As The World Falls Down

I know it has been a LONG while since I posted anything, but have been working on all the short stories that were bouncing around my head and numerous note pads (Thank you HRKW...they were handy) and finally decided to post a few. I am still working on the sequel to Corine, and am slowly working on the sequel to Thea (Kael's story), but the mind block is protesting...loudly. So, here is a little something in the meantime I have been convinced into posting – a little daydreaming on my part based on the fantasy film Labyrinth – and I hope you enjoy (but please don't nick or post elsewhere! lol)

Katheryn Ann ~ Sacrificedangel xxx

~~~

Falling...every time I was fell. His voice forever rang out in the background as I faded far from his touch and his magic and fell through the veiled wall between his world and mine. I fell through time; I fell through his power, and slipped from his grasp and each time I landed with a jarring thump that had affected me down to my soul.

Tonight seemed to be no different than the many nights over the years I had awoken from that same dream. That feeling you get whilst you drift between waking and sleep, that moment when your equilibrium is tested and your body awakens to stop you toppling to the ground, is how I woke with infuriating regularity. The wind was battering the trees against my open window, casting an eerie glow from the moon alongside my bed as its chill ruffled along the covers. Always when the wind blew harshly, always when the moon was full and bright against the night's sky, did my delusions swamp my consciousness and bring his voice, the pain on his face back to the forefront of my mind.

Settling back against my pillows with a thump, I groaned in frustration. I had thought I was getting better, gaining control over my imagination. Certainly I no longer talked to beings that were not there, could no longer hear their silent pleas and even though it brought about an intense feeling of foreboding with each one I ignored, I reminded myself of my stepmother's promise to have me permanently committed. Their appearances in my daily life lessened as the days went by – the strength of the apparitions dwindled, my delusions waning - though occasionally, I would see something out the corner of my eye, a flash of colour, an object would move...a voice I would recognise from my dreams.

Mentally shaking my head at my silliness, I sighed and sat up to deal with the window just as my fingers brushed something soft at my side.

Silky and silvery-white, it made my skin tingle where it touched my palm, a soft touch moving on an even path up my arm and across my collarbone to where it rested next to my heart, the heat of it a pleasant weight. The touch was gone as swiftly as it had come, and I felt its loss acutely.

The flawless feather seemed to glow in the moonlit darkness and as I held it up before me, the open doors of my window closed softly and silent on a whisper.

Happy Birthday Sarah...

~~~

In the darkness, as his magic waned, he lunged once more at his foe. Their blood made their grip slick, unsteady as they fought within the stone confines of his throne room. Her belief in him had faded; he began to lose his strength, his magic since the moment she had begun to ignore his call to her. He knew he could not defeat his enemy now; the last of his power was leaving him to protect her...to make her strong.

She was the key to his kingdom now...

The moon's glow caught the twisting smirk of his brother's lips as he caught the tail end of his thought in the expression on his face and understood finally what he had done.

"You will regret that, brother." Shade sneered as he wrapped his hand around Jareth's throat. "I will find her..."

The threat echoed in both their minds as Jareth's rage slipped from his control and with the last of his powers, he threw them both through the window and out into the world.

The human world.

