Disclaimer: The following is an old Labyrinth fan fiction I wrote for a Labyrinth fan fiction group years. Labyrinth belongs to Henson. Most, if not all, of the Labyrinth fan fiction I am going to post here is at least ten years old, if not older. You will see the original dates they were written placed into these documents. These fan fictions predate the canon of Return to Labyrinth.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 1
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 18:59:29 EDT
Believing The Strangest Things:
(This is a Labyrinth Fan fiction cross over with The man who fell
to Earth)
Notice: This was actually my very first attempt at a fan fiction
spec with a character crossover. To put it simply I really do not know what
the Hell I am doing at all here but I just hope that I do not botch this up.
This is a highly edited and abridged version of the original version of
Believing the Strangest Things that I had posted. Hopefully this one is not
so overly descriptive or holds too many run-on scenes or simply too many odd,
meaningless scenes in it. Comments are appreciated.
(Disclaimer: Jareth as a character is the property of The Henson
company. David Bowie portrays the image of Jareth as seen in the film
Labyrinth, released in 1986 by the Embassy Company. Labyrinth is also the
property of Terry Jones, Brian Froud and The Jim Henson Company. All
characters in connection and or relation to Labyrinth are property of Embassy
Home entertainment, Columbia, Beunivista pictures, EMI, MPI, Tri-Star,
Disney, Henson, Terry Jones, and Brian Froud. Also it is owned by George
Lucas, The Jim Henson Company, (Mainly Jim Henson home entertainment) Brian
Henson, and by Henry Holt & company, Marvel comic books incorporated and
Graphic novels, plus White Owl Press. (Novelization companies.)
Second Disclaimer: All the original characters of The man who
fell to Earth are under legal copyright of Walter Tevis- 1963. The novel was
released by Pan, Lancer books Inc., Laurel Trade Paperback, and by Avon
Books. This version of the character, Thomas Jerome Newton originated from
the Nicolas Roeg film- The man who fell to Earth, released in 1975 based on
the 1963 novel by Walter Tevis. David Bowie portrayed Thomas Jerome Newton
in this film. Nicolas Roeg, RCA Columbia Picture, British Lion Films and
Alliance Classics own the man who fell to Earth film. I do not legally hold
ownership of any of them. This story is an original work by myself,
containing these characters originally conceived by Walter Tevis.
This Labyrinth/ The man who fell to Earth based fiction contains
the character Christine, first conceived of by Brianna "Aradia" Baccera at
aradia_.
Okay, I believe this counts as a legal disclaimer, now let's
begin, shall we)
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Believing The Strangest Things:
Only a dream away from Earth was strange, surreal realm. It
was a land, serene. It was an alternate reality existing just parallel to
Earth known simply by it's inhabitants and all that had ever seen it as The
Underground.
The Underground was an amazing place, home to many fantastical
beings. The beastly goblins held dominance of all the other strange and
exotic creatures of that place. Their master was Jareth, The Goblin King
though he was a far cry from a goblin.
He was an extremely powerful and magical being with a very human
outward appearance. He could change his form in to that of a common barn owl
when he pleased. He had long, yellow blond hair that hung lightly spiked
and feathered on his head. He wore eccentric garments of an odd combination
of eighteenth century Earthly fashion and something of the taste of an
Earthly Glam-rock musician's wardrobe. He loved it.
Jareth wore tight black leggings. He wore a silk white shirt with
an opened 'V' neck lined collar. On his neck he wore on a chain. Hanging
from his neck on this chain he wore his golden cicle pendent with the silver
coin within it's center. Jareth wore leather boots and leather gloves over
his hands.
He was truly a handsome creature, this Goblin King. Jareth, The
Goblin King looked to be about the human age of thirty-eight years old,
perhaps very nearly thirty-nine years old. He was tall and thin with a
feline like grace about him. He had peculiar yet very alluring, slightly
mismatched eyes. His eyes were blue, but strangely mismatched in
colouration. One was just slightly over dilated then the other. One was a
deep, dark blue while the other was an icy light blue shade.
The rolling, very nearly barren hills surrounding The Goblin City
seemed to sweep on for an eternity.
The large white castle on the gnarled hill seemed a wonder to all
that would gaze upon it. And yet there was nothing to protect The Goblin
City or the castle from any on coming invasions or attacks. And this worried
The Goblin King. He had to face the fact that his Goblin Army was actually
quite pathetic. He could imagine that a young girl could actually vanquish
The Goblin Army if she would be granted to have a fairly decent go at it.
He needed something to protect his power, a security of some kind
to stop intruders from accessing The Goblin City or his castle, but what?
Well, in The Underground it was now day seven of the Goblin crisis
of the public sugar / caffeine high in the Goblin City, which had by now had
escalated up to Jareth's very castle's court. He still would like to have
known who the imbecile had been who had introduced his goblins to caffeinated
beverages. Who ever it was, he decided, would pay dearly for that annoyance.
Jareth, The Goblin King had retreated, having locked himself away in
to his own personal study for the third time that week to escape the moronic
escapades of his own stupid minions. He just simply was not in the right
sort of mood just then to deal with them, his now very hyper-active goblins
all just now at any rate.
He cringed as he heard yet another loud crash from the hallway just
outside of the room that he had retreated to. They had just smashed another
valuable antique out there.
Well, he simply was not going to bother with them until later when
they were at least mildly subdued. He did wonder if he could perhaps sedate
them somehow. He had never honestly tried that, at least not with chemical
drugs from the mortal realm. Ah, but then again he would rather to not have
them wander around more dazed and confused then they usually were, his filthy
and idiotic minions. That would only be just yet another burden for him to
bother with. It was actually a monstrous sight as it was. And being
sentenced, so to speak as it were, for an unknown crime to being their master
Jareth would have rather not have made his personal torture more of a
nightmare then it already must have been for him.
He thought that he might wish to trade nearly anything and or
everything just to lead a semi-normal mortal life. But what is normality
anyway but a conformist ideal, a state of being not unlike the idea of
perfection itself? He believed that it was nearly impossible, highly
improbable in any reality, normality. Even there 'Where everything seems
possible and nothing is what it seems' this was so. In fact a person being
normal he thought in the mortal realm as well as his own would in fact,
ironically be seen as abnormal for it. It seemed to him to be a relative
concept, normality. Everyone everywhere holds quirks, flaws, problems,
passions, obsessions, eccentricies and what not. Anyone who would claim
otherwise would be a fool or would in fact be lying for it.
Jareth was feeling a bit melancholy that evening as well as bored
out of his skull. He had needed some entertainment.
Over all he supposed that it was in fact really a quite lovely
evening that was setting in there in The Underground. The moon was a
gorgeous crystal blue and the evening was still quite young yet. It was
really aesthetically speaking a beautiful night in fact, it was a pity
actually that his goblins would never actually notice or bother if it was a
beautiful evening or not. Jareth thought that he would give up being the
Goblin King if he only could. He did not care all too much for this position
at all. It was for him, at least, a curse being a human in appearance,
immortal in form and having an intellect of any intelligent human man trapped
in a realm among idiots. He was rather surprised at his own stamina at having
not lost his mind over it all yet.
Jareth was at that moment out right bored. He was so very bored
and frustrated that he thought that soon, surely that he might go right out
of his skull.
He had begun to live in a very dull, repetition. He hated
repetition, schedules or conformity. It was all so very boring. It was just
the same old repeating song of his life that he supposed. Only the boring
grow bored. ...He would have thought of something to change this but he
simply did not know how.
Again came to Jareth, that incredibly painful thought that he had
no one with the slightest bit of intellectual standing to converse with.
Jareth was ever constantly surrounded by his idiotic goblins and never once
had he ever really the chance to ever really express his true thoughts or
feelings to another that might, just might actually understand him. A
frustrating depression, perhaps even loneliness clutched at him. Like any
other creature Jareth too ached for companionship, just someone that he could
share his thoughts with.
He chuckled lightly to himself at the ridiculous, sentimentality in
his own thought processes. "I have no friends- only servants. I am a king
after all! Who needs something like that to interfere and prove to be a
weakness in a time when standing alone is the best resolve?"
Jareth fancied for a moment, using his favourite personal fantasy,
that he was a mortal man sitting on Earth. He imagined that he was in an
American New York City Greenwich village studio apartment, and he fancied
that he was surrounded not by moronic goblins but by colourful, opened jars,
bottles and cans of fresh paints, stencils and other various art supplies.
For a moment he merely pretended that he was not the frustrated
master of an alternate reality but simply an artist who had dreamed up this
nightmarish Hellhole. And being that simple, human artist in the modern
human world he would soon awaken to find his latest piece of art work- a
painting of that very castle on sale at an auction in New York City. Now,
that is a place where an eccentric man such as himself, in mortal form, would
be in fact actually... welcomed.
Jareth sighed.
He decided right then and there to accept the futile, hopelessness
of his own situation and he would keep his secret yearning to himself. No
one must ever know of his own secret desires. No one must know that the man
who can offer dreams had dreams of his very own that must forever remain
unfulfilled and unknown by any.
For a long moment he held the image of the New York City apartment
in his head. He held tight to it, refusing to let go of it for the sake of
his own world.
He sighed deeply, knowing that this dream of his would never be.
Because of his birthright he would be master of that kingdom for all of
eternity or until he could find that he somehow had an heir. And that heir
would then have to reach adulthood. Then and only then he would be able to
slip off from The Underground and then he would more then likely try and have
it where he would never return. And he knew what he would do then if this
were accomplished. He had been dreaming of it for very, many years now. He
would live among mortals on Earth. He would try to forget his life all
together once and for all. Ah, what a sweet and truly glorious dream that it
was too. It was a true, real shame that it would have to eventually come to
an end. Even he could not make every dream come true. No one has ever
offered him his own dreams and yet he could give so many theirs. ...A part
of the curse that is his existence, he would suppose. He wondered what he
had done so wrong in his last life that he was in penance like this. Who
exactly had he killed back then?
He very nearly believed that an escape from his own position in
his life was possible but then something brought him back to his own reality.
Oh, that was more then a little unfair. Life had never been very fair to
him. Why was he being forced from his dreams so abruptly? Would he be
trapped there forever and ever and ever?
"Ah, well," he mused "it's only forever, it's not long at all... "
Someone was about to be wished away but this was not going to be a
usual situation, not at all. He could already sense it. There was something
peculiar, other-worldly and he was about to find himself involved in it
whether he liked it or not.
The one who was about to be wished away, as he could sense it
already, was not human...
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 2
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:00:02 EDT
After two miles of walking The stranger with the identification of
one, Thomas Jerome Newton came to a town. At the town's edge there was a
sign that read "Haneyville: pop. 1400." That was good. That was a good
size, he thought.
It was still early in the morning. He had chosen morning for his
two-mile walk because it was cooler then- and there was no one yet in the
streets. He walked for several blocks in the early morning day light,
confused by the strangeness of it all- and somewhat frightened. He had tried
not to think on what he was about to do. He had thought on it more then
enough already or so he believed.
He walked alone in to the deserted square. He could see the
tiny shoppe from across the way. He waited patiently in the shade for the
tiny, little shoppe to open. That was just the sort of place he needed.
He was extremely tired.
The plan that he was to follow had seemed plausible enough. It
was a desperate plan but it was still a good plan nonetheless. It was
desperate and it was elaborate but it definitely was not impossible, the
plan.
He had come to Earth in the guise of one of those alien
creatures, those humans (as they called themselves) that live on it.
He would find the means to sell the patents of a few minor devices.
He would earn the money in the founding an American corporate conglomerate.
He would earn the finances that would be needed to pay for a space project...
And that project would be the key to everything, to his people's
survival and to the survival of the Earthlings as well for his world was a
dying one.
He wanted to scream at the memories of the destruction that filled
his mind. He wanted to proclaim just how foolish and selfish they all had
been, his people, and how near sighted they all had been in allowing that
great war to run on for so very long and destroy everything!
. He knew that it would happen. Many had known that it would happen
but they had done nothing to prevent it and so they were just as guilty and
to blame as the ones who had started that blasted war!
Could they even remember why they had been fighting? What the Hell
had they been fighting for that now their entire planet was doomed for it?
Could anything have ever truly seemed so important that they had placed their
entire world at risk?
They never listened, the high counsel, when his wife had stepped
before the high elders and had stated simply that it did not matter if they
won or lost that war. It was petty. It would surely destroy everything!
What good was any of it if no one was left to enjoy the bounty of a possible
victory? ...But in the end no one had won. The armies lay in ruin and the
countries were now destroyed. Now all (every last one) of the people that
remained on his planet at all were simply the entire planet! They were all
that remained of a once great and powerful race of people.
There was no more bother with patriotism or who was right or who
was wrong now. It did not matter any more. It never had mattered really.
It was not worth it! They had nearly wiped themselves out and now any bias
and socially prejudice ideals were genocidal should another battle occur on
his world. Every life had a great significant value. One person could save
or destroy a world. A thousand could do nothing or vice-versa. The war had
accomplished nothing. War never really could accomplish anything at all.
What did honour and patriotism matter to the dead? War would, as it always
does, only just feed the ever turning, revolving cycle of hatred and
violence, which did nothing in the long run but destroy and continue the ever
horrible cycle of meaningless violence and hatred. And what had they
destroyed by their wars now? They had destroyed themselves, their own world.
They had been such fools, his people!
And destruction forever more was (as it had always been) the
ultimate evil just as the ultimate good is the force of creation. And it
took them, his great, wise people this long to learn this! But it was too
late now! The lesson had been taught with a terrible price. They were
already sentenced for their crimes. Now they had to face the dire
consequences of their people's past actions.
He could not really place blame now on anyone for it all. He could
not hate anyone. He simply could not bring himself to hate any creature at
all. Hate is what had destroyed his planet or rather what was destroying it.
They were not dead yet! They were in their grave but they were not dead
yet! He had to remember that. There was always that tiny spark of hope.
And now... Now, he was that hope, wasn't he?
He had been taught as a boy that no matter how dark things
get there is always a spark of light. Even if one could not see it- it was
still there nonetheless. And he knew that he mustn't ever forget that.
But, oh, the pressure of being that potential spark. What if he
were to fail?
He could not hate anyone for this though. He would not allow
himself to make those same mistakes as his ancestors had made before him. He
could not bring himself to do that. He did not hate anyone. He could not.
He used to be a great poet. He had still been practically a boy
himself. He was a young man with a small and loving family. But now... now he
was just... one of the survivors...
Now, he had to set the desperate and elaborate plan in to motion.
Once his world's life would be secured they would seek to immigrate
themselves in to the society on Earth (as the people there called it). And
they would try to stop the human race from their own self-destructive actions
that would more then likely eventually lead Planet Earth in to a worse off
state then their own world.
The man known as Thomas Jerome Newton walked in to the dimly
lit, little shoppe.
He saw woman standing behind the counter. He averted his eyes
from her quickly. He felt suddenly nervous and uncomfortable. He wished that
he were not alone there on his mission. He wanted to turn and run away. He
had not realized just how co-dependent he truly was now that he was this
stranger among aliens on that, the most alien of worlds, Planet Earth. And
he wished that his wife was there with him and yet she was not.
The woman was not at all what he had thought they would look
like, these human creatures. She was shorter then he had thought that they
would be. She was more shapely and heavily set for the most part then he had
thought that human beings would be. He felt his thin, pale hands trembling.
