Exchange Fic #1: Haggard
Mod note: I know everyone wants to rush and read the first fic, but please read this first if you haven't already done so. Thank you, and enjoy. :)
DM
The actual identity of the writer will remain secret until all the submissions are in and posted.
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Title: Haggard
Author: wellhollywould
Recipient: rikkitsune
Prompt: Sarah sneaks into the Labyrinth and takes the form of an animal, which incidentally becomes the King's pet. What is Sarah's agenda? How did she become an animal anyway? And how does Jareth not know it's her? So many questions...
Rating: R: For ungraphic sex and implied naughties
Author’s Note: Kay, first an apology which is never a good way to begin anything. The last line of the prompt got me thinking, also never a good way to begin anything. We, as readers, get to know EVERYTHING about a story. Seriously, we know why this person did that, and why this person got cursed and exactly what it took to break the spell. It occurred to me… did any of the fairytale characters every REALLY know what was going on in their stories as they lived them? Maybe it was just some crazy circumstance that culminated in Happily Every After complete with dreamy Prince and a pouf-y wedding gown. So I wrote this piece in a choppy way, without answering barely anything to try and make it more like how they would really feel through it. But seriously, this isn’t a way to avoid writing more….
Honest.
hag·gard (hag′ərd)
adjective
3. Falconry designating a hawk captured after reaching maturity
4. untamed; unruly; wild
The king lay dying. Around his bed there streamed long swatches of fabric that rustled in the breeze from the open balcony doors. For many months the assorted castle henchmen were under strict orders, with painful consequences, to never, EVER shut those doors.
Though some of the castle servants and guests suspected that the king was dying because of such a request, those of his inner council knew otherwise. King Jareth of the Labyrinth was not dying of natural causes; his death was being hastened along by another. There, lying across the king like a serpent was the king’s newest pet; trailing her claws over the Kings sallow, thin chest, tickling his neck with her mane of feathers.
And tonight, much like every night since she arrived, she opened her mouth and began to sing. The haunting, mechanical melody was beautiful, terrible, and completely soulless. As the sun slipped beneath the cliffs of the Underground, painting the sky with violent blood-red and vivid orange, the king drew in his last, shaky breath.
One year, six months earlier:
The hawk was jessed, hooded, tied to a show stand and even had a jacket of leather wrapped around her delicate wings. Jareth was impressed. If the Lord of the Hunt, Cernunnos, needed to bind a wild hawks wings, than she truly was untamable.
He was interested now. This may be interesting.
“Come, my Lord, surely you jest.” The scoffing nature of his tone hid his interest as he motioned to the beautiful haggard thus bound. “She cannot be so terrifying that you need to-Gah!”
Jareth’s boastful words were cut short when his hand came dangerously near to the hawk’s beak-and was duly reprimanded. Eyes narrowed, the King of the Goblins brought his scolded fingers up and eyed the deep red impressions. If not for the hood, she would have made him bleed. Not that it would have been permanent, for here in his realm there was little that could do permanent damage.
“Pride comes before the fall, my liege.” Cernunnos reminded the king. Jareth acknowledged this with an absent nod, but continued to study the hawk. There was something familiar about her. The lord of the Forrest skirted the hawk to stand beside the capricious fey. Now Jareth viewed the druid god critically. Few times had Cernunnos come to Jareth, not since that debacle with the Huntsman’s illegitimate daughter .Jareth allowed a malicious smirk to paint his lips.
That had certainly been a fine trick.
Still, despite the animosity of that encounter, their meetings since then had been civil, if brief. A gift to the fey, such as one of an ‘untamable’ hawk, was a challenge that most fey would savor and enjoy. Jareth could recall doing nothing for Cernunnos that would produce such a gift. It was something to be cautious with.
“A fine gift, my lord.” He responded politely in the proper fashion, meaning one did not thank Cernnunos in any way. Only a fool would tempt fate in such a manner.
“More like, what do the humans call it… spring cleaning?” Cernunnos shrugged a shoulder and tossed his heavily antlered head. Black, inhuman eyes twinkled in a disturbing manner. “This one has been cluttering up my greenhouse for weeks.”
“You could have just released her.” Jareth idly offered. Cernunnos snorted and shifted. He was becoming uncomfortable in the open, developed courtyard. Many wild things chafed when confronted with certain parts of Jareth’s land, at times even the king himself.
“The lord of the hunt, release his prey? Never.” Despite the arrogance of the words, the tone was tired, ancient. Jareth filed this weakness away in his mind. Something was making this old god feel his age. “Do you accept her?”
“The terms?” One of the greatest follies of dealing with fey and other such creatures is that nothing was free, not even a gift. The Lord looked back to the dark forest, which crouched like a beast in the distance.
“She must be the only female in your life,” was his answer. Jareth grinned. He was known for his promiscuity, and his prowess in the bed chamber. Apparently these rumors had slipped into the Princess of the Forests’ young ears and she, newly of the age where they had a certain appeal, was interested.
Finally Jareth saw the reason for the gift. Still, an untamable hawk was certainly more interesting than a consort, and infinitely less likely to set her covetous eyes on becoming the next Queen. He could certainly idle the next twenty or thirty years with her, until the hawks death. Such an amount of time was nothing to him.
“I accept.”
The duo clasped hands, Jareth managing to meet the hoofed God’s gaze levelly despite Cernunno’s height advantage. With a wicked smile on his fanged mouth the Hunter Lord loped into the forest nearby, his laughter trailing behind him.
“Now, my beauty, let’s begin.” Jareth said softly, his voice dark like liquid onyx. The hawk trembled in response.
~_*_~
Sarah was bound in the dark. She felt the leather straps tightly about her limbs, the gag on her mouth stopping any noise from escaping. The dark was soft, warm and welcoming, like water, like the sea, but she was scared.
-and angry. Very, very angry.
“Ah, here you are, so ready for me my sweet.” His voice slipped across her skin like butter, warming her from the inside out. It echoed here, so she was unsure to where he was. The effect was like a drug and caffeine at the same time. Her body was relaxed, content, while her mind flitted around like a butterfly seeking purchase on a slick wall.
She jumped when a leather gloved hand cupped her shoulder, and then strained away from it. The touch held no malice, no pain but it could so easily tear her to pieces. It was the threat of violence that stilled her.
“You are so beautiful my sweet, so very precious.” He murmured, and pressed his full body against her back. Constrained as she was, Sarah could not get away, and before long the drugging heat he radiated sunk into her, and silenced her protestations. She could hear the smile in his voice as he responded to her relaxing. “There’s my girl, my lady. Trust in me, allow me to rule you. Only through my mastery will you gain freedom.”
His choice of words was his undoing.
With a screech of rage she broke free of him and wildly careened about. Her mind was filled with thoughts of escape, but not with logic. The blindfold and the jesses took their toll as she slammed into the unmercifully hard stone wall mere seconds after she achieved her freedom. As Sarah fell down, scraping her delicate feathers on the rough stone and landing with a surprisingly light thump, she cursed many things beginning, as was proper, with the Hag and ending with his royal Pain in the Highness.
~_*_~
Their next encounter was no better. Sarah couldn’t judge time in this hawk form like her human form used too, in fact she could barely tell whether it was night or day. After four or five days and nights she began to lose track. Eventually she stopped counting the lost time. It was over, it was done, and there was no going back.
However, she did understand the seasons. Her particular ‘transaction’ had happened late spring when she could smell the baby rabbits venturing from their dens, thick cool mud and the coming rain. Now it was early summer. The air was perfumed heavily with flowers and sun-warmed grass. Even in the stone tower she was in she could smell it. In this span of time her missing feathers had grown back, and it was this evening, as the sun set with a kind of heedless magnificence in the west, that the wooden door to her tower swung open and in stepped the Goblin King.
Sarah, calmer now she perched far above him by the open caged roof, cocked her head and studied him. He had not changed. His pale hair was still fly-away, his clothing favoring the dark colors. With her hawk vision she could not differentiate between particular hues, but she gained a certain way of ‘feeling’ colors. His simple, yet ornate costume this evening, consisting of a pirate-shirt, tight breeches and short cape, felt like the hushed shadows of dawn; dim and cool with promises of the gilded sun.
“Good evening my beauty. Will you not come down and join me for your repast?” He motioned toward a silver platter which held an array of succulent lean meats. The past season, what she had come to call any span of time she could not measure, the shallow dish had offered meat magically whenever hunger beckoned. After another moment of staring Sarah glided gracefully down the tower to perch at eye level with the King.
She had come to realize that while she never would escape this form, there was no reason not to escape Him. He had captured her dreams, stole her brother, held her lusts hostage as she aged and had even contributed to her current state. She would not, could not, give him anything else. However, one did not get their chance to flee by hiding away. If he wanted a bird to tame, she would be tamed.
-at least until she could slip her leash, as it was, and finally fly free. Maybe leave him a little something to remember her by. Sarah enjoyed the vision of Jareth’s soon-to-be-shocked face, bleeding from a swipe of her talons.
