Exchange Fic #15: The Rescue (1/3)

[dmacabre]

The actual identity of the writer will remain secret until all the submissions are in and posted.

****

Title: The Rescue, Part One
Author: tallulah99
Recipient: wizzcat01
Prompt: Poor Jareth, always the villain of the piece, forever the bad guy, but what if just for once he was the hero in the tale (intentional or reluctant)? After all, good guys always get the girl - right?
Rating: T for some swearing
Plot Summary/Author's Notes: A dozen years has passed since Sarah's first visit to the Labyrinth and this time Sir Didymus has gone and gotten himself into a world of trouble. Unable to save him on her own, Sarah swallows her pride and requests Jareth's aid. Is he willing to set aside past grievances and journey with her across the Underground to confront Didymus' captor? Who is the Borderlands Queen and what is her history with the enigmatic King of the Goblins? Will their quest be successful? And who is it that needs to be rescued really?

Author's Notes: In addition to The Rescue, I also like to refer to this as The Prompt that Ate My Brain. I tried VERY hard to go a different way with it, a way that would, perhaps, not have ended up clocking in at over 25,000 words. I swear I really tried. I even tried switching prompts, but this one was a big mean bully that set up shop in my subconscious and gave me threatening looks until I capitulated with ill grace and sat down to write it.


"I need your help."

Had he not already been seated, the Goblin King might actually have fallen over from the shock. Lounging as he was, with one booted leg hung over the curved edge of his throne, he was instead able to manage a condescending smirk. "Oh, you do, do you? Pray tell, to what do I owe the honor of this most amusing request?"

Outwardly he gave a convincing impression of calm disinterest, but her sudden appearance on his doorstep that afternoon had surprised him more then he would have thought possible. Endless millennia of tedious obligation had deadened him to the anything like the stirrings of curiosity he felt when faced once again with this infuriating human girl.

Sarah leveled a peevish glare at him that detracted somewhat from her otherwise supplicating demeanor. She knelt, anachronistic in jeans and sneakers, on the ancient cobbled stone floors of the throne room, her face pale in the dim afternoon light that streaked through the dingy windows. "I would have given anything not to have to come to you, but I don't have any other choice." She took a deep breath. "Sir Didymus is in trouble."

Jareth quirked an indifferent eyebrow. "So?" He tilted his head to the side and looked at her expectantly.

She blinked. "So?" She pushed to her feet and parked her hands on her hips, her attempt at charming manners forgotten quickly in the face of her irritation. "That's all you're going to say? Don't you even want to know what happened? Don't you want to know why he's in trouble?"

"Not especially, no," he said. It amused him that he could practically see the frustrated indignation well up inside her, though she did an admirable job of keeping her composure.

It had been better than a dozen years since the last time he had been in the same room with Sarah Williams and they had been very generous years indeed. All of the childish roundness had been worn away, leaving a lush and lean woman with shoulder length brown hair and knowing hazel eyes. She was outwardly as lovely as he had known she would become, but the heat and determination that he remembered so well lingered still behind her gaze.

"Look, I know we don't have a great history…" She made another stab at diplomacy.

"Is that how you would describe it?" he interrupted. "Not a ‘great history'? There are sections of my castle that are still yet to be repaired from your last visit. Admittedly, that has a lot do with the lackadaisical nature of goblin builders, but it wouldn't need to be repaired were it not for you."

"What are you… Seriously? I wouldn't even have…" Sarah spluttered and then stopped. She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths before continuing. "Okay, you don't like me. That's fine. I don't like you either. But please don't let your feelings for me dictate whether or not you step in here and help Didymus. He's in a lot of trouble, like the kind of trouble that gets you dead, and I am here to ask…no, not ask, beg that you help him…please."

Jareth leaned forward on his throne with his elbows propped on his knees and gave her an unpleasant smile. "I find it telling that you assume my refusal to interfere has anything to do with you. A bit narcissistic of you, don't you think? You make take solace in the fact that it doesn't. I simply do not care."

"How can you not care?" She was honestly astonished by his complete lack of concern. It wasn't as if she had imagined him a benevolent ruler with an unexpected heart of gold, of course, but such easy dismissal still surprised her. "He's one of your subjects, isn't he? Don't you feel some responsibility for their safety? Who's supposed to protect them if their own king won't?"

"I see," Jareth said, steepling his fingers in a thoughtful manner. "Now that one of your useless friends is in a tight place, I have a duty, is that it? Let us look at the situation from a slightly different angle, shall we? I have turned my back and pretended not to notice your numerous visits over the years, but that does not mean that I have been unaware of them. My sworn subjects regularly engage with and entertain an enemy to my kingdom, that's you by the way, and I have, thus far, been kind enough to overlook it. That does not, however, mitigate the fact that they are committing treason. Do you know what a king generally does to a traitor, Sarah? You should be thankful that I do not choose to take a more active interest in either you or your friends."

Sarah pressed her lips together and looked away. "Fine," she managed finally, her voice shaking slightly. She balled her hands into fists to keep them from behaving likewise. "Hoggle and I will go after him ourselves. That Borderlands bitch can't be as bad as he thinks she is." She turned to leave, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.

