Firstly, I would just like to say a BIG THANK YOU to LovelyAmberLight, Ellen Weaver and TheRealEatsShootsAndLeaves for responding so positively and supportively to my previous author's note. I have since removed it, as I felt in retrospect it was a bit too personal and probably irrelevant to my writing. But I'm deeply appreciative that you took the time to respond when I was having a major wobble.
Thank you also to the Guest who left a lovely review. If I had your name I would personalise the thanks, but I'm grateful all the same.
The song in this chapter put me in mind of 'You're A Mean One Mister Grinch' when I was writing it. But insults aside, I don't think there are any similarities that would infringe on copyright etc. I don't own anything related to Labyrinth, but the songs are my own original work.
Please do let me know your thoughts, I learn so much from your feedback, thanks - Mrs P.
Into The Labyrinth
Chapter 10 - King Rat
The goblins scurried about preparing a breakfast tray for their new arrival.
"No," Jareth roared, "I do not think Sarah would like to begin her day with a bowl of slug porridge." He rarely ventured into the castle kitchens and was quickly reminded why it was best avoided. The gnarled wooden tables and counters were covered in all manner of gloop and goo. There were crawling creatures of every variety, particularly rats scurrying over anything that looked vaguely edible. "Clean this place up at once, you bunch of ninnyhammers" the king snarled. He was regretting not appointing Hoggle's sister as cook when the dwarf suggested her for the job. His last decent chef got bogged a few years ago for serving him peach cobbler at an inopportune moment.
It was no good; he would have to take matters into his own hands. Sarah's favourite food in the morning was blueberry pancakes drizzled with lashings of maple syrup. She made them for him once and they were heavenly. Jareth planned to conjure some up from out of his memory. He shook his head in despair over the efforts of the goblins he'd tasked with making freshly squeezed orange juice. They were crushing the whole fruit by stomping on them in an old metal bathtub; peel, pith, pips, and all. His hope of eventually recapturing her heart would not be off to a promising start if he offered her a goblet of that to drink.
"Hogbrain," the Goblin King hollered, calling for less-than-faithful servant. He suspected the dwarf had gifted the four-leaf clover pendant to Sarah, and intended to make his suspicions known. There would be no trip to the Bog of Eternal Stench, so long as Hoggle assisted him in regaining the affections of his intended.
"Does your Majesty want us to go and wake the girl up?" A snaggletooth goblin with a mean looking face asked. He and his three accomplices obviously intended to deliver a rude awakening. They snickered with glee at the prospect.
The Goblin King answered them with a scowl of disapproval.
"Sarah is to be Goblin Queen, and you will treat her with due respect," he commanded. "Anyone who upsets her will be bogged, or worse."
His subjects were suitably chastened. They scampered away to remove the booby traps they'd already laid.
Hoggle still hadn't appeared and the king summoned up a crystal to see where the dwarf was hiding.
Of course, he was with Sarah.
Jareth let out a weary sigh.
She looked pale and there was a world of sorrow in her sage green eyes.
"Never mind, Hogwash, you're worse than useless anyway," the king decided to let the dwarf off the hook. Sarah needed her friend more than he required his lackey. Plotting to wheedle his way back into her affections could wait. He shuddered to think about how soft he was becoming. Before Sarah came along, he wouldn't have thought twice about meting out severe punishments to anyone who dared to disobey him.
He conjured up her breakfast tray and entrusted one of his more competent subjects to deliver it. Something needed to be done. But what, he did not know. The Goblin King skulked off to his study to contemplate his next move.
"Hogbrain."
"Serve that no good rat right if I refused to answer him until he gets my name right," the little dwarf mumbled as he rolled his eyes with exasperation.
"Never mind, Hogwash, you're worse than useless anyway..."
"What am I gonna do?" Sarah fretted as she paced the floor.
"What did I tells you time and again? Don't have nothing to do with him, that's what I said. But would you listen?" Hoggle's reprimand was harshly delivered as he was irked over being continually slighted by the king.
