4 historical figures whose lives Jareth changed (and one from the future)
By LadyRhiyana
Written for aliasheist in the 09/10 Labyrinth fic exchange at labyrinth_ex. Go check it out.
Prompt: Jareth befriends a famous historical figure and both are changed for the experience. Who was it, when, and where, and under what circumstances do they meet?
Plot Summary/Author's Note: In which we see 4 genuine historical (or at least quasi-historical) figures whose lives Jareth has meddled in. And 1 thrown in just for fun.
Four Lives
1.
The hammering on his door began just as the sun rose over the horizon. The old house-slave shuffled his way to the entrance, grumbling under his breath – only to be rudely thrust aside by the impromptu guest.
"Where is your Hades-damned master?" The shouted demand echoed throughout the whole house. "Wake him immediately!"
Jareth yawned, pleasantly fatigued, and anticipated the result of last night's mischief and mayhem. Swift, impatient footsteps echoed on the mosaic floors, and moments later a young man erupted dramatically into his bedchamber, fists clenched, tawny eyes blazing.
"Demon!" the young man spat. "Do you know what you have done?"
"Why don't you tell me," Jareth drawled, rising from the bed and stretching; he felt the other's eyes on him, and smiled.
"The guardian sth-statues!" The young man turned to pace, the edges of his long cloak trailing rakishly on the floor. "Every single one in the city smashed and defiled last night. Blasphemy of the worst sort, and now, of all times –"
"And you and your friends' little play on the Mysteries wasn't blasphemy?" Jareth's voice was deliberately taunting.
The young man's eyes – curiously leonine – turned molten gold with wrath. "That was different," he snarled petulantly.
He really was quite beautiful: a natural athlete, a brilliant intellect, the force of his potential – everything he was, everything he could one day be – burning in him unrestrained like wildfire. Even his flaws were larger than life. They said that he'd gone so far as to bite one of his wrestling partners, once, when he'd been in danger of losing.
Jareth believed it.
"Alcibiades," Jareth soothed, gripping the other's shoulders, bracing him, "they won't sail without you, no matter how many statues they think you've defiled. You're Athens' darling, her brilliant golden child. They need you – do you think they stand a chance of success without you?"
The flattery worked like magic on Alcibiades' ego. His eyes brightened, and he laughed, spilling warmth and charisma with careless abandon. "Ha! Those useless old men – they will beg me to fight for them. You'll see – it will be glorious, just like you promised, old friend."
Jareth smiled. "Yes, my dear," he said, almost too softly for Alcibiades to hear. "You'll blaze a trail across Greece that will never be forgotten."
2.
The battle-fever had cooled, leaving behind the dull awareness of pain, small cuts and bruises taken during the battle and overlooked until now. A sense of empty weariness weighed him down, and he thought longingly of his bedroll, back at his foster-father's encampment. But the princes and chieftains gathered round, exclaiming –
Artos the Bear!
The young hero! Saved Uther, when the battle looked lost!
– And his foster-father pushed him forward and would not let him escape.
So it was that hours later, worse the wear for drink, he stumbled out of the close, crowded tent and into the night.
"There you are," a voice said, exasperated. "I've been waiting for hours. I thought those brutes would never let you go."
Artos spun around. "What – who are you? What are you doing here?"
The stranger laughed, a low, chuckling sound, and emerged from the shadows. The flickering torchlight illumined his vivid, unearthly face and glittering eyes. Instinctively, Artos made the sign against evil and enchantment; the stranger's eyes noted the gesture, and his lips curled in cruel amusement. "Who I am," he drawled, "is of no matter. What I am, you can probably guess. And as for what I am doing here –"
The stranger gestured dramatically and plucked a delicate crystal out of mid-air. "I am the man who can give you your dreams, my dear." He held the crystal out to Artos, who made an aborted movement towards it before he snatched the crystal precipitously away. "Ah! For a price, of course."