"What?!" The flicker of interest her presence had caused was nothing to the unfamiliar rush of adrenaline fueled emotion, of panic that hit him at the mention of that name.

Sarah jumped at the violence in his tone and then stumbled backwards when she turned to find him towering over her. He had crossed the room in a blink. She backed abruptly into a wall and smacked her head against the stone.

"What did you say?" His voice was steady, but his eyes gleamed with an emotion Sarah wasn't sure she could, or even wanted to, identify. Even during their previous encounter, when she feared for her freedom if not her life, he had not intimidated her as completely as he did now. She kicked herself mentally for the careless assumptions that had brought her here - that he had no power over her, that she was his equal, that there must be some goodness in him somewhere. Looking up at him now, she could only think danger.

She swallowed convulsively. "The Q-queen of the Borderlands…that's what Hoggle said she calls herself. H-he said that Didymus went into the Forest…the Forbidden Forest and one of her guards took him." Sarah struggled to focus on what she was saying, a difficult task with the Goblin King glaring down at her from six inches away. Her field of vision was narrowed to his strange eyes and oddly sculpted brow. He suddenly seemed so alien, so other. "He said…Hoggle said that people who get taken, that they don't ever come back."

The light in the throne room had shifted as the pale yellow sun moved across the sky. Shadow cut a sharp diagonal line across Jareth's face leaving him in half light, half darkness. For a long moment neither of them moved. Sarah concentrated on breathing, which, at the moment, seemed a little less involuntary than usual. Some thought flickered across the king's features and she felt a desperate flash of hope that faded as quickly as it had come when he merely took a step back, giving her some much needed breathing room.

His mask of indifference slid firmly back in place. I wish you luck," he said finally, his voice emotionless.

"And that's it?" she asked with a humorless laugh, disappointment weighing her down like a stone. "That's all you're willing to do?"

"And what more should I?" he asked with infuriating apathy. "That part of the forest was named ‘forbidden' many years ago and for a reason. Your foolish friend made a foolish choice and is now suffering the consequences. It is no concern of mine." He turned back to his throne.

Sarah couldn't take it anymore. "Do something selfless for once in your life, you spiteful, egotistical son of a bitch!" Her cheeks burned with color. "What chance do Hoggle and I stand alone? We need you!"

Jareth hesitated for a moment without turning. He was a dark silhouette against the uncertain light. "I say this knowing full well that it will fall on deaf ears - give up, Sarah. Go home. Your Didymus is likely already dead. If you persist in this absurd rescue attempt, you will die too."

"I can't give up," she said softly. "He's my friend."

"I thought as much," he said. "Do what you will then, girl."

Sarah blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. "Fuck you, Jareth. Fuck you, very much."

A moment later the heavy outer doors boomed closed behind her, the sound echoing loudly through the chamber.

The goblins had all wisely taken themselves off to other parts of the castle when Sarah's arrival had first been announced. Now even the chickens had had the sense to make themselves scarce. Only the endless ticking of the thirteen hour clock broke the heavy silence that crept through the empty corridors.

Jareth stood alone in the center of the throne room with his eyes closed for a long time. The struggle to rein in his emotions cost him more effort than he would have expected, or liked. It felt like failure. He had managed for so long to push her to the back of his mind and out of his thoughts. Not to forget her, no, that was far too much to hope for, but to soften the raw edges her very existence had worn into his soul by means of purposeful neglect.

The Borderlands Queen, again, after so many centuries… "Elsbeth," He whispered her name softly into the empty room. He had not spoken it aloud in many hundreds of years. Even now it was like acid on his tongue. He shuddered.

He could not, would not allow himself to wonder what hope sweet, young Sarah Williams and her absurd collection of friends might have of encountering the mad queen and living to tell about it, much less succeeding in their rescue attempt and making it back home with that wretched Didymus alive and in tow. If they failed, if they died, he could not have prevented it. He had warned her, had he not? He had forbade his subjects from entering the Borderlands, had planted an entire forest to keep them out. How much plainer could he have made it? What more could have been expected of him than that? A ghost of a voice whispered viciously You could not save the one, and so you save none? Not even The Girl? Are you a coward or merely a fool?.

He shook his head and stalked angrily back to his throne, flinging himself violently into it. He forcefully pushed away the familiar lingering thoughts of long, chestnut hair and serious hazel eyes to find himself seeing instead messy curls as black as a raven's wing and icy blue eyes, soulless and cold. With a sound of disgust, he twisted on his throne as if trying to escape physical pain.

Time, he reminded himself fiercely with each breath, a familiar mantra. It was said that time healed all wounds and if he had an excess of anything, it was that most relentless of forces. He glanced at the heavy clock on the wall that slowly counted on towards eternity, each tick marking off one less heartbeat to be endured, one less moment before the memory of even this time would begin to fade. The sharp, knife-like pang that lanced through him now at the prospect of Sarah entering the Borderlands unprotected - that too would fade over the years. The memory of her spirit and fire, her beauty and laughter and flashing eyes, those things would go too…in time. He simply needed to be patient, as ever. He must simply…wait. Coward, then, the inner voice mocked mercilessly.

