Chapter Text
Sarah Williams, Champion of the Labyrinth, Captain of the King’s Guard, Knight of the Goblin Realm, Blessed One of the Underground, and Champion of the Goblin King was trudging sullenly through the snow on her way back home from school. What use were her numerous Underground titles if she couldn’t even fend for herself in the cutthroat world of Aboveground high school?
She opened the door to her house, finding it quiet and empty. A post-it note stuck on the fridge told her that Karen and Robert had taken Toby for a doctor’s appointment and would be back later in the evening. Sarah sighed in relief to finally be alone. Not that she didn’t like her family, but with all that had happened to her that day, she just wanted a little bit of peace and quiet.
Sarah stomped up the stairs and angrily threw open the door to her room. There was a surprised squawk, a canine yelp and a thud, and she was greeted by the sight of a ball of white feathers and red fur tangled together in a heap on the floor of her bedroom. She cringed in embarrassment. She forgot that Jareth and Sir Didymus would sometimes stay in her room to wait for her when she came home from school.
“Sorry Jareth! Sorry Sir Didymus!” She apologized as she helped the red fox and the white barn owl on the floor onto her bed. The owl tilted its head sideways and gave a soft chirp, as if asking her what happened that made her so mad. The fox rubbed his face against her arm and she sighed sadly.
“Don’t worry about me, guys. I just had a bad day. You know, normal seventeen-year old teenager things…” She gave a weak laugh. Owl-Jareth trilled softly and hopped onto her lap, and Sarah giggled when he let her pet him on the head. “Come on, let’s go. I can’t miss training, can I?”
The owl and the fox nodded and Sarah laughed as she prepared to step through the mirror-portal. Before she could do so, however, Jareth flew in front of her and blocked her path with his wings while shaking his fluffy head.
“Oh, you don’t want me to go through the portal?”
The white barn owl nodded and chirped. It flew around her in a circle then landed on her shoulder, and Sarah understood.
“You want me to use magic to take us to the Underground?”
Jareth nodded and chirped. Sarah had been training under him and Sir Didymus for over two years now since she had a large role to play in the Goblin Kingdom as Jareth’s champion. Sir Didymus was teaching her how to fight with swords and other varieties of weapons that can be used by non-magical means, while Jareth was teaching her how to use magic. Every day, after she would come home from school, she would go to the Underground and train for six hours or more then return to the Above with barely a minute past the time she had left. Jareth had explained to her that he could make time pass differently between the Above and Below, and Sarah was grateful for that knowledge. She could train, visit her friends, rest, and have fun Below, and still return above to be able to do her homework, do her chores, take care of Toby, and overall live a normal life Aboveground.
“Okay,” said the Champion, “Here goes!”
She closed her eyes in concentration and tried to summon the magical energy needed for her to transport the three of them to the Underground. Sarah visualized the Goblin Throne room since it was where she wanted to take them to, just like Jareth had taught her. In a burst of red fire and black smoke, they landed beside a pile of goblins which caused the little green creatures to scream and run in all directions.
The owl on her shoulder trilled proudly at her, then flapped his wings to take flight. There was a burst of glitter and golden light and Jareth the Goblin King was suddenly standing in front of her in all his messy-haired glory. There was a woosh of air and a gust of wind, and Sir Didymus was in his human form beside the Champion. Sarah just smiled tiredly at the both of them.
The older looking, red-haired man chuckled. “So, Lady Sarah, do you want to train now or do you want to do something else first?”
She just shrugged. “Let’s just train, I guess.”
***
“Hey, weirdo.”
Sarah sighed as her book was taken from her hands and she came face-to-face with Tiffany MacKenzie and her band of Mean Girls wannabes, or at least that’s what she called them in her mind. She pasted a bored expression on her face, as she usually did when they came to bother (not ‘bully,’ mind you) her and that only served to irritate them even more. Without warning, Tiffany seized the necklace with the horned pendant that Jareth had given her during her Knighting Ceremony and caused her to stumble forward in surprise.
“What is this necklace?” the blonde girl twirled the pendant around in her hands while the chain was still around Sarah’s neck, “It’s so tacky.”
