Hi! A while ago, I decided to start a series of short stories called Once Upon A Time In The Underground, and then I sort of, well, didn't. But better late than never! Please, please, please send me your comments! I've got several more stories in mind, and comments are inspirational!

(Speaking of inspirational, this story was inspired by my lunch. There were chick peas involved.)

Disclaimer: I don't own the Labyrinth. I don't own Jareth. I don't own the Carolina Panthers, either. But I do own Elwyn Dandelion and Emily. And a whole bunch of Inu Yasha DVDs. So life's not all bad.

Once Upon A Time In The Underground:

Six Of One, Half-Dozen Of The Other

By Yrin Thornbrook

Emily hurried around the corner, fairly certain she was making progress at last. The change in scenery—from rough gray lichen-covered stone to a lighter tan colored stone, smoother to the touch—was encouraging, and she found herself almost smiling as she jogged along.

After a while, though, the lack of turnings began to worry her. The path had bends and corners enough, but she hadn't had to choose a direction for quite a while. I'm either on the right track, she thought, or in a really long dead-end. In which case somebody's gonna pay, bigtime! Scowling fearsomely (she hoped), Emily turned another corner and came to an abrupt halt.

Well, it wasn't exactly a dead-end. The corridor had suddenly opened up into a large courtyard, paved with blue and green stones. In the center stood a stone pillar a few feet taller than Emily herself (which wasn't that impressive—she was only 5'2"), and at the far end was a huge black door.

Emily headed for the door, pausing briefly to examine the statue that she found standing behind the obelisk. (She had always wondered what exactly an obelisk was, but she knew this particular pillar must be an obelisk, because it looked so. . . obelisky. Obeliskish? Obeliskesque? Whatever.) The statue was of a young woman—a faerie?—sitting on a stone pedestal, which put its knees at about eye-level. It was carved from some sort of blue glittery stone that Emily had never seen before. The figure was sitting with one leg tucked beneath her while the other dangled over the edge. Her chin was propped on her hand, and her eyes were closed. It was a pretty statue, Emily decided, but the faerie-girl, or whatever she was, looked bored.

Emily reached the door and grasped the large bronze ring that hung where a doorknob would usually be. She gave a mighty pull, which proved to be quite unnecessary, as the door opened easily. The unfortunate girl toppled over backward with a yelp. She scrambled to her feet, rubbing her sore backside, and gaped in disbelief. Beyond the door lay. . . .

. . . a stone wall. At first she thought the passageway must have been closed off, but on closer inspection, she determined that there had never been a passageway. The door had simply been built up against a stone wall. In fact— she hooked her fingers under the edge of the doorframe and pulled. The entire thing came away from the wall and fell slowly forward, landing on the blue-and-green floor with a deafening crash. Even more deafening, however, was Emily's roar of frustration, as she stamped her feet, shook her clenched fists in every direction, and just generally threw a good old-fashioned temper tantrum.

"Oh, do be quiet!" drawled a lazy voice. Emily nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Who said that?" she demanded, after a quick glance around revealed no one. She received no answer. "I asked, who said that?" She moved forward cautiously and peered around the obelisk on one side, to see if anyone was hiding behind it. She walked all the way around till she was facing the statue again, and stood scratching her head. "Hello?"

"Hello?" the same voice echoed her, from very nearby! Emily jumped a few feet away, and stared suspiciously at the statue.

"Did you say that?" she asked, a bit hesitantly. After all, if it wasn't the statue that had spoken, whoever-it-was would be laughing at her for talking to statues. The statue didn't respond, and as Emily inched closer, she became more and more convinced that it was just a chunk of stone. So convinced was she, in fact, that she didn't notice at first when the statue opened an eye halfway and looked at her.

"You," said the blue girl languidly, "are such a bore!"

"So that was you!" Emily exclaimed.

"No, it wasn't," retorted the other, closing her eye again.

"Yes, it was!"

"Wasn't!" snapped the blue girl, both eyes popping open and glaring at Emily.

"Was too!" insisted Emily, hands on hips.

"Was not, was not, was NOT!" shouted the girl with a toss of her head. A small shower of glittery blue dust drifted to the ground.

"Then who was it?" demanded Emily.

"How should I know?" the faerie-girl replied, closing her eyes again and climbing gracefully to her feet. Eyes still shut, she stretched like a cat waking up from a nap, then shook herself like a wet dog. Emily abruptly found herself choking as the blue glitter-dust filled the air like a thick fog. Once her lungs finished their spasms, she blinked up at the pedestal again through watery eyes, only to find it empty. She looked side to side, then glanced over her shoulder to find a pair of bright blue eyes about three inches away.

"GAAH!" she jumped back. The faerie-girl hardly seemed to notice; she stood there with the same bored expression on her face. Most of the blue glitter stuff had fallen off, but her hair was still a vivid blue, falling in thick, shimmering waves to her ankles. It was quite beautiful, and from the way the girl played with it and tossed it about in the breeze, Emily was fairly certain she knew it.