Sometime later, a lone goblin ventured into the silent room with a tray. "Your Majesty? Um…cook thought you might like some dinner? Or perhaps some wine?" Tentatively, Murch crossed the room to where the king slouched on his throne, glowering stone-faced into the shadows. He placed the tray carefully on the sideboard, wincing at the unnaturally loud scraping sound it made. He cast a furtive look at the silent king and, wishing he were anywhere other than where he was, hurriedly went about the task of pouring the wine and arranging the plate.

The king had been prone to these black moods for as long as Murch could remember. There were any number of things that might trigger a sudden, sullen, brooding phase of changeable temper and violent outbursts. Most goblins that worked inside the castle learned quickly to avoid their master at all costs when he was taken with one of these episodes lest they be booted across the room, dropped into an oubliette or worse still, cast into the bog. But someone must still wait on the king even during these times and the short straw tonight had been drawn by Murch.

He took a fortifying breath and carried the tray over to the throne, carefully, and he hoped, unobtrusively, avoiding both his majesty's feet and the riding crop that was gripped tightly in one gloved fist.

"Your dinner, majesty," he said with a quick bow. He stepped back and felt a trickle of relief when Jareth wordlessly reached for the brimming goblet of goblin wine. He drained it in a few long swallows and then thrust it back out in Murch's direction.

The goblin tottered forward and cautiously began to refill it from the bottle, his hands shaking under such immediate scrutiny. "You must be pleased," he found himself saying unexpectedly, "that the Borderlands Queen will rid you so easily of the human girl." He stopped, wide-eyed at his own effrontery and stuttered, sloshing wine onto the floor. "That is…um…when she…uh…" He froze at the cold expression that contorted the king's face.

"Murch, isn't it?" Jareth's voice was calm and perfectly controlled, but danger dripped like acid from every word.

He managed a jerky nod and a high pitched sound that may have passed for affirmation.

"Murch, I am going to give you one opportunity to turn around and get out of here as fast as you possibly can. I'll not warn you again."

With much scrabbling and slipping on the smooth cobblestone floor, Murch managed to make it out the door just before the half-full bottle of goblin red exploded against the stone wall behind him. He slammed the door with some effort and then leaned against it, chest heaving, as Jareth raged on the other side.

A handful of the castle staff joined him in the hall and stood silently listening as their king tore the throne room noisily to pieces. They gazed at each other with a shared combination of anxiety and sadness as the crashing, breaking, splintering chaos continued unabated for more than a quarter of an hour.

And then there was silence.

Slowly and with the utmost caution, one of the goblins cracked the door and surveyed the devastation on the other side. After a lengthy assessment, he opened it further and they all crept into the room.

Every stick of furniture, Jareth's throne included, had been turned to kindling - smashed into unrecognizable jagged remains. Candles and broken glass littered the floor, ancient tapestries and paintings had been ripped from the walls and destroyed without quarter. Nothing had escaped destruction.

Across the room, one ripped curtain danced on its broken fixture, carried through the shattered panes of the window by the cool evening breeze. Murch picked his way through the debris and swept it aside, his sharp goblin eyes searching the horizon.

In the distance the tiny shape of an owl, an infinitesimal dark spot against the glare of the setting sun, disappeared in the direction of the Forbidden Forest.

**********

"I knows I said we didn't have time to lose, but shouldn't we have waited ‘til after sunrise at least?" Hoggle dropped another stack of twigs next to their campfire and lowered himself gingerly to the ground.

Sarah poked gloomily at the flames with a stick, sending a flurry of cheerful sparks up into the night air. "And what, gotten a nice restful night's sleep?" She shook her head and propped her chin on her bent knee. "No, at least we've covered part of the way and we'll be that much closer in the morning. We should make the edge of the Borderlands by early afternoon."

"And then what?" Jareth asked.

One second the spot across the fire from her had been empty, the next it wasn't.

Sarah startled and dropped her stick with an expletive. Hoggle cried out and scuttled backwards.

The Goblin King was unruffled. "I must admit," he said, "I am dying of curiosity as to what your plan might be." He took off his gloves, releasing one elegant finger at a time and then held out his hands, warming them in the glow of the fire. "Are you going to lay siege to her castle? Take out a few guards and slip unseen through the corridors? Go up to the front door and knock?" He looked up then and seemed puzzled to find both Sarah and Hoggle frozen in place wearing expressions of surprise and horror, respectively. "What? Did you not say you wished to have my help?"

Sarah blinked. "Well…yes, but you kind of gave the impression that you weren't particularly interested in offering it." She glanced over at Hoggle who ­­­­­­­­­still looked poleaxed. "Did I misunderstand? Because, if so, I gotta say you give off some seriously mixed signals."

"No. I would not say you misunderstood," he said. "You may call it a change of heart, if you will." He shrugged. "It matters not. I'm here now and that is all that is important."

"You think so, huh?" Sarah said bemusedly. Whatever had changed his mind had certainly not affected his ego.­­­­­

Hoggle had finally managed to collect himself and made his way around to Sarah's side, keeping a suspicious eye trained on Jareth as he did so. "I don't like it, Sarah," he said, softly. "Jareth's a rat and I ain't never known a rat to offer help to nobody."

"I can hear you, you know." Jareth said, coolly.