“What can you possibly be thinking of that causes so much amusement?” Jareth wondered aloud, watching her. Sarah reigned herself in. He was fey, why wouldn’t he be able to read her emotions? Jareth smiled slowly, the cruel curve of his lips entrancing her for a moment. How could someone so terribly beautiful be so.,. terrible?
She flittered down again, until she managed to reach the dish’s perch. Her golden eyes never left Jareth’s as he followed her, kneeled in the dirty hay and held out a slender piece of red meat from his ungloved hand. Sarah, a creature of whim now, could not help the spark of ire that flinted up and caused her to snap out and snatch the treat, clipping the king’s vulnerable hand with her sharp beak. He winced, but easily smiled after a moment, his eyes almost… prideful?
“There is my lady,” He murmured in that sinful voice, before he licked the shockingly red blood from his pale hand with a quickly darting tongue. “-always strike the first blow. Another bite?”
Again he held his wounded hand out, with another sliver of tender meat. Sarah lowered her head and glared at him as all the rage built in her breast.
Yes, she’d have another BITE.
~_*_~
Another season had passed, and with its passing swept away most of Sarah’s fiery rage. She couldn’t say she was sorry to see it go, either, for while it gave her the strength to survive her transformation, her capture by the antler-hunter and her imprisonment by her old foe, it also tired her terribly. Now, despite her altered form and the knowledge that she would remain beaked and feathered for the rest of her life, she was actually starting to… enjoy herself. Jareth was a good companion.
No that was her grudging admission. Jareth was a great companion. He was clever and witty, and never treated her as he ought to. As one might treat a bird, that was. No, he talked with her about his day to day life, slyly told amusing anecdotes about the court, and even asked her opinion on things that troubled him. The conversation was decidedly one-sided, but for the first time in five years, Sarah felt a little bit… human.
It was again time to greet him, as she had begun to, by meeting him at the door and perching on his shoulder. The first time she did it was automatic; he was so terrible easy to perch on, with the width of his shoulders almost an exact match for her size. At the time she imagined she was more surprised by her actions that he was. After getting over the shock of landing on his one-armored shoulder she brazened it out, and was rewarded with his husky, velvet chuckle.
She had been doing a lot of things now-a-days, to hear that chuckle. It worried her a bit, until her hawk-mind did away with the human-like-thoughts.
This evening was no different, with Jareth striding into her tower and cocking his head slightly. She gracefully glided down and settled in-only to jump when he lifted a leather braced forearm just in front of her. Sarah pecked him lightly, ducking to catch his finger in her sharp beak and then released him. She did not like him messing with her routine.
“Now, now, Lady,” He tut-tutted softly, in that smooth whisky tone he used with her. “Just because something is unexpected does not mean that it is bad.”
She paused a moment to think on this, and then agreed, before stepping regally onto his wrist. He gave her that soft wicked smile, before he abruptly turned and stepped back out the door. Sarah jerked, and then opened her wings in shock. Jareth’s arm was perfectly steady of course, but she was suddenly, shockingly, outside and it was open and free, and the air moved. This was more than unexpected, it was flabbergasting.
“Calm, my beauty, my lady.” Jareth murmured, his ungloved hand stroking her feathers. Sarah waffled a bit on his arm before scooting closer to his head for the shelter. She was so used to the comfort of her tower, so used to the limitations of the walls that being thrust into open air nearly made her keel over and fall to the King’s booted feet.
It was many moments later, after Jareth had coddled, coaxed and whispered nonsense to her over and over that she was calmed enough to steady herself. Then it occurred to her. She was outside. SHE was OUTSIDE!
Immediately she took off, digging her talons into Jareth’s leather cuff in her haste to be gone. She pounded her wings as hard as she could and beat the air into submission. At the apex of her flight she stretched her wings to their full extent, gloried in the play and burn of muscle long unused, and glided in the sultry late-summer air. She could smell everything, from the rabbits down below to the eagle that had come before her. Sharp-eyed, she spotted the rabbit giving off such enticing scents and swooped in low. Her aim was perfect, her dinner was delicious, and she was still free.
It was hours later, as one can measure hours, that she began to come down both literally and figuratively from her heights. The evening had moved on, and dusky twilight fell upon the Labyrinth. Sarah soared from the forest and over the pale gold maze of stone walls, ruminating on her past. The dimming light cast shadows throughout the scene, hiding the Labyrinth’s secrets even now, when she wasn’t the hero, or the villain, or hell, even a main character any more. She felt amusement over this. Years of playing the heroine, of angst and drama and she was given her final casting of ‘Supporting Character’. There was an irony in that.
As she flew her memories came to her, slowly at first, but then with more regularity. The hawk’s form was a powerful one, but it was only flying that Sarah remembered truly who she was.
It must have been years ago, but she had already established the fickle nature of her new form’s way of counting time. There was no way to know for sure. She could recall bits and pieces of her life, of high school and prom, of kissing boys and dating men. She, of course, remembered every moment of the Labyrinth, of Jareth, but that was their nature, wasn’t it? One couldn’t imagine a being such as the Goblin king ALLOWING someone to forget even a moment of time in their presence.
Then afterward, but most of that was lost in the first few seasons of giving herself to the hawk. She could hardly recall the beginning; because she had allowed her hawk-mind to take over so much… she had lost so much time and so many memories… Sarah could barely even imagine the girl she used to be. As she flew over the land of dreams, the forbidding and terribly beautiful scene-scape of the Labyrinth, Sarah remembered her end.
There was a young and pretty Hag, and they spoke of radishes. She recalled that, perhaps because it was such an odd memory. There was laughter, and tea, and a cabin in the woods. Bay leaves in a stew thick with vegetables, mint tea, and the roaring fire. She recalled a sleep that was interrupted by a deep seductive voice that lulled and abraded her ears and the young Hags sharp voice fading into soft moans. There was the light drenching the kitchen in butter yellow and the pale, shadowed eyes of the Hag the next morning. There was a serious talk, and then the knowing eyes of the Hag as she stared into Sarah’s tea-cup.
Then she was Hawk. The Hag caged her and spoke to her, but she was too frightened to understand, and to even begin to remember her native tongue. Her memories lapsed into a series of feelings, colors and tastes, which lasted for a long, long time.
Sarah swooped down and back, and began the return trip to him. She knew where she was going when she left, even if she didn’t acknowledge it until now. Whether it was the solitude of the forest that curdled her stomach, or the thought of life without her cruel and clever king, she didn’t really know. All she knew was that Hawk-Sarah, the only Sarah that really existed outside of these little trips down memory lane, wanted to be near the vainglorious, magnetic, and powerful Jareth. Therefore, she would be.
It was simple to be a hawk, and so much easier.
When she crested the hill of the castle, and followed the leather and magic smell that drifted so seductively from her King’s very skin, she found his balcony doors wide open. The King himself stood there, arms braced against the marble balustrade, tension visible in his every line. Once the darkness parted enough to reveal her form, he relaxed, and watched her lazily as she sifted lower and lower, before landing beside him. He wore a loose fitting, soft robe that felt like a garden on the cusp of spring to her sixth sense, and his smile, when he turned it on her, was one of complete happiness.
“You came back.” He said, not a question or even a command, but a revelation. Sarah cocked her head and him and then lifted off to fly into the bedroom, where she made herself comfortable on his four-poster emperor sized bed. Jareth’s chuckle followed her.
The next four months flew by on gilded wings. Sarah found herself more and more in the presence of the King. His actions, gestures and voice brought more Sarah forward and soothed the Hawk into allowing the human to surface. She remembered her favorite foods while she surveyed his kingdom from his shoulder, recalled what Toby looked like during a particularly fervent argument the King had with a visiting dignitary. Once, while watching Jareth preen before the mirror (A moment he allowed himself every morning, and after the first initial feeling of disgust for his Narcissus like tendency Sarah had to admit, he did look good enough to warrant it) she began to think like Sarah again, and once that began it kept going.
The problem arose one evening, while Sarah watched with fascination as Jareth slept. His skin was milk-white, dusted with the glitter that seemed to be as much a part of this realm as the sky and the water, his hair a golden mane spread out on pillows ashamed to call themselves silk in contrast. He was beautiful, more so when asleep because he lost the cocky, amused look he usually donned that caused an initial and instinctual dislike in Sarah. His face was all pitiless angles, with the odd curve to distinguish, such as his bottom lip, the arch of his brow all of which came together in a medley that entranced anyone. Her hawk-breast warmed and began to flutter, reaching a pitch that was painful and she realized with dawning horror that she had gone and fallen in love with him.
Sarah stiffened and fell off the precarious perch to land with a thump on the rug strewn floor.
Love! She squawked in an undignified manner and began to frantically flap her wings to right herself. This would have been a humiliation bearable if only Jareth had not been such a light sleeper. Within seconds he was up, all soft and tumbled from rising so quickly.
“My beauty, are you well?” He asked, his voice sending shivers through her skin.
He was staring at her with those blue, blue mixed-matched eyes and then he stood to come toward her. Sarah pin wheeled awkwardly and crab crawled away as fast she could. She managed to make it to a chair and scuttled under it, her tiny heart beating a fierce tattoo in her ears.
