A/N: Hey guys, I know it's been a while. A long while. Sorry about that. I got promoted at work so I've been working as closing manager at work since like, June. For a while, I was working six days a week, for 10 hours a day, and I was exhausted. I'm sorry this has taken so long, but here it is.

On another note, I'm going to NY to be with my grandparents and my boyfriend for two months so I'm going to have a lot more free time to work on this, and hopefully get more up.

Please let me know what you think in a review.

Love,

BRTxoxo

Daenerys couldn't stop shaking. Her large brown eyes watched Jareth with rapt horror as she wrapped her hands around her throat, as if she could feel what was wrong that way. Her breathing became uneven, panicked, and it took some time before Jareth could pry her small fingers from her neck so he could feel it. He pulled one glove from his hand and more warmth spread through her neck where their skin made contact. It gave her a little bit of comfort.

"Try again."

Daenerys opened her mouth to try and speak again, but no sound came out. Tears sprang to her eyes and she cried out, holding her throat again. She fell over into the pile of pillows and cushions, praying that her voice would come back, that she could just clear her throat and she would be able to speak again, but it never happened.

Jareth could only watch as silent sobs racked her small body, and he was at least grateful that her ribs were no longer a problem. She looked as though she was trying to heave, almost to throw up or get some noise to come out of her mouth, so he carefully laid a hand on her back. She shuddered. "Daenerys I'm sorry."

Daenerys took in a few deep breaths to try and calm herself before looking into his eyes again. 'Jareth what did you do to me,' she mouthed.

He could hear the air leaving her throat. But no voice. "I took the liberty of healing your broken ribs that Sally was kind enough to bestow upon you. Had I any idea it would result in the loss of your voice, I would not have dared to try. I've tried to repair your vocal chords, but there isn't anything to heal."

More tears fell from her eyes. 'What am I going to do? How am I going to finish school? Jareth! I need my voice!' She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his chest, crying that much harder.

Unsure of what to do, the king hesitantly laid his hands on her back and began to stroke her hair in what he hoped was a soothing motion. He had never been very good at the comforting thing. As she cried into him, he turned ideas over in his head about how to fix what he'd done. Yet each idea was tossed aside as quickly as it had come to him. Nothing, it seemed was a viable solution. Except… perhaps that idea wasn't a complete loss.

His musings and the weeping girl's lamentations were interrupted when a goblin, only two feet tall with crooked teeth and a small nose came tumbling into the room. "Kingy kingy!"

Jareth gave a resigned sigh and gently pulled Daenerys away from him so he could stand and address the creature before him. She pulled her knees up to her chest again and planted her face in them as soon as her physical contact with the monarch had been broken.

"Kingy!" The high pitched voice of the goblin echoed around the empty room.

"Yes, yes, Bucky, what is it?" The irritation in Jareth's voice was more than palpable. "Speak up!" His eyes narrowed dangerously and his perfectly tailored glove slipped easily back onto his fingers.

"Kingy, the girl, the gold girl fell into the hole! She fell into the oubliette!"

"Is that all?"

"No! Kingy she got outof the oubliette!"

"Bloody hell, does that insufferable girl even know how to play by the rules," he swore under his breath. "Thank you Bucky that will do. Leave us." He waved a regal hand in the direction of the door and the small goblin tripped over his too big canvas shoes to get out of the throne room. With a gentle tap on her head, Jareth assured Daenerys he would be back soon, left a glass of water on the edge of the pit and disappeared in a small shower of dark glitter.

. . .

The second Sally found the two door guards where one always lied and one always told the truth, she knew she was in trouble, though she'd never admit it. She'd heard the riddle before, but she could never remember the question that she was supposed to ask.

It had already taken her about an hour to actually start the labyrinth-getting in had taken enough time as it was. The dwarf guy that was spraying the fairies like they were bad dogs was ugly, and she hated him immediately. The way his voice sounded grated on her nerves. When she realized he was going to be obnoxious and not give her a straight answer, she climbed the wall.

That of course had pissed him off and he yelled at her, threw rocks at her, and she flipped him off.

After that, Sally jumped down into the maze and after being thoroughly disgusted with the state of what she had been reduced to, started walking. That was also infuriating as either way she looked was a long stretch of… straight.

Maybe it's a gentle curve that wraps around the stupid thing. There has to be an opening somewhere, she thought. But as she ran, it kept going on straight forward. Infuriatingly straight forward.

So then she stopped, and sat down. "This is bullshit. Labyrinth my ass, there aren't any corners or turns anywhere it just goes on and on. Fuck this. You can't tell me to run this damn maze and then have me running around in circles getting nowhere." She crossed her arms with a huff. "I call bull. I'm not running anymore."

In actuality, Sally had only been running for half an hour, and combined with the half out it took her to get into the maze, she was only an hour into her sentence.

With a prideful sigh, she leaned back to rest on the wall. Sally frowned when her back didn't immediately hit the rough brick, and her frown turned to a startled yelp when she fell completely backwards and landed on the ground.

She groaned in frustration as she pushed herself up off of the dusty ground and looked around her. The brick wall in front of her was a lighter color than that of the first corridor she had been in, and the bricks were larger. Looking to her left and to her right, she realized that now instead of a long path, the walls formed corners.

At least now it's like an actual maze, she reasoned. But when Sally turned around to look back the way she came, the wall was firm and unrelenting.

"Oh that is so not fair!"

"What's not fair?"

Sally whirled around, glaring daggers at the dwarf from the beginning. "None of your damn business. Go away."

"You've only been here an hour, and you're still only at the beginning."

"Why don't you go bother someone else?"

