Chapter Two:
Late morning sunlight slipped through the panels of the dirty windows, spilling itself onto the rich soft carpet of the room; books, all old and worn, but loved and well used, crowded the handsome mahogany bookcases; residing at the left wall, a cobblestone fireplace stood with soot and ashes laying within as a memorial for the fire that had burnt there the previous night; and, at the very back of the room, a beautiful desk made only of the finest mahogany glowed majestically in the morning light.
It could not be denied that the Royal Study of the Goblin Kingdom was truly a stunning picture to behold in this morning of this day.
But all of this beauty, as glorious as it was, went completely unnoticed by the sole occupant of the room who might have enjoyed it.
The Goblin King lounged behind the desk of his study. His feet- propped up upon that beautiful desk- would every so often tap in a rhythm, a rhythm that only slightly hinted the musical talent of this royal Fae. In his right hand he held a quill pen that he twirled absentmindedly with rhythm as he gazed at a paper in his left . In his expression, though, it was painfully obvious to see that he paid very little attention to what was written before him.
So a good amount of time was wasted and much more still would have been if wasn't for a bang. It resonated from the gardens, followed by a laughing screech and the furious muttering belonging only to dwarf groundskeeper. It was only when something crashed into the Study's windows, however, that the Goblin King became fully aware of the commotion. He also became painfully aware of the realization that he had done nothing for the past hour and a half.
Damn! He thought, viciously slamming the paper down on the desk and scowling. Why must there always be so much uninteresting and mind-numbing things to be done? It makes being King such a bore, especially with these damned worthless bloody papers. Looking down at the offending document with loathing, the Goblin King growled over the matter for a moment more before he rolled his eyes and signed the paper anyway.
With a crooked grin, he placed it down on the large stack of finished papers to his left. He, however, never had the chance to celebrate for Marcus had decided to just then barge into the room, hidden behind a large stack of fresh documents.
"You've got to be joking." Jareth growled as he whipped his quill down, causing it to promptly snap in half. "I've only just finished the stack from yesterday!"
"And now you've got a stack for today!" Marcus snapped, dumping it in front of him in the most unceremonial way possible.
Though usually an arse, Marcus was acting especially insolent today. This made Jareth look up with interest and say, "Is there something wrong Marcus? You know better than to respond to your king like that."
"Sorry, your Grace" He said, taking off his glasses and wiped them on the edge of his dirty shirt with a snarling expression, "Just having a bad morning."
"Oh? How so?" Jareth asked hoping that the tall goblin would go off in a boring tangent. Though entirely unamusing, it was a great way to delay work.
"It's nothing you have to worry about, Your Grace, just a silly little goblin that works for me. That is all."
"If he's causing such a problem, simply get rid of him." Jareth said, eyeing the new stack of documents with resentment.
"She, Your Grace. And I can't." He growled
"Why not?" Jareth said, his voice dripping with boredom as he disgustedly flipped through a six page taxing update, "You are, after all, head librarian slash secretary."
"She's too bloody smart, sire."
That caused a spark of interest.
Turned his gaze back to the goblin, Jareth said in his careful drawl, "Smart? What do you mean by smart?"
"Smart." Marcus repeated, "As in intelligent, bright, clever-"
"I know what it means." Jareth growled, "I want to know how."
"How? I don't know how to answer that, sire, she just is. Why, I bet she could be smarter than me if she were able to read all the books in the Library, which, might I add, she's getting awfully close in doing.
"Read." Jareth said with utter disbelief, "She knows how to read. Who taught her?"
"No one. She taught herself, I suppose."
Shaking his head in doubt, Jareth suddenly stopped and, smirking at a thought, said, "Still, I cannot possibly see how she is a problem."
With a snort, Marcus replied, "Smart is only half of it, sire. She's bloody far too wild. Disobedient. Undisciplined. Defiant. She's a pain in the ass is what she is."
"So is every other Goblin."
"Oh, she's worse."
Jareth simply chuckled and shook his head.
That hit a nerve.
Marcus then said with a good deal of venom, "Oh, don't believe me? Then why don't you come see for yourself."