"Well," said Emily finally, after several minutes had passed. The girl merely raised blue eyebrows at her. "Are you a faerie?" Emily asked, for lack of anything better to say.

"Oh, probably," was the disinterested reply.

Sighing, Emily tried a different tack. "Can you help me find the way through this labyrinth?"

"No."

"Can you tell me the way?"

"No."

"Do you even know the way?"

"No."

"Then what good are you?" Emily yelled, exasperated. "I'm outta here!" She spun around and stomped off toward the entrance—only there wasn't one. An entrance, that is. It had vanished. Grinding her teeth angrily, Emily walked the whole perimeter of the courtyard, feeling the walls for false doors, but to no avail. Finally, she returned to the center of the yard, where the probably-faerie was now lying on her back on top of the pedestal, with her feet sticking up and leaning against the obelisk.

Emily cleared her throat. "Um. Excuse me. Hey!" The blue-haired girl finally arched her neck so she was looking at Emily upside-down.

"Are you still here?"

"How do I get out of here?" Emily was fairly proud of how calm her voice sounded.

"You have to answer the question, stupid."

"Who's stupid! And what question?"

"My question." The girl yawned expansively.

"Well, what is it?"

"What is what?"

"Your question!" Emily exploded.

"Oh, that." The faerie stretched her arms over her head, narrowly missing Emily's nose with one fist. She sat up, facing Emily, and after a great deal of careful hair arrangement, during which Emily concentrated on not screaming, she folded her hands primly on her knees and addressed Emily with a Sphinx-like gaze.

"The question. Mm." She paused, eyes gazing up as if searching her brain for something. "Oh, yes. If you answer correctly, the door will open. If not, well, you know. . ." she trailed off for a moment with a perplexed expression, then brightened. "Bad things! Like certain death. And such." She seemed immensely pleased with herself for remembering that. "Anyway. The question." Her voice grew so serious, so suddenly, that Emily shivered. "Answer once, answer wisely." Emily felt the hair on the back of her neck standing up as she waited, breathless, for the question.

"Which are bigger: chick peas or garbanzo beans?"

Emily's eyes boggled. "What? What the heck kind of question is that?"

"That is the question you must answer," returned the faerie solemnly.

"This is ridiculous," muttered Emily. "Okay, fine. I'll answer your stupid question. Chick peas or garbanzo beans, which one is bigger?" She thought for a moment, then frowned. "Wait a minute. . . this is a trick question! Chick peas are garbanzo beans. They're the same thing. So neither one is bigger."

"Is this your answer?"

"Yes," she said confidently. "Neither one is bigger, because they're the same thing."

"Hmm," said the faerie, her intense seriousness melting like mist. "I'd always wondered about that. Why do they call them two different names, then?"

"I don't know—wait a minute! You didn't know the answer yourself?"

"Well, I do now. You're too noisy. Go away." As she spoke, the pedestal upon which she sat slid slowly to one side, revealing a doorway in the obelisk, and a spiral staircase leading down. Emily approached cautiously.

"Where does this go?"

"Don't know."

"Do you know anything?" asked Emily, without really expecting an answer—which was fortunate, since the faerie was busy combing her fingers through her hair. She barely even noticed when the human girl disappeared into the stairwell, and the pedestal shifted back into place.

A few hours passed, the sun sank lower in the sky, and the day creatures began preparing to make way for the night dwellers. The faerie was dozing, curled up on the pedestal, when a shadow fell across her face, and a silky voice broke through her slumber.

"And what do we think we are doing?" The girl looked up at the speaker, and her brow crinkled for a moment.

"I don't know what you think, but I think I'm doing nothing," she replied honestly.

"I can well believe that. And you would do well to address me as 'Your Highness' in future, little Ragweed."

The girl shot bolt upright in an instant, eyes flashing. "Dandelion! Elwyn Dandelion! I'm not one of those useless, ugly Ragweeds!" Her voice rang with outrage.

And the next moment, she shrank back against the obelisk like a frightened child, wide eyes peeking between her fingers at the figure that suddenly towered over her.

"You are what I say you are!" The Goblin King's face was dark with anger. "And I say you're useless! You let that girl walk right past you. You were supposed to trick her! She should have ended up in the oubliette!"

"What's an oubliette, again?" asked Elwyn Dandelion timidly.

"It's a hole in the ground, a dungeon, where the forgotten living become the forgotten dead. Would you like me to show you?"

"Oh, I had forgotten," said Elwyn with a giggle, suddenly forgetting her fear as quickly as she had found it. If rolling one's eyes weren't a rather un-kingly gesture, one might have suggested that the Goblin King rolled his. He certainly closed them for a moment, and appeared to be practicing some sort of meditation involving deep breathing.

When he reopened his eyes, Elwyn Dandelion had flopped over on her back again and was looking up at the clouds and humming rather tunelessly. The King appeared to be about to say something, but instead glanced up at the sky, with a movement of his shoulders which, on a common man, might have been described as a shrug. He muttered something, which was undoubtedly some sort of magic spell or ancient proverb in a forgotten language, and just happened coincidentally to sound a little bit like "So hard to find good help nowadays..."

The End