Hoggle quailed, but then squared his shoulders and turned on his sovereign with his chin thrust out. "You're right. If I'm gonna call somebody a rat, I'm gonna do it to their face. You're a rat, Jareth! And I don't trust you!" He gave a curt nod and then retreated quickly behind Sarah's back.

Jareth looked more surprised than angry. He would never have imagined the little dwarf might have had it in him. "My, my, if Higgle hasn't gone and gotten himself a spine." He made a show of leaning off to the side to see around Sarah, "Well, a little one anyway." He smiled at her then, his pointed teeth flashing in the firelight. "What a man…or a dwarf won't do for a pretty woman."

Sarah frowned at him. "Try not to be too unpleasant, Your Majesty. I know it's a lot to ask." His mere presence at their campfire was not yet enough to mitigate his outright refusal to help earlier. She needed him here, but she didn't trust him. Not yet. And probably not ever. There was no way he had simply decided to tag along out of the kindness of his heart, presuming that he actually had one. He had some ulterior motive for being there. She just wondered what it could be.

He held his hands up in a gesture of conciliation. "I merely meant to come along and offer my help in your time of need. If you would prefer that I go…?"

"I won't say that I'm not glad you're here," she admitted grudgingly, "but I honestly didn't expect you to come after our… conversation earlier." She eyed him warily over the leaping flames and then reached for one of the skewers propped just inside the heat of the fire that held the roasted rabbit that had been intended for their dinner that evening. Neither she nor Hoggle had been able to conjure much of an appetite themselves. "I guess I should at least offer you something to eat."

"We didn't bring enough food for three," Hoggle added belligerently, popping up over Sarah's shoulder, carefully keeping her between him and the Goblin King.

Sarah winced apologetically. "He's right, I'm afraid. I mean we did bring a little extra for Didymus in case he uh…" Her stomach lurched even as her mind resisted finishing the thought.

"Is still alive when you get there?"

Sarah gave him a cold look. "Of course he's still alive. But it's been a few days and he might not be getting enough to eat."

"Oh, if she's remembers to feed him at all, I'd be surprised," Jareth said matter-of-factly. He leaned back against a conveniently placed tree stump and crossed his legs, looking absurdly comfortable on the stony ground. "That's not the kind of thing she tends to concern herself with. You're right to worry about his well being, though. She is not gentle with her playthings. His best bet is if she forgets that he's there altogether."

Sarah glanced at Hoggle's stricken expression and fished a handy rock out of their make-shift fire pit. She winged it skillfully, hitting Jareth squarely in the chest. "Asshole," she hissed at him. "If that's the kind of help you plan on being, go back to your castle, Highness. She wasn't sure if it was just nerves or previous experience that kept her waffling constantly back and forth between being relieved and irritated by his presence.

He frowned, rubbing the stinging spot on his chest. "My apologies, but I had assumed you knew something of what you were preparing to face. Do you know anything of what you are up against?" He looked back and forth between them expectantly. "No? Nothing?" He shook his head with disgust. "Fools. You have no business even attempting this ridiculous quest."

"We know the bitch took Didymus and that's the only thing that matters," Sarah said defensively. Her bravado was like a match on a moonless night, burning fiercely, but ineffectively in the dark.

Jareth gave a derisive laugh. "And so you packed a picnic lunch and headed off for a stroll through the woods to fetch him back? Fools!" he repeated. "What was the idiotic mutt doing in the Forbidden Forest anyway? Surely even he knows better than to cross into her lands?"

Sarah fidgeted uncomfortably, but said nothing.

"It is unimportant at this point, I suppose," Jareth said, letting his gaze linger on Sarah until she looked away. "And so, for that matter, is the lack of provisions. Hogwit is going home."

Hoggle stared at him in slack-jawed disbelief. "No, I ain't!" he managed at last. "Didymus is my friend too and I'll not leave him to the mercy of the Borderlands Queen!"

‘Nor your darling Sarah to the mercy of me, I imagine," Jareth said with a mocking smile. "Is that right?"

Hoggle sputtered a bit, but then crossed his arms and puffed his chest up. "Yeah, that's right! I'll not let you bother the lady or trouble her none while I got breath in my body."

"Hoggy, you'll go home now, on your own power or I will drop kick you into the bog myself." His voice was conversational, but there was little doubt as to whether or not he meant what he said. He leaned forward and gave him a nasty smile. "We can see about that whole ‘breath in your body' thing too, if necessary."

"Hey!" Sarah said. "That's enough. Quit talking to him like that."

In a flash, Jareth was looming over Sarah, his face set into lines of peevish annoyance. "What is it precisely that you want from me, Sarah?" He asked. "Do you actually want my help or do you just want me to tag along so there will be someone there to watch the two of you die?"

Sarah opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, but couldn't seem to form an actual sentence.

"Hoggle will go home because he is a liability. He has no skill, no speed, no strength - no talent whatsoever that would make him a commodity in a confrontation with the Queen of the Borderlands. Did he tell you that she is also called the Mad Queen? She'll kill him as soon as look at him; to be sure she'll likely attempt the same with either you or me, but there is at least a chance that we may succeed. I have offered you my help, and yes, I assure you, you will need it. The Queen has at least as much magic as I do myself. You were right before - you have no hope of facing her alone."

