Disclaimer: I own Gekko (sort of, it could be a Spirited Away cross if you squint), but pretty much nothing else. It is mainly a Labyrinth fic, but I'm also too lazy to come up with all the other villains. So cameos will be made from other fandoms. So far there is Rise of the Guardians (the movie) and also planning on My Little Ponies, Friendship is Magic (don't judge). :P
WARNING: Despite a crossover with MLP and how incapable that I seem to be to avoid humor- this IS A SAD STORY. I am going to do my damnedest to make it have a miserable ending. I may fail. But I'm going to try.
Why?
Because this story is dedicated to esama, who has left the internet. Which sort of made me feel like a friend died. I mean, she internet-died. Deleted all her stories, etc. And I was reading her Tumblr as it happened and it was really depressing. Anyway- from that dark place, I am trying to write a serious story. Here it goes.
Ooooooooo
Chapter 1
OoOooooooooo
Gekko pulled himself out of his river onto his favorite sunning spot. Over the years he had worked the soil off of the underlying rock, discouraging any trees or plants to grow beyond some soft moss. The rock smoothed right into the water, making it little to no effort to move from one to the other. He shook vigourously, sending the water from his silky white coat before settling back with a sigh of contentment. His eyes closed as he basked in the late afternoon sun.
His fur began to dry and Gekko contemplated scratching at it with his claws, giving a good shake or going back into the water. He was justifiably shocked when the decision was made for him and a sudden wave of water swamped his resting spot.
Gekko's eyes snapped open just in time to see a wall rising across his river, disrupting its ancient flow. His jaw dropped open in shock. And then he scrambled- the wall was coming right at him! Which was so bizarre that he could not get his short limbs underneath of him quickly enough to move out of the way. The wall thrust up into Gekko's long midsection and rushed upwards. Gekko felt the air whoosh out of his lungs as he was suddenly propelled into the sky in a most disconcerting manner. He was not used to flying a la brick. He clawed with his front feet and kicked with the back in order to slip over the top of the structure, sliding along its sharp slope until he splashed down into his disrupted river.
The cries of the fish, the trees, the banks! Gekko swam in confusion and anger, trying to find what had caused this erection. Some enemy. There was no enemy, and no way to swim in any direction but forward. Gekko gnashed his teeth and pulled the river to him. It obeyed, as best it could, but it, too, could not get over the walls, which rose as high as needed to contain all that attempted to cross it.
Quickly, though, Gekko and his river found that the walls had holes in them. Moving holes that tried to defy their perceptions. But the magic was meant to deceive sight not touch and thus it was quite impossible to hide from the flow of liquid through them. Gekko worked at the wall, flowing water into the cracks and crevices, of which there were many. But though the stone appeared to be in terrible shape, it was actually quite resistant to the river's efforts. For the magic of the bricks was such that it flowed like water itself, twisting and reforming and not at all like a normal rock. All he got for his efforts were clouds of sparkling substance in his water.
Gekko stopped his attack in consternation. How did one erode a rock that would not sit still?
It was not in water's nature to be angry long, however, so with the stilling of his attacks, both he and the water calmed. The walls of the structure shrunk as well when they were no longer on attack. Gekko regarded the wall and it seemed as though it may be regarding him right back.
"If you allow my river to flow with minimal convolutions, I will allow this." Gekko decided. It certainly was not the first nor the last time that he had had a sudden course change. The river would run muddy and carry broken things with it for a time, but that would pass. Sooner if Gekko had his say (which he did).
Gekko flowed through the paths in the wall and soon could feel how the magic of it responded. He nudged it gently this time, not trying to conquer, but rather cajole. Soon the holes in the walls were lined up reasonably well to avoid a complete restructuring. The walls resisted and straight passage through them, so Gekko coaxed the river beneath the walls, along side it, eddying in fascinating patterns and creating new habitats for his fish, his small crabs and salamanders, his moss and grasses.
"This is good." Gekko nodded to himself. Though his sunning spot was a casualty of the whole thing. No matter what he tried, the rock was transected multiple times by vertical surfaces. It seemed the walls had a high affinity for other rock. Oh well. He was of the river, after all. It would be another long while before he could carve out another spot, but in the meantime his raging had felled a tree. Gekko set about polishing the bark to a pleasing smoothness so that he might lay upon it.
OoOoOoo
A commotion at his delta awoke Gekko some time later. He yawned- the chill to the air was making him sluggish today. It might be soon enough that he was frozen over entirely. He flowed and glided through the now familiar patterns of the river walls, flowing under and through and sideways. Though they changed constantly, there was a rhythm to it. One he now well knew.
He let himself shimmer just under the surface, listening to the human ranting in front of him. He was wary- humans had been very bad for many of his fellow rivers and he did not want them diverting him as they had others. The walls were bad enough.