With a sly smile, Jareth smoothly replied "I just think I might."
That was not the response Marcus thought would occur.
Slightly flinching, the tall goblin stood as stiff as a rod, his black brown eyes blinking rapidly beneath his dirty glasses. Realizing what he was doing, Marcus then shook his head, attempting to clear his confusion, and shuffled out into the hall, completely forgetting the common rule of having his King go first.
That, however, didn't bother Jareth. He was much too busy celebrating the fact that he just got out of doing work for the time being.
But his trick, he would find out rather quickly, came with a price.
It is no secret that Jareth is not a very patient Fae or that he prefers traveling by warping than by the lowly pathetic way of walking. So it was not very surprising that this trip to the Library would create annoyance for him, but in this trip there was the very thing he hated most of all.
Slow pace walking.
Nothing caused him as extreme annoyance as being trapped behind a snail of a walker. And the thing about the Goblin King was that once he's in a bad mood, it is nearly impossible to get him out of it. In fact, it is a common joke in the Underground that cheering up the Goblin King is more difficult than running through his Labyrinth.
At the moment, Jareth couldn't help but agree.
Stepping on Marcus' heels didn't help pacify his frustration and attempting to kick passing goblins only made matters worse. Goblins were quite good at dodging things like that, after all, which made all of Jareth's attempts failures. Plus they thought it rather like a game- the opposite effect that Jareth had intended.
Finally, in what felt to be an eternity (the reality was about six minutes), Jareth found himself standing before the Library's large wooden doors. Jareth thought it was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen- the large coal black door handles and the old oak wood-but then again, he had been trapped behind Marcus' slow pace for the past fifteen minutes.
The stack of documents would have been considered a beautiful distraction at that point.
Snapping his fingers, the doors then swung open for their King and both him and Marcus step inside
When compared to most of the castle, the Library was considered to be one of the grander rooms, but comparing it with the libraries of the other Underground Kingdoms it appear to be rather meek. The bookcases did not tower, the books were not many or vast, and neither gold, silver, nor gems were to be found on the shelves, on the floor, or on the walls. There were no statues, no paintings, or even curtains that hung around the small dirty windows.
Though the library was practically empty, Jareth honestly didn't mind. His library contain good books for the few there were, comfortable sofas, a spacious table, and a fireplace that, for a shabby one, did a good job in heating the room during the cold winters. In Jareth's mind, a library didn't really need anything else, so why add anything?
There was also the fact that most paintings and such did not last long with goblins bouncing about.
The slight bustle of the few Library Goblins absolutely halted as the doors slammed shut, announcing the arrival of their boss and their King.
Marcus, aware of this, abruptly barked, "Back to work! All of you! That means you too, Gippy!"
As if he had turned on a switch, they all scurried off to do whatever it was that Library Goblins do as fast as they possibly could. It was a rather amusing sight to see and Jareth couldn't help smirking at it.
Marcus had by that time seized a tiny redish-brown goblin and commanded to know where "Ravie" was. The tiny goblin took one quick glance at Jareth before his face turned ashen and squeaked:
"I-I-I don't know"
Now Jareth had known Marcus for many long years, but he had never seen the nasty shade of blood red that his face turned upon hearing that news. It was also an amusing surprise to suddenly hear him roar, quite literally roar, "What do you mean she left!"
The tiny goblin was smart enough to dive under a book before continuing to stammer, "I'm sorry Marcus, but I simply don't know! She had left when you walked off with those papers. Said something about wanting to find something to read... Oh, I did tell her not to go!"
"Oh! For bloodly sakes, I told her!" Marcus growled marching off and completely forgetting the fact that his King was still there
Jareth, however, was far from offended; rather, he hadn't been this amused since a runner about ten years back had fallen into the Goblin City's sewage system. Chuckling to himself, he warped back into his study. His laughter then was cut short, however, as he was greeted by that damn stack of documents that he had somehow forgotten.
