Hello all!

I am new to this group, so I thought I would post the first chapter of my
yet-unfinished epic "The Way Back"

I have 25 Chapters finished, and you can find them at fanfiction.net under
my name if you're impatient. otherwise, i'll be posting them one at a time
here.

Thank you and hello!



Title: The Labyrinth: The Way Back
Author: Aviry Nolane
Date: Nov. 18, 2002.
Notes: Just sitting in class today thinking after a labybinge this weekend,
and i decided, "why not. i might as well start one." So this is just here in
case anybody likes it. If you do, let me know, and we'll work something out
and i'll keep it alive. Otherwise, feel free to tell me all sorts of terrible
things and I'll just let it die. :)

( oh, and please don't archive without my permission :)

Here's hoping!

Disclaimer: Of course they don't belong to me... They're property of Jim
Henson and Co... lucky bastards...

* Aviry *





-- The Labyrinth: The Way Back --

Chapter One -- Out Of Print




She could not help but think of him.
She could fight it no longer.
But where to begin?
His eyes? His hair? His disheveled but beautiful appearance? His muscular
form? His sensual smile?
There was so much to take in, so much to discover.
And they had time to do it all.
Now and forever, through time itself, they had each other.
Jareth and Sarah had eternity.

An earsplitting wail was heard, and the young brunette woman was surprised
to find that it had come from her own mouth.
The book soared through the air. Its pages twisting and spilling about in a
whirlwind of motion. The offensive beast roared, the hard material of its
binding thudding against the wall with a resonating clap. It fell quickly to the
floor then, its body once again a lifeless heap, incapable of hurting, indeed
incapable of even moving toward, anyone.

But of course Sarah didn't know this. In fact, in her mind, this now
seemingly dormant object was just as much a threat to her safety as the name it
bore
inside its final pages. She gasped, wide eyed with horror, as her stomach
twisted and turned in a disgusting churn.
"Sarah and who now?" She spat. Shaking her head, the wide eyed gape of a
dear caught in the headlights fell away, to be replaced by an instantaneous
surge of venom that only women and vicious snakes truly understood.

Sarah, it seemed, was angry. Quite angry.

She stood, pulling herself fiercely from the tugging hold of her bed.

"No," it seemed to plead, "I'm still warm, Sarah. Warm and cozy, and full of
cushions and blankets enough to last you an eternity!"

But of course Sarah did not hear this proclamation, as she didn't speak
furneze, the language of the common furniture ornament, and moreso - because to
her mortal ears the bed was a lifeless chunk of bedroom decoration. As it was,
all of the words the bed now threw in Sarah's direction she couldn't hear a
single one, except perhaps for 'eternity'.

Indeed, the word was already etched firmly in her mind. All recesses of
thought and conscious mind pulled towards the angry red scrawl that baited her
thoughts. And even though she herself had no idea, her subconscious was
consuming this new turn of events as well. Though perhaps in a different light.

"Sarah and Jareth had eternity."

Eternity.

Sarah stumbled past the bed's embrace as it whimpered its final pleas.

Her legs suddenly grappled with the idea of walking beneath her, very likely
also begging her to return to bed.

But Sarah was nothing if not persistent. She pressed on, and soon she had
reached the detestable object.

She stood above it, straddling her hands astride her hips and glaring down
at it with a terrible sort of rage. The book saw this too, and quivered with
fear. After all, it had only done what was asked of it, right? Why should a
helpless romance novel suffer for someone else's devious actions?

However, to Sarah, the procession of thought went much differently in her
eyes. The book was no innocent contraption, it was a messenger of evil, a
conniving intruder disguised as a light read, a maggot of the Underground in
harlequin's clothing. She stared on, a glint in her eye, as the thought of the
book being tossed into a roaring flame entered her mind.

The book saw the meaning of this glare as well. If it had been blessed with
legs and a sense of keen direction, rather than the magical curse of print
that had been bestowed upon it, it is possible that it would have run straight
behind the form of its awakener.

Sarah fell to her knees beside the book, decidedly still unsure pertaining
to the books contents. She reached down, her gaze penetrating the thick book
jacket of the foe she had only a moment ago began to think of as her enemy.

Suddenly a new emotion struck her, one familiar to her in the recesses of
her mind, yet not one used to the newfound regularity of her rather admittedly
mundane life. Fear.

She reached out with a trembling hand to poke at the book as the intense
feeling shook her.

Was he here? Was he watching? Was he plotting?

She froze. Of course he was. He was always plotting.

Her eyes narrowed again, alert for the presence in her room that she was
sure existed. She turned abruptly, spinning around on her knees to be met by -
-
her room.

She sighed.

Was that disappointment?

No. No, she decided. That was relief. Relaxation. A release of tension. It
was... Rage. She nodded at this. It must be rage. And intense rage at that.

She reached out with her left hand and before she could stop herself,
flipped the book over and turned to its last pages.

She had a good mind to...

Now and forever, through time itself, they had each other.

Sarah read and reread the line, an expression of confusion knotting up her
features. She scanned the page, half expecting to see the abominable line
sneak its way back onto the page, calmly typewritten, looking entirely like it
belonged there.

