The Value of An Unexpected Touch
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While Jareth knew the girl was not dead, and was strangely glad for that, he was not entirely certain why. He had felt her pain reverberate through the walls of the mighty Labyrinth, and flown from whatever boring task he hadn't been paying attention to.
Only to discover an unconscious, bloody, Faryn lying alone in an empty pathway of the Labyrinth. There was no trace of the goblin he had left in her care, or whatever creature had harmed her. Curious, and not just a little bit vexed with himself for missing such a spectacle, he decided to wait until she awakened. Retrieve the event from the sprite's mouth, as it were.
Not wanting to warn anyone off from antagonizing her, the Goblin King wove a single crystal onto his fingertips. He blew gently against it, causing the orb to swell until it popped. In its wake, the blood was gone and her clothing replaced with something more. appropriate. He smirked at the creme- coloured dress. Both she and Sarah had deemed it appropriate to think of he and his Labyrinth from within, so what could be better to traverse the object of her daydreams?
For extra measure, the crystal spell had also coated him in a glamour. The vain King's silver and gold hair became burned honey, thickly curling in a braid down his back. His fine clothes of stature became a gray robe and trousers, belted around the middle. Jareth's face remained much the same, for no goblin ever looked close enough to recognize it's King's eyes in the drab figure. He would offer her help in no way.
Still, the situation puzzled him. There had been a goodly amount of blood on her. Since she was the only creature in thousands of miles who bled red, he wondered at the lack of wounds. There was the slight memory of them in faded scars along her skin, but nothing new.
Thus the Goblin King sat, waiting for his newest conquest to awaken. Then her eyes fluttered open, and Faryn heaved herself up onto one arm, brushing curls from her face. Jareth took an imperceptible breath before he offered sarcastically, "Well, well. What have we here?"
Startled, Faryn nearly fell. The King caught her, helping her to sit up. "Thank you," she murmured, brushing the hair from her face again. He held the elastic band he had kept from the clean-up out to her, and Faryn repeated herself.
"Who are y-" she started, able to look up at last. "Oh, it's you."
"Is that really all you have to say," Jareth countered without a slip. He felt he should have known his illusion would not fool her. Faced with her mismatched eyes, the Goblin King could not remember why he would be so unsurprised. He continued flawlessly, "Not, 'Thank you, your grace, for getting rid of all that nasty blood.' Or perhaps, 'By the way, your majesty, would you like to know what happened to me?'"
Faryn gave him an odd look, one eyebrow lifting so far that Jareth wondered if she were mocking his own expressions. At last she asked, "You're not the one who rescued me?"
"Of course not. You rejected my help. I found you." as Jareth trailed off, he glanced over Faryn's head, then gave a resigned sigh. "I'll tell you in a little while."
"What? Why?" Faryn turned just in time to see what looked like a giant tuber before she slumped to the ground again.
Jareth was surprised to discover that he felt mildly annoyed at the turn of events. He covered it well, however, letting his face fall slack as he pretended the blow had taken both of them. The Tallow Goblins scooped them up, one apiece, and threw the smaller creatures over their shoulders. With the aid of a little casting, the Goblin King was able to create a slim barrier between himself and the goblin. Not enough for the goblin to notice, but enough so that it was neither touching him nor dirtying his clothing.
At last, the Tallow Goblins reached their hideaway, depositing he and Faryn next to a rotting goblin that Jareth supposed had been one of the Tallow's grandmothers. They seemed to be wont towards that sort of thing. One of the most grotesque results of the transformation, Tallow Goblins were usually the result of older children being changed to goblin-kind. They stood over five feet tall and two thirds as wide. Taller than any other goblin, they bore huge lumps on their backs. The gargantuan bulbs they gutted and filled to use as weapons were barkarbobs, and grew in the soggy creases between their skin. Altogether very disgusting creatures.
The goblins wandered off, most likely to seek whomever owned the granny they sat beside. Not wishing to sit in the filthy den longer than absolutely necessary, the King nudged Faryn into consciousness.
"Can't you let me die in peace, you sadistic rat bastard," Faryn growled. It startled the King, not because her tone was so cross, but because he was enchanted by the sound of it.
