Prologue : Of History
Started: September 19th, 2005
Finished: September 19th, 2005
Beta'd: Sailor Ronin Usa-chan (September 20th, 2005) and Pokahydee (September 20th, 2005)
Author: Tenshi no Nozomi
Contact at: lasohaney(at)tamu(dot)edu
OR
tenshi(underscore)no(underscore)nozomi(at)hotmail(dot)com
Summary: There's never just one copy of any book in existence—Sarah's book has one brother. And where should that book happen to find itself but in the possession of Tsukino Usagi? Labyrinth x Sailor Moon cross.
Genre: Action/Adventure, Comedy, Romance
Background info: set after Sarah's defeat of the Labyrinth. Sailor Moon setting is more… ambiguous, but it's definitely after ChibiUsa's arrival and after her discovery of the senshis' identities (or however that went; it's been a long time since I watched that arc).
Pairings: future Jareth/Usagi (?)
Disclaimer: Only in my wildest and most inappropriate dreams have I ever owned Jareth. Good God, though, do I wish. At any rate: the Labyrinth is property of one Jim Henson, God bless the good man's soul. Neither do I own Sailor Moon or any of it's subsequent characters included and/or mentioned in this fic. Takeuchi and various other companies lay claim to that. I'm just borrowing for creative usage. This fic was also inspired by a multitude of wonderful Labyrinth fics (and when I say multitude, I do mean that I've read A LOT of them) and my desire to see a good Labyrinth fic… that gets finished. XD And I think my oneechan would agree to that.
Author's Notes:
I have seen, in my past five or so years on this site, about five or six different Labyrinth crossovers with SM. I have never read any of them. Yes, it crossed my mind, because I do love the Labyrinth—I have ever since I was a little kid; I own a copy of it on dvd (two really, but one of em I gave to my mom)—but I hesitated. Why, you might ask (if you care)? Because I was afraid. In my mind, the Labyrinth is something like a masterpiece—it never gained the popularity that it should have; the idea was incredible, innovative, and well-executed, especially given the technology for that time period.
I've kind of always wanted to do a Labyrinth crossover. The idea and the characters are too marvelous to leave alone. But I've been rather intimidated, until recently—I only now feel that I have the talent to do the movie any justice. I hope that I'm right in assuming so; if this goes over well, I also plan on writing a Forbidden Game cross (can I hear some noise from the L.J. Smith fans? I know you're out there!)
I promise that despite the length of my author's notes, I am now drawing to a close. I do have a few things I do want to say. This fic will not completely follow Sarah's journey—yes, familiar faces will pop in, but I want to leave this fic feeling like I've accomplished something, instead of copying. So expect some original characters. I do also intend to acknowledge that Sarah's journey has been complete. I feel I would be doing the original story a great disfavor by ignoring it.
If you have never seen the Labyrinth and are planning to read this fic, I do suggest watching the Labyrinth. It is not necessary to your understanding of the story, however it's such a good movie I do promise that you won't regret it (and if you don't like it, I will simply be shocked, appalled, and devastated XD ). It is currently available in dvd format, and you can probably rent it at Netflix on dvd. I don't know about Blockbuster… I'm not sure how good they are about updating older movies to dvd copies. Try asking your friends about it too—chances are one of them will know about.
All of that said… I hope you all enjoy this. Oh, oh! One last thing before I forget. Hee hee. The title of this fic is based on chess, but you probably already knew that. I chose it because it's kind of a reminder that all of life—and even the labyrinth itself—is something like a strategic game/puzzle. X3
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Long ago, in a tiny town in Germany, a small book was published and bound, and circulated a very little bit. It was a book about a fairytale, in which a young woman wished her child to be carried away by the Goblin King—and so he took it. The story chronicled her journey through a marvelous though treacherous labyrinth, where at the end she defeated the Goblin King and was rewarded by the return of her child. It was just a single fairytale in a time of many, and it was ill fated that it never received the attention it ought to have.
For the truth was that the Labyrinth was a true story. The author's own grandmother had been the fair maiden of legend, and the story was handed down through the family, until the grandson attempted to share it with the world. His attempt failed for the most part; he published thirteen editions, few of which sold.
Of the thirteen, most were destroyed—six in a fire that claimed the storyteller's life as well, three more were destroyed through careless handling over the ages and then thrown away like so much garbage, one was destroyed by water, and one was buried with an elderly woman who loved it too much to let it go. The remaining two gathered dust and age, and became brittle—pages were torn or lost or ruined, the binding wore and gave out, words became smudged by countless fingerprints. They too would have been lost to time if it had not been for an American publisher rummaging through an old and used bookstore one day.
The woman who happened upon the copies was astonished to find not one, but two copies. Both were damaged, and alone would have been disappointing in that they did not contain the story in their entirety, however together, they formed the legend that once was. She was so charmed by the books that she took them back with her to America to be published.
She succeeded in her goal of translating and republishing, but her success was marginal, too. The story seemed cursed, in that very few of the volumes published survived or were bought—the printer from which the copies were coming went under financially, and few were actually published. The story garnered little attention in a world in which most children were glued to their tv sets and fairy tales needed to be accompanied by pictures and told in small words in order for them to be understood. In time, there were few copies left. So few, in fact, that they were narrowed down to two once more.
One copy came into the possession of a woman by the name of Linda Williams. She was a young mother at the time, only 23, and an aspiring actress. She bought the book on a whim from a used bookseller, but found that it was not entirely to her taste. Her daughter Sarah fell in the love with the story from the first time it was read to her, however, and so when Linda left her family for a career and a new young man, she left the book to her daughter, one of her only keepsakes.
