#Jareth and Sarah are mirrors of each other

[darlingsnow0]

I already posted this on my ao3 under the title “if you give a goblin a cookie” so i decided I’d just post it here for funsies as well, do note it’s horrible as I am a dookie writer but I was really bored😭

word count: 1,252

Sarah was up, late, it was 3 in the morning and she was creating her tenth batch of cookie dough quietly as to not wake up anyone. Irene would’ve probably made her sleep outside if she woke up Toby at 3 in the morning.

She didn’t know how she was managing to make the cookies so fast, she was running off pure spite and anger. That..That..That sparkly dirtbag loser of a goblin king had come into HER dreams! How he did she doesn’t know, but she knows there’s no way she’d dream of him unless it was a nightmare.

So to get him back she made a plan,  a good one in her opinion considering how early it was. She’d make lots of cookies, sneak into the underground and then give them to the goblins to give them a sugar high. Toby was a menace on a sugar high so goblins just HAD to be worse, and Jareth-She doesn’t like calling him so casually but calling him goblin king makes her feel like he has power over her- Who seemed to already be annoyed by the goblins daily would probably butcher them if they were as annoying as Toby.

So one final batch of cookies and an explanation to her father who had come down to eat breakfast and leave for work later she had put all the cookies in Tupperware and bags and carried them up to her room in trips. She sat in front of her mirror “Hoggle! Sir Didymus! Ludo!” She said, her hands slightly shaking. Did she really want to go back there? After all that’s happened, she could be risking maybe her whole life going back!

No, no, he had no power over her, he can do nothing. She looked up at the mirror and behind her was Hoggle, sir didymus with ambrosius and Ludo. She smiled and looked back to see them standing in her room “I need your help!” She said, standing up and putting her hands on her hips “whatever can we help you with, Lady Sarah?” Sir didymus asked her. She smiled and held up some bags of cookies and they all looked at her weirdly, except ludo, he smiled at her. “I want to give every goblin in the castle cookies!” She said, a smirk overtaking her tired face.

Hoggle was the first to speak up “Don’t think that’s a good idea Sarah, goblins and sugar ain’t the best mix and certainly not Jareths favorite” he said, slightly waving his arms around to get the point across. Ludo and Sir Didymus nodded in agreement “yeah I agree with sir Hoggle, it would be in your best interest to not give the goblins cookies!” Sir Didymus said, but Sarah had already set her mind.

“Well, he has no power-“ “over you, yes we know Sarah” Hoggle cut in, earning a glare from Sarah. “Well, just help me! Please guys, I’ll take all the blame I swear” she assured them and Hoggle and sir Didymus looked at each other, deciding, Ludo just smiled and nodded once she asked for help. Seems like he was already set on helping her, what an amazing friend he was to her Sarah thought.

Hoggle sighed and held his hands out and she handed him some bags, repeating it to sir Didymus and Ludo, Ludo being able to carry many and Ambrosius carrying a container in his mouth . Finally as the last container had been taken through the mirror Sarah pressed her hand against it and felt like she was falling before hitting stone floor. She looked around, realizing they(Ludo, Hoggle, Sir Didymus and ambrosius, and her) were in front of the castle.

She stood up, and looked at the pile of cookies that had accumulated behind her. She grabbed a container and opened it “well? Start handing them out!” She said before running into the castle, checking around the corners to make sure she didn’t see Jareth. Could he possibly already know? Maybe, but as long as he didn’t stop her she didn’t care really. Whenever she stumbled upon a goblin she’d hand them two cookies and run off. 

She was getting a leg workout and by the time she, Hoggle, Ludo, and sir Didymus had handed out all the cookies(Ludo eating a few himself) it looked like the sky was a painting of purple and pink as the sun came up. She wondered if jareth had been asleep, did he need sleep? He would certainly need sleep after dealing with the sugar-infested goblins. Whenever Sarah went back in she saw more and more goblins running around and destroying more things then Hoggle said to be normal.

“If he ever gets his hands on you, it’ll be the bog of eternal stench, ya hear me Sarah!” Hoggle stressed like they hadn’t done it yet, like he wasn’t an accomplice, though Sarah did say she would take all the blame. “Yes, yes Hoggle” she said before skipping over to a bunch of bushes and sat down the other three looked at her confused “what? I wanna know what Jareth thinks about this” she said smirking.

Hoggle groaned and Sir Didymus and ambrosius came over to her “we will protect you while you wait, Fair maiden!” Sir didymus said proudly. Ludo walked over to the other side and sat down next to her. She leaned on him and fell asleep, only waking up when the sky was bright blue and she heard boots stomping behind her. She heard the bush rustle and the others who had been sitting around her woke up as well.

Sarah looked up and saw two mismatched eyes staring back, blonde hair curtaining them slightly. “Sarah darling” he, Jareth said through gritted teeth, she smiled back up at him. “Hello Jareth” she said before standing up too face him, he had his usual makeup, an open blouse, too tight black pants and black boots. “I’m assuming you are the reason my goblins are..overly annoying” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, his wrinkles becoming noticeable. “Maybe it was me” she said shrugging “well if it was your friends, I’d have to bog them” he said, damn it!

“Alright! It was me gosh” she said, holding her arms up in defeat, he just shook his head “my castle is in shambles, more then it usually is” he said, an anger to his voice that Sarah had learned to note. “Maybe I should bog you!” He said, smirking and she shook her head as the others finally came to her defense “ai! Don’t you go after Sarah ‘gain” Hoggle said before cowering away at the look Jareth gave him.

“Oh fine, fine I suppose this was somewhat..humorous so I’ll let you all go, for now” he said turning back to walk back to the castle as Sarah tagged along, earning a questioning look from Jareth. “I wanna see what I created” she said and ran up the stairs, seeing an abundance of things smashed and torn, scraps of things thrown on the ground. She let out a laugh, it looked like Toby’s room with all his toys instead of the debris. “You believe this is funny, precious?” Jareth said, earning a glare for the nickname.

“That’s all I needed! Send me back” Sarah said, taking in the mess for the last time as Jareth rolled her eyes and suddenly she was back in her room. Cleaning up that mess means Jareth free dreams for sometime, mission successfully!

[heartlessfujoshi]

flufftober day 25 - reylo 'between the stars'

Title: Between the Stars Chapter: 5 of 6 Fandom: Star Wars Pairing: Reylo (Ben Solo x Rey) Rating: Teen (Modern AU - Slow Burn - Flirting - Tooth-Rotting Fluff - First Kiss - First Date - Sleepover - Introduction to Friends - Mild Angst - Panic Attacks) WordCount: ~2,890 Prompt: Nook

Read: Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4

---

Fixing the wig on his head, Ben stared back at his reflection and couldn’t believe what he saw there. First off, having blond hair was weird. He wasn’t sure he liked how he looked with it. He’s always had dark hair, and it was quite the shock when he’d first put on the wig to complete his transformation into Jareth for Hux’s Halloween soiree. The second shock was the make-up he was wearing. Did he watch a YouTube make-up tutorial specifically for Jareth’s make-up for the ballroom? Yes, he did. And he would be the first to admit that it looked pretty spot on, considering he’d never applied make-up before tonight. 

The blue waistcoat with tails wasn’t as bedazzled as Jareth’s was in the movie, but it was fine. It was passable. Anyone who had seen the movie, or at least a picture of David Bowie in the movie would think that it would be a good costume. Ben had it buttoned, the ruffles from his button up shirt sitting right where they should. He bought a costume jewelry necklace to complete the outfit. He had on his black riding boots, which he hadn’t worn in years. Thankfully they still fit, as his feet stopped growing when he was fifteen. 

His black trousers were much more constricting than how he would normally wear them. It was fine. They were tight on Bowie, so they would be tight on him. All in all, he had to admit that he made a pretty good Jareth. 

A text came through on his phone. “Lyft is showing I’ll be there in two. Are you ready? Can’t wait to see you. :)” Rey’s text came up on his screen. 

Picking up his phone, he typed a reply. “I will be outside waiting. I hope you will like it. Looking forward to seeing you too :)” He saw her heart react to his reply, and then stuck his phone into his inside coat pocket. He had no pockets on his pants, as they were too tight. Luckily, they were going to a party that wouldn’t require any sort of monetary necessities. He would be fine for the night without his wallet. 

He took one last look in the mirror, shaking his head as he walked away, still unsure of how he looked as a blond. He hoped that Rey wouldn’t be too horrified by it. Hopefully she would compliment him. Oh, no. This was a terrible mistake. 

But it was too late. He left his house, which would be the first time that Rey would be seeing it. They had discussed going to the party together, but Rey wanted to make sure if they were to be drinking, to do it safely. Ben didn’t have the heart to tell her he didn’t really care for alcohol, or any other mind altering substance, and had agreed that sharing a Lyft there would be the smartest thing to do. Plus, it would save them the headache of having to find a parking spot. 

A car he didn’t recognize pulled up to his driveway. In the back he could see somewhere wearing white, which was good enough for him. He approached the opposite side of the car from where he could see Rey was sitting, and opened the back passenger door. “Good evening, sir.” The Lyft driver greeted him. 

“Ben!” Rey squealed, bouncing up and down next to him. He saw that she was dressed in a beautiful white ball gown. It wasn’t as poofy as the one that Sarah wore in the movie, but putting the two of them next to each other, it would be impossible to not see what their outfits were trying to do. “You look amazing! That wig is great!” 

Reaching up, he touched some of the fake hair. “Do you think so? I was a bit worried it looked awful.” 

“You two kids look great.” Their driver pulled away from the curb. “Halloween party?” 

Rey nodded her head. “Yes! Can you tell what we are?” 

“Labyrinth?”

Ben smiled as Rey nodded her head with enthusiasm. “That’s correct. See, Ben? They’ll know what we’re doing.” She reached for his hand, and brought it up to her lips to kiss the back of it. “I can’t get over how you look. Are you….” She squinted at him as she turned towards him. “Are you wearing makeup??” 

“Of course.” He smirked, resting her hand on top of his thigh as he looked forward out the windshield. “I think it’s a necessary part of the outfit.” 

“How am I going to kiss you if you’re wearing makeup?” 

Ben laughed. “Rey, you’re not going to be kissing my eyes, are you?” 

“Okay, you have a point there.” 

He smiled, feeling a bit more relaxed now that Rey was next to him. He wasn’t really someone that went out of his way to go to a party like this, but since Rey and her two best friends were going to be there, it was less scary for him. He knew that even if he was having a bad time, Rey would follow his lead and go home with him. But he wasn’t planning on leaving early. No, he’d been looking forward to this party all week. 

Their driver pulled up to the address that Rey had given to him. “Here you two kids go. Have fun tonight. Thanks for being responsible.” He pointed to a box on the floor. “Feel free to take some candy if you want.” 

“Thank you.” Ben declined the offer, as he exited out of the vehicle. He held his hand out towards Rey, who took it, allowing him to help her out of the car. Once she was out, he closed the door and waved the driver off, while looking at her. “You look gorgeous, Rey.” 

She spun around, twirling her dress for him to see. “This is the most extravagant costume I’ve ever worn to one of these parties.” Rey curtseyed towards him, which had him bowing towards her. “It isn’t too much, is it?” 

“No.” He offered her his arm, which she took. “What time were Poe and Finn coming tonight?” 

“They should be here.” She led him towards the side of the house, where the entrance to the party was. “Let’s go find them?” 

“Sounds like a good plan, sweetheart.” 

The backyard was huge. There was a full sized pool towards the back, while there was ample room for a dance floor, as well as a stage where an orchestra was playing. Ben stared in awe, surprised by how opulent this event was. He was expecting a Halloween party - not an actual ball. Couples were dressed in a variety of costumes - some were elaborate like his and Rey’s costumes, while others had been purchased last minute. Or very close to it. But it was nice to see everyone in the holiday spirit. 

“Ben!” He turned his head and saw Poe waving his hand at him. He tapped the person standing next to him, which was his boyfriend, Finn. Both were dressed up in costumes that made Ben laugh. 

“What’s so funny?” Rey asked, as she returned to his side after going to grab them some ghoul juice - a mixture of lemonade and sprite. 

He took the red cup from her hand. “Your friends have picked a very unique costume.” 

“Did they now?” She turned to look, but failed to see them as they were approaching from behind her. “Where the heck are they?” 

“Hi, Rey.” Finn’s voice made Rey yelp in surprise, which made Ben laugh. “You two look amazing!” 

Ben turned to Poe, who was coming over to him. “Nice look, Indy.” Poe was wearing a leather jacket, with tan pants, and a whip at his side. 

“I’ll have you know that I am Chip from Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers, thank you very much.” Poe puffed his chest out, lifting his chin in triumph. 

He raised his eyebrow up. “So that means Finn isn’t Magnum P.I.?” 

“Nope. I am Dale.” 

“You know they’re brothers, right?” Ben asked. 

Poe and Finn laughed. “Yes, we know. And it’s nothing gross like that, so get that out of your head.” Finn wagged his finger at Ben. “We thought it would be an easy costume.” 

“It is.” Rey was now resting against his side. Without thinking about it, he lifted his arm and draped it around her shoulder. She fit so perfectly against him. “I like the Hawaiian shirt. Reminds me of TJ’s.” 

“Rey!” Finn groaned. “I don’t work at a grocery store.” 

“I know!” Her laughter brought a smile to Ben’s face. “I just said it looked like it. Not that it was a shirt from there.” 

Poe shook his head. “You guys look really great. Have you taken a picture inside yet?” 

“Is it set up again?” Rey asked, Ben curious as to what they were discussing. “I figured he wasn’t going to bring it back again after what happened last year.” 

“It’s there. And you can pick up any prop you want, but you have to return it.” Finn rolled his eyes. “As if we’d walk out of here with something like that.” 

Rey grabbed onto Ben’s hand. “Come on, Ben. Let’s go see.” 

“Where are we going?” He waved goodbye to Finn and Poe, who were heading over to the table where there was a plethora of things to eat. 

“You’ll see!” 

There was a line inside for something, which was what Rey wanted to do, so they got in line together. He kept her close as people walking by complimented them on their costumes, feeling a little overwhelmed by all of these strangers. But with Rey by his side, he found it much easier to tolerate than he would have if he had been alone. 

They came to the front of the line, and in front of them was a photobooth. Ben raised his eyebrow up as Rey began to go over to the table where there were items they could use in their pictures. “How about we use these?” She held up two domino masks stuck on sticks. “Or is that too cheesy?” 

“I think it’s perfect.” He took one of the domino masks, and then looked at the taped ‘X’ on the floor. “Would you like to use any others?” 

“No, I think this will do.” Rey’s brilliant smile brightened the room. He nodded, and then walked with her over to where they were supposed to stand. “We’ll take a nice one, a silly one, one with the mask, and then you choose?” 

“Alright.” 

He held her close as they stared at the camera, Rey pushing the button for it to start. As the time counted down, Ben kept a small smile on his lips, as he wanted her to be happy with how he looked. The second picture that they took, Rey had decided she was going to make a silly face, so he joined her with one of his own. The third, they held up their props and stared at the camera, both leaning forward with wide grins on their faces. For the final picture, he pulled her close to him, and then carefully dipped her backwards. Her peals of laughter made him laugh, and he could hear the photo being snapped as it happened. 

Lifting her back up, they moved to where the pictures were being printed. Rey held up her strip, and Ben felt his chest growing warm as he saw her smile. “Oh, Ben. These are perfect.” She held it up for him to see. 

“You’re perfect.” He told her, as his eyes were drawn to her beautiful face in each picture. 

Rey gave him a quick tour of the first floor of Hux’s house. The upstairs floors were off-limits, which was fine. There was plenty of space inside and outside to congregate without it feeling too suffocating. But as Ben was thinking that, he felt a mild anxiety attack begin to happen to him. Looking around, he tried to find a place that wouldn’t be too noticeable if he were to have a minor meltdown, and found what he was looking for around the corner. 

Grabbing onto Rey’s hand, he pulled her with him. He could hear her confused questions, but couldn’t answer as he was trying to maintain a calmness that he wasn’t feeling at all inside of his head. As soon as they got to where he saw, he felt the panic start to subside. Taking a quick look around, he saw no one paying them any mind as he pulled her into the small nook, away from everyone and everything. 

“Ben, what’s the matter?” Concern was evident in Rey’s voice, as she placed both of her hands on his face. “Talk to me, babe. What’s going on?” 

“P-Panic.” He stuttered, feeling a bit on the helpless side at the moment. But the touch of her hands was grounding him in a way he’d never experienced before, and held onto that feeling. He placed his large hands over hers, not wanting her to pull them away from him too suddenly. 

Her forehead touched his, as he hadn’t been aware he was leaning down to be closer to her. “I’m here, Ben. Breathe through it. It’s okay. No one is here. Only you and me.” 

“Us.” Ben closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. His heart rate was already subsiding to a more normal beating pattern, the panic slowly disappearing further. Rey’s cool hands stayed on his cheeks as she took a few deep breaths. Without realizing it, he followed her breathing pattern, calming himself by her presence alone. “Love you” He whispered, the words slipping out of his mouth. 

A soft gasp left her mouth, and then he felt her lips touching his with a delicate kiss. “No fair. I wanted to tell you first.” Rey whispered against his lips before kissing him again. “I love you too.” 

He realized what she’d said only a few seconds after realizing he’d said it first. He expected the panic to return, as the last person he’d ever confessed his feelings to had laughed in his face, and had made him feel like a complete fool. But Rey hadn’t done that. No, she had kissed him, and returned the sentiments of love, which he could feel surrounding them. 

His hands dropped, his arms now enveloping her to his body, as their mouths returned together for another deep kiss. Pulling back, he returned his forehead to hers and took a deep breath. “Thank you.” 