Behind his arrogant veneer he stared in wonder at the girl. She was causing strange wings to flap in his stomach, without his permission. Outwardly, he smirked something wicked in her direction. "What would that achieve?"
"Silence, one might hope," she responded, smiling sideways at him. "What do you want, anyway? I find it hard to believe your own goblins were able to capture you as easily as a silly human girl."
"You would be right," the Goblin King nodded. "I only pretended to fall when you did. As hard as it may be to believe, I was not paying attention when you arrived at the bloody mess I found you in." Jareth did not pose the question, as his statement was amply suitable to elicit the information he wanted.
"And you want to know what happened?" Faryn snorted. She stood up, walking along the wall to find an opening of some sort. Jareth followed her, not willing to miss a single embarrassing nuance. They came across a rather large corridor, at the end of which stood three giant figures.
One of them was speaking in clear English, arguing, "Well, lad, the one you nabbed cannot possibly be your granny - it's a man!"
"Oh, pish-posh. As if it ever mattered whether our grannies were ladies or not," returned the hulking mass to his left.
"Well, the one you retrieved, Larry, can't be your granny, either," stated the third. "She's much too young."
Before he was even aware of it, Jareth leaned to Faryn's ear and whispered, "You do realize; if you stand there much longer, you will draw their attention."
Startled, the girl walked quickly and quietly back to where they had begun. The King moved with her, delighting in her nervous movements. She turned her mismatched eyes on him, then. He was further amused to see her trying to discover why he had warned her - it meant that for a moment longer, he didn't have to wonder the same. He could stare contentedly and welcome into her eyes.
Faryn seemed to settle on one meaning or another, then offered, "It was a Faerie Tree. Eric wounded it, and like everything else around here, it wanted my blood to heal. Only, once it had me, it forgot that I wasn't Eric and tried to kill me. There was a bright light, and then there was you. End of story."
The Goblin King arched an elegant brow, and nodded. His curiosity sated, Jareth was once more amazed when he didn't feel compelled to leave just yet. He wanted to stay, to see what happened with the girl.
To see her out of the Tallow Goblin's hands, safely.
More than surprised, Jareth was shocked at how his opinion had turned from curiosity to.. what was the word? Worry, he decided, was the word he'd been searching for. It did not set his mind to ease. The Goblin King would have moved to leave then, if her voice hadn't brought him back to find a wistful expression on her face.
"What is it that you smile at so softly, your majesty?"
Jareth turned his smile into a malignant smirk without bothering to think about it. "Your complete inability to recognize the gravity of the situation in which you have placed yourself," he lied without missing a beat.
"One more question before you go," she asked, those large blue and gray eyes drawing him in. Jareth simply looked at her, which she took for the acceptance it was. "Do you know what made my father the way he is?"
This time, it was an actual struggle to keep his amused mask in place. "No," he responded softly, thinking back.
Eric. What a mistake he had been. Even his twin sister had seen the wrongness in the magically apt human boy. He should have accepted the nature of Eric's soul when the man had murdered his nieces, but in his delight at having discovered so skilled a protégé, he was blinded. It wasn't until after Jareth had granted him immortality for completing his Nixes wizardry lessons that Eric had shown his true colours in all their blazing glory.
"Your majesty?"
Faryn's voice cut into his musings again, forcing him to realize just how much he was letting himself slip. The fingertips of her hand were against his cheek, and it was an effort to turn away from her.
"As long as I have known him, Eric has always been a cruel mockery of a man," he finished explaining, quickly. A blue spot appeared across the cavern, scampering around by the wall, almost completely disguised. "It seems that your rescue has arrived," he whispered just before the small goblin leapt into Faryn's arms.
"Ukee," Faryn mouthed silently as the goblin burrowed into her embrace.
Ukee almost immediately leapt to the ground again, beckoning them back the way she had come. Without warning or permission, Faryn took up his hand and dashed after the blue spot. She didn't even glance backwards to see if he was ready.