“My lady? My beauty, come out.” He followed her, not a hard thing to do since when she fell she managed to tangle in a swatch of fabric. This piece had trailed behind her and now lay trembling slightly from her own shivers, pointed like an arrow to where she hid. Soon he was peering at her, his lips curved up wickedly, and then he cocked a brow. “Did you by any chance, fall from your perch?”
Sarah felt anger, one of the emotions her hawk felt even fiercer than she did, rise up. His voice was low and mocking, much like he had used in the past. ‘-and how are you enjoying my Labyrinth?’ Sarah hissed at him and shook the fabric off her wing. His chuckled, that damn velvety laugh that melted her like butter, filled the air around her and his hand quickly followed, gently cupping her breast in his palm. Sarah froze, wrath melting into desire within seconds.
“Fear not, my Lady, I shall never tell a soul about your fall. Consider it un-happened.” He brought her to eye-level and smirked. “After all, I am the King. I can reorder time and move the stars.” For a moment his smile fell off his lips a little as their eyes
locked. She saw something there, something familiar and strong… but it was gone quickly. He brought her with long strides to his bed. Once settled in he set her on the pillow next to him. Sarah sunk into the bed, so soft even her slight weight dented it.
“You’ll never have to fall again, my beauty.” He murmured finally, stroking her back as he slipped into sleep.
And Sarah, fool that she was, believed him.
The day Sarah left him was nothing like any of the others. As the months passed since the night she fell off her perch and into a one-sided, doomed love, Sarah slept in the bed with the King. She went on tours with the King. They presided over the Labyrinth together. They ate together, spoke together, even read together. The goblins would frequently find Jareth reading aloud to the hawk, which seemed to laugh with her whole body at times. The hawk was soon called Lady around the castle, both by Jareth and by his subjects. They were never apart for long.
Sarah had accepted her lot in life when she was condemned to spend the rest of her life as a hawk. She was equally pragmatic about her love for the undying king of the Labyrinth. Her heart might beat so much it hurt in her chest to see him smile, and she might cuddle next to him at night, but that wouldn’t stop her from making sure he never wore that puce-sequined double-breasted doublet again, firmly stating her opinion with a well-aimed ‘bird-bomb’ from above. She was not too in love to check the king when need be.
On the morning in question Sarah awoke to find Jareth staring at her, that familiar look in his eyes again and pain creasing his mouth. The look and the pain disappeared in moments but the tension remained all day. The odd feeling left her tense and irritable, and by the time she settled back in her spot on the bed she was firmly in a bad mood.
Jareth burst through the doors, his double breasted coat (NOT puce) unbuttoned and hanging at his sides, his breeches also half-undone and his mind apparently mimicking his fashion statement. He met her eyes and strode toward the bed.
“Why not?!” He demanded. “Why can I not have what I want? The witches turn princes into frogs’ every day.”
Sarah jumped and scuttled back as Jareth leveled the full power of his fury in her direction. He continued, stripping off his coat and was suddenly, shockingly, bare-chested.
“Why can I not have this? Is there perversion in a fey loving a human? They are not even remotely the same species.” Jareth lowered his head and snarled, looking more inhuman than ever. “I will have this. I want it.”
Then he raised his hand, and with a twist of his wrist held a clear crystal ball. Sarah froze. Magic.
‘I cannot turn you back Sarah dearest, if you wish to turn human again you must-‘
The voice of the pretty Hag disappeared as quickly as it came to her, for without warning Jareth held nothing, and her body began to burn. Then ache, and then the pain screamed through her form and she stretched longer and longer. She was gone, gone forever…and she was back. Her hair was heavy on her head, long, thicker, and her skin was so delicate and cold without feathers to cover it. But she was becoming human! She was turning back…
Sarah felt tears, real tears in her eyes. She never imagined she would be human again, never imagined that she would ever be anything but a hawk! But here she was and within seconds she would be herself again. She would explain to Jareth what happened and demand to stay with him.
As her future coalesced into a beautiful shining possibility, Jareth suddenly snarled fiercely and like a released rubber band she was a hawk again.
No.
No!
She was so close, so close! Sarah screamed in rage, over and over again, and fell back over her talons, over her feathers, which she began pulling out by the beak-full. No! No! The tiny flame of hope, sparked by love and that incessant belief in those damned Fairy Tales, was stomped out utterly, gone.
She would never be free again.
“My beauty, I am sorry! Don’t, please!” Jareth cupped her in his hands, gently pulling her beak from her feathers. Jareth, who never kneeled but fell to his knees the first night he met her, Jareth, who never begged but begged HER. Sarah screamed in pain, in rage, for what was lost and what never would be. She rose up, a flaming phoenix in her wrath and sliced his cheek open with one blow of her talons, before taking off, up into the air and through the windows and gone.
Forever.
~_*_~
Imagine for a moment, that you were immortal. Ah, eternal life, eternal youth. A sweet wine, is it not? Now age that wine a few millennia in an inherited responsibility, woven with the subtle scents of power, magic and a dark, dark temper that rivals that of jealous Hera. However, this intoxicating brew develops an aftertaste, a lingering flavor of ennui that taints the palate with a bitter tone.
The problem wasn’t the addictive wine that was eternal life, as Jareth used to think, the problem was the terribly mortal span of one’s attention. He theorized that if an immortal had immortal emotions, ones that never weakened, or faded, or even died, life would be as sweet as the first bite from a ripe, cold pear. Unfortunately, interest, lust and even contentment were all doomed to die, sometimes in a single hour; other times a slow, drawn out death.
He had never thought that his careless wish for immortal emotions would be so gods-be-damned painful. He let out a cold, mirthless chuckle into the empty room. Be careful what you wish for.
He sat sprawled, a study of angles, on his throne, waiting with dull impatience for his guest to arrive-and depart. He was in no mood for company, and this sent a dark pall over the Labyrinth. Clouds hung, pregnant with impending storms, over a Labyrinth full of darker-than-dark shadows, and corners that cut like knives.
In stepped horned Cernunnos, the origin of his rage, bringer of his joy. The irony lent him strength enough to bare a sharp, mirthless smile to the hunter god.
“Again you come to me, Great Cernunnos. Again you bare me a gift. I’m beginning to get a little suspicious of your goodwill.” Jareth sneered with barely concealed hostility. Cernnunos inclined his head.
“I bear not a gift this time, great King, but a curse” He answered evenly. Jareth, in the midst of sinking lower into his gilt throne, was stayed. His interest was piqued. Cernunnos recognized the gleam in the monarch’s eyes, a gleam that had been absent for at least a month, ever since the Lady hawk took wing. He nodded “A curse, yes. A harpy of sorts, whose very presence is an affront to all those who live.”
At his words a great cage was brought in, gilded and beautiful, and inside sat a creature the personified blasphemy. She was female, for all he could tell, and beautiful, a macabre mix of bird and woman-and machine. Yes, she was composed of a mixture of fowl, human flesh and strange devices set into her skin, with gears that moved and emitted a strange ticking sound. Jareth could tell, even at where he sat, that the metal was iron. He was instantly repulsed, and entranced. Her wide, dull-grey eyes met his, empty of anything that remotely resembled anything he knew, strange and alien in her pretty face. Cernunnos nodded again, and gestured, at which point the fetch opened her mouth and sang.
Emptiness. Hollowness. The absence of life, joy, or hatred. A perfect void that struck him deep to the core with a remarkable feeling of pain that blotted out, eclipsed entirely, anything else he felt. He could not see, or feel, or taste or hear anything but that beautiful, terrible melody the sundered his soul.
When she at last ceased that horrific sound he was slumped to his knees at the foot of his throne, panting. Feel rushed back into his aching limbs, into his mind as he collected himself. She was the absence of feeling and though the pain he just experienced was even beyond his far-reaching ken, he…he…
-he wanted more.
“What are your terms?” He rasped, even now craving the nothingness that came with her sweet, poisonous song. Cernunnos shook his head and leveled a pitying look at the once great and powerful king.
“Ah, my lord-” He finally said, backing away. “This terrible price is one you already paid.”
But Jareth paid him no mind, instead he took the key held out in trembling fingers to him, and dismissed them with an absent wave.
~_*_~
Two months passed. Two months in which the snake of a golem wormed her way out of the menagerie, and into the king’s bedchamber. Two months in which the king became paler than milk, gaunt and black-eyed, two months that passed in dreadful silence, save for the brief order, or the horrendous song the bird-woman sang at night. The goblins had taken to leaving the castle by the third night, when one of their own was found near the king’s bedchamber door, frozen, curled into himself, and stone cold dead.
Meanwhile, far away, as far as, say, a well-fed female hawk could fly in a little less than two months, sat a hut on the edge of the forest. This was not Underground land, although it bordered it. In fact, this land bordered many lands, too many to logically fit, but logic rarely intruded upon this grove.