“For what?” She asked, as he felt her lower herself back down onto her feet. “I didn’t do anything.” 

“You did everything, sweetheart.” He couldn’t help but smile, as he stared into her eyes. “I’m sorry that I had an attack.” 

“You never have to apologize for something you cannot control.” Rey held onto both of his hands, the two of them staying close as the space called for it. The nook was private and perfect, and it was what Ben had needed to escape the party. “Are you okay now?” 

“I think so.” Ben nodded his head. “A little giddy, but that might be because of what you said.” 

“What I said? What about what you said.” She teased him, and then kissed him again on the lips. “Come on - we can go soon. Let’s go say hello to the host, and then goodbye to our friends?” 

He didn’t miss how she had addressed Finn and Poe as their friends. Ben could only nod his head, as he was overcome with emotion. Rey led him to where Armitage liked to spend his parties, introducing him to the host. All Ben remembered was shaking his hand, and then found himself outside with both Finn and Poe, who were now looking at Rey’s photobooth pictures. 

“You guys look so happy.” Finn smiled, as he handed the strip back to Rey. “And you’re leaving now, aren’t you?” 

“We are.” Rey nodded. “I’ve got a bit of a headache.” 

Ben knew that wasn’t true. But he didn’t bother to clue them into her white lie, as he arranged for a Lyft to pick them up. They said their goodbyes after taking a few group pictures together thanks to some random stranger, and then left the party to go and grab their Lyft back to his place. 

He helped her out of her ballgown in his bedroom, after they had decided she would spend the night here, as it was very late. His wig came off easily, as did the crown of jewels Rey had put into her own hair. Her fingers took care of the delicate buttons on his ruffle shirt, and then the two of them were falling into bed together, kissing and holding each other like two lovers would do. 

“I love you.” Rey whispered into his ear, after he thought she had fallen asleep. 

Smiling, he turned his head and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I love you too, Rey.” 

She soon began to snore against his arm, which made him smile. This was definitely a party he would never forget, as it would always be remembered as the place where he hadn’t been afraid to share his feelings with Rey. 

---

Cross-posted to AO3

[kay-great]

If there was a Labyrinth the Musical, I think the set should be specifically designed for the puppetry (which would be off the charts) and also the entire set would be comprised of just a shit ton of Staircases. Just stand alone staircases. Of varying sizes and shapes and architectures and colors. And they would all be on wheels and they could be climbed but most of them lead to nowhere,, unless of course your staircase is positioned to lead to another staircase.

I think the staircases would move throughout the show to become different scenes. I think the staircases should move while the actors climb them, sometimes to the advantage of the character and sometimes not. The Labyrinth would be most inclined to help the goblins and their king, whereas they would actively work against Sarah. I think you should be able to tell who’s the king of the Labyrinth just by the way it moves.

I think giving motion and shape to the labyrinth will give it a life if it’s own. Make the whole set feel alive. I think each staircase should have its own secrets. Whether it’s a trap door, carefully placed mirrors, hidden compartments, or even whatever is being kept below.

See, The best thing about staircases is that there’s a whole section below them. Under each stair is a small room- almost a “Harry Potter’s Broom Closet” little world under each one. Some might be left open- a ‘floating staircase’ effect. Other rooms might be walled up and only accessible if you know how to find the door. But you never really know if you WANT to open it until you do.

I think Sarah should find out these secrets one by one. Discover everything along with the audience. And just as you figure out how one staircase works, suddenly the whole thing moves again, and that staircase is pushed and puzzled into the labyrinth until it’s at the back of the stage, and Sarah is stranded at the front- confined to a whole new set of staircases. I think she should be able to solve a puzzle, figure out which staircase to climb, and then suddenly- as she’s climbing- the whole thing moves while she’s on it! Further away from her goal!

I think a huge turning point of the show should be Sarah realizing she can move the pieces. Realizing all they really are is staircases. Sarah realizing that the Labyrinth may be a living thing with living power- but so is she.

Imagine “Within You”,, imagine all of the staircases whirling around and bending to Jareth’s will. Sarah desperately trying to get to her baby brother but only finding herself face to face with the Goblin King again and again. Imagine her finally stopping, Looking down, taking a breath, and beginning her final monologue.

Imagine the staircases slowing down too, imagine them beginning to fall into a formation. Sarah’s words have a power. They give the Labyrinth a structure. The staircases are all different sizes, or so it would seem. In reality each staircase has a ‘twin’- another staircase of the same height. And as all the staircases begin to fall into a pattern, Sarah and The Goblin King each take a step onto the two tallest staircases- from opposite sides of the stage.

The staircases move while the two climb them, Jareth has shown his mastery of walking up the moving staircase throughout the show. Sarah, surprisingly, is also confident and skilled as she elegantly steps up the whirling stairs. It’s the first time throughout the show she is seen like this. So proud. So fearless. So Independent. A formidable opponent.

The staircases continue to shift into place, the whole time Sarah is delivering her monologue and is kept near the edge of stage (as then the audience can see her while she says her lines), the same is not true for Jareth, who moves on a staircase that changes directionally with the flow of the new structure. She is anchored, in focus, and in charge- he is not.

Finally, the two staircases meet its twin in the center of the stage. They lead to each other. Each staircase Rearranged in a way that they all lead to the path in the center, made up of the two tallest twin stairs on either side- representing Jareth and Sarah, and their journey to one another. (Structure pattern featured in picture below, difficult to describe)

As they both finish their ascent to the top of their staircase, everything falls into place, and they are left facing each other. Jareth is holding baby Toby. And they have their final moments. “Damn, I always forget this line.” Sarah falters. Jareth pleads. They circle around one another, until they are standing on the opposite staircase they started on. Everything is still. Finally, “you have no power over me”

And everything whirls again, there’s flashing in the lights and the music crescendos and the set transforms one final time, but it’s different. The staircases fade into the back (except for the one Sarah is standing on) quickly hidden from view. Sarah’s staircase moves to the front of the stage, and now her house- the only set piece that is not a staircase- is glided onstage.

The staircase Sarah is standing on is moved to fit back into the house, where it had been moved when she first got thrown into the Labyrinth at the start of the show. She is now back where the show began- a living room set of a typical household, ONE staircase, and a second story landing which holds three doors. One door is Sarah’s room, another belongs to her parents, and the third is the nursery.

A baby’s cry is heard. Sarah rushes up to the nursery and after a moment emerges with baby Toby. She is smiling and cooing at the blubbering child. Eventually her parents come home, Sarah apologizes for her behavior, blah blah, they take Toby and go upstairs to their room.

But what about the end? What about “should you ever need us..” “I’ll always need you, sometimes for no reason at all.” There’s a door under the staircase. It’s been there the whole time but Sarah has never entered it. But she hears three knocks on the door. At first she checks the front door- maybe off to the right of the set- but she opens it to find no one there. Three knocks again. This time she looks at the door under the stairs. Tentatively she opens it.. and it’s Hoggle! And Ludo and Sir Didymus! And there is music and dancing and lessons learned and everything is happy and good again.

The End.

WOAH OKAY THAT WAS A LOT MORE WORDS THAN I EXPECTED TO WRITE. if you have any ideas to add-on to the Labyrinth set idea i would love to hear them :) comment below or message me, I’m serious. As promised here’s some visuals for the final confrontation scene… WARNING I’m not an artist.

^a simple design of two staircases meeting together at the top, with other, smaller staircases behind and facing them.

^Same design but with more embellishments and character placements

^Same Staircase design but alternate character placement of Toby being at the top of the stairs instead of carried by Jareth- forcing more of a ‘race to the baby’ type of tension.

[faeriexqueen]

Labyrinth 30 Day Challenge (Days 23 - 30) (*Last batch to answer! As I suspected, I forgot about these. XD)

23 - Do you have any theories about the movie? 

I have a few, though most tend to center around Jareth and his background. My personal headcanon is that he is some variant of fae, though regardless of what he is [ex. fae, human, goblin], I think his existence is linked directly to human belief, such as seen with Sarah and her influence/power. Going off of this, I tend to theorize that the Underground overall is a mirror reflection of the Aboveground, but in the sense that it reflects dreams/beliefs/fantasies. That’s why it’s reminiscent of the old faerie stories in so many ways, and humans have the ability to mold the Aboveground to reflect whatever their dreams/fairytale stories are.

24 - Add a scene to the story. 

Since I don’t have the bandwidth to write it out, one scene I would add is something involving Jareth after the ballroom scene - given the expression he makes when Sarah breaks free of the hallucination, I really would have liked to have seen a scene with him following that. (What was his reaction? What did he do afterward?) I feel like something after that moment could have given us a lot of insight into Jareth overall, that maybe we didn’t necessarily get with other scenes. Basically, I’d add another scene with Jareth in some capacity though. I always love seeing him. XD

25 - Would you like a remake of Labyrinth? How do you imagine it would be? 

I personally would not like a remake - aside from the fact that I think remakes in general have become exhausting cash grabs, I really feel like it would be hard to keep the magic and integrity of the original film. Labyrinth definitely isn’t perfect from a technical standpoint by today’s standards, but there’s so much charm to the puppetry. The cast was excellent, and I really can’t imagine anyone other than David Bowie in Jareth’s role. If a remake was done, I really don’t think it’d have the same effect or impact as the original.

26 - What about a sequel? 

I’m pretty iffy on this, but my general feeling is I wouldn’t like one. However, I would be open to a prequel or spin-off centered on the Underground/goblin characters, similar to how The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was. I’m a huge fan of The Dark Crystal and was blown away by that series, though I think a huge part of it was that the main characters in AOR weren’t Jen and Kira. I feel like the focus would have to be shifted to other characters for it to be successful, but I think a spin-off/prequel could work with that level of detail and worldbuilding that AOR received.

27 - 10 years have passed. What do you think happened with Sarah, Jareth, etc? 

This is where fanfiction is such a fun thing, because we can think about what might have happened. Personally, I think Sarah and Jareth’s paths split. I think Sarah was able to grow into herself more as a person, but Jareth was held back by something - he couldn’t keep her, and he couldn’t follow her. There was some kind of sense of isolation at the end, and I’m not sure if Jareth ever resolved whatever was going on. (Whereas Sarah’s arc came full circle, Jareth’s felt as though it got stuck - as though he were left without something. And I think that was intentional on Jim Henson’s part.) Not to say a happier ending wasn’t waiting for Jareth - this is just my own personal interpretation of the story, and I think it’s one reason it always impacted me as a child and made me a little sad. His arc always read as little more tragic to me.

28 - If Jareth and Sarah meet each other again, how do you think this meeting would be? 

I think it could go a lot of ways - there could be some uncertainty and distrust on Sarah’s end, and Jareth could be bitter - angry and yearning. But, I think there could also be a mutual respect for how matched they seemed to be? It’s tricky, because Jareth doesn’t have power over Sarah, but by the end of the film, they feel closer to equals in some regards than not. I definitely believe they made a lasting impression on one another.

29 - Do you think there is a message in the movie? What? 

For me, the biggest message was always that transition from childhood to adulthood, and how it isn’t cut and dry - there are things you will yearn for and need (such as Sarah indicating she needs Hoggle, Ludo, and Didymus at the end, occasionally for no reason at all), but there are also things and people you will have to walk away from (ex. Jareth). It’s always been a really bittersweet message that I think speaks to a lot of people (myself included). Honestly, for years the ending of Labyrinth made me simultaneously happy and sad, and I think it took a while before I realized this message was why. 

30 - Last one: What made you like/love Labyrinth?

It kind of goes back to the first question I answered of how I discovered it, but as a little kid I just...loved Sarah’s dress. And you know, not even the ballgown, but the white one she wears in the park. For some reason, that’s my earliest memory of when I saw the film. As a child, it just was a real fantasy for me. The puppetry and goblins were really engaging even though I was scared when I first saw them, and it honestly has always felt like such a layered film. I can always go back to it and rewatch things, catching stuff I might have missed. It’s just a deeply comforting film to watch and is always a nice offer of a little escapism. ^^

Days 01 - 07. Day 08. Days 09 - 15. Days 16 - 22.

[rayne-storm]

AUgust 21 - Soulmates

Title: LOVERLY SOULS

Fandom: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, Labyrinth

Stayne/Alice, Tarrant/Jareth (later), Miranda/Sarah (later)

This keeps getting away and getting vaster. For now, here's the Prologue and Chapter One.

Prologue:

What do you do if you discover your soulmate is a villain of your story?

If you're one Alice Liddel, chosen one (sometimes known as Um from Umbridge), you mourn. Because you know that he and you can never be, will never be, and honestly the last personal interaction you had was so unsettling that you hope that he really truly did perish in the wastelands.

That's not quite to be, though. Much like everything else in Alice's life.

--

It started when she began having dreams. Most times, Alice's dreams were pleasant if nonsensical. There were dreams of tea parties, of cards and chessmen, of six or even seven impossible things done in the span of an evening, and occasionally normal, average dreams.

Then, all of a sudden, after her 23rd birthday, she began to have dreams of Illosovic Stayne, of all people.

The Knave didn't do too much in these odd little dreams, mostly just seemed to go about his day, or what a day would have been, before the murdered-in-exile events. Sometimes he would be riding his horse through the woods, sometimes he would be chopping firewood, sometimes he would be quietly reading a book.

It was most perplexing to Alice, who had never really dreamt of the man before. But now she didn't go a night without a glimpse of him. Maybe it was just some phase or another, but it was unsettling to be certain. Still, dreams were dreams, and only dreams, right?

Then one dream, she watched as Stayne discovered a sudden, curious marking on the inside of his wrist. It was one Alice knew only too well, for it mirrored the mark she had just above her heart.

The "Mark."

That… that couldn't be possible. Especially if these dreams were memories, or just fragments of the past. She knew he didn't have that on his wrist before. What… what did this all mean?

Well, for one thing, it was time to go back through the looking glass.

--

Chapter One: A Butterfly

It was no surprise at all to Alice when the first person to greet her was Absalom, the caterpillar-now-butterfly. He was a steady companion these last few years, and his unique gift of crossing the liminal borders between the Underland and UpTopp was one she deeply appreciated, bringing her news or carrying back her own warm wishes. She also always appreciated his wisdom, regardless of how droll he seemed in delivering it. She only hoped he got something out of their friendship as well.

"You've had a birthday."

It wasn't a question. He rarely ever asked questions, and Alice had long since learned to stop foolishly questioning how he knew things. It was much faster to just nod in agreement.

"Your 23rd, birthday. A very important one."

"I suppose, though I suspect it means more here than it does where I've come from."

Absalom perched on her hand, held out in front of her face so she could make out his expressions. He nodded sagely.

"Much so. Though here it could be 230. Twenty-three is an auspicious number, you know, for a person to be. One person, two-three, you see, is mathematically relevant."

Alice merely nodded again.

"You've begun having unusual dreams," the wise little butterfly added, and again, it was pointless to question how he knew.

"I have, sir, about-"

"Ilosovic Stayne, I presume?"

She nodded again, sheepishly.

"I should imagine so. He's recently begun having unusual nightly visitations as well."

That was a surprise.

"He- what?? He's alive..??"

"Oh, yes, very much so. Managed to escape his punishment, had been quietly living a life deep in the Tulgey Wood, along the border of us and the Goblin Kingdom."

"The… Goblin Kingdom?"

"Yes, yes, surrounded mostly by a vast array of labyrinths. Folks tend not to visit nearby, likely to be lost or get caught in some scheme or another thought up by the inhabitants… perfect place for a Knave to lay low."

She nodded again. She didn't think she could handle yet another mad country.

"Do you visit him?"

The butterfly nodded, wings fluttering lazily.

"He makes for… intriguing company, now that he's had some time to think about his life and choices."

Alice considered quietly. She wasn't too thrilled to hear he was… around, but she hadn't ever necessarily wished him dead.

"And he knows I've been having dreams of him?"

"Well, yes, because he's been having dreams of you, of course. And, he has gained a new little trinket on his body. A small red heart with a sword through it. Thematically relevant, certainly, but… new for Underland."

Alice felt herself curl in slightly. Her heart pounded.

"What do the dreams mean?"

"You have your little skin marks, here in Underland, when the time comes, and Time decides they both are in the properly placings, a pair of people will begin to dream solely of each other. After the dreams, a sense of longing infects the body, like a virus. It has no known cure…"

Alice felt herself grow cold. There was no way, no how. Not for that man. But Absalom didn't seem to notice. Or didn't care.

"In Underland it's called Loverling, sometimes the phenomenon itself is referred to as the Heartlonging. I believe you may call it a Soulmate."

No. No. She couldn't take it. She ducked her head and ran back towards her gateway. She needed air. She needed space to breathe.

Ilosovic Stayne was not her anything. Least of all the man she was meant to spend her life with. No matter what Time or Fate or anything said.

[jarethsconcubine]

Hi, hope you're well! 😁💖 I see a lot of fics where Sarah is able to visit her friends Underground (normally through her mirror) do you think she would try to help other Runners since she had people to help her?

Perhaps Jareth would try and stop her from helping out. They end up in up in a constant power struggle where one of them helps and the other hinders.

I guess I just like the idea of them evening out the consequences of each other's actions.

Hello! I hope you’re doing well too and thank you!!🤩💖

Hmm good question as always. I think it’s 50/50 as maybe she would prefer not to because she may want to set her family and life Aboveground as her top priority. But she has a very kind yet rebellious nature to where I can see her using the mirrors to go Underground, help the Runners, and defeat Jareth. Ultimately, depending on the runners’ and Sarah’s success, that could be the downfall of the Underground and the Labyrinth if it thrives off of losing runners and their dreams. There’s definitely already a power struggle between the two with Sarah gaining the upper hand during their final confrontation. I wouldn’t put it past Jareth if he wanted it back. He wouldn’t be violent, no, just tricky...

