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31_days2005-08-05 09:28 pm
lasakura.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-08-05 09:28 pm
[August Fifth] - [Labyrinth] - [Corruption]
Title: Corruption
Day/Theme: August 5th - A boy
Series: Labyrinth
Character/Pairing: Sarah, Jareth, Toby.
Rating: PG. Or whatever the original rating for Labyrinth was.
---
Corruption
He found her dreams the year after she ran the Labyrinth.
-
Her father, worried and polite, had declined to turn on the air conditioning, and so she had thrown open her windows to the night, touched her fingers to the windowpane and murmured the name of the companions who had guided her through the Labyrinth before falling into her bed. Spangles of starlight glittered over her in her sleep like crystals at her brow, nestled against her hair, and the soft illumination of moonlight smudged the stubborn furrow from her face, leaving her with the features of a child.
(“It’s hot.” She said, and hurriedly he lifted his head from his hands. The hard kitchen lights glinted silver with age as the light danced across his hair.
“I know.” He said. “Please Sarah, just bear with it for this summer.” He tried to smile, and his mouth turned upward to sketch another crease across his features. “Work has been very hard of late, and there are always new entrepreneurs in my line of work; it’s nothing important, just another rough patch, we’ll work it through. But right now we haven’t the money to spare for luxuries—“
“Cold in the summer is not a luxury,” she argued, but saw the futility of it in his parchment face, as if she could hold a match to his helpless chin and see him fade to ashes.
“You’ve been so understanding lately.” He said. “I’m sorry. Just a little more time.”)
A swirl of wind spun through her room, catching at the ends of the curtains in a dance and drawing photos away from her mirror in a whirlwind. When the sudden breeze stilled again, the curtains drifted to their places to reveal an owl, white as an effigy of moonlight.
He cocked his head to the side for a moment, studying the prone figure sprawled across the covers. Then, in a quick, fluid motion, he raised his wings and drifted into her room.
-
“Sarah.” He said. His voice carried through the aimless gray as if it were a sharp, narrow corridor. His arms were outstretched, fingers curled up to cup the prism in his hand.
She turned and could not see him, and the setting twisted away from its sluggish gray, reforming the intricate room of criss-crossing stairs and dimensions all about her.
“Is this a dream?”
His voice sounded out behind her and she whirled to see him descending one of the many staircases, smiling a smile, bright and hard as the glittering crystal in his hand. “What do you think it is?” he said, moving towards her. She stood like an animal in the eyes of a predator, stricken and still and defiant.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Against the magnitude of the room, her voice was small and shrill, a child’s voice that reminded her of Toby, and she whirled, turning, to see if he was there. “I ran the Labyrinth and took back my brother. The words have been said and they cannot be unspoken.”
Sardonically, he applauded, bringing his hands together so that only his fingers clapped in a light, soundless motion. “Bravo, Sarah.” He said softly. “Perhaps you’ve learned something from your time in the Labyrinth after all. Answer me this, then – for the sake of old times.”
“I won’t.” She said. Then, louder: “No.”
“This world,” he said as though he hadn't heard her, and twirled extravagantly, hands raised in a theatrical gesture before he tilted his head lazily back to look at her. “I promised you your dreams, the world encompassed in them and your heart’s desire. Did I not?”
Was that the riddle? But she knew Jareth too well for that. “Yes.” She said evenly, and met his eyes. “You did.”
He was still pacing with a slowness that inspired dread through the room, and had reached the farthest wall where he turned, examining the delicately glassy crystal in his palm as he said: “And what kind of boy is so precious to you that you will give up all your dreams for him?”
“It wasn’t like that—“
He raised his eyebrows, mouth smoothing into the quirks of a smile. Another crystal popped into the air above his palm as the first vacillated and vanished into the air, glowing softly to illuminate his enigmatic expression. “Wasn’t it?”
“Toby is my brother.” She said breathlessly, watching him as he watched her, turning as he did, stepping back as he moved forward as if there was a bridge between their eyes that she could neither break nor cross.
“Half-brother.” He said without breaking the glance, and echoed the thoughts that had crossed her mind as near as the year before. “Which means he’s half of nothing, isn’t he?”
“No,” she said, “he’s half my father’s, and half my stepmother’s, and none of yours. You can’t claim him.”
“Sarah,” he said, smiling again, winding a lazy circle around her. “I gave you a chance, didn’t I, to win your brother back from me when I took him. And I took him first only because you asked – isn’t that true?”
“It wasn’t what I meant,” She began, and his brows flew up as his smile lit, bright as a candleflame against the dark.