In the hut lived a woman, just entering her thirties, much as she’d been for the past three hundred years. Time moved differently here. She had paler brown hair, dishwater brown, as some might say, and grayish-blue eyes, but her clothes were clean and she held herself with a king of wistful irony that made most smile without even knowing why they did so.
At this very moment she was pulling up a bucket from the well, when the sharp shadow of a hawk swooped in and landed, quite ungracefully, in the budding carrot bed.
“Ah, there you are Sarah, I had wondered where you’d gotten off too.” The young Hag said easily, lugging the bucket the last few feet and unhooking it. The hawk blearily acknowledged her, and the hag’s easy-going, wry smile disappeared. “Oh dear. What happened?”
Sarah was dull and fuzzy and didn’t know why but she hurt everywhere. The familiar face gazed into her eyes and suddenly the last year unfolded before her mind like a flip-book, at super-speed. She knew without a doubt that the hag was aware of this, watching the little drama unfold like a soap opera, and a shadow of the fiery temper sparked… and then blew out. She didn’t have the energy.
“Damn Cernunnos.” The Hag hissed. “Doesn’t have the sense given to a plague-bearing rat.”
Apparently, the young Hag had more than enough energy to spare.
The hawk-Sarah ignored her as the Hag began ranting to herself, fetching the pail and collecting Sarah from her crumpled position in the neat rows of garden vegetables. Human speech was harder to understand now. The hawk-Sarah flinched at being picked up, but in the end tiredness won and she drifted to sleep on a pillow not half as soft as another pillow, one she dreamt about sometimes but somehow hated.
It took another precious week to extract Sarah from the Hawk, moments dripping like diamonds down a drain. Every second wasted ruined a new future-path, leaving the easiest roads un-trod. The last few paths to happiness were coming up quickly, and if Sarah didn’t respond soon all of the Hags’ careful planning would be unraveled. She could hardly begin again. How often, after all, did ancient fey overlords fall madly in love with sensible humans?
Spiritual healing took time, however, and a job rushed was a job ruined, as one could see from Cernunnos’ meddling. The time finally arrived, ploddingly, reluctantly, but in the end it finally came. Time moved differently here, as she had noted before.
The hawk was perched in a sapling nearby the garden, preening her glossy feathers and waiting. The Hag approached and weighed her words carefully. Finely admitting defeat in trying to tactfully bring the subject up, the Hag just dove in.
“The king of the Labyrinth is dead.”
Sarah’s head jerked up, and cocked to the side as she danced about on her branch.
“Well, as good as dead. In fact he will die this evening, when the harpy destroys the last of his life essence. She sings death you know. Hardly surprising really, since she’s not technically alive.” The last was an after-though, murmured by the Hag as she gazed into the distance, an odd look on her face.
Sarah waited for another long moment, and when the hag didn’t go any further she tossed herself off the branch and landed precariously on the Hag’s shoulder. Her talons dug in deep and the hag jerked in response. After a moment painful-for the hag, and unstable-for Sarah, they achieved a balance. Sarah nipped at the Hag’s ear when she stopped jumping about and the Hag snorted.
“What? Oh yes. The King is going to die tonight, after six months of listening to the Siren song of the harpy fetch. There’s nothing you can do, Sarah, he is too far from here for you to reach, and I am speaking both in the physical and the metaphysical sense. Sarah?” The hag turned to where the hawk had launched herself. There was only a little black dot in the sky, still receding quickly. The Hag smiled slowly. “Fly like the wind, Sarah, and good luck.”
~_*_~
The walls of the Labyrinth were crumbling, falling in on themselves, rotting from the center out. The king was dead, and his kingdom followed him. Inside the royal bedchamber, a fetch, a mechanical creature made from flesh, feathers and iron, bent over the still form, jaws unhinged to feast on the magical tissue. She hadn’t been fed in centuries, and the previous feast that sustained her form was weakening.
She wasn’t evil, however, just a simulacrum, a golem created for some unknown purpose and left alone ever since. She was merely doing what she must to survive.
Sarah didn’t care though.
She flew through the open balcony doors, doors that had remained open for her, twenty-six hours a day for months, and attacked. A full grown female hawk is a fearsome thing to behold. In flight she is an awe-inspiring predator, all sharp beak, long talons and cruelly beating wings. The fetch, a simple thing, in the end had no chance. Sarah reduced her to the parts she was, and in the end perched, gloriously stained in the oily red blood of her victim.
The blood began to burn, to fester, and eat away at her feathers. Despite the adrenaline rushing through her hawk-body, Sarah could not get it off her, and she fell, once again. The burn slipped through feather, through skin, parted muscle like the sea and tore through bone like tissue paper. She had never felt this much pain, it consumed her thoughts.
The last moment, the pain ebbed enough for her to appreciate the irony of dying, spread over the body of her king. Their arms were outstretched in a similar fashion, their hair intertwined like tendrils of night greedily devouring the sun; it was quite pretty when she thought about it-
-and holy god she was human!
Sarah sat up, all pale pink-and-white flesh and lengthy, a-tumble black locks, with ten fingers, ten toes, and long, long legs that trembled beneath her. Marveling she stared at hands she barely remembered how to use, at peachy nails too long and hard to be considered exactly human, and was amazed.
“The fetch.” She whispered, shocking herself with the rough, harshness of a voice unused for… well, years, at least. A creature made to feed on magic, whose very blood was starved for its share… it made sense in a fairytale kind of way, and Sarah was in no mood to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Magic.
“Jareth.” The word was even harsher, hushed and accusing, as her eyes found him on the bed. His skin was still perfect, a white whiter than even her skin, hair like newly mint coins and he was so, so still.
No. She refused to believe it. Uncoordinated, gawky and trembling with exhaustion, Sarah climbed over to him, and then straddled his chest. She was naked. She didn’t care. Her fingers dug into his shoulders where she gripped him and she shook him once, twice, and again.
“Wake up! Wake up your irritating, peacock of a villain you!” She began speaking, fast and uncaring of what words decided to leap from her mind to her tongue. “Wake up you worthless creature! Aren’t you going to open your eyes and smirk, an infuriating retort on your lips? You’re going to let a little thing like death bring down the great Goblin king? Wake up! Now!”
She was crying, the tears running down her face, but she was snarling as well. How dare he! She slapped him across the face, and then again sharp nails scouring three lines of blood right where she had scored a hit before, so long ago, in a another form.
“That is twice.” Came the soft, dry voice she knew and hated and loved so well. “-twice that you have struck my personage. Can I perhaps take the liberty of asking the name of my abuser? Or shall you just hit me again?”
Sarah pulled back, misjudged her new form and went even further, almost over the edge, before his thin, almost too thin, hand caught her and pulled her up. Not into his arms, no, but at least he didn’t let her fall. That was a start. His miss-matched eyes studied her face, a frown enhancing his lean features.
“I know you from somewhere… Oh. Its you.: His lip curled as he skimmed her thick black hair with his eyes. “The whiner. Come to wish away another brother? Or perhaps your son now? I haven’t a head for dates, has it really been that long? Come, come, now, speak. I can hardly wait to hear exactly how you got into my-“
The cutting comment stopped when his eyes met hers. And he knew. Immediately, surprisingly, without hesitation, he knew her. Sarah was beyond thinking at this moment, she couldn’t even react. His hand traced her chin.
“How? Have you… has this been you the whole time…?” He asked, his hand twining itself in her hair. “My Lady, how is it that you could hide this from me?”
“It’s-” She began, and swallowed the dryness in her throat, “-a long story. There was a Hag, and a cottage, and radishes, and a cage and can’t it be over? Can’t we be kissing right now?”
The first move was lost, for suddenly she was in his arms, whether he pulled her or she dove it really didn’t matter did it? They were intertwined on the bed, kissing and touching and together, in their true forms. The how’s and the whys could wait, they always could, and in the end, who needed to know?
“Lady, darling, as…er… eager as I am to continue, and you know I am, perhaps we should relocate ourselves to somewhere a bit less… limb-strewn?”
~_*_~
Who was the Hag? How had Cernunnos captured her? Why had she been gifted to Jareth? Where did the fetch come from?
These were all very good questions that no one bothered to ask. The wedding was a lavish affair, unnecessary as it was. Since he was the King, Jareth could, and did, merely announce she was his wife and it was so. Her first trip to the Labyrinth, so long ago, hunting a brother she really didn’t want, was history, and barely remembered by Jareth, let alone anyone else. There was a simple, easy slip into each others lives, so seamless it was as if they were made as complimentary pieces.
However, there were times when Sarah began to drift away. When she would stare at the sky, gold-hawk-eyes restless, searching and yearning for a life she once had. She would cling to the banister with clawed hands, and stay there, watching the skies, watching the birds fly, and wish.
It was then at these times, these few, far between times that Jareth would come up behind her, blind her restless eyes with a blind fold, and pull her twitching hands back behind her back. The he slipped a leather thong over the unresisting wrists, and lead her back to his bed. Willingly bound she couldn’t resist him, not that the thought ever crossed her mind, and allowed the dark king to bring her to heights of pleasure she could never reach by herself, even with wings.