Sarah glanced over at Hoggle and Jareth shot out a hand to capture her chin, forcing her to look back at him, his oddly matched eyes boring into hers. "No. Hope," he repeated, enunciating each word with a gentle shake of his hand. He released her quickly and stepped back. "Chose your path, Sarah. It's up to you. Certain death," he gave her a shark-toothed smiled, "or only likely death."

The comforting crackle of the fire and the singing of the night-loving insects were the only sound in the small clearing. Outside their brightly lit circle the darkness pressed in close, seeming to listen with patient interest while Sarah considered her options. It seemed an impossible decision - walking away from a friend whose intentions she was sure of and whose devotion was unwavering in order to accept the help of a powerful, but fundamentally unreliable, ally or rejecting that offer altogether and embarking on a doomed rescue attempt on their own.

She knew little of the Borderlands Queen and then only what Hoggle had told her, some of which seemed implausible at best. Hoggle himself had admitted most of what he knew was legend, rumors passed in the form of boogey-man stories shared across mugs of goblin ale down at the pub, but Sarah had long ago learned never to take anything for granted in this place. Things were not always as they seemed - be it a mad queen or a Goblin King with dubious motives. There was always more than met the eye.

Of one thing she was absolutely certain - with powerful magic involved, she and Hoggle didn't stand a chance on their own. She might be willing to gamble with her own safety, but not Hoggle's and certainly not Didymus'. She was willing to risk much to ensure that her friends made it back home in one piece. They had spent thirteen years risking the wrath of their king for the mere pleasure of her friendship and she wasn't going to repay them with any half-measure. Though she hated the conclusion she must come to given her options, there had never been a real choice to be made, not really.

She looked at Hoggle and bit her lip.

"Sarah, no!" Hoggle cried, seeing her decision on her face as she made it. He grabbed her hand in both of his. "This ain't right! You can't go with him all…alone like this! Who's gonna protect you from him?"

Jareth rolled his eyes. "Come now, Hogwood, do you honestly think you would be the slightest impediment if I wished to harm your sweet Sarah?" One moment he was standing a few feet in front of her and the next he was behind her, his arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders, pinning her arms to her side. "As you see," he went on calmly while Sarah struggled ineffectually in his grasp. "I could do anything I wished to her before you could blink, much less dash to her aid in a daring rescue attempt." He relaxed his grip and Sarah stumbled and fell to her knees.

"Goddammit, Jareth!" Sarah gasped. She lurched to her feet and turned on him, her face white with anger. "If you ever do anything like that to me again -"

"You'll what?" Jareth challenged and then shook his head. "You're both missing the point. I have not harmed the lovely Miss Williams before now despite innumerable opportunities. It should, at the very least, seem unlikely to you that I would choose such an inconvenient time and place as this to exact whatever sordid revenge you seem to think I am harboring plans for." He crossed his arms and looked at them expectantly.

Sarah fumed silently, desperately wishing for another avenue, some alternative that she hadn't yet thought of, but time was slipping away from them and since it was the one thing Didymus might have going for him, she could not let indecision take it away. "He's right, Hoggle," she said finally, grudgingly. She leaned over to dust off her jeans and glared up at the unperturbed king. "He's an asshole, but he's right."

"Sarah -" Hoggle began, his tone pleading.

She shook her head. "No. It's bad enough that Didymus got into this mess because of me. I won't risk losing you too if I can help it."

"It wasn't your -"

"Hoggle," She interrupted. "Please." She knelt and hugged her friend fiercely, burying her face in his shoulder for a long moment. "Go home, Hoggle. Go home and be safe. And pray for us, and for Didymus. I think we're going to need it before it's all said and done."

"I will." Hoggle said finally, grudgingly. He looked over her dark head at the Goblin King, his craggy face set with deep lines of worry. "Don't let nothin' happen to her, Jareth," he said, thickly. "Take care of her…please."

To his credit, Jareth merely nodded. His eyes were hard to read in the erratic shadows created by the fire, but there was no mockery in his expression, no quirked lips that might indicate his disdain for the request and for that, Hoggle was grateful.

With the decision made, there seemed to be no reason to delay Hoggle's departure. Night had set in, but the dark was no impediment to the dwarf's innate sense of direction. Red-eyed and sniffling, Sarah helped him re-pack his satchel. She walked with him to the edge of the clearing and hugged him once more for a long time. The shoulder of his jerkin was damp when she released him, reluctantly, to begin his lonely journey back to the outskirts of the Labyrinth. They did not say goodbye. He cast one last worried glance back and then disappeared into the darkening woods.

Wordlessly, Sarah returned to her spot by the fire and tucked her legs beneath her. She stared silently into the flames, the dancing yellow light giving color and animation to her otherwise pale and wan features.

"Are you afraid?" Jareth asked eventually. He knew the answer. It took nothing more than a glance to see the rigid tension in the lines of her body, like a spring under pressure. Her humanity made her a dichotomy - she wanted to stay, but her instinct was to run, to save herself. He knew that it took an extraordinary force of will for her to be here, to fight her nature and stay for the sake of her friend.

