Jareth stared at his brother's lifeless body as it lay crumpled on the flagstones.
Ariadne's claps echoed loud and hollow against the walls of the barren corridor. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the faint clashes of sword against sword. The fighting between his men and the guardsmen of the castle raged on.
None of that mattered anymore.
"Why?" he asked, not taking his eyes off his brother.
Her claps stopped. Several moments later he felt a pair of hands come to rest on his shoulders.
"Tell me," she said, her voice playful. "Just how invigorating did your bloodlust feel? Did it twist around your mind? Did your veins fill to the brim with fire?"
"Answer me!" he yelled as he spun around to face her.
Ariadne took a step back and pouted. "You're raising your voice to me? After all I've done for you?"
All she'd…
Jareth was still laboring to breathe from the fight. Normally he would've reached to his sword for comfort, for assurance… but he didn't have his sword now. Of course not. It was still lodged in Edric's breast plate.
The breast plate.
Jareth hesitated. He didn't want to look at the wound. He didn't want to face what he'd done. It'd make it all the more real. All the more monstrous.
He looked anyway.
His sword had pierced directly through the thickest part of the steel. He didn't have the strength to do that. No one did. At least… no one mortal.
Jareth tore his gaze away from his brother to stare at Ariadne. He was vaguely aware of her rambling about something, seemingly oblivious of what'd just happened.
He felt like he was going to be sick.
Ariadne had stayed away from their battle, letting brother clash equally against brother, only to return and put her hand behind the finishing blow.
"That is," she was saying. "I'm sure there are some more unfortunate, but you're sure putting them to the test. I think just about everyone you've ever known is gone now, driven away in part by you. Let's see, there was your mother and your father, those two peasant girls and their father, and now your brother…" She snorted. "You're very good at this killing thing, aren't you?"
Jareth stared at her in disbelief. Some of his past he had told her, but other parts… His life was a broken vase and someone had just tossed him some previously missing pieces. Slowly he tried to place them back together in a way that made sense.
"You've been with me this whole time," he whispered. "When you let Edric and me go, when you let us leave the labyrinth… you never really let us go."
"Of course not," she said simply. Almost cheerfully. "Why would I let go my property?"
Jareth's head spun. All of the disaster in his life… even before the plague… she'd been there the entire time.
And she'd just watched it happen.
"Why didn't you help?" he asked.
"How many times must we go over this?" she said with a sigh. "I did offer you my help and you didn't-"
"No, not that," Jareth said. "You could've… you could've saved my mother!"
Ariadne's amusement faded.
"Yes," she said. "But where would the gain have been in that?"
"The gain?"
"It was never my intention to make you happy," Ariadne said. "Quite the opposite in fact."
Her words hit him in one solid blow.
His father's continuous abuse of his mother, caused by dreams of perceived infidelity… Lord Baldric vision to spare his life, though Ariadne had admitted to that one… Even his brother…
I had nightmares. Terrible nightmares…
Jareth felt sick. His stomach heaved, and he had to fight to keep its contents down. An acrid tinge of it still managed to make its way up his throat. His legs were shaking, weak. He practically fell against the nearest wall for support.
And Moira… She'd taken her own life because…
I lost her. I didn't know… Oh God!
Moira had known Ethel was gone before anyone else had. She'd known while he and the village had still searched and tried to convince her otherwise. She'd known that Ethel was gone, never to return.
Not dead, just simply… gone.
Jareth had told both sisters about the Goblin Queen and the labyrinth. The three of them had made jokes about it. That day Moira and Ethel had been so furious with each other, both sisters pushed to their emotional breaking points.
All it would've taken was a careless slip of the tongue, a wish that hadn't really been meant… but had been said nonetheless.
Jareth straightened slightly, his legs regaining some of their earlier strength. He pushed himself off the wall and directly faced Ariadne.
The Goblin Queen.
"What happened to her?" he gritted through his teeth.
She actually had the gall to blink at him in confusion. "Who?" she asked blankly.
Her constant mind games, irritating even in his best of moods, were quickly pushing him into a new rage.
"Ethel," he said. "What happened to Ethel?"
"I'm afraid I don't have the slightest-"
"Did Moira wish her away?!"
Ariadne paused at that.
Her face settled into a mask of complete indifference as she regarded Jareth cooly. After a moment, she slunk over to him. She tilted his chin up with her finger and smiled.
"Even if she was," the Goblin Queen said. "That would be a private matter between me and the deceased wisher."
Jareth pushed her away with both hands. He stared at her in horror.
"What the hell did you do to her?" he breathed.
"I'm the Goblin Queen," she said with a casual shrug. "Attempt a guess."