And into the mercies of a woman who no longer believed in him.

~~~

"Sarah, your new agent would like to know if you will be attending the unveiling tonight?" Aster called through to my studio and I tensed. I had been painting for nearly three years in the solitude of my first apartment since I had left the smothering abode of my father and stepmother, but now after selling the first batch of paintings I had my very own studio to work from...and the acoustics were taking a little getting used to. Aster was only about ten feet away yet her gentle call had sounded like a bellowing ox.

"I won't be there for the unveiling; I will come afterwards though, to the mingling part." I replied the brush between my teeth as I used a sponge to soak up the mess I had made when she had startled me with her call. "Langton knows I hate standing there watching their expressions. They all look at me as though I am nuts."

As though I am still nuts

, I silently corrected.

My stepmother had tried to have me returned to their home to watch over me the first time she had seen my work, concerned...nay, convinced my delusions were coming back to haunt me. I couldn't blame her. The canvas she had walked in on me working on was of a giant golden clock, with thirteen hours adorning it with only three minutes left to go and small deformed looking creatures smirking from behind it. That canvas hung at the end of my hallway upstairs where I now lived...I had not been able to will myself to sell it. I felt it was too important somehow.

It had been the morning of my eighteenth birthday I had awoken to find a silvery-white feather beside me in my bed and a whispered voice of a male long since buried in the back of my mind, teasing my senses, awakening a longing inside me I had long since thought was dead. Holding that feather, tight within my grasp as the sun rose, I knew I could no longer keep it all at bay. That voice was real, that feather was real...somehow. Even as my rational side fought it, reminding me of all the doctors, pills and appointments I had endured since my father found me talking to thin air at sixteen. I hadn't thought anything of it, nor thought to conceal it since it began the year before. I had drawn such comfort from my companions...and was then taught to ignore them.

I wondered if I was being punished now. I was nearly twenty one, and ever since I had begun to believe the possibility of their reality, it was as though they now shut me out – refusing to come to me. So now, I painted. Every day since I packed my belongings on the morning of my eighteenth birthday and left my father's home, I had painted. At first it was just the hands of that golden clock. They had tormented me for weeks, after so long of shutting out the visions, the dreams, I struggled to focus on the image that had been branded in my mind. Slowly, the fog had begun to clear, and I could see the clock, see where the hands lay and with every stroke of my brush, my apprehension grew. Bit by bit, the painting was slowly completed, until there was only one small corner left to do...and yet, when I had woken, I found I had completed it in my dreams. His shadow, stood proud and dominant behind his clock. I could not see his features, but I would know his stance, his bearing anywhere.

And then something weird happened. The morning I turned nineteen in my first apartment, I woke to the same sight, that painting at the end of my bed; the morning light illuminating the shadow of him...he was closer. I jumped from my bed and rushed towards it, there was no doubt in my mind. He was closer, though instead of standing proud and strong, the shadow was stooped; grasping the edge of the canvas in what I felt was pain. That was not the only change. The seven goblins that smiled out from the canvas were now only three, their clothes haggard, their sly expressions wary rather than mischievous hiding behind a now black clock.

A clock which only had two minutes left to go.

I spent that entire day begging my imagination to explain it, shouting to every corner of the room for the flashes of movement I used to see – beg them to show themselves and end my confusion. But none other came. My dreams lay in blissful darkness, as though all colour had leeched from the sleeping world I used to be thrown into, and I would no longer wake with that falling start as the world came into mornings light. I would wake with a weight on my heart that I could not explain.

The clock only had one minute to go now, and was now a vivid sparkle of gold once more, though losing its sheen, fading to the pitch it had been this past year...as though somewhere within its realm a battle were fought, gold over ebony for supremacy. And I had no doubt that my twenty first birthday in four days time would be when the clock's time would finally run out. Its shade and ever changing background decided for good. And I felt an ache deep in my chest that the clock would not return to the gold of my imagination.

Though what I was meant to do about this ill foreboding, I had no idea.

Sitting back from my painting, I could feel my eyes growing heavy. I had laboured over this painting for over eight days, desperate to get it finished before my deadline tonight. A patron of my agent, Langton, had commissioned me to do a painting in my style, but revolving around a single peach. At first, I had believed it a strange request from an eccentric, but with every brush stroke I felt a familiarity...a wash of déjà vu I couldn't step back from...much as I had felt when the clock had turned vivid gold once more that morning and had a background of dark bricks. I had been to that place, underground...and his shadow had loomed over me...sweet mockery in his voice.

"Sarah, Langton is asking if you had finished the commission?" Aster spoke beside me, and I realised I had shut my eyes and had been lost roaming the dream. I bit back a small curse at the interruption, and forced a smile.

"Yes, tell him I am finished." I said, my smile leaving me swiftly as Aster walked back through to her phone. I looked back at the finished product and hated it with a passion. My mouth filled with a strange taste, a drowsy sense that flooded me, draining – warning me – something about this was just too close to my imagination for comfort; too close for it to be coincidence. The peach – nestled amongst fallen leaves and deep rooted trees – stirred memories within me that were just out of reach.

As I walked away from it, my drowsiness ebbed. The sooner that painting was gone from my studio the better. Taking the phone from Aster, I cleared my throat.

"Langton..."

"Arthur, please Sarah."

"Yes of course, Arthur. Can one of your men collect the painting within the hour?"

"Certainly, though the man who commissioned it did request to pick it up direct."

"No, I want it out of here." I stammered, before swiftly finding another more, plausible reason other than the painting made me feel as though it were draining the life out of me – and I had little desire to meet the man who had wanted it. "I have other work I am trying to complete and the canvas size he asked for, is taking up a great deal of space."

Especially for a simple peach...

"Then of course, I will send someone around." There was a pause, long enough to allow me a sense of relief before he asked me personally the same question he had asked Aster.

"No, I won't be coming to the unveiling. I will be there for ten though."

"You promise?" Langton knew me well. There were times I did not show up at all, lost in the colours of paints and shadows of charcoal; I could lose sense of time so very easily.

"Yes. I promise. Aster has already said she will be driving me."

So I have no choice

, I thought. I said my goodbyes and went back through to the dreaded canvas. I shuddered and turned away. "Aster, I am going up to my apartment, I'm not feeling too well."

"You are not getting out of this event that way..."

"I swear, I'm not." I laughed lightly. "I think I just need a bath and a lie down." With my assistant appeased, I unlocked my door and climbed the stairs to my private rooms. A bath sounded simply perfect.