Sarah snatched the pendant back before the other girl could tighten her grip. “It was a gift from a friend,” she growled as she grabbed her book from one of her lackeys’ hands, “Now get out of my face and let me read in peace.”
Tiffany’s eyes narrowed at that and she grabbed the pendant again, albeit more roughly this time and Sarah almost fell forward and it was only her new skills from her training that saved her from falling flat on her face.
“You have friends, Williams?” The blonde girl asked in her nasally mean-girl voice, then she and her friends laughed at that as if it was the funniest joke in the world. Sarah resisted the urge to roll her eyes at how cliche the scene was. It was like something out of a bad coming-of-age movie. “I thought you were going to go alone to the winter dance.”
“Yeah, I do, and they actually have brains. And no, they are not going to take me to that pathetic waste of time and I’m perfectly happy with going alone.” Sarah snarked. She was already losing her patience, especially that Tiffany was holding the necklace that Jareth gave her. It was taking all of Sarah’s self-control not to use any of the deadly martial-arts moves that she’d learned in her intense Underground training sessions.
Tiffany’s friends’ eyes narrowed at that. One of them, a curly-haired brunette by the name of Jessica, jabbed her finger into Sarah’s chest.
“Watch it, Williams,” she sneered, “One day that mouth of yours will get you in big trouble.”
“Yes, I know. It already has.” Sarah laughed to herself; the brown-haired idiot didn’t realize how close she was to the truth. “And they were a lot worse than whatever you guys could do to me. So, yeah, I couldn’t care less. Why don’t you blondies go pick on someone you can actually take?”
She smirked at them, and she couldn’t help but think that it would be a lot similar to Jareth’s. If she could face His Majesty the Birdbrain and get out alive, how much more with ACTUAL birdbrains?
Tiffany was irritated with Sarah, and she yanked on the dark-haired girl’s necklace, hard enough to potentially break the chain. Or at least, she tried to. Instead, the chain ended up digging painfully into the back of her neck, probably drawing blood. At least she was able to humiliate Sarah, since she succeeded in causing her to fall face-first onto the floor.
She and her friends proceeded to laugh hysterically at Sarah’s predicament. The Champion had a bloody nose and scratches when she scrambled to her feet, and she angrily shoved the book she was reading into her backpack. She felt her rage rise, and took deep breaths so that she wouldn’t kill the idiots in her anger.
“What’s wrong, Williams? Are you going to cry? Awww. The big nerdy baby’s going to cry!” Tiffany and her friends teased her as she scoffed and started to walk away. “Oh, you’re running away. Awww, the great Sarah Williams is scared and running away.”
Sarah didn’t even bother facing them. “Yes, I’m scared alright. I’m scared FOR you, not of you. I’m getting away because you idiots aren’t worth it. Now if you would excuse me, I have somewhere more important to be.”
As she turned to walk away from them and toward the exit of the school, she felt Tiffany shove her into the ice-covered exit pathway. She slipped and fell onto her bum, and she heard them laughing at her. She gritted her teeth and stood while dusting herself off; she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her in pain. Then, she walked back home, while taking a detour down a darkened alley to quickly heal her injuries using magic.
****
CLANG!
“What’s wrong, Dame Sarah? You seem out of sorts today.” Sir Didymus commented as Sarah clumsily blocked a thrust of his sword.
“It’s nothing,” Sarah shook her head as she went back into a fighting stance, “C’mon, I just need to train more.”
Didymus shook his head and lowered his sword. “It’s not nothing if I notice you are fighting way below your usual skill level.” He motioned for her to sit down on a bench below a tree beside the Goblin Castle’s training grounds.
“I just had a bad day, Sir Didymus.”
“So, what did those idiot girls do to you this time?” said a deep voice behind them, and Sarah jumped. She whirled around and glared at the Goblin King, who just smirked at her and took his place on the bench opposite Sir Didymus.
“I can never hide anything from you two, can I?” Sarah laughed at her two friends as she ran a hand through her hair.