He stood there, speechless, as she started to laugh. Her voice rang out rich and terrible, the sounds sending shivers through his skin and into his bones.
His whole life, everyone he'd ever known, had been controlled string by string as if part of some ghastly marionette show. Ariadne had played with them all, enacting out her personal fantasies of death and destruction, letting them all destroy each other for… for what? For her amusement? He couldn't conceive of another purpose. They were all dead, and she was just standing there. Laughing.
And then it caught his eye…
Nestled in the hollow of her pale throat, it dangled, glistening.
I thought you'd never ask. It's the source of many of my… how would you put it… useless powers.
Ariadne was a witch. A cold, black-hearted witch who survived off the misery of others. She'd seemed immortal… was immortal. If this didn't work, she'd mostly kill him on the spot.
But death was hardly a threat after everything else she'd taken from him.
Jareth lunged forward before she could realize his intentions. He grabbed the medallion - snapping it from its cord - and plunged the sharp ends into her chest mid-laugh.
Ariadne silenced immediately. The Goblin Queen stared at him in shock for several seconds. She grabbed his hand as it remained clutched into the pendant, cementing it to her chest. Both watched as the blood slowly blossomed beneath the polished metal. It trickled down her chest, dyeing her ivory dress a vengeful crimson.
Then her lips curved into a small smile, her last beguiling smile. Her fingers loosened around his wrist and she toppled backwards to the floor. As her head hit the stone cobbles, a bright light engulfed the entire corridor.
Jareth stretched his arm out, attempting to shield his eyes until the light faded, but it only seemed to intensify with each passing second. It pierced through him, burning first his eyes and then his chest.
He gasped for breath but no air rushed in…
When Jareth woke he was lying face down on the floor, his cheek pressed into the cold stone.
His head… didn't ache actually. His mind was strangely clear. And despite sensing the chill of stone, his skin wasn't cold itself. His skin wasn't anything. He felt nothing. No hunger… no thirst…
Which meant that he had to be dead. In claiming Ariadne's life, she'd managed to claim his own. The thought wasn't all that depressing. He could do with a rest.
Slowly Jareth pushed himself up onto his knees and looked around. He still wasn't sure if he had gone to heaven or to hell, and his current surroundings weren't making it any easier to guess. At least not initially.
He was kneeling in a spacious hall of polished white marble. Open windows littered the walls, bathing the place with crisp sunlight and a gentle breeze.
To anyone else it would've been undoubtedly heaven. It had all the right atmosphere and serenity.
However Jareth knew he'd been here before, long long ago. The memories were slow at first, mere trickles, but they soon gathered into a rushing stream.
It was the witch's palace. The place where everything had first begun to fall apart, even if he hadn't known it then. A citadel of deception. A nesting place of evil.
It other words: hell.
In a daze, he stood and made his way slowly over to one of the many windows. The labyrinth from his memories stretched beneath him, its white walls gleaming harshly in the sunlight. The sheer intensity would have hurt his eyes… providing he could still feel.
He stared out for as long as he could before he couldn't take it anymore. He turned away, his chest unstably hollow. He could feel his heart beating within, but even it felt somewhat shriveled.
Suddenly Jareth did feel something. Something very cool and heavy was pressing down against his chest. He looked down to see the pendant hanging from a simple cord around his neck. The metal was smooth and deceptively free of the blood it'd just been drenched in. He clasped his hand around it, letting the slight chill sink into his palm.
It was his one source of feeling at the moment. His one tie to the mortality he'd once had, and yet…
No. It was an object of dark magic, sustaining the ageless witch through all her years. It was anything but a tie to mortality.
He dropped it, and it swung briefly before coming to a rest with an empty thud in the center of his chest.
Was that it then? Was this the end of his fate? He hadn't expected full redemption, but to be condemned to hell for eternity, to this hell with its mockingly white walls and white floors and white everything… He would've chosen Dante's inferno any day over this deceitfully pure prison.
His feet began to wander and Jareth let them.
He hadn't gotten very far when there a flash of dark brown out of the corner of his eye. He vacantly turned to face it.
It was a small goblin, clothed in a white tunic. It stood now, unmoving in the center of the hallway as it stared at him with large, open eyes.
Another torment. Perhaps if he just ignored it…
"King!" it shouted in a loud, shrill voice. "New king!" And then it threw itself on the floor, its arms outstretched in front of him.
Jareth took a step back in shock.
"What did you call me?"
"New king!" the goblin repeated, not raising its head from the floor. "Queen is dead! So you is King!"
