This story is inspired by the world of the manga sequel, Return to Labyrinth, by Jake T. Forbes. I, obviously, own nothing. This takes place after Toby's been in "Goblin King training" for a while, but in the middle of my storyline. Basically, the prologue shows a glimpse of future events, and then the first chapters will backtrack a bit and connect up later. Confused? Think of it as a Quentin Tarantino movie; it doesn't necessarily go in chronological order. If it's too confusing I might change it but for now, whatever. Toby knows nothing (as of yet) of his prior history with the Labyrinth. Or of his sister's.
Prologue
Toby slouched into the castle's topmost tower room and collapsed into a chair with a groan. "Ugh, why me?" he asked nobody in particular. He massaged his temples with an especially martyred air, frustrated by all the confounding nonsense and maddeningly impossible paradoxes with which his "education" had presented him today. Sighing, he got up and went over to the window to gaze down at the sprawling city below, beyond which the Labyrinth itself stretched forth as far as the eye could see. He loved this room. For some reason, looking down from this window always calmed him down when he was stressed; it was his favorite spot in the castle. For all its infuriatingly nonsensical riddles, he could never quite shake the feeling that he somehow belonged to this world, more so than he ever had to the world Above. Inexplicable, but true nonetheless.
Yet, something wasn't right. It had been several weeks since Jareth, the strange and powerful Goblin King, had lured him here (under quite false pretenses, Toby thought bitterly), declared him the new ruler at a ball before the entire Labyrinth population (and then some), and disappeared without a trace. He'd gotten the distinct impression at the time that he'd been caught up in some bizarre power play between Jareth and that water queen lady, Mizumi, whom he understood less than anything else in this place, but despite all his troubles he was beginning to get used to the Underground, even like it. Sure, his Goblin King classes very nearly drove him mad on a daily basis, but Mizumi's magic instruction was proving to be enlightening, to say the least, even if he didn't trust her as far as he could throw her. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something very wrong with the situation, something he was missing. Where exactly had Jareth disappeared to, and why? And just why was Mizumi being so very helpful and subservient to his bid for the crown? Scowling, he closed his eyes. "What should I do?" He pounded his fist against the wall, hard enough to shake small clouds of dust from the rotting tapestries that adorned the room, depicting gruesome scenes of goblin wars and lending the place a rather eerie atmosphere. "Give me a sign!"
"Toby …"
He stood bolt upright. That voice! Had he only imagined it, or was it really her? Nothing was certain in this place, and yet surely she was far, far away, back in a realm where the rules of reality applied, a normal teacher who didn't even believe in goblins, let alone –
"Toby!"
There it was again, louder this time, more insistent, even afraid. And though it defied all logic, even in a place like this, he recognized her panicked voice, somehow calling out to him. He cast about for a minute, wondering what he ought to do, when the air shimmered in front of him and with a cold rush and a roaring in his ears, – lo, his elder sister appeared before him.
With a startled cry of recognition, he ran forward to meet her. She half staggered, half fell into him, grasping the front of his shirt in a vice-like grip, and he was horrified to see her eyes shone wide with fright and confusion, glazed over as if caught part-way between waking and dreaming. The look on her ashen face seemed to suggest she was still caught in a nightmare. "Toby," she whispered.
"Hey, hey, it's me." He tried desperately to calm her, but in fact he was more frightened than he'd ever been since coming to the Labyrinth. "It's me, Toby. Are you ok? What are you – " But she wrenched herself free of him and took several steps backwards.
"No, you don't understand, I – " She swung her head from side to side, as if looking for an escape. "This isn't real," she said. "It can't be, I – and you, we – I was having one of my hideous dreams, and then – " She squeezed her eyes shut and continued to move backwards, away from him, as one solitary tear slid down her cheek. "I couldn't wake up, I – " She looked at him with the most soulful eyes he'd ever seen, and her voice shrank to the softest of frightened whispers. "I fought so hard to free you." She came up against the wall, and suddenly, as if that small contact had instantly drained what little of her strength remained, slid down to the floor. "Help me, Toby," she pleaded, and then the last iota of clarity fled from the eyes of the loving and lively sister he'd always known. "I'm alone in the dark!" And with that strangled cry, she slumped over, for all intents and purposes deeply asleep, yet her breathing remained erratic and troubled.
Toby stared at her. He stood as if rooted to the spot, as silent as he was still. And stared some more. And after several interminable moments, he acted without thought. He was now beyond any and all hope of rational thought. All memory of Mizumi's careful instructions on summoning having flown out the proverbial window, he griped the golden pendant Jareth had given him all those weeks ago at the ball and called on the former Goblin King with all his might. "Jareth!" he screamed, with all the desperation of a lost child. "JARETH!!!"