'Which', Sarah reminded herself, 'It doesn't.'

But still... Where was it?

She fingered through the pages, turned the book over, and finally, after
several tense moments of silent inspection, gave up.

She held the book out distractedly and let it fall to the ground.

If it had been audible to the human ear, the sigh of relief that ensued from
the object would have astounded Sarah. But she had already been astounded
enough. She sat for a moment quietly contemplating her circumstances. She was
not a child any longer, and she would be adult about this if it killed her.
'Preferably if it kills him' she scoffed silently.

A pause.

She shook her head. Thinking like that wasn't going to get her anywhere for
the moment, as much as she'd like to indulge herself with the thought that
Jareth's interest in her had suddenly perked after 8 years ( but who was
counting? ) she had to consider other alternatives.

Had she imagined it?

It seemed the most likely cause of her distress. She nodded to herself. She
had been very overstressed lately, what with her mother's plans of
remarriage, the restaurant opening just a week away, the unexpected proposal
from Bill.
She sighed, leaning back against the wall. 'Of course. The proposal from
Bill.' She nodded again, it was beginning to feel quite worrisome to her that
she had to keep physically assuring herself that she wasn't going crazy, and
she made a mental note to check herself for any future indication that she
continuously nodded to keep her inner meandering comments in check. "Bill," She
sighed rolling her head back to rest on the chilly wall. Of course the
unexpected proposal had to be the reason for the ... altercation that had just
occurred.

After all - if it had been Jar - The cold blooded and evil Goblin King's
doing, he would be here by now, gloating, no doubt.

And there was certainly no sign of that was there? No, her room was
blessedly Goblin King free.

She smiled. She really felt much better now that she had convinced herself
that the world was in fact not out to get her, but rather that she just had an
overzealous imagination. She rose, picked up the poor tattered object beside
her, and made her way back to bed.

Nevermind the question of just exactly why her mind would jump to thinking
about Jareth romantically at a moment of severe stress and domestic
uncertainty. Nevermind the fact that her dreams had finally managed to go
relatively
Jareth-free for the past years. Nevermind the fact that she had, even if only
for a moment, felt his looming presence nearby. Nevermind.

For all her good qualities, nobody had ever really called Sarah shockingly
bright. Hers was a most logical and concise decision that positively reeked of
human rational, and left a bit of an aftertaste that felt distinctly that of
a defense mechanism.

She smiled, content with her ability to rationalize the situation away. She
settled back into the wall of pillows which supported her back and sunk her
way into the peach colored down comforter. After all the commotion she really
hadn't the faintest memory of what she had just read, and reading always
helped her to get to sleep. Raising the book back up to her eye level, she read
on...

Damien reached out to her with his words and offered her everything. "Only
fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave," pleaded the Goblin
King. His heart lay before her, held out to her like a precious jewel.

All at once the charade was over. There was no way that she was going to be
able to rationalize this one no matter how she tried, and she knew it. Sarah
tossed the book angrily toward the wall, knocking her lamp over with her
outburst.

A dangerous feeling rose up inside her as the room went dark, and she
bellowed, leaving nothing to the imagination, exactly what she thought of the
Goblin King at this moment.

"Jareth!!" She screamed.

Suddenly the silence was eerie. She was left to the darkness with nothing
but her labored breathing and the clenching of her fists into the comforter
around her. She shuddered, a chill overtaking her, and was rewarded with a
resounding tap on her left shoulder.

She turned out of reflex before she could think better of it. And there,
illuminated with a few bars of evening light that had managed to sneak through
her blinds, was the unmistakable form of the loathed Goblin King.

His pale face was visible only in gaps that seemed to be strategically
placed for his benefit. His high cheekbones that sloped down to his haughty
chin,
proudly displaying his defiant expression, and then finally Sarah allowed
herself to be led where she had first intended not to gaze, back up to his
sinister, glinting eyes that reflected the moonlight to her.

He didn't move and she had begun to wonder if perhaps he was just a part of
the decor she had never really paid much attention to before now. She had
just about convinced herself of that fact when she noticed the slight heaving
and falling of his chest, which signified breathing - which traditionally, the
decor took no fancy in.

She gasped, not a single rational thought managing to slip into her mind.

Shocked as though she was, she was not about to be left alone and
defenseless against the Goblin King in a darkened room in the middle of the
night. She
scrambled quickly out of her comforter and leaned over to the second lamp by
her bedside, not so secretly hoping that if she illuminated her bedroom, the
ghost white form of the King would be gone with the shadows like a nightmare.

The light snapped on beneath her fingertips.

She had no such stroke of luck.

If anything, it seemed things had taken a turn for the worse, now that she
could clarify that he was indeed a solid and quite real non-figment of her
imagination, standing rather close to her.

He was reclining with poise against the door frame of her bathroom, the halo
of glitter surrounding him transforming her bedroom into an almost
otherworldly place, and a nearly regal one at that. He crossed his arms around
his
chest, his fingers idly toying with the ever present crystal ball.

She didn't move and breathing seemed out of the question. She supposed that
this what be must dying felt like, as all resolve to inhale suddenly left
her.

He raised a brow in her direction. "You called?"







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