The Queen…
Had he misinterpreted his new lack of feeling and location? Was it possible he hadn't gone to hell after all?
No, a small voice in his head whispered to him. You're just in a different one.
Jareth dismissed it. Not being dead meant there were still possibilities. He wasn't condemned to eternal damnation just yet.
"How…?"
"You have all Queen's powers," it said, lifting an arm to point directly at him. At the metal pendant. "You is King now."
King. It certainly had a nice ring to it, but king of what? He surveyed his first potential subject and sneered in disgust.
If he did indeed have all of Ariadne's powers now, he'd manage to find creative uses for them. But as for a kingship, this kingship… he'd rather pass.
"How do I get back?" he asked.
At this the goblin raised its head. It blinked in confusion. "Back?"
"Yes," Jareth snapped. "To my world."
Ariadne had done it easily enough. Of course, she'd always been invisible while doing so, but Jareth would manage to find a way around that.
"But… but this is your world."
Jareth strode over and the goblin squeaked in terror. He lifted it up by the collar until it was at eye level.
"This is not my world," he growled.
"You is King!" it gasped. "World and King are the same!"
The goblin babbled a bit more before Jareth threw it down on the floor in disgust. He wasn't going to get anything intelligent from it.
He wandered the halls, searching for a goblin who could string more than five words together at the same time. The creatures seemed to pop up in almost every other corridor. They initially greeted him with a mixture of enthusiasm and reverence but were soon left gulping in fear. None of them had the information he wanted. Over and over again, he interrogated them until finally he found one that had some answers.
But they weren't the ones he wanted.
"What do you mean I can't go back!?" Jareth snapped.
The small cowered in one of the many white, marble corners. It was a wretched old thing. Its little white robe was tattered in places and barely covered its knees. Jareth towered over him, barely resisting the urge to throttle it.
"You is the king!" it squealed just like all the others. "King lives in his kingdom!"
Jareth bit back a howl of rage. He was exhausted with repeating himself. "I am not your king! This isn't my world! I never asked for this!"
The most frustrating thing about it was how true it was. Maybe if he'd been expecting it… if he'd known in advance that this would happen, then he wouldn't have…
But in those fateful seconds, all he'd wanted - all he'd wished for - was her death and the possibility of finally being free.
"King can only go over when we all go."
Jareth snapped back to attention.
"What did you say?"
"King goes when we go."
"And when's that?"
The old goblin stared up with him with annoyingly weepy eyes, "When we're asked to?"
He was about to ask who the hell would ever ask the goblins to visit when he froze.
Many people did. His brother certainly had, wretched day it'd been. He'd suspected Moira had; Ariadne had all but confirmed it. Only God knew how many others had called upon the miserable creatures by accident or otherwise.
Well, that was one trait of the old queen's that he was never adopting. Killing, he supposed, wasn't the most virtuous of acts, but harming children was just distasteful.
And yet it seemed to be the last remaining connection to his world. Perhaps he'd be able to go just the once, use the evil magic to get back and then run before it could take hold of him again. Perhaps he could just refuse to go…
Jareth caught the goblin trying to sneak away out of the corner of his eye. It was making pathetic sniveling noises as it crawled to freedom. He felt a headache coming on… It seemed he hadn't quite lost his sense of pain and discomfort after all. Sharp pangs echoed behind his temples.
The goblin was moving so slow… so agonizingly slow…
Jareth kicked it, and it quickly scampered off. A silent feeling of relief followed, but it only lasted until the next corridor.
The goblins learned quickly to avoid their new majesty's temper.
As the magic would have it, Jareth didn't have a choice. One minute he'd been imagining new torments for his pathetic subjects, the next he was standing in squalor.
He blinked in surprise.
A woman with a lined face and dirt-stained hands blinked back. She was holding a baby.
"I wished for the Goblin Queen," she said.
"She's… been indisposed," he found himself saying.
Jareth glanced around. He was standing outside in some sort of narrow alleyway. The stench was foul; he couldn't help but wrinkle his nose. It was dark, although between the overhanging rooftops it was difficult to see the stars. In the distance, he could hear the sound of drunken laughter and squalling infants.
He almost sighed with relief. The halls and halls of pristine white had been starting to drive him mad.
How long had he been king for? It seemed like forever, but when he started to think logically about it, it couldn't have been that long. Weeks perhaps? Or had it been only days?
This was his chance. He had to take it.
Jareth glanced down both directions of the alleyway. It didn't matter what was down either one. He just needed to get away…
A hand clamped down on his wrist as he started to bolt.
"What are you doing?" she asked, almost… angrily.
"What am I doing? What the hell are you doing?!"
