The Goblin King was waiting below when Jareth emerged, pale and resolute. The sun was not up yet, but the day already promised to be perfect. Jareth suspected that it was Aidan's way of telling him things they didn't vocalize.
So he took him by the shoulders and drew him close, lifting a hand to reverently cup the back of that blond head. Loosening the bright gold hair and combing his fingers through it for just a few seconds. Remembering the little boy and the youth. Remembering just how much he loved him.
"I love you," he whispered, "I always will. And I know you will be the best King our worlds have ever seen. Better than I could ever be."
"What was it that Harvey used to say?" Aidan chuckled, "You will be a hard act to follow?" He sobered up a moment later. "It hurt watching him die, Father. It hurt even worse when Cassie remarried."
"Cassie was too young to spend her life alone," Jareth soothed, "And I know it hurts to watch someone die when you want them only to live. I have to go. You know that, don't you? I won't sit by and pretend to be of some use. I have played my part. My best contribution to this world was sensation. And the three of you. The sensation may live or die as it likes. You three will always survive. And yes, I already know your doubts because I know you. It isn't really that hard, Aidan. You just kick a few goblins and give a few orders. Simple."
"Father!"
"What?"
The brown was already fading from that eye, Aidan realized. More hazel, now, than brown. The Labyrinth's power was waning from Jareth's system. No longer the Goblin King, then. Aidan wondered how long before his own eyes began to shift colour to show off the familiar mismatched mark of favour. "You are irrepressible," he said severely.
"Still mothering me, Aidan?"
Shasta chose that moment to give one loud, imperious bark. The two followed his look to three more figures that crept from the door. Jareth nodded to Arradine and Ereditha and hugged them both. Dressed simply in blue shirt and brown breeches, he looked like any other comfortable person from the Goblin Kingdom. Or he might have, if he hadn't the same arrogance and cruel line to his mouth that the goblins still remembered and feared.
The third figure hung back.
Jareth smiled slightly and held out his hand to Fiorle. "Thank you," he said simply, knowing it would be enough.
The fairy bowed, deep and reverent and respectful. "For as long as you are in my sight, you will still be the King of the Goblins, Your Majesty," he said, "I refuse to call you by a lesser title."
"Call me what you like, Fiorle. I take it you will serve Aidan as you served me."
"Better," Fiorle said with a lopsided grin.
Jareth clasped his hand one last time and then sighed at the sky. "The Labyrinth awaits," he said.
They walked in silence and Jareth had one moment to wonder idly what bird or animal form would prove to be Aidan's favourite. He wondered what Ereditha's children would look like and whether Armand would eventually just ask her outright to bond with him or end the marriage. He hoped Arradine would always be as happy as she seemed to be. And he wondered about his Kingdom. He wondered if the goblins would always oppose progress and whether Wellis would handle the fairies as well as Hoggle had. He shook his head over the remembered run-ins with Hoggle.
The City was deserted. People were asleep in the street from the loud drinking and revelry of the night before. It wasn't everyday that a King abdicated, or when another King ascended. No one would ever question Aidan's right to take the throne and a sudden unexpected thrill shivered down Jareth's spine as he realized that Aidan wouldn't feel ashamed of his Kingship, would not feel confused and dirty and cheapened. Aidan would have his innocence, or what was left of it, and he would have his freedom.
The Labyrinth loomed with its cold stone and its dark crevices. Jareth stopped, wondering at the unknown and yearning for what he hoped he would find at the other end.
"Please don't go."
Arradine. That small, timid, painful voice belonged to his firstborn? Jareth whirled around and hugged her fiercely as the tears came. He didn't know what waited for him in the Labyrinth. Shasta could not tell him and the Spirit would not answer his call. There could be death. There could be long years spent hidden in some forgotten chasm. All he knew was that it was fitting. He held his daughter close and reached out for Ereditha when that young lady decided to succumb too. Held them close and told them all the pretty lies he could think of. Damn whatever ideal of honesty he had hoped to be remembered as. He hadn't lived an honest day in his life! Why begin at his end?
And then it was over and Shasta finally rushed at his boot and danced back to the entrance. The sun was rising higher and the more he waited, the more public this farewell would be. He let go and shrugged, smirking his usual smirk.
"Who knows," he said wickedly, "I might just end up coming home one day."
And he left. For a minute they heard the click of boots on the cobblestones and then even that was swallowed up.
It was only the sky and the Labyrinth and the buzz of life around them. Four silent people waited for a few minutes, hoping the flamboyant figure would return from the Labyrinth and tell them it was all a joke. Hoping for some idea as to where he had gone.
No one ever found out.
Some said that in a quiet corner of the Labyrinth, a secret garden lay hidden, filled with the rich perfume of green plants and clear water. No other creature or animal lived in this garden. The frost of winter and the break of autumn never touched a single leaf. In the centre of this garden was a pavilion, and set in the cream marble of the pavilion floor was a tomb marker guarded by a brown wolf with blue eyes. The legend upon the slab stated only 'King Jareth'. And all who looked upon it knew who lay beneath and didn't dare disturb it.
Others talked of another kind of garden. Filled with animals and wild fruit trees. Instead of a pavilion they described a graceful building- not too small, not too large. Tended by skinny, human-shaped figures with over-large ears and silver and bronze streaks in dark hair. Two figures were glimpsed through a tangle of brush, one a silver-blond and the other as golden as the sun. They were said to lie entwined, always touching, always with the other. There was no mention of any wolf but the glimpses of this arcadia were only fleeting.
The best ending to the legend, was a record from the reign of King Aidan's successor that spoke of a Wished-away meeting a strange man in the Labyrinth. He was said to possess wild hair in uneven tails around his pale, bloodless face, blue eyes cynical over a twist of his lips that might be called a smirk. His clothing was of the old style of the Goblin Kingdom- a blue shirt with the top unlaced, loose sleeves that clasped tight at delicate wrists and black-gloved elegant hands; tight brown breeches showing off long, long legs and black boots with no hint of the mud that touched the Wished-away's clothing. The man was accompanied by a fully-grown brown wolf with curiously blue eyes, but the Wished-away got the feeling that there was another person close by. From certain glances over his shoulder, those cynical blue eyes seemed to be waiting for someone. The man disappeared soon after.
The legends were faithfully recorded and never corroborated. No skeletons were ever found in the Labyrinth. And the more rational amongst the people of the Underground say that the Goblin King was simply absorbed into the soil, and thus ended his legend as a part of the Labyrinth he so loved.