"How am I supposed to even get into the blasted thing?" The human threw up his long, long arms in disgust. "I don't have Hognose around to show me the door!" He kicked the rock and then started jumping about. Gekko whispered to the slime to move a little to the left... a splash heralded the human's ignoble dunk into Gekko's river. Gekko took the opportunity to fully study the human, using the water to evaluate the whole of him.
Not so buoyant, that was for sure. Despite or perhaps because of the panicked thrashing, the human was sinking rapidly. The fluff of hair on top of his head had slicked down, but this human seemed a bit odd. He had magic to him, and his features were much more pointed than Gekko had heard they usually were. Maybe it wasn't a human but just something trying to look like it? Maybe it was a fox. They took human form. But Gekko was fairly sure this was a male, and those seemed to be female.
Fortunately for the human-not-human, the river was not deep where he had slipped in and Gekko was not that kind of river, to drown just for the trespass. He was too curious to let this man become a body to wash out to sea. Besides- it would not be a long journey at all. They were already at the delta. There was only so much information Gekko could gather from a corpse.
The human drug himself to the bank, which was quite muddy from the recent course change, and still slimy from the now eager sludge which had tripped him to begin with.
The human-not-human put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, no longer moving.
Gekko thought perhaps this one being was not so much a threat. Especially as he now had such a good defense. He was beginning to like these walls quite a lot.
"Why are you here?" Gekko asked.
The human-not-human jumped and almost dunked again.
Gekko waited patiently, only his glittering eyes above the water. He thought the threat was low, but there was no reason to make himself vulnerable.
"Great." The other replied. "It's one of those rivers."
Gekko was genuinely puzzled. "What other kind of rivers might there be?" All rivers were like him. They met in the sea sometimes, swapping tales for a brief time before the salt became too much for them.
"Ones that don't talk back."
"How sad." Gekko blew out spray from his mouth to show his disapproval.
The biped ignored him and instead went to the wall again, feeling along it and seemingly getting frustrated at relatively regular intervals and hitting it with his fists. Gekko, with his increased rapport with the stone, could tell it was laughing at the human-not-human, or at least as close as rock could do so.
"I don't know what hitting yourself with accomplish. It is not the kind of mineral to enjoy a blood sacrifice." Gekko commented.
"Are you still there?" The rather rapidly drying intruder asked nastily. Gekko revised his conclusion that the mess of white atop his head was fur and instead added feathers as a possibility. Sometimes he did wish he had feathers, as that dried quicker, but it did tend to get into everything, so perhaps the fur was better after all.
"If you tickle it, maybe you will get better results." Gekko suggested. Not that he knew what the other was attempting, but the wall did seem much more conducive to gentle, fun communication, as he had learned from its first incursion into his territory.
"Didn't I tell you to leave?" The human-not-human spun, putting his hands on his hips and glaring at Gekko's eyes in the muddy water.
"No." Gekko replied.
"Then leave." He growled.
"I do not have to leave, this is my river." Gekko replied reasonably.
"This," The biped gestured at the wall, "is not a river."
"Very astute." Gekko replied, rolling his eyes. "But it is now part of my river, so it is my boundary. I cannot leave it until it is no more." Which was simply the truth, though it seemed to have stumped the other for the time being. But that was true of anything near the river- eventually Gekko would destroy it and something else would take its place, as was true of everything since his birth from a tiny spring let loose in an earthquake many, many cycles ago.
"River." The biped stood up even taller.
"Gekko." Gekko said, assuming that the being was addressing him.
"Greco- you will open this Labyrinth for me."
Gekko looked to the wall, which was gleaming in pride. So, that was its name. "No." Gekko turned back.
"What!?"
"Why should I? You are not like what the others say that a human is like, but I have heard the stories. And I do not wish a human to come to my banks for who knows what purpose." He stopped there, a bit surprised to have spoken even the much.
"Human!? HUMAN!?"
Gekko huffed at the noise level. Maybe if he went up to his source it would be quieter...
"I am fae- King, in fact. King of the goblins."
Gekko looked the 'fae' over dubiously. "You don't look much like a goblin." He said finally.
"I'm not a goblin!"
"Well, you are loud." Gekko observed, then slipped through the twisty magic of the Labyrinth, making sure it changed behind him. He smirked when he heard a decisive smack and inventive cursing as the 'King' ran right into what had been a gap in the wall.
OooooOOOo
"Grippo!"
Gekko sighed unhappily. He had not had a moment's peace since this fae thing had shown up. Now the moon was out and shining peaceably onto his river. And Gekko just wanted to set his water to absorbing the energy, as it was his closest affinity (as nice as the sun felt, the moon was what he could best use).
