The Tale of the Labyrinth By Eamane-Shu

 

Sarah woke the next morning before the dawn. She made to get up, but a firm weight had her pinned to the mattress, holding her tightly. Jareth. She remembered last night with a smile. They had made love slowly for hours, until they had curled up together and she had slept properly for the first time since Jareth’s return. She relaxed slightly and snuggled up to him again. He was snoring softly and she could feel his steady breathing on the back of her neck. He was still fast asleep. Sarah felt a few stray tears leak out of her eyes. He was back, it was real. Everything was again how it should be, she had Jareth back, and her daughter now had a father.

She wiped the tears from her face, however this movement roused him from his slumber, “Hey” he whispered kissing her neck softly, as he sat up, then he noticed her tear streaked face “What’s the matter?” he asked concerned.

She wiped her face again roughly “You’re back” she explained to him, her voice full of relief.

“Well I would have thought that was a good thing!” he teased gently

“Not with the way you snore” she retorted, smiling through her tears, before embracing him tightly, holding him as if she was never going to let him go again. And she didn’t intend to, like it or not he would have to stay for good. She couldn’t loose him again.

After her tears had stilled Sarah sat quietly thinking, while Jareth traced patterns on her back gently. “Why don’t you spend some time with me and Jelana this afternoon?” she asked suddenly. It was about time that her daughter got to know her father.

“That would be nice” he agreed, “I have a state meeting with Danae this morning, but after that I’m free all day” he nuzzled her neck gently. Before getting up, getting dressed and heading off to find Aldous, who was planning filling him on all the important occurrences that had occurred over the last two years. This left Sarah to follow her normal routine, eating a quiet breakfast with Danae, Camille and Jelana.

The Queen had a couple of free hours before she was due to meet with her brother, which she used to sit and chat with Sarah, who was eager to recount last evening’s events with Jareth.

“So you let go then?”

“Huh?” asked Sarah confused.

Danae elaborated, “To everything you’ve been holding onto since the war”

“I let a lot out” she confirmed. “I was so angry with him for so long”

“What for”

“For dying, I hated him for dying, and leaving me all alone with Jelana. Then he came back. He was back, but I was still so angry with him. And he didn’t understand, he couldn’t understand how hard loosing him was. And I couldn’t tell him, I didn’t know how; it’d been far too long”

“So you avoided him”

“Silly huh?”

“No, not really”

“I guess I thought it would go away after a few days, if I just stayed away from him, I could get used to the idea he was back. But it didn’t work. He spoke to Jelana, and he was upset that she didn’t understand who he was.”

“Well of course she wouldn’t” Danae agreed, Jareth did have a habit of expecting the impossible from people sometimes.

“And it just completely tipped me over the edge, the fact that she didn’t know Jareth wasn’t her father, because he hadn’t been there.” Sarah stopped, not able to go on any more, she had never realised how much pain and anger she had been carrying around for the last two years. Now she had been forced to let go of it she felt better, though in a way she felt a part of her was missing.

“The most worrying thing is ‘Nae” she confided conspiratorially “I still feel uneasy around Jareth. Like…like…”

“Like he’s going to disappear again?” Danae finished, for her. Sarah nodded as the Queen continued. “I know how you feel. It’s been a week and I’m still surprised to see him at dinner.”

“I know, he’s been gone for so long, and we were starting to get on ok. And now he’s back, it’s so much to take in.”

“But things between you are starting to settle down again though?”

“I guess so; he’s coming out with me and Jelana this afternoon.”

“Are you going to tell her today?” Danae asked, raising her eyebrows. Telling Jelana that Jareth was her father was a huge step for Sarah. The little girl had been raised seeing Jareth’s picture, but having him there in the flesh was an entirely different matter.

“I don’t think so.” Sarah replied, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “It’s too soon. She’s so young, and she wouldn’t understand.” However she felt guilty, Jareth wanted her to know so badly, “It’s not that I’m never going to tell her, I just think that it would be best to wait.”

“Sarah, when and how you tell Jelana has to be your decision. Don’t let Jareth pressure you into it, he’s got no rights where Jelana is concerned at the moment.”

“But she’s still his daughter”

“Technically she’s not.” Danae explained “In the eyes of the law Jelana is a bastard, and that means that the father has no rights over the child. If Jareth gives you any trouble I’ll sort him for you.”

With that she left to see to her meeting with Jareth. Leaving Sarah alone with her daughter, who had, while her mother was distracted, managed to get herself covered in strawberry jam. It was all around her mouth and cheeks, with crumbs stuck to her face. A sizable number of lumps had fallen into her dress, her hands were sticky, and somehow she had even managed to get it into her dark hair. Sarah sighed, there was no way her daughter could simply be wiped clean, she would have to be bathed. She called to one of the maids and asked her to go and fill the tub, turning Jelana away from her dress, she scooped her daughter up, managing to avoid getting the jam on herself and carried her daughter upstairs.