"Yes, what is it?" asked a cool, collected voice from the door. Toby spun, amazed, to see the Goblin King (former king, he reminded himself), looking positively miffed at having been successfully summoned, Mizumi right on his heels. "I see you haven't been completely wasting your time in my absence. So nice to know you've learnt how to bother me whenever you feel like it. What shall they teach you next, hmm? The tools and tricks of being a royal pain in the –" Jareth's voice faltered as he caught sight of Toby's sister, took in every detail of her strange affliction. Mizumi's eyes widened in surprise, but she uttered not a word, but rather looked immediately to Jareth, and even took a step backwards as if intending to observe the scene silently.
Barely pausing to fear Jareth's wrath at having been called, Toby began talking rapid-fire. "It's my sister … I … I don't know what happened, she was just here all of a sudden and, well, I heard her first and then she was here, but something's wrong, something's really wrong with her, and I didn't know what to do or what to think, and she was saying things, trying to speak to me but I didn't really understand, she wasn't very coherent, looked really scared, and then she just … just … well, look at her!"
"Toby." Jareth's commanding voice cutting suddenly into his frantic chatter. He closed the distance between them in long, quick strides, all former annoyance gone, and grasped Toby's shoulders, turning him so that his strange, otherworldly eyes bored intently into the boy's own, wrenching Toby's gaze from the frail and failing form of his sister, on whom it had been fixed in horror. "I shall need you to follow my instructions to the letter, and without question. Do you understand me? Can I trust you to do this? I know you're confused, and want to help her, and that I have, technically, abdicated my throne in your favor, but I need to know that you won't try and do anything …" he looked, for a moment, particularly strained "… stupid." Dumbly, Toby just nodded, eyes traveling back to where Sarah lay slumped against the wall, deathly still yet with a pulse fluttering wildly beneath her skin. "Excellent," Jareth said, straightening up and regaining a fraction of his formerly authoritative regality. "Now, go as quickly as possible out onto the grounds. Make straight for the Garden of Souls – "
Toby's eyes widened. "But, Master Spiddledrum says I must never approach – " Jareth silenced him with a look. "Right," Toby muttered. "Without question, got it."
"Make for the Garden. When you get there, you must tame the Gatekeeper. Bow low before her with every ounce of reverence you possess, and answer her question truthfully. I do hope you have been learning some manners while I've been away." A trace of cruel amusement, the characteristic which Toby had first noticed in the Goblin King, shone through his intense tone. Toby swallowed, and continued to listen. "Once inside," Jareth continued, you must pluck an apple from the central tree. You are not to eat the apple under any circumstances, or even taste it. If you so much as inhale its fragrance too deeply I will not answer for the consequences." The former King's eyes shone threateningly, and again Toby nodded silently. He was beginning to remember how frightening Jareth could be. "Bring the fruit directly back here. Tell nobody what you are about. Now go."
Toby scrambled for the door, casting one last furtive glance at his sister's unconscious form. "Oh, and Toby?" He had just reached the top of the stairs when Jareth's soft, yet undeniably powerful voice arrested his exeunt. "Do hurry, won't you? We must work quickly if we are to restore her to the realm Above. The hour, I see, is later even than I feared." This last was murmured so softly under his breath that Toby wondered if he was meant to hear it.
Silent throughout this entire scene, yet by no means unwatchful of its players, Mizumi tracked Toby's exit with the same cold, piercing eyes that had inexorably tracked the boy's preceding exchange with the former Goblin King.
"Well, Jareth," she said, gliding imperiously forward to stand beside him over the fallen form of the young woman. "I'm glad to see you no longer entertain those childish fantasies of trying to keep her here, Underground. For a moment there I was afraid seeing her so helpless would be too much of a temptation for any lingering, silly delusions of yours." And she laughed cruelly, but her eyes glittered with hate. For she had seen how he'd gone stone still at the shock of seeing her, how his knuckles had whitened as he gripped her brother's shoulders and spoke to him in almost frenzied haste. And she'd noticed that not once had he spoken her name.
It was Jareth who moved first. He started forward as if to bend over the woman on the floor, but then stopped abruptly, as though he thought better of it. Turning on his heel, he snapped his fingers and a group of goblins scurried forth from various corners in a flurry of scratching claws and clicking speech. Vile things, Mizumi thought. They'll be the first to go. They swarmed around the woman on the floor, and together lifted her onto a low couch that stood under a particularly grotesque tapestry. Gently, almost reverently, yet jabbering away amongst themselves all the while, they pulled a moldy, ragged blanket over her and tucked her in. Her. Sarah.
What is she doing here? If Jareth knew, he certainly wasn't being very forthcoming with the information. Mizumi turned to look at him, standing with his back to them both, staring silently out the window, down into the Labyrinth below. She frowned. Damn you, Jareth, what are you thinking?
What the Queen of the Moraine couldn't know, was that his thoughts were far from the castle tower where they stood, traveling back over recent events, combing through his previous conclusions and recent discoveries, turning every stone twice over so to speak, searching, searching, for the answer that so obstinately evaded him.