He felt gawky and awkward and for a moment he thought that he might faint.
He was afraid. He was terribly afraid. He thought for certain that the
woman could see through his disguise but no, he had fortunately been mistaken
on that account. He was too worried. But this was such an important
mission. He mustn't fail. But what if he was found out? He must not fail
at this! All the old doubts and fears rushed back to him now. And he was
over come. He wished to lie down. This sensation that he felt- it was
psychological only at this point, but he felt monumentally tired.
He did not really believe that he was ready for this.
He looked about the room at all the nick-knacks that stacked the
shelves with tiny price tags dangling from them.
The woman looked at him suspiciously.
He was a curious young man, indeed. The young fellow looked as if
he were dazed and confused. She thought that he rather looked as if he had
absolutely no idea as to where he was or just what he was doing that. His
eyes were blue, but strangely mismatched in colouration. The left eye was
just slightly over dilated and was a deep dark blue colour. The right eye
was a pale, light blue shade.
His hair was a bright, fiery red, but towards the front the hair
pigmentation was highlighted yellow. He was painfully thin. And there was
something to the way that he looked around at things as if in wonder. Like a
newborn child glimpsing the world for the very first time, he seemed.
He looked around in dazed wonder and astonishment at this strange
new world. Everything was so very strange and new to him.
A radio was playing an old song, sounding a great deal like old
rhythm and blues. He did not like it. He could never understand the sound
of human music. To him it would be rather like an American man trying to
understand Chinese music. He did not like it at all. He did not understand
it. He liked the sound of singing though. He understood the lyrics. It was
all poetry and that he understood perfectly. The music itself eluded him.
To him it made absolutely no sense at all, whatsoever.
He continued to look around a moment in confused fascination and
wonder.
What brought him around was sound of the female alien's voice
calling to him. The human woman spoke in a heavily accented voice in the
language of English. "Can I help you?"
"Yes. I'm sorry. I want to sell this." He pulled the golden ring
out of his pocket.
The woman took the ring in to her hand and examined it. It was a
valuable ring. This man looked peculiar, to her, like some insane vagrant.
What was a man like that doing with such a valuable little trinket? And
there was something to his voice. He had an indistinguishable accent to her
ears. She would have loved to have had found out that that peculiar young
man had stolen that ring. He looked to be the criminal type to her. He was
so suspicious, obviously jumpy and awkward. He looked like someone who had
something to hide. She had no idea as to just how right she in fact was.
"Uh, where'd you get this ring?" The woman asked suspiciously
as she narrowed her eyes at the strange young man.
The way the woman had asked this made his breath choke in his
throat. Could there be something wrong with it? Was there something wrong
with the colour of the gold? Was there something about the diamond? He
tried to feign a smile again though the strain of the situation made this
quite difficult for him.
"It's mine. My wife gave it to me." He pointed out "The initials
are in the inside, yes?"
She examined the inside of the ring. She saw clearly the letters.
"T.J.N."
"Yeah."
She looked again to the curious stranger who looked as if he had
just stepped in from off of another planet. "Do you have your ID?"
"Oh," He reached in to his breast pocket and pulled out the false
passport identification. "I'm British. I have a passport."
He reached up and brushed aside some of his long strands of hair out
of his eyes.
The photograph on the interior of the passport did in fact match up
to his real face. His people had done a wonderful job in creating that for
him. "Thomas Jerome Newton." There was no doubt about it. That was
definitely his ring all right. And it was small too. It was obviously meant
for a thin hand. And he did have thin, delicate, and very feminine looking
hands. In fact his entire being seemed very nearly androgynous to her.
She still wished that he would go away. There was something about
him that she simply did not like. She could not understand it. And so she
did not like or trust him, not an inch.
The ring was beautiful though. And the obvious eagerness of this
man to sell the ring gave her the knowledge that she could easily buy the
ring for far less then she should and then make a substantial profit from it.
She would be able to sell it right away. She just had to settle a few
details first. If his wife had given him that ring then he might come for it
back later but by then she would have been bound to have had sold it.
"This is not a pawn shoppe." She said simply in her heavy accented,
voice. She wanted that to be clear and understood right from the start of
their little transaction.
"I beg your pardon."
"If I buy this ring now you can't redeem it later, understand?"
"Oh, I understand."
This was good. Now was the time for her bargaining eye to make the
kill of her hunt as it were. "Twenty dollars." She seemed very sure of
herself in naming that price.
He knew that the ring was worth far more then that with American
money but he needed the money. He simply had to earn as much money and as
quickly as possible.
"Twenty dollars?" He looked at her curiously. He knew that she was
trying to rip him off.
"Take it or leave it."
He was about to say something more to the woman when another
woman with a child in her arms came walking in to the shoppe. The tiny bell
above the old door sounded off just as it had sounded upon his entering.
In the child's arms she carried a tiny red book. The little girl
was extremely small. She was trying to read. And as she sounded out the
worlds out loud it sounded a great deal as he recalled it when he had first
learned this language of English.
The girl tried to read out loud the words that were written in her
little book. "The g-girl stood up and saay-ed 'I... I wiiiish that the...
the... g-gob-goblins w-would K-come annddd taaaake you-oo away... right now.'"
In the reading the little girl looked to Thomas Jerome Newton who looked to
her just as curiously as she did him.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 3
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:00:34 EDT
A bright flash of light suddenly surrounded the man who called
himself Thomas Jerome Newton. He had to shield his eyes from it.
He felt as if he were floating through space. He was weightless.
Was he dreaming? Had he fainted? Was he somehow still traveling through
space?
Colours swirled around him a moment. He moaned, feeling as if he
was spinning. He felt extremely dizzy and lightheaded. He had not fainted
for if he had fainted then he would not feel now as if he might faint.
He blinked his eyes. He was no longer standing in the shoppe. He
felt nauseous and thought that he might lose his footing from wherever it was
that he stood at any given moment. He was in a large room... somewhere else.
He was not on Earth. He was extremely confused.
The man who stood before him had long, yellow blond hair that hung
lightly spiked and feathered on his head. He wore eccentric garments of an
odd combination of eighteenth century Earthly fashion and something of the
taste of an Earthly Glam-rock musician's wardrobe.
He wore tight black leggings. He wore a silk white shirt with an
opened 'V' neck lined collar. On his neck he wore on a chain. Hanging from
his neck on this chain he wore a golden cicle pendent with a silver coin
within it's center. He wore leather boots on his feet and leather gloves
over his hands.
He looked to be about the human age of thirty-eight years old,
maybe very nearly thirty-nine years old.
He was tall and thin with a feline like grace about him. He had
peculiar, slightly mismatched eyes. His eyes were blue, but strangely
mismatched in colouration. One was just slightly over dilated then the
other. His left eye was a deep, dark blue while the other one- his right eye
was an icy light blue shade.
He blinked several times as he gazed at this man. His features were
nearly identical to his own. And in his human guise he would swear that this
man was his double though in appearance he seemed to be just a bit older then
he.
"My God!" He gasped.
The strange man stepped towards him. He looked to be just as amazed
as he was.
"Where am I?" He finally asked in both his own language and then
in English.
Jareth spoke up. "You are in my castle. Apparently someone has
wished you away."
"Wished me away?"
"Yes, apparently so."
Jareth paced around the strange young man like a vulture
circling it's pray.
He could tell right way that he was not from Planet Earth.
Jareth could sense that right away. He was not human. There was no doubt
about that whatsoever. That much Jareth already knew for certain. He was
definitely not a Human being. All though he had a great many human
characteristics about him he was definitely not a human man.
He was something other then human. He was from another world.
But where had he come from and just what had he been doing there on Planet
Earth?
He was indeed a handsome fellow, Jareth would give him that
much credit, who ever... whatever he was.
"Then I am not on Earth?"
"No, not really. You are in The Underground. I suppose that in
a way you are on Earth but then again you are not."
Thomas Jerome Newton looked at him blankly. He did not
understand this.
Jareth took in a deep breath. "There a worlds within worlds.
Surely you know this. The Underground is an alternate reality- another
dimension but in a way, still Earth, just another dimension, a parallel world
to what is known as Earth."
"Yes, I understand." He nodded.
Stepping away from Jareth, Thomas Jerome Newton looked out the
window of the throne room that over-viewed The Goblin City.
He saw a strange and chaotic little city that stood at the base
of the hill where this castle apparently stood. The city was dimly lit and
the creatures that existed within it that the man that called himself Thomas
Jerome Newton could only deduce as being goblins were monstrous. He placed
on his spectacles that he had carried with him in his jacket pocket. They
were at the lightest possible setting tint- his spectacles. They could be
adjusted to a lighter or darker tint, all depending for his eyes' comfort in
the lighting of various different situations that he might find himself
within. Those spectacles that he had he would wear to help protect his
extremely light sensitive eyes from the harsh lighting of Earth. He could
view the strange sight of this peculiar other world- The Underground far
better with his spectacles on. In fact he felt more secure with the
spectacles on. It made him feel as if he were wearing a mask and this gave
him a false sense of security and safety somehow.
The Goblin City was filled with strange and somewhat frightening
little alien creatures. These were disgusting, snarling drooling, ugly,
repulsive, simple minded little goblins.
"You must explain this all to me, please." The man known as
Thomas Jerome Newton said as he looked now at Jareth with a baffled
expression as he adjusted his spectacle frames just slightly.
"I am Jareth, The Goblin King." Jareth bowed slightly to him.
"That which is undesired, which is wished away from the world of Earth are
taken in to my realm. And that is where you are, in The Underground."
"So this ... Underground is a parallel world to Earth?"
"Yes."
Thomas placed a hand to his chin in deep thought and then
returned his gaze to Jareth. "And those words that child read from that
book, those were the words that had me transported here?"
"Yes."
"But surely she did not mean for it to happen? Would anyone
really expect for those words to actually do anything such as this?"
"No, they rarely ever think that those words would work. That's
what makes my job all the more fun." Jareth smirked at him.
"'They'?" He raised an elegant eyebrow. "Then you are...not one
of them.... you are not... human?" He should have had realizedalready that
Jareth was not human. He felt foolish for having had asked that question.
That was something that he should have had realized right away- that Jareth,
The Goblin King was not a human man. No human being could hold the powers
that he could sense within Jareth's being. He could practically hear the
humming of the magick, like an electrical force in the very air all around
the form of Jareth, The Goblin King.
Jareth laughed lightly and shook his head. "No. Like you I hold
many human qualities though I am not human. I am something other then human.
I am something so much more then human."
"Then... Then you know that I am not ... not one of them?" He was
incredibly nervous and worried about what this King of The Goblins just might
do to him.
"Yes, of course I know. It is all so very, quite obvious I'm
afraid."
The stranger frowned.
"Oh, don't fret over it. No human would be able to tell it. At
least I do not think so."
Though he was deathly afraid at this point, Thomas Jerome Newton
kept a steady tone to his voice. "What do you intend to do with me?"
He knew that he was trapped. He just would rather know right
away what was to become of him. He tried very hard to hide the fact that he
was frightened. He tried not to allow it to show but he was very nearly
terrified by Jareth.
Jareth smiled. He liked that this most interesting, alien being
was afraid of him as he well should have been. But Jareth liked his
straight-forwardness. "Well, now that is the question of the hour now, isn't
it? If you were younger then I might just have thought about transforming
you in to a goblin. But I suppose that you would not fancy that all too much
now would you? "
"A.. a.. goblin?" The man who called himself Thomas Jerome looked
at him and then out the window. He removed his spectacles and placed them
back in to his jacket pocket. He looked down at The Goblin City. Those
strange and horrid creatures with such simple minds scurried about as if they
were the center of the universe. They smelled horrid and the idea of in fact
BEING one of them frightened Thomas Jerome Newton far more then the idea of
confronting one of those things.
A heavy blackness swept over him. He felt incredibly dizzy. He
was over whelmed. The world around him was spinning. He tried to stand up
but found that his legs were numbing rapidly. He moaned. He knew that he
was losing consciousness. He stumbled once and then he fell backward.
Thomas Jerome Newton shut his eyes.
He had fainted.
Again he could feel himself swimming in black weightlessness as he
did for four long months of traveling alone through space. Was this all just
a dream- a dream induced by his months and months of interplanetary travel?
Was he hallucinating, and his mind had manifested all of this? Had he gone
mad from all that time of being all alone?
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 4
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:07:12 EDT
Jareth looked at the floor. He smirked slightly. "Oh, dear.
Now that didn't go well at all, now did it?" He shook his head as he looked
down at his unconscious "guest". He wanted to laugh. He had never seen
anything so utterly pathetic before. And then came an inkling of worry.
The strange fellow looked surprisingly far too much like himself.
The peculiar fellow from the other world lay unconscious,
unmoving on the dingy throne room floor. His eyes were shut and he looked
to be just sleeping. He did not move though his breathing was steady.
Jareth looked down at him with simple detachment. He was handsome
all right but he was still just another victim for him that had been wished
away in to The Underground. "Now, just what am I going to do with you?"
Jareth asked to the unconscious form of the man called Thomas Jerome Newton
that lay sprawled out on to the dirty, dusty, dingy, grimy floor of the
throne room. "Hmmm?"
A flash of light filled the throne room. In a burst of glittering
sparks and sparklets a woman appeared. She was not at all an unattractive
woman. She was in fact really quite a beautiful creature, that she was. Her
hair was long and black. Her thick, dark hair waved and curled down her
back. She wore a very unique and somewhat flamboyant gown with a large
collar, much like something that the royalty of the Sixteenth century would
have worn. The sleeves of her gown flared out. She was tall and thin. Her
face had a strangely innocent quality to it. It held a child like expression
to it, her face, though she was clearly built as a woman. She was a very
beautiful creature. She seemed like an angel out of a painting that
Rembrandt would have made had he but set eyes upon her radiant beauty. She
could easily have been a fairy queen painted by Brian Froud, the
contemporary, surreal- fantasy artist but now, this was quite simply
Christine, The Goblin Princess- Jareth's younger, fraternal twin sister.
Her long dark hair blew around her beautiful face.
A strange humming like an electricity was all around her.
Vaguely from wherever he was floating from deep inside of himself
Thomas Jerome Newton could hear this humming and only this humming of the
magical energy that seemed to pulsate from her very being.
Her skin was a milky pale complexion. She was a very thin woman.
Her eyes were a strange mismatched blue colour. Her eyes were rather like
that of her brother's eyes in fact. Her left eye was just slightly over
dilated and the other- her right eye seemed a lighter colour blue then the
left eye.
She smiled at her brother.
"Good evening, Christine." Jareth said to his younger sister.
"Good evening, Jareth."
She looked down at the peculiar young man who lay motionless on
the filthy, disgusting, throne room floor. "My God, Jareth! He looks just
like-"
"Yes, I know." Jareth interrupted her in mid-sentence. And
then in a sudden flash a thought came to Jareth abruptly. "Do you remember
what we were taught about 'other selves', Christine?"
She looked at her brother curiously and then she nodded. "Yes.
For every world there are alternate parallel worlds. And there are many
worlds. There are worlds within worlds, such as our own. In fact each human
mind contains a universe whole and entire unto itself. For each world we may
have a possible match- another possible version of ourselves. You don't
suppose....?"
She looked from Jareth to the young man who lay motionless on the
throne room floor.