The woman released her grip, but stood her ground. "We're all told the stories," she said. She paused, then held out her baby. "I summoned you. So take her."
"What? You called me on purpose?"
"I know about the deals. In exchange for her, I want you to erase these memories. Give me new ones, me and the midwife. Have us believe she died in childbirth. That she was respectfully buried."
Jareth gaped at her. He didn't know how to tamper memories, how to respond to this mad woman, how to anything.
"No," he finally said.
"No?! You're from the goblins! You're not supposed to say no!"
"I'm not from the gob-"
"Nevermind," she snapped. "I don't care about the memories. Just take her and be done with it!"
"But I don't-"
"Take her!"
The woman practically dropped her baby into his arms. His hands slipped, barely managing to catch the infant.
"Wait, I-"
But the woman was already running off, vanishing into the darkness of the alleyway. Jareth took a step after her and promptly stepped in some unidentifiable muck. He grimaced in disgust.
He looked down at the baby in his arms, his brain not fully comprehending what had just happened. He couldn't just leave the child in the alleyway, but he also couldn't waste this chance. He could always flee now and find someone to give it to later…
Jareth felt someone tug on his trousers.
A particularly hairy goblin with nubbly horns was standing by his feet. Its hands were outstretched to take the baby.
Jareth looked around in despair. He was too late; the magic had already returned him to the wretched castle. Or maybe there was no 'too late.' Maybe he was always destined to return.
Jareth refused to give the baby to the goblin.
"What are you going to do to it?" he asked.
"It's goblin. Part of the labyrinth."
He looked at the babe sleeping peacefully in his arms.
"No. She's human."
"It's goblin now. Same as all of us."
Jareth began to protest further, but really, what could he do? He had no idea how to take care of an infant.
His mind detached as he watched himself hand over the small creature to the hairy goblin. As it trod out of the room, Jareth felt as though there was something he really ought to remember… something very important… a someone perhaps… small and giggling with a large bush of curls…
His fingers absent-mindedly stroked his pendant.
The fleeting thought evaporated.
He shook his head as he returned to the present. Oh well. It couldn't have been that important.
Suddenly Jareth was aware of a terrible stench; he covered his nose.
It seemed the muck from his boot had travelled back with him. He later had several of the goblins attempt to scrub it clean. Nothing they did was able to remove the smell, and at the end the goblins smelled just as bad as the boot.
Their frowns of displeasure as they left amused him. Perhaps the stench could become a torment in and of itself.
Despite his initial protestations, Jareth soon took another child… and then a third. It was hard to feel guilty when the magic forced him there and forced him back. However, even without that rationalization, it grew rather easy rather fast.
Both newborns and half-grown children were wished away. Jareth often had to personally collect the infants, but the children tended to be transported straight to the throne room of his labyrinth while he dealt with the wisher.
Some of the children had been abused. Their skins were mottled with bruises.
So many more were simply… unwanted. They were the children born out of wedlock, the unwanted daughters, the latest sibling in a line of too many mouths to feed…
And he was the garbage collector. The merciful alternative to infanticide.
After awhile, Jareth started to take a sadistic pleasure in the collection, twisting a knife of guilt into anyone he could. Some of them pleaded that they hadn't meant it, that they'd acted on impulse, but their cries fell on deaf ears. To him, anyone who wished away their own flesh and blood, regardless of circumstance, didn't deserve the child.
The very first time he accepted a runner's challenge, he didn't have to do a thing. The pitiful creature got herself helplessly lost within the first hour and then spent the next twelve crying.
Some strange feeling ignited and began to crackle in his heart as he watched her fall apart at the end of it all. She scrambled at his boots, begging, pleading for him to give her baby back.
He simply held her child in his arms, not even tilting his head down to fully regard her.
"Get out of my kingdom."
And just like that, she disappeared, the tear-stained marble the only sign that a human had been there at all. Jareth frowned as he examined it closer. The marble seemed slightly dingier these days. Browner. Coarser.
It was probably just his imagination.
He passed the child off to one of his many attendants and wandered through the corridors of his castle. Here and there goblins pranced and laughed and shrieked and scurried and thieved and mostly took care to stay out of their king's way. There were a few who still defied him. The fireys, some of the worms along the outer wall, the more repulsive of the junk people…
And then there was the Wiseman…
Jareth shuddered in disgust. He hated that old man. The way he plodded around, speaking without hesitation or deference, it was like he thought he was the true king of the labyrinth. But whenever Jareth turned around to prepare a suitable punishment, the Wiseman was nowhere to be found. One of these days…
Ultimately though, his kingdom was a good resting place for the unwanted. The denizens of the labyrinth knew no true hunger or pain or fear. At least, not in the way the human world knew it.
