Epilogue

Sixteen Years Later

Sarah sat on the window ledge in the throne room wrapped up in a silk-lined fur cloak. Outside a blizzard raged, blanketing the Labyrinth in thick snow. In her hand she held the crystal Jareth had given her for her seventeenth birthday. Although she was now thirty-seven she didn't look any older than she had on her twenty-first birthday. The Labyrinth had fully claimed her now and she aged as slowly and as gracefully as Jareth who had been around since before the Vikings. The crystal glided along the back of her hand and down her arm as she held it up, she wasn't frightened about dropping it. It was as if there was a magnet in her arm that the ball was attracted too.

She looked back out the window and watched as the blizzard raged, the sky was thick with clouds blocking the moonlight and the stars. Shortly after their wedding Jareth had confessed the truth about the stars and the faes. The faes were people who had entered the Labyrinth and died. Each time someone in the Labyrinth died their souls became stars, but they were not entirely free of Jareth's will. He was able to summon them in the form of faes, the very guests at their wedding and those in her hallucination all those years ago had been former players in the Labyrinth. The thought still made her shudder, and each night when she looked up at the sky she felt a flicker of sadness. Somewhere in the castle a baby began to cry, Sarah looked up and moved to stand but she was stopped by an icy glare from Jareth. She adjusted herself so she was more comfortable and reached down to pet Ambrose, as a creation of Jareth's he too aged slowly and resembled a young dog of no more than four years.

"In five minutes it will stop." He rubbed at his forehead with forefinger and thumb. Sarah glanced back out towards the blizzard and felt her heart twist.

"It was cruel to entice her into the Labyrinth," she said, "you should not have done that." Almost thirteen hours ago Jareth had been summoned to take away a small toddler. A distraught mother had spoken without thinking – how was she to know the words were real? She had been threatened by her own mother as a child 'if you don't behave the goblins will come and take you away!' That had been her defence, and nothing had ever happened to her. The poor woman would be dead by now; she had come into the Labyrinth dressed more for summer rather than the harsh reality of a Labyrinth winter.

"I did not entice," Jareth snapped standing up and striding over to her. "I gave her the option to take back her daughter. She saw what the Labyrinth was like; she had the same view as you. It is not my fault she was too foolish to realise she had no chance." He gripped her chin in his gloved hands and held her gaze. "The only person who stood a chance of defeating the Labyrinth was you, I would never have let any real harm come to you." His tone softened and Sarah smiled weakly. She had defeated the Labyrinth; it had been the last hurdle she failed at. But she had passed the challenge of getting through the Labyrinth, of finding the Goblin City and the castle beyond the walls.

The clock chimed the thirteenth hour; swiftly Jareth bent down and pressed his lips to her own. It did not feel as if they had been married for sixteen years. He was still intoxicating to her, still terrifying and intimidating. He could still make her feel like the vulnerable sixteen year old that had naively stepped into his domain. He still had power over her; he could bend her will to his; as he'd promised her on their wedding night he now owned her mind, body and soul. But there was one difference. She wielded some of that power too, and at times she had taken great pleasure in standing up to him.

Jareth faded away to take care of the child, pushing the thought from her mind Sarah turned back to her crystal and thought of Toby. His image filled the small globe and she smiled sadly. He was twenty now and in college, the crystal showed him sitting in his dorm room at a small desk scattered with text books. He was sitting in a swivel desk chair, his back turned on the desk and books, in his hand he held a teddy bear.

"Where is she Lancelot?" He whispered to the bear, "and why does no one else remember her? Why only me?" He leant back in the chair and sighed in frustration. He wore a dark navy sweater and baggy jeans, his hair had changed from feather soft blonde to thick dark brown like Sarah's own. They both shared their father's inquisitive dark eyes and mischievous smile. "I wish I could see her...talk to her..."

Sarah smiled and stood up. That was another difference her marriage had to Jareth had brought her. She could fulfil wishes too now. Smiling she began to fade away.

Thank you to everyone who has read/reviewed it means a lot to me! Hopefully you've liked at least some of this! Writing has been a passion of mine since I was little and I'm currently writing four of my own pieces along with various fanfictions. I'm gutted to have finished this, I probably could have kept it going but unfortunately with a dissertation due I had to finish it.

Thank you again for reading, and I hope at least some of you like the ending!

MM

xxx