And so they continued on both living, never an easy path to tread, but easy was hardly very interesting, was it?
DM
The actual identity of the writer will remain secret until all the submissions are in and posted.
****
Title: Haggard
Author: wellhollywould
Recipient: rikkitsune
Prompt: Sarah sneaks into the Labyrinth and takes the form of an animal, which incidentally becomes the King's pet. What is Sarah's agenda? How did she become an animal anyway? And how does Jareth not know it's her? So many questions...
Rating: R: For ungraphic sex and implied naughties
Author’s Note: Kay, first an apology which is never a good way to begin anything. The last line of the prompt got me thinking, also never a good way to begin anything. We, as readers, get to know EVERYTHING about a story. Seriously, we know why this person did that, and why this person got cursed and exactly what it took to break the spell. It occurred to me… did any of the fairytale characters every REALLY know what was going on in their stories as they lived them? Maybe it was just some crazy circumstance that culminated in Happily Every After complete with dreamy Prince and a pouf-y wedding gown. So I wrote this piece in a choppy way, without answering barely anything to try and make it more like how they would really feel through it. But seriously, this isn’t a way to avoid writing more….
Honest.
hag·gard (hag′ərd)
adjective
3. Falconry designating a hawk captured after reaching maturity
4. untamed; unruly; wild
The king lay dying. Around his bed there streamed long swatches of fabric that rustled in the breeze from the open balcony doors. For many months the assorted castle henchmen were under strict orders, with painful consequences, to never, EVER shut those doors.
Though some of the castle servants and guests suspected that the king was dying because of such a request, those of his inner council knew otherwise. King Jareth of the Labyrinth was not dying of natural causes; his death was being hastened along by another. There, lying across the king like a serpent was the king’s newest pet; trailing her claws over the Kings sallow, thin chest, tickling his neck with her mane of feathers.
And tonight, much like every night since she arrived, she opened her mouth and began to sing. The haunting, mechanical melody was beautiful, terrible, and completely soulless. As the sun slipped beneath the cliffs of the Underground, painting the sky with violent blood-red and vivid orange, the king drew in his last, shaky breath.
One year, six months earlier:
The hawk was jessed, hooded, tied to a show stand and even had a jacket of leather wrapped around her delicate wings. Jareth was impressed. If the Lord of the Hunt, Cernunnos, needed to bind a wild hawks wings, than she truly was untamable.
He was interested now. This may be interesting.
“Come, my Lord, surely you jest.” The scoffing nature of his tone hid his interest as he motioned to the beautiful haggard thus bound. “She cannot be so terrifying that you need to-Gah!”
Jareth’s boastful words were cut short when his hand came dangerously near to the hawk’s beak-and was duly reprimanded. Eyes narrowed, the King of the Goblins brought his scolded fingers up and eyed the deep red impressions. If not for the hood, she would have made him bleed. Not that it would have been permanent, for here in his realm there was little that could do permanent damage.
“Pride comes before the fall, my liege.” Cernunnos reminded the king. Jareth acknowledged this with an absent nod, but continued to study the hawk. There was something familiar about her. The lord of the Forrest skirted the hawk to stand beside the capricious fey. Now Jareth viewed the druid god critically. Few times had Cernunnos come to Jareth, not since that debacle with the Huntsman’s illegitimate daughter .Jareth allowed a malicious smirk to paint his lips.
That had certainly been a fine trick.
Still, despite the animosity of that encounter, their meetings since then had been civil, if brief. A gift to the fey, such as one of an ‘untamable’ hawk, was a challenge that most fey would savor and enjoy. Jareth could recall doing nothing for Cernunnos that would produce such a gift. It was something to be cautious with.
“A fine gift, my lord.” He responded politely in the proper fashion, meaning one did not thank Cernnunos in any way. Only a fool would tempt fate in such a manner.
“More like, what do the humans call it… spring cleaning?” Cernunnos shrugged a shoulder and tossed his heavily antlered head. Black, inhuman eyes twinkled in a disturbing manner. “This one has been cluttering up my greenhouse for weeks.”
“You could have just released her.” Jareth idly offered. Cernunnos snorted and shifted. He was becoming uncomfortable in the open, developed courtyard. Many wild things chafed when confronted with certain parts of Jareth’s land, at times even the king himself.
“The lord of the hunt, release his prey? Never.” Despite the arrogance of the words, the tone was tired, ancient. Jareth filed this weakness away in his mind. Something was making this old god feel his age. “Do you accept her?”
“The terms?” One of the greatest follies of dealing with fey and other such creatures is that nothing was free, not even a gift. The Lord looked back to the dark forest, which crouched like a beast in the distance.
“She must be the only female in your life,” was his answer. Jareth grinned. He was known for his promiscuity, and his prowess in the bed chamber. Apparently these rumors had slipped into the Princess of the Forests’ young ears and she, newly of the age where they had a certain appeal, was interested.
Finally Jareth saw the reason for the gift. Still, an untamable hawk was certainly more interesting than a consort, and infinitely less likely to set her covetous eyes on becoming the next Queen. He could certainly idle the next twenty or thirty years with her, until the hawks death. Such an amount of time was nothing to him.
“I accept.”
The duo clasped hands, Jareth managing to meet the hoofed God’s gaze levelly despite Cernunno’s height advantage. With a wicked smile on his fanged mouth the Hunter Lord loped into the forest nearby, his laughter trailing behind him.
“Now, my beauty, let’s begin.” Jareth said softly, his voice dark like liquid onyx. The hawk trembled in response.
~_*_~
Sarah was bound in the dark. She felt the leather straps tightly about her limbs, the gag on her mouth stopping any noise from escaping. The dark was soft, warm and welcoming, like water, like the sea, but she was scared.
-and angry. Very, very angry.
“Ah, here you are, so ready for me my sweet.” His voice slipped across her skin like butter, warming her from the inside out. It echoed here, so she was unsure to where he was. The effect was like a drug and caffeine at the same time. Her body was relaxed, content, while her mind flitted around like a butterfly seeking purchase on a slick wall.
She jumped when a leather gloved hand cupped her shoulder, and then strained away from it. The touch held no malice, no pain but it could so easily tear her to pieces. It was the threat of violence that stilled her.
“You are so beautiful my sweet, so very precious.” He murmured, and pressed his full body against her back. Constrained as she was, Sarah could not get away, and before long the drugging heat he radiated sunk into her, and silenced her protestations. She could hear the smile in his voice as he responded to her relaxing. “There’s my girl, my lady. Trust in me, allow me to rule you. Only through my mastery will you gain freedom.”
His choice of words was his undoing.
With a screech of rage she broke free of him and wildly careened about. Her mind was filled with thoughts of escape, but not with logic. The blindfold and the jesses took their toll as she slammed into the unmercifully hard stone wall mere seconds after she achieved her freedom. As Sarah fell down, scraping her delicate feathers on the rough stone and landing with a surprisingly light thump, she cursed many things beginning, as was proper, with the Hag and ending with his royal Pain in the Highness.
~_*_~
Their next encounter was no better. Sarah couldn’t judge time in this hawk form like her human form used too, in fact she could barely tell whether it was night or day. After four or five days and nights she began to lose track. Eventually she stopped counting the lost time. It was over, it was done, and there was no going back.
However, she did understand the seasons. Her particular ‘transaction’ had happened late spring when she could smell the baby rabbits venturing from their dens, thick cool mud and the coming rain. Now it was early summer. The air was perfumed heavily with flowers and sun-warmed grass. Even in the stone tower she was in she could smell it. In this span of time her missing feathers had grown back, and it was this evening, as the sun set with a kind of heedless magnificence in the west, that the wooden door to her tower swung open and in stepped the Goblin King.
Sarah, calmer now she perched far above him by the open caged roof, cocked her head and studied him. He had not changed. His pale hair was still fly-away, his clothing favoring the dark colors. With her hawk vision she could not differentiate between particular hues, but she gained a certain way of ‘feeling’ colors. His simple, yet ornate costume this evening, consisting of a pirate-shirt, tight breeches and short cape, felt like the hushed shadows of dawn; dim and cool with promises of the gilded sun.
“Good evening my beauty. Will you not come down and join me for your repast?” He motioned toward a silver platter which held an array of succulent lean meats. The past season, what she had come to call any span of time she could not measure, the shallow dish had offered meat magically whenever hunger beckoned. After another moment of staring Sarah glided gracefully down the tower to perch at eye level with the King.
She had come to realize that while she never would escape this form, there was no reason not to escape Him. He had captured her dreams, stole her brother, held her lusts hostage as she aged and had even contributed to her current state. She would not, could not, give him anything else. However, one did not get their chance to flee by hiding away. If he wanted a bird to tame, she would be tamed.
-at least until she could slip her leash, as it was, and finally fly free. Maybe leave him a little something to remember her by. Sarah enjoyed the vision of Jareth’s soon-to-be-shocked face, bleeding from a swipe of her talons.