The dwarf shrugged. "Ain't got no one else to bother."

Sally snorted.

"If you're wondering…"

"I'm not."

The dwarf continued past her interruption, "The Labyrinth is a magical place. Ain't nothing normal here. It keeps switching up all the time."

"Oh please, you really expect me to believe that?"

"I don't expect you to believe anything."

Sally scoffed in offense. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you're stupid and if you want to get through this Labyrinth, you're going to need my help."

"Excuse you, but I'll have you know that I'm at the top of my class! I'm the smartest person in that place!"

It was the dwarfs turn to scoff. "I'll believe that when I see it. Now, if you want to get through, you'll need to pass the two guards."

Sally ignored the dwarf, continuing on until she turned a corner and came to a dead end. But when she turned around to go back, the walls had already moved to block her path. "This is such bullshit. That is so not fair! This damn place is impossible."

"No it's not."

"Yeah no it's not!"

The blonde haired girl whipped around to stare at the two guards standing behind her, one blue, one red, with old fox like faces, long whisker mustaches and striped socks, holding large card-like shields. She stared at them in contempt, and moved to climb the walls again until one of them told her to stop.

"Ye can't climb the walls, it's against the rules!"

"Rules," she repeated, turning to walk towards the guards. "Rules? What rules; there are no rules, he gave me no rules except to get to the center in thirteen hours or my stupid stepsister will stay here forever."

"Ye can only go forward here, there's no going back," the red one said.

Sally crossed her arms haughtily across her chest and continued to glare at the guards with disgust written plainly on her face. Eventually the guards began to shift from foot to foot uncomfortably as she tapped her foot with impatience. "Well?!" She demanded so abruptly the guards jumped.

"Well what," the blue guard asked.

"Are you going to let me go through? If I can't go back I have to go forward but I have to get through you to do that so are you going to move or not?" She vaguely noted that the dwarf wasn't with her-he must have gotten blocked out when the walls closed behind her.

"Ye can only choose one of us. One of the doors leads to the castle and one leads to- bum bum bum!-certain death."

The two guards cooed at her as if what they had said was incredibly frightening.

"Well then open the door that leads to the castle!"

"We can't."

"Why not?!"

"We don't know which one is which," the blue replied.

"But they do," the red pointed down the shield and to Sally's further disgust, she found to identical heads to the ones at the top, looking at her from the bottom of the shields.

"Well? Which one is which?"

"We can't tell you," the bottom red head answered.

"You can only ask one of us," agreed the bottom blue head. "But one of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies. I always tell the truth, he lies." He motioned to the red guard with a knobby hand.

"No, I tell the truth," argued the red.

"Oh what a lie," the blue laughed.

"Oh for the love of-shut up!" Sally stomped her foot and the laughing stopped. Her mind raced. She'd heard this riddle before, and she racked her brain to remember the answer. The answer was a question, but it was a specific question, and it had to be asked in the right way. She moved her gaze between the two, regarding the things in front of her carefully. Then, she approached the blue guard. "Okay. You." She knelt down to look in the eyes of the bottom face. "If I asked which door lead to the castle, would the other… thing, point to this door?"

"Uhhhh…" he moved his head back behind the shield and whispered to the head on top before coming back out and replying. "No?"

Sally scoffed again. "Is that a question or a statement?" she rolled her eyes in disbelief and stood up. "Gosh, you must be stupid or something. Do you even know which door is which? Whatever. It doesn't even matter. Just move." She pushed the blue guard out of the way and opened the door, walking through only a few paces before she tripped into a gaping hole. A small scream escaped her lips, and as she fell, hundreds of hands coming through the walls brushed her as she passed.

"Stop touching me!" The blonde writhed, trying to escape the touch of the large, leathery hands around her. Immediately, her descent stopped and she was being held aloft by perhaps six or seven pairs of hands.

Across the hole, three pairs of hands formed a face, and a deep, nasal voice came from it. "But we're helping hands."

"You're touching me, you perverted freaks! And you're hurting!"

"But if we let go," a higher voice added from next to her, "you'll die when you land."

"I highly doubt that." Yet deep inside, there was a pit in her stomach that said that maybe they were right, maybe she would die.

"Would you like us to let go?"

The hands holding her released their hold and she began to drop again, faster this time and she screamed. This time, only four sets of hands stopped her, one on either arm and either leg.

For the first time since she'd started running the labyrinth, Sally felt fear growing inside her. This wasn't a dream, or a fantasy, this was real. The hands hurt, and if they hurt, well then maybe she would die if she fell too far.

"Well come on then," a new hand face said. "Which way?"

"What?"

"Which way do you want to go?" This voice was older, like a grandfather. "Up or down?"

"Um." Sally bit her lip.

"Come on, we haven't got all day." The hands sounded impatient.

"I don't know-"

"You have to know," they interrupted.

"But I don't-"

"If you don't choose, we'll choose for you."

"I don't know-"

"Then down you go!" the hands let go, and she started to fall again.

Farther and farther down, she kept trying to grasp one of the hands to slow down but they slipped through her fingers. "Help!"

"We tried," the hands hissed. "You wouldn't let us."

The hands disappeared. Open air rushed past her and Sally felt the softest touch feather across her skin before she landed on the hard ground. First it was her feet, and then her knees buckled under the force of her body. Her head hit the ground last, and the air in her lungs was forced out so rapidly, she couldn't breathe. It felt like her entire body was on fire, she felt lucky that her head wasn't split open.

The only light she could see was coming down the shaft she fell through, down through the hole eight feet above her.

A metal grate fell shut and a cloud of dirt cascaded around her.

Well, she though, at least I'm not dead.