Jareth stared at their joined hands as if it were some new beast that he had never seen before. He tried to recall the last time someone had taken his hand, arriving at a very hazy memory of his sister. Then another thought occurred to him; his spell. Nothing should have been able to touch him, yet Faryn was dragging him along a dark passageway, flesh to flesh.
The Goblin King narrowly missed being swatted upon the crown by an errant rock formation, and was forced from his musing memories. So distracted by the hand hold he had become, that the King of the Labyrinth had lost track of where he was. Thus, he had to follow blindly behind the very woman who had distracted him.
In a moment's time, however, they broke into the open again, stopping short of the exit when they realized it was pouring rain. Faryn released his hand to cuddle the goblin again. This left Jareth free to replace the spell she had broken, only to find that it was still in place. It made even less sense than rain in the Labyrinth. However, with two such confounding enigmas on his shoulders, he only had time for one before the other. The Labyrinth, of course, came first.
"Coming, your grace," Faryn asked, still holding Ukee tightly.
His laugh slid easily without command. "Into the pouring rain? Nay, my dear." On impulse for perhaps the first time in his long life, he took her hand and bent over it, brushing his lips along her knuckles. "I bid you adieu, Lady Faryn Talenka."
Without warning, he twisted forms in front of her, not taking a moment to wonder at the expression on her face. The Goblin King, now in the easy form of a stunning white owl, took wing to his castle, as quickly as his inspection of the Labyrinth would allow.
He burst through a court window, sneered at the mess, then returned to his nixes form. Wearing his regular malignant smirk, he gazed down upon the Lord High Goblin, the Goblin Prime Minister, the fair Lady Advisor of the Nixes Realms, and their assembled entourage. By entourage, of course, they had acquired a band of bored goblins, and the Lady Advisor had brought her nixes Gentleman-in-Waiting.
"King Jareth," the Lady Advisor began without any form of welcome. "Fae creatures are jumping in and out of the Labyrinth. The weather seems to have gone to the goblins, and I arrive here to find you playing in the rain?"
The Lord High Goblin was on her heels. "I was told that a Faerie Tree was in the Outer Corridors. They aren't allowed there! They scare all the Snatter goblins and the Pilches!"
Lastly, Jareth turned his bemused face on the Prime Minister. The goblin, in turn, looked up stupidly before realizing he was there to say something. "Er. I don't like the rain."
The Goblin King's nasal laugh filled the throne room with a chilled sort of mirth. "My Lady Advisor," he intoned seductively, earning a glower in return. "I was not playing, though I see no need to defend or explain myself. Out of my benevolent heart, I will share that I was discovering the cause to exactly what you are worried over.
"Lady, goblins," Jareth addressed, widening his arms in charming deference. "I am a servant to the Labyrinth, and I know already the cause of all your concerns." With a wave of his elegant hand, the king called a crystal to his fingertips, willing it to find the source of the weather disturbance.
He alone was not surprised when the crystal settled on Faryn's worried face, winding her way through a hedge maze. He knew the manner in which Eric would have been certain to have the woman born. His malicious ward's plan had become clear as he flew the length of the Labyrinth. The only mystery left to him was whether it was programming or will that Eric wanted the deed carried out with. Secretly, he wanted it to be by will. The Goblin King had come to wish for only the health and safety of his newest human contestant. He suspected, given the choice, Faryn would never choose to harm anything.
"What is she," the Lady Advisor gasped, awed by the simple girl's unconscious power.
Jareth never opened his mouth. Instead, he fixed his eyes on a growing cast of light that was floating up his staircase. It was from the light that the Lady received her answer.
"The Lorialet."
The Goblin King let the crystal float away unnoticed, popping against the wall. The creature the goblins called the Gloamy Sprite entered his throne room. She was little more than a swirling mist of light with a voice everyone found familiar. Like anything in the Labyrinth, she had many forms and many names. Over time, Jareth had come to call the being his vanguard. She always seemed to appear just as he realized something was about to go wrong.
The goblins fled, terrified by the portent she might forewarn.
"Yours, Stormy Petrel," the Lady Advisor asked acidly. Few of the resident nixes held anything but hate for his vanguard. Being, themselves, possessed of the notion to forewarn when they were about to commit some terrible action, nixes were inherently mistrustful of anything that preceded nefarious deeds.
