Author's Note: This chapter is entirely setup, with a healthy portion of humor to go along with it. Next chapter, brace yourselves: the plot arrives! Standard disclaimer, I'm not Jim Henson, and if I were, I'd be using a much more expensive keyboard. Review or face the Bog! Much love.
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The sun rose over the Labyrinth with a distinct thud. This was followed, shortly thereafter, by a kind of high-pitched keening that sounded remarkably like airborne poultry which was neither meant to fly at such altitudes, nor had ever anticipated up until this moment in its admittedly dull life that it would ever achieve such heights. The laws of gravity, being what they were, allowed the screech to sustain itself for a moment or two longer than it might have in the human world, simply because it happened to be Tuesday, before the sound was cut off by what was most definitely a splat.
The splat set off a chain reaction of sounds which ranged from crashes to bangs to the odd thunk as a heavier object struck the ground. These were joined by the clank of metal on metal, the crunch of breaking wood, and the distinct laughter of goblins. It was distinguishable from any other kind of laughter partly because of its pitch, and partly because whenever a goblin laughed it sounded as though it was not entirely certain it was allowed to be feeling mirth, and so proceeded with caution even as the noise rolled out of their voicebox, lest the sudden need to stop present itself.
In this case, however, the sudden need to stop presented itself not as a prohibition of mirth, but as the sound of a pair of impeccably tailored boots striking a stone floor. It was much the same thing when one considered that the boots were attached to a pair of slender legs, and that said legs belonged to Jareth, who was not happy to have been woken this early. By the time he had pulled a particularly impressive robe around his shoulders and begun striding down the hallway of the castle, dread had begun pouring out in his wake. Pale eyes narrowed, mouth formed into a thin line, the Goblin King was the picture of austerity as he threw the doors to the throne room wide.
"What is the meaning of this?"
The cluster of goblins standing in the center of the room froze, casting furtive glances at one another. The sight which greeted the king was one that would, no doubt, haunt his nightmares for weeks to come. At one end, by the window, there was set up a kind of massive slingshot, hastily put together out of battle equipment. Beside it sat a cage which contained several nervous-looking chickens. Feathers and bits of wreckage were scattered everywhere, as though they had tested the slingshot indoors first, and beyond the window… beyond the window was a construction of objects so bizarre that it forced Jareth to tilt his head before he realized what it was.
Something like a partially destroyed maze, made of boxes, chains, cookware, and whatever else the goblins had been able to find, had been erected, and an object appeared to have been launched at it. Lying in the midst of what had already been destroyed was what had become, now, an ex-chicken, though being in the Labyrinth, it was mostly lying about wondering where it had gone wrong in its life that it had gotten itself killed by goblins so early on.
One of the goblins, a particularly deformed but eloquent specimen, lifted his head, gazing up at his sovereign with wide eyes. "Y-your majesty. We was – playing – Angry Beds."
"Birds! It's Birds, Ginseng!"
"And what," Jareth snarled softly, his jaw clenched tight, "is this… angry bird?"
Ginseng trembled, but managed to remain standing up. "A game, your majesty."
"A game? A game? You wake me at this hour for a game? What have you done to my throne room? There are – you have gotten chicken feathers on my throne! And what is that thing you've built outside? Answer me!"
"We was. Making the game in real life, sir. Your Excellency. It comes from a screen. Miss Sarah has it."
Struck by the sudden and overwhelming urge to knock his head into the nearest wall, Jareth lifted a hand, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "Miss Sarah. What have I told you about visiting that girl? WELL? Did I not state very specifically that any of you caught out of the realm near Sarah would be tipped head-first into the Bog of Eternal Stench? Right. That's it. All of you are going straight in."
The crowd recoiled as one, leaving the one goblin still capable of speech to lead the pack. Ginseng, it would seem. "But Your Majesty. She called us. She was sleeping, and she called. We had to go!"
Eyes fluttering, Jareth turned his back on them, drawing in a deep breath. It was nearly impossible to be a vicious tyrant when your subjects had lint for brains and you also happened to be indebted to a girl. A little girl who, it seemed, was still capable of giving him no end of grief, even when unconscious. Every time that gibbering pack of fools went up there they came back with ideas. If he had to relive the incident involving Pokemon ever again he would abdicate his throne and leave Hogwart to run the Labyrinth.
"Clean up this mess. If I see so much as one bit of straw out of place, it's the Bog for all of you. And would somebody retrieve that chicken!" Sweeping out of the hall, door slamming behind him, Jareth let out a sigh. Sometimes, he wondered if he ought to have taken over ruling pixies instead. At least they were neat.
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For a long moment, Jules thought she must be hallucinating. What other explanation was there for a face suddenly appearing in the surface of her mirror? It certainly bore no resemblance to hers – for one thing, it was male, and for another, it was decidedly pale. Downright pasty, as a matter of fact, which begged the question of why her figments didn't see more sunlight. Slowly, she lifted the bottle of hairspray like a weapon, and demanded, "Who are you and why am I hallucinating you?"
"Sarah." It was almost a whisper, but it echoed. Wait a minute, was the hallucination… glimmering? There was something in that horribly pasty complexion that was almost reflective. Aside from the mirror, which he was still in, staring at her out of. This was a horrible day to lose her grip on sanity. The day before exams! Of all the nerve. On the one hand, at least she was seeing attractive people who weren't there, but on the other, them not being there didn't say great things about her mental state.
Faces did not pop up out of mirrors, they didn't talk, and they didn't look like some kind of bioluminescent fish had died to contribute to costuming. Folding her arms, Jules stepped back and glared at him. "Look, can you come back on a day when I don't have a Biochem final to study for? If I'm going to wind up in a psych ward you could at least have the decency to wait until I pass this semester so I can take Christmas break off! Get lost! Begone! Um. Get the behind me, demon!"
"Sarah."
Reaching out, the hallucination extended a pale hand, brushing up against the glass. Like he was inside the mirror, which she happened to know was physically impossible. It was an inch thick at most, certainly not large enough to be holding glittering men who were trying to reach out and touch her. "Wrong mirror, Phantom! Aren't you people supposed to wear masks? Ugh. You're not there, you're not there, you don't exist, go away!" Turning her back on him, Jules paced the bathroom floor. It occurred to her that she should probably not be glaring down the demise of her sanity in sushi-print pajamas, but it wasn't like you could plan for these things.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she hoped against hope that when she opened them he would be gone.
"Sarah."
Damn. Jules cracked an eyelid. Still there. "What do you want with Sarah? Well, actually, that's a really common name, do you mean Sarah Williams? Oh God. I'm talking to a man in a mirror. I'm talking to a man in a mirror. This isn't happening." Throwing the hairspray aside, she bolted for the bathroom door, stuck her head out into the hallway, and shouted. "SARAH! I THINK I'M GOING CRAZY! THERE'S A MAN WHO WEARS TOO MUCH GLITTER IN THE BATHROOM MIRROR AND HE WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!"