“What can you possibly be thinking of that causes so much amusement?” Jareth wondered aloud, watching her. Sarah reigned herself in. He was fey, why wouldn’t he be able to read her emotions? Jareth smiled slowly, the cruel curve of his lips entrancing her for a moment. How could someone so terribly beautiful be so.,. terrible?
She flittered down again, until she managed to reach the dish’s perch. Her golden eyes never left Jareth’s as he followed her, kneeled in the dirty hay and held out a slender piece of red meat from his ungloved hand. Sarah, a creature of whim now, could not help the spark of ire that flinted up and caused her to snap out and snatch the treat, clipping the king’s vulnerable hand with her sharp beak. He winced, but easily smiled after a moment, his eyes almost… prideful?
“There is my lady,” He murmured in that sinful voice, before he licked the shockingly red blood from his pale hand with a quickly darting tongue. “-always strike the first blow. Another bite?”
Again he held his wounded hand out, with another sliver of tender meat. Sarah lowered her head and glared at him as all the rage built in her breast.
Yes, she’d have another BITE.
~_*_~
Another season had passed, and with its passing swept away most of Sarah’s fiery rage. She couldn’t say she was sorry to see it go, either, for while it gave her the strength to survive her transformation, her capture by the antler-hunter and her imprisonment by her old foe, it also tired her terribly. Now, despite her altered form and the knowledge that she would remain beaked and feathered for the rest of her life, she was actually starting to… enjoy herself. Jareth was a good companion.
No that was her grudging admission. Jareth was a great companion. He was clever and witty, and never treated her as he ought to. As one might treat a bird, that was. No, he talked with her about his day to day life, slyly told amusing anecdotes about the court, and even asked her opinion on things that troubled him. The conversation was decidedly one-sided, but for the first time in five years, Sarah felt a little bit… human.
It was again time to greet him, as she had begun to, by meeting him at the door and perching on his shoulder. The first time she did it was automatic; he was so terrible easy to perch on, with the width of his shoulders almost an exact match for her size. At the time she imagined she was more surprised by her actions that he was. After getting over the shock of landing on his one-armored shoulder she brazened it out, and was rewarded with his husky, velvet chuckle.
She had been doing a lot of things now-a-days, to hear that chuckle. It worried her a bit, until her hawk-mind did away with the human-like-thoughts.
This evening was no different, with Jareth striding into her tower and cocking his head slightly. She gracefully glided down and settled in-only to jump when he lifted a leather braced forearm just in front of her. Sarah pecked him lightly, ducking to catch his finger in her sharp beak and then released him. She did not like him messing with her routine.
“Now, now, Lady,” He tut-tutted softly, in that smooth whisky tone he used with her. “Just because something is unexpected does not mean that it is bad.”
She paused a moment to think on this, and then agreed, before stepping regally onto his wrist. He gave her that soft wicked smile, before he abruptly turned and stepped back out the door. Sarah jerked, and then opened her wings in shock. Jareth’s arm was perfectly steady of course, but she was suddenly, shockingly, outside and it was open and free, and the air moved. This was more than unexpected, it was flabbergasting.
“Calm, my beauty, my lady.” Jareth murmured, his ungloved hand stroking her feathers. Sarah waffled a bit on his arm before scooting closer to his head for the shelter. She was so used to the comfort of her tower, so used to the limitations of the walls that being thrust into open air nearly made her keel over and fall to the King’s booted feet.
It was many moments later, after Jareth had coddled, coaxed and whispered nonsense to her over and over that she was calmed enough to steady herself. Then it occurred to her. She was outside. SHE was OUTSIDE!
Immediately she took off, digging her talons into Jareth’s leather cuff in her haste to be gone. She pounded her wings as hard as she could and beat the air into submission. At the apex of her flight she stretched her wings to their full extent, gloried in the play and burn of muscle long unused, and glided in the sultry late-summer air. She could smell everything, from the rabbits down below to the eagle that had come before her. Sharp-eyed, she spotted the rabbit giving off such enticing scents and swooped in low. Her aim was perfect, her dinner was delicious, and she was still free.
It was hours later, as one can measure hours, that she began to come down both literally and figuratively from her heights. The evening had moved on, and dusky twilight fell upon the Labyrinth. Sarah soared from the forest and over the pale gold maze of stone walls, ruminating on her past. The dimming light cast shadows throughout the scene, hiding the Labyrinth’s secrets even now, when she wasn’t the hero, or the villain, or hell, even a main character any more. She felt amusement over this. Years of playing the heroine, of angst and drama and she was given her final casting of ‘Supporting Character’. There was an irony in that.
As she flew her memories came to her, slowly at first, but then with more regularity. The hawk’s form was a powerful one, but it was only flying that Sarah remembered truly who she was.
It must have been years ago, but she had already established the fickle nature of her new form’s way of counting time. There was no way to know for sure. She could recall bits and pieces of her life, of high school and prom, of kissing boys and dating men. She, of course, remembered every moment of the Labyrinth, of Jareth, but that was their nature, wasn’t it? One couldn’t imagine a being such as the Goblin king ALLOWING someone to forget even a moment of time in their presence.
Then afterward, but most of that was lost in the first few seasons of giving herself to the hawk. She could hardly recall the beginning; because she had allowed her hawk-mind to take over so much… she had lost so much time and so many memories… Sarah could barely even imagine the girl she used to be. As she flew over the land of dreams, the forbidding and terribly beautiful scene-scape of the Labyrinth, Sarah remembered her end.
There was a young and pretty Hag, and they spoke of radishes. She recalled that, perhaps because it was such an odd memory. There was laughter, and tea, and a cabin in the woods. Bay leaves in a stew thick with vegetables, mint tea, and the roaring fire. She recalled a sleep that was interrupted by a deep seductive voice that lulled and abraded her ears and the young Hags sharp voice fading into soft moans. There was the light drenching the kitchen in butter yellow and the pale, shadowed eyes of the Hag the next morning. There was a serious talk, and then the knowing eyes of the Hag as she stared into Sarah’s tea-cup.
Then she was Hawk. The Hag caged her and spoke to her, but she was too frightened to understand, and to even begin to remember her native tongue. Her memories lapsed into a series of feelings, colors and tastes, which lasted for a long, long time.
Sarah swooped down and back, and began the return trip to him. She knew where she was going when she left, even if she didn’t acknowledge it until now. Whether it was the solitude of the forest that curdled her stomach, or the thought of life without her cruel and clever king, she didn’t really know. All she knew was that Hawk-Sarah, the only Sarah that really existed outside of these little trips down memory lane, wanted to be near the vainglorious, magnetic, and powerful Jareth. Therefore, she would be.
It was simple to be a hawk, and so much easier.
When she crested the hill of the castle, and followed the leather and magic smell that drifted so seductively from her King’s very skin, she found his balcony doors wide open. The King himself stood there, arms braced against the marble balustrade, tension visible in his every line. Once the darkness parted enough to reveal her form, he relaxed, and watched her lazily as she sifted lower and lower, before landing beside him. He wore a loose fitting, soft robe that felt like a garden on the cusp of spring to her sixth sense, and his smile, when he turned it on her, was one of complete happiness.
“You came back.” He said, not a question or even a command, but a revelation. Sarah cocked her head and him and then lifted off to fly into the bedroom, where she made herself comfortable on his four-poster emperor sized bed. Jareth’s chuckle followed her.
The next four months flew by on gilded wings. Sarah found herself more and more in the presence of the King. His actions, gestures and voice brought more Sarah forward and soothed the Hawk into allowing the human to surface. She remembered her favorite foods while she surveyed his kingdom from his shoulder, recalled what Toby looked like during a particularly fervent argument the King had with a visiting dignitary. Once, while watching Jareth preen before the mirror (A moment he allowed himself every morning, and after the first initial feeling of disgust for his Narcissus like tendency Sarah had to admit, he did look good enough to warrant it) she began to think like Sarah again, and once that began it kept going.
The problem arose one evening, while Sarah watched with fascination as Jareth slept. His skin was milk-white, dusted with the glitter that seemed to be as much a part of this realm as the sky and the water, his hair a golden mane spread out on pillows ashamed to call themselves silk in contrast. He was beautiful, more so when asleep because he lost the cocky, amused look he usually donned that caused an initial and instinctual dislike in Sarah. His face was all pitiless angles, with the odd curve to distinguish, such as his bottom lip, the arch of his brow all of which came together in a medley that entranced anyone. Her hawk-breast warmed and began to flutter, reaching a pitch that was painful and she realized with dawning horror that she had gone and fallen in love with him.
Sarah stiffened and fell off the precarious perch to land with a thump on the rug strewn floor.
Love! She squawked in an undignified manner and began to frantically flap her wings to right herself. This would have been a humiliation bearable if only Jareth had not been such a light sleeper. Within seconds he was up, all soft and tumbled from rising so quickly.
“My beauty, are you well?” He asked, his voice sending shivers through her skin.
He was staring at her with those blue, blue mixed-matched eyes and then he stood to come toward her. Sarah pin wheeled awkwardly and crab crawled away as fast she could. She managed to make it to a chair and scuttled under it, her tiny heart beating a fierce tattoo in her ears.