The Sprite murmured agreeably.
The Lady Advisor must have noticed his amused smirk, because she turned her anger on the Goblin King. She put her fists on her hips, her diaphanous cape swaying behind her. "Since your little precursor seems unwilling to elaborate, perhaps you might, your majesty."
Jareth's eyes narrowed to slits. "I would be more careful of my tone, if I were you." His head tilted upward even as the advisor's chin drifted closer to her bosom. "Queen Calypso might have given you her authority in matters, but her court is a very long way from where you stand."
The nixes ambassador recoiled as if physically struck. "My apologies, King Jareth," she muttered, letting her arms fall to her sides again. "It is the nervousness the Stormy Petrel instills in me that has made me so presumptuous. Please, do not hold me accountable for such emotional actions."
The Goblin King let his lack of response reassure or worry the Lady as it might, his eyes being pulled back towards the light of the Gloamy Sprite. Her voice seemed to float gently along a breeze pushed through his throne room by the rain. She was calling to him.
The other nixes in the room looked at him expectantly, proving that the call had been a public one. From time to time his shining vanguard seemed to impart knowledge on him, and him alone. Though, since she had first appeared, none had been in his presence when she felt the need to counsel him.
Seemingly of their own accord, his feet drew him to the light. He wondered idly at the feeling of dread that tried to invade his stomach. He hadn't felt such an emotion in ages, and knew that it came from the Gloamy Sprite. Her voice came swiftly after, turning his wonder at her emotions into a sharing of them within her first sentence.
"I feel your sister traveling on the wind, and it is to us that she comes. Her ancient grudge has been ripped anew, with the anniversary of her daughters' death not a month behind us." The Gloamy Sprite paused, her unease seeming to make the wind of the room into a forceful gale.
"However, it is neither the safety of your Labyrinth, nor that of yourself that you must worry for. The girl is why she comes. Your sister has felt her power through the Faerie Tree, and smelt her blood enough to know its source.
"You must hide your heart from her if you are to protect the Lorialet. Your sister will surely destroy her if she sees what I see, now." She paused long enough for him to begin a countermand to her accusation. "Deceive yourself, if you will. If harm comes to the Lorialet, you will know a vengeance greater than even your sister could mete upon you."
With a howl, his errant vanguard and her bolstered wind were gone, leaving the Goblin King standing with dread and anger in his every breath. Hide his heart, indeed.
"What is it," the Gentleman-in-waiting asked brashly. His Lady followed quickly with, "What did she say?"
His malignant smirk returned to his features as he placed a fist on his hip. So the Sprite did warn only he. The Goblin King began to laugh. He settled soon enough, then stared at his guests before deciding to answer their queries.
"Queen Calypso comes."
o/~*************~\o
Author's Notes: For those of you fettered by a story where the author looses inspiration, I promise it won't happen to this story. In point of fact, this story is already written. I'm just mulling it over and rewriting it. And I promise you'll learn more about Eric. Cross my heart and hope to scream.
It occurred to me when even my fabulous beta-reader (Thank you Genesis Grey, thank you!) had to ask me what a word meant, that my vocabulary might contain some obscure things. So, for those who are curious or just skipped words and swore loudly at the author, I have a little Lorialet dictionary here.
And if no one was confused at all, I have one anyway!
Chapter 5:
Soughing : Sough - To make a soft, low sighing or rustling sound, as the wind.
Gloamy Sprite: Gloaming - Twilight; dusk.
Cahr - Goblin curse word meaning something too uncouth even for the author's note!
Chapter 6:
Stormy Petrel - One who brings discord or strife, or appears at the onset of trouble.
If there are any others, feel free to leave a note (with a review!) or e- mail me for my definition use. Generally, though, I use dictionary.com when I need words looked up. So for those lurkers out there, that's where I get my stuff!
Last, but not least, thank you to all the fabulous people who left reviews! Life blood here, man. Reviews are the life blood. And I have a question for you: Please tell me what you think of my sentence structure. What do you like and what don't you? Don't have to answer, I'm just curious.