Jareth nodded. "Yes, I think that he is his world's equivalent of...
me!"
"But Jareth...." She could sense it as surely as Jareth could
sense it. They could see it already. They could almost taste it. His fate
was set. This creature was doomed to failure. "He's doomed to fail. And if
he dies..."
"Yes, I know. If he is an other-worldly version of myself and if
he were to die that would mean that I would surely die as well."
When the man who called himself Thomas Jerome Newton regained
consciousness he found that he was sitting up in a wooden chair, set against
the far wall of a small room. He was no longer on the dusty, old floor of
the castle's throne room. He was seated now across from where Jareth now
stood alone.
"Such a frail little thing, aren't you? It's amazing how light
you truly are, really. You weigh less then ninety pounds, I'd wager. I
hadn't needed magick at all to lift you up off of the ground to bring you in
here. Now, let's not have another one of those fainting spells of yours, all
right?"
He blinked. For a split moment he had forgotten entirely what had
happened or where he was. He was confused and disorientated but then it all
rushed back to him quickly and confusion was quickly replaced with newfound
fear and despair. It had not been a dream. It had all been real!
"Then you... you do not intend to transform me in to one of... one of
those... those things?" He shuddered lightly at the very thought of it, of
being drastically physically as well as mentally altered in to one of those
things. Though he knew that he was physically the inferior of Jareth he
would try and fight him off with his bare hands if he had to, strictly in
self-defense.
"On of those goblins? Oh, heavens no!" Jareth chuckled lightly.
"For one thing- I cannot do it to you. You are far too old. Also, you are
not, nor were you ever a human. Even if I were to want to do that to you I
doubt that I would be able to do it- considering how different you are
physically from human beings. Also, why would I want to destroy a face as
handsome as yours?" Jareth smiled as he crossed his arms. "Though your fear
is more then just a little bit amusing to me I can assure you that I will
bring you no harm."
This relieved just some of the tension that was inside of Thomas
Jerome Newton. He did not know why but he believed Jareth. He did not
really know why but he felt that he could be able to trust Jareth, this
Goblin King.
"What do you propose to do with me then?" He asked this to The
Goblin King.
Jareth stepped towards the door of the room and opened it wide.
"Will you come with me for a walk? I would like to have a chat with you."
He shrugged his shoulders. A little shakily he stood up.
He knew that he really did not have a say in the matter. He had to obey
Jareth.. He could sense this creature's power. And it was an incredible
force, this magical power that The Goblin King possessed. Jareth had
harnessed within him a force of energy that could only be called magick from
the elements that made up the fabric of that realm that he called The
Underground.
On a green, grassy hill on the fringe of the territory that Jareth
considered to be his kingdom he stood along side the peculiar young man from
the other world. Jareth realized right away that if he were to remove his
boots and if not for his hair then he and the strange young man from the
other world would be about the same physical height. They were both standing
approximately at the height level of five feet and ten inches tall.
It was a beautiful night there in The Underground, most definitely.
The water flowing in the creek at the base of the hill was a beautiful
turquoise blue. This fresh water fed in to a small pond, several yards off
in to the near distance. To The Visitor it was the most amazing sight.
Oh, how he had wished that his darling children, Marcus and Elexias
could have seen it, that wondrous miracle. The body of water was just like
that which the television images had promised to him though there in The
Underground it was something truly extraordinary. The water glistened likea
smooth, turquoise crystal.
Jareth watched as the peculiar young man fell to his knees in awe
at the sight of the water. And it amused Jareth to see this strangely
innocent creature's reactions to things that seemed so drab and common place
to him. And yet though it seemed far from impressive to Jareth, The Goblin
King it was the most water that Thomas Jerome Newton had ever seen collected
in one place before other then on the images from off of the television. It
was pure fresh water that sat in a valley, still as glass just beyond the
flowing creek. It's surface shone like a polished disc made out of crystal,
cut glass. It was still and it did not seem to be liquid. It seemed like
something fantastical to him. It was a deep, turquoise blue making it seem
like a tear in The Underground, peering straight through to another
atmosphere as if the planet were a thin, flat substance.
There was a cool dampness to the air there and it was comforting
to him.
Once he had seen that water he felt that his suffering, his
separation from all that he had ever known and loved had been worth it. The
man known as Thomas Jerome Newton was nearly in tears at the sight of it. It
was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen. It was breath taking.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 5
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:07:46 EDT
He and the Goblin King sat under the shade of a large willow tree
on the low hill, near to the shore of the flowing creek.
It was in fact really a quite lovely evening there in The
Underground. The moon was a gorgeous crystal blue. It was bright. And
everything for miles around seemed to glow with it's own luminous light. It
was really aesthetically speaking a beautiful night in fact. There was
something in the air. He could almost taste it. He could feel the magick
all around him. The stars against the velvet backdrop of night were like
tiny diamonds.
Everything was so very different there. That was not the
night sky of his own world. And that most certainly was not the sort of
night that he would expect to see on Planet Earth. This was an Underground
night. It was fantastic. And it was the most beautiful, surreal thing that
he had ever seen.
"It's beautiful." He said to Jareth. And he truly meant it. He
could find no other words for it.
"You honestly think that this is beautiful?" Jareth asked as he
looked off in to the direction that Thomas Jerome Newton happened to be
gazing.
He nodded. "Yes. It's wonderful and it's so peaceful right here."
There was no need to delay it any longer. Jareth spoke up in a
stern, severe voice. "I want you to listen to me now."
Thomas turned and looked at him curiously. He was no longer
frightened of Jareth, The Goblin King. He could feel that he did not have to
be. He trusted him, oddly enough. He did not know why but he felt that he
should trust someone. Why not The Goblin King, The King of The Underground?
Why not, indeed?
"I am going to give you two choices because frankly I do not really
know what I should do with you to tell the truth." Jareth said.
Jareth was actually growing fond of Thomas Jerome Newton's company.
There was something about him. He was someone intelligent with enough wit
for him to hold a truly worthwhile intellectual conversation with. He was
also quite handsome, he thought. Why not a companion who looked precisely
like himself? Why not, indeed? And Jareth also knew that if this creature
were another version of himself, only different by race of birth and the
circumstances of life then he must keep him alive. If the man who called
himself Thomas Jerome Newton were to die then surely so would he.
"Now, you can stay here forever as my ward. I can promise that no
harm would ever come to you and you would live in complete luxury and you
would have no need for your-" He gestured to him vaguely because he was
uncertain of just what was real or not to this man's features. "- disguise."
"I would love to..." He said. "...But I cannot. I have
responsibilities. I have to think of my wife and children. My whole world
is dependent upon me. I must succeed for them." He paused and looked at
Jareth curiously. "You know why I came don't you?"
Jareth nodded. "Yes, I can read it from your mind now. It's
telling me the entire story from top to finish."
"Then you know why I must go back." He looked at Jareth with a
desperate, pleading gaze. He would allow him to return to Earth to complete
his mission, wouldn't he?
Jareth stood up. "That leads me to your second choice. You can
return to Earth and act as if this meeting had never had occurred- it never
had happened."
Thomas looked away as if he were actually reluctant to make his
decision.
"There is a chance that you might fail." Jareth said.
"Then that is a chance that I am willing to take. I have to."
Thomas Jerome Newton said.
"Then I wish you the best of luck." Jareth said sincerely.
"Thank you." He said. "I fear that I may need it."
For a long moment the two just stood there. And then Thomas
finally asked him his question. "You are very powerful, Jareth. I must
know... How is it that you have this power to control most everything here?
I could tell that you had this sort of power the very moment that I saw you."
Jareth laughed. "My, how very observant of you. You have a
wonderful ability to deduce the obvious, Alien Boy." He took in a deep
breath. "Well, my powers are a great deal like water. It's rather like an
energy force that I channel from this environment itself, my power. It flows
and I use it. It cannot be destroyed but only changed or transferred."
"Then it is an energy force?"
"That is correct. It's rather like water. It cannot be
destroyed but only contained and it takes the shape of what it is contained
within."
He looked to The Goblin King curiously. He was trying very hard
to simply understand all of this.
"Now, just you watch this." Jareth said.
Jareth held out his hand. Suddenly a swirling wind like a
mighty tornado appeared on the base Jareth's hand's palm. A liquid gewed in
his fingers in to a soft yet icy gel. It was icy and cold but then it was
comfortably warm. It suddenly became hard. And then in his hand was a
clear-cut crystal ball. It was small and it fit perfectly in his hand. It
caused his whole arm to tingle at holding it.
"Do you see this?" Jareth held the crystal out so that his
strange young companion could see it.
He nodded. "But... what is it?"
"It's a crystal, nothing more but it can show many their dreams
because I had focussed my magick in to it. And my magick having no true
shape or form, like water is only in the form of what contains it. I placed
a bit of my power in to this- forming a crystal."
"And what can this crystal do?"
"If you turn it and look in to it- it can show you your dreams."
"May I look at it? Hmm? May I?" Asked Thomas Jerome Newton.
"May I have a look at it, please?"
"Of course." Jareth handed him the crystal sphere.
"And this- this is how your power... your magick, as youcall it,
works?"
"Yes."
"And it moves like water. It's all like water, precisely in
metaphor by every aspect?" Thomas Jerome Newton could not shake his memories
of his old life on his home world as a poet.
"Yes."
"Then it cannot be completely destroyed or taken away, I suppose
but it can be dammed up." He handed the crystal back to Jareth. The crystal
faded from sight and then dissolved in to seeming nothingness.
"But that would be dangerous."
"Why would that be dangerous?"
"Well, all dams fail in time. Can you imagine if all that built
up power and energy were to burst out? The flooding would be uncontrollable
and I believe that it might destroy me."
Thomas Jerome Newton nodded and thought on this. "I see."
"Well," Said Jareth, breaking the silence that was beginning
to progress. "I think that it is now time that you should be going. I shall
send you back to the time just moments before you were wished away as to not
interfere with your 'mission'."
"Thank you." He said.
"Should you ever wish to come back all you need to do is to say
your right words."
"I understand. Good bye, Jareth and... thank you."
A burst of light appeared and then vanished.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 6
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:08:14 EDT
Thomas Jerome Newton blinked as he looked around the little shoppe
once more. He knew where he was and he knew that he had experienced this
before and he could remember all of his little adventure in The Underground
quite clearly. And from all that he had seen and felt there he knew that it
all had really had happened.
The woman spoke in a heavily accented voice. "Can I help you?"
Acting as if he had never done that all before Thomas Jerome Newton
spoke up. "Yes. I'm sorry. I want to sell this." He pulled the golden
ring out of his pocket. Somehow it had been placed back in to his pocket
just as his artificial passport now sat in his breast pocket where it
belonged.
The woman took the ring in to her hand and examined it. It was a
valuable ring. This man looked peculiar to her. To her he seemed to be
rather like some sort of an insane vagrant. What was a man like this doing
with such a valuable little trinket? And there was something to his voice.
He had an indistinguishable accent to her ears. She would have loved to have
had found out that this peculiar young man had stolen that ring. He looked
to be the criminal type to her. He was so suspicious, obviously jumpy and
awkward. He looked like someone who had something to hide. She had no idea
as to just how right she was.
"Uh, where'd you get this ring?" The woman asked suspiciously.
"It's mine. My wife gave it to me." He pointed out "The initials
are in the inside, yes?"
She examined the inside of the ring. She saw clearly the letters.
"T.J.N."
"Yeah."
She looked again to the curious stranger who looked as if he had
just stepped in from off of another planet. "Do you have your ID?"
"Oh," He reached in to his breast pocket and pulled out the false
passport identification. "I'm British. I have a passport."
The photograph on the interior of the passport did in fact match his
face. His people had done a good job in creating that for him. "Thomas
Jerome Newton." There was no doubt about it. This was definitely his ring.
And it was small too. It was obviously meant for a thin hand. And he did
have quite thin, delicate, very feminine looking hands. In fact his entire
being seemed very nearly androgynous to her.
He reached up and brushed aside some of his long strands of hair
out of his eyes.
The woman still wished that he would go away. There was something
different about him and she did not understand what it was and so it
frightened her.
The ring was beautiful though. And the obvious eagerness of the
young man to sell the ring gave her the knowledge that she could easily buy
the ring for far less then she should and then make a substantial profit from
it. She would be able to sell it right away. She just had to settle a few
miner details first. If his wife had given him that ring then he might come
for it back but by then she would have been bound to have had sold it.
"This is not a pawn shoppe." She said simply in her heavy accented,
voice.
"I beg your pardon." It felt as if he were in a play and had just
dressed rehearsed that entire scene.
"If I buy this ring now you can't redeem it later, understand?"
She just wanted to make that clear to him.
"Oh, I understand."
This was good. Now was the time for her bargaining eye to make the
kill of her hunt.
"Twenty dollars." She seemed very sure of herself in naming that
price.
He knew that the ring was worth far more then that with American
money but he needed money. He needed to earn as much money as quickly as
possible.
"Twenty dollars?" He looked at her curiously. He knew that she was
trying to rip him off... again.
"Take it or leave it."
He waited a moment. He knew that a woman with a little girl in
her arms would enter the shoppe at any given moment if all replayed itself
just as it had happened before he had been wished away in to The Underground.
Sure enough another woman with a child in her arms came walking
in to the shoppe within three seconds of time. The tiny bell above the old
door sounded off as the woman and child entered the shoppe just as it had
upon his entering earlier and upon their own entering of the shoppe before.
In the child's arms the little girl carried the tiny red book. The
little girl was extremely small. She was trying yet again to read the words
on a page of the book. And as she sounded out the worlds out loud it sounded
a great deal as he recall it when he had first learned this language of
English.
The girl tried to read out loud. "The g-girl stood up and saay-ed
'I... I wiiiish that the... the... g-gob-goblins w-would K-comeanddd taaaake
you-oo away... right now.'" In the reading the girl looked to Thomas Jerome
Newton who looked to her just as curiously as she did him.
He shut his eyes a moment, fearing that he would end up in The
Underground all over again. Nothing happened this time around. He sighed in
relief. Everything would be all right.... Or so he thought.
Jareth held the crystal in his right hand. His head rested in his
left hand as his elbow sat on the arm of his throne. He did not like this at
all. He could not detach himself from this.
A flash of light filled the throne room. In a burst of glittering
sparks and sparklets the beautiful young woman, Christine yet again appeared.
She wore her hair tied back in a silk ribbon. She wore a very extravagant
and somewhat flamboyant gown with a large, out turned collar, much like
something the royalty of the Sixteenth century would have worn. The sleeves
of her gown flared out below the elbows while from the shoulder to the elbows
this gown's sleeves were tight to her skin. Her elegance and beauty could
not be denied by anyone, not even by her own older brother, Jareth who seemed
to take little to no real notice of her just then at all. Her face seemed
strangely innocent. She carried with her well the ever-apparent illusion of
true innocence. It held a child like expression to it, her face, though she
was clearly built as a woman. She smiled at Jareth.
"Hello, Christine." Jareth said to his younger sister without
any real enthusiasm at all but in a deliberate dull monotone.
"Hello, Jareth." She said.
She cocked her head to one side as she stepped forward just a
pace. "Why didn't you tell him the truth, Jareth- that his plan was hopeless,
that his mission was doomed from the get go?"
He looked at her. "Because I could not."
"But he has the right to know!"