And so the years passed.
Every so often Jareth would accept another runner. It didn't happen very often. Almost everyone who called on him knew exactly who he was and who he would come to claim. However, very rarely there'd be someone who started to regret or claimed they hadn't really known. Half the time he paid them no heed and the other half they were too scared to take on the challenge of running his labyrinth, but once a blue moon he welcomed the entertainment.
Sometimes the runners would get somewhat creative. They'd make a decent amount of progress. Even with them though, Jareth rarely had to interfere. The labyrinth was good at sourcing out those who were not its own, at exploiting their own hidden fears and weaknesses and ensnaring them in one of its infinite traps.
Time and time they stood before him at the end of the thirteenth hour. Each time he turned them away with a smile.
He had rescued another child from its abysmal mortal fate.
Jareth lounged sideways on his throne, ignoring the cacophony of his subjects. He was finding his immortality somewhat overrated these days. What use was it when every day was the same?
Still, he wouldn't give it up. He had a position to maintain.
Some years it felt like the number of children being wished away was declining. Perhaps he'd been too lax. The stories seemed to be losing their edge.
Not only that, but many of the ones who did wish for him had a new defiance to them, as if they hadn't really expected anyone to come. The mortals' faith in science was rising as their belief and fear of the mystic was beginning to fade. He needed to fix that…
Although there was a new sort of fun in breaking them. There was a sadistic pleasure in seeing the rational ones so terrified by the creatures of magic they'd long since denied.
Jareth suddenly felt the tug of a call.
Speak of the devils.
He followed it to a sparsely decorated bedroom and a terrified young girl.
She stared at him with eyes that were far too young and open. He knew the type; she was most likely a sibling.
"You called me?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "I didn't think… They say you take children and give dreams."
Well. She was definitely direct about it.
"That is true," Jareth said slowly. "But I only take what is freely given. Was the child really yours to give away?"
The girl sucked in a deep breath. "I don't care!" she screamed. "I hate him! He's always whining… always crying… always ruining everything!"
Once again, the wretchedness of human selfishness sickened him. It didn't matter whether this girl was mother or sister; like all the others, the child was better off in the labyrinth.
He was about to refuse the girl's dreams and return home when he heard a patter of footsteps in the hall. The doorway of the bedroom slammed open.
"Maria! What's going on?! I heard shou…"
The new girl's words died on her lips as she stared at the two of them.
"…ting."
Her eyebrows raised and she made the sign of the cross. She quickly rushed between the two of them, her floral skirts swishing as she pushed the first sister protectively behind her. A small gold crucifix hung around her throat and she grabbed it out of some hope for protection. She looked somewhat older than her sister, but not by much.
"What's going on?" she said coldly. "Who are you?"
"No one of your concern. This is a private matter solely between your sister and I."
"What are you talking about?" the older sister said. Then she paused, searching the room. She glanced at Maria. "Where's Fernando?"
"…he's gone," Maria said.
The older sister turned on the younger, the mysterious stranger completely forgotten for a moment. She grabbed both the girl's shoulders, fingers digging tight. "Gone? What do you mean gone?!"
Maria pushed her away, "Exactly what I said! Gone! Don't look at me like that, you hated him too! Papa doesn't care about either of us anymore! Everything is always Fernando this! Fernado that! What a good son, Fernando! He was never happy with just daughters… well… now maybe he'll learn to be grateful with what he has!"
Her older sister slapped her. Maria clutched her cheek in shock and indignation, the skin red beneath her fingers.
The older sister turned to Jareth. "Fernando wasn't hers to wish away," she said. "Give him back."
He was almost moved by the bold display. Almost.
He smiled.
"What's said is said."
"What? She's his sister, not his mother. She doesn't have any right!"
"She's a guardian, that's all that matters."
"Then by that definition, I have just as much right over him as she does," she said. "And I demand you return him to me. Right now."
Jareth opened his mouth to refuse, eager to see the despair take over her valiant features, but then he paused. There was something about the older sister's eyes… a flicker of something distant and unbending. The black curls of her hair… the fierce curve of her lips as she glared at him, defiant and… unafraid. A fire burned there, deep and passionate.
He wanted to see it crushed beneath his foot.
"There is one way to get your brother back," he said. "But it is extremely dangerous. Your brother is currently in the castle at the center of my labyrinth. You'll have thirteen hours to make your way there. Fail and you lose him forever."
"I'll do it," she said without hesitation.
It should've have pleased him that she'd taken the bait, but if anything he was even more irritated.