"I'd be stupid not to be," she said without looking at him. And then a moment later she sighed and closed her eyes. "I'm terrified. I've never been so afraid in my entire life. "

"You can turn back as well, you know," he said quietly. "This isn't your world. You cannot be expected to go up against powers you don't understand." He watched her carefully, unsure if he wanted her to accept the offered escape or not.

She shook her head, stubborn. "No. I'm not going back without him."

"What can you hope to do for him?" he asked reasonably. "You're no match for her, Sarah. I think you know that. Why not let me send you home? I can travel faster without you and have your foolish friend back home before you have breakfast in the morning."

"Not a chance," she said. "It's my fault that this happened and I'm not going home until I know that he's safe. Besides, I hate to say that I don't trust you - "

"But you don't trust me."

"Not as far as I can throw you, no." She gave him a mildly apologetic shrug. "No offense."

"None taken," he said easily. He watched her stare into the flames without seeing them, her gaze distant and sad. More than just worry for her friend troubled her thoughts. Guilt clouded her mind like a dark shadow, a distraction that they could ill afford.

"Why was Didymus in the Forbidden Forest?"

She flinched. "Does it matter?"

"Probably not," he admitted, "nonetheless, I would like to know why." He cocked his head to the side and looked at her expectantly.

Sarah scowled. "What difference does it make why? He was there and he was taken and that's all there is to it."

"Sarah," he said, with an exasperated sigh. "Perhaps you have not considered it, but I am risking my neck just as much as you are risking yours. A little transparency is not too much to ask!"

She pressed her lips together and looked away, unable to hide the shine of the tears she refused to let fall. "He wanted to give me a gift," she said eventually. She sniffled loudly and then laughed. "God, it's so ridiculous it's almost funny." She took a deep breath and went on. "I had planned to visit on my birthday in a couple of days. It's a bit of a tradition…but I guess you already know that, don't you?" She glanced up at him. "They like to make a bit of a production out of it. Hoggle bakes a cake and Didymus and Ludo come and -"

"Ah, yes!" Jareth interrupted. "I had nearly forgotten the great red yeti. And where is he, pray tell? I would have thought that having one of the singers in your merry little band would have been quite an advantage."

"Hoggle and I thought it best not to tell him. We worried that he might just go after Didymus on his own and end up getting himself captured or killed in the process. At least this way we know he is safe."

"Tsk tsk", Jareth tutted with a smirk. "Keeping secrets from your friends?"

She scowled at him. "Why are you like this? You don't have to be, you know."

"My apologies," he said, with a slight bow. "Pray continue."

"Anyway," she began again, glaring at him. "Didymus said he wanted to do something special this year - wanted to get me something I couldn't possibly already have. I didn't know what to tell him. Usually he and Hoggle and Ludo make something together. They've done some incredible things - a memory box of black crystal, hair pins with the most amazing metal work - but that wasn't ‘good enough' for Didymus this year. There was just no convincing him otherwise." She sighed and slumped forward, digging her fingers into her hair. "So I asked him for a flower. Not just any flower of course. "Oh no! I had to be specific. I knew he'd never go for something simple like ‘a red rose from the king's garden' so I just asked him for a rare flower. I said, ‘find me the rarest flower in the Undergound.'"

"The black starflower," Jareth said immediately, with sudden understanding. All of the random pieces suddenly fit into place.

A memory of Elsbeth came unbidden, making him flinch. He saw her, dancing barefoot through a veritable sea of the delicate five-petaled flowers. They were orange, he remembered, bright and cheerful as a sunflower on a summer day, or they had been then, before she had taken a liking to them. "See," she had cried, throwing her arms wide as every flower in the field bled to black, their cheerful hue washed away like watercolors in a rainstorm. "Aren't they bee-you-tee-ful now?" He shook his head to banish the thought. He hadn't been able to stand the sight of them after that. He neither wanted nor needed anything that reminded him so forcibly of her and had had them all torn out of the Labyrinth gardens many years ago.

Sarah was nodding regretfully. "I didn't know! How could I have known that the rarest damn plant in your whole messed up world only grew in the Forbidden Forest?" She wrapped her arms tightly around her legs and returned to staring gloomily into the fire. "I would never have asked it if I had realized."

"Stop moping, Sarah," he said, and went on before the sudden storm clouds on her face could turn into a rainstorm. "You know very well that you couldn't have known and it's absurd for you to blame yourself for Didymus's misfortune. He knew. I made sure long ago that all of my subjects knew to avoid the Borderlands. It's right in the name I gave it - ‘Forbidden Forest'." He shook his head and looked annoyed. "You'll take full blame for some harebrained idea that chivalrous little simpleton has, but no culpability whatsoever for the near destruction of my castle which you were directly responsible for. You humans are perfectly unfathomable."

Sarah could think of many choice responses to Jareth's diatribe, but managed to swallow them all with effort. "So why are you helping me then?"

"As I've already said, I had a change of heart."

Sarah snorted. "Yeah, and if you believe that I've got some prime real estate down in the bog that I'd like to interest you in. I call bullshit, Jareth."

"Call whatever you like, Miss Williams." His imperturbable calm was really starting to get on her nerves.

"Alright, how about this one then - why is Hoggle a liability, but I'm not?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "Who says you're not?"