[adrenaline-roulette]

Absolute Beginners

Chapter one: Breaking a few egg heads

Years after running the Labyrinth, and rescuing her baby brother. Sarah finds herself forming an unlikely friendship with the Goblin King himself.

Sarah Williams was well and truly done with life. Not in a, ‘Oh what a cruel, harsh world!’ sort of way, but more of a ‘If Jareth shows up in my home one more time uninvited, then I may be forced to commit a crime’ sort of way. Don’t get me wrong, the company Jareth provides is rather excellent, a pleasant change from the goblins who she constantly found ransacking her kitchen cabinets and fridge, and he certainly made for intelligent conversation while her university friends were away during the semester break. The only issue with the King of the goblins continuously showing up unannounced, was the sheer amount of glitter that he left behind during each visit. Now Sarah likes glitter just as much as the next girl, but trying to vacuum it out from her carpet, and washing it from her hair was a nightmare! So much so, she now found herself simply leaving the apartment as it was, covered in glitter. Though she had to admit, that in the right lighting (Usually around 5:13 pm) the rooms took on an almost magical look, what with all the glitter…. And dream catchers, and wind chimes.

 With a groan, Sarah shouldered her front door open, dropping the heavy grocery bag onto the tiled entrance way, a sickening crack filling the empty apartment. “Shit.” She muttered, looking down at the fabric bag, which was slowly becoming wet at the base, “There go the eggs…” She kicked off her shoes, and frowned down at the bag, knowing full well that it wouldn’t clean itself up, though she damn well hoped that maybe, just maybe if she scowled at it long enough, it would. A familiar gust of wind caught her attention, though not enough to cause her to look up, she knew exactly what it meant, and the sound of the patio doors bursting open only confirmed her suspicion.

“My dear Sarah, I’ve brought you a gift!” called the clipped English accent of the one and only goblin king. Sarah remained staring at the ever-growing pool of shattered egg, that was slowly creeping closer to her sock clad feet. “Hi Jareth.” She smirked, looking up at the ever-glittering king who now stood in the apartment entrance with her. “Any chance you could, you know.” She motioned her hands in what she called, her best magic impression, which was more or less a vertical rendition of jazz hands. Jareth rolled his mismatched eyes, muttering under his breath about not having to wave his hands to perform magic, instead he used crystal balls. With a flourish of his black leather gloved hands, one of said crystals appeared between his fingertips, he twirled it there a moment, watching as Sarah grew impatient, her eyes following the egg yolks as they neared her big toe. With a small chuckle, he lunged the crystal at the mess on the floor, the puddle and shattered egg shells all disappearing in a grand display of glitter. Sarah glanced down at where the murder of twelve innocent individuals had just occurred, nothing was left at the scene of the crime, no one would ever know what had happened.  Her eyes travelled up to Jareth’s, a smile playing on her lips. “Remember that chat we had the other day?”

“You mean the one where we discussed whether pork was really a type of vegetable?”

“No, not that o- Wait, when did we have THAT conversation?!”

“Perhaps that was with my advisor Garret, not matter, please continue.”

Sarah shook her head in wonderment, the things that man said were a mystery sometimes. “I meant, the chat we had about you coming to the door like a normal person. I don’t care if you glitter poof outside of my home, just not inside, it takes too long to clean up afterwards.” Sarah watched as Jareth visibly scowled at the use of the word ‘poof’.

“Sarah, precious, I do not poof anywhere. I appear, there is a difference. And besides, I simply had to arrive as suddenly as I did, as I announced when I arrived, I have a gift for you.”

Sarah manoeuvred herself around Jareth, having collected her grocery bags once again, in order to deposit them on her kitchen counter.  As she made her way around her kitchen, she found herself trying to recall how this had all started. The whole, Jareth appearing in her apartment and presenting her with gifts.

The 25th of March seemed to spring to mind when thinking about the beginning of this all. It was three years after Sarah had run the labyrinth to reclaim her baby brother Toby from the Goblin King. She had been out with her friends at a house party, where everything was served in a red solo cup, and no one really knew what they were drinking, but it was obvious that whatever it was, it contained copious amounts of alcohol. By the time Sarah had stumbled home, it was past 3 am, and even in her drunken state, she knew to be grateful for her father, Karen and Toby being away for the weekend. She made her way upstairs, after finally managing to unlock the front door, she could’ve sworn she felt small goblin sized hands helping her steady her own shaking hands, to open the door, but they seemed to disappear just as soon as they had appeared. Her typical evening routine was abandoned that night, instead she opted for stripping her rather revealing dress off, and throwing on a pair of sleep shorts and shirt, she could take her makeup off in the morning… Or afternoon, depending on what time she managed to drag herself out of bed. She sat on the edge of her bed for what felt like hours, but was in fact no longer than twenty minutes, her eyes focused on the mirror of her old vanity table, contemplating whether she should call on her old friends again. Ludo, Sir Didymus and Hoggle had always been happy to talk with her, but perhaps not at such an ungodly hour. She shook her head, and sighed. “Goblin King, Jareth, I need you..” She whispered, as tears slipped from her eyes. After such a great night, the last thing Sarah expected herself to be doing was crying, especially over something that had occurred over three years ago!

“Sarah, have you called to wish away another child….” The sneer in His voice fell short as Jareth peered down at the young woman sobbing on her bed. This certainly wasn’t how he had imagined their next meeting, especially not with Sarah looking as she did now, the makeup running down her face was not an appealing look.  “I… I’m so sorry Jareth!” Sarah cried out, her wide green eyes seeking out his own, there was such vulnerability there, one he had not seen during her run of his labyrinth. “Sorry for what Sarah?” He smirked slightly at the way she shuddered lightly at the sound of her name from his lips, perhaps there was hope for him yet? His mind danced away from the scene playing out in front of him, paying only a small amount of attention to the blubbering Sarah, explaining why she was sorry. In his mind, Jareth Saw himself and Sarah dancing, which seemed like such a novel idea, especially seeing as there were far more things that were less polite that he would like to picture himself doing with Sarah. Though something caught his eye about their dancing, at first it had seemed like any other ball Jareth would host, or attend in the underground, but this was different. Not different in the layout, or the guests who smiled politely as the couple danced past, but in what Sarah was wearing. It would have meant nothing if the shade of her dress was slightly darker or light, but no, this particular shade of red could mean only one thing. The image playing out in his mind was of their wedding day, more specifically their first dance, and if Jareth had it his way, one day it would no longer be a dream, but instead a reality.

He suddenly found himself jolted out of his dream, by the sound of Sarah blowing her nose, it looked as if she were finally getting to the point of all of this crying. With a deep breath, she launched into a grand speech. “Jareth, I forgive you. All you did was what I asked for. You took Toby to your castle because I wished for you to do so. For years I tried to convince myself that you took him under different circumstances, but I can’t lie to myself any more. Everything I asked for, you did. If anything, I should be thanking you, not hating you!”

Now this took Jareth by surprise, and very little did these days. After living for over a thousand years, it was hard to find anything truly shocking, but this was certainly unexpected. It was as if his brain had stopped working, he couldn’t think of any witty response to Sarah’s sudden change of heart, come to think of it, he couldn��t think of anything to say at all! So instead, he opted for standing in front of the mirror he had appeared through, his mouth agape and nodding along, like some sort of stunned fish. A very regal looking fish, with fabulous hair, but a fish none the less. With one final half smile from Sarah, she fell to her side, head resting against the pillow, and slept.

“That was…. Unexpected.”  Jareth murmured, raising an eyebrow down at the sleeping woman. He did not envy her of the headache she would undoubtedly have in the morning, he only hoped she would remember what she had revealed to him. Leaning down, he pressed his lips against her temple, chuckling softly had she hummed happily in her sleep. “Take care Precious.” He whispered, before vanishing through the mirror, leaving the first of many clouds of glitter behind him.

 After that first night, Jareth found various reasons to visit Sarah, though he always made sure she had the house to herself before he appeared, knowing full well that she may have found it rather difficult to try and explain the dashingly handsome King in her bedroom. Or as she put it, ‘If my father finds out there has been a man in my room, he will murder me.’  But Jareth much preferred his variation of the story.

As the years passed, Jareth found himself having fewer excuses to visit Sarah, especially after she moved out to her own apartment. There were only so many times he could simply pop over to reclaim one of his goblins, who he most definitely had not sent to her home himself. Besides, if he used that excuse too many times, he feared Sarah may think he was negligent of his care to the goblins… She was right of course, but he would never let her know that! So, instead of taking some time to think of decent excuses to visit her, he began appearing almost daily, with some of the worst reasons imaginable!

“Oh, hello Sarah, I’m so sorry to intrude, but I wanted to offer you this lovely feather duster to replace the one my goblins ran off with the other day. It is of course made of pure chicken feathers.”

“Sarah dear, I wonder if you have any of that mortal pain remedy. Paracetamol I believe it is called? The goblins have given me a terrible migraine.”

“Precious, I was just about to cook myself up a delicious omelette with these fresh eggs, would you care for one?”

“Sarah! I don’t know what to do! The goblins, they…  They’re trying to build a catapult! Do they know something that I don’t? Should I be preparing for war? Sarah help!”

“Are you any good with political negotiations? No, don’t ask questions, just give me a yes or no answer. “

    “Dear Lord, Sarah! The goblins, they’ve set the bloody hedge maze on fire. It turns out the catapult wasn’t for an upcoming war, no instead they’ve used it to fire burning barrels of ale at the labyrinth!” (This particular instance was followed by Sarah coming home from classes the next morning, to find Jareth seated in her patchwork armchair, elbows resting on his knees, with his chin planted firmly on his interlocked fingers. Without so much as a question asked, Sarah had made her way into the kitchen, leaving Jareth there for thirty minutes, before returning with two bowls of steaming hot pasta, and a glass of wine for each of them. After this occurrence, Sarah found herself no longer dreading Jareth’s impromptu visits, and instead she simply worked around them. Jareth also realised, that perhaps he no longer needed an excuse to visit her any more, and soon found himself inviting himself over whenever he pleased, just for a chat.)

 “Sarah? Is there any particular reason you are holding onto those biscuits with such force?” Jareth chuckled, as he smirked at the brunette beauty before him. She had been standing in the same position for the past five minutes, her only movements those of when she breathed, and blinked. She had that far off look in her eyes she often adopted when thinking of particularly fond memories, or dreaming of somewhere she would rather be. Jareth found himself hoping for her to be thinking of memories, and prayed she didn’t despise his presence enough to dream of herself elsewhere. She blinked her eyes slowly, before returning to the kitchen, where her body remained despite her brain being a million miles away. “I… Sorry, I was just thinking about what to do now that I have destroyed all of my eggs. I was supposed to be making a cake for work tomorrow.” She blushed, knowing full well that Jareth knew that was the last thing she had been thinking about. Even though he had no actual clue of what she had been remembering, it doesn’t take a scientist to know that no one spends that long thinking about eggs.

“Well dearest thing, isn’t it just an amazing coincidence that my gift for you, just so happened to be goblin city fresh eggs!” Jareth grinned at the exasperated sigh that came from Sarah. She was onto him! He had used that excuse before to visit her, he had hoped she wouldn’t remember!

“Thank you, Jareth, I do appreciate it. But don’t you want to keep them? Either for yourself or the goblins?”

“The goblins don’t particularly like eggs. They prefer chickens as an animal, alive and clucking, and terrorising my throne room. Not chickens pre, all of that. As for me? I never have a shortage of eggs in the kingdom.”

“Are there really that many chickens in your kingdom, that you have enough eggs to keep you in stock?”

“You have seen my labyrinth love, surely you registered how many chickens there were just hanging about?”

“Well, uh, you see… I had always assumed you had put them there, thinking they were some sort of scare tactic…”

“I… I genuinely do not know how to respond to that Sarah. After setting the cleaners on you, you thought the chickens were there to frighten you?”

Sarah felt the blush creep up her cheeks at hearing how silly it all sounded now that it had been said out loud.  And that damned look Jareth was giving her just made her want to scream at him. Instead she threw the pack of biscuits at his head, smirking as it hit him square in the forehead.

“Now that was just rude.” Jareth muttered, and he picked up the biscuit packet off the floor, feeling the broken cookies inside the wrapping.

“That’s two casualties this evening! First the eggs, now the biscuits? When will your murderous spree end Sarah?” Jareth cried in mock horror, his lips curling into a smile as Sarah rolled her eyes at him.

“It will only end when I have murdered the greatest threat this world has ever known!” She declared, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Oh? And who is that my dear?”

Read chapter two here

My Masterlist

[riipaquaraft1972-blog]

It's not always the content of the message, but the tone, that we consider when making moderation decisions. "Legitimacy" doesn't change the fact that the wording could be kinder, and respect the fact that the OP felt confident enough to share about their skincare and their journey. Or provide resources for the community, in the case of swatches. It similar I think to the Stila shimmer in Sea Siren and KL Polish Charmed shade. Also very pigmented, I really love MG quality. Looxi Purple Haze is probably my favorite shade in here, it very shimmery and bright but also such a true purple with no other undertones. Honestly, I saw a YouTube video the other week where 무안출장안마 he went on and on about glutes (which makes sense since that his subject) and then afterwards there were a bunch of before and after photos. And ALL of them were women in g strings, pulling the most OTT sexual poses. Are there no men whatsoever who want to have stronger glutes?. It possible he is afraid of commitment, it possible he might want to date other people, etc. There any number of reasons why he wants a break, but I don think him "needing to figure out of you the one" is a good one. If he was really excited to marry you and be with you forever, I don think he would need a break to figure it out.. Next you want to cast Goblin Warcheif for an expensive 3 mana, but with the steam kins net 1 mana (83 floating), and now you can repeat the above process for 2 mana goblins that will now cost 1 (if that have one uncolored in their cost). There are 8 goblins that will be 1 mana with the warcheif out, but if our deck is 60 cards we only have 28 left, so any combination of the last 8 will do, but we definitely want to run 4 goblin instigators to have the extra goblin to sac to Skirk. So with casting those 4 instigators and sacing them for 5 net each plus casting and sacing the other 24 for 4 net mana we can sac our warchief for 1 and finally sac our Skirk to itself to get a total of 118. Well, at the end, 무안출장안마 Toby is safe asleep in his crib, and Sarah room is just like she left it. Then all her friends, Ludo, Hoggle, etc, appear in her mirror and say they be there if she needs them. She says she does, and a whole gaggle of goblins appear and they basically have a dance party while owl Jareth watches outside.. In his texts to Daved, he talks about how just bringing up her name gives him emotional distress. But why, Jeffree? She didn DO anything to you. You were the one who attacked her.. I liked them too. I thought they had good chemistry. I wish we could've seen some build up. You are at the line almost completely standing straight, and releasing the ball from above your knee. That knee has to bend so you can get the ball down into a natural swing and project it outward onto the lane, rather than just tossing it from knee height.Your hips open way to much, due to the unnaturally high swing. This is the reason you sprayed it right into the gutter. Edit: I'm getting downvoted because apparently some don't agree that you should never put coconut oil, which is comedogenic, on the face. I came to this conclusion based on dermatologist recommendations, research, and information from estheticians. That's great if coconut oil works for you. The complaints lodged with the FTC are likely only a small portion of the number of illegal telemarketing and robocalls Americans get, Foss said. With 190,000 customers, Nomorobo analyzed 50 million calls in 2014, and blocked 14.1 million robocalls, he said. That means about 28 percent of all calls that his company's customers got last year were phone spam.

[ladyofstardust]

Carol of the Goblins

Word Count: 2.7k

Rating: T

Summary: In which Jareth fights in the war against Christmas Wrapping and he and Sarah exchange gifts. A DVD player may or may not have gone back in time and a Goblin may or may not have been on fire. Whatever, the cops left in the end.

Notes: Apartment-verse fic.  Set after the events of Thursday Night.  I’m also posting them over at Ao3 in order if you’d prefer to read that way.

You took my dreams from me When I first found you I kept them with me babe I put them with my own Can't make it all alone I've built my dreams around you

- Fairytale of New York by The Pogues

“T’was the night before Christmas and all through the apartment, there were several creatures stirring but most notably the Fae king currently in a duel with my wrapping paper,” Sarah said coming in through the front door.  Jareth was sitting crosslegged on the floor of her living room, hair sticking every which way and with several pieces of scotch tape in it. He was cursing in a language she didn’t know at her wrapping paper, while the Peanuts Christmas special played in the background.

“Sarah!” He said with a start.  “You weren’t supposed to be home for another hour!”

“Traffic was better than I expected,” she said with a smile, eyeing the nondescript box Jareth had half-wrapped.  “My family sends their love and more importantly, their gifts.”

Sarah held a bag of gifts up for him to see, but he only scowled at them.

“This holiday would be much improved without this patently impossible task.”

“If you don’t do it by hand how will I know you mean it though?” Sarah teased.  “If you can wrap my gift by hand I’ll show you my trick for next year.”

“I don’t need a trick I need magic,” he grumbled.  “I truly despise you for these ridiculous gift rules.”

“No you don’t,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek and grabbing a stray piece of tape at the same time.  “You just need to be creative.”

“That wouldn’t be necessary if you’d just let me,” at this he gave a little hand wave and the lights on her tree all lit up.  He cocked an expectant eyebrow as if this proved his point.

“And I’ve seen what wonders and sparkly delights magic gets me for Christmas.  I want to see what my boyfriend gets me when he’s got the same limitations as the rest of us mortals.  My gift is also not made with magic I’ll remind you,” she said, retreating to the kitchen.  “Besides you’re the Goblin King. Stuff of nightmares and such. Is a bit of shiny paper really going to be your downfall?”

