathly exile.

But it went wrong. Jareth did not realise that the witch's evil had survived in her son. Jareth had allowed the viper within his castle walls once his beloved mother was no longer around to oppose it. Shade's resentment had festered as he grew up, thought none would have known of it, as he acted the perfect brother."

"Until?" I asked, though I already had a guilty idea of when.

"Until you arrived, and he could see the King's fascination for you. Jareth had grown so apathetic, cruel even as the endless years passed by with little change, long seasons with naught but his brother's twisted mind and whispers for company, but when you came into the world, Shade could see the effect you had upon his brother. He suspected..."

"Are we telling her then?" Sir Didymus interrupted, and Hoggle glared at him. I saw something silent pass between them before I coughed and brought their attention back to me.

"I think its best, don't you?" Hoggle's gruff rebuke made me smile, he sounded so much more like himself when he was grumpy. "He suspected, Sarah, that you were Jareth's Queen."

Time slowed. Hoggle's voice sank into the background as I heard his voice in my head instead.

Look Sarah, Look what I'm offering you. Your dreams. I ask for so little. Just let me rule you and you can have everything you want.

Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.

Jareth, how young I was, I whispered in my head. Too young to understand all that you were truly offering me.

Forcing myself away from the comfort of his voice, I refocused on Hoggle and my strange companions as more small goblins appeared and crowded around us.

"So what do we do now?" I asked my worries over the painted clock with only a minute to spare springing to the forefront.

"Now, we must get you to your event." Aster said, much to my confusion as all the entourage nodded in full agreement.

"Are you serious? We have to find Jareth!" I began pacing once more, new fears flooding me. The clock, counting down...to what exactly? Turning back to Hoggle I had to ask. "Hoggle...what happens on my birthday?"

I could see his little shoulders slump. Evidently my question had been one he had been hoping to avoid. I placed my hand on his arm and gently turned him to face me.

"At midnight, and a second into your twenty first birthday, Jareth's time runs out."

"What do you mean?" I was almost too afraid to ask.

"Hoggle, we have to tell her the rest." Aster said.

"I can't; he made me promise not to."

"We have to tell her, it isn't fair not to give her all the details."

"Can you not speak about me as though I am not in the damn room!" I yelled over the din, and immediately all their little faces turned to me in a strange array of surprised awe. It was then that I saw it, saw my skin glow with the same radiance of that single owl feather that I kept hidden in my journal. But around my heart was the brightest light, beating in time, tuned to my emotions. And right now, I was scared, tired, overwhelmed, but mostly I was pissed that someone had betrayed my King.

"You have all of Jareth's power, my Lady. His magic, his sheer essence, his immortality. All of it resides now within you. He gifted it to you upon the turn of the clock into your eighteenth year, left it in your safe keeping so as to protect you from the intent of his brother. Or so, what he had thought was Shade's intent." Sir Didymus spoke up, before Hoggle sat down heavily and pushed the noble knight from his position atop Ambrocious.

"Jareth was convinced Shade was going to harm you Sarah, he had been overheard by the Wise man as he ranted in the labyrinth, but it turns out he wanted the old man and his hat to hear him. He knew Jareth would protect you and in doing so, be left without his powers and be vulnerable. He attacked, not counting on the King's strength, and with his final act, Jareth pushed them both from the realm and into this human one. But with Jareth's powers transferred to you, Shade was now the stronger of the two. What Shade never thought of would be that Jareth would give you the key to reopen the Kingdom."

"Jareth never gave me a key." I was perplexed. "Where is Jareth now?"

"We don't know where Jareth is Sarah," Aster said, passing me a glass of water and pulling me against her side in a little hug. "but now, we at least know that the man who commissioned that painting, has to be Shade. There is none other than us gathered here, Jareth and Shade who would have access to that memory. And he will be at the gallery this evening. He has been searching for you. It wasn't a 'key' in the manner of a door, it was a certain magic from himself that he gave you that hid itself in your heart. The power to return to the Labyrinth. Something neither of them can do now, not without you."

"Then we must go. The unveiling will have happened already, but I promised to be there for the mingling afterwards. Let us see if this traitorous creature dares approach me." I smiled, the bravado not something I was truly feeling, but if I could convince myself that I believed it, then perhaps I could get through the next few hours without giving into the need to curl up into a ball and ignore the world. Jareth needed me, and he needed me not to fail him. Again.

I dressed in solitude, a long scarlet number that Aster had chosen for me yesterday. It fell to the floor in a smooth array of silk. Nothing like the beautiful gown I had danced in so long ago, but incredible in its own way. The heels I wore, left me looking like I were floating beside the mirror, the dress shivering lightly against my skin with the trembling I could not hide from my body.

I was about to come face to face with the captor of my King.

~~~

"I hear she is still single." Shade stood before his mirror, his back to the one on his wall, the one he knew is furious brother was now regarding him from. "I wonder how long it will take to seduce her?"

Shade turned, fully dressed in his tuxedo, impressive in his own mind as he slicked back his blonde hair and regarded his sibling with a smirk.

"I think I shall like taking her to be my Queen. Her muddled memories may even help me in that arena. Don't you agree Jareth? That we share a fair amount of our father's genes, that the resemblance is not total, but still...familial?" Shade pulled on his dinner jacket and waved his hand over the polished surface of the glass, allowing his enraged brother to be seen clearly.

"Maybe I will let you watch."

With a wave, Shade was gone, and Jareth left to pound his bleeding fists against a glass that would never break beneath his human hands, his roar echoing around him.

~~~

"Another great work Miss Williams." A stout, aged gentleman took my palm and placed and sweet kiss to the back of it as his wife also commended the work I was allowing to be placed in the Gallery at no cost. They were a charity, taking the money from patrons to provide aid to children in the city, so I would never be so callous as to expect payment from such a thing. This painting had been a joy to create, even though now it affected me deeply with the full knowledge that the creatures depicted were real – that I had engaged in real conversations with the door-knockers in my visit to Jareth's Labyrinth. There they stood, proud, the colours surrounding them vivid in a sunshine that no longer shone in their world. I prayed that this canvas, unlike the one of the peach, held no feeling of 'life' within it. It would do no good for patrons on this side of reality to be able to have a conversation with the insufferably jovial and equally sullen door knockers.

"I thank you Sir Delany, I assume Mr Langton has given you my card, he said you were interested in a commissioned work?" I asked, playing the part of happy artist in case of listening ears. It would not do well to have Shade know that I was remembering my past in full and glorious Technicolor.

"Yes Miss Williams, and I thank you. Have a good evening."

I bid them the same, and turned to take another glass of champagne from the passing tray. I cast a subtle glance in Aster's direction, thankful at least that one of my companions could pass for human. As it were, every twitch of tablecloths and rustle of the fake palm leaves drew my sharp attention as though I half expected the gallery to erupt with my paintings come to life. I was surprised to only briefly spot one of the goblins and one glimpse of Hoggle in the first two hours I socialised.

"Sarah?" I turned at the soft hand touching my elbow and smiled at Mr Langton. "I wondered where you had got to. Earning more clients I see?"

"Indeed, starving artist and all that." I jested, though my lack of enthusiasm wasn't noticed.

"I'd like you to meet someone," he turned and my heart beat so hard within my chest I almost gasped in shock. "Miss Williams, this is the buyer of that frankly astounding peach."