“You know I can always Bog them, or turn them into goblins so that they would never bother you again,” the King offered, his mismatched eyes glowing an angry gold and silver for one second.
“Again, Jareth, I’m fine. I’m sure I can handle them when it gets bad, but I’d rather not do anything physical to them.”
“You’d rather let them hurt you instead?” The Goblin King asked incredulously while Sarah shrugged.
“I’ve faced worse,” Sarah said matter-of-factly while giving him a pointed look. Beside them, Sir Didymus started to snicker into the back of his hand while Jareth rolled his eyes.
“Fine,” he huffed while standing up and dramatically sweeping the hem of his cloak behind him, “But don’t blame me if they end up hurting you really badly one of these days. I am supposed to protect my Champion, after all.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “I thought it was the other way around?”
“It goes both ways, actually,” Sir Didymus, “Or at least, that’s how it works in the Underground.”
While he was talking, the Goblin King tossed a crystal into the air, and suddenly the three of them were in front of the Goblin City Library in a shower of glitter.
“I figured you needed time to rest instead of train,” said Jareth as he ushered the knight and his Champion into the library’s massive entrance archway, “A visit to Reginald may suffice.”
“My King! Sir Didymus! Champion!” They heard a booming voice greet them as soon as they went inside the great building. Beyond the main foyer was a massive circular desk with a large black dragon sitting behind it.
“Reginald!” Sarah called happily. Her Underground friends always managed to make her feel better.
“Hello, my friends,” said the black dragon as he lowered his head to converse with them better, “What brings you all here today?”
“I thought our Champion could use a break from training for a bit,” smiled Jareth as he put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder, “Come, let us have tea.”
“Certainly, my king,” said the dragon while he carefully maneuvered his way out of his desk. Sarah giggled when she noticed that he was wearing a huge white bowtie and golden wire-rimmed glasses. If a dragon could pull off a stereotypical librarian look, it would be Reginald.
He led them into a room beside the main library that Sarah knew served as his home. Everything here was dragon-sized, from the large cozy cushions, to the coffee table, and even the enormous blazing fireplace. Reginald led them to one space in the room where there was a normal-sized dining table, and it almost looked comical compared to the other things in the area.
“It’s a pleasure to have you three visit again,” gushed Reginald as he took a steaming teapot from its perch near the fireplace and he used his large claws to painstakingly pour the tea into tiny teacups for them to use.
“Reginald, you literally saw us yesterday,” laughed Sarah as she took a sip from her cup, “Ooh! This one is good.”
“Thank you,” the dragon replied politely, “It’s my personal blend.”
“She was assaulted by the usual blasted bevy of witches that would give her a hard time in school,” said Didymus, “As a result, she wasn’t herself today during training. The King and I figured she needed rest and company for today.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” the black dragon tsked, “And I assume you didn’t fight back?”
“Oh I did,” said Sarah, and Jareth raised an eyebrow in response. “Verbally, that is,” she murmured with a sheepish grimace.
“Well, she can’t risk hurting them right?” The dragon replied thoughtfully while tapping a claw to his chin. “With her skill and strength, she may end up killing them.”
“You and Sarah have always been too kind for this world,” Jareth grumbled while he cradled his forehead into glove-clad fingers.
The dragon gave a hearty guffaw. “You misunderstand me, old friend. I’m merely worried about Dame Sarah accidentally killing them because they are in an open, populated space and there would be consequences if caught…” Then he trailed off meaningfully with a dangerous smirk which looked a lot more terrifying with his sharp teeth showing.
The Champion giggled and swatted at the dragon’s tail. “Not you too, Reginald, I’m fine! Honest!”
Suddenly, a small, dark-skinned boy burst in where they were staying while carrying a box which seemed to be full of Christmas decorations.
“Mr. Reginald! Mr. Reginald! I found the decorations which you said we will put in the circulation desk!” He said with an accented voice, then he turned to look at Jareth, Sir Didymus, and Sarah, then he bowed toward the king. “Hello, Goblin King.”
Sarah saw her friend give a sad smile and walk toward the boy. “Hello, young one,” he said while ruffling his hair, “You don’t have to do that. How are you?”