“Oh but Sarah, I’m hardly a mind reader; how could I know that? I only know what you say, and I gave you all that you asked of me. In return…”
Sarah drew a breath. The offer seemed simple enough to solve without problems, but this was Jareth, and she had learned, by now, to trust nothing that he might say. “No.” She said firmly. “You have nothing that I want.”
“Oh, Sarah.” His smile widened as if he had been waiting for her to speak. “Have I taught you nothing?” The crystal that he had been holding leapt out of his hands towards her. Out of instinct she snatched it out of the air, but did not look into it, only clutched it as though it were her heart, still beating within her hands.
“You have shown me what is yours.” He said. His gaze was amusedly at ease like a feline’s, with their feral, glowing color. “Now let me show you what is mine.”
Out of the reluctant curiosity that he seemed to inspire, she looked.
It showed nothing at first, only a milky haze that might be found in glass. Then, as she glanced up to ask what trick he thought he was pulling, she saw them.
Their tiny mouths were open in despair, and Ludo’s eyes were closed, his head thrown back in a howl of silent anguish as he summoned rocks that were not there for him to implore. Hoggle was pounding his rough fists against the walls, shouting furious instructions at her that she could not hear. Sir Didymus was viciously attacking the same wall with his staff. Ambrosius, as could be expected, had huddled on Ludo’s far side in order to avoid his master’s outrage at walls that would not break with a good strike.
A tremor started through the crystal, and she realized that her hands were shaking. “No!” Sarah cried, and flung the globe to the floor.
It vanished and reappeared again in Jareth’s palm, where he closed his long fingers around it, crushing it until he opened his hands again to reveal its disappearance. “They are mine, Sarah.” He said agreeably, “just as much as Toby is yours. And how wonderful of you to summon them tonight; I, of course, could not have come otherwise, and we might have never spoken.”
It was not only her hands, she discovered. Her shoulders were shaking too.
“What do you want.” She said. The words were flat, without the careful enunciation of a question.
“Very little that you would give me.” He said, and abruptly he was pacing again, moving closer and closer in a hypnotic motion that bewildered the eye as much as his stairs. “I gave you all that you asked for, and all I ask now is that you give me the chance to win him back from you. To convince you to give him to me.”
The challenge seemed so easy that she needed hardly to draw breath and it would be over. “If I win?”
His smile grew indulgent. “If you win,” he said, and it was strange how he could inflect and curl the syllables to pronounce his doubt so clearly, “I will give your friends to you. They will be your subjects, and I will not interfere with them, nor try to take them back.” He executed a flawless turn that drew his cloak out behind him in a dramatic motion. “But if I win… I will take everything that you promised me. Nothing more.” His grin dimmed to a sliver again, a polite, restrained crescent of expression. “You see, Sarah, I am generous.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You had better not hurt my friends.”
“Sarah,” he said, placing his hand over his heart. Suddenly the clothing there was spangled with crystals that glittered like small, falling stars. “Would I do that?”
“You would do anything,” she said, “to get my brother back.”
He laughed out loud at that. The sound resounded across the chamber, reverberating from wall to wall as the resonance strengthened with each echo and she felt as if her head might never be free of the sound of him.
“How little you understand.” He murmured when he had stopped, tossing the crystal into the air where it vanished with a smooth pop. “Tomorrow, then.” And he tipped her an ironic salute.
“Wait!” She stopped his leaving with a gesture. The heat had risen in her face, leaving her flushed and angry and unexpectedly active. She thought, suddenly, that if she agreed she might always be left with him unless she set a time limit as to how long he could haunt her. “How long will it go on for?”
“A week,” he said, “Of course. Six days from the dawn of tomorrow to seven days from today’s midnight; no more. The grounds are yours, Sarah, and my only advantage lies in my stakes. Surely you will not deny me this one indulgence?”
She wanted to say yes, refuse him everything that he wanted, but that seemed unnaturally stingy. And he was right; the advantages were hers now, and she wanted to say, just once: “You see, I have been more than generous…”
Six days and her friends would be free. It did not seem such a bad price to pay.
“Yes.” She said.
Immediately, she felt the dream around her begin to unravel like the ornate scenes of a tapestry being torn apart by threads. The stairs fell into one another in a smooth, roiling motion that tore and left the gray background behind them. Only he was unmoved, standing and watching after her as if he had been planted there, never to move again. His features were as smooth as a mask of glass, and she wondered suddenly if she might not have made a mistake.
“Very well then, Sarah.” He said, and he smiled again, once, before he stepped forward and winked out of sight too.
