CHAPTER SHI
"I'm ho-ome!"
Pooktook looked up. He'd been sitting on the arm of the throne waiting for Jareth to come back from his errand.
"Huh?!" Chichester looked around the throne room in shock. "What happened? Where are we?!"
Pooktook was off the throne and across the room in one second flat.
"Whoa, no no no no no, Jareth, what have you been and gone and done?!"
Jareth smiled and thrust Chichester into the middle of the room. "I've set things in motion again! Sarah's running the labyrinth as we speak. I've got barrels of time to win her affections back before the end of the thirteen hours!" He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "This is going to be fun!"
Pooktook, one hand on hip, pointed at the young man standing before them. "Who?"
"Oh yeah, him. He's an interloper."
"It's not Toby again, is it?"
"No, you think I'm dumb or something?"
"It's just that you did list that as one of your ideas before. If he's not Toby, who is he?"
"Norman Chichester," said Chichester, who was fighting against an urge to break down and start gibbering. "I'm Sarah's Fiancé. What's this about Toby? Sarah's Toby? Who are you people?"
Pooktook stared at Chichester, then at the smirking Jareth.
"Her Fiancé? Jareth, what are you thinking!"
"I know, I got there just in time eh?" He snapped his fingers, and suddenly Chichester was tied up tightly with ropes.
"Hey! What?" He shouted.
"No no. Jareth, you are going to take this young man back this instant and apologize to Sarah!" Pooktook stomped his foot like a Father who will not be disobeyed. Jareth put his hands on his hips and bent down to glower back at the glowering Garden Pnome.
"Nope. I'ma do this my way."
"Oh, because it worked so well the last time!"
"What's going on?" Chichester broke in.
Jareth looked over at the increasingly frantic Chichester. "I'm going to let you explain it to him, okay Pooktook? Or don't, you know, just whatever. But I'm locking him up first."
Jareth snapped his fingers, and suddenly Chichester was standing, tied up, in a cage that was just taller than his head.
"Huh?"
"Jareth!" shouted Pooktook.
Jareth snapped his fingers again, and a huge padlock appeared on the door of the cage.
"No!"
Jareth snapped his fingers yet again, and the cage was now hanging from a hook in the middle of the ceiling, where it swung back and forth from the agitated motions of its very surprised occupant. Jareth smiled at Pooktook and held his fingers up, daring him to raise another protest.
Which Pooktook didn't do. He closed his mouth, but continued to glare pointedly at the Goblin King. Jareth, satisfied, turned on his booted heel and started up the steps toward his chambers.
"I'm outy. Got some serious planning to do and whatnot. Catch you later." He turned, just before rounding the corner at the top of the stairs. "And Pooktook?"
"Yes?"
"Don't."
--
Franklin D. Svelte was skipping along to the music in his head. He was skipping through the green-screen forest, of course - since that seems to be the natural Fiery habitat -, his long arms swinging out at his sides and his long, string-assisted legs bouncing him along at a good clip.
"La la la… icky-do, icky-do… aaaah-ah… ooos."
Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and pricked up his ears. Had someone just called him by name?
"Uh… nope." He shrugged after a while, and continued on his merry way. Four steps further, and the voice came again. He stopped, listening really hard this time.
"Yyyyesss?" he called.
"Franklin?" came the voice again. Franklin clapped his hands and started skipping in the direction the voice was coming from.
"Commming!"
The word 'caution' wasn't in the Franktionary, you see.
Fortunately it was only Sarah. When Franklin finally got close enough to see this fact, his joy was such that he immediately launched himself from the bushes at her head with a cry of –
"Yo-he-hooo!!!!"
Which was not a word per se, but was in the Franktionary regardless.
"No taking my head off!" Sarah shrieked, trying to pry him from her shoulders.
"Sarah! Sarah you're here! You're going to marry me now????"
"No, Franklin." She said, giving up on removing him, but no longer worried about decapitation. "I'm definitely not here to marry you."
