Chapter 5: A Trickster

I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS. THEY BELONG TO JIM HENSON!

Wandering around this Labyrinth was getting boring besides I had no clue where I even was at this point. I looked to my left and saw a door but the handle had crumbled away and it was held shut with vines and on my right was the forest I had just left .Up ahead of me was a maze made of stone and behind me was just a wall of bushes.

I wondered if I could pry the door open but just as I began to peel vines away from the door I heard the bushes quake with movement. I turned slowly, anticipating the worst. Silence stood at a standstill for a moment, and I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears. The bushes began to move again, I quickly glanced left and right calculating my options. Could I escape quick enough? No I'll need to fight. I slowly bent to grab the nearest stick I could, preparing to battle when suddenly the creature launched out of the bushes tumbling to fall on the dirt path. When my fear subsided and I finally realized this creature wasn't trying to kill me I took a deep breath to inspect the thing that had come from the bushes only to come face to face with none other than Hoggle..

"Why are you here?" I questioned crinkling my brow in frustration.

"Here to help ya Toby."

"What would you do that for? Didn't that King of yours already tell you that you're not supposed to help me?"

"But I will, I aint gunna listen to no Jareth!" he grumbled. All I could do was just start quizically at the strange little goblin man.

"Yea right well come on you're going the wrong way." he said as he tugged on my shirt pulling me along towards the maze of stone.

After walking around for what seemed to be ages I wondered if we were even going the right way. "Hoggle are we lost?"

"Me? Lost? No way! Lived here my whole life. I know exactly where I'm going." He said with a start and we were off again, as he'd decided we needed to get a move on and I had apparently decided to still follow him..

What was Hoggle doing leading Toby away from the castle! He's never done something like that, since when did he actually follow Jareth's rules?

I felt like calling out to him, maybe he'd hear me and grow wise to what Hoggle was doing. Yet somehow I knew it was pointless. I needed to find out a way to help Toby. He needed to rescue me but I was still stuck in the same stupid room. I yelled in frustration, stamping my foot against the stone floors of the throne room.

"This really isn't fair!" I huffed in protest. A knot formed in my stomach as I felt a warm breeze on the back of my neck and the hairs on my neck stood straight up..

"Oh everything is still so unfair, precious. Come, come you should have learned your lessons of fairness." He hushed the words into my ear wrapping his arm around my waist.

"Get off!" I snapped as I spun myself out of his hands, a little too quickly and found myself tripping on the ridiculous dress I was still in. Jareth reached forward and caught me in a cradle just before I hit the ground.

"Still want me to let go." He quipped with a smirk dancing on his lips.

"Yes." I shook out of my lips, trembling, still shaken from the near tumble. He looked at me with a dissatisfied scowl before promptly dropping me on the ground.

"You didn't have to drop me so hard." I mumbled as I stood gently rubbing my sore rear end. "And if I'm being frank, yes, this is unfair. I'm way too old for this silly nonsense game."

"Yet you are still playing, are you not? Pretty little maiden in distress, trapped in the tall tower watching and waiting for her saviour to come and rescue her?" He chuckled.

"Playing? Playing! I am not playing Jareth. I am being forced to fill a role in a fairy-tale written by the devil!" I fumed.

"Oh but don't you like playing my games?" His voice was serious but his face looked like that of a child who was winning his favorite game by cheating out his opponents.

"Yeah when I was 15. I'm older now, won't you get that through your head? I'm not some little child dreaming myself up into a fantastical fairy tail world anymore. I have real problems to worry about, like exams, and student loans, and finding a house after college. I grew up, get over it. " I replied impudently.

"Oh believe you and me, I will never get over it." He started circling me, giving my whole being a once-over. then he gave a nod of his head like an approval of some sort before stopping in front of me. "You changed quite a bit from your last visit. In appearances that is. You still have the temperament and the impatience of a child and you are quite rude too might I add."

"I am not a child. I am a woman." I puffed getting uncomfortable under his microscopic gaze. "and I only act like that to you. Now if you don't mind I'm going to sit over there and wait for Toby, I'm sure he'll be here any moment." I said walking past Jareth before plunking myself into the second throne that had been built in the throne room. I didn't know who it could possibly be for but it looked to be a more detailed and delicate version of the grander throne that was originally the only feature of the room, maybe built for a queen. I laughed internally. Who would want to be Queen of goblins?