“Oh do go off,” he said bitterly.  “And do not come in here until I am done wrapping!”

“Babe, I will need my living room back before June,” she called from the kitchen.  

“I should really just return this and find a girlfriend who appreciates my magical abilities.”

“Probably!” She called back.  “In the meantime I’m going to start on dinner before the crew gets here.  Ludo doesn’t eat meat and Hoggle is currently on a weird Underground diet and can’t have ‘anything that flies’ and I’m not sure…if he counts chickens?”

“He does,” Jareth replied.  “Most of the Underground chickens can fly, they just choose not to because they’re disgusting, lazy vermin.”

“You’re in such a good mood that I’m going to put on Christmas carols so I don’t have to hear you shouting eldritch horrors at the scotch tape.”

Sarah spent the rest of the afternoon making Christmas cookies and a very large pot of spaghetti and cauliflower balls.  She wasn’t much in the kitchen, but one of the only skills she picked up from Karen was knowing how to make some kickass cookies.  

Her and Jareth had gotten into the habit of spending Christmas Eve together with their friends.  Sarah was less and less interested in driving for three hours to Irene’s place to hear about who was ruining the economy this year (her), what people needed to ‘get over’ (human rights usually), and when she was going to make something of her life (get married).  It was exhausting and compared to the idea of curling up with Jareth watching Die Hard…well she knew which one she was choosing.

Jareth had begged off the Underground’s Yule festivities as they were normally held at the Winter Court and he and the Winter Queen weren’t currently on the best of terms.  They had briefly debated decking the hell out of the castle’s halls and doing a very medieval style Christmas, but Sarah wasn’t up to it this year. She liked their low-key traditions of board games, mulled wine, and listening to Christmas music together.  It always made her feel at home, and it was the part of the holidays she looked forward to the most.

“Would my beautiful, lovely, and generous girlfriend be willing to come in here a moment?” Jareth called from the living room.

“Sure but she isn’t helping you any,” Sarah said, laying out the Christmas cookies on a plate.

“Well then nevermind!” he yelled.  

“You’ve got another half an hour and then you’ll need to give up and come play Settlers of Catan.  Hoggle won’t play Risk with both of us anymore,” Sarah said, reminding him of what Hoggle colloquially referred to as “the most scarring experience of his life.”

But it was not as though there was a lot of fire and really, he’d gotten out of there long before the cops showed up.

A few months ago, during a rainy day, they’d decided to play a game of Risk.  Things went well…for about the first hour or so. Then alliances and double dealings happened and it all culminated in Jareth creating a playable dragon that truly, under no circumstance, needed to breathe fire.  So she’d countered by setting up landmines of pudding for his troops to fall into because of Jareth’s hatred of sticky things. The dragon stepped in the pudding and a goblin came and ate the dragon, because of said pudding.  At which point the dragon started breathing fire out of the goblin’s mouth, the goblin started freaking out running all over her apartment breathing fire, lighting other goblins on fire as it went, as she was running behind it dropping pudding on the fire because well, it was what she had handy, while Jareth tried to turn off the building’s sprinkler system.  They’d managed to get the goblins back through the mirror before the cops showed up, but not before they cleaned up all the pudding and scorch marks.

So no, Hoggle was not down to play Risk.  Sir Didymus was still on board though.

Sarah went into her bedroom to grab Jareth’s gift.  She’d spent a lot of time thinking about what to get him, they’d never really done a traditional Christmas gift exchange so this was her first experience trying to buy for the man who could have anything he wanted.  The influx of ads pushing whiskey stones and artisanal shaving kits were all wrong for Jareth. She’d debated getting him a nice new pair of leather gloves, but realized she’d be really put out if he thought to buy her underwear, and he had a whole drawer full of specially designed gloves.  The mall likely didn’t carry gloves that were designed for spell casting anyways. The idea had come to her one afternoon while cleaning out her drawers. She’d found some old notes from the Goblins and she realized just the thing for her Goblin King.

She hung out flipping through Jane Eyre in her bedroom, waiting for Jareth to finish with her gift.  Finally, when she got to the scene where Rochester and Jane confess their love, Jareth walked in, looking somewhat worse for wear.  His hair had gained several more pieces of scotch tape and for some reason he had a cut across his cheek.

“I’ve brought you a gift,” he said quietly, extending the package towards her.  

In the end, he’d wrapped it perfectly.  There was a beautifully tied ribbon, with a bow on top, and the wrapping job looked professionally done.  Sarah let out an impressive whistle.

“You know, I gotta say, much like a hotdog, the process to get it may not be pretty, but the end product sure is.  Damn, now I want a hotdog.”

“Your gift is not a hotdog,” he said brows knitting together in annoyance.  

“Shame,” Sarah said with a pout.  “Guess we’ll just have to go back to the cart in the woods.”

“What is that,” he said, trying to change the subject by pointing to the gift bag Sarah had at the foot of the bed.  

“Well that would be your gift,” she said, patting the space next to her for him to sit down.

“But…it’s in a bag?” He said confused.

“Yeah that’s my trick.  I suck at wrapping so I always just get a nice bag instead,” she said with a wink, giving him a quick peck on the tip of his nose.

“So putting me through the torture of hand wrapping your gift was for…?”  He said, helplessly.

“Fun.  Namely, mine,” she grinned.

“I will get you back for this,” he grumbled.  

“I’m sure you’ll get me back for it before the night is over,” Sarah said, rolling her eyes.  “Now open your gift!”

Jareth glared at her one more time before grabbing the gift bag.  Slowly and deliberately he removed every piece of tissue paper as Sarah watched expectantly.  Finally, he pulled out her gift at the bottom of the bag.

Knit together with golds, greys, browns and black was a long scarf.  At the bottom of each tail was the pattern of his sigil, just like the amulet he wore.  

“I’m not a great knitter,” Sarah said taking a breath.  “So I know it’s not perfect or anything. I tried to get the sigil right, and I had Ludo help me a bit to make it even.  I wanted something really long so you could wrap it around your neck a bunch of times since you’re forever wearing those low-cut shirts.  But I chose this gift because eight or so years ago, I made Sir Didymus a scarf. It wasn’t very well made, but I spent about a month trying to get it ready for Christmas.  I gave Hoggle some marmalade, and Ludo a game of marbles. I didn’t realize that these were the first Christmas gifts my friends had ever received. I didn’t realize that in knitting that scarf I’d find myself and my life totally co-opted by Goblins, and Goblin Kings alike.  That the act of making that scarf might have been more powerful than that first wish. That scarf is coming apart, and filled with holes and probably quite a few pudding stains by now. Sir Didymus still wears it proudly. I didn’t know then, what I know now. About you, about the Underground, or about … anything really.  But I can honestly say, there’s no place I’d rather be, and no one I’d rather be with. So it seems only right that your first Christmas gift should be a scarf as well, since it was what brought you home to me. Merry Christmas Jareth, and I do love you very much.”

“Oh I do wish you hadn’t,” Jareth said, flopping backwards onto her bedspread. 

“Oh...why?” Sarah said, feeling her heart start to sink.

Jareth leaned forward, propping himself up on his elbow. “Because your gift is perfect Sarah.  It so far surpasses my gift that despite spending the better part of today attempting to wrap it, I’m not sure I want you to open it.”

“To be honest, half the gift was definitely watching you war with the wrapping paper,” Sarah said, grabbing Jareth’s gift to her.  

“I just want to take the opportunity to remind you that I once turned the Bog into your fondest ice skating dreams,” he said as she began to tear into the paper.

“I don’t have any ice skating dreams I can’t skate,” she said, not looking up from the box.

Sarah removed the gift from the plain brown box he’d placed it in.  Inside to her complete surprise, she found a new DVD player and every John Hughes movie Sarah could name.  She looked up at her very nervous looking Goblin King and bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“You...replaced my DVD player?  And got me The Breakfast Club?”

“If you’d allow me a few moments I’m sure I can provide something suitably magical,” he said quickly.  “Something that does not involve wrapping paper.”

“What after you conquered it?  Absolutely not!” She said clutching the DVDs to her chest.  “These are mine and I love them Jareth. Love them. Between this and the war on Christmas wrapping you staged, I honestly am … really charmed.”

“You are forever complaining about how I damaged your original device, I thought it a suitable gift to replace it for you even though I had nothing to do with the initial...malfunction,” he said, and Sarah saw the tenseness leave his shoulders.  

“Jareth, I think you may have sent that DVD player back in time.  It oozed noxious purple goop for a few minutes, lit off some more truly foul smelling purple smoke - seriously I don’t even think the bog smells that bad, and then poof!  Gone! Where did it go Jareth? Where did the DVD player and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off go?!”

“If I knew that I simply would have retrieved the old machine,” he grumbled.  “I replaced the film, along with several others by the same filmmaker. I was told he’s a favourite of yours.”

“You were told by me, many times, because I love John Hughes movies.  But that kinda proves my point about why I like it. Actually no, why I love it.  It’s thoughtful Jareth. I love it when you think about me. I love it even more when you think about me, and what I like, what I don’t like.  You even remembered not to include St. Elmo’s Fire because of my inability to watch a Demi Moore movie without getting unreasonably angry.”

“Because she reminds you of your mother,” he nodded.  “I remember.”

“Yeah...yeah that’s why I love it Jareth,” she said, giving him a smile.  “It’s a wonderfully human gift. It’s perfect. Or maybe imperfectly perfect.  Which makes it human, which makes it perfect.”

She leaned over and gave him a kiss and he took the opportunity to pull her down.  She snuggled up next to him, facing Jareth and her window, watching the snow lightly fall on her fire escape while he laid soft kisses on her cheeks and temples.

“Merry Christmas Sarah, I also love you very much.”

“Seem like that’s our lot in life, to love each other very much,” she sighed happily, nestling closer.  “I guess it’ll have to do.”

“Yes, I guess it will,” he said smiling.  “But I think I hear our friends arriving.”

“Mmm the Christmas cookies will keep them busy for a while,” she said, snuggling further into the crook of his neck.  

“Not busy enough for all the ways I’ll be celebrating with you tonight.”  

“Okay,” she said rolling over.  “First we settle, then we Catan, then we bang.  Deal?”

“An acceptable bargain,” he said offering his hand.  

She took it, giving it a firm shake, and they nodded at each other seriously, before Sarah started laughing.  

“Come on, grab the game and I’ll put on Christmas Vacation with my shiny, new, non-time travelling DVD player.”

“I’ll grab the board game.  Pour me a glass of mulled wine love,” he said giving her a quick peck before leaping off the bed.

“My lady?  Sire?” Sir Didymus called from the kitchen.  

“They’s in the bedroom bein’ gross,” Hoggle replied sourly.

“We’re just grabbing the board game!” Sarah shouted at him.

“Whatever yous say.” Hoggle muttered.

“Come on Rocket Man, Christmas awaits,” Sarah said, grabbing her new DVD player.

“As long as you don’t ask me to wrap anything else, I’m right behind you.  I think this is going to be an excellent year.” he replied.

The DVD player, unfortunately, was toast before the new year.

[goblinlipgloss]

Sarah’s Animus

We know who it is, but do we know why? ...or rather, what?

DISCLAIMER:  We are aware Jungian psychology is trans-exclusionary, and even for the time it was developed, is difficult to update to modern practice. Because of this, we debated whether or not to discuss this subject. We chose to because it kept coming up in our conversations, and within the context of the Labyrinth-verse, both Sarah and Jareth are presented as cis and heterosexual (even if our headcanons suggest neither of them are straight). We sniffed around for reliable sources of trans-inclusive Jung discussion, but are unsure which are actually decent sources and are not harmful, and as both of us mods are cis, didn’t want to assume that certain voices were better choices than others. If you are non-binary/trans and know of reliable sources, please feel free to let us know via ask, PM, or email (goblinlipgloss@gmail.com) so we can amend this post. Alright, back to business!

The TL;DR version is that Jareth is Sarah’s animus. That is, per Jung psychology, that he is the masculine part of her subconscious.

We’ve talked before about how it’s probable that everything Sarah experiences from when she puts Toby to bed, until she “returns” home is likely a dream. There’s certainly enough evidence that it is, most especially in the novel canon wherein her mother, Linda, has a charming boyfriend by the name of Jeremy who closely resembles the character we come to know as the Goblin King. It’s also canon to the film, but merely depicted in a couple photos on her desk, rather than an entire subplot that falls down a hole in the first act, the way it happens in the novel. That being said, if one accepts that Sarah’s experience is actually a dream, that leaves a really big role for Jareth to fill in her subconscious. In the original thread about Dream-Labyrinth, we argued that Hoggle would have been Sarah’s equivalent in the dream, and that him leading her through the way he did with the question mark of loyalty over his head is a perfect metaphor for a fifteen year old spoiled girl trying to find her place in her own world. That still holds true, considering Hoggle’s distaste and blatant disrespect for Jareth. The one who rules over all of the unruly goblins, creatures too low for Sarah to condescend to, more than for gushing over and appreciating anyway--in this sense, the goblins are a representation of Toby and all the things she hates about not being “the baby” of the family anymore. They’re filthy, not very bright, and clumsy--like toddlers. The very threat that motivates Sarah to rescue him is that if she doesn’t make it in time, he’ll be transfigured. The goblins were all the babies that couldn’t be saved before her run. Toby is different, though, in Sarah’s mind. When it comes down to the wire, her Toby is special. He can’t possibly be “one of [theirs] forever,” because he is as special as she sees herself. It takes some pretty high stakes for her to see that, however.

So, back to Jareth. Jung believed that a woman’s animus was more complex than a man’s anima; specifically that there were four stages of development. Jareth barrels through all four of them in a cloud of glitter:

1. Physical Power

1. In the first act of the film, until Sarah and Hoggle outrun the Cleaners, Jareth is threatening, powerful, and fearsome. He flexes his magical muscles to intimidate her. Sarah stands up to him, at first; she doesn’t know any better, but then she does so out of defiance--even though we, the audience, know she is still frightened of him (that he reminds her of later when they confront each other). This is Sarah denying her own force of will.

2. Planned Action or Romance

(ps: apologies for the texty gif. It’s what was available) 2. We now this bit already. The ballroom, his own waffling tiptoeing on pedophilia. The ballroom scene, at first, was meant to distract her, but the look on Jareth’s face when she shatters the illusion says something else--he didn’t expect a change, either. An inexperienced but not naive Sarah knows the deal, and only allows herself a moment of it before getting back to business. She acknowledges it (her desire for his attention) and then denies it in pursuit of her actual mission.

3. Orator

3.  Here, an animus appears as “the word” (authority) and is on level ground with the woman whose psyche he represents. From frithluton.org: “A woman with such an animus...welcomes the opportunity to exercise her mind. She is able to relate to a man on an individual level, as lover rather than husband or father, and she seriously ponders her own elusive identity.”

When Sarah enters the castle, and specifically, partakes in the Escher scene, we see this happening with each staircase she ascends or descends, Toby always just out of reach. Jareth, however, sulks...and pines. He knows the game is up, she won, end of story. He’s met his match. Anything else is smoke and mirrors. This means that Sarah opening up to her true self, at least, parts she either was not mature enough to understand or was simply in denial existed.

4. Spiritual Guide

4.  In their final confrontation, Jareth counts off all the atrocious things that he did because he claims Sarah bid him to do.

“Everything you wanted, I have done. You asked the child be taken; I took him. You cowered before me; I was frightening. I have reordered time...and I have done it all for you. I’m exhausted of living up to your expectations of me.” That’s a loaded statement. In this context, Jareth relinquishes authority to Sarah: he concedes that she is the more powerful one, that he cannot live up to. He makes her face everything about herself that she equally admires and fears: her own cruelty, manipulation, and selfishness. “He” did it all for “her” -- she created this whole fantasy for her own purposes. That sounds a lot like the Sarah Williams we all know. While Jareth’s claims are manipulative, and will be topic for a future post, we literally see Sarah standing in the middle of floating shambles of a castle, having fallen into it in a dream-like state. The core of her subconscious. Hoggle is Sarah The goblins are Toby Jareth is Sarah

[crowndanced]

○ *:･ﾟ✧

EXCAVATED FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE GOBLIN KING.

( DO NOT REBLOG. )

----- His Royal Highness, then Prince Jareth Vangard Robert Henry Kinglseigh, was born to King Jored Lyons Richard Dominick Kingsleigh and Queen Lillyith Anne Marie Eliza Kingsleigh-Boran in the early years of King Jored’s fae rule over the Goblin Kingdom. Years and years ago, Jareth’s great-great-great grandfather, King Roland Joseph Midas Griant Kingsleigh, had overthrown the tyrannical goblin king and taken over the kingdom himself, ushering in the first fae goblin king. The Goblins had no reason to resist their new rulers, they quite favoured the better living conditions that came with the new king, as well as the security system that was magically established around the city and its surrounding areas.       The Labyrinth wasn’t always the labyrinth is is recognized as today. Though throughout the years, the faes had taken likings to mazes as the general way to get into the Goblin City, but each ruler had something different to add to it. King Jored had used a giant dome with a mirrored maze, thus very few runners made it to the castle in his era, which was a prosperous time for the Goblin species. It was something hard to top after his first born son, Jareth, officially became Prince of the Goblins. 