-
She woke to the sound of Toby screaming in his cradle.
[tbc?]
Day/Theme: August 5th - A boy
Series: Labyrinth
Character/Pairing: Sarah, Jareth, Toby.
Rating: PG. Or whatever the original rating for Labyrinth was.
---
He found her dreams the year after she ran the Labyrinth.
Her father, worried and polite, had declined to turn on the air conditioning, and so she had thrown open her windows to the night, touched her fingers to the windowpane and murmured the name of the companions who had guided her through the Labyrinth before falling into her bed. Spangles of starlight glittered over her in her sleep like crystals at her brow, nestled against her hair, and the soft illumination of moonlight smudged the stubborn furrow from her face, leaving her with the features of a child.
(“It’s hot.” She said, and hurriedly he lifted his head from his hands. The hard kitchen lights glinted silver with age as the light danced across his hair.
“I know.” He said. “Please Sarah, just bear with it for this summer.” He tried to smile, and his mouth turned upward to sketch another crease across his features. “Work has been very hard of late, and there are always new entrepreneurs in my line of work; it’s nothing important, just another rough patch, we’ll work it through. But right now we haven’t the money to spare for luxuries—“
“Cold in the summer is not a luxury,” she argued, but saw the futility of it in his parchment face, as if she could hold a match to his helpless chin and see him fade to ashes.
“You’ve been so understanding lately.” He said. “I’m sorry. Just a little more time.”)
A swirl of wind spun through her room, catching at the ends of the curtains in a dance and drawing photos away from her mirror in a whirlwind. When the sudden breeze stilled again, the curtains drifted to their places to reveal an owl, white as an effigy of moonlight.
He cocked his head to the side for a moment, studying the prone figure sprawled across the covers. Then, in a quick, fluid motion, he raised his wings and drifted into her room.
“Sarah.” He said. His voice carried through the aimless gray as if it were a sharp, narrow corridor. His arms were outstretched, fingers curled up to cup the prism in his hand.
She turned and could not see him, and the setting twisted away from its sluggish gray, reforming the intricate room of criss-crossing stairs and dimensions all about her.
“Is this a dream?”
His voice sounded out behind her and she whirled to see him descending one of the many staircases, smiling a smile, bright and hard as the glittering crystal in his hand. “What do you think it is?” he said, moving towards her. She stood like an animal in the eyes of a predator, stricken and still and defiant.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Against the magnitude of the room, her voice was small and shrill, a child’s voice that reminded her of Toby, and she whirled, turning, to see if he was there. “I ran the Labyrinth and took back my brother. The words have been said and they cannot be unspoken.”
Sardonically, he applauded, bringing his hands together so that only his fingers clapped in a light, soundless motion. “Bravo, Sarah.” He said softly. “Perhaps you’ve learned something from your time in the Labyrinth after all. Answer me this, then – for the sake of old times.”
“I won’t.” She said. Then, louder: “No.”
“This world,” he said as though he hadn't heard her, and twirled extravagantly, hands raised in a theatrical gesture before he tilted his head lazily back to look at her. “I promised you your dreams, the world encompassed in them and your heart’s desire. Did I not?”
Was that the riddle? But she knew Jareth too well for that. “Yes.” She said evenly, and met his eyes. “You did.”
He was still pacing with a slowness that inspired dread through the room, and had reached the farthest wall where he turned, examining the delicately glassy crystal in his palm as he said: “And what kind of boy is so precious to you that you will give up all your dreams for him?”
“It wasn’t like that—“
He raised his eyebrows, mouth smoothing into the quirks of a smile. Another crystal popped into the air above his palm as the first vacillated and vanished into the air, glowing softly to illuminate his enigmatic expression. “Wasn’t it?”
“Toby is my brother.” She said breathlessly, watching him as he watched her, turning as he did, stepping back as he moved forward as if there was a bridge between their eyes that she could neither break nor cross.
“Half-brother.” He said without breaking the glance, and echoed the thoughts that had crossed her mind as near as the year before. “Which means he’s half of nothing, isn’t he?”
“No,” she said, “he’s half my father’s, and half my stepmother’s, and none of yours. You can’t claim him.”
“Sarah,” he said, smiling again, winding a lazy circle around her. “I gave you a chance, didn’t I, to win your brother back from me when I took him. And I took him first only because you asked – isn’t that true?”
“It wasn’t what I meant,” She began, and his brows flew up as his smile lit, bright as a candleflame against the dark.
