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Shattered	By : TarnishedArmour Category: G through L > Labyrinth Views: 7713 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: Based upon the work of Jim Henson; specifically Labyrinth, copyright 1986 by Jim Henson & associated parties. I do not own or have legal rights to Labyrinth, etc., or make any profit from them. *Individual disclaimers for other works in

Chapter List
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Sarah pondered the phrase on the rock as she walked. Prudence is the fabric of Nobility. Prudence involved wisdom, she knew, so it made sense that one of the traits of a nobleman was wisdom. That she could buy into. Prudence was a form of caution, which noblemen may need. Noblemen dealt with kings and other nobles, so knowing when to and when not to be cautious would be important. Especially with Jareth, she had learned that the hard way. Okay, those two things had to be a part of a nobleman, but what about the rest of what prudence involved? There was more to it than just wisdom and caution, she was sure of that. The connotation that went with the word lent it more depth. The denotation may be simple, but the layers of meaning were much more complex. The Knight from Chaucer's Tales was prudent. The Wife of Bath wasn't. Neither was the Miller. Who else was prudent? What traits did they have?
Hoggle wasn't. He was, regrettably, just a coward. Most of the time. Ludo wouldn't understand prudence, and Didymus…he was the definition of imprudence.
Or so it seemed.
Damn.
Another dead end.
Sarah walked on, seeing no inns or towns or anything else. She was back in the woods, now walking beside a babbling brook.
Babbling brooks. Prudence. Thomas Becket. He'd given shelter to some people who had pissed off the king-she didn't recall which one-and the infamous "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" moment had been born. Frustration led the king to say something he didn't mean, and a few of his soldiers took it seriously. They had violated the sanctuary of the church and killed Becket, who happened to be riding on his position in the Church and his friendship with the king. His faith had possibly been imprudent, given that the kings of Sarah's home world were only men, not tied to their post through some mystical and magical bonds. So Thomas Becket and his king had not been prudent. The soldiers had not been prudent, either. So…what was prudent?
Around in another circle-and when was there going to be something or someone around to kick her ass and give her the golden "damn, was I stupid or just blind" moment?
Frustrated by her continued contemplation and a lack of progress, Sarah soldiered on.
"Karen?" Jareth asked, seeing Karen alone at the table. Toby, the nanny told him, would not be joining them for dinner. It was a shame, since Jareth had been looking forward to that little bit of lightness, but, seeing Karen's expression, he understood why she didn't want Toby to hear whatever was on her mind.
"Robert called today." At Jareth's look, she shook her head. "Toby's birthday is next week. I…told him he could visit with Toby. Next Saturday. They're going to a new amusement park."
"And you plan to supervise this visit?" Jareth asked, not trusting Robert an inch.
"No," she replied, her voice soft and meek. "I…told him Hestia would be with him. She's a human nanny, so she can take care of Toby and he's used to her."
"So it's settled." He watched as her shoulders slumped even more and she seemed to shrink. "Karen, what is the problem?"
"I don't know how to tell Toby that I won't be there." She sniffed, again feeling so miserable and worthless that she couldn't think of eating, much less enjoying herself.
"Be honest with him," Jareth offered, somewhat naively. "He is an intelligent child, after all."
Karen shook her head. "Never mind. I'll just-"
"Karen," Jareth said, his voice more forceful. "Do not dodge this."
"I'm not trying to," she replied, frustrated with herself and, irrationally, him. "You couldn't possibly understand!" she finally lashed out. "You've testicles and think below the belt!"
Jareth raised his eyebrows, surprised at the mercurial shifts of her mood. From ecstatic earlier today, to depressed, now angry. Women were a constant twist of everything a man would expect.
"That's rather low of you, Karen," he replied mildly.
"Why?" she spat out bitterly. "Because it's true? Because you have no idea how it could possibly wear on a woman to see her son growing up without his father? To know he wants his father to be there? To know that you're the reason they can't be around one another? To know all those moments that are so special won't happen without someone else there to watch over your former husband, the father? A father, by the way, who never offered to harm or otherwise belittle his children. Could that be because you've never had a child? A child that depends upon you to keep his world from falling apart? Because you're the one who's shattered life as he knew it? Twice?" Karen was now crying and shouting at Jareth.
