Wayward 1/?
"Once I flew above the noise and confusion, Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion. I was soaring ever higher, But I flew too high." Carry on, Wayward Son -Kansas
He watched the copper-haired girl as she chased butterflies across a meadow filled with wildflowers. A perfect moment...one he would have frozen it time, were it possible. Once, maybe, he could have done such a thing, but not now. And perhaps, never again. He was an ordinary man in most ways now. And for him, as for all others, moments were as fleeting and fragile as a soap bubble; vanishing at the slightest touch, leaving only a glimmer of what has been. All he had was the memory, crisp and clear as if he were still there, but as intangible as a ghost. A mirthless laugh passed over his lips. How kind of his father to leave him that. A perfect, infallible memory to capture and hold every moment. To let past torments stagnate and fester, to twist joy into pure anguish. That, and his immortality, were his only inheritance, all that was left to him. Both seeming gifts, when analyzed separately, but together a dangerous elixir. He had an eternity to dwell on his sorrow, enough time for his memories to slowly drive him out of his mind. Which is, of course, what his father had intended all along. So long ago. The days of his youth, real youth, not the immortal vitality he wore like a mask over his ancient soul. Days of turmoil and confusion. He'd grown up in his father's realm, The Underground, knowing full well that one day he would inherit it and become Goblin King in his stead. But as he approached the day he would take over, the world seemed somehow....dim. As if the bright colors and exotic settings were only a pretty scene painted on glass, and if he hit it hard enough it would shatter and reveal the darkness it disguised. It seemed to him that there must be more for him to discover. A land beyond. It was quite by accident that he stumbled upon the exact thing he had been yearning for. He learned tales from a servant who had been there as long as he could remember. A wise old man who, when all was said and done, would have been better to hold his tongue, for in the end it cost him his head. Needless to say, when he went to his father babbling of a world beyond the Underground, the Goblin King was enraged. What was there for a prince outside his kingdom? Nothing. Stay in the castle, do as you're told, and someday you will inherit it all. His father's message was clear, but he couldn't help but think about the stories, couldn't deny the longings they stirred in him. So, against all dire warnings from his father, he went to Earth. How to explain the freedom he felt! The exhilaration of walking amongst mortals who neither knew, nor cared who he was. He wandered, learned, and loved. Four months he spent in bliss with a beauty of a girl named Elenora, lithe of form and free of spirit. Her long curling hair shone brilliant copper in the sunlight, her skin was ivory, her eyes stunningly blue. She was poor, didn't care where he'd come from. He had found paradise.
His memory conjured an image before him of his beloved Elenora. Her face flushed from passion, yellow straw tangled in her red hair. She was laughing, a sound like a bubbling spring. He saw himself reach out and tangle his hands in her hair. In the midst of the memory, he felt the air around him stir and cool, like hands softly caressing his skin He felt lips on his......and opened his eyes again. A single tear slid down his pale cheek. She was gone. His Elenora was naught but a ghost.
Wayward 2/?
He slept fitfully. His dreams were as vivid as his memories, and they gave him no peace. When he had come back form Earth, his father had been understandably upset with him. But he was also forgiving. Jareth was young, and youth made one do irrational things. So he had gone to Earth, that was fine. He'd found a girl there? That was fine too. But now it was time to give up the foolishness and concentrate on his future. It was time he took a hand in ruling the kingdom, so when the day of his succession to the throne came, he would be prepared to take it over confidently. Give up the foolishness? His love for Elenora was not foolishness! She was expecting his child. He was going to marry her and raise a family. Was that foolishness?
His father leaned back in his throne, convulsing with laughter. "Marry her? No prince of the Underground is going to marry a common Earth-girl!" His eyes sparkled merrily. He hadn't had such wonderful entertainment in a long time.
"I love her!"
"You're stupid. The child probably isn't yours. I bet she plays whore to the whole village!" He relished the shocked look on his son's face.
"No!" He lashed out in anger and punched his father with all his strength.
The King was stunned. "Ungrateful wretch!" He roared. "After all I've done for you? This is how you repay me. I'm beginning to regret the day I saved you. Don't look so shocked. Did you really think you were a son of mine? My flesh and blood?" He laughed cruelly. "You're dumber than I ever imagined! I rescued you from a squalid little hovel on Earth. You're mother was dead. Your brute father had killed her and left the house, left you sobbing and clinging to her blood-soaked skirts. I should have left you there!" He slapped his 'son' hard across the face. "You owe me your life."