Jareth caught the eye of the younger sister, Maria. She seemed to cower in upon herself, giving her sister dirty, disbelieving looks. The perfect coward.
"I'm not quite finished," he said to the older sister. "There is a catch. As you were not the one to wish your brother away, you can't run my labyrinth by yourself. Your sister must agree to accompany you."
"No!" Maria cried. "I refuse!"
"You started this," the older one yelled at her. "By God in heaven and all the demons in hell, you are going to help me fix it."
Maria started to cry, but her wails fell on deaf ears. The older sister yelled at Maria until she finally accepted through her tears.
Jareth deposited them on one of the hills outside his labyrinth, leaving them with the extra challenge of even being able to figure out how to enter. Maria burst into tears all over again.
The first hour had begun.
The older one's name was Isabella, he soon learned.
It hadn't been that hard to discover. All the younger one had done since the clock began was whine and scream her name. He quickly muted the crystal he was watching from. When even their silent images began to give him a headache, he tossed it aside and watched the toddler wander around the thrown room floor as various goblins poked and prodded at him. He didn't seemed fazed by them in the slightest and chatted with the creatures in equally broken sentences.
When Jareth was bored with that, he pulled out another crystal. It took him awhile to realize where they were, but even then…
No, that couldn't be right.
They shouldn't have gotten that far already. They were already within the labyrinth and deep within the initial stone portion, quickly on their way to breaking into a new section. Not even a full hour had passed yet. He focused the crystal closer.
Isabella had apparently gotten her younger sister to shut up. Maria was trailing several steps behind her, clearly sulking, but not causing trouble either.
Well, that wouldn't do at all.
Jareth reached out to raise a stray root from the ground. It snagged Maria's foot and she tripped, hitting the dirt with a silent cry. Their reactions were just slow enough and the gap just wide enough for him to construct a new wall between them.
He smirked to himself as he watched the sisters realize what had just happened. They rushed forth, their fists banging on both sides of the wall.
He vanished the crystal again and made his way out of his throne room. He stopped in a hall that provided him with a good viewpoint of that particular section.
As fun as the initial separation had been, it wasn't a direct solution. If anything, the older sister would only move faster once she'd dried her tears. He regretted that he hadn't made it a stipulation that they both make it to the center.
Regret wouldn't solve anything though. No, it was time for… subtler manipulations.
Even though he couldn't see them from this distance, he could sense the two sisters. They were intruders, as fully un-magical as the labyrinth fully was, brown pinpricks against the verdant green.
Within a blink he was leaning against a stone wall, watching as Maria sulked on the labyrinth floor. He could feel Isabella already growing further and further away, but Maria hadn't moved an inch from where they'd been separated.
"Your sister is a terrible bore," he said.
Maria jumped. She looked warily at Jareth, as if expecting him to do something nasty, and then sighed.
"You're telling me."
Jareth fought the urge to roll his eyes. This would be so easy it wasn't fair.
"She didn't even ask you about how you felt. About what you went through before you wished for me," he said. "And then she ordered you here like a slave… not a very fair relationship."
"No. It isn't."
He smiled and pushed himself away from the wall.
"You were right earlier. I do bestow dreams. Sometimes. Would you a like gift?" he asked, holding out a newly manufactured crystal.
Maria stared at it as he danced it back and forth between his hands. Her eyes slowly darkened, entranced by the movement. She stood up and moved hesitantly closer.
"But that's just a crystal…"
"Just a crystal?" he said, feigning shock. "Maybe on the outside, yes. But so many things are much more than what they first seem."
Already he could feel the images, the future memories bleeding out of his crystal and into her head. He wouldn't have to explain any further. Once people noticed his gifts, truly noticed them, they understood. She reached out to touch it…
Jareth drew his hand back.
Maria shook out of her trace. She stared at him in confusion and slight indignation, as if he'd just personally robbed her.
"Not quite yet," he said with a dangerous smile. "You see, my gifts always come with a price…"
Isabella stood before him in the throne room. Jareth sat in his throne, staring at her coldly.
"Where is my brother?" the girl asked, voice smooth despite the situation.
"I'm afraid that's for you to figure out," he said.
"No," she said. "Your labyrinth was for me to figure out. And I did."
Jareth was bending his own rules. The girl had found her way to the center of the labyrinth. If he was being fair, he ought to have returned her brother to her.
But was this really the center? Was it center really just a place? Wasn't it more of a perception? Surely, it was a bit of both.
As long as he held onto that, the girl hadn't beat him.
She couldn't beat him.
Not to mention that he still had… a back-up plan of sorts…
He shook his head. "This is all the labyrinth," he told her.