Cursing under his breath, Jareth walked over and viewed them with an vicious eye as his thumb slid along the side of the monstrous pile. For a short moment, Jareth was wondering what would he have to give to have Marcus do them for him but his hope was squashed by the well known fact that Marcus wouldn't do his work for anything. So, with a sigh, Jareth was about to sit down and get his reluctant arse to start working when suddenly a book fell from a bookcase.
The silence after the fall was heavy as the Goblin King looked at the book with quizzical curiosity. Cautiously getting up, he slowly walked over to the book and picked it up. When he looked down, reading the title The Elemental Importance in Magic, Jareth suddenly heard a tiny gasp. Quickly looking up, he couldn't miss the two bright green emerald eyes that stared back down at him.
"Why, hello." Jareth said as he straightened himself to his full height, "I do believe you dropped this."
Slowly stepping out from the shadows, a small brown goblin with a tuff of black hair and a roughly sown dress the color of parchment appeared with those startling green eyes.
A jolt of shock rush through the usually unflustered Goblin King: Goblins, he could have sworn, only had brown eyes.
"Yes. Pardon me, Your Highness." The goblin said, taking a little curtsy, "I was cleaning and accidently dropped it. I'll take that back now, please. And if you would ever be so kind and pardon me for the disruption."
Jareth, however, didn't hand the book back. Something was off about this goblin. Something just didn't line up exactly right.
He suddenly found himself commanding ,"What is your name, Goblin?"
At this, the green-eyed goblin backlashed and, biting her lip nervously, she said, "May I ask why it is you would like to know, Your Highness?"
It was at "Your Highness" that it hit him.
With a crooked smirk, Jareth then replied coolly, "And may I ask why a goblin that works in the library is in my study claiming to be cleaning?"
Her face dropped in completely dismay as she cried out, "How did you know?"
"I have never heard a cleaning goblin speak with such correct grammar." Jareth smirked.
"Oh, I should have known!" She exclaimed, smacking her hand against her forehead, "I apologize, Your Highness, I will never do that again."
"What? Speak with correct grammar?"
"Say that I'm the cleaning goblin."
"What's your name?" Jareth asked, his eyebrows raised as he eyed the strange goblin with increasing curiosity.
The goblin dipped into a deep curtsy as she answered, "Ravie, Your Highness."
"Ravie?" Jareth said in alarm, "you couldn't possibly be the goblin that's causing Marcus to blow steam out of his ear, could you?"
"The very same one." Ravie laughed, grabbing the book Jareth had offered and pushing it back onto the shelf, "I apologizes for that, Your Highness, but it would be a lie to say I won't do it again."
To his great surprise, Jareth found himself chuckling. He was starting to like this goblin very much.
Recovering himself, Jareth then asked, "Well, Ravie, exactly why is it that you are in my study, hm?"
Jareth wasn't blind: the nervousness in her eyes was obvious to see only supported by the way that her ears fell as then she began to explain:
"Well, Marcus told me that I couldn't read any more books in the library. So I decided to look for books outside the library. He never said I couldn't read those, and well, I found this place and I didn't know it was your study..."
Silence hung in the air after her little story and only after a long while, Jareth spoke, "Well, you are much too clever for me to be angry at the moment, but I cannot let you leave without a punishment."
Nodding her head, the goblin looked up him, meeting his sharp mismatched colored eyes with her dazzling greens ones which were wide in anticipation.
That's when the idea hit him.
"You have to do the documents for me." Jareth commanded.
"What!" Ravie exclaimed, looking over at the tower of papers with absolute shock.
"You heard me." Jareth said coolly, "You have to do everything in those papers, except sign my signature, and it has to be done before night falls. Understood?"
"And what if I don't?" The goblin said, a little challenge in her tone.
Silence hung oppressively in the air as Jareth eyed her coldly. She shivered under the intensity but kept her gaze staring straight back into his. Jareth smirked. He liked her for it.
Finally, he broke the silence with, "Then you'll be introduced to the end of my boot."
Her expression quickly turned to dismay and the Goblin King left the tiny spunky green-eyed goblin with that, a huge grin on his face at the prospect of finally having a day off.