~~~

Aster waited until her sensitive ears picked up the sounds of running water above her before she left her desk and made her way silently through to the studio. In front of the canvas, her breath left her in a soft rush. Sarah's powers were growing.

"This is not good." A deep voice sounded from behind her quietly, and Aster smiled sadly at the creature.

"Good day to you too Hoggle."

"Fairy." The short male nodded in greeting before stepping closer to the painting. "Do you think she is remembering finally?" He asked, eyeing the fairy with the beginnings of hope.

"I believe she remembers something, but they are not true memories. I suppose it's like trying to remember a dream. It comes to her, but in pieces. I am surprised by this though." Aster gestured to the canvas. "She took that bastard's suggestion and her memory sprung up around it, right down to the need to sleep...and dream."

"He is getting stronger too, now the King's power is within Sarah, he has no competition for the throne...he is King in name but with a throne he cannot get back to." Hoggle shook his head, time was running out and they were no closer to finding out what had happened the day the brothers had fallen from the Labyrinth and locked the walls behind them. With a truce between his kind and the fairies, a few goblins and little folk had managed to slip through a year later, but by then all trails had long since grown cold.

As had the Labyrinth. With each passing moment without its King and his power to sustain it, it grew barren and ice encroached upon each wall, hedge and castle stone, until the entire realm glistened like frost under an endless moon drenched night. Its creatures starved, its magic dwindled and the very walls at the edge of the realm began to crumble, leaving a dark void beyond that ate away their world each day Jareth was missing.

Sarah now held the power, the key, to restoring life back to the great Kingdom. A gift, from a Goblin King who loved her enough to endure her leaving him, the only other person he felt he could trust with something so great. Hoggle remembered the night a desperate Jareth went in the shadows to her, as she lay fitfully sleeping; he wasted precious energy just watching her. When his presence, his power awoke her, he had given his magic over to her. His Queen. And now surrounding her heart she carried his powers. A crystal ball, shining with Jareth's magic.

And Shade hunted her for this very reason. It was obvious to them both, fairy and dwarf, that the upstart had indeed found her. Who else would have known to ask her to paint something so...ordinary...unless to test her, to see how much Sarah Williams truly remembered. To prove that she was the one he sought.

