Fledgling

by J.R. Godwin

Rated: M

Disclaimer: All characters belong to the makers of "Labyrinth". There's no money being made off of this.

From small beginnings come great things.

-American proverb

0.

The only way for immortals to understand the fear of death is to experience it through the mortals we love. That is why, when I finally find her battered and frozen on the outer rim of the Fiery Forest, something parasitic throttles my heart as if seeking to rip it straight from my ribs. I believe this sensation is what the humans call terror.

My kingdom, strange as it is on a regular basis, becomes an alien landscape in wintertime. The tundra freezes, the trees crack, the animals hide. Even the sun fades, leeching all colour from the Earth.

That is how I manage to find her at all. The snow landscape stretches to the horizon, white and pure, yet … ah, there. Half-hidden beneath the emaciated trees, ebony and crimson stand out amongst all that white like an open wound, and the bottom drops out of my soul. My Sarah.

I don't remember walking to her. Somehow I'm already at her side and I don't want to look, but I must, I must. The black feathers haven't fully melted back into the flesh on her face and hands – an amateur's folly. One arm is obviously broken, and a gash in the back of her coat has painted the snow red.

Despite the injuries and the botched transformation, she's beautiful; a half-frozen Icarus.

I'm shaking so badly that I can hardly remove my gloves – it's not the cold, my kind aren't affected by temperature as humans are – but finally the gloves are off and I'm feeling the pale column of her throat where it kisses the underside of her jaw. I know exactly where the pulse should be, having licked and teased it often enough when we make love.

When I feel the spark of life still beating there, the monster in my chest relaxes its stranglehold on my heart, just a little. Maybe I would cry, if I held with that nonsense, but I don't.

You don't make it long as the Goblin King if you don't have keen awareness of your surroundings, so I blame the giddy delirium for distracting me. I'm actually startled when Sarah moves beneath my hands and thickly murmurs, "Jareth?"

"Oh, my love." A broken sigh, a hint of reproach and not a little anger – some of it at her, most of it at myself. I have failed to protect what is mine.

She shudders, finally cracking her eyes open against the harsh wind. "It's cold."

"Yes."

"Are you mad?"

"You might have told me," I say, and finally the anger bursts the dam, and I am shaking for a different reason altogether. "Though I suppose it wouldn't have changed anything."

"No," she murmurs, "it wouldn't. Jareth … Jareth, I flew." Sarah smiles, showing blood. I have kissed that darling mouth, and it has woken me in the mornings with its lovely lilting singing, and now it's filled with blood. My mind can't process the disconnect. "I flew!"

I finally look up. Tree branches overhead cant violently downward, as if a missile blew through them. I don't understand how my precious Sarah is still alive. They burn so quickly, humans, like candle flames. One second alight, the next a puff of smoke, and forgotten.

I was born of fire, billions of years ago in the shadow of a distant sun. I can move the stars because I'm the one who shaped them.

But no matter how powerful my hold on magick and time, nothing can stop death. It is the way of things. Life is change; death, the ultimate transformation. All the same, I'm left with a fierce desire to protect this little flame in my life, shield it against the slightest wind lest it be blown out. It will be blown out soon enough, I know, and then I will be here, cold and alone again.

I suddenly want to rage at her. How could you do this? If you died, do you have any idea where it would leave me? Stupid, selfish girl! If she wasn't already grievously injured, I would shake her.

But instead I wordlessly reach under my cloak and unbuckle some straps, and my armor begins to fall off into the snow: first the chest guard, then the spaulders and vambraces, and finally the greaves. I can travel faster without them, and teleportation is a bad idea with mortal injuries. So rather than yell, I only tell her in a coaxing tone one reserves for kittens, children and the invalid: "Shhhhh, I'm taking you home."

Despite my gentleness, she cries out when I pick her up, and I realize I'm going to have to set that bone, a prospect that frightens me because it means putting her through more pain. "It's alright, Jareth," she says soothingly, surprising me. "It's … it was worth it. My God, I got to fly! I actually did it this time!"

This time. There will be more times, I'm sure. "What bird?"

"That's the weird part. It didn't itch this time when I changed, I just let my form go and I … it … I became a raven. A raven! I got off the ground okay but that wind-" She coughs, and bless the gods, there's no blood, which means no punctured lungs. "-the wind started up and I couldn't fight it."

"Never fight the wind," I whisper, smoothing frozen hair from her eyes, then tucking her into the fold of my cloak. "You ride it, like a wave. You have to trust it, and let your body go, similar to when you transform."

She smirks. "Giving me tips now?"

I growl. "If you're going to act the fool, Precious, at least grant me the honour of ensuring you don't get yourself killed."

In response, she only smiles indulgently and tucks her head into the crook of my neck. The heat of her body folding into mine is almost painful in the pleasure it brings, like the bittersweet relief brought by sex.

The worst part is, I can't prohibit her from anything. I hold no power over her. If anything, I'm the one who set this chain of events in motion the day I fell in love with that odd, lonely child playing dress-up in the park, the day I gave her some of my powers. Our fate was sealed the night she defeated me with those damn words.

Startled, I glance back at the shattered branches overhead, at the blood-soaked ground, then at the woman in my arms who is, amazingly, still alive. My kingdom as great …

If a mortal can share the power of a god, at what point does she shed her mortality? A candle flame is no longer a candle flame when it's swallowed up by a sun.

I hope. I wish. Gods can be born of flesh just as much as fire. It's happened before, though not often.

If she won't obey me (and I know she never will), I'll simply have to protect her better until I can ascertain what, exactly, she is becoming. Human lives are only supposed to be a hundred years at best. It won't take long to figure out what's really going on.

In the meantime, my little raven will continue to push the boundaries of physics, and apparently my sanity. Very fitting, given that ravens are curious birds and sworn enemies of owls.

My castle is not far, but the snow drifts are deep and my precious cargo can't be jostled. I tuck her firmly against my chest, hiding her from the wind, trying to avoid hitting her broken arm. She's already asleep, half-dead from exhaustion. I'll set that arm when we're home, and bandage that wound, and draw her a bath. Ever the villain, ever the slave.

To be continued