"I have already won success in battle for myself," Artos retorted defiantly. "The King himself rewarded me for my heroism today."
The stranger's eyes flashed. "Not that paltry dross, boy! I know, deep in your heart, you believe you were meant for something more, some greater destiny than your foster-father's war-band. I've seen your frustration as you see the invaders come ever closer, while the petty princes and chieftains bicker amongst themselves."
"Enough!" Artos snarled. "You cannot know –"
"You may even be right, Artos. I see greatness in you, shining like a great light –" The stranger stepped closer, close enough to touch. "I can give you those dreams, Artos," he whispered. "I can make your wishes become reality."
For a moment, Artos let himself be seduced by the gleaming light in the stranger's eyes. Could it really be true? "For a price," he repeated cautiously.
The figure threw back his head and laughed. "There is always a price, my dear. But it will be nothing you cannot afford to pay, I swear it."
"What price?"
"I do not know. But you will, Artos, when the time comes, which will not be for many years yet, and long after your vision becomes reality. So, what say you?"
Once more, the stranger extended his hand, the crystal balanced delicately on his fingertips. Inside the gleaming glass sphere, Artos could see everything he'd ever dreamed of, close enough to reach out and touch.
Nothing that you cannot afford to pay. In the arrogance of youth, flushed with the elation of his first battle, Artos stepped forward and took the crystal, accepting the bargain.
The stranger smiled, revealing sharp white teeth, but Artos' focus shifted, then, to a hint of movement in the shadows –
A woman, her eyes sloe-dark and full of secrets, her hair thick and black and wreathed in dizzying scent.
"My name is Morgause," she said, her voice low and husky, intoxicating.
When he reached out to take her hand, just as he had reached out to take his dreams, the stranger faded away into the night, leaving only the echo of his laughter behind.
3.
He was young, poor, but too proud to accept charity. The law and his tyrannical masters ground him deeper and deeper into helpless poverty every day, and yet he did not complain, did not resist; his defiance was grim, stubborn endurance and his determination to survive.
He was starving, and yet he would not turn poacher, not even when the forests abounded with game.
He fascinated Jareth. And reckless, capricious creature that he was, Jareth could not help but interfere.
"Sweet Robin," he crooned, "why not take your bow and go hunting in the forest? No one will ever find out – I have experience in such deceptions."
"I've told you why," Robin growled, ever the dour, Saxon pragmatist. "Because I don't want to be hanged." Still, for all their hairy stolidness, Jareth much preferred the English to the iron-souled Norman invaders, who had no reverence for the secrets of their conquered land.
"You'd rather die a wretched peasant, broken by hunger and poverty, a worn old man before you've seen thirty winters?"
"Aye!"
They'd had this discussion many times before. Quite frankly, Jareth was tired of it, tired of the dull weariness creeping into his sweet Robin's eyes, and tired of the arrogant Normans.
Clearly, it was time for drastic measures.
The next day, Robin woke to find a freshly slaughtered deer hanging by the door of his tiny hut.
"In God's name, what have you done?" was Robin's anguished question. "Do you know what they'll do to me if they find out?"
"Robin, my darling," Jareth drawled, "hanging is the least of your problems, I'm afraid."
"What?"
"My dear, I am not the woodsman you are. There are two foresters lying dead in the woods, arrows with your quite distinctive fletching driven straight through their throats."
Jareth laughed merrily at the expression of sheer horror on Robin's face.
"Oh come now, they won't kill you, sweet Robin. They'll have to catch you first…"
4.
London was brash, bustling, its streets crowded and filthy, the tavern rowdy with cheap wine and congenial, if drunken companionship. It was midsummer's eve, and the young playwright in fraying shirt-points and a stained ruff took it all in with unabashed delight, laughing and revelling in the joy of being alive in this, the greatest of times in the greatest of cities.