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While Jareth knew the girl was not dead, and was strangely glad for that, he was not entirely certain why. He had felt her pain reverberate through the walls of the mighty Labyrinth, and flown from whatever boring task he hadn't been paying attention to.
Only to discover an unconscious, bloody, Faryn lying alone in an empty pathway of the Labyrinth. There was no trace of the goblin he had left in her care, or whatever creature had harmed her. Curious, and not just a little bit vexed with himself for missing such a spectacle, he decided to wait until she awakened. Retrieve the event from the sprite's mouth, as it were.
Not wanting to warn anyone off from antagonizing her, the Goblin King wove a single crystal onto his fingertips. He blew gently against it, causing the orb to swell until it popped. In its wake, the blood was gone and her clothing replaced with something more. appropriate. He smirked at the creme- coloured dress. Both she and Sarah had deemed it appropriate to think of he and his Labyrinth from within, so what could be better to traverse the object of her daydreams?
For extra measure, the crystal spell had also coated him in a glamour. The vain King's silver and gold hair became burned honey, thickly curling in a braid down his back. His fine clothes of stature became a gray robe and trousers, belted around the middle. Jareth's face remained much the same, for no goblin ever looked close enough to recognize it's King's eyes in the drab figure. He would offer her help in no way.
Still, the situation puzzled him. There had been a goodly amount of blood on her. Since she was the only creature in thousands of miles who bled red, he wondered at the lack of wounds. There was the slight memory of them in faded scars along her skin, but nothing new.
Thus the Goblin King sat, waiting for his newest conquest to awaken. Then her eyes fluttered open, and Faryn heaved herself up onto one arm, brushing curls from her face. Jareth took an imperceptible breath before he offered sarcastically, "Well, well. What have we here?"
Startled, Faryn nearly fell. The King caught her, helping her to sit up. "Thank you," she murmured, brushing the hair from her face again. He held the elastic band he had kept from the clean-up out to her, and Faryn repeated herself.
"Who are y-" she started, able to look up at last. "Oh, it's you."
"Is that really all you have to say," Jareth countered without a slip. He felt he should have known his illusion would not fool her. Faced with her mismatched eyes, the Goblin King could not remember why he would be so unsurprised. He continued flawlessly, "Not, 'Thank you, your grace, for getting rid of all that nasty blood.' Or perhaps, 'By the way, your majesty, would you like to know what happened to me?'"
Faryn gave him an odd look, one eyebrow lifting so far that Jareth wondered if she were mocking his own expressions. At last she asked, "You're not the one who rescued me?"
"Of course not. You rejected my help. I found you." as Jareth trailed off, he glanced over Faryn's head, then gave a resigned sigh. "I'll tell you in a little while."
"What? Why?" Faryn turned just in time to see what looked like a giant tuber before she slumped to the ground again.
Jareth was surprised to discover that he felt mildly annoyed at the turn of events. He covered it well, however, letting his face fall slack as he pretended the blow had taken both of them. The Tallow Goblins scooped them up, one apiece, and threw the smaller creatures over their shoulders. With the aid of a little casting, the Goblin King was able to create a slim barrier between himself and the goblin. Not enough for the goblin to notice, but enough so that it was neither touching him nor dirtying his clothing.
At last, the Tallow Goblins reached their hideaway, depositing he and Faryn next to a rotting goblin that Jareth supposed had been one of the Tallow's grandmothers. They seemed to be wont towards that sort of thing. One of the most grotesque results of the transformation, Tallow Goblins were usually the result of older children being changed to goblin-kind. They stood over five feet tall and two thirds as wide. Taller than any other goblin, they bore huge lumps on their backs. The gargantuan bulbs they gutted and filled to use as weapons were barkarbobs, and grew in the soggy creases between their skin. Altogether very disgusting creatures.
The goblins wandered off, most likely to seek whomever owned the granny they sat beside. Not wishing to sit in the filthy den longer than absolutely necessary, the King nudged Faryn into consciousness.
"Can't you let me die in peace, you sadistic rat bastard," Faryn growled. It startled the King, not because her tone was so cross, but because he was enchanted by the sound of it.
