It's Only Forever

Lost

 "I'm pretty sure we're going around in circles..." Sarah said softly, looking at the familiar surroundings. Jareth gave her an annoyed look and she held her hands up in defense, "Not that I'm criticizing your sense of direction, but this Labyrinth is ever-changing."

"It shouldn't be changing so much that we're left in circles, though..." he muttered, looking around them with furrowed eyebrows. "If it had done this when you were finding your way through, then you would have never made your way to the castle."

She raised an eyebrow challengingly at him. "Are you just now telling me that I had it easy, and yet you still expected me to lose?"

"I didn't say that," he replied with slight irritation. "It was still hard, just not impossible."

"Oh..." she voiced thoughtfully, stopping to look at their surroundings in full. She hadn't been to this part of the Labyrinth before — except that they now seemed to be stuck in it.

Dark, spindly trees surrounded the path they were taking, and it only went around in a circle — by the direction they walked in — to the right. Torches stood on either side of the path, lighting the way. She looked to the left of the path, knowing that the trees to the right of the path would just be a circle of trees in the center of the circular path.

"What if we were to go off the path?" she suggested.

"Out of the question," Jareth replied curtly.

"Going into the Labyrinth was out of the question, too," she mumbled, thinking about how easy it had been to get in.

"And look at where it's left us."

He was still blaming her... unbelievable! "If it wasn't for me, we'd be stuck in the middle of the desert. Right now, we're in the midst of trees — which is infinitely better — and it's not your Labyrinth anymore. Whatever changes have been made by the new ruler, we can't just allow ourselves to continue being stuck in a circle that never ends."

"We also can't get stuck in the wilderness off of the path.... Sarah," he said, looking at her with his 'kingly' sense of authority. "I forbid it." He started to follow the path again, but Sarah stayed stock still, feeling as though she were being patronized with his demanding tone.

Sarah was eighteen — old enough to make her own decisions — and she wasn't about to let him continue to treat her as though she were a child who didn't know any better. Waiting until they made it to the center was starting to feel impossible when factoring in his pompous, imperious personality. She decided that if she was going to make it anywhere, she was going to make the decisions on her own... just like last time.

"You and I made a deal, that's true," she stated amiably, before glaring at the back of his skull with wild abandon. "But you only said that I'm to come live with you in the castle. That 'do as I say' spiel was the old deal that I turned down. As I told you before. You. Have. No. Power. Over. Me."

He stiffened, and turned around to look at her with pleading eyes. "Sarah, don't — Sarah!"

Without another moment's thought, she backed up into the surrounding forest and was instantly engulfed in darkness. Once her eyes adjusted, she looked around in surprise that she already couldn't see the path anymore. She walked forward to where it had been, but it was gone. Completely, utterly gone. Fear filled her as she looked around her. There was no light filtering in through the foliage of the trees, and the wildlife sounds seemed louder than before.

"Jareth!"

Her shout echoed through the trees, shaking some leaves and scaring a group of some strange-looking ravens out of their tree perches.