"I have stolen many things of value in the past, Christine butI
will not steal the last spark of hope that someone carries. That is
something I simply cannot take from someone-" he muttered under his breath
"-especially from myself."
"I see." She had heard him mutter out the final part to his
statement though she pretended that she had not heard the last part. She
looked away. "You cannot change what is meant to happen, Jareth." She said
solemnly.
"I know." Then Jareth had a thought on how to cheat Fate to keep
both the young man that he might have actually considered a friend and
himself alive. "Just was IS his fate, Christine?"
Christine held out her hand. Suddenly a swirling wind like a
small tornado appeared on the base Christine's hand's palm. A liquid gewed
in her fingers in to a soft yet icy gel. It was icy and cold but then it was
comfortably warm. It suddenly became hard. And then in her hand she held a
clear-cut crystal ball. It was small and it fit perfectly in her hand. It
caused her whole arm to tingle at holding it.
She spoke up as the images appeared to her in the crystal sphere.
"He is destined to fall in to human distractions. He will be
clumsy and na=C3=AFve. He will be found out and captured by humans. His mission
will fail. The spacecraft that he would be having built would be confiscated
from him and then destroyed. An accident caused by the incompetence of those
holding him captive will severely damage his eyes."
"But he will not die?"
Christine shook her head. "It won't say for certain."
"Good, then that is preventable."
"Jareth, just what are you going to do?"
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 7
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:11:25 EDT
Thomas Jerome Newton's plan had been set in to motion. He
had not anticipated upon all the peculiarities of Planet Earth. He had not
been prepared for a great many things. To be trained for something like that
and then to experience it suddenly made all the risks, and the desperation
frighteningly real.
His education of that world from off or the television had not
shown him a great many things about the human world. The images from off of
the television had been flawed in colour, depth and proportion with the true
physical surroundings of that place. The sensations that he had felt were
not at all what he had thought they would be. Things were far more intense,
far harsher then he had realized that they would be, the things that he felt
there. The potency and raw physical nature of Planet Earth had been very
nearly a complete surprise to him.
Human people lived in a way of what he saw as a shallow self
concerning and self-destructive bitterness towards their own natures. It
came as a complete surprise to him, their complete lack of faith in their own
nature. He could not quite understand why human beings could not embrace
their own natures for what they were. Nothing could ever be a success unless
one believes it will be. ...And yet those self-pitying creatures loathed their
own natures and were continually wallowing in anger and regret over their own
society and state of being rather then simply seeking to improve upon what
they truly were as they should. He had only just begun to understand it and
already he was repulsed and horrified by his opinions that he had by that
time had made about those people and already saw as being fact.
He tried and not think on it too often, of his old life. He tried
to not remember the expression on his wife, Marie's face as he had left and
of his children and the tears that had glistened in their eyes. He wondered
if there was a chance that he would honestly be able to one day see them all
once again... really. It seemed so surreal to him now that he was on that
distant alien planet surrounded by those strange, over bearing and somewhat
gawky and exotic, alien creatures, those Earthlings... those humans. It was
hard to accept that those alien creatures, those humans, surround him with
such strange and hypocritical ideals within them and their own culture. It
was so very confusing. There were just too many standards that he felt that
he had been made to follow.
He thought on his own doubts and fears surrounding that desperate
plan. What if he was found out? Were those people really so resourceful?
What would happen to himself and to his people so very far away from him now?
Did he really stand a chance? And what would become of everything if he
were found out?
The words that he spoke as this human, Thomas Jerome Newton
still seemed strange and hard for him to articulate and understand. Like
strange, loud and rhythm-less noises they still seemed to him, these foreign
words that jumbled together in to phrases where he found it difficult to
divide one word from the next and then remember the meaning of specific
things. He had to try and be very careful as to how he moved his tongue and
on how his lips formed the words that he spoke. The slightest
mispronunciation would ruin everything of his seeming place as one of them.
Even after months of perfecting his accent he still knew that there was what
might be called a "tang" to his speech, an accent that he could not easily
shake due to the way human vocal cords differed from his own.
He knew damned good and well what he was saying when he spoke up
to those people or at least what he was trying to say but as he heard it from
himself it still seemed to be a jumble of strange noises and syllables. Once
in a while he would have heard an English word that sounds like a different
word in his own language. He would have to try and remember the English
meaning and not the nonsensical gibberish that it would be when heard as a
word of his own language and then scrambled with the English words that he
was gradually trying to become used to.
He had been startled by the brightness of the solar light there.
And the heat was also very nearly intolerable. But beyond the confusion and
the brutality if Earth there was also an amazing beauty that he thought
should be savoured and cherished as well.
Earth continued to over whelm him though. He found that he was
exhausted by the mere effort of simply keeping conscious in such a brutal
place. The pressure of Earth's much stronger gravitational pull then his own
world made him very ill. He felt as if he were carrying many great weights
with him. Lagged and being unused to the physical hardships of that brutal
yet beautiful place he found himself at times easily exhausted at effort of
committing the simplest of tasks. His legs felt weak and heavy and the air
was thick with strange smells and noxious gasses. He wondered if any of his
world's children could truly survive in that place and if not then what could
he possibly do? The human people even at a young age seemed used to the
harshness of their own world without a question.
He thought often of his own family. He thought on the desperation
of the plan. And he wondered if it really could be accomplished. He want
to tell his wife now that he loved her very much and with all of his being.
He knew that she already knew this but still he wanted to tell her that he
was certain that everything would be all right but the fact is that he was
not certain. He did not know if he were truly going to succeed. In fact he
doubted now if he would truly succeed at all.
He had a great many questions but he did not want answers. He
wanted certainty. He wanted to be certain of what would be for himself, for
his family, for his mission, for his world and for Earth.
He felt awkward in this strange disguise and he prayed that it
would not fail him. He did not like having to make so much of an effort in
to just hiding among those people. The feeling of his hair on his head cut
at the length that he was, he felt a need to reach up and adjust it regularly
and yet he knew that this is unnecessary.
His fingertips felt tender and stiff with the artificial
fingernails in place. It made gripping things seem far more difficult to him
and his hands had been trembling a great deal.
The artificial nipples on his chest feel like a layer of a thin,
plastic shirt of some kind directly against his flesh.
When he looked in to mirrors or any reflective surfaces he
would be startled and sometimes frightened by the image that he saw staring
back at him, that he knew that he would one day grow used to. He saw this
strange alien creature in his mirror reflection and he was not him! And he
was afraid. The image he was saw was of one of them and he found that he was
frightened because he could not see his true self at all. He was frightened
that he might lose who he truly was, that he might forget where he had truly
come from and why he was there. He must never forget his true goals. And he
mustn't ever forget his real family that he had left behind, his wife and his
children.
He tried very hard to pass as one of them. He grew tired of having
to conceal the truth. He was weary of not only having to hide his true form
but also what he truly thought and what he felt about Earth and what he
believed in. He could not do that forever. It was as if he were wearing a
mask. He would look in to a mirror and he would wonder just who was that man
that he saw staring straight back at him. ...And then a part of him wanted to
scream out the truth to the next fellow that passed him by on the street. He
had no idea that he would be made so frustrated. But he tried to not allow
himself to be distracted by his own sensations and emotions. He must
succeed. He had to succeed!
. He feared however that those people, humans were in fact very
destructive. It seemed to him that they were more concerned with creating
weapons to defend and attack against one and other for reasonless fears and
greed rather then striving to make their own lives more comfortable.
It had grown rather difficult for him to understand it all. If
humans, he thought, continued on as they were going he feared that they just
might end up destroying themselves within the next thirty or so years. He
supposed that this meant that he would have to hurry on up along with his
plans before those foolish creatures acting as in their natures would destroy
their own strange and beautiful world.
Twenty-five years had passed by on Planet Earth and
unfortunately for Thomas Jerome Newton- Christine's dark prophecies of his
mission proved to be true. He had been destined to fall in to human
distractions. In fact he had fallen to a great many of them, including
alcoholism to escape the pain and fear as well as all the pressure that
rested upon him continuously. His mission had failed. The spacecraft that
he had been having built by his company of 'World Enterprises' that he had
founded had been confiscated away from him and destroyed.
An accident caused by the incompetence of those who were holding
him captive for "observational study" had severely damaged his precious eyes.
His world was surely dead. He believed that he had lost his wife
and children. The contact lenses, those horrid, nasty, membrane, contact
lenses that had been placed over his real eyes had been fused to the surfaces
of his real eyeballs. They were stuck. They would never come off. And now
his vision was severely impaired.
The accident had been simple enough. They had wanted to take some
x-ray photographs of his eyes. He could always see the flash of an x-ray
though he could not really see the colour red as humans could see it. His
perception of the visible spectrum was far different then that of a human
being. And the flash of an x-ray could be blinding to him. His eyes were
damaged, the contact lenses, those horrible things, were fused permanently to
his real eyes and his world... his home... his people... his family... It was
surely all destroyed...
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust... Easy come- easy go.
At least, Thomas Jerome Newton's aging processes being far slower
then that of a human's, Thomas Jerome Newton still held the physical
appearance- the youth that he had held when he had first met up with Jareth,
The Goblin King. But what good was eternal youth and financial wealth to
someone like him, especially now that he had lost most everything that he had
held of true value?
In the form of the white barn owl Jareth, The Goblin King flew over
the city
The large buildings below him seemed to reach up for the Heavens
unable to touch the realm that he stole as his own while in that preferred
form for Earthly transportation.
He felt the icy midnight air rushing under his belly. The wind
stirred his feathers though it never once disturbed them from their setting
in his light owl self.
It appeared that it might begin to rain this night. He felt the
chill in the air. It was crisp and pure, clean and frosty, not at all likea
winter in The Underground
It had always seemed to him that winters in The Underground were
dreary and that the dust in fact layered the land as much as the frost, which
was not very much at all usually, anyway.
He flew gracefully, enjoying himself and his freedom, the one
thing that he cherished and would cherish more then any power that he could
hold in his own realm and over another.
There were few things that Jareth had ever truly held dear to
himself; the first thing is power and control. His life would be in total
chaos if he did not possess just a little of that. The second thing that
Jareth cherished dearly was his freedom. He also cherished his reason and his
ability to think and act as he saw fit. He also held dear to him the ability
to love and care for another, something, which he as Jareth, The Goblin King
did seldom at all but he, knew that he was fully capable of doing, showing
compassion to another just as he would very soon.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 8
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:11:47 EDT
He also loved the power to create, his magick and natural talents
granted him this with music, song, and his enchantments. He also held dear
to him humanity, believe it or not, that enjoyable and unpredictable race of
sometimes... quite often foolish beings that never ceased to amaze orentrance
him. He would watch with awe in wonder as again and again as they would
destroy or change his conceptions of what he had thought them out to be once
he had conceived of a belief that he knew totally that they were. They would
shatter his ideas about their world again and again and then rebuild it in to
something far more interesting then he had first thought it out to be.
It was fantastic to watch that ever-changing society and those
lovely individuals who would break the pre-fabricated conformist sentiments
that he had seen arise with a fear of change.
It had always been hard for him to be an outsider; though being
the unquestioned ruler of his own realm had filled the void with shallow
materialism for quite some time.
He flew. Flying as the white, barn owl was an escape for him.
It was freedom. It was a freedom from everything. It was a freedom from his
responsibilities. It was a freedom from his own existence. It was a freedom
from everything that he had ever done and would regret though would never
admit to regretting out loud.
He loved the feeling of the cool, clean, icy breeze under him. He
watched from his lonely position in the skies, over seeing the human world as
if it were truly his own. What a lie that was! But even he had the right to
pretend, to imagine... to try to... dream. The day was fading fast from the
sky. Dusk had come and night was settling a shadowy blanket over all.
As the night set in and the darkness deepened- adding depth to the
faintest shadows he felt a torture, a longing, a desire. He wanted something
more other then just that. He was aching inside, and flying, as the owl was
his only chance. It was his freedom. It was his escape. It was rather like
a drug, or one of his peaches. It helped him to at least for a time forget
everything, though it's effects never did really last long enough. He was
flying as the wise, and white barn owl more often then he usually would of
late. And he remembered an old myth that an owl is born with all his
questions answered. And he did wish that all his questions were answered,
they remained as they seemed to forever be unresolved.
. He had to let it all go. He had to drop away his regrets and
broken promises that he had had made to himself. He had not been given a
choice in being made the ruler of those... those wretched THINGS!
And he wished that he could in fact be completely free and detached
from being Jareth, The Goblin King and forget everything of who he had been.
But he had to let that all go now.
As the owl he was free. He was happy. He was not Jareth, The Goblin
King. He was simply the white barn owl, flying over humanity, never touching
it, not really at any rate, understanding it somewhat and yet not caring.
Detachment! Again, a lie! No one could ever truly be detached because
emotions are only repressed, and they can burst out like a dam flooding at
any given time. All dams fail in time and when they do that flood might
destroy you. And you can try to deny others but no one; not even he could
deny his own emotions.
Well, he had spread his wings, and for hours he was soaring, never
really tiring. He had taken flight. He did not wish to land.
The past was gone. He had to look for the future. If he lived in
the past then he would not have today or tomorrow, just yesterday- a dead
thing.
He could still be free. He prayed that time would set him free-
free from everything. He was not fit to rule the goblins. He was willing to
admit that now. He had a human mind, a HUMAN mind, an immortal form yes, but
still a HUMAN mind! ...And with that, human needs and desires. And he ached
for a human life.
He was empty inside. There was darkness within him. He was...
lonely.
There was some sort of light trapped inside his own inner
darkness that no one could see, an ability to really care for others, to
allow out some compassion as Jareth, The Goblin King. He wished that he did
not have to live up to any one's dark ideals, or antagonistic expectations of
him. He simply could not find his way in to the part.
Life for him was becoming some horrible masquerade dance. And
everyone, he believed in any world wears a mask, three masks, or faces
rather, to be precise. The first face is the face that you wear for others.
The second face is the image of the person that you would truly like to be,
and the third face and the hardest one to face is the face of who you truly
are. He was growing to hate masks. He wanted to see beyond the illusions
and lies. He wanted to face the truth. It is always best to face true
darkness as opposed to false light. If you wrap yourself in a blanket if
deception you will be left cold for one day it will be torn away from you.
He flew higher and higher, trying to let go of everything but the
universe spreading out before him as the thick, polluted, damp city air
thinned around him.
He was at least for the moment free. He could forget it all. He
flew higher then the mountains, reaching for the moon and the stars beyond
the heavy clouds. He flew where the wind was strong and the air was weak, if
that can be described somehow. He was free to fly that night.
He looked down once more at the large city, far below him; still
able to see and hear it perfectly with the owl's heightened senses.
He loved the stirring of the brown, dead leaves that crunched under
the feet of those, at least six and a half yards under him who passed by
along the busy, crowded streets. They were hustling and bustling, shopping
and cheering at the simple joys of the season, making merriment in the bitter
weather. Ah, a remarkable and perseverant race, humanity. He had grown to
realize just how perseverant the human nature can be and how that nature can
in fact sacrifice, evolve, change, and suffer for others.
He held as the owl the freedom from being an immortal living among
imbecilic goblins. He was an immortal, true enough but he still held a human
mind filled with human desires and at one time, once upon a time a long, long
time ago it had even been filled with his own dreams. Ah, the dreams of
youth are the regrets of maturity. But how does one know when he is mature
enough when he will live indefinitely with the same form as humans come and
go, age and die before him? And how is one to know when he is mature enough
when he watches a world that is not his own from his own shabby little world
that hardly anyone has penetrated or understood?