“My lady? My beauty, come out.” He followed her, not a hard thing to do since when she fell she managed to tangle in a swatch of fabric. This piece had trailed behind her and now lay trembling slightly from her own shivers, pointed like an arrow to where she hid. Soon he was peering at her, his lips curved up wickedly, and then he cocked a brow. “Did you by any chance, fall from your perch?”
Sarah felt anger, one of the emotions her hawk felt even fiercer than she did, rise up. His voice was low and mocking, much like he had used in the past. ‘-and how are you enjoying my Labyrinth?’ Sarah hissed at him and shook the fabric off her wing. His chuckled, that damn velvety laugh that melted her like butter, filled the air around her and his hand quickly followed, gently cupping her breast in his palm. Sarah froze, wrath melting into desire within seconds.
“Fear not, my Lady, I shall never tell a soul about your fall. Consider it un-happened.” He brought her to eye-level and smirked. “After all, I am the King. I can reorder time and move the stars.” For a moment his smile fell off his lips a little as their eyes
locked. She saw something there, something familiar and strong… but it was gone quickly. He brought her with long strides to his bed. Once settled in he set her on the pillow next to him. Sarah sunk into the bed, so soft even her slight weight dented it.
“You’ll never have to fall again, my beauty.” He murmured finally, stroking her back as he slipped into sleep.
And Sarah, fool that she was, believed him.
The day Sarah left him was nothing like any of the others. As the months passed since the night she fell off her perch and into a one-sided, doomed love, Sarah slept in the bed with the King. She went on tours with the King. They presided over the Labyrinth together. They ate together, spoke together, even read together. The goblins would frequently find Jareth reading aloud to the hawk, which seemed to laugh with her whole body at times. The hawk was soon called Lady around the castle, both by Jareth and by his subjects. They were never apart for long.
Sarah had accepted her lot in life when she was condemned to spend the rest of her life as a hawk. She was equally pragmatic about her love for the undying king of the Labyrinth. Her heart might beat so much it hurt in her chest to see him smile, and she might cuddle next to him at night, but that wouldn’t stop her from making sure he never wore that puce-sequined double-breasted doublet again, firmly stating her opinion with a well-aimed ‘bird-bomb’ from above. She was not too in love to check the king when need be.
On the morning in question Sarah awoke to find Jareth staring at her, that familiar look in his eyes again and pain creasing his mouth. The look and the pain disappeared in moments but the tension remained all day. The odd feeling left her tense and irritable, and by the time she settled back in her spot on the bed she was firmly in a bad mood.
Jareth burst through the doors, his double breasted coat (NOT puce) unbuttoned and hanging at his sides, his breeches also half-undone and his mind apparently mimicking his fashion statement. He met her eyes and strode toward the bed.
“Why not?!” He demanded. “Why can I not have what I want? The witches turn princes into frogs’ every day.”
Sarah jumped and scuttled back as Jareth leveled the full power of his fury in her direction. He continued, stripping off his coat and was suddenly, shockingly, bare-chested.
“Why can I not have this? Is there perversion in a fey loving a human? They are not even remotely the same species.” Jareth lowered his head and snarled, looking more inhuman than ever. “I will have this. I want it.”
Then he raised his hand, and with a twist of his wrist held a clear crystal ball. Sarah froze. Magic.
‘I cannot turn you back Sarah dearest, if you wish to turn human again you must-‘
The voice of the pretty Hag disappeared as quickly as it came to her, for without warning Jareth held nothing, and her body began to burn. Then ache, and then the pain screamed through her form and she stretched longer and longer. She was gone, gone forever…and she was back. Her hair was heavy on her head, long, thicker, and her skin was so delicate and cold without feathers to cover it. But she was becoming human! She was turning back…
Sarah felt tears, real tears in her eyes. She never imagined she would be human again, never imagined that she would ever be anything but a hawk! But here she was and within seconds she would be herself again. She would explain to Jareth what happened and demand to stay with him.
As her future coalesced into a beautiful shining possibility, Jareth suddenly snarled fiercely and like a released rubber band she was a hawk again.
No.
No!
She was so close, so close! Sarah screamed in rage, over and over again, and fell back over her talons, over her feathers, which she began pulling out by the beak-full. No! No! The tiny flame of hope, sparked by love and that incessant belief in those damned Fairy Tales, was stomped out utterly, gone.
She would never be free again.
“My beauty, I am sorry! Don’t, please!” Jareth cupped her in his hands, gently pulling her beak from her feathers. Jareth, who never kneeled but fell to his knees the first night he met her, Jareth, who never begged but begged HER. Sarah screamed in pain, in rage, for what was lost and what never would be. She rose up, a flaming phoenix in her wrath and sliced his cheek open with one blow of her talons, before taking off, up into the air and through the windows and gone.
Forever.
~_*_~
Imagine for a moment, that you were immortal. Ah, eternal life, eternal youth. A sweet wine, is it not? Now age that wine a few millennia in an inherited responsibility, woven with the subtle scents of power, magic and a dark, dark temper that rivals that of jealous Hera. However, this intoxicating brew develops an aftertaste, a lingering flavor of ennui that taints the palate with a bitter tone.
The problem wasn’t the addictive wine that was eternal life, as Jareth used to think, the problem was the terribly mortal span of one’s attention. He theorized that if an immortal had immortal emotions, ones that never weakened, or faded, or even died, life would be as sweet as the first bite from a ripe, cold pear. Unfortunately, interest, lust and even contentment were all doomed to die, sometimes in a single hour; other times a slow, drawn out death.
He had never thought that his careless wish for immortal emotions would be so gods-be-damned painful. He let out a cold, mirthless chuckle into the empty room. Be careful what you wish for.
He sat sprawled, a study of angles, on his throne, waiting with dull impatience for his guest to arrive-and depart. He was in no mood for company, and this sent a dark pall over the Labyrinth. Clouds hung, pregnant with impending storms, over a Labyrinth full of darker-than-dark shadows, and corners that cut like knives.
In stepped horned Cernunnos, the origin of his rage, bringer of his joy. The irony lent him strength enough to bare a sharp, mirthless smile to the hunter god.
“Again you come to me, Great Cernunnos. Again you bare me a gift. I’m beginning to get a little suspicious of your goodwill.” Jareth sneered with barely concealed hostility. Cernnunos inclined his head.
“I bear not a gift this time, great King, but a curse” He answered evenly. Jareth, in the midst of sinking lower into his gilt throne, was stayed. His interest was piqued. Cernunnos recognized the gleam in the monarch’s eyes, a gleam that had been absent for at least a month, ever since the Lady hawk took wing. He nodded “A curse, yes. A harpy of sorts, whose very presence is an affront to all those who live.”
At his words a great cage was brought in, gilded and beautiful, and inside sat a creature the personified blasphemy. She was female, for all he could tell, and beautiful, a macabre mix of bird and woman-and machine. Yes, she was composed of a mixture of fowl, human flesh and strange devices set into her skin, with gears that moved and emitted a strange ticking sound. Jareth could tell, even at where he sat, that the metal was iron. He was instantly repulsed, and entranced. Her wide, dull-grey eyes met his, empty of anything that remotely resembled anything he knew, strange and alien in her pretty face. Cernunnos nodded again, and gestured, at which point the fetch opened her mouth and sang.
Emptiness. Hollowness. The absence of life, joy, or hatred. A perfect void that struck him deep to the core with a remarkable feeling of pain that blotted out, eclipsed entirely, anything else he felt. He could not see, or feel, or taste or hear anything but that beautiful, terrible melody the sundered his soul.
When she at last ceased that horrific sound he was slumped to his knees at the foot of his throne, panting. Feel rushed back into his aching limbs, into his mind as he collected himself. She was the absence of feeling and though the pain he just experienced was even beyond his far-reaching ken, he…he…
-he wanted more.
“What are your terms?” He rasped, even now craving the nothingness that came with her sweet, poisonous song. Cernunnos shook his head and leveled a pitying look at the once great and powerful king.
“Ah, my lord-” He finally said, backing away. “This terrible price is one you already paid.”
But Jareth paid him no mind, instead he took the key held out in trembling fingers to him, and dismissed them with an absent wave.
~_*_~
Two months passed. Two months in which the snake of a golem wormed her way out of the menagerie, and into the king’s bedchamber. Two months in which the king became paler than milk, gaunt and black-eyed, two months that passed in dreadful silence, save for the brief order, or the horrendous song the bird-woman sang at night. The goblins had taken to leaving the castle by the third night, when one of their own was found near the king’s bedchamber door, frozen, curled into himself, and stone cold dead.
Meanwhile, far away, as far as, say, a well-fed female hawk could fly in a little less than two months, sat a hut on the edge of the forest. This was not Underground land, although it bordered it. In fact, this land bordered many lands, too many to logically fit, but logic rarely intruded upon this grove.
In the hut lived a woman, just entering her thirties, much as she’d been for the past three hundred years. Time moved differently here. She had paler brown hair, dishwater brown, as some might say, and grayish-blue eyes, but her clothes were clean and she held herself with a king of wistful irony that made most smile without even knowing why they did so.
