When she is home, she has her father; her friends peering from the other side of the mirror; she has her brother.

But she isn't there.
.

Left, right, spin. Left, right, spin.
In wood that is a ballroom, figures arabesque in dizzy making strides. Matched pairs arching in amalgamation contre-jour, faces obscured by venetian masks. The fierce faced identity they all seem to share. Medico Della Peste, the plague doctor.

Why is she here?

Because for the life of her, Sarah cannot remember stepping out the door and leaving the warm safety of her bedroom, or falling asleep for that matter. And yet she is wrapped in silk and brocade, with the feeling that every enigmatical eye in the room is watching her footsteps.

The wood is alive. The marble tiles they (left, right, spin) dance on vibrates with its own frantic pulse. It whispers in the form of a sweet-smelling zepyhr that rips at her hair, saying: delirious, impassioned, murderous, wild am I.

She watches as ivy grows and extends around them. Twining the dancers together like sets of Adams and Eves, made of glitter and tulle. She wants to go home, yet she still watches the vines twisting around their legs further, slithering around ankles, up their thighs and further...

Though nobody seems to notice, because that bubble drink - champagne, was it? - makes them feel light, light, light. So they just laugh, standing on their tippy-toes, waltzing like mutilated angels strung with fishwire hooks. This is when Sarah begins to feel deja vu.

But the dancers just keep a'laughing, and blood burbles from their lips in a cherry red stream. ( ...like hard candy, lollipopable pastel crayon lips... ) Dark clots emphasize the gore, caused by the who-knows-what they drank gallons of. Sarah has an aching voicebox of screams she wants so badly to unhinge. They are painted like rotten strawberries, like perfect rancid flesh.

"How marvelous!" they gurgle out, as emerald green vines burst from their throats. They don't stop laughing, dancing.
.

He thinks, I'd love to eat the heart out from that wound in her chest. Lovely white crystal fairytale flesh. Little girls get lost in places like these.
.

She wants to read the braille of his skin with her fingertips. The lines would tell stories as familiar to her as lullabies. The structure of his face was ... much like a cat. Sharp elegant bones and sinews. Pale irises cut with thin pupils. Aquiline nose.

If he is a childish fantasy - something she made up - than how can she sense his every movement. She isn't that imaginative. (A part of her carelessly thinks that Lucifer must have been beautiful, too.)
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Blood orange sunsets over the labyrinth are as breathtaking as a sharp jab to the stomach. Little creatures hustle and bustle about the village, trying to finish what they've started before the day is out. Goblins are so small-minded, It's nearly endearing.

'This is all stolen time.' She whispers to herself and the goodbye sun.
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"Sarah, you've got many important decisions to make." he mutters so softly, before she remembers that this must stop.

This isn't home. Home is where the heart is, not sidhe boneyards and twisting barrows of dust. Tobytobytoby. (A part of her thinks: Toby is safe. Toby is loved. The parental unit loves him, a heir to their suburban throne.)

The Goblin King takes her face into his hands. Innocent enough, she considers. But his fingers brush her cheeks in a way that gives her pause. But the touch is light as all feathers, and she has to remind herself to care. "Wouldn't you like you stay here, forever?" his voice trails off in her mind. Forever, ever, ever.

His eyes seem sharper. Once like a cats - now a reminder of snakes. Slithering up her spine, what is that? Is it ivy, or long pale fingers? Like Eve; Pandora; Persephone succumbing to stupidity. Don't eat the pomegrante. Don't touch the apple. Don't open the box. Don't love the boy. Run, save yourself.

Whatever he slipped in her bloodsteam, It's like falling underwater. Sinking down to a glass coffin where all will adore her lost figure. What's worse, he tries to catch her as she tumbles. Is that look of fright sincere? Maybe she is Judas. Maybe she is the Delilah of his labyrinth. Why can't anything be simple? Why can't anything be what it seems?

Her eyes roll to the back of her head.
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Safe from ice and boys that bite, she sleeps. As tender a sleep as baby lambs hidden from wolfish delights. Sometimes she isn't really asleep at all, just pretends to be so she doesn't have to wake up. She hears whispers like voices smothered under satin, smells musky lavender lace dressed across her. She isn't home yet, how can that be? She just wants to be away from the prying eyes of snow white owls. She is just so tired. So exhausted.
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Like when spring warms the air and melts away the frost from weakened branches, It happens much like that. The frost, the same melt. A different warmness, however.
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He finds wonder in it. How her frame - with nestled small bones like a baby bird - It just flushes. And shakes. And then she is there. She is awake again. Like a fairytale, a myth.

He had offered every sacrifice that his kingdom could conceal. He had taken the glittering crystalized jewels of fae, he had stripped out the bleeding hearts of doe, placed it all at her ankles. (Wake up, wake up.) Nothing worked. Except this.
And to think, when he had reached across her - her little cold body with the dark hair and shockingly red cheeks - and kissed her lips, he had meant it as a farewell. And then her eyes open with a wide flutter.
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He wants to know, what lofty North Star does she follow, that leads her to all the right places? Her eyes were always heavy lidded, lips parted, half wondering 'is this a dream?'

But she has the safety that all princesses from bedtime stories have - sweet safe paper moth hearts that beat loudly in her mouths and on their sleeves. Every protects the innocent from themselves.
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Everyone notices how her loud moxie now seems to be replaced with a shy kindness that most half-grown things have. Her eyes see what is in front of her. She doesn't need a hero anymore, she has herself.