Stunned at the way Karen was speaking, at the things she was pulling up to berate him about, Jareth said nothing, just let her go on ranting. And rant she did. Finally, she was beyond ranting to weeping, wailing, and gnashing teeth.
"I failed! I'm no kind of mother! Look at Toby!" she wailed. "He doesn't understand why he can't see his father every day, why I'm not there-if I could go back-" she added.
Jareth stood, walked over to her, and took her chin firmly in his hand.
"Bite your tongue," he whispered. The venom in his voice and the power resonating in the room made her stop speaking, stop accusing herself, him, and everything else of somehow destroying Toby's life. "Compose yourself. Sit. Eat. When you are capable of being rational, we will speak again. Until then, be silent."
"No." Karen snarled back, suddenly having all of her rage and pain focus on a single pair of mismatched eyes. The magic in her that bent to the power he was projecting didn't phase her. She'd fought through more tangible barriers before, forced herself to dance through pain and fever and heartbreak. A little magic was not an obstacle.
"That was a command, Karen," he replied, eyes narrowing in warning. The presence grew stronger, almost oppressive.
Karen didn't care. She didn't speak again. She just reacted.
It was the wrong thing to do.
Sarah looked around her. Now she had forest and the babbling brook. Now she was thoroughly confused.
It was late, she hadn't found anything to be prudent about yet, and she hadn't managed to reason out whatever it was that the rock wanted her to figure out.
Looking around for an appropriate camping spot for the night, remembering the instructions from the weaponsmaster about a defensible position and appropriate safeguards for early-warning about visitors, Sarah prepared to rest for the night.
Karen struggled in Jareth's grip. He was furious. She was unreasonable. It was a recipe for disaster. Some part of Jareth knew he had to get control over her and over his own growing rage. He listened to that part and took action.
Jareth translocated them to his dungeon, a place Karen hadn't seen in her tours of the castle. It wasn't part of the castle. It was separate from the heart of the labyrinth, a miserable little place in a system of caves that very few people knew existed. There was one particular section that was left free of any prisoners, the King's Dungeon. This area was deserted, since Jareth currently had no one that had disobeyed a direct order in recent days. Except for Karen.
He shoved her into a cell and slammed the door, leaving her in darkness.
He had to think this through. She would be punished for her outright defiance, but she was not easy to punish. Reviewing his options, Jareth dismissed physical force and pain almost immediately. She would only go out of her way to defy him more and more often, resulting in more and more violence, once that path was started. She was older, wiser, tougher than most who answered to him, and he still did not have a good feel for what made her tick, other than Toby. He would not withhold Toby from her. That was cruel to the child, and Toby deserved no part of this.
That left sex, humiliation, hard labour-he was reluctant to do that, since it could ruin her dancing-magical pain, separation from palace life, an oubliette, or old fashioned bondage and dominance. He grimaced. He did not want her to form a sexual bond to him, nor he to her, not more than they had already. She was fun, but there was no deep attraction with her. They scratched a mutual itch, occasionally celebrated something, and moved on, unaffected. He liked it that way. So, skipping the sex, the magical pain-at this stage of her development, it could stunt her-and the separation from palace life & oubliette for Toby's sake, he was left with humiliation.
How the hell does one humiliate an exhibitionist? he wondered. This was going to take more time than he had thought.
Pulling himself and the dungeon into the broken moments, Jareth pondered the problem more.
Something in the air made Sarah wake up. Nothing had tripped her alarms or her wards, but there was something happening in the forest. Something that was…not evil. Not evil, but not harmless, either.
Sitting up, Sarah pulled her sword from its sheath and strapped on her armour. Whatever this was, she was going to be ready. Sliding her senses open, Sarah kept her magic at hand while she searched for the direction and speed of her target.
When she found it, she crept out of her camp and, concealing her packs with a small bit of magic, began stalking the night.
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Shattered