Behind his arrogant veneer he stared in wonder at the girl. She was causing strange wings to flap in his stomach, without his permission. Outwardly, he smirked something wicked in her direction. "What would that achieve?"
"Silence, one might hope," she responded, smiling sideways at him. "What do you want, anyway? I find it hard to believe your own goblins were able to capture you as easily as a silly human girl."
"You would be right," the Goblin King nodded. "I only pretended to fall when you did. As hard as it may be to believe, I was not paying attention when you arrived at the bloody mess I found you in." Jareth did not pose the question, as his statement was amply suitable to elicit the information he wanted.
"And you want to know what happened?" Faryn snorted. She stood up, walking along the wall to find an opening of some sort. Jareth followed her, not willing to miss a single embarrassing nuance. They came across a rather large corridor, at the end of which stood three giant figures.
One of them was speaking in clear English, arguing, "Well, lad, the one you nabbed cannot possibly be your granny - it's a man!"
"Oh, pish-posh. As if it ever mattered whether our grannies were ladies or not," returned the hulking mass to his left.
"Well, the one you retrieved, Larry, can't be your granny, either," stated the third. "She's much too young."
Before he was even aware of it, Jareth leaned to Faryn's ear and whispered, "You do realize; if you stand there much longer, you will draw their attention."
Startled, the girl walked quickly and quietly back to where they had begun. The King moved with her, delighting in her nervous movements. She turned her mismatched eyes on him, then. He was further amused to see her trying to discover why he had warned her - it meant that for a moment longer, he didn't have to wonder the same. He could stare contentedly and welcome into her eyes.
Faryn seemed to settle on one meaning or another, then offered, "It was a Faerie Tree. Eric wounded it, and like everything else around here, it wanted my blood to heal. Only, once it had me, it forgot that I wasn't Eric and tried to kill me. There was a bright light, and then there was you. End of story."
The Goblin King arched an elegant brow, and nodded. His curiosity sated, Jareth was once more amazed when he didn't feel compelled to leave just yet. He wanted to stay, to see what happened with the girl.
To see her out of the Tallow Goblin's hands, safely.
More than surprised, Jareth was shocked at how his opinion had turned from curiosity to.. what was the word? Worry, he decided, was the word he'd been searching for. It did not set his mind to ease. The Goblin King would have moved to leave then, if her voice hadn't brought him back to find a wistful expression on her face.
"What is it that you smile at so softly, your majesty?"
Jareth turned his smile into a malignant smirk without bothering to think about it. "Your complete inability to recognize the gravity of the situation in which you have placed yourself," he lied without missing a beat.
"One more question before you go," she asked, those large blue and gray eyes drawing him in. Jareth simply looked at her, which she took for the acceptance it was. "Do you know what made my father the way he is?"
This time, it was an actual struggle to keep his amused mask in place. "No," he responded softly, thinking back.
Eric. What a mistake he had been. Even his twin sister had seen the wrongness in the magically apt human boy. He should have accepted the nature of Eric's soul when the man had murdered his nieces, but in his delight at having discovered so skilled a protégé, he was blinded. It wasn't until after Jareth had granted him immortality for completing his Nixes wizardry lessons that Eric had shown his true colours in all their blazing glory.
"Your majesty?"
Faryn's voice cut into his musings again, forcing him to realize just how much he was letting himself slip. The fingertips of her hand were against his cheek, and it was an effort to turn away from her.
"As long as I have known him, Eric has always been a cruel mockery of a man," he finished explaining, quickly. A blue spot appeared across the cavern, scampering around by the wall, almost completely disguised. "It seems that your rescue has arrived," he whispered just before the small goblin leapt into Faryn's arms.
"Ukee," Faryn mouthed silently as the goblin burrowed into her embrace.
Ukee almost immediately leapt to the ground again, beckoning them back the way she had come. Without warning or permission, Faryn took up his hand and dashed after the blue spot. She didn't even glance backwards to see if he was ready.