A few hours, just a few hours for him to be away from The
Underground, that was all that he had wanted that evening. A few hours, was
what all that he had wanted, just a few hours away from The Underground.
All he wanted was this short little amount of time, free and away
from everyone and every thing that he was used to.
He was happy and as the curse of his own existence said, this would
not last for very long. Sure enough his moment of bliss passed rapidly by.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 9
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:14:27 EDT
He felt something. It was a familiar sensation. It was a
presence that he had felt once before. Looking down at a building far belong
him he knew who was within it. It was someone not quite human but human
enough to know frustration, fear and desperation....
Thomas Jerome Newton sighed, as he stood alone in his elaborate and
lavish prison, his cell. It had been made up to look a great deal like a
high-class hotel suite.
The name Thomas Jerome Newton had become far too famous now as being
the great inventor and founder of the corporate conglomerate of World
Enterprises. They would just have to let him go soon. That was causing far
too many questions and the public was growing suspicious. Those holding him
surely would not tell the public the truth about him. He could not imagine
what sort of panic that might cause.
He looked out at the now pouring rain. He marveled at the amount of
water that ran down the glass window that separated him now from everyone
else in the universe. Separated- always separated!
He stood alone on what he felt to be the dark side of the glass.
He stood alone on the edge of a great abyss of his mind. He had walked that
Earth through darkened shadows. Now he felt as if he were drifting away from
everything. He was never able to touch a heart. It had been far too long
and he felt far too cold inside of himself to remain that way. He was the
outsider. He would always be the outsider looking in on a world that was not
his own that he could never really touch.
He could not possibly run from what he was. He could not possibly
ever hide away all of the pain that was building up from inside of him. When
he looked at the world that he was trapped in with his empty- pain filled
eyed the night fell and the darkness remained and it would always remain.
He was a lone figure standing on the edge of madness.
He sighed softly. The television was droning on in the background
as he poured himself yet another glass of gin. His pale hand picked up the
tumbler, his hair was falling back as he tipped his head back. The drink was
soon gone and he wished that he had more but he had very nearly finished off
that bottle.
His slightly mismatched blue eyes (blue had actually the colour of
those now fused contact lenses that were stuck over his real eyes) turned
back to the imprinted smiles on the faces on the television screen. He
raised his thin, long hand to push a button on top of his spectacles,
darkening the tint just a bit.
He heard it. He knew that he had heard it. His eyes shifted to
the window. There was something out there. Quickly, a worried, almost
frightened look came to his somewhat androgynous face. He waited. He waited
though he was uncertain as to what he was waiting for.
Were they going to do another test to him tonight? Did he even
care?
He furrowed his brow, the corners of his lips turning down in
curiosity as he cocked his head, looking out the window.
There was something sitting, sheltered from the rain in the
branches of the tree just outside of his window. It appeared to be a small
white barn owl.
He placed the practically empty drink down on to the desk.
Something spoke from within his own mind and yet he knew that it was not his
own thought. It had not originated from him. It was like a psychic impulse
telling him that he had- had enough.
The barn owl? Could it be? It was not possible! Was it?
...But it was. The tiny, little barn owl was Jareth, The Goblin
king!
He looked exactly the way Jareth had remembered him to be only
his eyes seemed more tired then they had been before. They were weary, his
eyes and obviously far weaker then they had been. He had been through so
very much that could not be stopped. And Jareth wanted to do something now.
He wanted to tell the young man who had tried to save his world and had
failed that he was in fact sorry and yet he would say nothing. Thomas Jerome
Newton was so very thin. And he seemed so tired. He felt sorry for him. He
knew that he had endured a great deal, a great many terrible things. They
had done so very much to him. He felt a painful guilt inside of himself for
all of what things had been thrown on to this creature, surely over whelming
his fragile and sensitive being, mentally as well as physically.
He was not so very uncomfortable. ...He was not so very
uncomfortable... at least not just yet at any rate. It was oddly comforting
to him that the white barn owl was there. He heard a strange humming in the
very air itself. The sound was like a flowing of electricity. He suspected
as a part of him already knew and had already known that the barn owl
watching him from just outside of the glass window was in fact Jareth, The
Goblin King. Jareth, The Goblin King had simply taken on yet another form as
he thought that The Goblin King might be able to do with all that power that
he held from The Underground.
Jareth did not wish to frighten the poor, wretched thing more so
then he surely had been already by the incompetent fools of this place. Of
course it was a little late to try and make up for the actions of the past
that had been done on to him. He could sure as Hell try and do something for
him but what?
The white barn owl fluttered it's wings from anxiety. If a bird
could sigh it would have had sighed.
So many things, rational and chaotic flashed though Jareth's owl
self's mind, clouding her initiative. At that moment of seeing him he wanted
to turn away. He had wanted to see him for a very long time. And now that
he was actually there the words that he wanted to say simply would not come
to him. And he was grateful just then that he was not in his human form. He
was also grateful that Thomas Jerome Newton was in there and that he was out
there on the other side of the glass where he could at least pretend that
there was some detachment from him and the other-worlder, ...The Visitor.
A moment of unbearable quiet passed. An agonizing moment of
terribly uncomfortable near silence passed in the room. Was he afraid? What
could he possibly have to fear from him?
The only sound that Thomas Jerome Newton at that moment could
hear other then the owl's heart beating and the pounding of his own heart was
the din of the falling rain outside where the owl was. The television set
had gone quiet, probably had lost the satellite signal from the nasty spot of
weather that they were having. But he did not think that it was nasty at
all, the weather. He thought that it was the most beautiful thing in the
cosmos.
It was not going to stop any time soon, the rain. And he was
glad of this. He rather liked the rain. It was clean and pure, or at least
it seemed so to him. He loved it in fact. The precious water as it fell
from Heaven was like the tears of some mourning God who had grown weary of
forever and of his responsibilities. There was something comforting in the
flowing water as it poured from the sky. It was as if it could wash away all
of his pain, all of his fears and all of his doubt. But he knew deep down
inside of his being that this comfort was fleeting. It was as fleeting as
the solace that his gin gave to him. And he had taken to drinking a lot more
recently then he had before. He was hurt and physically as well as
emotionally exhausted and now he was a tired and lonely prisoner. It was all
he could do to escape his painful and harsh reality in doing what he did in
his now seemingly continuous drinking. How he wished that he could just fly
away from it, from everything and never look back. He wished that he were
the owl. He could hardly even see the owl but he could tell that he was
there nonetheless. He could feel him.
The regret if his own faults and failures ached from inside of
him. The painful emptiness that built from within him would not subside.
And rather then cry over all that he felt, rather then allow himself to shed
another tear he wished that it would rain forever. He wished that Heaven
would cry for him. And now he thought of his home, his real home and of the
joy it would bring to his dying people if a clean, pure rain fell there. He
had taken so much for granted. And he missed all so very much...
The man known as Thomas Jerome Newton had cocked his head to one
side as he tried to focus his now severely damaged, light sensitive eyes on
to the barn owl curiously. He narrowed his eyes but this hardly did a thing
to help him to see it any better then he did.
He did not say anything to this strange bird that he knew to be
truly Jareth, The Goblin King. There was nothing left for him to say. And
he thought for certain that he was mad. Of curse if he had said something he
probably would have only said for Jareth to please get him the Hell out of
there. And it echoed in his mind now from the other source, the barn owl
that was in fact Jareth, The Goblin King that all that he had needed to do
was to say his right words. And he would have said the words too but then he
thought- Why bother?
He thought of those horrid doctors that had been poking and
prodding him for so very long.
As an extended and awkward silence progressed the owl, Jareth stared at him
with quiet, weary and curious eyes. He began to wish that he were not there
at all. What did Jareth, The Goblin King want?
He sighed deeply. He watched the continually pouring rain. The water
streaked the glass of the window as it rushed down and some desperate
droplets clung to the glass, not wanting, it seemed to fall all the way down
to Earth and disappear in to a puddle like the rest of the droplets before
them. And it was so very beautiful, watching the rain fall. The heavy deep
gray clouds hung in the Heavens. It was comfortably dim out there. And the
rain would continue to fall for hours more to come. And he was glad of this.
He wished that he were out there to touch that rain, to let it wash over him
and wash away all of his pain. He fancied that if he stood out there naked
with his arms out stretched and let the water rush over him that the water
would wash away a terrible black thing from off of him. He could picture
within his mind's eye that it would represent every bitter emotion and every
ounce of suffering that he had ever known there on Earth and by some miracle
the precious and beautiful rain could wash it all away from him.
He reached up his right hand and touched the cool glass of the
window. He pressed his right palm against it, the glass. He wished that the
glass was not there but it was. Finally weary of his own situation and
wanting the little barn owl to leave him be he hung his head. His hand
remained rested on the glass. He could almost feel the cool dampness through
the thick, double layered glass. The cool, comfort of the dampness in the
atmosphere was something that his world had not known for a long, long time.
Why wouldn't the barn owl just fly away? He would love to have
seen the little owl fly away just then. At least one of them could fly. One
of them could fly while the other- the other just had to fall. And he was
the one falling, now, wasn't he? He was falling and he was falling fast. He
felt like Icarus after he had flown too close to the Earth's sun and his wax
wings had melted. He just had to fall, didn't he?
. He did not want anyone to be so very close to him but he said
nothing about it. The owl was probably examining him quietly. And so long
as he was not actually touching him he supposed that he could allow it,
closeness. He did not wish to be touched just then by anyone or any thing.
He just wished to be left alone to wallow in his own miserable melancholy.
Thomas Jerome Newton did not want to be touched by any of those people
again. They had hurt him once and he could quite possibly be hurt by them
even more so then he already was. And they now and forever would be to him
"those people'.
The water trickled down glass windowpane. For a moment Jareth
thought for certain that he saw tears in Thomas Jerome Newton's eyes but he
could easily have been mistaken. And then Jareth saw it, the one definite
real tear from his left eye streak down his cheek. Jareth, in his owl self
pretended not to notice it. But he could not ignore it. This other version
of himself was just so utterly pathetic. He was not like him at all and yet
there was something painfully familiar to the pain this creature felt and the
strange emptiness that had always haunted from way deep inside of Jareth's
very soul.
Jareth tried to calm the rapid beating of his owl self's heart.
Thomas Jerome Newton reached over by the television and shut off
the small box that supplied it's power.
He could not hate them, human beings, for all that they had done
and had caused to happen to him and for all that he had endured. Hatred
would only fold in to destruction and an endless, vicious cycle of pain,
giving pain, and pain, on and on through eternity. Hatred in a war is part
of what had destroyed his world, the way it had been. He did not hate them
now for all that he had suffered there. He could not blame them. He did not
hate anyone. He simply could not. He was angry and frustrated. He was
aching from way deep inside of himself but not really hateful, as he was
resentful to the situation itself at hand.
Jareth thought for certain that they could not possibly hold Thomas
Jerome Newton there for very much longer. They simply could not do that.
They did not have much choice in the matter. They simply had to let him go.
Of course he more then likely would be kept under continual observation for
the rest of his life, however long that might be.
They already knew that he aged much slower then humans do.
Jareth very nearly lost the image of Thomas Jerome Newton's thin
silhouette against the shadows of the glass window. He seemed so very tired.
His eyes, they just looked so weary.
And Jareth did feel sorry for him, this pathetic little thing.
Jareth knew that he had endured a great deal. He had come so very far long.
He had come from so very far away. Even he could not help but to pity him.
He had endured a great many terrible things. They had done so very much to
him. Jareth was surprised that he had any sanity at all left after all this
time and after all that isolation.
And Jareth wondered now about how this creature had come to be
here. He had come so very long a distance and from so very far away. How
could any creature, human or other withstand such a passing?
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 10
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:14:39 EDT
Jareth was more then just a little bit fascinated by him. Jareth
could just imagine the knowledge that he quite possibly possessed.
And Jareth felt miserable that he knew that he was trapped in
there.
But being as well to do and as famous as Mr. Newton was by now the
public had begun to ask questions. There was no doubt about that and the
truth could not possibly be given. It would cause an uproar. It would lead
to sheer and utter chaos there on Earth. There would be a panic if the
public were to have found out about what Thomas Jerome Newton truly was.
There would be talk of an invasion and all those other fantastical notions
that one might pick up from watching one too many science fiction films or
reading one too many fantasy novels or comic books.
And Jareth was growing agitated and fast. Why didn't he just
say the words? If he would just wish himself away then he could take him
away from there but he could not take him to The Underground unless he wanted
to go- unless he was willing or if someone said the right words.
Jareth was growing frustrated and fast. Why didn't he just say
the damned words?
Thomas Jerome Newton was growing frustrated and fast. He had been
there for so long now and yet he had never been granted anything definite.
Of course they did provide him with any thing that he might fancy but he was
never given the most important things that he desired, freedom and answers.
When was this nightmare ride going to stop? He felt deeply ashamed of
himself in letting his anger and frustration get the better of him like that.
He was acting all too human. He was "going native' as it were. He was
actually very grateful that the white barn owl was there. He had missed
interaction with others and there was a comfort, oddly enough, that Jareth,
The Goblin King was there.
Not wishing to show Jareth anymore emotion then what he wanted to
be had exposed to him already he looked out at the pouring rain and let a
blank expression take his face, a countenance of seeming emotionless-ness.
It was so incredibly. breath-takingly beautiful as he watched the continuous
rainfall. He wished that it would never stop raining. He wished that he
could just disappear in to it, allow the water to wash him away. There
seemed to him that there was a great magick in the water. It could wash away
anything, pain, sorrow, regret, it could take it all away. And for a moment
he honestly believed that it all could be just washed away. The heavy deep
gray clouds hung in the Heavens. It was comfortably dim, the natural
lighting, out there. And the rain would continue to fall for hours more to
come. He was then just a little bit grateful of this.
He wished that he were out there standing free in this rain, to
let it wash over him entirely and wash away all of his pain. He fancied that
if he stood out there naked with his arms out stretched and let the water
rush over him that the water would wash away a terrible black thing off of
him. He could picture in his mind's eye that it would represent every bitter
emotion and every ounce of suffering that he had ever known here on Earth and
by some miracle the precious and beautiful ran could wash it all from him.
Just then the door to his room unlocked and then opened from behind
him.
It was just one of the doctors again. They came and went like
clockwork. He could have said that the doctor would be coming to examine him
again and perhaps run a few more painful tests on him. He had forgotten
almost entirely about their incessant testing and resetting of him. He had
hoped that tonight they would not come at all. He had not expected this
visitation. He should have known better then to assume that everything would
just suddenly change. He had honestly thought that it had stopped after they
had accidentally hurt his eyes as they had. Or did this give them a new,
fresh reason to examine and to study him, to poke and to probe him and to
keep him looked away in there?
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) part 11
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:15:36 EDT
The little, white barn owl fluttered it's wings and then it flew
away. Jareth could not stand to be there a moment longer. And he actually
felt guilty that he could in fact fly while another, other-worldly version of
himself had fallen so completely from his seeming grace. And as Jareth flew
away in that form as the white barn owl he thought now "Well, now what are
you going to do?"