       Prince Jareth was a free spirited boy; he only wished he hadn’t been born to be the next King of the Goblins- he found himself sometimes wishing his father could stay in rule, and he go live with the humans in the Aboveground, which was a realm without magic that fascinated him to no end. But a Prince has a duty to his people ( or Goblins, in this case ) and so Jareth never got many a chance to sneak away from his royal tutors and parents.       Then his sister was born.       His parents had taken a liking to their son’s name, so they named their daughter a variation of his name- Jareica. Despite the similar names, the parents had no favour over either of their children, and loved them both equally. Jareth loved his sister too, even if she was a baby and could be rather annoying at times.       After the young princess was six months old, she was snatched from under the noses of the Goblin Royals.       King Jored sent the Goblin Army out far and wide to search for his lost daughter, while Jareth stayed behind with his mother, Lillyith, as a solace for each other. Even though they were both sad with the loss of the other child, here is when Jareth’s talent for singing and dancing begun to bloom- for he had inherited it from his mother, who had quite the voice and moves herself. To distract her, he would sing nonsense songs and dance around with her, making it a tradition in the Goblin City.       Years pass, and the Princess was still missing. Jareth is now sixteen years old in appearance, and is soon to be crowned Goblin King. His father had decided to step down from rule to take care of his ailing mother. As a gift to the young prince, his parents finally let him do what he had always so wished- go to the Aboveground for thirteen hours, a full day in Underground time. And Jareth loved it.       The only problem was, he couldn’t understand why most humans were so cruel and immature, nothing like what he had learned from his studies. When he returned, his father said that was the purpose of their kingdom- to teach humans the value of maturity. Jareth understood, but he still had no desire to sit on a throne all day and abduct children to teach humans about becoming more mature- they could learn that on their own, couldn’t they?       However, one runner finally bested his father’s mirror maze, thus causing the coronation to happen sooner than planned- and Jareth was king.       Weeks after he was crowned king, Jareth heard a commotion outside the castle, seeing the guards chase what appeared to be a runner into the entrance of his father’s mirror maze. And so, he shifted into an owl and followed them, seeing as it was a king’s duty to see what was going on, and how to punish the perpetrator, should they have committed a crime. He had heard the army shouting about the thief stealing one of Jareth’s magic crystals, which only made him pursue the little person faster. What goblin or fae creature would do that? Did they not know of the reprocussions, should they be caught?       Eventually, he was ahead of the army, and managed to corner the thief at a dead end. As he shifted to his true form, the person dropped to the ground and raised their gaze to him- and his blue-brown eyes met violet-silver ones, with crow wing tattoos on the side of them.       It was his long lost sister.       After taking her back to the castle that night, he announced it to the whole kingdom, and sent a letter to his parents about finding their daughter. A celebration was then held for a week in honor of the Princess’s return- but she would not speak about what had happened to her for a long while, until her father finally coaxed it out of her.       She had been captured by necromancers, who had planned to sacrifice her- save for another of their group had already captured a human child, so instead they raised her to be a thief, and were debating about using her for ransom as well.       Jareth, using his new power, sent the Goblin Army out in search of this group of necromancers, as well as laid a bounty on their heads- but they have yet to be found. His sister was then schooled to be a princess as soon as she could be, and her true personality began to shine through the nervous shell she had encased herself in- loud, carefree, sarcastic, and friendly.       She reminded him of himself, as she got older- taking interest in the Aboveground and not wishing to sit on the throne one day as the Goblin Queen. He even gave her a nickname, as she took a liking to one of his more popular nonsense songs- ‘Dance Magic Dance’, it was called, and as she danced, that’s what the Goblins- and her brother- started calling her. ‘Magic.’       When Jareth appeared twenty, that’s when he first saw her- Sarah.       Jareth had only been watching the Aboveground from one of his many crystals, as different humans appeared and disappeared in the glass surface, all possible candidates to be a runner. When Sarah’s image had first appeared in his crystal, there was something about her that made him want to bring her down here. He was enraptured by her green eyes that shone in delight whenever she was right about something. That was the biggest thing. But over time, he grew to like more and more things about her.       Magic told him it was called ‘love.’       Would his parents be happy that their son, a purebred bird fae, had fallen in 'love' with a human girl? Absolutely not.       Did he fall in ‘love‘ anyways? Indeed he did.       And that’s when he decided to send Sarah the little book she would act out, in order for her to fall in love with him as well ( after all, he made suer that it was himself who was described in the book ). And it was also at this time that Jareth decided to reshape the mirror maze of his father’s creation into his own personalized area. Magically, the dome lowered, the mirrors became stone, or brick, or leafy hedges, or trees, until it was a twisting and winding maze, with high walls and lookouts, each area secured by ever changing passageways, hidden traps called oubliettes, and lots of glitter.       Finally deciding on a name for his creation, and the book, he dubbed it the name it is fondly known as today- The Labyrinth.       And so he sent the book out to the human girl he had his eyes on, hoping one day she would appear in the Labyrinth, so he could see her in his true form- he only ever snuck Aboveground to see her as an owl.       Magic endlessly teased him about his ‘crush’ on Sarah, but even if she was annoying about it, he had learned to ignore it, focusing on the hope that Sarah would appear in the Underground. To distract himself, however, he threw himself into his royal duties in the hope of keeping himself focused on running a kingdom and not a human girl, so his parents didn’t suspect.       A few years later, the words were spoken.       “I wish the goblins would come and take you away… right now.”       And Jareth found himself seeing Sarah for the first time in his true form.       There was a problem with this though- his parents had found out about his interest in the human girl ( to this day he still has no idea as to how ) and instilled a fail safe in that little book of his. The spell-turned-speech that made her the Champion of the Labyrinth.       “Through dangers untold,” said she, as he pleaded with her to ’fear him, love him,’ and ‘do as he said’, “and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City, to take back the child that you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours,” she went on, turning down his final offer of her dreams, “and my kingdom is as great.”       “You have no power over me.”       The words rang in Jareth’s ears as he dramatically fell, a crystal tossed into the air, and shifted into an owl, flying out the window of her house. Her brother Toby was returned, and the next thing he saw was his Sarah, holding a celebration with many a member of his kingdom- he was tempted to send all of them to The Bog of Eternal Stench, or an oubliette, or worse, but her joyous smile stopped him from doing so.      He could just wait a little more.

NOTES ABOUT THIS CANON:

This is only a very brief summary of Jareth’s life up to canon events, and when I get the time, the more detailed version of his life up to canon events will go on his blog bio.

The apostrophes around the word love when talking about Sarah means the word is used loosely- very loosely. As indicated by canon events and outside views, he was merely infatuated by her with his own view of love, having never been in love romantically before. The closest comparison would have to be someone being infatuated with a celebrity.

There is an opportunity to have threads with Prince Jareth during his time Aboveground, however they will not have icons used. Chances are, if you want to establish a relationship where your muse befriended Jareth on his day Aboveground, he will regard your muse as an old friend if you want to have a thread with king Jareth. Still, tread lightly.

Magic is not an rp-able character on this blog, and neither are Jareth’s parents, Jored and LIllyith. They are all my OCs, who will only be mentioned on this blog. I have been developing this canon for years, so please don’t use it.

More is to come.

[aion-rsa]

Labyrinth: the Unsettling Second Character Played by David Bowie

https://ift.tt/3A2oNto

Not everything we enjoy is good for us. A chocolate-filled doughnut, for instance, can be delicious even while it crams our arteries with trans fat. The simple fact of knowing that something is unhealthy doesn’t stop it from being fun, which is to say that it’s still okay to love Jim Henson’s 1986 cult kids’ film Labyrinth while acknowledging that its sexual subtext is creepier than a drunk uncle on a camping trip. 

It’s not as if nobody noticed the vibe between lead characters Sarah and Jareth at the time, or in repeated viewings since. Like Bowie’s codpiece, it stares you in the face all the way through the film. Jareth’s a 300-year-old Goblin King (played by a 38-year-old pop star) who wants to live within 15-year-old Sarah. Jareth spies on Sarah, comes into her bedroom, drugs her, dances with her, and promises to be her slave if she’ll love him, fear him and do as he says. Their dynamic is wrong in every size and colour, and – depending on whether you’ve spotted the other character Bowie plays in the film – could be about to get a little bit more wrong.

Sarah’s scrapbook in Labyrinth (1986)

The events of Labyrinth are a fantasy that takes place in Sarah’s mind. Using the childhood dolls, stories and ornaments spotted around her bedroom in the early scenes (Hoggle and Ludo toys, a Goblin King statue, a wooden labyrinth game, storybooks from Snow White to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland…), Sarah invents a scenario in which she’s a put-upon fairy tale hero who saves her baby brother. It’s a coming-of-age fantasy that teaches Sarah to leave her childhood behind, recognise her inner power and step into the adult world. The film starts with her dressed as a princess and play-acting, and ends with her literally clearing her room of toys and games, and symbolically passing on her beloved teddy bear Lancelot to her little brother Toby.

If Labyrinth were a ‘real’ fairy tale, then Sarah’s absent mother (the girl lives with her father, stepmother and new stepbrother) would be dead. She isn’t, as we can see from recent photos around Sarah’s mirror and the scrapbook of press clippings Sarah keeps about her, decorated with hearts, the word “mom”. Sarah’s mother Linda Williams is a theatre actor who’s famous enough for her love life to be written about in the papers. Several of the newspaper articles in the scrapbook show her mother pictured with another actor, topped by a headline about their on-again-off-again romance. The other actor in those photos is played by David Bowie. That means that when Sarah was dream-casting the much older lead in her personal coming-of-age fantasy, she gave that role to… her mother’s boyfriend. Therapists of the world, start your engines.

A.C.H. Smith’s 1986 novelisation of Labyrinth was written with input from Jim Henson and screenwriter Terry Jones. In this 2018 podcast interview, Smith explains that Henson gave him over 20 pages of feedback about the draft manuscript and invited him to visit the set and watch several days’ filming. Jones also spent an afternoon with Smith and gave him permission to use an abandoned boneyard scene in the novelisation which had been originally written for the film. The novelisation is canon, is the point. It bears the official stamp. And the novelisation gives us more on the characters of Linda Williams and her actor boyfriend Jeremy. Here, it describes Sarah’s bedroom press clippings:

Sarah’s mother and her co-star, Jeremy, were cheek to cheek, their arms around each other, smiling confidently. The photographer had lit the pair beautifully, showing her to be so pretty, he so handsome, with his blond hair and a golden chain around his neck.

Novelisation-Sarah clearly has a thing for Jeremy, who comes over in the book as louche and flirtatious. Smith describes Sarah as being thrilled by Jeremy’s French-speaking sophistication. She’s impressed by his language and mockery of others, and keeps repeating an actorly phrase she’s heard him say about “finding a way into the part.” 

Sarah’s bedroom mirror in Labyrinth (1986)

In one scene from the book, Sarah remembers celebrating her 15th birthday with Jeremy and her mother. The novelisation describes them giggling poolside at Jeremy’s members’ club before receiving his gift of “an evening gown in pale blue” (her mother gets her a music box, so the evening gown is a Jeremy-only deal). Sarah wears the dress that night to a musical, after which Jeremy takes them all to a dimly lit restaurant:

Jeremy had danced with Sarah, smiling down at her. He kidded her that a flashbulb meant that they’d be all over the gossip columns next morning, and all the way home he drove fast, to shake off the photographers, he claimed, grinning.

That’s not the only time Sarah dances with Jeremy/Jareth. Film audiences will remember the masked ball part of Sarah’s labyrinth fantasy, a hallucinatory scene that plays out in the feature as romantic yet sinister, but which is made explicitly sexual in the book. In this Sam Downie interview, Smith says of the novelisation’s dance scene, “It gets quite sexy when she is in the bubble and dancing with Jareth and so forth. I made a little more of that in the book because I felt the book needed that, it needed that extra little emotional kick at that point.”

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The book scene has Sarah being perved at by a stranger who “relished her face, then her white shoulders, her breasts, hips, and legs,” and sidled up to tell her that she was remarkably beautiful. Dancing with Jareth, the 15-year-old is described as feeling like “the loveliest woman at the ball” and finding “the touch of his hands on her body thrilling.” 

When he told her that she was beautiful, she felt confused. 

“I feel … I feel like … I — don’t know what I feel.” 

He was amused. “Don’t you?” 

“I feel like … I’m in a dream, but I don’t remember ever dreaming anything like this!” 

He pulled back to look at her and laughed, but fondly. “You’ll have to find your way into the part,” he said, and whirled her on around the room. 

Jeremy’s catchphrase, there. In the book, fantasy-Jeremy/Jareth then tries to kiss Sarah, when she realises that the whole room is watching them and laughing:

“Jareth seemed to be unperturbed, but she turned her face sharply away from his, horrified. He held her more tightly, and insistently sought her lips with his. Suffused with disgust, she wrenched herself free of him.”

This is supposedly Sarah’s fantasy. She’s the one in whose imagination all this is happening. In 2016, the film’s conceptual designer Brian Froud explained the thinking to Empire. Sarah, says Froud, is approaching the age of sexual awakening, and so has created Jareth as a composite image of the kind of men who turn her on. “We’re not looking at reality, we’re inside this girl’s head.” Jareth’s costumes were designed to reference “a leather boy”, the armour of a German knight, Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, and male ballet dancers. “He’s an amalgam of the inner fantasies of this girl. Everyone always talks about Bowie’s perv pants, but there was a reason for it all! It has a surface that’s fairly light, but then every so often you go, ‘Oh, my God! How did we get away with that?!’”

Telling a children’s story about a girl’s veiled sexualised fantasies of her mother’s boyfriend is getting away with a fair bit. There’s more to the film of course, and ultimately, Sarah vanquishes Jareth by rejecting his sinister allure and asserting her own power. Her attraction to him though, especially in the novelisation, is undeniable. What makes this uncomfortable isn’t the fact that Labyrinth is in part a story about adolescent female sexual awakening, but that its vision of that awakening was dreamt up by grown men and shows an underage girl drawn to a man of their age. Thought of that way and it’s less sure that Sarah’s is the fantasy we’re watching.

It was a different time, though, the 1980s. All this stuff was much more mainstream back then. 16-year-old Samantha Fox could be photographed topless for Page Three of national newspaper The Sun. Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones could openly ‘date’ a child. The charts regularly featured songs about adult men heroically wrestling with their sexual attraction to schoolgirls. And the 83-year-old writer of a children’s film novelisation could reminisce about how thrilling it was to have danced with the film’s young star at the wrap party, and laugh at how much more thrilling it might have been if only her mother hadn’t insisted on staying so close to her “very beautiful 14-year-old daughter” all night. A different time. (Except, that last anecdote was recounted in 2018. Perhaps the time isn’t quite as different as it should be.)

Don’t let any of this put you off though. Like a chocolate-filled doughnut, Labyrinth remains a sweet childhood treat… with a slightly sickening centre.  

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Labyrinth celebrates its 35th anniversary in the US on June 27th.

The post Labyrinth: the Unsettling Second Character Played by David Bowie appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3y0POvp

[ladyofstardust]

Goblin Waltz no.2

Word Count: 5.8k

Rating: T

Summary: In which Jareth calls in the favour, and Sarah puts on her silver shoes to dance to his tune. Careful, this one is dripping with sap.

Notes: Apartment-verse fic.  Directly follows Portions for Goblins.  I’m also posting them over at Ao3 in order if you’d prefer to read that way.   

“Well first of all, I don’t think this is going to work,” Sarah said, crossing her arms over her chest.  She was wearing her old college hoodie and a pair of ripped jeans standing in, arguably, the fanciest room she’d ever been in.  And she’d been to Versailles.

“I should like to at least try precious,” Jareth said extending his hand towards her.  “For old times sake you see.”

“I might remind you that if you want me to help you, maybe try not reminding me of previous instances of you being a jerk and calling me by nicknames I hate,” Sarah said with a sigh, reluctantly giving him her hand.  

He pulled her in close and placed a guiding hand on the small of her back. “Old habits darling, sorry.” Jareth began to lead her in dance and Sarah immediately stumbled.  Thankfully he was able to anticipate this, and held tightly to keep her from falling over entirely.

“You are very old,” she teased back, regaining her footing.  “So old I should really be getting you signed up for seniors discounts.  I wonder if the local long term care facility would take you in.”

“I don’t know how you could possibly be counting your steps and snarking at me at the same time,” Jareth said, absently.  “Concentrate Sarah.”

“I told you I have two left feet!” She reminded him as she proceeded to step all over his.  She hoped his boots were steel toed.

Jareth had called in his favour.  When she’d made him pretend to be her date for new year’s she’d promised him one no-questions-asked favour of a similar nature.  Nothing morally questionable and she’d consent to it.

She just didn’t think that it would involve dancing .

“You’re much more graceful when you’re not so inside your own head,” he admonished.

“Yeah well, you wanted waltzing, this is my waltzing.  Unless you’re fine with me busting out the moonwalk. I am excellent at the moonwalk.”

“What is the - nevermind, do not tell me.  I feel certain I don’t want to know,” Jareth replied thinking better of his request.  

“Maybe I’ll just moonwalk my way out of that whole ball,” Sarah teased brightening.  There were few things she enjoyed more than poking fun at Jareth.

“You’re going to trip over your fancy dress is what you’re going to do,” he said ignoring her.  

“How true,” she said sourly.  “Do any of your little parties here have things other than dancing?  Like say, a really intense Jenga competition? Maybe I could just out drink the rest of Faerie instead.  How do they feel about beer pong?”

“You’ll have your work cut out for you there,” he said, changing directions.  “Most of them have been well into their cups since the 16th century. Not sure they’ve been sober since the reformation.”

“A policy I could get behind,” she said with a grumble as she faltered over her feet.

“You don’t have to dance with anyone but me,” he reminded her.  “You’re just here as my date.”

“Is that, you don’t have to, or please don’t dance with anyone else I can’t deal with several angry foreign dignitaries and their busted feet?”

