Ampersand
The sound of silence tore the air in two.
Another hiss of pain emitted from the parched lips of one figure, the side of his face pressed against a marble floor by a boot against his neck.
Through the coloured panels of glass, the few remaining stars smouldered in a sky bleeding with a copper sunset.
"I have had enough of this merry dance, boy." A frigid voice spat, ringed fingers interlinking with each other in a silent, and dangerous, impatience.
"You have broken every law of this world that there is to break. You have seduced the Labyrinth into believing it is yours. Your treachery, your recklessness, your little bloodsport games are over. You pushed us to the verge of reality by staking the entirety of the dream world to the mercy of one mortal– something not yours to stake."
Another pause left the baited breath of hundreds clinging onto his every pause.
"...You leave me with no choice..."
"You have every choice." The figure's voice hissed, his voice not daring to crack.
"From this moment, forth..."
"Are you forgetting, Captain, who exactly I a..."
His sentence was severed, choked away, as the boot on his neck increased the pressure.
His hands were bound to his back, elegant fingers woven together by the force of the bindings. The shirt that stuck to his back still shimmered with myriads of colour, a remnant of the grandeur the wearer had once possessed. Now, gashes were struck through its finely woven seams, the threads laced with the scarlet of his own blood.
Crimson still streamed down from finely arched eyebrows, droplets clinging to eyelashes that cycled through every colour of the Autumn- if you paused long enough to watch.
But no one was watching.
The boot finally removed itself from his neck, fingers grabbing the scruff of his ruffled collar to haul the man back to his knees.
Every eye was instead fixed on his cracked lips, the last traces of magic still clinging to them as they parted slightly, his mind suspended between answer and silence.
The Captain of the Guard did everything he could to avoid the boy's gaze. Though he was little more than a man, they still found a way to strike through his very core, sending waves of shivers down his spine.
With a final breath of determination, the Captain finally uttered what he had stowed inside his mind for endless hours.
"From this moment, forth, you shall relinquish one third of your crown to the neighbouring Queen, Queen Fion. The other you shall surrender to your army, and to myself, Captain of the Guard. The last remains in your hands..."
An inaudible shudder of relief broke through the figure's skin, sending a small shimmer of the medallion that hung around his neck and rested against his chest.
"...remains in your hands...knowing you shall be a prisoner of your own Kingdom and that the bloodsport you have tormented mortals with for endless ages shall be put to an end."
"My art is no bloodsport. I have only ever done what was asked of me. Humans ask for something to be taken, and I take it without question. It is no fault of mine that the mortals do not keep to their word..." The man paused, turning his eyes to the fields beyond the Goblin City. "That they refuse to accept their own dreams..."
"It is your own dreams that have brought you here, boy. You will follow this bond to the very-"
A sudden defiance sparked through the prisoner's eyes once again.
"To the what, Captain? Be bold. Inspire me. To the word? Even to the letter, perhaps?"
"No, Jareth."
The Captain dug his nails into his palm as he was forced to meet the gaze of their deposed King.
"You are bound to the very last ampersand."