Franklin was non-plussed.
"Buuuut," she continued, "I do need your help. What do you say, want to help me out?"
Franklin was once again plussed in the extreme.
"I'd do anything for you dear - anything - for you mean everything to me!"
Aw. Sarah was glad to hear it.
"I've got to get to the castle beyond the goblin city again, and I don't really know my way from here on. Last week Hoggle had mentioned that he was going to be out of town for a few weeks visiting relatives, and Ludo and Sir Didymus have been on that giant quest of theirs since January, so I need a guide. Are you up to it?"
Franklin was instantly suspicious. "Wait. Are you here to see Jareth? You are, aren't you!"
"After a fashion, yes. But in largely the same capacity as last time. I'm not here to marry him either."
"Then who are you here to marry?"
"Nobody! I'm not in love with anyone from the Labyrinth, Franklin."
"I can't say that's entirely a relief." Said Franklin, crossing his arms and looking away, maintaining perfect balance on Sarah's shoulders. "But it's a start. At least we'll get to spend all kinds of time together before we get to the castle. You'll probably change your mind about me along the way!"
Sarah fingered her engagement ring and thought of Chichester.
"Doubtful." She said quietly.
--
In this, our most varied chapter to date, a new character is about to be introduced! She – yes, she – is new to this narrative, yet strangely familiar to all fanfic readers worth their salt.
She is --------------------------------------- The Love-Struck Rival Queen!
Daw! But I shouldn't have just up and said it, so we'll away to the narrative now.
My Lady Em was sitting sideways in her royal throne, with her knees pulled up under her royal chin.
"Hey, Bathazar?" she called to a short young man with curly red hair. He looked up from the puddle where he'd been mopping the already spotless mirror floor.
"Hm?"
"Has the mail come yet?"
Bathazar had to think for a second. "Uh, yep. Three more invitations to three more royal balls, one thank-you card from the Duchess of Grubadub for the fondue set last November, and your new issue of Y'ello? came in."
"Oh goodie, there's a recipe in this one that I wanted to try. Uh, so… no news from you-know-who?"
Bathazar rested his chin on the mop handle and sighed. He'd gotten very good at sighing over the years. But his wasn't the long, ragged, noisy sigh that Pooktook took so much pride in. Bathazar was master of the short, nearly silent sigh of long-suffering good humor.
"Nope. Nothing."
"Drat!" My Lady Em snapped her gloved fingers, which is hard to do, with frustration. "Honestly. Maybe he still hasn't noticed it yet. Do think it's possible?"
"Hasn't noticed the giant 'May Contain Chickens' sign painted on the side of his castle? It's entirely possible."
"We are talking about Jareth, after all." She chuckled, and was silent for a few moments. "Think I should visit him?"
"You do whatever you want to do, Em." Bathazar went back to mopping. Personally, he couldn't understand His Lady's fascination with Jareth the Goblin King, of all persons. It certainly wasn't for his kingdom, the fabulously frumpy Labyrinth, and the guy himself was a slovenly dork! But she'd been pulling his pigtails for months now, figuratively speaking, setting off prank after prank hoping to elicit some reaction. As her personal confidant and Janitor, Bathazar knew it wasn't just out of mischief. But so far nothing had worked, not even the letter bomb.
"That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do it!" She tapped her knees in excitement, then stood up from the throne, her ample skirts tenting around her. "Want to come, Bath? Forget about the mopping."
--
Hey guys, this is my first Author's Note in this whole fic! Thanks for all the stupendously motivating comments. Zounds, you guys! And sorry for the month-long hiatus there, but – as some of you should be able to understand - I was busy winning NaNoWriMo! WooHoo! In other news, I've got this story plotted all the way to the end and so far I'm still enjoying myself, so who knows—maybe this fic will have an end! Let us all hope.
I have to say though, this is not my favorite chapter for some reason. What do you think of the characters here? Feedback please!
-Artoveli-