She gave him a dirty look. "You said Hoggle didn't have the skill, speed, or strength to be any use against the Borderlands Queen and that's why you wanted him gone. I don't have any of those things either, but you didn't tell me to leave. Why not?"

"Would you have gone?"

"No."

"Well there you are then."

"That's not the only reason. Why else?"

He gave a put-upon sigh. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Nope. Not planning to. I've got all night and nothing better to do." She crossed her arms mulishly and sat back.

Jareth couldn't help but be pleased by her defiant attitude, inconvenient and annoying as it might be given the circumstances. Whatever else had changed over the years, she had not lost the thread of iron he had first noticed in her as a child. Her will was as strong as his indeed.

"The queen is...not over-fond of the goblins."

"Hoggle's not a goblin. Neither is Didymus for that matter. Try again."

Jareth flapped a hand, dismissing her interruption. "Close enough, or at least it is as far as she's concerned. Say ‘non-humans' then, if you prefer. She is human herself…or at least she was once." He appeared lost in thought for a moment. "I'm not entirely sure what she is now."

"She's…human?" Sarah blinked in surprise.

"As I said."

"You seem to know a lot about her."

"And why wouldn't I? It is my kingdom, isn't it?"

She gave a short laugh. "Why do I think you're not telling me everything?"

"Sarah, my dear," he said with a smile, "I could fill a book with all of the things I'm not telling you, possibly a shelf full of books…maybe even an actual library."

"Yeah, I get it. I get it," she said, annoyed. She poked violently at the fire with a stick. "Big smart king knows more than the sad little human who came to him for help. Does your ego really need this much of a boost?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "All you need to know, girl is that I do know what we will be facing. You know so little as to be a danger to yourself and to anyone else that happens to get in the way."

"So tell me! Jesus, Jareth! I appreciate that you're here. I do. I know you don't have to be here and, while I suspect you have your own reasons for it, I'm thankful that you've decided to help. But why leave me in the dark, dammit? What's the big secret? Are we really better off if I blunder in there tomorrow with no idea what I'm doing?"

Jareth was silent for so long, Sarah was starting to suspect that he had simply chosen to ignore her. She was just gearing up for another attempt when he spoke.

"Elsbeth was a mistake."

"Her name's Elsbeth?"

"Stop interrupting," he said testily. "Yes, her name was... is Elsbeth. And as I said, she was a mistake." Mentioning her name made him feel sick; talking about her was nearly intolerable. He swallowed with effort and went on. "She wasn't the first. There were many before her, but she was...different from the other children."

"She was wished away?" Sarah's eyes were huge in the firelight, the tension of her situation eased for the moment by her fascination.

"If you interrupt after every sentence, the telling will take more time than I think we have at our disposal."

"Sorry," she said, too unabashedly interested in hearing more to be bothered by his irritable tone. "I won't interrupt again. Go on." She drew her knees up and propped her chin on one of them, looking at him attentively.

"It was her mother that made the wish. That's not so unusual, of course. It's almost always the mother, present company notwithstanding, of course. I'm sure it would make a fascinating study on the complex behavior patterns of postpartum women, but generally speaking, it is they that do most of the wishing. Because of that, almost all of the children that come here are less than two years old. Elsbeth was ten."

It was his turn to stare sightlessly into the fire.

"She was dirty and bruised when she arrived at the castle, malnourished and wary. She cowered away from me, but it was more out of habit more than actual fear I think." His lips twisted at the memory. "She was well beyond the capacity to feel real fear by the time she came here." He could see her still as she had stood in the throne room that first day, flesh sickly and pale beneath ill-fitting and filthy clothes. Her eyes were startlingly blue, the color of warm tropical waters, huge and curious behind shaggy grayish hair that, once cleaned, would prove to be almost impossibly black. In her skinny arms she had clutched a misshapen stuffed bear like a lifeline. It was her most precious possession.

"She had been abused, of course." He managed to go on matter-of-factly despite the flash of anger and desperate pain that mixed so indelibly in his memory of that time. "Brutally and for most of her life. Her mother was not much better off, as you might expect. But she was very grateful that her daughter would forever be beyond the reach of her husband."

"She didn't try to get her back?" Sarah whispered, forgetting her promise in her horror. "She just let you keep her?"

"She saw this as a new life for her child. Any new life, no matter how alien or strange, must have seemed better than the one she was living."

"But to never see her again? To willingly walk away from her own child? I just can't imagine..." She trailed off, lost in reflection and then suddenly remembered that she wasn't supposed to be interrupting. "Sorry. So what happened?"

Jareth shrugged, his enthusiasm for the subject waning rapidly. "I brought her to the castle beyond the Goblin City and...I suppose you could say I 'raised' her…or tried to, anyway. I pitied her circumstance and the life she had…I cannot say ‘lived', rather ‘endured', and so I tried to let her be a child at last - to play and laugh and run as a child should, but there was no hope for it. Her childhood had been ripped from her long before she came to the Underground." He realized abruptly that he was clenching his fists so tightly that he had drawn a row of bloody crescent-shaped marks along the base of his palms. He loosened his grip with an effort and looked across the fire. "Imagine a life built around fear, pain and paranoia, compounded for all of eternity." He dropped his head, feeling a wave of tiredness as centuries of regret engulfed him. "She is mad, Sarah. She lost her reason long, long ago. She became…dangerous and was exiled to the Borderlands for her protection. Hers and everyone else's."