"You lie!" Tears filled his eyes. he tasted blood. It wasn't true. His mother had died when he was twelve, giving birth to a baby boy who had also not survived.
"Your 'mother'." The King scoffed. "She was a nursemaid who wished her charge away. She didn't solve the Labyrinth of course, but she was pretty enough. And she knew how to raise children. The idea of a family...amused me. I thought, maybe this is what I'm missing. Maybe this will give me some degree of happiness. I wiped her memory. She though you were her son; she thought she was a queen. And you were so young, I think the trauma you faced in that squalid hole erased your memory of it. " The King sat back on the throne and regarded Jareth with a calm eye. "Then she died." He shrugged.
Jareth was destroyed. In a matter of minutes, his world had been turned upside down. He sank to the floor. "It's all a lie. You're making it up.....it's not true." He felt like a child again. How could it be? How could his whole life have been one grand illusion? "Why?" His mind shut down. Only that one word repeated itself, echoing hollowly. "Why?"
"Why do I do anything?" The King asked darkly. "Because I could. Because it entertained me."
"You're lying to me. You're doing this to punish me, but it's all lies. LIES!"
The King chuckled. "If that's what you want to believe. But it *is* true. I suppose you want proof." He smiled.
Jareth nodded.
"Well then, how would you like those memories back? The mind is a wonderful machine, you know. It does a very good job of hiding away those things we don't want to face. It buries the darkness....but it can't erase it."
Jareth's brain filled with searing pain. He clutched at his head with his hands and fell prostrate on the floor. "No please......"
The King smiled coldly. "Remember, my son. Remember."
Wayward 3/?
Warning: Scenes of domestic violence in this one. If it upsets you, you shouldn't read this.
Darkness. Where was he? The stench in the air was unbearable. He blinked a few times to clear his eyesight. The room was dark, with a bare dirt floor. A cold hearth stood in one corner. There were a few cooking implements and some bedding scattered on the floor. He climbed to his feet slowly. His head hurt and he put out a hand to grasp a chair to steady himself. His hand passed through it and he toppled to the floor. He sat up, astonished. What was going on? Before he could get his bearings, the crude wooden door swung open, spilling sickly sunlight into the gloom. A tall man entered the room, dragging a woman in after him by the hair. She was screaming and pleading.
"Shut up!" The tall man slapped her hard across the face. She stopped screaming and whimpered. From his spot on the floor, Jareth saw a dirty child with blond hair standing in the open doorway. His blue eyes were wide with fear.
"What did you think you were doing? You're *my* wife. I won't have you whoring around with the entire village!"
"I didn't I swear!" She cried, tears leaving clean streaks on her dirty face. "I didn't do anything."
"Don't lie to me!"
"I'm not!"
"Quiet!"
"Ma!" Cried the little boy in the doorway. He ran across the floor and grabbed onto her skirts. The tall man dragged the woman across the room to the chair Jareth was sitting behind. The couldn't see him. With a cry he realized that these events weren't happening. They were his memories. What he was seeing had taken place more than a decade before. The little boy was himself. Meanwhile, the man, his real father he supposed, had forced his mother down into the chair. He pulled something from behind his back. It gleamed coldly in the wane light from the doorway. It was a large hunting knife.
"No!" The scream tore itself from Jareth's throat unbidden. Time seemed to slow down. With the sickening sound of rendering flesh, his father sliced through his mother's throat with one strong swipe, almost severing her head. Blood bubbled and poured from the wound, his father let go of his mother's hair, and her head slumped forward dumbly. The child that was him started wailing.
"Da! What did you do? Mama!"
His father turned and left the house, closing the door behind him without a second glance at his dead wife or bawling son. The child clutched to the woman's bloodied dress.
Alone in the stinking darkness Jareth, the child and the man, wept.