“The library’s awesome!” The boy replied, “And Mr. Reginald is so nice! He’s teaching me how to read, and he promised that when I learn how to read and do my numbers, I can be his assistant librarian! For now I’m helping him with the Yule decorations for his desk!”
“That’s good, that’s good,” the King said with a small smile, “Now run along now.”
The boy laughed and ran back into the doorway leading to the library.
“Who was that?” Sarah asked the Goblin King.
“A Wished-Away child by the name of Nyotu, from Africa. He was wished away to me a month ago.”
“Oh.” Sarah deflated. Even though she’d been friends with the Goblin King for more than a year now, she never broached the topic of the Wished-Aways since it was still a sore point for them both.
“Their village was attacked by a warlord who was seeking to expand his lands.” Reginald explained when he saw the look of disapproval on the Champion’s face. “His mother wished him away to Jareth as a last resort, and he took the child here to the Underground.”
“What–,” Sarah’s jaw dropped. “What happened to her?”
“She–,” Jareth choked, and were those tears? “--she took her dreams, and I tried my best to give her a peaceful death. She died, asleep and hidden when their house went up in flames, and not raped or mutilated like many of the other women in the village were.” He cleared his throat while the dragon patted him on the back. “This is one of the many times I wished that I could’ve done more to save her…”
“Why didn’t you?” Sarah asked. Her bullying problems seemed to become mundane in comparison.
“Every wish has a price, Sarah.” Sir Didymus answered for her. “When someone is wished away, Jareth has to offer the wisher their dreams or a Run through the Labyrinth. It’s how the Ancient Magic works.”
“But she got her dreams, shouldn’t she have escaped or stayed alive or something?”
“Dreams offered in the Aboveground are exactly just that, dreams,” explained Reginald as he poured Jareth another cup of tea, “They only last thirteen hours, and the wisher falls asleep to live them. When they wake up, things will become as they once were, save for the Wished-Away’s presence Aboveground.”
“So if I had taken my dreams…”
“...You would’ve slept for thirteen hours and Toby would’ve been missing forever from your world by the time you woke up.” Jareth finished for her. “Those are the rules. I can’t change them.”
“Why?” Sarah asked them.
“Magic is weak in the Aboveground,” Jareth shrugged, “However, if I were to offer a Runner’s dreams here, they WOULD come true even if they were to go back Aboveground, since the power of magic is strong here. And before you ask, no. I couldn’t have taken Nyotu’s mother with me here to save her or to give her her dreams permanently. The magic wouldn’t let me, since it needs to defend the Underground from Abovegrounders as well. Believe me, I wish I could.” He sighed before taking another sip from his tea.
“You offered me my dreams again during my Run,” Sarah asked the King. “Would those have come true?”
Jareth, Sir Didymus, and Reginald exchanged glances, then the dragon replied, “Yes, they would have. That is why it was seen as impossible to become Champion of the Labyrinth. It may come to pass that a Runner can solve the Labyrinth, like Jareth, but it was thought that no one would be able to resist the dreams that the King would offer to them. Until you came along, that is…”
“Oh,” said Sarah. This was a lot to take in. “Wow, I didn’t know that.”
“Things are not always what they seem,” chuckled Reginald. “Now, can we move on to happier things? If you are not going to train, then might as well have a lesson about other things, eh?”
“Yeah,” Sarah agreed, “I’m up for a History Lesson.”
“How about—,” Reginald bared his fangs in a mischievous grin, “-Let’s discuss the King of the Goblins, shall we?”
Sarah giggled. That was usually code for Let’s tell embarrassing stories about Jareth when he was younger.
“How about you give actual History lessons this time..” said King growled through gritted teeth.
“All right, all right,” said Reginald as he picked a book from the shelf beside the human-sized table. “Here. We’re going to have an actual lesson this time. As Champion, you need to learn about your King more. Specifically, how he came to be Goblin King. You up for it?”
Sarah shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”
“Excellent.”
“Please, no more embarrassing stories,” Jareth pleaded.
“I’ll try!” The dragon shot back, and they all laughed.