Mireia and the Path of Air

"And that was the story of Orion. The first ever to succeed in my Labyrinth." As Jareth finished, they came to a large marble doorway at the highest point of the Room of Stairs.

"That was a very good story, Jareth," Mireia told him. "Thank you for telling it to me."

"You're welcome, I'm sure," he replied, leading them through the doorway. Mireia saw that they were on the highest ramparts of the castle. From here she could see all of the Labyrinth, stretched out in complicated detail below her. She dropped Jareth's arm and rushed forward so that she could lean out over the brick and stone wall, and try to see the Goblin City which must be sprawled at the foot of the castle. Before she could lean out quite far enough, she felt a hand grab the back of her shirt and wrench her easily away from the edge.

"You look much better having not smashed into the ground," said Jareth, relinquishing his hold on her shirt. Mireia scowled at him. Then something occurred to her, and she smiled brightly at him.

"That was another nice thing to do," she informed him.

"It's a rule," he said, eyebrows raised in an amused expression. "You're mine to protect until the thirteen hours are up. I won't allow you to get hurt in that time." He frowned slightly at her. "Really. Babies are so much easier to keep an eye on." Mireia decided to ignore that comment.

"So where are we going now? Where does a person vacation in the Labyrinth?"

"Outside the Labyrinth, of course," said Jareth. He took her arm and tucked it back around his. "You can't turn into an owl, so I'm afraid we'll have to do this the hard way." He approached the edge of the wall that he had just jerked her back from. "Hop up," he said, stepping gracefully up onto the ledge.

"But you just pulled me away from this!"

"And now I'm pulling you towards it. Though I advise you once again not to let go of my arm." And with that, he stepped out into the thin air, pulling her with him. Mireia wasn't afraid of heights. Not really. But she did take exception to falling from them. As Jareth pulled her forward, she found that she couldn't breath, making it impossible to ask Jareth what the hell he thought he was doing. She was still bracing herself for a sharp drop when--a mere foot or so down, her feet met solid air, and the scream that had been coming, caught in her throat. The air seemed to be a lot firmer that it should have been. Jareth tightened his grip on her arm and said "Step this way, please."

And as casually as that, Mireia found herself strolling along on the arm of the Goblin King in Thin Air. Feeling a bit wobbly in the knees, she found it hard not to look down at exactly what her feet weren't walking on. They were passing over the Goblin City, it's unique and ramshackle little houses and streets winding away beneath them.

"We will get back in time for Michael to get to the castle, right?" asked Mireia, wrenching her gaze away from the miniatures below her.

"We'll put in an appearance, yes," said Jareth. "Though I doubt the Goblin's little rebellion party will be over just yet." He sighed. "The things I do for my Kingdom." They walked in silence for a bit. Mireia found that she didn't mind the walking-on-nothing part so badly after all.

"Kindly stop crowding me," Jareth said after a while. "The path won't suddenly end on your side, so you needn't step on my feet."

"Oh!" said Mireia, who had not noticed how close she'd been trying to keep to him in an effort not to fall off of her side of the invisible path. "Sorry."

"Quite," said Jareth, and the silence descended again. They walked for a long while and soon Mireia got bored of looking down at the Labyrinth. She decided to get back to asking Jareth pertinent questions.

"So how come you don't look like a Goblin?" she asked him. He chuckled and said nothing for several moments.

"I am a Goblin King, not a Goblin." She could hear the smile in his voice and turned her face up to watch his expressions. A wide, pointy-toothed smile was aimed down at her.

"Well, what's the big difference?" Mireia asked, determined to get to the bottom of this while she had the chance. "I mean, are you human? Or are you some breed of super Goblin that becomes, like, the Opposite of Goblins. You know, you're tall, where they're short, you're thin where they're fat. They're ugly and you're handso--" she stopped herself in a slight horror over what she'd almost said outloud. "You're not green," she finished quickly, hoping he wouldn't notice her near slip. She glanced at his face. The smile had turned wicked and his brows were arched up in a knowing look. Damn it. She'd do well to remember to watch her mouth around the King of Goblins.

"No, I am not strictly human," he replied, still smirking at her. "And I'm not a Super Goblin, God forbid something like that should ever exist. Any other guesses?"

"Well," said Mireia, thinking. "You said you weren't strictly human--what does that mean? You look like a human. Are you half human and half goblin and your human genes won out? You know, your father was a burly human knight and your mother a Goblin princess and they fell in love and had an elicit affair and had to marry?"

"Wrong again, and kindly leave my mother out of this."

"Can't you just tell me?"

"Where would be the fun in that?" He asked, obviously enjoying himself.

"The fun would be in my knowing, once and for all," Mireia replied, firmly. "Come on. Give."

"I was human once," he told her, his mouth reshaping itself into a more serious form. "But now I am not quite human. I can't explain it to you better than that."

"What happened to make you not quite human?" Mireia persisted.

"I was brought here," he said simply.

"By who?"

"By the Goblins."

"Where were you from before?"

"That's none of your affair."

"But--" she started.

"Mireia," he cut her off warningly. "I've told you quite enough about that."

"All right, fine," she said, undaunted. "Did you build the Labyrinth, then?

"Parts of it, yes," he replied. "I didn't start it, though. The first part--the magical part, was here long before I came. Long before even the Goblins came, I believe."

"How did you get to be King?" Mireia asked next.

"I defeated the old one in combat," he replied.

"How old are you really?"

"I don't believe I'll answer that question."

"Did you Love Sarah?" Mireia said, not missing a beat. Jareth stopped in his tracks, gripped her shoulders with his gloved hands, and turned her to face him.

"I am not, nor have I ever been in Love with Sarah Williams. Do I make myself clear on that point?" His expression was intense but unreadable. She couldn't figure out if he was upset with the question, or just vehement about it.

"Yes," she said, surprised. "So you didn't love her. Why does it say that you do in the book?"

"My guess is that our intrepid young Sarah went home, wrote all of her adventures down in her diary, and a few years later published a book about it. I certainly never told her I was in love with her. She got that idea on her own."

"Oh," said Mireia. Sarah's imaginings where sometimes too close to her own. Mireia had pretended a little that Jareth loved her. But now he was real, and not quite like her imaginings. She didn't yet know how to feel about this Jareth, and with any luck, she wouldn't be around long enough to contemplate it much further. She suppressed an urge to step out of his grip. He abruptly released her, twined her arm around his again, and set off walking once more.

"How much further?" Mireia asked, after several minutes of silence.

"Do you see that desert, off in the distance, beyond the Labyrinth?"

"Yes."

"That's where we're going."

"You're vacationing in a desert?"

"No, I'm vacationing at a desert Oasis. It's really quite exclusive."

"That sounds more like it," Mireia approved.

"You should enjoy it. It will probably be your last vacation as a girl." His tone was clipped and devilish.

"It will NOT," Mireia returned forcefully. Jareth didn't reply. She had expected some rejoinder and looked up at him in askance. The smile was gone, and he was not looking at her, but below them, into the Labyrinth. Two more steps and he stopped abruptly, his expression becoming concerned.

"That isn't right," he muttered softly to himself, producing a globe in the hand that wasn't hooked around Mireia's. "What the bloody--" he began, looking into the globe. Mireia craned to see into it, too, but either the angle was wrong, or she wasn't capable. She saw nothing. His hand flipped, instantaneously putting the crystal away. And then suddenly the solid path of air that they'd been traveling on was no longer there. They began to fall.