Finally they had let him go. They had in fact released him but
it was not over the fear of the public's questioning that had caused it, his
final release. It was not over the suspicion or fear that the masses at
large might find out just what Thomas Jerome Newton, the famous philanthropic
multi-million-heir, truly was that had finally released him. It had been a
certain gathering that had caused it and the words of a mysterious new member
to the little group that was holding him.
Jareth had hated to stand idly by through all of that. He was not
one to act as an impassive bystander in any situation that he did not wish to
have to tolerate.
As he rode the lift up to the office where they were holding the
meeting he smirked at his own reflection in the mirrored wall of the lift.
He wanted to laugh out loud. He looked like some sort of mad
scientist out of a bad science fiction feature of years before. He could not
believe that he was actually going to go through with this.
He stood about the usual height for him of five foot, ten inches
tall. He wore tight black trousers and back, freshly polished shoes. He did
not liked the way they felt on his feet. He had always preferred his leather
boots... Over a "Yuppyish" (for what is how he saw it.) light blue turtleneck
shirt he had on a light, draping, white jacket. The jacket was long. It
draped down and caressed his thighs.
He sighed deeply. He now made appear on the breast pocket of the
jacket a laminated identification card of high ranking pass access, allowing
him free entr=C3=A9e in to discussion about "The Subject".
He appeared to be about thirty-eight, maybe thirty-nine years of
age. Though he felt that he was dressed all too drearily, in a far too
conformable style he liked the way he looked though. He knew that he was a
very handsome man, despite his somewhat bland, and now utterly boring and
clich=C3=A9 appearance.
He had thick, slightly curly, sandy blond hair. His long bangs
brushed in to his eyes as with a soft "dinging" song the lift came to a halt.
Seven men and one woman in white Jackets who looked to be like
professional surgeons that had just been summoned fresh, right out of
surgery. And there were five men in bland, freshly pressed business suits
that all sat around a rather large oak table.
One of the men in this group was Dr. Nathan Bryce. One of the
things that had caused Thomas Jerome Newton's capture was his naivete in
confiding in that man his important, big secrets. There was also Author, Mr.
Newton's former limousine chauffeur and personal assistant and there was also
Brinarde, Mr. Newton's old, French bodyguard who also stood by.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Said Mr. Peters. Mr. Peters was a very
handsome man. He was very well built physically. He was very muscular. He
was a tall, dark skinned man. He had large, brown eyes and though he seemed
very casual, or as casual as one could possibly be in that sort of situation
he was actually quite tense. It had all been his project after all. He had
organized all of it once the suspicion had come that Mr. Newton was not
actually a human man. He had been the one who had ordered the "arrest" of
Thomas Jerome Newton. "have you seen the latest test results?"
He tossed a yellow folder on to the table. It was opened
where a few e-ray photographs fell lose as well as some charts and graphs
about blood and DNA.
One of the doctors picked up one of the papers and read it over to
himself. "Why, this is extraordinary! This is completely astonishing!
Astounding!"
"You have all seen the reports. This is the find of the century."
Said Mr. Peters.
A man who called himself by the name of Mr. Bowen, though his real name was
in fact Van Brugh stood up. "Yes, we have all seen the reports. But...."
"But what is it?" asked Mr. Peters.
"But I fear that he might be losing his mind in captivity. It
seems a shame to have possibly shattered such a brilliant mind."
An American man named Zed spoke up. "Oh, come off it. If he
seems mentally unstable now then he more then likely had always been
crackers. He's brilliant and physically intriguing all right but he could
very well be off his rocker and quite possibly could have been out of his
gourd all along. We have not kept him under observation long enough to know
just what his natural behaviors are, given to certain stimulus."
This caused a raised eyebrow from one of the doctors, Dr.
Martinez, an Hispanic man who though had kept a good detachment from that
most peculiar of patients could not stand the idea of what Zed was subtly
hinting about doing to him.
"You cannot be suggesting that we test his limitations of suspended
tolerance in sanity?!? You are out right suggesting torturing him to see
just where his breaking point is and if that is what you want from me then I
will have absolutely no-"
"Oh, you are defending The Subject NOW, are you? Oh, that is so
rich!" Said the young, pale, blond haired woman physician / scientist witha
slightly ironic laugh. "Well, fancy the pot that dares to call the kettle
black. Well, now, was it not you, Doctor, who had INSISTED on taking a bone
marrow samples from his spine when the full bodied x-rays of The Subject
given to us by Dr. Bryce already proved that his bone structure is completely
hallow!?!? And WHO was it who had simply not bothered to tell our designated
optometrist about the peculiarities of The Subject's eyes just because the
reports were 'Classified'? And he was too damned lazy to bother with the red
tape involved in simply telling the optometrist NOT to use x-rays on his
eyes?!?"
"Now, see here!" Dr. Martinez said as he climbed out of his seat,
obviously agitated.
For a room of high-ranking officials and world-renowned
physicians, psychologists, biologists, and research doctors, and scientists
it appeared that these "Sophisticated" people were about to break in to
having a fistfight over an alien!
"That is quite enough!" Said Mr. Peters to the young woman
doctor. The woman doctor also happened to be Mr. Peters' wife.
Someone that had until then had remained unnoticed in the room
cleared his throat.
Everyone in the room turned to take a glance at whom it had been.
In the far corner of the room he leaned against the wall as if he had been
there all along. "Gentlemen, if you please!" Jareth said.
The stranger in the far back of the room, he stood to be about the
height of five foot, ten inches tall. He wore tight black trousers and back,
freshly polished shoes. He wore a light blue turtleneck shirt under a light,
draping, white jacket. The jacket was long. It draped down and caressed his
thighs.
He appeared to be about thirty-eight, perhaps even thirty nine
years of age. He looked uncomfortable in the garments that he wore. He was
a very handsome man, despite his somewhat bland, and utterly boring and
clich=C3=A9 appearance.
He had thick, slightly curly, sandy blond hair. His long bangs
brushed in to his slightly mismatched, blue eyes. His left eye was a deep
blue and appeared to be over dilated while his right eye seemed to be a
lighter, icy blue colour.
Dr. Martinez gasped when he saw this man's face. His features
looked to be so much like that of The Subject that it was almost uncanny, the
resemblance in appearance of the two. He shook his head for fear that it was
simply over lack of sleep caused by this project that he fancied for a moment
that this man looked even remotely like The Subject.
"Who are you?" Said Zed, hastily. "How did you get in here?"
Obviously Zed did not see the physical similarities between this man and The
Subject.
"Would someone notify security, please!" Said Mr. Peters, who
was more then just a little impatient with the idea of an intruder finding
out about The Subject.
Jareth stepped forward. "I am Dr. Jeremy King. I was called
here by the head office involved."
The woman's eyes went wide. "You mean The-"
"That is precisely what I mean!" Jareth interrupted her. "Now,
you all know dammed good and well that the public has taken to wondering just
what the Hell he was even 'arrested' for. This 'cloud of suspicion' and
what not is no longer pacifying them. Before this all goes completely out of
hand and it all blows up in our own faces I think that we should release him."
"Release him?!? Are you out of your mind?" Said Mr. Peters.
"You expect me to simply let go of a find like this! I am just supposed to
let him walk on out of here! I am just supposed to allow an-"
Stepping very close to Mr. Peters Jareth leaned forward. He
pressed close to Mr. Peters. He looked deep in to his eyes. If one would
listen very carefully they would have been able to have heard the humming of
the magical power that now surrounded Jareth.
Finding that he was unable to turn away from Jareth, Mr. Peters stared
without blinking at Jareth's large, blue, slightly mismatched eyes.
Jareth could almost hear their hearts beating as the room seemed to
grow silent around them.
As he was mesmerized Mr. Peters heard Jareth's voice echoing not
just out loud but also within his own mind.
Jareth kept his voice calm, steady and cold. "You will allow him to
leave. Is that understood?"
Mr. Peters nodded. "Y-yes."
Jareth took a step back and the spell of enchantment was released.
The suggestion had already been implanted in to Mr. Peter's mind. What
needed to be done had been done. They would allow Thomas Jerome Newton to
go.
"Very good."
Sure enough Thomas Jerome Newton was a free man now but he seemed
to be almost all but shattered. He was constantly being watched. Though
they allowed this nearly blinded creature to walk "free", they kept a
continual surveillance upon him at all possible times.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 12
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:16:09 EDT
Five years passed before The Goblin King and The Visitor would
meet up again.
Thomas Jerome Newton sat at the cafe as was becoming routine with
him.
He had released the audio recording of his reciting his own
poetry under the title of "The Visitor" but it was not really poetry at all.
It had a meaning. It was a sort of letter to his own "wise" people. It had
a message. He hoped that it would be played on FM radio. That would be the
only way that they could get to hear it. It all really said "Good bye" and
"Go to Hell"... just that sort of thing but he still wished that they would
hear it nonetheless though he doubted very much that it would allowed to be
played over FM radio transmissions.
He felt so very alone. He felt like a damned thing. And he
thought that he deserved it too. He had failed in his very important mission
for his people. And because of his failure his world, everything that he had
ever known and loved had been destroyed.
He could not really determine the fate of Planet Earth. It could
easily destroy itself and yet it could easily be salvaged. Anything was
possible. Of course there was a chance for Planet Earth to avoid the fate of
his own world. There was always a chance. Anything was possible And though
there was still hope for that planet he felt no hope within him for himself.
He had the blood of an entire planet on his hands. It was his fault, he
thought, that they were now potentially all dead. He had been sent to Earth
to be a hero and yet all he had become was the victim all along.
. Thomas Jerome Newton was like a creature with a shattered will. He
did think however. There was still a reason buried within his seeming
indifference. He thought in a curious way now. He thought in a strange way
that was alien to his true nature very nearly entirely. He thought that he
should be frightened and yet he was not really afraid. He was also a little
drunk, but not drunk enough to numb all of his pain. He wanted to get
himself so utterly, completely pissed to the point where he would not be able
to remember anything at all or feel anything at all for that matter and then
he would find a way to never have to bother with being sober ever again.
He thought of death. He thought of dying a great deal. What else
was left for him to do here but rot in his own self pity and almost perpetual
drunkenness?
Jareth waited patiently for the man known as Dr. Nathan Bryce to
leave him alone. Thomas Jerome Newton now sat alone sobbing. His head was
bowed so that no one could see his large, crystal clear tears as they fell,
streaking down his pale cheeks, and Jareth was actually worried that he was
shattered. Well, either way he could not allow him to die and there was this
final chance. The fate had been met but now it was time for free will to
take control. If you wish for something to happen you have to make it happen.
"Good day, Thomas." Jareth said as he appeared behind him.
Thomas Jerome Newton turned to face him. He could recognize
Jareth's voice right away. It sounded a great deal like his own voice when
he spoke in English. "Hello, Jareth."
"How do you feel?" Jareth asked him this in just the same way as a
visitor at a hospital would ask it of a friend whom he knew was in fact dying.
He chuckled lightly as a bitter smile passed his lips and then he
replied sharply, somewhat cynically "How do you think I feel?"
Without another word on the matter Jareth placed a hand on to The
Visitor's shoulder. "I think that it's now time that you come along with me."
As if he still actually cared Thomas Jerome Newton asked "But where
are we going?"
"To The Underground, of course."
"But no one has wished me away again... I... I don't think..."
"Yes, you have been wished away. Now, come along. I cannot let
you go a second time."
In a flash of brilliant light the two both appeared just outside
of the castle beyond The Goblin City.
Thomas blinked a few times. He did not know why but something
felt different this time around.
"Now, come on." Jareth said as he placed a hand on to Thomas
Jerome Newton's back. "Come along then. We mustn't be later then we already
are."
"I did not know we were following a schedule." Thomas Jerome
Newton said.
"Well, it's not my fault but someone was very eager to meet up
with you tonight."
"Oh?" he raised an eyebrow.
"Yes."
"But why?"
: "You shall see. Now, come along."
As they walked down the hall towards the throne room, Jareth
practically pushing him along the way, Thomas found himself tripping,
stumbling over something on the floor. They both paused in their walk as he
had stumbled.
Thomas looked down. He was horror struck. For a moment he just
stared at the thing as if it had burnt him.
On the floor by the base of his shoe lay the broken silver chain
and the small, tear shaped blue topaz gem stone with the five little diamonds
just above it in the gold setting lay with it. This had been his wife's
necklace!
Horror struck he stumbled back. His eyes went wide. He tried to
form words but none came out.
He thought that he was hallucinating. This could not possibly be
what he thought it was. And then he remembered how poor his eyesight had
become. He could not see so very well anymore.
Slowly, cautiously he squatted down and with a trembling hand he
reached out for the thing. The way he moved, it appeared to Jareth, that he
was afraid that it might leap up and bite at him.
He ran his fingers over the stone and clutched it tightly in to
his hand as if he were afraid that someone might try to take it away from
him. A thousand painful memories filled his mind. He could imagine his
wife's smile. He could smell the acidic scent to the sandy ground of his
home world. He could hear his children laughing. Their laughter rang in his
ears. And Thomas Jerome Newton thought that he might faint again, just as he
had the first time that he were here.
He stood up slowly. He gripped at the wall just to keep his
balance. He clutched the necklace close to his chest as if he were afraid
that Jareth would rip it away from him. He might have been half-mad, he
might have been very nearly blind and almost emotionally shattered but he
knew it- he was certain that this was in fact his wife's necklace. There was
none other like it in existence anywhere to his knowledge. He could remember
it all too clearly, his past, his family and his home. He could remember the
precise moment that he had clasped that necklace around his wife's neck. The
memory of that moment came rushing back to him all too clearly.
"This..." Jareth could hear the trembling of his voice. "This was...
was my wife's..."
He looked at Jareth with his weak, weary eyes. "Jareth, what is
going on? What's really happening? What is really happening here?"
"Come along, now. I shall show you."
Over whelmed with fear and his memories he fell to his knees. "No.
No, Jareth! Please... Please... I don't want to. Please..."
Jareth grabbed his arm and forced him to his feet.
Still clutching the necklace in his hand Thomas Jerome Newton was
pushed forward by Jareth. He did not bother to cry out that Jareth's grip
was bruising his arm. He did not want to care. He felt that he should not
care. He had nothing left to care about.
The doubled throne room doors opened wide.
At first he thought that he must be dreaming. It could not
possibly be real. No! They were dead. At least he had thought that they
were dead. And yet there they were. How had this been done?
He blinked several times, fearing that this was not real, that his
faulted eyes were deceiving him cruelly.
Jareth had done this. He must have. ...But how? Well, it did
not really matter to him much on the how or why of it but he knew that it was.
"Marie!"
In the daylight that streamed in from the window they stood.
His family stood thee. It was his wife and children.
He felt his heart skip a beat as his breath was caught in his
throat. At first he thought that his weak eyes were deceiving him. He
blinked several times to make sure that what he was seeing was what was
really there.
Praying that it was real he rushed over to his wife. Having
"Gone native" as it were he committed a completely human gesture and embraced
her tightly.
He was sobbing and then he blurted out in his own language that
had been growing, in these past few years, increasingly difficult for him "I
am never going to let you go!"
She was startled and most definitely surprised by this strange and
human act, this embrace from her husband.
He acted so very human now. Would she be so human too in time? She
was worried about that, about losing herself and her true culture. And though
the embrace was more of a human gesture then anything else she held him too
and as tightly as she could, never wanting to have to let him go.
