Jareth strolled out-of-doors, taking comfort in the rhythm of the Underground and contemplating the secret names of the stray cats flitting by him. He was startled from his reverie, however, when he caught sight of the breathless-blue sky, bleeding heart-red. The Goblin King all but screamed the name that was never far from his lips, for he knew it could only be her blood seeping and her breath stopping: “Sarah!”
Owl’s feathers traversed the distance between the Goblin King and the girl. Beating away the window-glass that barred him, Jareth enveloped Sarah in half-transformed wings, as her life slipped through an unforeseen heart-tear in her sixteenth year. Jareth, stricken, kissed her so deeply that he sealed the tear in Sarah’s heart with a piece from his own.
Sarah awoke in an unfamiliar room that was pulsing to a familiar lavender-blue beat; she realized it was the beat of her own heart. No, a memory of wings between life and death told her it was their hearts. Within this epiphany, Sarah heard and felt his song:
Lavender-blue, dilly, dilly
Lavender-green.
If I were king, dilly, dilly
I'd need a queen.
Who told me so, dilly, dilly?
Who told me so?
I told myself, dilly, dilly.
I told me so.
If your dilly, dilly heart
Feels a dilly, dilly way,
And if you'll answer "yes"
In a pretty little church
On a dilly, dilly day,
You'll be wed in a dilly, dilly dress of
Lavender-blue, dilly, dilly
Lavender-green.
Then, I'll be king, dilly, dilly,
And you'll be my queen.
Jareth’s melancholy tinged the happy ditty, however, and it flowed under his spoken arrogance: “I’m sorry, Sarah, truly sorry. If only I had reneged on the thirteen hour bargain and kept you, you….and I would have been spared this trauma. That you could have been taken from me is unthinkable!”
“Why,” queried Sarah, noting the barely masked tremor in the Goblin King’s voice, “because you have a bargain with the Reaper?” Sarah sensed and feared his answer.
“Because I love you,” answered Jareth. “My heart was yours before I kissed it into you. Your heart was mine, even when you renounced me. I captured a piece of it within the crystal that you rejected, and I placed it within the sky of our realm. Without your sunlight, without your heartbeat, my existence is meaningless. This is not an ultimatum, Sarah. It is a statement.”
“I know,” conceded Sarah. “I feel you within me, and I’m frightened. My life ended the moment before you saved me, the moment that I knew I’d die. My life ended, again, when I realized that I’d live. I don’t know how I can be everything to you forever, Jareth, when I haven’t gotten the chance to be everything to myself for even one lifetime.
“Do you love me?,” pressed Jareth.
“We share our hearts, now,” responded Sarah. “You know that I do. But, for the record, you’ve got a truly weird idea of courtship.”
Jareth chuckled, as he answered: “This is not a courtship, Sarah. As I said, it is a statement, an extension of will. You forced me to extend my will, and I discovered myself. Love me. Fear the exhilarating joy of the mysteries that I offer. Extend your will through me, and you will discover yourself.”
Disclaimer: Labyrinth and all characters therein are the property of the Jim Henson Company and LucasFilm Ltd.