Xaiden arrived at the gates of the goblin city to find it deserted. A chill went through him. The last he had seen, his brother's kingdom had been bursting at the seams with goblins. Of course, it had been a century. And his brother had always had a short temper. With the lack of self control the goblins possessed, he almost wondered if his brother had executed them all. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a kingdom without subjects. In addition, with the unwanted babies from the aboveground being turned to goblins, he imagined that the executed would be replaced quickly. Unless the people aboveground had begun to become attached to their brats.
All of these musings, of course, were really no more than hopes of his. He couldn't stop remembering blacking out roughly a week prior. Or, more specifically, coming back from a black out to find the lady he had been assisting gone, along with the furry knight who had captured them, and his sword caked in a fresh layer of coagulating blood.
He had wandered about, disoriented, trying to find them only to find neither. What he had found, however, was a rather large patch of blood of similar consistency to the blood on his sword by a tree that grew near the place that the ropes that had ensnared his lady friend and himself lay.
It was at this time that his entire body had begun to shake. His flesh had gone as cold as the dead and beads of sweat had sprung out across his brow, making rivers down his face. It was at that moment that he'd remembered exactly what had happened. The worst part wasn't even the fact that he'd run Lenna through. It was the rush of pleasure he'd felt when doing it that tormented him. It had made him sick and, thinking back on that instance, he was feeling sick again.
There were reasons he'd avoided learning to rule when he was growing up. Being forced into a military position was one of the many. He'd thought it over and none of it had appealed to him. It would take a great amount of physical exertion to train for that sort of stuff. In addition, if there was a battle going on, he'd be forced to handle that as opposed to doing the things he'd prefer doing. Plus just thinking of all of the blood made him woozy. And now, having experienced ending another's life, he could add guilt to the list. Part of him did wonder if the person he killed being the enemy would make a difference in the guilt department, but he had no desire to take the risk to find out.
He'd spent hours looking for Lenna's body after he'd finished his first panic attack. Having no luck locating it, he finally gave up, presuming some creature must have wandered off with it. This, of course, didn't help things. He'd experienced another panic attack at not being able to give her the proper burial.
And the panic attacks had just kept hitting him, generally at the most inopportune times, after that. They'd proven to be exhausting, too, increasing his travel time immensely as he'd continued needing to stop for sleep as a result. This, he felt, was a perfectly acceptable excuse for it taking him a week to get through his brother's labyrinth.
He walked through the city cautiously, just in case it wasn't as deserted as it seemed to be. When he got to the castle, he began to feel a great amount of concern. There was no reason the place should be deserted. So far as he knew, his brother was still in charge. That would explain why the furry knight had declined to take him to the castle. And if there were no residents, what would be the sense in protecting the place?
He knocked on the door, wondering if the horrible deed he'd done might win him points with Jareth. He grimaced, not exactly sure if he would be happy with a silver lining to this particular situation or not.