Finally they pulled away from one and other but still only stood a
few inches apart.
He held out his arms, his palms facing towards her, his elbows
bent inward towards his stomach. She did the same with her arms and as their
fingers clasped and intertwined it made a steeple formation. And this
symbolized that they were bound together forever. They were bound as one.
They were a husband and a wife. They were a family. They made a home
together within one and other. They were a family. And they could not be a
family, they could never feel at home without one and other.
"I love you." He said to her.
She nodded. "I love you too. ...Forever and ever and ever."
As Thomas Jerome Newton or whatever his real name was held his
wife and then his chidden Jareth stepped back, strangely satisfied at seeing
this.
He folded his arms and leaned against the far back wall of the
throne room.
In a somewhat subtle flash of light Christine appeared beside
Jareth. The sparkles and sparklets settled quickly around her. She wore her
long dark hair loose, it hung beautifully over her shoulders. She wore a
long, silken gown with a large, out turned collar. The sleeves of her gown
flared out below the elbows while from the shoulder to the elbows the gown's
sleeves were tight to her skin. Her elegance and beauty could not be denied
by anyone, not even by her own older brother. Her face seemed strangely
innocent. She carried with her well the illusion of true innocence. It held
a child like expression to it, her face, though she was clearly built as a
woman. She smiled at Jareth. She was more then a little surprised at the
compassion that he had shown to this being, even if this creature somehow was
bound to him. It still amazed her to have seen her brother show him this
humane act of blatant, excuse-less kindness. She knew that if her brother
had been so very intent on simply keeping this creature alive that he could
just simply have locked him away in to one of his dungeon cells for his own
'protection' just to be certain that he would not die. But he was not just
simply seeing to the physical survival of this creature. He was seeing also
to his happiness, to his own state of mind. She had never seen so much human
compassion expressed by her usually cruel, and seemingly detached brother
before.
It amazed and shocked her, what her brother had just done in this
seemingly selfless act. And she could not fathom Jareth's reasoning for
having done this. This was not like him at all. She was truly amazed. She
was in fact astonished by this charity that her brother had bestowed upon
this sad, pathetic creature.
"You gave him his family." She was half stating a fact and half
asking a question.
"I showed him his dreams. That IS what I do sometimes, Christine.
And besides...." Jareth had to give some good excuse as to why he had done
this. He would not allow it to be seen that he would do anything simply for
the sake of compassion. "...His intellect might just be of use to me." He did
not realize just how right he was.
"Oh, I see." Christine said in a very patronizing tone. "Well, I
still think it's sweet- what you are doing for him." She then quickly
disappeared.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Thing (Edited) Part 13
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:16:36 EDT
Jareth cleared his throat and stepped towards the odd little
family that had taken no notice what so ever of the quick appearance and
disappearance of Jareth's younger, fraternal twin sister.
"Thank you. Thank you, Jareth. ..Thank you. Thank you so very
much." Thomas Jerome Newton said to Jareth as he stood with his arm wrapped
around his wife who stood by quietly. She still felt a little nervous around
this unusual and powerful being, Jareth. Their children also stood close to
them.
They had almost all but dehydrated. They had been practically dead
when Jareth had found them but with the aid of a little magick and the
promise of a family reunion Jareth had brought them to The Underground and in
doing so had saved their lives.
"But what is going to happen now?" Thomas asked.
"Well," Said Jareth. "I had hoped that you would stay on here
as my advisor. You and your family would live under my protection. I would
be most disappointed if you were to refuse my offer. After all I have given
to you your fondest desire. And you should be grateful to me." He said this
with a proud, smug, arrogant smile.
Thomas smiled. It was genuine grin. "Thank you. And I am very,
very grateful to you. Thank you again but... why?"
Jareth shrugged his shoulders. "But why not? If one of us can
fly then the other should not have to fall."
Being The Goblin King's sole advisor and being under the
protection of The Goblin King was one of the better things that could happen
to any creature existing within the boarders of The Underground. Thomas and
his family had been granted a large, well-furnished suite within the castle
itself to act as their home. They would live very comfortably without fear
or worry. They were granted their fondest desires, all they need to do was
ask for it. They also were given the treatment that would only usually be
given by the servants and the staff of the castle to their king's immediate
family. They lived in perfect comfort and luxury.
It would take quite a long while for his wife and children to
adapt to it all. The Underground held very similar physical environments as
to Planet Earth. This included the heavier gravitational pull and the harsh
daylight. But the nights were so gloriously beautiful that nothing could
possibly ever be compared to it's wonder.
He watched from the balcony as the night set in around them. His
wife stood beside him and his children lay sleeping in their beds. The great
journey, though it had been done for the greater part by magick, still had
exhausted them.
It was a beautiful night there in The Underground, most definitely.
There was a cool dampness to the air there and it was comforting to
him.
It was in fact really a quite lovely evening there in The
Underground. The moon was a gorgeous crystal blue. It was a beautiful
bright blue colour. And everything for a long ways all around seemed to glow
with a natural luminescence. It was really aesthetically speaking a
beautiful night in fact. There was something in the air. They could almost
taste it. They could feel the magick all around them. The stars against the
velvet backdrop of night were like tiny diamonds.
Everything was so very different there. This was not the night sky
of his own world. And this most certainly was not the sort of night that he
had seen on Planet Earth. This was an Underground night. It was fantastic.
It was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen. And it was most
definitely the most beautiful, surreal thing that they had ever seen. And
since they were finally together again it made it ten times as wonderful and
it also made it the most precious thing in all the cosmos.
Finally Marie spoke up in their own language that, it pained him to realize,
now seemed foreign to him. "I think that we should give him something to
show our gratitude. He gave our lives back." She leaned against her
husband's shoulder. He nodded. "I think so too."
Thomas Jerome Newton had adapted well enough in to his place as
being Jareth, The Goblin King's royal advisor. He sat on the window ledge of
the throne room, carelessly looking out over The dismal, little Goblin City.
He thought it strange but to him this did not feel like a royal court but the
sitting room of the home of a distant relative that he might have been
visiting with his family.
Thomas Jerome Newton adjusted the tint to his spectacles to a darker
shade as he looked out at the vast hills surrounding The Goblin City. It
seemed that the land spread out for an infinity all around.
Jareth was pacing the floor of the throne room. Thomas did not
have to turn his gaze away from the window to see this. He could hear the
sound of the heals of Jareth's boots clicking against the floor tiles well
enough with each step that he took. But since Jareth was his savior and he
owed his very sanity to The Goblin King he had to be concerned. He could
feel that there was a tension in the air.
Finally he turned to face Jareth. "What is the matter?"
"Oh, a very long time ago before I ruled here The Goblin City had
actually been a feary village. When my goblins came they had driven out the
fey that had lived in what is now The Goblin City. And now every year out of
revenge those vindictive little pixies migrate back here.
"They are a race simply known now as 'The Biting Feary". They are
pests, nothing more. They bite at all that they can, be it goblin or other.
They swarm the streets of The Goblin City and for weeks it is nearly
impossible for me to be rid of them, those nasty little buggers."
Thomas nodded sympathetically. "I see." He climbed to his feet
"I have a present for you, Jareth."
Jareth looked at him blankly. What could he possibly have to
give to him? No one had ever given Jareth anything before in his life. He
had taken a great many things. He had stolen that which had been wished away
but no one had ever truly GIVEN him anything before.
"Please, come with me." Thomas said as he walked from the throne
room and up a staircase, hoping that Jareth would follow after him.
Jareth and Thomas Jerome Newton climbed the long, turning
staircase in to the suite that Thomas, his wife and his children had made to
be their home.
Marie was out by the creek meditating. She could feel already
that she would soon have a child again. She wanted to laugh at the notion
that their next child would be an "Undergroundling" by right of birth. It
seemed positively delightful to her, this notion, strangely enough. She had
not been that happy in quite a long time.
She had lost her world and her people but she had been in
mourning for a long while. She was tired of weeping. Her, and her family's
life had been spared. And she had been reunited with her husband in a brave
new world where they could actually live very comfortably indeed and
prosperously for a long, long time. They had been given their second chance
to start again.
His children were in the castle library reading. They knew the
English language now well enough from their studies and now were trying to
learn all they could about the history of The Underground. This was their
world now. They had nothing to hide as their father had when he had been on
Planet Earth. And since they had not the stress that he had- had on Planet
Earth for the burden of trying to save them all they had all adapted quite
comfortably and oddly quickly to The Underground. For you see now, this was
where something that an Earthling would consider to be peculiar would cause
not even a raised eyebrow, there in The Underground.
Thomas caught his breath. The hike up the staircase had been a bit
much for him.
As Thomas fumbled through one of his dresser draws Jareth folded
his arms over his chest. "Just what is it that you had wanted to show me?"
"This!" He held it now in his hands. He had found it. It was a
large rolled up, sheet of paper.
"And just what is that?"
"When I had come to Earth I had nine plans for inventions patented.
And that was the backbone for what started my plans with my company that I
had created, 'World Enterprises'. There was a actually a tenth one but I had
not shown it to anyone because human technology was simply not advanced
enough for it yet."
He handed Jareth the rolled up paper, which looked rather like an
official parchment of ancient times. "What is it?"
"It is a very elaborate security system, the most advanced of it's
kind. It can protect your realm and act as residence for the non-goblin
inhabitance of your... kingdom. Human technology is not ready yet tobe able
support it's many continuously changing parts but with your power and the
untapped energy- this magick of this place, I think it can be possibly
created."
Jareth unrolled the paper and examined the plans that lay before
him. It was a great design. It was a very large and elaborate contraption.
It was designed to have many interchanging parts. And it was also set to
suit the mental standing for all those who tried to solve it's great puzzle.
Each individual journey through it would be completely unique. No two treks
through it would be alike. It was set so that a trek through this elaborate
thing would be like a trek through one's own mind, the most difficult journey
that one could ever have to make, through one self.
This was the grand outline for * The Labyrinth! *
Jareth's eyes went wide. "This is brilliant!"
Thomas smiled. "Yes, I know."
Jareth smirked as he read over the design. "Not one for modesty,
are you, Alien Boy?"
Thomas Jerome Newton raised an elegant eyebrow.
"Well, that's all right." Jareth said as he sat down in a chair,
reading over the design again. "Yes. Yes, I do think I can do this."
"Then it is workable?"
"Oh, most definitely, yes. Yes, it is definitely workable. It
most certainly can be done. I will have construction begin immediately."
The great walls spread out for miles around. The magick that
hummed in the very air itself of The Underground now had a focus. It was
channeled in to the construction of The Labyrinth. It was extremely
complicated. The combined forces of the advanced technology with Jareth's
power made The Labyrinth the most complicated, the most elaborate system of
working mechanics to act as a security system that had ever been constructed
before. It was very near to impossible that any creature, human or other
could ever find it's way through this great contraption.
It was the largest, most complicated maze that had ever been made.
It's passages ran both under and above the ground. There were several
different complicated, continuously functioning parts. In all there were
over thirteen different interconnected puzzles, traps and mazes that made up
the great Labyrinth.
From up high in the castle one could see it nearly to it's
entirely. It seemed to spread out, on and on forever and ever. It was truly
wondrous. There were even factors in it's construction that Jareth did not
entirely understand, himself. The power, the force of magick that went in to
it's creature was monumental. The alchemy involved in it's construction, the
science combined with magick was astonishing. No magician and no
rocket-scientist alone could possibly un-riddle the great Labyrinth.
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 14
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:17:14 EDT
Apparently Jareth had inadvertently been telling the truth, the
presence of the other-worlder had proved to be of value to him after all.
Having bothered to save that creature from his own doom had proven
to be a wise investment for Jareth after all.
As the years progressed however Jareth not only used The Labyrinth
for protection but also for sport. He made it a challenge for those who
would wish to try and reclaim that which they had wished away in to his
realm. Jareth's Kingdom simply became The Labyrinth in time. And it was a
great, amazing thing The only flaw to it's creation was manifestation ofa
Bog of Eternal Stench which was in fact a run off from chemicals, wasted
magick, and all the filth and grime, and left over wastes from the creation
of The Labyrinth. It was almost as much of an eyesore as the many mounds of
rubbish and filth that the goblins had built up just outside of The Goblin
City.
Thomas had tried to instate a recycling policy but the goblins,
being as simple minded as they were, and in loving trash, could not or simply
would not adapt to such a notion as recycling to reduce the goblin induced
pollution.
Thomas would sigh and shake his head. He would often find himself
wondering if there would ever be such a world to care about it's value in the
future for the sake of it's children's children.
And as time changes, it changes all that dare to exist within it's
boarders. For all the timelessness of The Underground, and for the
timelessness of Thomas' old world he still find that even in The Underground
he was still subject to change. And just as he had feared that he would on
Earth he did here. Thomas Jerome Newton was 'going native' as it were. Only
here, going native for him meant taking on the characteristics and somehow
developing similar mannerisms as Jareth, The Goblin King had.
Though he looked to be about in human years ten years younger then
Jareth, The Goblin King and was about twenty pounds the thinner of the two he
found that he held haunting similarities to The Goblin King.
He had taken a liking to Jareth's fashion sense and the two started
to dress in a very similar, slightly eccentric, and somewhat flamboyant
manner.
When standing beside Jareth he appeared to be but a younger
brother, with identical features, save for the limp red hair with the frontal
blond streaks in his bangs. One would almost swear that he was Jareth's son
or younger brother, more likely the latter of the two.
His behavior even had begun to mimic that of Jareth, The Goblin
King. And Jareth just loved it. To him Thomas was like some strange son
from another world or a younger brother that he could mold in to his own
image... possibly even make his heir.
Finally the day came, many, many, very long years, far off later,
and Jareth was more then a little weary of his position. Jareth had under
gone an aging process far worse then that of physically aging as a human
would. He was mentally exhausted. He had been The Goblin King for far too
long. It was time for him to step down. And he wished to make Thomas, who
now acted nearly to be like a complete carbon copy of Jareth, though he still
held an incredible affection for his family, his heir.
And so it was that Jareth called Thomas to his side and told him of
what he had decided.
"But why must you do this?" He asked to Jareth.
Jareth smiled slightly. There was something in Thomas' eyes. Would
he actually possibly miss him? "Because I have to. I will go completely mad
if I stay here for too long. Nothing lasts forever. You understand this,
don't you?"
Thomas nodded and then sighed deeply. "I'm not a scientist but I
know all things begin and end in eternity."
Jareth grinned. "Well, no matter. It's only forever, it's not long
at all."
"But where will you go?" Asked Thomas. "I cannot rule The
Underground!"
Jareth smiled at him reassuringly. "Can't you?" Jareth sighed.
"It is remarkable and very strange to me how we can come from completely
different worlds and yet be one and the same."
"Where will you go? What if I need to find you?" Though Thomas did
love the idea of having all of Jareth's authority and power, he had always
loved the idea of holding authority and power, he was afraid. He loved very
much the idea of taking authority and yet he was also terribly frightened.
He was frightened of the idea of being responsible for yet another world.
"You won't need me." Said Jareth. "I have been here for far too
long as it is. I was not born in The Underground, Thomas. And like you I
know what it is like to want to simply go home. I think that is all anyone
ever really wants in to end, to find what they can consider to be their home.
Only my world was Earth before..." Jareth shook his head and then feigned a
smile. "I was human once, Thomas. ...But that was a very, long, long time
ago." He said quietly. "It's time I should be on my way."