With a flick of his eyes, a clock hung itself on the wall behind the girl. She turned, staring at it. Less than two minutes remained.
He watched Isabella bite her lip, clearing trying not to panic.
"Tick tock," he trilled.
"Shut up," Isabella muttered.
His nostrils flared at that. "Be careful, girl," he said, a steel-edge to his voice. "You can't imagine the punishments I've doled out over such insolence."
"I'd like to see you-" she started.
And then she paused. The clock's ticks continued to pierce the air.
"To who? Your subjects?" she suddenly asked.
"What?"
"I had it right," she breathed. "I had it right the whole time. As soon as I reached the castle, it should've been over. This is all just your last cowardly trick!"
Jareth scowled. What was she…
"Punish your subjects all you want!" Isabella cried out triumphantly. "Punish them and torment them and confuse them to the end of time, but I…" She took a deep breath. "I have made my way to the castle beyond your goblin city and you have no power over-"
The air was knocked out of Isabella's lungs as Maria tackled her to the ground. The older sister flung out her arms to protect herself as Maria's fingers shot out, pushing… clawing…
Isabella managed to push her sister off her, her chest heaving in and out with exertion. She stared at her attacker and her eyes widened in shock.
"Maria?!" she gasped. "What… why?!"
Her younger sister said nothing, merely gazing down at her hands with a shadowed expression.
Jareth smiled.
Isabella twisted to face the Goblin King, her mouth gaping in disbelief.
"You!" she accused, her face twisting as her voice dripped with pure malice. "I should've-"
But Isabella was cut off a second time, this time by the spine-numbing sound of the clock sounding out thirteen hours in deep, hollow tolls. With each one, the sisters lost some of some their focus, their colors blurring. The older one reached out towards him and then vanished completely.
Jareth smirked at the empty space she'd once occupied.
He remained undefeated.
One day, Jareth felt new type of summoning tug.
At first he hadn't even reacted, expecting the magic to wish him away to wherever it saw fit, but after several hours of redesigning the southern oubliettes he realized that he hadn't been forcibly called yet. And the tug was still there.
He was intrigued by this new, optional summon. He reached out, attempting to follow its path across the two worlds as he always did, and was promptly blocked. Shaking off the mental slap, he held his mind back and examined the source.
If his normal summons were akin to a temporary bridge, then this was a barely a string tied between two decaying tree stumps.
Of course… what did he have to lose?
He reached along the minuscule connection. Impossibly, it seemed to grow even smaller as he traversed its length. He felt himself being squeezed, his mind and body pressed together into a single point, and still he pushed forward.
Suddenly he popped out on the other side and… ruffled his feathers?
Jareth was perched on a large tree branch, his vision sharp and alien. He couldn't turn his eyes, but he could turn his neck… and turn and turn… His beak snapped slightly in the night air.
Well. This was new.
He disregarded the transformation for the time being.
He could tell simply by the feel of the air that he'd made it to the human realm. There had to be a reason for it. Someone had called him… but who?
He scanned his immediate surroundings. There were no nearby humans. No teary-eyed mothers with sleeping infants. So why was he here? What other purpose could anyone have with him?
His eyes settled on a nearby house. An open window rested directly parallel with his current branch. Light was spilling out from whatever room lay beyond. Jareth fluttered awkwardly over to its sill and peered inside.
An old woman was hunched over a desk illuminated by a single candle, scribbling what appeared to be some sort of manuscript. Even with his improved vision, he couldn't make out any of the words. He attempted to shuffle closer, perhaps enter the room itself, but some invisible force stopped him at the threshold.
He ruffled his feathers and waited. And waited. The old woman continued to write, oblivious to her new visitor.
Perhaps this wasn't what he'd been summoned for. Perhaps there was something else nearby… But every time his patience drained and he was gripped with the urge to fly away, something stronger told him that he was exactly where he needed to be.
After a great long while the woman stood up and stretched. Her grey hair was elegantly pulled back and pinned in a bun. Around her neck lay a simple gold chain and crucifix. The woman glanced at the window and then paused.
Jareth froze, not sure what to do now that he'd been spotted. He hardly cut an imposing figure in this form. He wasn't sure if he even had any of his magic at his disposal. He was completely defenseless…
And completely anonymous. For the first time in centuries, his reputation did not precede him.
He stayed perched on the sill as the old woman approached.
"Why hello there, little one," she said in a slightly raspy voice. She paused with her hand half-outstretched, fully expecting him to flee. Her eyes widened slightly when he did not move a feather. "Well, aren't you a peculiar creature?"
Jareth blinked, and the old woman smiled.