----
He heard a noise and lifted his head. He was still in the room, still locked in his memories. How much time had passed? The air was full of the saccharine sweet odder of rotting flesh. The little boy was still clinging to the dead woman's skirts, now stiff with dried blood. Every once and awhile, he let out a hoarse sob. He had no tears left to cry. The woman's face was bloated and mottled. Flies swarmed, attracted to her decomposing body. Rats scurried in the corners. Suddenly, a flash of blue light filled the room, and the Goblin King appeared. He made a disgusted face, no doubt owing to the smell that filled the room, and looked at the little boy.
"Poor wretch." There was no feeling in the statement, no sympathy for the boy's predicament. The boy turned and looked at the king, trembling and clutching the soiled dress tighter.
"Here now. Boy, I want you to come with me."
"But what about Mama? Where's Da?"
"Mommy's dead, son. And your Da isn't coming back for you. But if you come with me, I'll take you away from all this. To a place where nothing ever hurts again. Wouldn't that be nice?"
The boy released his grip on the dress and looked up at him. "You'll make it all better?"
"Of course. Come here." Jareth watched as the child version of himself walked over to the Goblin King. The king bent down and picked the boy up. "Now then, what's your name?"
"Jareth."
"Well, Jareth, you're going to be my little boy from now on. How do you like that?"
"What's you're name?"
"Inquisitive, aren't we? My name is Lars and I'm the Goblin King."
"What's a Goblin King?"
"I take children like yourself, Jareth. Children no one wants. I'm going to take you back to my castle. Won't that be nice?"
"No! Don't go with him....he's tricking you Jareth!" But it was no use. He was a ghost here. Nothing he said or did could change the past. For one heartstopping moment, just before they vanished, the child looked him straight in the eye.
Wayward 4/?
He awoke, unrested. He was weary of it all. Weary of the dreams that plagued him, that would not allow him, even for a moment, to escape his sentence of eternal suffering. Sometimes it wasn't that bad....he could bare the dreams of Elenora. But the others, like the one of that first fateful confrontation with his father, left him feeling wasted and sick inside. He paced uneasily, footsteps ringing hollowly and echoing as he moved from room to barren room. Nothing here now. Nothing but dust and memories. Memories that nipped at his heals, no matter how long he walked, daring him to face them. He tried to stay one step ahead, the shadow of the past dogging his steps. It was a game he played with himself. How long could he escape, how long could he keep his thoughts from overwhelming him? In the end, the past always won. After hours, days? -he didn't know- he gave up, and let his phantoms sweep over him like mist, plunging him back into the pit of his memory.
He had awoken on the floor, trembling all over. His father was standing over him, all his smug superiority showing plainly on his face. "There. I told you it was the truth." He stepped back and held out one hand to help Jareth off the floor.
Still hurt and confused, Jareth slapped his hand away and climbed shakily to his feet. "Why did you lie to me all these years?" He couldn't keep the anger from slipping into his voice like a razor edge.
A noncommittal shrug. "No reason, I suppose. I never thought to bring it up."
"Never thought!" Jareth gapped. "Never thought to tell me my life was a lie?" His face contorted as anger and astonishment grappled each other for control.
"You take it so personally!" The glint of sadistic amusement had once again entered his father's eye. "Really what difference does it make weather you were born here or on Earth? You're heir to the throne now, and one day, you'll rule this land of ours."
Jareth hit his tolerance point. "I don't want to rule your stupid kingdom! What is there for me here? This isn't my home. Only a fool and a megalomaniac would choose to stay here with these mindless, dirty goblins."
In the blink of an eye the King caught him up by the front of the shirt. "Insolent boy. I don't care who's blood runs in your veins, you are *my* son, and you *will* obey me." The Goblin King was trembling with rage. "Do *not* defy me."
To his own surprise, and the greater surprise of his adoptive father, Jareth laughed. It was a cold, bitter laugh. "This is all about control, isn't it? You have to be in control of everything. Of me, of the Underground, all of it." His father's hand released it's grip on his shirt. Jareth continued to talk, though he was certain it was suicide. "That's why you stay here. So you can sit in your web and pull your strings like some horrific scheming spider. You never intended to hand over the throne to me. Not really." The realization rocked him to the core, even as he spoke it aloud. The final betrayal. The final proof that everything he had ever lived for, or believed in, was an utter falsehood. He turned on his heel and walked away. "I'm leaving. I won't stand to be your puppet. Not anymore." If only things had been that simple.