"How long have we got left?" Aster asked glancing down at her companion who had closed his eyes for a moment, obviously remembering the moment he had handed her that same peach.

"Three days, seven hours and fourteen minutes." Hoggle quickly calculated, seeing the many labyrinth clocks all attuned to that specific moment. When their Queen would turn twenty one, and be allowed to rule beside him. Ever since the moment she had left, the clocks had changed to follow this course, to the moment fates felt her old enough to deal with the cruel enigma that was their King.

Or as it turned out, the moment she had to save him.

But in a woman who had convinced herself that her imaginings had simply been just that...her imagination run amok, Hoggle felt little hope.

~~~

He sank against the cold glass, his laboured breath barely steaming the surface as he watched the shadowed hallways of his brother's human home. For nearly three long years he had roamed the blank void behind the mirrors in each room, imprisoned by Shade's will to watch the world pass him by – unable to escape. His body still bled from his wounds, his bones mending slowly through his brother's spells, he was beaten to within an inch of death only to be forced back into existence by Shade's magic.

He would not break though. His brother was growing more desperate, his search of this human world had found him nothing of Jareth's Queen, nothing of where the key to the Goblin Kingdom – his powerful magic – lay hidden. Shade's madness was beginning to show.

Jareth closed his eyes, his head against the cold polished surface as he let his own memories take him far from his prison, and back into the warmth of his Kingdom. The warmth of her eyes regarding him with fear...and awe.

At first, he had merely reacted to her wish. Appearing within her world to take from her the screaming baby brother who had irritated her so...but when she had boldly asked for him back, withstood his presence without falling to his feet, he had begrudgingly given the young girl a challenge. Solve his Labyrinth within thirteen hours, and she could have her brother back. Gods, how he had wanted her to fail. But as she began to conquer his deceptive maze, win over his creatures, he began to wish for the moment she would reach him. He pushed her, challenged her, demanded she turn back, only to have her push on forward, and her spark of determination, her loyalty to her little brother, made him long for her himself. Long for the loyalty felt for another, one not borne of fear.

When Sarah had fallen to the magic in his peach, he had sent her a dream. One that had tormented him since the moment she had accepted his challenge. Dressed in beautiful silks, she would dance with him, her hand within his as he turned her around his crystal ballroom, he could see his own emotions reflected in her eyes and had known, that at least he was not alone in his affection before she finally broke his magical hold upon her and woke from her slumber. He had longed for her even then, praying this proud creature would accept him and all he was. Save him from the apathy that threatened. His existence as the Goblin King was empty...until Sarah fell into his life.

When finally she reached him, he could feel her heartbeat in every wall he passed, feel her life – pure and free from corruption – fill every corner, and he was enslaved to it. And yet, as he laid his heart out before her, she had still refused him.

He vowed to lure her back to him, waiting for the time to come that she would be old enough to accept him for all he was. But too soon, the human world had noticed her imaginings, and convinced her it was all a delusion. Jareth felt his heart twist in pain with every moment that his beloved Queen forgot, and when she forgot all of him but his voice, he could feel his power wane.

Then Shade attacked. His army – magically enthralled goblins, stolen from his own city – had decimated the cobbled streets, then finally the castle. But not before he had visited his Sarah, one last time. With his hand over her heart, he had protected his Queen, and locked his Labyrinth from the outside.

Shade had been searching for her ever since.

A loud knock next to his head signalled the return of his younger brother and when he did not respond, Jareth felt Shade's magic trickle through the glass and shock him into turning. Shade smirked down at him before stepping back towards a white sheet, his eyes never leaving the mismatched ones of Jareth, Shade gripped the sheet and pulled it back. The peach, as magic-filled as it had been the day he bade Hoggle give it to her, lay ripe and alive on the canvas, the woodland where she had rested her head was in shadow and there, in the distance...barely a pinprick of colour so well blended, to the human eye, lay his castle. Fear, black and choking filled him – though not for his Kingdom, he would gladly release it from his rule were she to ask it from him – it was fear for her. It was her life that now hung in the balance.