A stranger in the shadows drew his eye, a flash of quick, unnatural grace and wild elegance. It reminded him of a dream he had once, long-forgotten –
Before he knew what was happening, he found himself on his feet, following the half-glimpsed stranger out into the street. The good-natured crowd pressed close around him, and an acquaintance called to him, laughing from across the way –
"Will! Where are you going?"
– but, unheeding, he forced his way through, in search of fly-away white hair and tattered silk and velvet.
He followed the stranger through winding cobblestone lanes crowded by close-built shops and houses, smelling of rotting garbage and the salt of the Thames; past the tar-and-spice scented docks and the sharp tang of the estuary mud-flats; out beyond even the outskirts of the city where the cobblestones gave way to rutted roads and eventually soft grass underneath his feet.
Panting – he'd walked further tonight than he had done in years – Will bent over to catch his breath. When he straightened up, the stranger was right there, before him, watching with cool, glittering eyes.
"Why are you following me, mortal?"
Something in the indifferent curiosity brought Will back to his senses. Just what was he doing running after an unearthly stranger, following him out in the night?
"I…I don't know," he answered frankly. "I just…found myself on my feet, moving after you."
The stranger tilted his head, considering. "My glamour must be weaker than I realised. It hits particularly susceptible mortals hard, sometimes." He drew a hand over his face, and Will wasn't sure what happened – it was as if his light dimmed, and for the first time since Will caught a glimpse of him in the tavern, he could think clearly once again.
"Is that better?"
"Yes," Will said, blinking dazedly. "Yes, thank you."
"Good." And with that, the stranger turned his back and continued on his way.
"Wait!"
The stranger slowed, stopped, and turned, all with a distinct air of exasperation.
"What do I do now?" Will asked.
"What business is that of mine? You chose to follow me; now go back the way you came, mortal."
"But –"
A sigh. "Do you fear that you will come to harm? I can provide you with safe-passage, if it will hasten your departure."
"No, it's not that!" Will blurted out desperately. "Just… Where are you going?" Now that he was free of the glamour's compulsion, he found himself prey to the insatiable curiosity that had ever been his downfall.
There was a moment of silence.
"Why, to the midsummer celebration, of course," the stranger said. "At the court of Oberon and Titania."
5.
The hounds were baying on his heels, and all he could do was run, run, run. Keep running, even though his breath burned, every step jolting and jarring, every movement pulling at the crusted phaser burn high on his back. The child in his arms whimpered fearfully, clutching hard around his neck; he could barely restrain a wave of dizzy blackness.
"I'm scared, Jim," the young boy moaned. "I don't wanna die!"
"They won't catch us, Kevin," Jim Kirk* swore. "They won't. Starfleet'll be here soon; they'll save us, you'll see."
Jim's father was in Starfleet. As soon as he was old enough, Jim was determined to enter the Academy to follow in his footsteps. And nothing, not even genocidal Governor Kodos' execution squads, would stand in his way.
But no matter how fast he ran, how many streams he crossed and recrossed, how many times he doubled back and left false trails, the hounds gained on them, belling and baying, and soon, he knew, they would be run down and put to the death –
No. No. He would not accept it.
The ground fell away beneath his feet, and he stumbled headfirst down an unexpected slope. He cried out in shock and pain, and Kevin screamed in high-pitched terror. The world tilted and whirled, and then exploded in shades of crimson when he landed on his back.
He blacked out for a few seconds –
And came back to the sound of frantic begging. "Please Jim, wake up, I'm scared, don't die and leave me alone, you have to get up we have to get out of here –"
Kevin tugged desperately at his shoulders, trying to wake him, trying to move him. Soon they could hear the hunters crashing through the undergrowth, hear the thudding of human feet and the hounds' eager panting.
Kevin's face was grey and drawn with terror. Just two days earlier, when the executions began, he saw his parents and two elder brothers dragged out of their house and shot down in the street. No six-year old boy should have eyes that wide and haunted – but there were no innocents left on Tarsus IV, not anymore.