"I don't have any mice for you I'm afraid," she continued. "But I do a have a new story. Well…" Her eyes suddenly darkened. "It's more of a guide really. And a warning. Though most won't know it until they need it. Would you like to see?"
He gave a small hoot, and she extended an arm. A part of him internally retched, but he'd been called here for a reason. It seemed he had no choice but to humor the crone. Jareth hopped onto her arm, and she effortlessly carried him over the building's threshold.
A shock ran down his owlish spine as they approach the parchment and its words became legible.
The manuscript was many pages long, neatly laid out in various piles and all crammed with a tight, cursive script. The penmanship was quite impressive for one so old…
However it was the title written at the top of the main page that grabbed his full attention.
El Laberinto.
"Please, sire! I didn't mean to knock over that statue! I'll do anything! Just please, please don't drop me!"
Jareth yawned as he gripped one his goblins tightly by the collar, dangling it over the Bog of Eternal Stench. Just as he was beginning to enjoy himself, he felt one of the small book summons at the back of his mind.
In the centuries since it'd been published, the old woman's book had been translated into countless languages and had slowly made its way around the world, frightening some minds and enchanting others. Not every reading resulted in a summon. In fact, as far as he'd been able to tell, most didn't. The readers who called him had to be particularly ensnared by it, the dead woman's tale resonating some deep core within them.
Of course, the greatest irony was that the book did not serve as a warning. People still wished children away, albeit more and more infrequently as the years passed.
And it most definitely had not served as a guide. His labyrinth remained twisted and proud and unbeaten.
For his part, Jareth had learned to ignore most of the book summons. Unlike direct wishes, he had the option to and very rarely did anything happen from them. Boring as his realm was, watching a child read a book in silence for hours was even more so.
However, he was feeling particularly apathetic that day and followed the call, instantly vanishing and dropping the hapless goblin into the bog in the process.
Jareth blinked his eyes in the harsh daylight to find himself in what looked to be a rather large park.
The concept of parks still amused him, the humans now adopting nature into manageable chunks, just as one would a cat or dog.
He searched for the one who'd called him, trying to spot anyone holding a book. There was no one.
Jareth was beginning to wonder if the magic had made a mistake for once when he heard the voices.
They belonged to children and they were arguing. He flew in the direction of the source, coming to rest in a tree right above the main conflict.
Nearby lay what was called a 'playground' these days. It swarmed with children and, beyond that, mildly disinterested parents. Below was a shaded grove, just barely out of sight from watchful eyes. Several boys were clustered around a smaller girl, harassing her.
"Leave her alone!" another girl suddenly shouted.
She stomped over through the trees from the playground, inserting herself between the victim and the bullies. Her long black hair had been braided into pig tails. She stuck out her lip, her eyes blazing as she stared down the bullies.
"Yeah? Or you'll do what?" one of them asked.
"I'll…" She raised her shoulders back. "I'll wish you away to the goblins!"
The group laughed. The pig-tailed girl's cheeks burned, but she stood her ground.
"Goblins aren't real, stupid," another one eventually said.
"How do you know?" she said.
"Because we do. Maybe if you didn't always have your nose in those stupid books of yours, you'd know what's real and what's only in baby stories."
"They're not baby stories," the girl muttered.
"Yeah, whatever," a boy said. "Now get out of the way."
He reached out to push her aside.
"Kyle? Brian?" a parent's voice shouted in the distance. "Are you causing trouble?!"
"No!" two of the boys shouted back.
All the boys looked at each other, and then one snorted in annoyance.
"Come on," he said, motioning for the rest to leave. "Girls are lame anyway."
When they'd gone, the pig-tailed girl rested her hand on the shoulder of the younger one.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"Yeah," the younger one said softly, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Thank you, Sarah."
Jareth followed the girl, Sarah, for a while after that. There was definitely something intriguing about her. She definitely had courage and spirit… and to brazenly threaten her foes with his goblins… she'd make for an especially entertaining runner.
He watched as the girl continued to play for a bit more before leaving the park with her father. Jareth cautiously swooped from tree to tree, following them. A young puppy greeted the two humans with enthusiastic barks when they arrived home. He watched from various windows as the two made dinner, put on a television program, had some quiet reading time, and then ultimately went to sleep.
Jareth couldn't remember a time when he'd been more disappointed. What good was the possible potential when the girl had no siblings to use it on?
The girl's courageous face as she stared down the bullies… bowed by tears and frustration. Jareth imagined how satisfying it'd be to truly see, and then he shook the thought away. There was no use tempting himself with visions that would never be.
He flew off into the night sky.