It's Only Forever

A New Deal

 She jumped to her feet in horror. An illusion! She was played like a puppet! Of course! Well, she wasn't under any sort of spell... at least, she better not be. "Jareth...!"

Jareth walked up to her from the deepest shadows of the room. The first time she'd seen him in three years, and he had the gall to smirk!

He still had that long, wild blonde hair, and wore the bedazzled outfit that he'd worn in the dream. It was black with sparkly blue fabric on the arms of his jacket, white ruffles from the neck down his chest, and blue and black jewels along his shoulders. The sickle shaped pendant hung around his neck as always.

"What do you want from me?" she asked coldly.

"My, Sarah, you act so hostile," he commented with a questioning tilt of his head. "Are you not happy to see me?"

"I wouldn't act in any other way after what you put me through.... But, you didn't answer my question. What do you want from me?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked, standing in front of her with an air of triumph in his gaze.

She raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously. "No..." she replied slowly.

He smiled mischievously, taking out a crystal and rolling it around in his hands. She hated how mesmerizing it was. She couldn't think straight when he did that — as evidenced by her past experience with him — and he obviously knew it enough to gladly exploit it.

"Sarah. What did I ask you the last time I saw you?"

She clenched her hands, remembering very clearly his last proposition:

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"Stop! Wait! Look, Sarah. Look at what I'm offering you," he took out a crystal and held it out to her. "Your dreams."

She continued, slowly recalling each word of the memorized speech as she spoke. "And my kingdom is great."

Jareth began getting desperate, his countenance a ray of panic against the brilliance of his bright white outfit. "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want."

Sarah paused, trying hard to remember the next line. That one line she always forgot. "Kingdom is great...damn! I can never remember that line."

Jareth looked nearly relieved by this as he said, "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave."

"My kingdom is great...my kingdom is great..." Suddenly, Sarah remembered it and looked up at Jareth triumphantly. "You have no power over me. You have no power over me!"

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"Oh, that...." One glance at her father and stepmother showed her that they were still under his spell. "But I'm sure you know that my answer is still 'no.' You have no power —"

He quickly cut her off. "It won't be any longer. See here, Sarah, I have your parents under my control. Everything about this ball has been an illusion... even the babysitter." Every bit of information was a stab to her chest. Toby.... How could she not have accounted for all the unrealistic ways in which her stepmother found everything in a short amount of time? She didn't doubt his involvement strongly enough....

"And..." he held out his crystal for her to look into it. "About last night.... You assumed correctly. I do have your.. friends." The way he'd said 'friends' sounded scathing, as though he didn't approve of her attachment to them. His comment was swiftly ignored as she gasped in horror at what she saw.

Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus, and Ambrosias were standing around in a thick, wooden cage, shaking it about and screaming to get out. Below them bubbled the Bog of Eternal Stench. Goblins were off to the side, holding the rope to keep them from falling in. It would've been comical that they were struggling to hold them up properly, Ludo's weight likely the reason they were having a hard time, if it wasn't for the possibility that dropping them would leave her friends with the stench of the bog on them for all eternity.

"You're horrible!" she bursted out. "You can't do this!"

"I just did," he said nonchalantly.

"But —"

"This ball did just what I wanted it to do. You changed your mind," Jareth explained, pointing a victorious finger at her. "And that shows exactly the amount of power I truly have over you... all the power in the world, Sarah."

She shook her head in denial, "N-no —"

"Every time you are alone," he disclosed, "you get so close to thinking about the decision you could have made back then. I have been there each time to push you in that direction, but you are always somehow able to pull away from it. Once I brought the Labyrinth into your surroundings, you began to open up even further... and now you're mine."

She backed away from him, mentally beating herself up for allowing herself the liberty of believing that her thoughts were all her own. "You can't do that. Why can't you just leave me alone? Just — just let them all go and leave me alone. I'm not going anywhere with you!"

He didn't answer right away. Instead, he rolled the crystal ball around in his hands again, looking at her with those eyes that pierced her soul.

"Did you hear me?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"Put it this way, Sarah:" he said calmly, walking around her almost as though it were an interrogation. "The more you resist and reject me, the more you force my hand. Choose wisely; either way, I win." Jareth gave a knowing smirk as he made it all the way around to stand before her again, infuriating her even further.

Her chances of leading a normal life were going down the drain, and far too quickly for her brain to catch up."How — how about a deal?"

He shook his head, chuckling. "No more remembering lines from a book to help you deal with me, Sarah. I want you to be my queen. So here's the only deal I'll offer; come with me. Live in my castle at the center of the Labyrinth with me, and I will allow for life to go on as normal for this family of yours."

She shifted her gaze from him to look at the crystal warily. "And... and save my friends from the Bog of Eternal Stench?"

Jareth smiled encouragingly, "Of course."

Sarah took a deep breath. She did not want to do this... after all this, was she really about to go back to the Labyrinth, and stay there? But.... well, what else could she do? If she wouldn't be able to say the line that used to save her from him just because her mind was thinking something else... 'then again, how would Jareth know that?'

"Just don't intrude in my private thoughts again," she mumbled. He went to stand in front of her, and held out the crystal.

"Do we have a deal?"

She glared at him, though knowing the action wouldn't help her in the least. He continued waiting. 'Since when did he get over his impatient nature?'

"Deal," she finally said, her hand shaking as she took the crystal from him and held it out before her. She gasped as it turned into a bronze ring with a topaz-colored rock on top of it... the ring she'd given away three years ago in the Labyrinth.

Around her, the party started up once again, and she numbly watched as Jareth made his way through the crowd to speak with her parents.