"It's Gekko." Gekko said tiredly.
"As if you would tell me your True Name." The fae scoffed.
"Why should I not?" Gekko asked in confusion. "My name is my name. Everyone knows it."
The fae blinked at him. "It gives me power over you."
Gekko scoffed. "You have no power over me."
The fae actually recoiled from that pronoucement.
"Oh, are you one of those creatures of words?" Gekko guessed. "I see."
"What do you mean you see, you foolish creature?" The fae growled. "Magic is power and the power is the words."
"Well, creature of words, fae who comes to my banks. Tell me why I should help you?"
The fae rubbed one of his hands against his forehead. "I need to defeat this Labyrinth."
"Why?"
"Because my Kingdom is in shambles and it needs to come back! Else all I have and know will fade away."
"The walls are happy here." Gekko pointed out. "We have come to an understanding."
"And will it be happy with no one to sustain it? It will crumble to nothing if I am no more."
Gekko could sense from the Labyrinth that it did know this. Interesting. "It is rock's role to crumble."
"Not this rock's." The fae glared at his eyes.
"Perhaps." Gekko allowed. It did flow more like water. It recognized this fae, as well, though it did not have any more inclination to obey than Gekko did.
"This rock is mine and I must defeat it." The fae tapped his foot.
"Why?"
"Because the Runner defeated me." the fae grit out.
"So?"
"So I must defeat their additions individually instead of getting them by default into my Labyrinth."
Gekko swirled thoughtfully. "Why?"
"You infuriating beast!" The fae threw up his hands. "Because I get precious few runners, so even the scraps of imagination they leave are precious!" He growled and pulled at his hair/feathers on his head in agitation. Gekko could sense water gathering in the fae, in the eyes. The rivers close to the humans all agreed that the eye water was best avoided. It led to drownings of very sour humans.
"I will show you how to get in." Gekko decided. "But I will flow no further with your current." It would be nice to have his sunning spot back, and the moon was making him feel full, powerful and content. Perhaps some of the walls would stay- he could sustain them as well as this stick-man.
"You will?" The fae sounded a bit pathetic even to the river's ears.
Gekko sighed and small waves lapped at the fae's ankles. He lifted himself from the water, flowing toward the fae, whose eyes had gone quite large. "Hold your breath, if you are one that breathes air." Gekko gave that advice before taking the black spikey material at the back of the fae's neck in his teeth with a firm grip and flowing quickly back to the water, down, down, under and sideways, with a practiced twist. And then back to the surface, as he could sense in the water that the fae was taking water into his lungs and was not pleased about that fact.
When they broke the surface Gekko flung the fae onto his sunning log and called the water from the fae's lungs. It was not a pretty site as the bedraggled fae coughed, sputtered and held onto the log for dear life.
Though the coughing was annoying, Gekko missed it as soon as the fae got his breath back.
"You idiotic creature! You half drowned me!"
"More than half." Gekko gave his professional opinion. "Almost completely."
The fae glared at him.
"I did tell you to hold your breath. And I called the water back out." He said reasonably. "I could have just left you to fully drown and kept the walls for myself.
The fae turned paler, which Gekko noted with some interest. "You couldn't have done that."
"Why not?" Gekko frowned. He had done it to other creatures before, though he was not angry nor full of rain today.
"I am too powerful to... to... drown in a river!"
"None are too powerful." Gekko said sagely. "Water wins in the end."
The fae looked at him in consternation before apparently deciding that that was the end of the discussion and beginning to pace the log. "Where is the next entrance? I can't walk in this! It's a bleeding river!"
"There is no blood in my water!" Gekko protested.
"And if I fly I'll break my neck." The fae continued to grouse with no apparent acknowledgment of Gekko's comments.
Gekko sighed in annoyance. "Well, whatever you do, move off my basking spot." The fae ignored him until Gekko decided that he had had enough and he wanted to bask right now, after all. He moved to put his body up onto the large log and the fae scrambled out of his way in a pleasing manner. The 'King' was appropriately terrified of the river, after all.
"Why are you so massive?" The fae grumbled.
"Thank you." Gekko shook out his fur, ignoring the cries from the fae and settling down with a satisfying yawn. The yawn made the fae quiet, so Gekko did it again, making sure his long fangs were scant inches from the fae's face. The fae made a pleasing panicked noise and almost fell off the log, saving himself by grabbing onto the fur of Gekko's neck to steady himself. Gekko growled and was quickly released.
After a moment of tense silence (on the fae's part, Gekko could care less) the fae began pacing. Gekko was beginning to like the idea of drowning him after all...
"Why settle in a river? It makes no sense! It was a desert in the runner's imagination. There is plenty of power here, but enough that it has warped everything... almost destroyed it..." The fae began to pull at his feathers on his head again.