Taking Thomas' hand Jareth passed him along all of his powers along
with the responsibility of The Underground.
The sensation that Thomas felt then had to have been the most
incredible thing that any creature could ever have felt before. The energy
had rushed though him with such a momentous force that he was completely
taken by it. Of course he knew what authority that he would indefinitely
hold. And he loved it. He was perfectly thrilled by it. Who would not be
thrilled by it?
He could tell by instinct alone what his new abilities were. It
was as if the magick had always been a part of his natural being. He felt
like a newborn child feeling everything of life for the very first time.
Every sensation that he felt, every thought that he had, every emotion seemed
ten times as potent as it would have been in his natural state of mind. He
knew that he had experienced nothing quite like that power transfer before.
He also knew that he loved it. He loved it more then anything, this power,
this force that now burned from inside of him.
His mind was flooded. Everything seemed to strange and yet so
wonderful to him. And he knew that nothing would ever be the same again.
The life that he had left behind himself so very long ago then
seemed that it had been nothing more then but a cold dream that was meant to
be left behind and had been meant to be forgotten. And it seemed that then
it could be easily forgotten and lost within his own mind as if it had never
had happened at all. It seemed that he had never known misery or pain but
only joy and rapture in the magical energy that fed The Underground and now
his very soul. The world around him was then so very lovely and new to him.
He was in love with the magick that filled his very being. He felt as if he
were at one with everything in existence. He felt a strange communion within
himself with that new found connection with The Underground. The magick had
engulfed him and The Underground seemed to at that very moment to have been
calling out his name in welcoming him. The Underground seemed to have had
called out his name and he longed to embrace and explore that beautiful new
realm that he was only seemed to have been seeing for the very first time as
being actually meant for it.
The life that he would soon completely leave behind himself would soon be
a forgotten and vague cold dream as dark and as slippery as any childhood
nightmare. That did not mean much to him, that simple fact of truth. It did
not seem to mean much of anything at all to him then. He did not care about
his old life any longer at all, it was a dead thing. If he were to choose to
live in the past then he would have no Today or Tomorrow, just Yesterday, a
dead thing.
Finally he could see his past to just let it all go away from him.
All of his long, hard life he had tried so very hard to do his very
best that he could with what little he had. Something about him in his youth
had stood apart from the others of his kind. That had been the reason why he
had been chosen for his long, old mission, had it not? There had been a
whisper of hope from deep inside of him for his world, his family and his
people and it had seemed to have had failed his entire world.
Perhaps he had never actually been meant for his own world or even
Planet Earth for that matter. Perhaps all along he had been meant for The
Underground and to be it's master.
He could just let that all go away. He felt just then that he
really stood a chance after all. Everything was just falling in to place.
He could see his past for what it was and then just let it all go away from
him. He had no more regrets. Everything was just so entirely different now.
And none of it mattered anymore.
Sometimes in his past he had cried himself to sleep with his
usually aching heart. He had walked through harsh, painful days and lonely
nights. Sometimes his heart had betrayed him. His courage once in a while
had failed him almost entirely. He had fallen but now- now he would fly!
It seemed that somehow that all along Fate had actually been on
his side after all. And it had been leading him on and up to that very
moment. Nothing at all could have prepared him for that very moment.
He was no longer what he had been. He felt detached from all of
that now. He had changed only to him it had felt as if he had remained the
same and it was truly in fact the universe itself that had changed all around
him. Everything was so entirely different to him just then. He had this new
reality to explore, and to love, and to understand. He had crossed the
boarder line from where he could not ever return and he was glad of this, he
was more then glad because the idea of returning to that inner darkness that
he had long ago fallen in to frightened and disgusted him. Every step that
he had taken in faith had betrayed him and had allowed him to fall. He would
never fall again.
Everything was very different for him. It seemed that it would never
again be the same again.
If Jareth were to have just then have had taken to a change of
heart and would have had asked of him for his old power back he more then
likely, probably would have refused him. He simply did not wish to ever have
to let it go. It was his own power now and he was more then just determined
to keep it as his own, now and forever!
The whole universe seemed so totally transformed. Everything had
changed for him but it was not the world around him that had changed but it
was he that had actually under gone the real change.
He was drunk on the beauty of it all. He was absolutely intoxicated on
all that he saw and felt at that moment. He was so very happy that he wanted
to laugh out loud. He felt free. For the first time in his very long life
he felt completely free. He felt light. He felt contented. He felt like
dancing.
He was not looking through the faulted, damaged eyes of Thomas Jerome
Newton any longer. He was looking through the eyes of some strange new
creature that he had become. He was no longer the caterpillar but now he was
the butterfly, finally truly able to fly. For the first time in his very
long life he was able to fly!
He was filled with a new power that burned from deep inside of him.
He had just begun a new life and he had new wings to carry him through the
night. He was a caterpillar now marveling at having under gone the
metamorphoses of becoming finally what the caterpillar never realized that it
could be, and was actually meant all along to be- a butterfly, transformed.
He was a butterfly now emerging from it's former life as a caterpillar so
strangely changed and beautiful that it all seemed.
He was not frightened of this new creature that he had become. In fact
he loved what he had become. He felt strange yet also he felt wonderfully
strong. If this was a dream then he did not ever want to awaken, not now,
not ever again!
He did not miss the way he had seen things before at all. The man
that had called himself by the name of Thomas Jerome Newton was no more and
he was seeing as he could never have seen things before. He understood much
more then he ever thought that he could understand things in that reality.
He had become ever so much more thoughtful then he had ever been in his
greatest intellectual moments. His powers of attention and comprehension
were astonishing.
The world whirled around him and for the first time ever it seemed
that he actually could move with it.
It was all new and different now. He saw as he had never seen in all of
his long life. He took inside of himself the knowledge of The Underground
and all that it had to offer over to him as no other creature could have.
He could distinguish every possible colour in the visible spectrum with
his new and greatly improved vision. He could see clearly now as he had, to
his knowledge, never had seen before. He could see all around. high up and
in all directions all around.
He saw clearly and he saw far away. The colours of the things
surrounding him were all so vivid and everything seemed strange and new to
him. It was as if he were a newborn baby opening up his eyes for the very
first time ever. He had never seen things that way before in all of his
life.
It was marvelous.
He saw everything. Detailed insects he saw moving several yards away
from him. He did not have any words to describe what he was feeling at that
very moment.
He heard crickets as if they were giant monsters surrounding him.
He heard the sound of the window's curtain's rustling like the movement of
several parchments.
The sound of a call of a night bird of prey rang in his ears for a
moment.
. He was completely enchanted.
There was simply so much more that he could see and smell, and touch and
do, and cause to happen now that he could never have before. He heard as he
had never heard sounds before. He saw as he had never seen before. He felt
strong and light. He was full of energy that as a he had been he had never
known before.
. It was only strange and hard to understand this all just then but
everything seemed so simple to him and it seemed that all, whatever he could
possibly desire, was within his grasp.
He was in absolute rapture.
As Jareth, The former Goblin King faded from sight his voice
echoed. "You will do just fine. .. 'Your highness.'"
And the young goblin king, who looked to be just a younger version
of the former Goblin king, though he was not quite so sure why, he fell to
his knees and he wept...
To: .
Subject: [labyfic] Believing The Strangest Things (Edited) Part 15
From:
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:17:42 EDT
It was in Greenwich Village in New York City, it was October
thirty first, and all forces of magick were at it's highest- he could not
remember The Underground at all. He did not realize that he had ever been
connected to it. He did not know the name of "Jareth". He knew himself only
by the name of Jeremy King. He was a scrubby artist- a painter to be
precise, but he was a far cry from unhappy. He was strangely contented in
his simple life. It was as if a part of him knew that he should be
contented. He was no so very old and yet he had the oddest feeling as if he
had lived quite a long, long time.
He was simply a mortal man sitting on Earth. And he was surrounded
not by moronic goblins but by colourful, opened jars, bottles and cans of
fresh paints, stencils and other various art supplies. He was not the
frustrated master of an alternate reality but simply an artist who had
believed that he had only dreamed it all up in his slightly eccentric
imaginings. And being that simple, human artist in the modern human world he
would soon awaken to find his latest piece, a painting of the castle just
beyond The Goblin City in the center of The Labyrinth on sale at an auction
in New York City. Now, that was indeed a place where an eccentric man such
as himself was actually welcomed.
Jeremy King woke up from his dreaming. He sat up in his bed.
His thick sandy blond hair stood on end. His long bangs brushed
in to his eyes. His left eye was slightly fogged. His right eye saw clearly
already. He blinked a few times as he gradually allowed himself to grow used
to the bright day light. At first he was not so very sure of where he was
but then he felt secure that he was safe and sound in his own bed.
The sun shown down directly on to him from the sky light window
above his bed.
The tiny loft was a cluttered one roomed residence. On shelves
all around the bed, along the walls were books of all sorts about fantasies
in far off strange and magical lands, magical spells, dream definition and
other such things like that.
He had a strange fascination with magick, superstition and the
occult.
He had studied the books on dreams and memorized the reference
guides about dream symbols and their significance.
He had dreamt yet again of a bird. He had dreamt of a white
barn owl flying towards him.
He was thirsty. His throat was parched. He collected his wits
about him and crawled out of the sheets and stood on the hard wood floor.
A few steps down from the small tabernacle like area where his
bed and oak dresser stood and the bookshelves lay was the rest of his home.
A tiny waist high refrigerator stood along the far wall next to a microwave
oven and there was a sink in a small concave area of the wall. There was a
table meant for dining upon but it was cluttered with jars of paints, some of
which were dried out from carelessly being left open over the night.
An unfinished painting canvas standing on the tripod stand stood
in the far corner with the tins of brushes. Sponges and brushes lay in jars
with cups of distilled water. The painting that stood unfinished was of
that strange place that flashed within his mind nearly regularly now. It was
a dimly lit place at dusk. The giant walls with several twists and turns
over lapping seemed somewhat frightening as he looked at it now. It was a
puzzle of some kind. It was The Labyrinth
He grabbed the old wooden hand railing and walked down the few
steps of the upper area of the room to the lower portion of what was his
home.
He walked over to the yet to be finished painting and examined it
closely. He had meant to add something but he had been too tired before to
do it. He had been up and about until around five AM adding details to this
particular picture until he had been too tired to even hold the paint brush
steady. What time was it now? He looked up at the round wall clock that
hung over the small dressing mirror by the door. It was Two thirty PM. He
had slept the day away once again as he had worked through the night. He had
been doing that actually quite often lately. It seemed that perhaps
instinctively he was actually a nocturnal creature. He loved the night. He
was happiest at night when the world was still dreaming.
"Always the night owl." He said to himself with a slight smile as
he shook his head. He had a stall at the indoor flea market just a few
blocks away up the street. He had not sold a painting there in weeks. He
could not even afford detergent to wash out his shirts. He was also the lead
vocalist with the house band of a small, somewhat retro-stylish nightclub on
the weekends.
He was still dressed from the day before. He did not bother to
change his clothing today. He knew that he was a bit of a scrub. He did not
care at all though. He was happy. He liked his simple, somewhat humble life
style. He did not need to be wealthy or well known. And he was happy...
As he examined his painting he fancied that maybe he should add
over sized lichen tendrils with bright blue eyeballs at the end of it on the
painting growing right out of the very walls of the great maze in the
picture. He mused at his own clever surreal imagination.
He opened the door in to the other small room, the only other
divided room in the attic loft, his home. He turned on the faucet tap and
rinsed off his face. Maybe he would go out for a stroll.
He was already dressed in the clothing that he had been wearing the
day prior. He wore tight jean pants and black leather boots. He liked the
way that felt. He wore a baggy white T-shirt and he placed on his old, worn
leather jacket. The jacket was long. It draped down and caressed his
thighs. He placed on his fashionable leather gloves with the finger slots
roughly cut off. He adjusted the collar of his jacket as he looked at
himself in the mirror.
He teased and spiked up his long blond bangs with the hairbrush
that he usually left upon the sink ledge. He brushed out his thick sandy
blond hair. He looked more like a teenaged biker then a thirty-nine year old
artist. He liked the way he looked though. He smiled to himself. He knew
that he was a very handsome man, despite his somewhat ragged and tired
appearance.
"No one ever said that artists have to be dull." He said to
himself as he winked at his own very attractive reflection.
The invisible specter of The Goblin King laughed lightly to
himself as he stood by, idly observing this eccentric, yet oddly happy human
man. He kept his form invisible as he stood with his wife, they holding each
other's hands. They both watched with a smile as Jeremy King shut the door
to the loft, heading out for a short walk down the street.
Sometimes in the form of Thomas Jerome Newton, pretending that he
was human, as Thomas Jerome Newton has used to, The Goblin King would visit
with Jeremy King and act as his most trusted friend. But though he would
still pretend that it was so he was not Thomas Jerome Newton any longer, he
had taken on the responsibilities of The Underground. He had all of the
former Goblin King's memory's as well as his own. He held all the power and
authority that the former Goblin King had held. And he was more then
grateful for the peculiar fate that he had been given.
"Well," said The Goblin King to his wife in their own, secret
language "what do you think?"
Marie smiled to her husband. "I think that he will be quite
happy "
The Goblin King nodded and wrapped his arms around his wife.
Slowly the dream faded off but Jareth did not really want this
peculiar dream to end. He did not know why but he had liked that dream.
Jareth shook his head. That had most definitely the strangest
thing that he had ever dreamt of before. It simply had to have been. Jareth
was not accustomed to dreaming at all really so this particularly strange
dream had caught him off of his guard. He had rarely if ever had a dream
before that he could recall. And he really did not know what to make of this
one.
Looking around his study Jareth realized that he had fallen asleep
at his desk. Half awake Jareth groaned. He could hear the crashing and
banging of hyper-active goblins just outside in the hallway.
He muttered to himself as he tried to collect his wits about him.
"What time is it? What day is it? What century is it?"
It was now day seven of the Goblin crisis of the public sugar /
caffeine high in the Goblin City, which had by now escalated up to Jareth's
very castle's court. He still would like to have had known just who the
imbecile had been who had introduced his goblins to caffeinated beverages.
Who ever it was, he decided, would pay dearly for that annoyance.
Jareth, The Goblin King had earlier that evening before nodding off
to sleep had locked himself away in to his own personal study for the third
time that week to escape the moronic escapades of his own stupid minions. He
just simply was not in the right sort of mood just then to deal with them,
his now very hyper-active goblins all just then at any rate.
He cringed as he heard yet another loud crash from the hallway
just outside of the room that he had retreated to. They had just smashed yet
another valuable antique out there in the hallway.
Well, he simply was not going to bother with them until later
when they were at least mildly subdued.
He was feeling a bit melancholy this evening. The strange dream
had caused that. And he thought- If only... If only... If only... Just, if only...
He had, from that dream, very nearly had believed that an escape
from his own position in his life was possible. Why had he been forced from
his dreams so abruptly? Would he be trapped there forever and ever and ever?
"Ah, well," he mused "it's only forever, it's not long at all... "
Someone was about to be wished away but this was not going to bea
usual situation, not at all. He could already sense it. There was something
peculiar, other-worldly and he was about to find himself involved in it
whether he liked it or not.
The one who was about to be wished away, as he could sense it now,
was not human...
The End.