She flopped down on the bed groaning and despairing over her foolishness, when a thought occurred to her. "Hey, wait a minute," she shot back up to fix him with an accusatory glare, "You were the one who gave me that damn peach."
Jareth told her that's what doomed her. Eating food gifted by the fae and delivered to her by someone she thought was a friend.
"I trusted you," she whimpered, tears stinging at her eyes.
The little dwarf was crestfallen. She was right; it was his fault for being so spineless. But his self-loathing made him lash out, and he turned his ire on her.
"I thought you would knows better than to eat it, but you didn't know anything, did you?" He angrily waggled his finger in Sarah's direction. "Fancy wishing your brother away to the goblins and their king without even thinking about what you was getting yourself into."
Seeing tears rolling down her cheeks silenced him, and caused him to lower his head in shame.
"I would jump headfirst into the Bog of Eternal Stench if I could makes it all alright again," Hoggle's fluffy brows drooped in despair. "I tried to makes amends with that four-leaf clover I gave you. Traded all my finest jewels for that, I did." It wasn't much by way of compensation for being an accessory to deceiving her in the worst way, he knew that. But he hoped she would somehow find it in her heart to forgive him, as she had done once before.
Sitting with her head in her hands, Sarah came to a painful realisation. It was no use blaming anyone else for the trouble she was in. Life wasn't fair, she already knew that, and taking responsibility for her own actions was part of the deal. She got herself into this mess, and by the double-barrelled jumping jiminetty, she would damn well get herself back out of it.
"Oh, Hoggle," Sarah sighed, "I've been such an idiot." Jareth had weaknesses and she needed to find ways of exploiting them. "I'm afraid the four-leaf clover pendant got broken, thanks to the goblins. I don't suppose you could get hold of another one, could you?"
He felt a spark of hope; her hurt and anger towards him seemed to have dissipated.
"I would, but I ain't got any more jewels to trade. Thems were my best ones," he jangled the few remaining worthless trinkets hanging from his belt.
Sarah contemplated the matter and a wicked grin broke out on her face. "Jareth's got a whole chamber full of precious stones and the like. He took me there once to see his dragon and to choose my seventeenth birthday present."
The Goblin King expected her to go weak at the knees over the Crown Jewels, as others had done before her. She confounded him by ignoring the gleaming mound in favour of an artwork hanging on the wall. It was one of Jareth's own creations, a watercolour depiction of her playacting in her old costume. Her likeness had been painstakingly captured, right down to the look of concentration as she tried to recall that troublesome last line from her playbook. He was reluctant to part with it, but it was the only thing Sarah wanted. What a contradictory being he was, she mused; sweet and thoughtful one minute, and the next, well, a rat.
"Are we still friends?" Hoggle questioned, looking bashful as he broke into her reverie.
She could tell from his contriteness how sorry he was, and how much he feared her rejection.
"Sure we are, I'm gonna need all the friends I can get in this place," Sarah gave him a warm hug to show she forgave him.
"Jareth is a rat," Hoggle fumed.
She chuckled, as she'd just been thinking the same thing.
"He thinks he's God's gift with those eyes, and those thighs,
He's really King Rat, the Devil in disguise."
The little dwarf nodded in agreement.
"He's a snake, a rake, and a great big fake,
He's bad, a cad, and raving mad,
He's a tinker, a stinker, and a hoodwinker,
A villainous, libidinous, smellfungus."
Sarah gleefully hurled some insults of her own.
"He's a fool, a tool and can be so cruel,
He's vain, a pain and totally insane,
He's a piece of work, a jerk, and berserk,
An ill-bred, brain-dead, peckerhead."
Hoggle liked this song.
"He's a humgruffin, codpiece stuffing…"
"Studmuffin?" Sarah cut in, before blushing furiously and shaking her head.
The dwarf tried again.
"He's a randy, dandy…"
"Lint covered hard candy?" She suggested to his nodded approval.