“It is please do not dance with anyone else as I do hate sharing,” he said with a grin. “Your charms are enough to fell several of the men and women attending and I’m not sure I could handle such competition.”

He’d left her a message that morning to meet him in his palace ballroom after she got off work.  They couldn’t text each other, because of Jareth’s complete inability to touch an electronic without messing with the space time continuum, but they had their own way of sending messages.  Sarah would write messages on mirrors, and he would send her his written reply. It was weird, but she kinda liked opening her hand mirror to his rants about the Winterlands, the occasional sketch of a cat, or even the xoxos.  

So although she’d really prefer not to dance at all at this wackadoodle ball he was attending, a promise was a promise. There were several high ranking Faerie men and women who apparently had designs on the Goblin Throne.  An unmarried monarch was cause for some competition amongst the non-land holding gentry and Jareth wanted to avoid the matter entirely. Sarah was sure this was true, but she was also sure that Jareth just wanted a chance to show her off at this year’s demented faerie prom. She’d suggested the Enchantment Under the Ground dance as theme but Jareth hadn’t understood the reference.  She’d have to remember to show him Back to the Future as it was frankly a crime he couldn’t appreciate her pitch perfect Doc Brown impression.

So yeah, of course she knew why he called in the favour, but privately she also knew she would have agreed to attend as his guest regardless.  That small part of her that was still the girl in the park playing dress up was a lot less buried than she would lead him to believe.

Also she never got to see anywhere else in Faerie beyond the Labyrinth.  Jareth had told her she’d barely scratched the surface of his realm but Sarah was curious about the worlds beyond the Goblin Kingdom.  The Undersea, the Winter Lands, the Sky Worlds - all places he’d name dropped in the past and Sarah wanted desperately to see them.

This affair would take place in Great Forest.  Sarah had asked which great forest and was told that all magical forests were the Great Forest.  Anyone who got lost in the woods, who wandered off the path, every red riding hood staring down her big bad wolf, every story held between the trees - it all belonged to them.  Sarah looked so taken aback by the reach of their lands that Jareth had postured a bit about the Goblin Kingdom having just as far of a reach but without the “overdone” nature of the Forest lands.  Apparently the forest in the Labyrinth also belonged to them, but they gifted it out to Jareth for his use on runners and his woods-inclined population. In exchange, he designed some tunnels to run underneath the main castle and helped manage their portals.  

Such was the tradition for the height of summer, the party would be held in the Castle Atop the Trees.  The way Jareth described it, Sarah was picturing the most elaborate and laws of physics flaunting tree house in the world.  At this point Jareth made sure to remind her that his castle was sentient and his magic much more impressive than ‘that fop, Orreno’.  

Yeah, she was a tiny bit excited.  

Except for the part where there’d be dancing.  That part could go to bog.

“My charm is mostly snarky comments and bad decisions, but fine, as long as that goes both ways. Not super interested in watching you seduce Countess whatsherface,” Sarah said, only half teasing.

“I’m sure the entirely fictional countess will be very disappointed, we don’t even have countesses here,” he muttered.  “Look at me not your feet Sarah.”

Jareth’s ballroom, much to her surprise, wasn’t the same dream bubble she was expecting.  It was several times larger to begin with, and instead of silver and peach tones, the room was floor to ceiling stone, with gold filigree paintings carefully drawn on every surface.  The gold designs moved gracefully through the room, animated by magic, and showed various beautiful scenes from the Goblin Kingdom. The room was lit by the large double doors, opened to various private balconies, positioned perfectly to let in the most sunlight possible.  Along with more suspended crystals than Sarah could count. Unlike Jareth’s usual silvery opaque ones, these were transparent gold baubles that seemed lit up from the inside, as if each had a candle hidden within. The effect was quite breathtaking, but the moving designs were distracting to Sarah as she tried to focus on her steps.

“I don’t understand how this can be so hard,” Sarah muttered as Jareth narrowly avoided wincing as she took a particularly hard step on his foot.  “I managed alright in the first ballroom.”

“That one I’m afraid is ‘on me’ as you say,” Jareth said regretfully.  “It would have been a poor spell if you immediately stumbled from my arms.  So I added a few enhancements to keep you from thinking too hard, thereby letting your natural grace shine through.”

“Natural grace right,” Sarah said with a snort as she tripped again.  “I’m a regular ballerina over here.”

“It’s not as though I’m asking you to transverse the bog without a bridge, oh wait,” he said with a toothy grin, “you already managed that so really this should be a piece of cake.”

“I will hurt you,” Sarah muttered.  “I will moonwalk over your dead body while humming Billie Jean and then who will look stupid.”

“I just cannot imagine the moonwalk looking anything other than ridiculous so still you I imagine,” he said with some annoyance.  “This is not at all what I envisioned when I invited you to this soirée you know.”

“Aw, I’m sorry Jareth, did I ruin all your nice neat plans to swirl me around with all the romance and grandeur of the Underground by being a useless dancer?  What a pity,” she mocked.

“Always have a plan B darling,” he said, giving his wrist a twist.  One of his usual crystals appeared there. “Do you want it?”

“No,” she said crossing her arms.  “In fact, I don’t even want to know what’s in it.”

“Too bad,” he said, throwing the crystal to the ground.  The room exploded in a burst of white light and Sarah was temporarily blinded.  

When her eyes finally stopped seeing spots and the room adjusted back to it’s regularly scheduled lighting, Sarah realized what he’d done.

“Oh hell,” she said, looking down at her now extremely fancy outfit.  The dress was definitely Jareth’s version of an update to her pretty princess dress she’d worn the last time they’d danced together.  But it was made of nothing Sarah had ever even seen before. It looked like starlight and felt like feathers. It fit her so well that Sarah had to touch it to make sure it was really there at all.  It floated gracefully around her and her skirts lifted slightly at the hem as if she was walking on her own cloud. It fell off her shoulders and the full skirt shone like the brightest moon when she moved.  The bodice was decorated with bits of broken crystals and reflective glass and when she looked behind her, she saw the outline of every constellation she could name (and a number she couldn’t), on her train.  Her hair had been washed (...somehow), and fell in loose curls down her back. It also appeared several inches longer than it was in reality. Thankfully, he must have decided she had enough to be worrying about as he skipped the heels and instead gave her a pair of the most comfortable flats she’d ever worn.  They too carried the design of the stars and when she took a careful step forward, she realized that the stars moved in time with her.

The rest of the ballroom, already beautiful in its splendour, had it kicked up to eleven as all the light but a handful of the golden crystals dimmed, and the sun began to set around them.  Sarah realized that in the semi-darkness, the gold filigree designs turned into stars themselves, as they danced across the ceiling, which had become a window into the darkening sky. A false moon hung inside the ballroom as well and, though Sarah knew it was only an illusion, it looked so big and beautiful that it didn’t matter.  

“I thought a little atmosphere might help,” he said with a shrug.  He’d put on his Goblin King finery, but made sure his outfit complimented hers.  The silver streaks running through his hair made her smile, at least he was consistently weird.  

Music filled the room, and was as loud and clear as if Sarah had the band right above her.  Actually, she thought looking up, it was coming from somewhere.  

“Is that my iPod,” she said in utter shock as she noticed her ipod floating along above her head beside the crystals.

“Well I said it was plan B,” he grumbled.  “I thought you liked this song.”

“I do but damn, you sure know how to blast the speakers.  If it breaks after this much magical interference I’m charging you the cost of a new one,” she replied.

“Invoice me,” he said, holding out his hand for her to take in dance.  She reluctantly took it and he pulled her into a spin.

To Sarah’s great annoyance, it was either the shoes, the music, or something, but Jareth’s plan B hadn’t been the worst idea.  Her dancing greatly improved. Her skirt hid a multitude of sins she was undoubtedly committing with her feet, but Jareth guided her seamlessly and easily.  She stopped trying so hard to get her steps right and just let him lead. She knew she was playing right into his hand by letting the magic of the moment get to her, but the man knew how to set a mood.

“This is some Beauty and the Beast nonsense is what this is,” she said between steps.  “I’m half expecting the goblins to run out hurling food at me telling me to be their guest.”

“As if I would ever give the goblins unrestricted access to food,” he scoffed.  

“Don’t you remember the old warnings?” She teased.  “We must not look at goblin men, we must not eat their fruit…damn I can never remember the last line.”

“Who knows upon what soils they fed,” and at this, he paused in their dancing.  He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in close, letting his hands glide along the line of her body.  “Their hungry thirsty roots.” He finished, gently tugging on her bottom lip.

“I was thinking more that the goblins have their own market do they not?” she huffed.  

“Yes,” he said, slackening his grip. “But they’re not going to waste their food, those are their wares.  No, they much prefer nicking the food from my kitchens and then passing it off as fresh from the Goblin Market.”

“Is it not?”

Jareth led them in a step change and Sarah caught one of the filigree drawings waving at her from the corner of her eye.  “No the feast of the goblin market is a very…particular kind of food. You’d know better than anyone.”

“I would?” She asked in surprise.

He leaned in close to whisper in her ear.  “The girl who ate the peach and forgot everything.”  

“Oh yes,” she agreed.  “That.”

“Yes, that.” He replied, changing the direction of their dance again and Sarah nearly tore her very fancy dress trying to keep up.  “The only person who found my dancing so abominable she shook off 700 years worth of powerful magic and smashed my favourite guest ballroom by flipping a table out the door.”

“Well your dancing was just that bad,” she said seriously.  “Also it was a chair not a table thank you very much.”

“I’ll be sure to correct the records, though I’m mostly curious how you managed to get through all your schooling without taking the most basic of ballroom classes.”

“Because it’s not 1860?”  Sarah said, eyebrow raised skeptically.  “Seriously Jareth when was the last time you were in a human classroom?  Art and music are barely hanging on by a thread as it is, nobody’s gonna waste tax dollars on teaching kids how to foxtrot.”

“Well that’s why your skills fall short,” he said, clicking his tongue.  “Most of Faerie takes dance for about fifty years.”

“Fifty years of dance?!  Damn Jareth!” Sarah exclaimed loudly.  “I seriously forget how long you guys live until you drop something like that on me.  Even our most famous dancers don’t train for that long. Hell, they’re usually retired long before age 50.  Seriously, how much schooling do you even do down here?”

“Yes it is strange, fifty years doesn’t seem terribly long to me.  But then again, we do make rather a production out of dancing. It’s seen as a necessary social skill.  I imagine not knowing how to dance down here probably has an aboveground equivalent. Where if someone was not practiced at a particular skill, they’d find themselves socially excluded.”

“I suppose,” she said, narrowly avoiding a spill. Her dress spun as she twirled, and the silver of her dress looked beautiful when swept across the golden floor.  “Tell me something about you I don’t know.”

“Something you don’t know?”

“Yeah, like - so you took dance for fifty years.  Who was your favourite teacher? Or I dunno, what’s your favourite song?  Or ice cream flavour - do you even have a favourite ice cream flavour? Who was your first kiss?  I’d ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up but I feel the answer is ‘king’.”

“So curious love,” he said not breaking step.  “Should we play our favorite game then?”

“What one is that?”

“The one where I tell you anything you like in exchange for you answering the same questions,” he said pulling her in closer.  “Choose your right words the goblins said.”

“Or we’ll be stuck twirling forever and ever,” she sing-songed.  “A fate my feet probably couldn’t bear. As if I ever turn down a deal with you.”

“Yes, you don’t need to tell me that you don’t back down from a challenge, this I know.”

“You first, I asked first.”

“Alright,” he drawled.  “Let’s see, my favourite tutor was probably Professor Edrend.  They were my Sky Lands’ languages professor.”

“Were they from the Sky Lands?” Sarah asked.  

Jareth nodded.  “Yes, they were a cross between a water nymph and a slyph.  How their parents even met is a complete mystery.”

“A bird may love a fish signore, but where will they live,” she quoted.  

“That’s not Shakespeare,” he said, brow wrinkling in confusion.

“No, Barrymore,”  she smiled. “My favourite teacher though was Ms. Spence, who taught freshman English.  We read Romeo and Juliet and while Kevin R. was struggling through reading aloud Mercutio’s soliloquy, she would let me quietly read whatever novel I was currently tearing through.  She pushed me ahead to the ‘enhanced’ classes and always wanted to hear what I had to say. I still think about her sometimes. About them all, all the people who silently and slowly changed me.  My grandmother sewing my costumes and telling me stories, Ms. Spence for handing me my first Bronte and telling me that my words mattered. My mom, for giving me that fateful red book in the first place.  Then my dad for believing his sad and angry teenager was a good babysitter. What I’m saying Jareth is - you have a lot of thank you cards to write.”

“I’ll bring out the good stationary then.” He teased.  “I didn’t realize you believed so much in fate.”

She shrugged.  “I don’t really believe it per say, I more just feel that everyone changes us in some way, whether we know it or not.  Some of those changes and choices helped lead me to trod all over your feet in this very fancy dress.”

“So you think we’re fated then?” He said careful to keep his tone light.  But Sarah heard what he was asking.

“I think that no matter what happens, I’m happy I’m dancing with you.  Which honestly is never a sentence I thought I’d say. But that was an extra question, so you owe me two.”

“My favourite colour is purple and I enjoy strawberry ice cream,” he hand waved.   “Do you believe in destiny?”

“I’d rather tell you my favourite ice cream is cookie dough,” she said, rolling her eyes.  “I don’t know enough to say yes or no whether I believe in destiny. I’m not sure how that’s different than fate really.  If you ask me whether I believe in vampires I’ll say no - but if one shows up at my door tomorrow I’m not going to tell they they’re not real. I’m kind of at a disadvantage here since you’re reading from a different rule book than I am.  I’m way more interested to hear whether you believe in fate.”

“There are oracles,” he said with that bemused expression on his face he reserved just for her.  “But I avoid them mostly. They are…complicated.”

“I’m not asking you what an oracle is because that’d count as another question, so instead I’m going to assume they give a kind of prophecy.”

“Correct,” he said simply.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out.

He quirked a smile at her, and did a bit of a complicated two step that caused her to falter slightly.  “Let’s just say I’m not quite as ready to stare down something both greater and stronger than I am.  Now didn’t you also want to know about my first kiss?”

“Wow you must really not want to talk about oracles because that is the biggest fuck off I’ve ever heard, but fine I’m taking the bait.  Tell me who got there first,” she said with a raised brow. They would be coming back to that later.

“I was 11 and her name was Liah. She was the daughter of my mother’s favourite seamstress.”

“That’s adorable,” she smiled.  “I’m just picturing your eyes meeting over the spinning wheel.  Did you guys stay in touch?”

“We’re still quite friendly, she’s made a number of my favourite pieces.  You two would get along well I think. You both enjoy questioning my decisions so much.”

“You got a type Jareth,” Sarah shrugged.  “Did she make what I’m wearing?”

“No that’s one of mine,” he said, giving her another twirl.  “But you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it. I can ask Liah to make something more to your taste.”

“Obviously I love it,” she laughed, giving her skirt another swish for good measure.  “But I thought you said you’d never move the stars.”

“I said I’d move the stars for no one, tell me Sarah, when have you ever been no one?  Besides, I’m not moving anything, you are,” he said, gesturing to her feet.

“But you put them there,” she reminded him.

“And a match is just a stick until it meets a spark,”  He said, giving her another twirl.

“Can’t start a fire without a spark, even if we’re just dancing in the dark,” she sung lightly.  

“What was that?” he said, amused.

“A freebie, my favorite song.”

He led her around the room another time before something occurred to her.  

“So where are your stars then?” she asked considering his outfit.  It wasn’t like it was too out there for him - the man wore more eyeshadow on a daily basis than she’d ever touched.

“I don’t have stars,” he said quietly.  “I can only offer them.”

She didn’t really have a quick response to that.  Instead she let him dance with her because even outside of her favour, she wanted to.  She didn’t like dancing, but she liked him.

“You can’t say stuff like that without me wanting to do something stupid,” she said, trying to avoid looking at him.  Because whenever he said stuff like that, the kind of things that made her heart clench and her stomach drop, it was so hard, so impossibly hard to not grab him by his sparkly lapels and...well, a lot of things.  

“That is the idea,” he murmured pulling her closer.  “Please tell me all the stupid things you’d like to do.  I want to write them down and reference them later when you’re willing to happily agree to all of them.”

“Mmm is that so,” she said.  She was tired of always being the one thrown off balance by Jareth and his ability to weaponize his sexuality against her.  He was good at it too and the jerk knew it. But Sarah had a few tricks of her own up her sleeve and she’d never been great at risk evaluation.  

“Well I’d start by pushing you down into your throne.  I’d bind your hands so you couldn’t touch me…well not with your hands at least,” she said coyly.

“…what?”  Jareth said, his previous seductive and pretentious demeanour vanishing.  

“Then I’d slowly remove this dress, letting it fall from my shoulders and pool at my feet.  Until I was standing in front of you wearing just this necklace, and these lovely shoes you’ve poofed in for me.  No surprise that you forgot to give me underwear, so I guess it’ll just be me, naked, and you, all tied up.”

“You’re a cruel woman Sarah Williams,” Jareth replied, and Sarah was pleased to hear the strain in his voice.  

“I play the hand I’m dealt Goblin King,” she said with a careful smile.  “Maybe I just play a little better than you?”

“There is one thing you’ve forgotten,” Jareth said.  “I know a bluff when see one.”

“Who says I’m bluffing?” She challenged.

“Oh?” He said, arching a singular brow.  “Well then I’ll call.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond before closing that final inch of space between them and kissed her.  Sarah had suspected he might go in for the kiss after her little game but she was ready for him this time.  He wasn’t getting the upper hand in this kiss. No, he was playing her game now.