He shook his head, forcing the memories to retreat as he stood in the deserted throne room. It was like watching ghosts perform a mockery of a play, the way reality and his memories folded into one, blending and melding until he could no longer tell what was now and what was past. He looked out a window. A bleak landscape greeted him. The sky was hung with low clouds, heavy with menace. The wind whipped and wailed around the turrets blowing his hair to and fro. The Labyrinth spread before him, serpentine, winding in upon itself as if in an attempt to conceal it's darkest mysteries. The Underground was a dead land, and he was the king of it's shadows.
Wayward 5/?
Why was it that happiness made him careless? He now considered it his fatal flaw. All heroes had one, and allowing himself to forget the danger his adoptive father presented was certainly a fatal mistake. After he'd turned his back and walked away, he'd gone back to Earth, and back to his Elenora. They'd been married on a bright spring day, and seven months later their daughter Lorana had been born. She was in every aspect her mother's child, with bright coppery curls and a smile that charmed him every time. She was like the nymphs he'd seen as a child, airy and unreal. Words could not express the joy he had felt then. He'd never know such happiness. Life was simple, uncomplicated, and in the midst of it all, he never noticed the shadow that hung, like an executioner's blade, over his happy home. He remembered, even more clearly than all others, the day that, for all intents and purposes, his world had ended. It was late summer, a perfect day with just a hint of autumn creeping in around the edges to make it hazy and sweet. The three of them had brought a lunch out to a meadow still filled with fragrant wildflowers. Lorana was six years old, old enough to be allowed to chase butterflies and wander away by herself. Elenora warned her not to go too deep into the woods. "The Fey Folk live there." She'd warned her daughter with a warm smile that indicated she was only teasing. If only she'd known the evil that lurked in the woods that afternoon. But there was nothing amiss that day, except perhaps that the woods were unnaturally quiet and the world seemed to hold it's breath. In the absence of there child, he and Elenora talked quietly, reveling in the late summer day. Never had the world seemed so perfect, so at peace....
Without warning a gut-wrenching scream split the silence in two. They sprang to their feet as one and dashed to the woods, consumed with a parent's ability to instinctually feel when something has gone horribly wrong. He reached the woods first, sucking in searing gulps of air. Elenora, at his side a moment later, shrieked and ran forward into the small clearing while his own mind fought desperately to comprehend the scene before him. Lorana was dead. Of that fact he was all too certain. Her neck was broken, he could plainly see white bone protruding through the skin. But all this was taken in with a dull eye. His mind had gone numb, and he reacted to late as a figure stepped out of the woods. With eerie detachment and an almost careless liquid grace the Goblin King flicked his wrist. Jareth tried to warn Elenora but no sound issued from his lips as she was enveloped in a blinding white light. For a split second, Jareth caught a glimpse of her skeleton as she and the body of Lorana burned away to ash. The after image was burned into his eyes, partially blinding him. In the hushed silence of the forest, a low sound reached his ears, growing louder and more distinct as the seconds passed. His father was laughing at him. Jareth tore his injured eyes from the charred circle in the grass to find Lars leaning against a tree, regarding him with a bemused twinkle in his eye. Jareth's half-blinded eyes caused his adoptive father's dark green clothes and black hair blur into the surrounding back-drop so that he could only make out Lars' face and hands clearly. The Goblin King straightened up and walked towards his son, reverently stepping around the scorched circle of grass that held the ashes of his son's wife and daughter. He stood before Jareth and put one hand on his shoulder. "The Underground is yours now, my son. I christen you Jareth, King of the Goblins." He proclaimed, giving his son a deep mock bow. "The kingdom is yours!" Laughing gleefully, Lars vanished. Jareth never saw him again.
Okay, we've reached the end of this very twisted story. The end may be a bit of a shocker to you folks and it's certainly grisly. I must admit, the idea horrified me when I first thought of it, but it really was the perfect way to wrap things up. -Bamfy
Wayward 6/6
Jareth dutifully gathered up the ashes of his wife and daughter, and buried them in the garden behind their little house. This is where they had been most happy, this is where they would rest for eternity. Next he went inside the house for one last look. There was Elenora's sewing basket, clothes that needed mending waiting for her return. Lorana's toys were scattered in front of the hearth, as if at any moment the sprightly child would burst through the door to find them waiting. He disturbed nothing. The empty house had taken on the sanctity of the tomb. Head bowed, tears falling from his face to spatter the rough-hewn floor boards, he left the little house and walked away down the dirt path that lead to the nearest village. Once he was out of sight of the cottage -home to only memories playing forlornly in the dust- he vanished, leaving Earth behind forever.