“Oh but Sarah, I’m hardly a mind reader; how could I know that? I only know what you say, and I gave you all that you asked of me. In return…”
Sarah drew a breath. The offer seemed simple enough to solve without problems, but this was Jareth, and she had learned, by now, to trust nothing that he might say. “No.” She said firmly. “You have nothing that I want.”
“Oh, Sarah.” His smile widened as if he had been waiting for her to speak. “Have I taught you nothing?” The crystal that he had been holding leapt out of his hands towards her. Out of instinct she snatched it out of the air, but did not look into it, only clutched it as though it were her heart, still beating within her hands.
“You have shown me what is yours.” He said. His gaze was amusedly at ease like a feline’s, with their feral, glowing color. “Now let me show you what is mine.”
Out of the reluctant curiosity that he seemed to inspire, she looked.
It showed nothing at first, only a milky haze that might be found in glass. Then, as she glanced up to ask what trick he thought he was pulling, she saw them.
Their tiny mouths were open in despair, and Ludo’s eyes were closed, his head thrown back in a howl of silent anguish as he summoned rocks that were not there for him to implore. Hoggle was pounding his rough fists against the walls, shouting furious instructions at her that she could not hear. Sir Didymus was viciously attacking the same wall with his staff. Ambrosius, as could be expected, had huddled on Ludo’s far side in order to avoid his master’s outrage at walls that would not break with a good strike.
A tremor started through the crystal, and she realized that her hands were shaking. “No!” Sarah cried, and flung the globe to the floor.
It vanished and reappeared again in Jareth’s palm, where he closed his long fingers around it, crushing it until he opened his hands again to reveal its disappearance. “They are mine, Sarah.” He said agreeably, “just as much as Toby is yours. And how wonderful of you to summon them tonight; I, of course, could not have come otherwise, and we might have never spoken.”
It was not only her hands, she discovered. Her shoulders were shaking too.
“What do you want.” She said. The words were flat, without the careful enunciation of a question.
“Very little that you would give me.” He said, and abruptly he was pacing again, moving closer and closer in a hypnotic motion that bewildered the eye as much as his stairs. “I gave you all that you asked for, and all I ask now is that you give me the chance to win him back from you. To convince you to give him to me.”
The challenge seemed so easy that she needed hardly to draw breath and it would be over. “If I win?”
His smile grew indulgent. “If you win,” he said, and it was strange how he could inflect and curl the syllables to pronounce his doubt so clearly, “I will give your friends to you. They will be your subjects, and I will not interfere with them, nor try to take them back.” He executed a flawless turn that drew his cloak out behind him in a dramatic motion. “But if I win… I will take everything that you promised me. Nothing more.” His grin dimmed to a sliver again, a polite, restrained crescent of expression. “You see, Sarah, I am generous.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You had better not hurt my friends.”
“Sarah,” he said, placing his hand over his heart. Suddenly the clothing there was spangled with crystals that glittered like small, falling stars. “Would I do that?”
“You would do anything,” she said, “to get my brother back.”
He laughed out loud at that. The sound resounded across the chamber, reverberating from wall to wall as the resonance strengthened with each echo and she felt as if her head might never be free of the sound of him.
“How little you understand.” He murmured when he had stopped, tossing the crystal into the air where it vanished with a smooth pop. “Tomorrow, then.” And he tipped her an ironic salute.
“Wait!” She stopped his leaving with a gesture. The heat had risen in her face, leaving her flushed and angry and unexpectedly active. She thought, suddenly, that if she agreed she might always be left with him unless she set a time limit as to how long he could haunt her. “How long will it go on for?”
“A week,” he said, “Of course. Six days from the dawn of tomorrow to seven days from today’s midnight; no more. The grounds are yours, Sarah, and my only advantage lies in my stakes. Surely you will not deny me this one indulgence?”
She wanted to say yes, refuse him everything that he wanted, but that seemed unnaturally stingy. And he was right; the advantages were hers now, and she wanted to say, just once: “You see, I have been more than generous…”
Six days and her friends would be free. It did not seem such a bad price to pay.
“Yes.” She said.
Immediately, she felt the dream around her begin to unravel like the ornate scenes of a tapestry being torn apart by threads. The stairs fell into one another in a smooth, roiling motion that tore and left the gray background behind them. Only he was unmoved, standing and watching after her as if he had been planted there, never to move again. His features were as smooth as a mask of glass, and she wondered suddenly if she might not have made a mistake.
“Very well then, Sarah.” He said, and he smiled again, once, before he stepped forward and winked out of sight too.
She woke to the sound of Toby screaming in his cradle.