He might kiss her like she was the only light in the room, but she kissed him back like the monster she knew.  She kissed him thoroughly and deeply. A kiss that was was angry, hot, and unyielding. A kiss that, in any other situation, wouldn’t stay just a kiss.  A kiss that she’d practiced on men whose names she could no longer remember, and the kind of kiss she’d been working up to give him. So if Jareth was going to try and drown her in his kisses, she was pulling him down with her.  

Jareth hadn’t been ready for any of that and Sarah knew it.  She smiled gleefully when he pushed her back from him, out of breath, and flushed.  He looked like he’d just run a labyrinth and Sarah was pleased.

“Now who’s bluffing?” She said, and did not bother to hide her own reaction to his kiss.  It didn’t matter anyways. She’d won this round.

“This is not…” he trailed off, running his hand through his hair.  “Yes, alright Sarah, you win again.”

“Well you don’t have to be a sore loser about it,” she said shaking her head.  “You got what you wanted just as much as I did.”

“I never get what I want,” he muttered, low enough that Sarah barely heard him.

“What do you mean,” she pressed him.

“It’s of no concern,” he said, coming back into himself.  Sarah watched as he nervously tightened his hands into fists.

“No,” she said taking his hand in hers.  Unclenching his fist. “Not that easy, what do you mean?”

“If I wanted to take you here on the floor of this ballroom -“  he trailed off.

“But that’s not what you want?  Christ Jareth, I thought that’s all you wanted.”

“Once yes,” he conceded.  

“But now?” She said with interest.  Maybe she’d misread it, maybe it was just a fun game for Jareth to push her out of her comfort zone like that.  

“Now it is not enough,” he said.  “I think I’ve made that perfectly clear.”

She let out a breath.  She understood exactly what he was talking about.  “Yes, I know. But Jareth really, you don’t get to tease, and flirt, and kiss, and then get mad when I do the same thing back.”

“It’s different.  I’m…” he trailed off, struggling to finish his sentence.  

“Playing the long game?” She said crossing her arms.  “Yeah I’m aware. When you do it you see it as chipping away my resolve.  Getting you closer and closer to the point where I just give up or give in, as opposed to when I do it to - what?  Fuck with you? God, you’re such a ding dong sometimes. Let me make one thing clear, when you talk about wanting me to want you - that ship sailed some ten years and two poofy dresses ago.  But I haven’t really done much about it, I mostly have been letting you steer this ship. Yeah I kissed you first, but I’ve never been able to kiss you just because I wanted to. You’re always kissing me.  You have to let me initiate, you have to let me in the game.”

“Well…do you want to kiss me now?” he asked slyly, and Sarah threw up her hands in response.

“Honestly Jareth, I spend about 80% of the time I’m with you just trying not to kiss you.  Trying not to do a lot of things to you. I’m completely stupid for you and I’m living like a goddamn nun as a result.”

“Why?” He said, confused.  “You know that’s not necessary.”

“Well no actually I think it might be.  We’re not…there yet and you just said that it’s not what you want,” she said, awkwardly.  

“Kiss me like that again and I might just forget,” he said, leaning back in to kiss her and Sarah threw up her hand to block his lips, instead giving him a fateful of palm.

“If I kiss you like that again we both might forget but quiet, I think I hear something,” she said.  

She and Jareth stopped, straining their ears to hear the faint rumble and occasional scattered bird noises.  

“What the hell?” She said turning to Jareth, who looked like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.  

“Oh bogdammit,” he hissed.  “We have to leave, immediately.”

He grabbed her by the wrist and began to pull her before she stopped him.  

“Wait!”  She pointed upwards to her still playing, and still floating iPod.  “Gimme my iPod Jareth.”

He waved his hand and the iPod fell, it was sheer luck she managed to catch it.  “Now come on!” He shouted, running towards the door across the room.

Sarah lifted her skirts and ran quickly after him.  He slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against it panting.  Sarah was startled to see him so freaked out. “Christ Jareth, what’s got you all twisted?”

He smirked, gesturing to the eye sized hole in the door.  “See for yourself, be my guest .”

Sarah looked at him with confusion and peered through the hole in the door to see what had become of the previously immaculate ballroom.  She said previously because currently there was a massive food fight happening in there with about…god there had to be more than a hundred goblins and probably thirty odd chickens.  Sarah was pretty sure that she saw Hoggle and she was pretty sure she heard him yell “I’m taking ye all down with me!” But it was hard to know what with all the hunks of raw meat and - dammit some of those potatoes were on fire , flying through the air.  

“Why…is this happening,” was all she managed looking helplessly back at Jareth.

“I told you I don’t give gobins unrestricted access to food for a reason.  Someone left the pantry unlocked, this always happens whenever someone leaves the pantry unlocked.  I’m going to enjoy lowering that someone inch by inch into the bog for this,” he growled.

“Can’t you stop it?” she gestured back at the chaos.  

“I’d ruin my suit,” he grumbled.  “I spent hours on it.”

“Oh for,” she rolled her eyes, daring to open the door wide enough to poke her head outside.  “Hey!” She cried out to the horde. A flaming goblin soared through the air, narrowly missing her head, before she thought maybe Jareth had a point, and ducked her head back in.  

“They’ll run out of things to throw in about an hour love,” he said leaning against the wall.  “In the meantime shall we continue?”

Sarah stopped and looked around where they were for the first time.  It was inexplicably, a second ballroom. Much smaller and less grand.  Just a lot of glittering stone and family portraits. A large fireplace was in the centre, and instead of crystals there were sconces with candles lining the walls.  

“This is the private family ballroom,” he said, answering her unasked question.

“You have a private family ballroom?” she said teasingly.  “That’s bourgeoise as hell.”

“I … am bourgeoise?”  He said confused. “I’m the king.”

“Whatever,” she laughed, walking into the centre of the ballroom.  “Can we just dance like regular people now?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, walking towards her.  

“Like this,” she said giving a small silly spin.  She started swaying her hips back and forth. She threw on an old dance track and tucked the iPod into the front of her dress.  “Gimme your hands,” she said extending her hands out towards Jareth.

“What are we doing?” He said taking her hands.  

“We’re dancing the way I know how,” she said, giving a little skip to the left.  She let him twirl her and spin her back into his arms. “See,” she smiled at him.  “Fun.”

“Yes,” he smiled, giving her a quick peck on the cheek.  He spun her back out before she could object. “I can dance like this.”

The track changed to something a little bit slower and a little bit sultrier.  A song she knew very well. The familiar voice echoed quietly around them and Jareth pulled her back in closer.  She threw her arms around his neck as they swayed back and forth, his hands on her hips, her head resting in the crook of his neck. 

“I like this,” he said quietly.  “Lend me this record.”

“Anytime,” she smiled.  

He started to spin her out again, and this time when he spun her back in he gave her an unexpected dip.  She gasped, not expecting the drop, but his hand on her back didn’t falter and he bent down and booped her gently on the nose. 

“I’ve got you,” he smirked, pulling her back up towards him.  “I did train for over fifty years you know.”

“How could I forget,” she laughed.  “Do it again, it was fun.”

“You’re getting much better,” he said, giving her another spin.  “Will Cinderella be ready to dance at the ball yet?”

“That seems unlikely,” she laughed again.  “But there’s a chance I might actually enjoy myself.  Miracle of miracles.”

“I think the miracle is for the first time at one of these events I might as well.” He grinned, dipping her again.  

“I don’t hear the goblins,” she said.  

“I don’t care,” he leaned down, kissing her.  His hand held her steady as he took his time, pulling her slowly back up.  

Sarah didn’t mind when they kept on dancing.  

[ladyofstardust]

Meanwhile in Prague

Word Count: 6k

Rating: T

Summary: In which they go to Prague to vomit, eat, and make-out. In that order. Sarah is still trying to pretend this is Not A Date and Jareth is mostly trying to touch her butt. Nobody does a very good job.

Notes: Apartment-verse fic.  Directly follows the Tinder Incident.  Before Goblins Roasting.  

Sarah paced back and forth in front of the mirror in her kitchen.  It was five minutes to seven and she was trying very, very hard not to think about what was about to occur and instead on picking the lint off of her favourite dress.

She’d changed four times.  Four times and there definitely wasn’t time to change again.  At that point she risked him walking in on her naked.  Which he’d like just about as much as she wouldn’t.  

She thought about what led to this.  Kissing him under the the dim flickering lights of her kitchen.  The tv playing 80s sitcom reruns in the background.  How she was wearing sweatpants and her old college hoodie.  How he’d raked his hand through her gross knotted hair.  How his hand ran underneath the sweater and up her cool back.  He’d felt like fire.  He’d felt like jumping into a cool lake.  Or the way you feel right before you hit ‘send’ on an important email.  Exhilarating and scary all at the same time.  Where you let out a breath only to be punched in the gut.  

But then she thought about real stuff.  About things other than that split second.  About going to the movies with her friends, or walking into a library, or seeing a broadway show downtown.  Then about her career, her apartment, her family and friends, her retirement fund (pitiful as it was), her doctors appointments and dentists.  The restaurants she loved eating at, and the places she dreamed of visiting.  

Fire might keep her warm at night, but it still burned up anything in its wake.

If Sarah was being honest with herself, and like, at this point she figured might as well.  She’d dreamed about kissing him from the first.  She’d dreamed about a hell of a lot more than kissing him and frankly, if she thought she thought she could have that without consequences, she would’ve long ago made those dreams a reality.  Leaving aside everything else, Jareth was just stupid hot.  Like walk into walls, drop whatever was in your hands, make yourself forget about your life to kiss them hot.  But it wasn’t like this was news to her.  Yeah he was hot, but he also drove her nuts.  

Even if she didn’t care about the whole, ‘give up your whole life just to see if this is maybe viable’ thing, which she did, Jareth was also the fucking worst.  He allowed the goblins to treat her home as an extension of their kingdom, he stole her brother and tried to throw her in a feces filled swamp, he used her feelings toward him as a weapon to trap her in that ballroom, he stole her makeup and leftovers, he left glitter goddamn everywhere, and he hated dogs.  Who even hates dogs?

So in what messed up world would she ever want to date him?!

Which is why she changed her outfits four times, and was counting down the seconds until he took her to do just that.  

She watched her phone’s clock go over to 7pm and heard the familiar chime of the bell over the mirror.  

“Goblin King,” she turned to greet him.  “Were you just waiting by the mirror to step through at the precise moment it clicked over to 7?  How very Cinderella of you.”

“Is this typically how one greets one’s date in the human world?”  he frowned.  “I thought you were supposed to be ‘showing me the ropes’ as it were.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows both out of surprise that he was actually planning on holding her to that farce, and his altered appearance.  He’d slicked back his hair and tamed it into a ponytail of sorts.  He was still wearing his leather jacket, but his shirt was plain in nature and was buttoned fully.  He’d also changed into a pair of plain black pants, although he wore the same boots she often saw on him.  The change of his eyes was the most striking.  Jareth had done something to them.  Blunted their effect somehow and instead of a mismatched set, two ice blue eyes stared back at her.  Sarah realized that with those subtle differences, he easily passed for human.  He reminded her a bit of David Bowie with his androgynous features, though Bowie never rocked the ponytail.  

“Fair enough,” she said holding up her hands in a truce.  “You look, weirdly nice Jareth.”

He smiled.  “You should expect nothing less from me.  But I must say, you quite took my breath away as I watched you pacing just now.  I’ve lived a long time Sarah, but seeing you tonight has already been a memory I will cherish.”

“Goddammit,” she hissed, giving him a playful whack on his shoulder.  “You can’t admit to spying and then drop that Jane Austen shit on me.  Don’t make me drape a sheet over the mirror.  But thank you, that’s nice, I’m still mad, but that’s also still nice.”

“Apologies,” he said taking her hand in his.  She made note that he was still wearing his gloves, apparently that had not been part of his humanization.  “I shall endeavour to stare at you less, but you do make it difficult precious.”

He laid a delicate kiss on the top of her hand and raised a brow expecting her to challenge him.  

“Okay first rule of dating human girls,” she said withdrawing her hand.  “I’m used to you and the way you like to talk.  Other humans won’t be.  You’re gonna come off as a creep if you use language like ‘I shall endeavour’.”

“So you wish for me to speak as you do?  With your imprecise phrases and doublespeak?”

“No I think we can write off you using modern slang entirely,” she said, trying to picture him telling some poor girl that his castle was lit or something.  “But let’s shoot for curmudgeonly old person rather than CS Lewis character.  Actually that brings me to rule two, absolutely no talk of magic, goblins, goblin adjacent stuff, and most importantly, me.”

“I cannot believe you’d think I’d tell any old human girl the secrets of my kingdom,” Jareth sniped, insulted.  “You can insult my person as much as you please, but I’d ask you keep your opinions on my rulership to yourself.  If you are neither a citizen of the Goblin Kingdom, nor my wife, then you have no power over my rule.”

“Okay,” she said evenly, pleasantly surprised.  She rarely heard him talk about his kingdom like that.  She knew he didn’t tell people about goblins or magic, but she thought that sometimes he would let his little games of misdirection and teasing go a bit too far.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have overstepped.”

“Of course if you were my wife, you’d be in charge of deciding these things with me,” he grinned at her.  

“I’ll add it to the pro column,” she grumbled.  

“Oh I have a pro column!”  he exclaimed, delighted.  “Well I’m just dying to hear more about all my great attributes over dinner, but I think it best we head off lest we miss our reservation.”

“Yeah considering we’ve already had to apologize to each other and we haven’t left my kitchen, this is starting out like most of my dates already.  You said you wanted to pick the place so where are we going?  Do I need my car keys or can we walk?”

“I was thinking somewhere a little further afield,” he said, extending his hand towards her again.  “Are you willing to let me take us there?”

Sarah hesitated a moment, debating, before sighing and placing her hand in his.  

“Let’s roll magic man,” she said.  “Before I change my mind.”

“Best to close your eyes Sarah,” he warned, pulling her in tightly so there was no space between them.  “It is unpleasant if you are unused to the sensation.”

Sarah closed her eyes and felt the floor drop out from under her.  She dug her nails into Jareth’s wrist in an attempt not to panic, and he squeezed her hand right back as if to reassure her he wasn’t going to let go.  She didn’t dare open her eyes until she heard his voice in her ear.

“Welcome Sarah, to the great city of Prague.”

“PRAGUE?!” she exclaimed, that had snapped her right out of it.  

Well, for about the half second she had to register where she was before she promptly vomited all over the alleyway he’d landed them in.  Jareth, to his credit, seemed to take it in stride and simply grabbed her hair to keep her from being sick all over it.  

“Great,” she said wiping her mouth.  “Usually I like to save the vomiting until later in the date.”

“No time like the present,” he said brightly handing her a handkerchief from his pocket.  “I did warn you, the trip can be unpleasant.”

“Understatement of the year.  Does everyone puke?” she asked, gratefully taking the cloth from his hands.  

“I don’t make it a habit bringing humans along,” he said with a shrug.  “It mostly only seems to occur when I move from place to place in your world.  It actively works against my magic instead of helping it the way the Underground does.  If it makes you feel better, it is deeply unpleasant for me to travel significant distances in cars or most of your trains.”

“That does make me feel a bit better yeah,” she said, smoothing out her dress.  She’d missed her shoes at least.  “But I’m good now.”

“Still feel up to eating?” he asked, offering her his arm.

“Yeah since you brought me halfway across the world and all, the food better be amazing,” she said linking her arm through his.  

“I’ve been coming here for over a hundred years, a relatively new place by my standards,” he said absently.  Sarah struggled to think of a place she’d been going to for ten years let alone a hundred.  

“You’re a creature of habit,” she pointed out.  “You like what you like and then kind of just keep doing that.”

“How true,” he conceded.  “For instance I like you.”

“Nope,” Sarah replied, shaking her head.  “This date is not a real date.  It’s a practice date so you can date other people and stop liking me.”

“Well how am I doing so far?” he asked.

“You lost points when you admitted to watching me standing in front of the mirror, but gained them all back for how nice you were about me getting the pukes in front of you.  But I don’t think I need to tell you most women won’t have to deal with teleportation sickness.”

“There,” he said pointing to a little arched doorway.  From the outside it didn’t look terribly impressive.  An old fresco was painted on top of the doorway, which had writing Sarah couldn’t read.  

Jareth held open the wooden door for Sarah to step through.  As soon as she entered the restaurant she realized that she was dead wrong about this place.  Beautiful elaborate paintings decorated the arched ceilings.  Gold chandeliers lit the room, which complemented the candelabras on the individual tables.  A luxe red carpet lined the room which looked only large enough to seat about thirty or forty people.  

“Jareth,” she hissed into his ear, anxiously smoothing down her suddenly very plain feeling jersey dress.  “I’m massively underdressed.  Also I cannot afford anything on this menu.  I live in a city with hundreds of great restaurants - we couldn’t have just gone there instead?”

“This place is called U Malířů1543.  It is named such because that is the year it was established.  Excellent year by the way, some of the best wine.  You said I could choose the place, and this is one of my favourite Aboveground establishments.  If I thought there was any chance I could have taken you to one of the hundreds of fine establishments Underground that I love without you throwing a fit and spouting off about kidnapping and faerie food again, I would have.”

“That picnic was a terrible half-assed idea and you know it,” she interrupted.  The time he’d tried to surprise her with a “friendly platonic picnic” she was sure seemed like a great idea in his head.  Except he’d forgotten to ask her if she wanted to come and instead just ambushed her one time when she was trying to visit with her friends.  Locking her closest friends in oubliettes while he dropped grapes into her mouth like some sort of demented fairytale was not on. 