"He's a slippery eel, a squeaky wheel…"
"With sex appeal?" Sarah added and then slapped her forehead.
Hoggle raised his eyebrows with exasperation, but he still had plenty of insults left.
"He's a dim-wit, an annoying git, and a silly twit."
She gave him the thumbs up.
"He's a low class jackass, with too much sass, and…"
"Full of bog gas?" Hoggle chuckled.
"He's a fruit loop, a nincompoop, and worse than the croup."
Sarah applauded and thought up more ways to abuse the Goblin King.
"He's a creep, a nasty - bleep, and less appealing than a junk heap."
"He's a hornswoggler, a mind-boggler, and a cradle robber,"
Sarah grimaced over the implications of Hoggle's last insult.
"He's a dingbat, a spoiled brat, and as welcome as a gnat…"
"A King Rat," They declared in unison.
A knock at the door brought an eager goblin with a delicious looking breakfast.
Fawning over it for a second, with her mouth watering and offering profuse thanks, Sarah was touched that the Goblin King remembered blueberry pancakes were her favourite. Then the reality of her situation hit, and she took the tray with a harrumph of resentment.
"Damn him," she cursed.
The worse thing was, Sarah admitted to herself, she'd been falling in love with him.
"I'd better go and sees what his Majesty is up to," Hoggle grumbled as he shuffled towards the door. "You ain't on your own here, just you remember that." Gratefully, she nodded and smiled.
She hesitantly dug a fork into the pancakes; they looked fluffy and delicious. Her stomach growled in protest and she was practically drooling. It wasn't as if she hadn't eaten and drunk plenty of things there since the peach. But that was before Jareth dragged her kicking and screaming away from her home and family. Hunger got the better of her. Sarah scoffed down her breakfast before she could worry too much about if it was drugged. There were no ill after effects, to her relief.
The sun was streaming into the bed chamber through a large arched window. It led out onto a small balcony with a breath-taking view of the Goblin City and the Labyrinth. White and purple flowers spilled over the ledge from a climbing plant invading the castle walls. They gave off a scent which reminded her of liquorice. It was such a strange and beautiful place, the thought of one day calling it home had been growing on her. Sarah wished Jareth was standing on the balcony with her so she could slap his stupid face. Magically, he appeared, looking sheepish in the face of her fury.
"Why did you have to go and ruin everything?" She raged.
He made no reply, although his eyes spoke of regret.
Sarah looked down at her slouchy sweatshirt, tatty jeans and worn slippers.
"I haven't even got any clean clothes to change into," she bemoaned. It wasn't vanity that motivated her concern over her appearance, only the idea that freshening up might lift her spirits. He had at least equipped her with a luxurious en-suite bathroom.
Jareth gestured towards a triple set of mirrored doors.
"Everything you require has been provided for you."
Sarah advanced sceptically towards the closet and peered inside.
"What kind of delicate doily do you think I am?" She rifled unimpressed through the racks, angrily dismissing the multitude of fancy gowns hanging from them. "You once told me fae women were vain and shallow, and that's not what you wanted, so why do you insist on dressing me like one of them?"
She had a point. Jareth liked to believe he was unconventional, but the position of Goblin Queen required a certain level of decorum.
"I want my own clothes," Sarah demanded, her expression fierce.
He shook his head, "If I granted your wish, I would be assisting you in holding onto vestiges of your old life. You will dress in a way which befits your new station."
She slammed the closet door and crashed down so hard on the chair at her vanity, it was in danger of splintering.
"What the heck am I supposed to do all day? Just sit around looking decorous?"
Jareth thought he wouldn't mind that at all, but wisely didn't speak it aloud. He opened his mouth to inform her they had a wedding to plan and she would be coached in Fae etiquette, when loud chiming stopped him in his tracks. All the clocks simultaneously struck thirteen as their moving parts began to furiously spin around.
The Goblin King grinned.
"It is time for you to learn what a Goblin Queen does, and there's nothing like hands on experience."