Sarah was silent for a long time as she tried to reconcile what she knew, or thought she knew of Jareth with this tale of unexpected kindness and pity. Her estimation of the Borderlands Queen had changed too, but whether she was more or less afraid or whether pity mitigated her fear, she couldn't quite decide. "So why...why didn't you just turn her into a goblin? Isn't that what you're supposed to do? The whole ‘thirteen hours and then you become one of us forever' thing?"

He shrugged uncomfortably. "Pity, I suppose". He scowled at the surprised look she cut at him. "What? I am capable of feeling, you know." He gave an annoyed shake of his head and went on. "Every decision I made in regards to Elsbeth was wrong, well intentioned, but wrong. I learned from my mistakes, hard lessons that they were. She is one of the reasons, in fact the main reason really, that all of the children who are wished away and go unclaimed become goblins now. It is...simpler."

Sarah felt a familiar, and given the subject matter, welcome flash of irritation. "Simpler for whom? You or them?"

"Both," he said, simply. "Immortality is both the blessing and the curse of the Underground. Nothing ages here; not really. The goblins…well, their minds are better suited to the rigors of eternity. They don't have the same capacity for discontent that we do. A human child, broken and abused, wished away by disinterested parents at such an advanced age doesn't stand a chance here."

They lapsed into silence.

A breeze cut through the campsite making the invisible leaves sough in the dark branches overhead. The fire guttered and danced and then settled back into its familiar pattern.

"I'm sorry," Sarah said, quietly after a time.

Jareth looked up, startled. "You are? Why?"

"Because that must have been difficult for you." She looked across the fire at him, her head tilted to the side. "You don't have much experience being on the receiving end of sympathy, do you?"

"Not as such, no." He flashed a brief smile, his pointed teeth gleaming in the firelight. "It's not often that I am comforted by the balm of a woman's tender mercies."

Sarah snorted and rolled her eyes. "Well, there goes that moment." She was oddly grateful for the opportunity to change the tenor of their conversation and wondered mildly if he was too. "So, what's next? What's our…plan or whatever for tomorrow?"

"The first thing we're going to do is ask. There is some chance, however slight, that she might be willing to return him to us without incident."

"So we're going to just knock on the front door and say ‘hey, crazy lady, can we have our friend back?' Is that it?" She gave him an incredulous look.

"I would probably avoid using the word ‘crazy' within Elsbeth's hearing. She is a bit touchy about it."

"Duly noted. But you're saying there's an actual chance that she might willingly let him go? How slight are we talking?"

"Very, very slight."

"Oh well, of course. And if, or when she says no? Assuming she doesn't just kill us outright on her doorstep, do we have any sort of backup plan in mind?"

"We'll worry about that part when we get there," he said with a shrug.

Sarah rubbed her face with both hands, battling with how very strange and dream-like this whole day had been on top of the realization the she was charging, mostly blind, towards a very real danger. She thought she understood how Alice must have felt on the other side of the rabbit hole. "Surely there's a better way than walking up the front path?"

"If you're hoping I can simply ‘magic' us in there and ‘magic' Didymus out, the answer is no. As I have already told you, Elsbeth has magical ability herself. She will have the castle warded to prevent just such an intrusion. We will not be able to sneak in under her nose. We are better off with a direct attempt and, failing that, gauging our prospects based on the situation as we find it."

"Which means?"

Lying back, he pillowed his head on his crooked arm and looked up at through the canopy of leaves to the distant twinkle of stars. "Which means, follow my lead and do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it." He flicked his cloak out, covering his legs. "It is best that you sleep now. You will need your strength and wits, about you tomorrow."

Sarah followed his example and stretched out on the sleeping bag she had brought from home. There was something oddly incongruous about the LL Bean label sewn into the hem and she picked at it absentmindedly. "Hoggle said it's a good day's hike to get to the Borderlands - " she began, but Jareth cut her off.

"We'll make her palace gates in time for breakfast," he said. "I wouldn't recommend eating it if she should think to offer any, but we'll be there in time, nonetheless."

Sarah raised her head up high enough to see his dark outline across the dying flames of the fire. "How do you figure?"

"Really?"

She flushed in realization, feeling foolish. "Magic? We're traveling by magic?" Her voice was a few octaves higher than she intended.

"You would prefer that we waste a day slogging through heavy, uncharted woods?" he asked, sounding mildly amused. "How impractical. Besides, it isn't as if you've never traveled by magical means before. What do you think that portal in your bedroom mirror is?"

"You know about that?" She asked it almost inadvertently and then felt foolish again. Of course he knew.

This time he laughed, a rich and silky sound that Sarah had never heard coming from him before. "You don't give me nearly enough credit for being aware of what is going on in my own kingdom, you know. Yes, I ‘know about that'. Really, Sarah," he chided. "Very little happens here that I am not made aware of, especially if it involves magic."

"Oh."

"Yes, 'oh'. Now go to sleep."

Part Two
Part Three