“My point is,” he said gruffly, ignoring her.  “I wanted to show you a bit of my world.  Or perhaps more accurately, the parts of your world that I enjoy that have nothing to do with you.  You’re not underdressed, you look perfect as we have already discussed, and as this date was my idea, I will be picking up the cheque Sarah.  Before you interrupt to argue with me about owing debts to faerie, consider the fact that you’re helping me learn how to interact with humans and write it off as a fair trade.  Now are there any more objections or can we take our seats?  We’re already late for our reservations.”

“I have a feeling reservations is going to be the theme of the night,” she muttered, smoothing down her dress.  Maybe if she hadn’t spent so long trying to decide what to wear she’d have had time to iron it.  Sarah eyed the lady at a nearby table.  Her diamond bracelet clinked against her plate every time she reached for her wine glass.  Sarah looked down at the hair tie on her wrist and the cheap charm bracelet her mom had got her a number of christmases ago.  She had no business being in a place this fancy and everyone here knew it.  They were probably already discussing who that dishevelled, puke-smelling girl that just walked in was.  

Jareth stepped forward to speak to the maitre d.  He spoke quickly in a language Sarah guessed must have been Czech.  Her hands tightened into fists as he led them to their seats.  She felt Jareth’s hand over hers and he patted her fist kindly.  

“Why are you so concerned about these other people who you will likely never see again after this night,” he whispered into her ear.

“I don’t like people thinking I’m weird,” she replied quietly.  “It reminds me of being a kid and feeling powerless when people would make fun of me for, well, being weird.”

Sarah sat down and smiled at the maitre d as he pulled out her chair.  If she couldn’t be the best dressed she could at least be the most polite.  

“How do I say thank you?” she asked Jareth quickly.  

“ Děkuji,” he replied nodding at the maitre d and taking his seat.  “Do you mind if I order for you?  The menu is also in Czech.”

“Yeah it’s fine, just no white wines and no fish,” she said gratefully taking another look around the dining room.  

It really was a beautiful place.  Looking at Jareth she realized she was wrong, that she wasn’t the worst dressed here.  Jareth was dressed much the same as she was and he obviously didn’t care.  

“You dressed to match me didn’t you,” she said, realizing.  “You knew how fancy this place was so you watched to see what I would be wearing before choosing an outfit yourself.  You didn’t want me to be self-conscious.”

“Yes,” he replied, eyes shooting to hers as he peered over the menu.

“So then why didn’t you just tell me we were going somewhere fancy so I would have worn something nice?” she asked, confused.

“I...didn’t think you’d come,” he replied, equally confused.

“Okay,” she said putting her head in her hands.  “I would have probably asked if you were planning on covering the bill and maybe the name of the restaurant yeah, but I still would have come Jareth.”

“I will know for next time then,” he replied smoothly.  

“I kinda just want to point out something though,” she said, deliberately stepping over the next time comment.  “I think you spend a lot of time feeling like I should loosen up and go with your plans more.  Then you say something like how you didn’t think I’d come if you told me to wear something nice.  That’s totally different and it kind of upsets me that you don’t get that.  I’m not some fun hating monster Jareth.  I mean for goodness sakes, I let goblins have free reign of my apartment and I go along with your plans more often than not.  But you can’t paint me enforcing what little boundaries I have left as me being rigid.  It’s not fair and yes!  Before you say anything, I know that life’s not fair thanks.  But if you want to date me, or any other human girl, you have to respect our boundaries.”

“So what is the difference between this and say, the picnic,” he said carefully, taking a slow sip of his far too expensive wine.

“Well for starters,” she said, gratefully taking a gulp of the same wine which tasted like every other red wine that didn’t cost an arm and a leg, “that time you didn’t ask.  You gotta ask.  Like that is level one humaning stuff right there.  Most girls don’t mind a bit of a surprise every now and then.  I like surprises!  This is kind of a fun surprise, I’ve never been to Prague.  This is cool.  This would have been ten times as cool if you’d told me this is what we’re doing beforehand because I could enjoy it, dress appropriately, and mentally prepare myself to be teleported halfway across the world.”

“Okay,” he said seriously.  “Let us do something called compromising.  I promise not to take you anywhere without your permission, if you agree to tell me your reservations instead of simply dismissing me.  Allow me the chance to convince you,”

“I’ll agree to that,” she said with a sigh.  “Though that’s mostly because I know you at this point and I trust you not to do anything shady or convince me of anything that is going to hurt me later.  But I feel it’s important you understand that no is an okay answer sometimes.  I’m not rejecting you, well, I’m not always rejecting you, sometimes I just don’t want to and that has to be fine.  Maybe I just don’t feel like doing something insane and wacky, maybe I just want to hang out on my couch and read a book.”

“Is this how all humans treat their friends?” he asked with interest.  “That doesn’t sound like a great deal of fun.”

“Yeah mostly,” she said rolling her eyes.  “Fun is when everyone is having a good time.  I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have fun at one of Toby’s soccer games or hanging out at Six Flags.  So I don’t “surprise” you by taking you there assuming that you’ll have a good time because I am.  You get what I’m saying?”

“I suppose so,” he said crisply.  “But what are six flags?”

“An amusement park,” she said with a smile.  “Do you wanna go?  I could be wrong about this, you don’t seem personally concerned with things like gravity so maybe you’d have a blast.”

“Is that one of those places where everyone gets in the little metal box, allows the teenager standing at the controls to fling them about a bit, then they all get out and talk about what fun that was?”

“The very same,” she said brightly.  “Still wanna go?”

“No,” he frowned.  “I’m fairly certain some of the lower kingdoms still use that as a method of torture.”

“Exactly.  Different definitions of fun,” she smiled, she was cheered up greatly feeling like she’d finally managed to get through to him.  “Though while we’re on the subject of dress,” she said gesturing towards his hands.  “I’ve always wanted to know something.  What’s the deal with the gloves.”

“The gloves?” he said, turning over his hands to examine them, as if he was surprised to find them covered.  

“Yeah, you wear them all the time.  Any reason?  If you touch me will I turn to gold?  Are you secretly Midas?” she asked with a grin.

“No,” he said with a shrug.  “I suppose I hadn’t really thought about how you would perceive it.  Where I’m from, showing one’s hands is an especially...intimate gesture.  Unsuitable for polite company and generally reserved for family and close lovers.”

“Oh really?” she asked, intrigued.  “I never thought about it like that.  Why is it so intimate?”

“Our hands are the conduits for our power,” he replied simply.  “We move and manipulate spells with them.”

“That makes sense,” she said nodding.  “Do you guys feel the same way about breasts as the rest of North America?”

“No,” he said with a laugh.  “The women typically cover themselves but mostly to wear the more elaborate garments most of the high court is so fond of.  The peasant women cover them to keep warm in the winter months, but in the summer it’s common to see them walking around mostly nude.  We’re not very prudish about these sorts of things.”

“No, I never got that impression from you,” she said with a raised brow.  “So the glove thing is a bit of a surprise.”

“I suppose we all have our traditions,” he said with a smirk.  “Now what other human things should I be aware of before throwing myself into the dating world of humans.”

“Well for starters, it’s good to ask people questions about themselves.  Then listen to what they are saying and ask questions about their answers.  It’s not a quiz though so don’t take notes or rapid fire random crap like what their favourite ice cream is.  Just have a conversation.  Kinda like we’re doing now.”

“Yes I should think I have a handle on that,” he said rolling his eyes.  “But why did you request I not speak of you to these women?  Shouldn’t one tell their date about their friends?”

“Yes…” she said carefully, she’d really hoped to avoid this, but knew it had to come up at some point.  “But I don’t think you should mention me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not sure you can talk about me in a way that doesn’t immediately tell any date that you’re interested in dating me instead of them,” she answered quickly, just wanting to move past it without much discussion on the subject.

Jareth looked as if he was thinking about this for a moment, considering a possible answer.  Then he turned back to his meal as if she’d said nothing at all.

“Are you not going to argue with me?”  she was genuinely confused by his reaction.

“No.” he said, taking another bite of his dinner.

“Because I’m right?”

“Yes.”

“Well...okay,” she said confused.  He had agreed with her, so why was she so annoyed?  In fact, he’d dropped the subject quickly which was the best scenario she could have hoped for.

They sat in silence for a moment as Sarah picked at her dinner.  It was easily one of the best meals she’d ever eaten but she was having trouble enjoying it.    

“Are you really going to go out with one of those girls from Tinder,” she finally blurted out.  

“I don’t know,” he said putting down his utensils.  “Do you still want me to?”

“I owe you an apology probably,” she said with another sigh.  “I’ve been a shitty friend lately.  Running away every time you come near and then shoving all those women in your face like they’re interchangeable.  I’ve kind of been behaving like a child.”

“Kind of?” he said with a raised eyebrow.

“Don’t push me Jareth,” she said shaking her head.  “I panicked.  When you kissed me it reminded me of the ballroom, you know, the elephant in the room we don’t talk about?”

“Yes,” he said avoiding her eyes.  

“Yeah so it kinda brought me back to that moment.  When all I wanted was to kiss you - which I think you knew at the time so let’s not pretend this is new information.  The last time I wanted to kiss you it nearly cost me everything.  You nearly cost me everything.  I know we’re trying to move past that to be friends, but you kissing me is making that hard.”

He paused and looked at her consideringly.  “Has it occurred to you that perhaps I want you to want to kiss me?”

“It’s occurred to me plenty yeah,” she sighed.  “But I can’t want that.”

“Can’t?”

“Can’t,” she replied firmly.  “The price is too high Jareth.”

“You don’t even know what the price is,”  he challenged.  “I’ve never asked anything of you.”

“But that’s the thing, you don’t have to ask. I know - I’m not stupid and I’m not some kid who’s just gonna throw my hands in the air and shout about true love being all that matters.  For starters true love is bullshit, and for another I have things about my life that I really like that are just straight incompatible with - whatever the hell we’d be if we just started kissing a whole bunch, I don’t know.  I just know that I don’t want to want to kiss you.”

“I’m sorry for putting you in a position where you feel you can’t want to kiss me,” he replied. “But know that I hope you’ll change your mind.”

“Yeah, and I’m sorry for forcing your hand so that you felt the only way you could take me on this date was to trick me into it.  I can see how we ended up here and this one is mostly on me.  But somehow, someway, despite all my very best efforts, you’re my friend Jareth.  I’d like to keep you as my friend but you need to cut this kissing shit out.”

“I would remind you who kissed who in the first place,” he said, taking another careful bite of the very expensive potatoes.

“Oh but you finished it Goblin King,” she replied evenly.  

“I intend to yes,” he said with a smile that Sarah didn’t entirely trust.  

The rest of the meal passed, to Sarah’s surprise, relatively pleasantly.  Jareth told her about the last couple times he’d been in Prague and how the city had changed.  Sarah enjoyed listening to him tell her about a world that she’d only known from her history books.  It was a unique perspective, and one many would kill for.  She enjoyed hearing him describe the concerts he’d been to and the different people he’d met.  Most of their names he had forgotten, but she was surprised at the affection his voice held when he spoke of them.

Jareth had suggested they take a bit of a walk after dinner.  Sarah thought this was a great idea as walking around Prague at night for an hour, and then getting to crawl into her own bed to sleep seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity.  She hadn’t planned for the change in temperature though so Jareth lent her his jacket.  Sarah gratefully accepted.  

“I feel you should know something,” she told him as they walked along the cobblestone streets.  

“Oh?” he said in surprise.  

“Yep,” she nodded.  “I drank all that fancy wine at dinner and those food portions were teeny tiny and you see I have no food from before in my stomach because of the puking and basically, hello I am tipsy.”

“Excellent,” he said wrapping an arm around her shoulders.  “Then this would be the perfect time to ask you all those soul searching questions.”

“Oh no,” she said laughing.  “You’re not going to in vinos veritas me.  No no.  Not today buddy, not today.”

“Hmm,” he said considering their surroundings.  “This does make the matter of getting you home more difficult though.  I don’t want you losing that very fancy dinner all over your nice kitchen floor.”

“Yeah how’d you pay for that anyways?” she asked.  “Pretty sure you’re not walking around with a Visa card in those tight pants of yours.  I would know, because of how tight your pants are.  Your pants are tight Jareth.  Tight Pants McGee is what I should call you really.”

“Oh you are just delightful when inebriated aren’t you?” he said with a grin.  “Tell me more about my tight pants and all the ways you’ve noticed how tight they are.  Actually I’d prefer an alphabetical list of all the times you’ve checked out my ass in my pants.”

“Sure sure ass,” she said nodding.  “Definitely just the ass.  Anyways no thank you Mr. Tighty, as I just said, we’re not in vinos veritasing me.  I’m a strong independent woman who can handle her shit and her wine.”

“I’d never dream of suggesting otherwise.”

“But like, just checking, we didn’t dine and dash that place did we?  I don’t think they’re gonna track me down and find me or anything, but I’m not about tricking people that we paid when we didn’t.  I know about faerie gold.  I can’t really afford it, like at all, but if we need to I can go back and put it on my card.”

“No,” he said waving a hand. “That is a trick for lower faerie.  I have some human investments that do quite well.  Real estate mostly.  It collects a nice paycheque that I use to fund myself and my kingdom’s activities here Aboveground.”

“You’re...a landlord.” she said with disbelief.  The idea that Jareth could be anyone’s landlord was somehow baffling. Especially when she considered her own landlord, the overweight fifty something gentleman with a limited understanding of English but who really loved the local hockey team as everything he owned seemed to be plastered with its logo.

“I suppose I am,” he replied.  “I don’t actually do anything to earn the money.  I have human emissaries who handle that side of my business.  Not uncommon for high faerie to have human businesses, and we learn a little about your economics and history during our schooling.  I have a couple lawyers and whatnot and I believe an accountant.  To be honest I can’t quite recall.”

“This is completely mind blowing,” she said.  “You’re probably like crazy rich then.  God, my mom would just freak out if she knew I turned you down.”

“Every time I hear about your mother the woman sounds more and more … complicated,” he finished diplomatically.  

“Yeah sure,” she said with a snort.  “Complicated.  You can say shallow you know.  It’s not like this is news to me.  I worry a lot about ending up like that.”

“You do?” he asked with interest.  “Why?  You’re nothing like the woman.”

She stopped walking and stared at him.  He took his arm from her shoulder and gave her a puzzling look.  “What is it Sarah?  Have I upset you?”

“No it’s not that,” she said, her head starting to clear up.  “It’s just, you know you’re the first person to say that?”

“I am?” he asked, brow furrowing in confusion.  “That cannot be true.”

“People are always going on and on about how much like her I am,” she said raking a hand through her hair.  “I know I look like her.  But my dad and Karen used to say during arguments how I was just like her.  So stubborn and sharp tongued.”

Jareth took her by the wrist and gently guided her down a narrow alleyway.  “You are stubborn and sharp tongued.  But you’re not just like anyone.  You’re not vain, shallow, or obsessed with your status in life.  From what you’ve mentioned about your mother, I would guess you have very little in common.”

“I know,” she said squeezing his hand.  “It’s just nice to hear someone else say it for once.”

“Are you still inebriated,” he asked her taking a quick look around.

“No, I’m pretty sober now.  The walk helped a lot.  Did you figure out an easier way for me to get home.”

“I did,” he replied.  “Or at least, I should like to try something.  As I said I don’t take humans alongside very often so I’m not sure if this will work, but I think it is our best shot.  Though you may not like it.”

“It definitely can’t be any worse than the trip here,” she said with a laugh.  “So just go ahead, I won’t bite.”

“Promise?” he asked with a wicked glint in his eyes.  

Sarah didn’t have a chance to answer before he pulled her in.  She wasn’t sure if the ground fell because he kissed her or if he kissed her to keep her from falling.  He kissed her smoothly and easily, like it was something he did every morning before she left for work.  He kissed her like it was summertime and they had the rest of the day to just lie in the grass kissing each other like that.  He kissed her like he knew her and it made Sarah’s heart jump to think that maybe he did.  

The last time he kissed her, she reasoned that she needed to kiss him back because she wasn’t going to let him ruin kissing for her without ruining it for him right back.  This time she kissed him back because it kept her from thinking about them falling through the nothingness of space and time.  

Or at least that’s what she’d say if anyone asked.  It absolutely definitely wasn’t because he smelled good and kissed even better.  Nope, that had less than zero to do with it.  

She barely noticed they’d landed before he pulled back.

“There, I thought that might do it,” he said smugly.  

“Well...you were right,” she said slightly out of breath.  Her head was swimming but her dinner seemed content to stay where it was.  

“I was?” he said with smug smile.

“Yep, I didn’t like that,” she said giving him a solid whack on the arm.

“Ow Sarah!” he whined.  “It worked did it not?”

“That was absolutely the last kiss you’re ever getting so I hope you made it count because kissing is done now,” she said annoyed.  

“Something tells me it won’t be,” he said with a smirk and pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear.  “But I’d like to point out I did ask.”

“Bite me.”

“I intend to,” he said giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.  “But as you know all good dates end with a kiss and I think this was a very good date indeed.”

“I suppose,” she grumbled.  A small part of her was quite pleased she’d had another excuse to kiss him.  But like hell if she’d ever admit that out loud.  

“Have a good rest of your evening Sarah,” he said stepping backwards through the mirror.  “Until next time.”

“Ugh whatever,” she sighed waving him off.  She waited until he was fully gone and then narrowed her eyes into the glass.  “And if you’re still watching know that I can absolutely move this mirror into my landlord’s bathroom and I don’t think you’ll like the view from there half as much.”

Sarah thought she heard a laugh somewhere in the far distance and decided she was just going to have to take her chances.  There was a reason the mirror lived in the kitchen and not her bedroom.