Jareth stared at their joined hands as if it were some new beast that he had never seen before. He tried to recall the last time someone had taken his hand, arriving at a very hazy memory of his sister. Then another thought occurred to him; his spell. Nothing should have been able to touch him, yet Faryn was dragging him along a dark passageway, flesh to flesh.
The Goblin King narrowly missed being swatted upon the crown by an errant rock formation, and was forced from his musing memories. So distracted by the hand hold he had become, that the King of the Labyrinth had lost track of where he was. Thus, he had to follow blindly behind the very woman who had distracted him.
In a moment's time, however, they broke into the open again, stopping short of the exit when they realized it was pouring rain. Faryn released his hand to cuddle the goblin again. This left Jareth free to replace the spell she had broken, only to find that it was still in place. It made even less sense than rain in the Labyrinth. However, with two such confounding enigmas on his shoulders, he only had time for one before the other. The Labyrinth, of course, came first.
"Coming, your grace," Faryn asked, still holding Ukee tightly.
His laugh slid easily without command. "Into the pouring rain? Nay, my dear." On impulse for perhaps the first time in his long life, he took her hand and bent over it, brushing his lips along her knuckles. "I bid you adieu, Lady Faryn Talenka."
Without warning, he twisted forms in front of her, not taking a moment to wonder at the expression on her face. The Goblin King, now in the easy form of a stunning white owl, took wing to his castle, as quickly as his inspection of the Labyrinth would allow.
He burst through a court window, sneered at the mess, then returned to his nixes form. Wearing his regular malignant smirk, he gazed down upon the Lord High Goblin, the Goblin Prime Minister, the fair Lady Advisor of the Nixes Realms, and their assembled entourage. By entourage, of course, they had acquired a band of bored goblins, and the Lady Advisor had brought her nixes Gentleman-in-Waiting.
"King Jareth," the Lady Advisor began without any form of welcome. "Fae creatures are jumping in and out of the Labyrinth. The weather seems to have gone to the goblins, and I arrive here to find you playing in the rain?"
The Lord High Goblin was on her heels. "I was told that a Faerie Tree was in the Outer Corridors. They aren't allowed there! They scare all the Snatter goblins and the Pilches!"
Lastly, Jareth turned his bemused face on the Prime Minister. The goblin, in turn, looked up stupidly before realizing he was there to say something. "Er. I don't like the rain."
The Goblin King's nasal laugh filled the throne room with a chilled sort of mirth. "My Lady Advisor," he intoned seductively, earning a glower in return. "I was not playing, though I see no need to defend or explain myself. Out of my benevolent heart, I will share that I was discovering the cause to exactly what you are worried over.
"Lady, goblins," Jareth addressed, widening his arms in charming deference. "I am a servant to the Labyrinth, and I know already the cause of all your concerns." With a wave of his elegant hand, the king called a crystal to his fingertips, willing it to find the source of the weather disturbance.
He alone was not surprised when the crystal settled on Faryn's worried face, winding her way through a hedge maze. He knew the manner in which Eric would have been certain to have the woman born. His malicious ward's plan had become clear as he flew the length of the Labyrinth. The only mystery left to him was whether it was programming or will that Eric wanted the deed carried out with. Secretly, he wanted it to be by will. The Goblin King had come to wish for only the health and safety of his newest human contestant. He suspected, given the choice, Faryn would never choose to harm anything.
"What is she," the Lady Advisor gasped, awed by the simple girl's unconscious power.
Jareth never opened his mouth. Instead, he fixed his eyes on a growing cast of light that was floating up his staircase. It was from the light that the Lady received her answer.
"The Lorialet."
The Goblin King let the crystal float away unnoticed, popping against the wall. The creature the goblins called the Gloamy Sprite entered his throne room. She was little more than a swirling mist of light with a voice everyone found familiar. Like anything in the Labyrinth, she had many forms and many names. Over time, Jareth had come to call the being his vanguard. She always seemed to appear just as he realized something was about to go wrong.
The goblins fled, terrified by the portent she might forewarn.
"Yours, Stormy Petrel," the Lady Advisor asked acidly. Few of the resident nixes held anything but hate for his vanguard. Being, themselves, possessed of the notion to forewarn when they were about to commit some terrible action, nixes were inherently mistrustful of anything that preceded nefarious deeds.