At this very moment she was pulling up a bucket from the well, when the sharp shadow of a hawk swooped in and landed, quite ungracefully, in the budding carrot bed.
“Ah, there you are Sarah, I had wondered where you’d gotten off too.” The young Hag said easily, lugging the bucket the last few feet and unhooking it. The hawk blearily acknowledged her, and the hag’s easy-going, wry smile disappeared. “Oh dear. What happened?”
Sarah was dull and fuzzy and didn’t know why but she hurt everywhere. The familiar face gazed into her eyes and suddenly the last year unfolded before her mind like a flip-book, at super-speed. She knew without a doubt that the hag was aware of this, watching the little drama unfold like a soap opera, and a shadow of the fiery temper sparked… and then blew out. She didn’t have the energy.
“Damn Cernunnos.” The Hag hissed. “Doesn’t have the sense given to a plague-bearing rat.”
Apparently, the young Hag had more than enough energy to spare.
The hawk-Sarah ignored her as the Hag began ranting to herself, fetching the pail and collecting Sarah from her crumpled position in the neat rows of garden vegetables. Human speech was harder to understand now. The hawk-Sarah flinched at being picked up, but in the end tiredness won and she drifted to sleep on a pillow not half as soft as another pillow, one she dreamt about sometimes but somehow hated.
It took another precious week to extract Sarah from the Hawk, moments dripping like diamonds down a drain. Every second wasted ruined a new future-path, leaving the easiest roads un-trod. The last few paths to happiness were coming up quickly, and if Sarah didn’t respond soon all of the Hags’ careful planning would be unraveled. She could hardly begin again. How often, after all, did ancient fey overlords fall madly in love with sensible humans?
Spiritual healing took time, however, and a job rushed was a job ruined, as one could see from Cernunnos’ meddling. The time finally arrived, ploddingly, reluctantly, but in the end it finally came. Time moved differently here, as she had noted before.
The hawk was perched in a sapling nearby the garden, preening her glossy feathers and waiting. The Hag approached and weighed her words carefully. Finely admitting defeat in trying to tactfully bring the subject up, the Hag just dove in.
“The king of the Labyrinth is dead.”
Sarah’s head jerked up, and cocked to the side as she danced about on her branch.
“Well, as good as dead. In fact he will die this evening, when the harpy destroys the last of his life essence. She sings death you know. Hardly surprising really, since she’s not technically alive.” The last was an after-though, murmured by the Hag as she gazed into the distance, an odd look on her face.
Sarah waited for another long moment, and when the hag didn’t go any further she tossed herself off the branch and landed precariously on the Hag’s shoulder. Her talons dug in deep and the hag jerked in response. After a moment painful-for the hag, and unstable-for Sarah, they achieved a balance. Sarah nipped at the Hag’s ear when she stopped jumping about and the Hag snorted.
“What? Oh yes. The King is going to die tonight, after six months of listening to the Siren song of the harpy fetch. There’s nothing you can do, Sarah, he is too far from here for you to reach, and I am speaking both in the physical and the metaphysical sense. Sarah?” The hag turned to where the hawk had launched herself. There was only a little black dot in the sky, still receding quickly. The Hag smiled slowly. “Fly like the wind, Sarah, and good luck.”
~_*_~
The walls of the Labyrinth were crumbling, falling in on themselves, rotting from the center out. The king was dead, and his kingdom followed him. Inside the royal bedchamber, a fetch, a mechanical creature made from flesh, feathers and iron, bent over the still form, jaws unhinged to feast on the magical tissue. She hadn’t been fed in centuries, and the previous feast that sustained her form was weakening.
She wasn’t evil, however, just a simulacrum, a golem created for some unknown purpose and left alone ever since. She was merely doing what she must to survive.
Sarah didn’t care though.
She flew through the open balcony doors, doors that had remained open for her, twenty-six hours a day for months, and attacked. A full grown female hawk is a fearsome thing to behold. In flight she is an awe-inspiring predator, all sharp beak, long talons and cruelly beating wings. The fetch, a simple thing, in the end had no chance. Sarah reduced her to the parts she was, and in the end perched, gloriously stained in the oily red blood of her victim.
The blood began to burn, to fester, and eat away at her feathers. Despite the adrenaline rushing through her hawk-body, Sarah could not get it off her, and she fell, once again. The burn slipped through feather, through skin, parted muscle like the sea and tore through bone like tissue paper. She had never felt this much pain, it consumed her thoughts.
The last moment, the pain ebbed enough for her to appreciate the irony of dying, spread over the body of her king. Their arms were outstretched in a similar fashion, their hair intertwined like tendrils of night greedily devouring the sun; it was quite pretty when she thought about it-
-and holy god she was human!
Sarah sat up, all pale pink-and-white flesh and lengthy, a-tumble black locks, with ten fingers, ten toes, and long, long legs that trembled beneath her. Marveling she stared at hands she barely remembered how to use, at peachy nails too long and hard to be considered exactly human, and was amazed.
“The fetch.” She whispered, shocking herself with the rough, harshness of a voice unused for… well, years, at least. A creature made to feed on magic, whose very blood was starved for its share… it made sense in a fairytale kind of way, and Sarah was in no mood to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Magic.
“Jareth.” The word was even harsher, hushed and accusing, as her eyes found him on the bed. His skin was still perfect, a white whiter than even her skin, hair like newly mint coins and he was so, so still.
No. She refused to believe it. Uncoordinated, gawky and trembling with exhaustion, Sarah climbed over to him, and then straddled his chest. She was naked. She didn’t care. Her fingers dug into his shoulders where she gripped him and she shook him once, twice, and again.
“Wake up! Wake up your irritating, peacock of a villain you!” She began speaking, fast and uncaring of what words decided to leap from her mind to her tongue. “Wake up you worthless creature! Aren’t you going to open your eyes and smirk, an infuriating retort on your lips? You’re going to let a little thing like death bring down the great Goblin king? Wake up! Now!”
She was crying, the tears running down her face, but she was snarling as well. How dare he! She slapped him across the face, and then again sharp nails scouring three lines of blood right where she had scored a hit before, so long ago, in a another form.
“That is twice.” Came the soft, dry voice she knew and hated and loved so well. “-twice that you have struck my personage. Can I perhaps take the liberty of asking the name of my abuser? Or shall you just hit me again?”
Sarah pulled back, misjudged her new form and went even further, almost over the edge, before his thin, almost too thin, hand caught her and pulled her up. Not into his arms, no, but at least he didn’t let her fall. That was a start. His miss-matched eyes studied her face, a frown enhancing his lean features.
“I know you from somewhere… Oh. Its you.: His lip curled as he skimmed her thick black hair with his eyes. “The whiner. Come to wish away another brother? Or perhaps your son now? I haven’t a head for dates, has it really been that long? Come, come, now, speak. I can hardly wait to hear exactly how you got into my-“
The cutting comment stopped when his eyes met hers. And he knew. Immediately, surprisingly, without hesitation, he knew her. Sarah was beyond thinking at this moment, she couldn’t even react. His hand traced her chin.
“How? Have you… has this been you the whole time…?” He asked, his hand twining itself in her hair. “My Lady, how is it that you could hide this from me?”
“It’s-” She began, and swallowed the dryness in her throat, “-a long story. There was a Hag, and a cottage, and radishes, and a cage and can’t it be over? Can’t we be kissing right now?”
The first move was lost, for suddenly she was in his arms, whether he pulled her or she dove it really didn’t matter did it? They were intertwined on the bed, kissing and touching and together, in their true forms. The how’s and the whys could wait, they always could, and in the end, who needed to know?
“Lady, darling, as…er… eager as I am to continue, and you know I am, perhaps we should relocate ourselves to somewhere a bit less… limb-strewn?”
~_*_~
Who was the Hag? How had Cernunnos captured her? Why had she been gifted to Jareth? Where did the fetch come from?
These were all very good questions that no one bothered to ask. The wedding was a lavish affair, unnecessary as it was. Since he was the King, Jareth could, and did, merely announce she was his wife and it was so. Her first trip to the Labyrinth, so long ago, hunting a brother she really didn’t want, was history, and barely remembered by Jareth, let alone anyone else. There was a simple, easy slip into each others lives, so seamless it was as if they were made as complimentary pieces.
However, there were times when Sarah began to drift away. When she would stare at the sky, gold-hawk-eyes restless, searching and yearning for a life she once had. She would cling to the banister with clawed hands, and stay there, watching the skies, watching the birds fly, and wish.
It was then at these times, these few, far between times that Jareth would come up behind her, blind her restless eyes with a blind fold, and pull her twitching hands back behind her back. The he slipped a leather thong over the unresisting wrists, and lead her back to his bed. Willingly bound she couldn’t resist him, not that the thought ever crossed her mind, and allowed the dark king to bring her to heights of pleasure she could never reach by herself, even with wings.
And so they continued on both living, never an easy path to tread, but easy was hardly very interesting, was it?