Rowna stared at her reflection in the looking glass mounted on her bedroom wall, watching as the fairies fluttered around her head while snipping précised measurements of her hair. Thomes stood in the corner, smiling anxiously as the fairies finished cutting off a good length of Rowna's hair. "It looks perfect." Thomes insisted as the fairies begun to sweep up the fallen chunks of discarded hair from the floor.
"I hate it." Rowna stated simply, turning to glare at her father; her hair was now cut just above her shoulders. "It looks awful."
"I'm sure you'll get used to it." Thomes rolled his eyes, annoyed with Rowna's angst. "Now that your hair is fixed, and we have the proper clothes, along with you having mastered the glamour spell, everything is finally ready."
"Good, the sooner I get to the castle, the sooner this is all over." Rowna sighed softly, waving off the fairies who returned to her to begin styling her hair.
"Well, get to bed and get plenty of rest. You leave first thing in the morning." Thomes explained with a rather villainous smirk. Thomes walked over to where Rowna stood, kissing her affectionately on the cheek. "Soon the Goblin City will be ours." He then smiled softly at his daughter before excusing himself from the room, the fairies all following him out and shutting the door behind as they left.
"Not soon enough." Rowna mumbled to herself once she was alone, turning back to face the looking glass and glaring at her new short hair.
The next morning, in the Goblin City, Elle accompanied Asha to the markets after breakfast. Jareth's coronation anniversary was approaching and they were searching for the perfect gift for him. "What kind of stuff does he even like?" Elle questioned as they were looking over the stock of a vendor who sold animal pelts.
"Wells, books." Asha answered simply.
"I know that, but he has so many already." Elle insisted, "How could you possibly know if one you pick out is already in his collection or not?"
"Well he does own several different copies of the same books. He enjoys the look of the book as much as the content. Good cover art always appeals to him. He owns four copies of Ethan Frome, it's one of his favorites."
"I've read that book." Elle mentioned.
"Oh?" Asha seemed intrigued by the fact.
"I took an advanced English class and we read that book when we were studying symbolism in classic literature. Everyone else in the class hated it, but I always loved it. After we finished reading it and had to return our school copies of the book, I went to the bookstore to buy my own."
"I've never read it." Asha mentioned as they began to look at a table full of trinkets made from different gemstones found in the labyrinth.
"It's not for everyone," Elle admitted, "But it is worth reading at least once."
"Miss Asha!" A voice suddenly called out from across the market, whoever it was sounded distressed. Asha and Elle both looked up from the table of trinkets, turning their heads to see a guard from the castle rushing towards him. "Miss Asha, you must come back to the castle, quick!"
"What's wrong?" Asha inquired once the guard was closer; all eyes in the market were now on them.
"The King requests you return to the castle at once!"
"Whatever for?"
"There's a human!"
"A what?" Elle and Asha both spoke in unison as eavesdroppers all gasped in shock.
"There is a human wandering the exterior walls of the labyrinth!" The guard explained to them. "Now hurry, you must come quick!" The guard grabbed a hold of Asha's wrist, not giving her much of a choice before he then turned back to head towards the castle.
"Meet me back at the castle!" Asha shouted back to Elle as she was being dragged away by the guard.
"Okay!" Elle shouted back to her, not really knowing how to process what had just happened. "A human…" Elle spoke softly to herself, pondering the concept out loud. "How could a human even get here?"
"It used to happen a lot, actually." The vendor selling the gemstone trinkets spoke from behind his table. He was a short goblin with a beak and large eyes.
"Excuse me?" Elle turned to face the goblin curiously. "But how?"
"No one knows how really." The goblin explained. "They didn't even know. But they would just show up, their memories completely blank. It hasn't happened in so long though."
"What would happen to them?" Elle asked curiously.
"Well that depends on where they ended up and who found them. Most kings would send them to the coal mines to work, there's an entire village of humans who live there mining coal for whatever king claimed them as a slave of their kingdom. Even though most of the original humans who somehow ended up in this realm have all died, they had all mated and produced offspring, and then they had offspring, and so on, so the village still thrives."
"So because they somehow ended up here without knowing how they did, they were enslaved to mine coal for the rest of their lives?"
"Honestly, being sent to the coal village was the best thing to happen to humans who unknowingly ended up here. At least they were around their own kind. Not to mention, not all kings showed that much mercy when they found a human. King Thomes was always the worst. In his kingdom, there lived a pack of centaurs-"
"Centaurs? The half horse, half man creatures?"
"Yes. They used to roam the human world, but they did awful things to the humans and were being hunted for their crimes so they fled here. King Thomes gave them refuge in the forest that surrounds the border of his kingdom. And their favorite thing to do is torture humans, so whenever King Thomes came across a human…"
"He would give them to the centaurs."
"Exactly. It kept them docile for the most part, but once less and less humans started to appear here, they became anxious and started causing trouble so King Thomes began to execute them. He gathered them up and had them slaughtered. Some managed to escape and they wander now around the realm since no other kingdom will provide them with refuge."
"So what did Jareth do when he would find a stray human?" Elle asked, getting the conversation back on track.
"At first he would to send them to the mines." The goblin explained.
"At first?"
"Well…after Sarah, he just started to turn them into goblins."
"Sarah? Who's that?"
"We do not speak her name!" The goblin, about four feet tall and wrinkled worse than a raisin, working at the table next to them spoke. "Jareth has forbidden us to speak her name!" It screeched out. "Besides, these are not things young ladies need to hear. Now you get back to the castle quick!"
"He's probably right," The goblin with the beak insisted with a roll of its eyes. "You should get going before they bring the human to the castle, the entire city and the castle will probably be locked down soon so the human can't escape once it's brought in."
"Okay then." Elle waved halfheartedly at the two goblins before she turned to rush through the masses of goblins to make her way back to the castle. As Elle began to race back the concept finally hit her that there would be a new human in the castle, she wouldn't feel so incredibly left out anymore. That is, as long as Jareth didn't turn them into a goblin.