01. Starlight

.i
“I am exhausted from living up to your expectations.”

He did look exhausted when he said that to her, she remembered. A slight sag in his shoulders, eyes partially closed as if wanting nothing more than to sleep for all eternity.

He said he did numerous things for her, among them reordering time, before that, she recalled. Time did seem to stand still when he threw those crystals around, and when he danced with her in what she wondered was a dream, but now believed to be a past reality.

Reordering time.

That would be enough to drain the most powerful of kings, wouldn’t it?

.ii
Toby was always too young to understand the changes his big sister went through at random intervals, but her father and step-mother were not so lucky. Always little questions were littered over dinner, or perhaps after picking her up from school in a miss-guided act of pure altruism. Something like “you haven’t been looking well” or akin to “so, how are things?”

She became an expert at sloughing off the questions like dead skin, mentioning pseudo-activities she was “involved” with, though really all she had done was examine the posters on the announcement board at school every day. They never checked her stories, to her knowledge, and she got away free from their inquiring gazes when she ran to the park.

When she had to take the infant brother with her, however, it was another story.

He didn’t like the park, because of all the owls that stared at him with unblinking eyes. Toby would scream, and shout, and shake a tiny balled fist towards them in a fit of anger if they did not bother to ruffle their feathers or hoot in reaction. He would cry soon after that, and eventually lapse into silence as his protector and knight in shining armour continued to try to communicate with them.

.iii
“I have reordered time..”

Once she asked her science teacher if it were possible to reorder time itself, and she was laughed out of the classroom. Sarah was such a daydreamer, her grades were evident of that. Best not give her ideas of how to try to do anything with those daydreams! No, it would be best to just laugh and jeer at her questions.

Or at least, laugh until she fades away, never to return again.

.iv
Even when the crying baby was with her, she tried to speak to the owls in the park. She asked them questions about the Underground, and about her friends and the goblins there. She begged for some word of the Goblin King, and if they knew of a way to return there without sacrificing an infant child to get there.

Mostly they just stared at her with beady black eyes, and ruffled their feathers some when she became particularly forceful. No hoots or squawks in response, and for that she had hope.

If they didn’t answer her, they were hiding something.

.v
“I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you!”

Her world looked perfectly right-side up to her, and it made the terror coil in her stomach until she couldn’t handle it anymore, and broke down sobbing in the girl’s washroom, or in her bedroom, or in the canned goods section of the grocery store. He hadn’t turned her world upside down, just his, all in her name.

He hadn’t let her feel the effects of his manipulations after the Labyrinth ended and the child was hers again. He robbed her of that responsibility.

She hated him for it.

.vi
An older than young Sarah sat in the living room of her rooftop flat and wheezed at the dust motes that drifted through the air. Two years out of high school, and she was already developing health problems. Once again she cursed her lack of ambition over anything other that saving infants from fantastical villains, and stood to seek out the hiding place of the broom.

It was behind her refrigerator, peeking out ever so slightly to let her know that it had resigned itself to the lot in life of “being that which sweeps refuge from floors”. Victory was hers as she pulled it out from the hiding place, and she hummed to herself as she set to sweeping.

Not the most helpful of cleaning acts, but at least it would get all of the Owl feathers up from the floor.

A small pile was starting to form when she heard a flutter of wings behind her, and she turned to greet the new visitor. This one was silver and white, obviously older, and quite large as well. She grinned, and waved towards the food dish, and started to sweep again.

“So tell me, new friend, any news from the underground? No? Then tell me, any chance you might impart upon me the secret of finding places hidden from sight and yet still there nonetheless?” She had read quite a few fantasy novels since her triumph over little knobbly creatures with disgusting eating habits and their eternally handsome monarch, and her vocabulary showed it. “If not, perhaps you can take a message from me to the Goblin King?

“After all, one would expect him to at least keep in touch! He turned the world upside down, you know. He said he did it for me, and after I took my brother back, he hasn’t even bothered to send a postcard! The audaciousness of some people is quite infuriating, really.”

“I am still quite exhausted from living up to your expectations, Sarah.”

She let the handle of the broom fall from her grip, and she turned to look at him in surprise. Of all the fantasies of meeting him next, him appearing while she was sweeping up owl feathers from her living room floor was not on the list.

“You’re here.”

Mismatched eyes darkened, and he tilted his head as his lips formed a smirk. “So I am.”

She narrowed her eyes, and took one step forward. “You haven’t bothered to live up to my latest expectations, either.”

The Goblin King shrugged in a manner that suggested that he really didn’t care for the conversation at hand, and leaned against the wall immediately behind him. “Really Sarah, is everything about you, even after all this time? I would have thought that you would have matured over the years, not stayed in a constant state of childishness.”

One more step forward, this time a long stride across the room, and she let her fists unclench. “Did you come because I’ve been asking for the past five years, or because you wanted to argue?”

“A little of both, I’m afraid,” he sighed. A crystal began to swirl and jump around his fingers, and his smirk solidified into something more predatory. “Also, I am a bit curious as to how you have been holding up, for the past few hours. You normally call for me every five hours, on the hour. You are late by twenty minutes.”

She felt her stomach knot painfully, and she fought to keep her eyes on his. He still did things to her with a simple look, except now she was older, and knew exactly what those things were, really. They were emotions, or hormones, or brain impulses, all reacting to his very presence and telling her what to do and when to do it.

And right now those things were telling her that she needed to touch him, or else she was going to curl up and die right there.

Sarah closed the distance between them, and stood as tall as she could while looking up at him. Her hands rested on her hips, and she narrowed her eyes into a glare. “So you’re here because I wasn’t crying out for you again, that’s it? And here I was thinking that you were a nice man, who would come when a lady asked him to, and serve her every desire.”

The smirk fell from his face, and the crystal ball fell to the floor, shattering into tiny shards before dissolving into the air. The sound reverberated through the room, and they were silent for a while after the harsh echo faded.

“As I said, Sarah, I am exhausted from living up to your expectations..”

Her hands fell from her hips as she leaned into him, and she let her eyes droop partway closed as she took in his scent. If she played her cards right, she could have him again, and this time, she wouldn’t give the world she wanted up for anyone other than herself.

If she played her cards right, she could finally return to the Underground.

“Then rest a while because I don’t have anymore to throw upon you.” She looked up at him and smiled, into his expressionless face as her mind worked a mile a minute. “I only have a few requests now, instead.”