The Sprite murmured agreeably.
The Lady Advisor must have noticed his amused smirk, because she turned her anger on the Goblin King. She put her fists on her hips, her diaphanous cape swaying behind her. "Since your little precursor seems unwilling to elaborate, perhaps you might, your majesty."
Jareth's eyes narrowed to slits. "I would be more careful of my tone, if I were you." His head tilted upward even as the advisor's chin drifted closer to her bosom. "Queen Calypso might have given you her authority in matters, but her court is a very long way from where you stand."
The nixes ambassador recoiled as if physically struck. "My apologies, King Jareth," she muttered, letting her arms fall to her sides again. "It is the nervousness the Stormy Petrel instills in me that has made me so presumptuous. Please, do not hold me accountable for such emotional actions."
The Goblin King let his lack of response reassure or worry the Lady as it might, his eyes being pulled back towards the light of the Gloamy Sprite. Her voice seemed to float gently along a breeze pushed through his throne room by the rain. She was calling to him.
The other nixes in the room looked at him expectantly, proving that the call had been a public one. From time to time his shining vanguard seemed to impart knowledge on him, and him alone. Though, since she had first appeared, none had been in his presence when she felt the need to counsel him.
Seemingly of their own accord, his feet drew him to the light. He wondered idly at the feeling of dread that tried to invade his stomach. He hadn't felt such an emotion in ages, and knew that it came from the Gloamy Sprite. Her voice came swiftly after, turning his wonder at her emotions into a sharing of them within her first sentence.
"I feel your sister traveling on the wind, and it is to us that she comes. Her ancient grudge has been ripped anew, with the anniversary of her daughters' death not a month behind us." The Gloamy Sprite paused, her unease seeming to make the wind of the room into a forceful gale.
"However, it is neither the safety of your Labyrinth, nor that of yourself that you must worry for. The girl is why she comes. Your sister has felt her power through the Faerie Tree, and smelt her blood enough to know its source.
"You must hide your heart from her if you are to protect the Lorialet. Your sister will surely destroy her if she sees what I see, now." She paused long enough for him to begin a countermand to her accusation. "Deceive yourself, if you will. If harm comes to the Lorialet, you will know a vengeance greater than even your sister could mete upon you."
With a howl, his errant vanguard and her bolstered wind were gone, leaving the Goblin King standing with dread and anger in his every breath. Hide his heart, indeed.
"What is it," the Gentleman-in-waiting asked brashly. His Lady followed quickly with, "What did she say?"
His malignant smirk returned to his features as he placed a fist on his hip. So the Sprite did warn only he. The Goblin King began to laugh. He settled soon enough, then stared at his guests before deciding to answer their queries.
"Queen Calypso comes."
o/~*************~\o
Author's Notes: For those of you fettered by a story where the author looses inspiration, I promise it won't happen to this story. In point of fact, this story is already written. I'm just mulling it over and rewriting it. And I promise you'll learn more about Eric. Cross my heart and hope to scream.
It occurred to me when even my fabulous beta-reader (Thank you Genesis Grey, thank you!) had to ask me what a word meant, that my vocabulary might contain some obscure things. So, for those who are curious or just skipped words and swore loudly at the author, I have a little Lorialet dictionary here.
And if no one was confused at all, I have one anyway!
Chapter 5:
Soughing : Sough - To make a soft, low sighing or rustling sound, as the wind.
Gloamy Sprite: Gloaming - Twilight; dusk.
Cahr - Goblin curse word meaning something too uncouth even for the author's note!
Chapter 6:
Stormy Petrel - One who brings discord or strife, or appears at the onset of trouble.
If there are any others, feel free to leave a note (with a review!) or e- mail me for my definition use. Generally, though, I use dictionary.com when I need words looked up. So for those lurkers out there, that's where I get my stuff!
Last, but not least, thank you to all the fabulous people who left reviews! Life blood here, man. Reviews are the life blood. And I have a question for you: Please tell me what you think of my sentence structure. What do you like and what don't you? Don't have to answer, I'm just curious.