Gekko sighed and raised his head. The fae went utterly still and started to leak water out of his skin. "A hint, then, so you may stop annoying me." Gekko said.
"Oh?" The fae asked hopefully.
"The walls are not as they seem."
"Obviously." The fae scoffed.
Gekko glared at him and the fae gulped. "Watch the water- the water does not lie." And with that he put down his head and napped.
OoOOoooOOoo
The walls disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, again putting a great upset into the river as it suddenly found its container in a completely different shape. The banks of old were no longer quite fitting and there were juts of silt and debris that had been against the rock were now resting on emptiness and quickly becoming flooded.
Gekko again was disturbed and it took much frantic scrambling to prevent himself from just becoming a shallow marsh or something equally embarrassing.
Gekko would have been willing to leave it at that- good riddance to that fluffy fae annoyance- except that he could still feel the walls. They were somewhere else, now, somewhere with no water. They were unhappy and calling to him. Gekko did maybe want to visit... he missed the twisty safety, even if it was rock, but he had heard stories about what happened to rivers that left their banks. Especially if they left to somewhere other than water.
He instead focused on getting his water to run clear, the creatures that inhabited him settled. It took a while for it to become acceptable again, but the call of the Labyrinth did not decrease.
With an unhappy sigh, Gekko hesitated. But... he could feel the dryness of the entire structure. It made him feel parched no matter how much he submerged himself. With a final grumpy shake he took off to find the Labyrinth. He would just have to remember his name, and his self. He would be back. With the walls. He had 'defeated' the Labyrinth, too. Why shouldn't he keep it?
OooOoOO
There was water here, as it turned out. But it was tied up in swamps mostly. It was not too much trouble to coax a spring to form in the center of the twisting walls, where Gekko's influence was still quite strong. It seemed the 'King' had only taken a single route through the maze, whereas Gekko had been flitting through and about the paths and the changing portals for many a moon. He noted with pleasure that many of the paths were still underground; one of these he had chosen as his spring. The rest quickly flooded as well, though flooding the entire maze was beyond him. His river was not here- his source far away. Though this new source... perhaps he could spawn finally. Though that did seem to bring nothing but trouble to the bigger rivers...
"What... what... what is this?" A small, short creature was spluttering at the edge of one of the new pools at the base of the walls. This particular pool was not a passage at the moment. Flying creatures had taken up residence in the reeds which Gekko had encouraged to grow on their edge. "What's Jareth playing at! This has always been rock, always! Only the Bog has water! Look at all these fairies!"
Gekko formed at the surface as the little creature began to spray something unpleasant. "Do not pollute me, small thing!" He boomed, making the creature fall over.
"Who is this! Jareth captured a new guardian?"
"I know not who 'Jareth' is, but I belong to no one." Gekko replied irritably.
"Jareth is the Goblin King. If you live here, you are his." The small thing replied.
"Oh, him." Gekko sniffed disdainfully. "He does not rule me. These walls are mine, now. They were parched, so I come to give them a proper soaking."
"Th...th... the walls do not belong to you!" The creature spluttered.
"They call to me. I know them. They are mine." Gekko stated.
"Wait until Jareth hears about this! Ridiculous."
"Can you not bring him here?" Gekko whined. "He is loud." He supposed there wasn't any help for it. "Just do not pollute me."
"Stop making ponds for the fairies to nest and I won't have to pollute ya!"
Gekko frowned. "Why should I now make ponds? You would prefer I flow through this Labyrinth as a river full?"
"No, no." The knobby hands waved in the air. "Not at all."
"Then deal with the 'fairies.'" Gekko advised.
OoooOOOoo
"Hopper, I do not have time for this."
"It was right here! Talked to me, I swear Jareth. And it's Hoggle."
Gekko opened one eye to take in the scene. It was the thin long fae and that one with the polluting spray gun.
"Nonsense." Jareth snapped a leather glove against his wrist threateningly. "I don't have time for fanciful tales about things in the Labyrinth. The water has simply pooled in the underground segments."
"But..." Hoggle protested.
"I must continue to track down the pieces of the kingdom." Jareth snapped. "Unless you want to find another place to live, Hubbard."
"Hoggle! And no." Hoggle said unhappily.
"And don't use my name around potential intruders, Hugswort- you would think you would know better than that, even with your limited intelligence."
"Hey!" Hoggle protested.
Gekko submerged the rest of the way under the water. Time to go back to his river. The Labyrinth would be fine now- it was properly watered and no longer calling to him. With a flick of his tail-
"See! Right there!"
He was gone.
OoOOoOooo
A/N: Gekko is based on the woodblock print Ryo Sho Ten by Ogata Gekko. Asian dragons are often associated with rivers, as is seen in Spirited Away.