"I'm here, Kevin," Jim managed to gasp out. "I'm here, just hang on –"
But Kevin closed his eyes, clutched Jim tightly, and whispered:
"I wish that the Goblins would come take us away.
"I wish that the Goblins would come take us away.
"I wish that the Goblins would come take us away."
And as the first of the hunters – whooping, shouting, dressed in camouflage gear and red sashes with laser rifles slung over their shoulders – burst from the undergrowth, time…
Stopped.
"Well, well, well," a fantastic figure drawled. "What have we here?"
Kevin opened his eyes, slowly, and his arms lost their death grip on Jim's neck. Jim stared at the stranger in awed fascination – the extravagant silks, laces and velvets of his clothes, the flyaway white hair and sharp, white features.
"Two babes in the woods," the figure continued. "How does it go? 'Come away, O human child! / To the waters and the wild…'"**
"Yeats," Jim said, bemused, still shaking with fear and adrenaline. The hunters and the hounds were still, frozen in time; he could see the hyped up, murderous glee in their eyes. "Who are you? How did you stop time like that?"
The strange apparition knelt down beside them. Up close, Jim could see that his eyes – eerie and mismatched – were filled with ancient grief and compassion.
"Why, I am the Goblin King," the strange figure answered, as if that explained everything. "And as for why I am here," he touched his white, elegant fingers to Kevin's cheek, "young Kevin here summoned me. The old blood and beliefs run strong here. No matter how far from home they go, humans carry their past – and their demons – with them." His eyes flicked to Jim's. "I have answered many summons, in the last two days."
Jim's mind chose that moment to remind him that the original colonists of Tarsus IV had been a mixture of Irish, Scottish and Welsh. They had left Earth less than two generations ago, hoping to find a new world free of restraint and repression –
And so they had, until the famine.
"Unfortunately," the figure – the Goblin King – continued, "this far from the Underground, my power is much diminished. Shall we go? I don't think I can re-order time for much longer."
"Wait! What do you mean, go?" Jim clutched Kevin tightly to him. "What are you going to do?"
"I will take you away from here, to a land where you will never know fear or hunger again."
"But?" Jim demanded.
The Goblin King sighed. "You are a suspicious child, James Kirk. But, you will have to leave the world behind – there will be no return from the Underground. Given the circumstances," he indicated the hunters, "I did not think you would mind."
Kevin whimpered and hid his face in Jim's shirt, shaking and trembling. But Jim had too much to live for, too much that he wanted to do, to see, to become, to give up the world now.
Nothing is inevitable. There is always another way. He believed this with all his heart.
"And if we don't go with you, then will you leave us here to die?"
The Goblin King looked unimaginably weary. "No. Not today. If it is what you wish, I will take you to another, safer place in this hell, where you may take your chances with the hunters."
"We will survive," Jim declared. "My father will be here soon – I can keep us alive until then."
"Can you? And if your Starfleet never comes?" The Goblin King's eyes fell meaningfully to Kevin, small, vulnerable and frightened. "Kevin? Is this what you want?"
The young, frightened boy looked up, torn between his fear and his trust in Jim. He turned back to Jim and burrowed into him once more.
For a moment, Jim hesitated. But then, "I would rather live the rest of my life as a fugitive than sheltered in a gilded cage. At least then our lives will hold some real meaning. Besides, it's a moot point." His eyes flicked up to the Goblin King's, green-gold and utterly confident. "Starfleet will come. It is only a matter of time."
"Only forever," the Goblin King said with a strange smile. But something in Jim's voice and bearing must have convinced him, for he stood up, dusting off his expensive clothing. "Very well, then. It shall be as you wish." He brushed his long, white fingers against their cheeks, almost in benediction – Jim felt a brief rush of warmth fill him, giving him courage to face what was to come.
A flicker of an eyelid, a fall of glittering crystal, and then time –
Resumed.
FIN
* Shatner!Kirk
** Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
William Butler Yeats, "The Stolen Child".