The Goblin King awoke from his reverie to find himself still standing before the window. The storm that had earlier menaced the horizon had broken, bringing torrents of frigid rain down upon his grey world. An arch of blue lightning shot across the sky, followed by a low growl of thunder. He supported his head on one thin hand, staring out at the brutality of the storm which made such a wonderful backdrop to his memories. He gave a bone-weary sigh and turned away from the window, pacing across the room agitatedly. The air around him was humming like a live wire, and he knew it was not due to the storm raging outside. Something was going to happen tonight, he felt it in his soul. He had returned to the Labyrinth, this time as it's king. He remembered that his heart had grown cold. He'd become cruel and merciless, things he'd never been before...the thought that for a time he'd taken pleasure in torturing those who were forced to face his Labyrinth made him ill. He had become like Lars, unable to take pleasure in anything but the torture and subjugation of others. But something had changed that, as well. He'd become someone else after the girl, sable haired Sarah, strong willed Sarah to whom the world was always unjust, had solved his Labyrinth. Something in her eyes had reminded him terribly of Elenora, and for a time, thirteen brief hours, he allowed himself to entertain the idea that he could keep her there with him. But that wasn't to be. What would a young girl like herself, full of dreams and promise, want with the dead shell of a man? He'd let her go and it seemed that shortly after that, people stopped calling upon him. The Underground grew steadily darker, more colorless. The goblins and other creatures vanished. He was left alone. Suddenly, a blast of light appered in the center of the dust-veiled throne room. Jareth covered his eyes as the light caused scorching pain to burst through his head. His sight had never quite recovered from the damage they'd recived when Elenora had been killed. His left eye, in fact, remained almost sightless to this day. When he recovered he looked to the part of the room form which the blast had originated. Laying crumpled in the middle of the room was....for a moment, his couldn't comprehend what he saw. Bright copper hair tumbled over the figure's slender shoulder to mix with the dust on the floor. He knew her, knew this body, it's curves and slender limbs, it's milky complection. It was Elenora. After so long, she'd come back somehow. He ran to her side, lifting her gently. She murmured something then turned her head to look into his eyes.
And the illusion shattered.
The girl who stared at him had eyes like a cat, green and gold. He cried out and pulled away like he'd been burnt. He saw now that her hair was dark as a raven. She was also much shorter than Elenora had been. She was some sort of monster who'd tried to trick him.....another demon masquerading as his departed wife in an attempt to take his power, his kingdom. With the shriek of a madman he hurled an orb of intense white light at the terrified girl. It enveloped her in an instant and she was gone, leaving only ashes to join the other 'dust' on the floor. The castle's lord was back at the window, already forgetting what had taken place an instant before. Another demon come to taunt him, he'd sent it back to the nether-realm it'd come form. They always came, trying to trick him, but he was no fool. He always saw through their disguise in the end, though the held the forms of young women up until their deaths. But they never fooled him. And he never showed them mercy, despite their pitiful pleas, entreaties that seemed to issue from the lips of young girls. The demons were crafty, but he always won in the end. He looked back out at the raging storm, sinking into his memories yet again.
Epilogue
Somewhere in the darkness between worlds, Lars laughed. It rang cold and empty, the laugh of a tyrant. He enjoyed watching his son- Jareth, the Mad King. He laughed gleefully and lept about in his dark realm whenever one of the girls from Earth used The Words. He'd made sure that tiny bit of The Underground lived on in the memories and lore of Earth, it proved....entertaining. Jareth always mistook them for Elenora. When faced with the cold truth, that they were only lonely girls who had sought escape through a fairy tale, his mad mind convinced him they were demons.
Jareth burned them alive. Every last one. The floor of his throne room was their crypt, guarded by a lunatic who did not realize his own madness, and never would.
Fin