Sarah grew up, but kept the book close to her heart. In time, she became quite lovely, and aspired to follow in her mother's footsteps to become an actress. At the age of fifteen, her father remarried a woman by the name of Karen, upsetting the family dynamic that Sarah had known for nearly ten years of her life. Karen did not understand her stepdaughter, and despite her attempts to get to know her, Sarah remained resolute in her desire not to accept the new woman in her life. She felt that in doing so, she would betray her mother's memory.
So it was that Sarah turned to the world of her books and fantasy and acting to distract her from the alienation she felt at home. It was the one shining beacon in her otherwise dreary life. Time passed, and a little less than a year later, Karen gave birth to a baby boy whom they named Toby. Feeling further alienated from her family, Sarah sank deeper still into the sanctuary of her imagination.
One night, when her mother and father went out to dinner and left Sarah to take care of the baby, she tried to quiet him while he threw a tantrum, as babies are prone to do. She told him a story, but not just any story—she began to tell him the tale of the Labyrinth. In a moment of equal amounts of desperation and frustration, Sarah wished for her baby brother to be taken away by the goblins.
Much to Sarah's surprise and dismay, her wish was granted. The Goblin King came to take the baby away, offering to her in return her dreams. Sarah chose instead to follow the same path the original maiden had taken and traversed the giant labyrinth, passed the Goblin City, and braved the king's castle for the sake of her brother. She succeeded in the end, and she and her brother were returned to their home with no one the wiser as to what had taken place.
That story, however, accounts for the presence of only one book. There was one other book in the world, waiting for a certain person to take it and do with it what the story had always planned to happen. Because the story of the Labyrinth chronicled true events involving magic, it held a little magic itself, and in held some respect had a certain will. That will was not to spread the story over the earth, but just to one person.
The story had been searching for that person for many, many years, and in order to achieve its quest had to allow for it's previous publishing and republishing. It felt no need for a thousand editions, however—two would be plenty. It had hoped that Sarah Williams would be the solution. Her spirit was vivacious, and she seemed to have some spark of magic that could kindle the fires necessary. When she refused her dreams, however, the Labyrinth knew that Sarah could not be the answer to its question. As it was, however, this setback did not pose a serious problem—the other volume had already made its way to a very different home.
While it's brethren copy was in the possession of Linda Williams, the other copy bided its time in a half-price bookshop until a Japanese photographer on a trip to America happened by the book. He was on a business trip, but had promised his wife a souvenir from his trips. Being fluent in English, he was able to read the book, and decided that his wife or his young daughter would enjoy the fairytale.
So he took it home with him, and had it privately translated so that his wife—who dealt with foreigners less and found English harder to read—could read it. Ikuko Tsukino found the book to be a delightful fairytale, but even more than she enjoyed it, so did her daughter Usagi Tsukino.
Like Sarah was, Usagi was a young girl who appreciated the idea of kingdoms and love and magic, and fervently believed and wished for the story to be true. While she couldn't read for the first several years of her childhood, Usagi had her mother read it to her so often that she knew it by heart before she could even read it herself. So in the same way that Sarah held that spark of magic, so did Usagi.
During her teenage years, Usagi found herself distracted by an entirely different magic than that of the Labyrinth. Through fate and rebirth, Usagi inherited the powers of her former self—that of the heir to the Moon Kingdom, the Princess Serenity, who died young and in love. It was a romantic notion, one that spurred her belief in her old fairytales to life. No longer did she treat them as other teenagers might—with bemusement and perhaps remorse for childhood dreams long gone—but as a young woman who took the story as truth. Her added experience and further experiences with magic ignited the energy latent in the book, signaling that a second possibility had opened itself up.
However, not once did she recite the words that would open the floodgates. She had one younger brother, but even he was too old to be taken, and at any rate, she didn't have the desire to say such a thing. Nor did she have the nerve, taking the story to heart. So the situation appeared to be at a stalemate. That was, at least until a younger girl came to reside with the Tsukino family—her name was ChibiUsa.
ChibiUsa was a young, willful girl who forced herself upon the Tsukino family, claiming to be a young cousin. She too possessed powerful magic—with this magic she was able to trick most of the family into accepting her for who she claimed to be. In truth, however, she was actually Usagi's daughter from a very distant future, brought to the past for various reasons.
This girl's presence, at last, gave the Labyrinth room to work. She was a petulant, willful child, but more than that she possessed magic. Strong magic that, with or without true belief in what she was said would allow for something magical to happen. A lack of belief would even be to the book's benefit—she would not inhibit herself if she didn't believe it would truly happen.
This is where the real story begins.
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Wow… I really cranked that out, didn't I? Just one evening—one sitting even. Granted, it's short, but that's not what matters. Anyhow, that's just the prologue, folks—the other chapters will be much longer, I promise, and much less boring. I felt it necessary to set the story up in this certain way, as silly as it sounds, because this is all about fairytales, and fairytales have a particular way of opening/being told. I will not, however, continue to dictate the story using that voice. It's uncomfortable for me to sustain for long periods of time. XD
Anyhow… please be a good reader and review—comments, questions, complaints, critique… all are welcomed! Critiques in particular will garner you extra brownie points with me. X3 Just press the nice little review button or send me an email at either of the addresses listed above. Remember that authors can't get better without reader input! (And I always love to hear what people think.)