Danae’s meeting with Jareth went quite well, in the manner that she and Jareth managed to get through the entire three hours without falling out more than once, which Aldous proclaimed to be a new record. However, it didn’t go well in the way that Jareth didn’t really want to retake the Goblin Throne, which Danae was trying to hand back to him.

“Jareth, for the God’s sake, you’ve had two years off, you need to start to retake your responsibilities.” She told him angrily.

“You’re the Queen” he countered with a lazy smirk, “I believe they’re your! responsibilities now.” This possibly wasn’t the best thing to say to an already irritated Danae.

“Well as of next week, Jareth, I won’t be Queen anymore.” She informed him, as she stood up, “So you’d better be prepared to take up your mantle” before opening the door.

“Danae!” he shouted after her in confusion, as she walked out the room.

“That’s ‘Your Highness’ to you Jareth”, she countered as she headed down the corridor.

He got up and hurried down the corridor after her, shouting as he went “What do you mean you won’t be Queen any more Danae?” As he rounded the corner of the corridor he stopped Danae was standing there, holding on to the wall for support, sobbing heavily. “Danae, what’s the matter?” he asked, leading her to a chair.

“I can’t do this anymore Jareth” she told him simply “I’ve been strong for the past two years, but I can’t keep it up anymore. And you are being so selfish.”

“How am I being selfish?” he asked suddenly.

“Do you want a list?” she glared at him “Firstly demanding that Sarah tell Jelana about you. Refusing to retake the crown, which is your goddamn duty! It’s not mine until the event of your death, and since you are very much alive, though if you keep pissing me off you’re not going to stay that way.”

“But you’ve been doing such a good job ‘Nae, why can’t you keep doing it.”

Danae rolled her eyes before rounding on him, “One day I’m going to have my own Kingdom to run, I’m not running yours as well!”

“But…”

“No buts!” she rounded on him, “Like it or not, next week you are resuming your responsibilities as Goblin King, or the Kingdom will go to whoever is next in line.” She made a pointed dig regarding their cousin, Loinin, who Jareth despised. “Now” she told him, authority ringing through her voice “I suggest you go and see Aldous, who will inform you of the proceedings. I’m going to make my announcement.” With that she began to walk down the corridor.

“What announcement?” he questioned suspiciously. However she didn’t answer him, she probably didn’t hear him, he mused to himself, either that or selective deafness. Wearily he trudged down the corridor to where Aldous was sitting in his little study. It was a room that Jareth had entered less than a dozen times in his entire life. When he had been much younger it had belonged to his instructor Dremius, until Aldous had ‘upgraded’ him to a more secluded area of the castle. The office in question was quite small, and looked smaller still with the amount of junk that Aldous seemed to store in there. Every available scrap of space was covered in scraps of paperwork, the desk in front of him, the shelves behind him, even areas of the floor. However as haphazard the office appeared to be, everything was filed in a particular order, should you name a piece of parchment, Aldous could immediately put his hands on it.

“Well, I take it from your presence that Danae won?” he questioned teasingly.

“When did this start happening?” Jareth muttered to himself, the Danae that he knew had always done everything the way he had told her, and now it seemed that the positions were reversed.

“Well she is the Queen; everybody has to go along with what she says.”

“Well not for much longer” Jareth huffed.

“And she sent you to me for the details?”

“She knew she was going to win didn’t she?”

“Danae always picks her battles” Aldous smiled with pride before turning his attention back to Jareth. “Now where were we? Ah yes, your up and coming coronation. Well Danae is planning to announce her abdication in about an hour, and she will pass the throne on to her immediate successor, which will be you Jareth.”

“Naturally” Jareth agreed.

“Your coronation ceremony will then take place next week. I assume you want it to run the way it did last time?”

“No, actually…” Jareth then presented his advisor with a list of the additions he wanted put in the coronation ceremony. Afterwards, as he walked out of the palace towards where he was meeting Sarah, he smiled to himself; there was just one more piece of business to take care of.

He was walking at the top of the balcony that headed down to the gardens, he could see Sarah now, she was sitting on a blanket with Jelana and Camille.

Suddenly, out of nowhere he was knocked to the ground. A familiar whistling sound went by where he had been standing less than a second ago, he looked to his assailant; it was a member of the royal guard, who was hesitant to let him up from the ground. He looked up into the distance, where a figure in black with a crossbow was retreating into the distance, with several dozen members of the Goblin Guard in hot pursuit.

Sarah was running towards him now, her face panicked, she roughly shoved the guard aside in her haste to get to Jareth. “Oh my god are you alright?” she asked him, not really waiting for a reply as she checked him over for injuries.

“I’m fine” she was still running her hands over his shirt as if looking for blood, “really!” he insisted, sitting up next to her.

She flung her arms around his neck “Oh my god, I saw him aiming at you, and there was nothing I could do, I thought he was going to kill you right in front of me!” he kissed her gently as she started to cry.

“I thought I’d lost you again, and I never got chance to tell you how much I love you.”

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